Free Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale

didn’t he?”
    “That’s all right with me,” the kid said. “Damn. You know I don’t deliver this other pizza quick, I’m gonna have to pay for it. I better rush.”
    The kid got in the truck and started to close the door.
    “Naw. That’s all right kid,” said Charlie. “Keep your spot. I got money. And you, Melton. Let me give you some cause to give that hat back. You don’t, I’ll shove a pipe up your ass. One shoots bullets out the end of it.”
    Mohawk—or rather, Melton—smiled. “Well, since you’re talking sexy, Sergeant. I’ll give it back.”
    Mohawk went down the steps and toward the kid. He walked slow and cool, like he was styling his duds. He threw the hat at the kid and the kid grabbed at it and missed it, picked it off the ground, put it on his head, got in his truck, and cranked it up. He rolled away from there bent over the wheel.
    Mohawk gave us a hard stare, like any minute he might move over and whip all of us. Leonard got up and stood at the end of the porch and looked at him, said, “Why don’t you come over for coffee, later. I’d like to visit . . . Melton.”
    Mohawk smiled loosely and went back to the porch. Some talk floated around over there and the word
motherfucker
came up. Mohawk went inside and slammed the screen door. The little crowd on the porch shuffled positions like dogs looking for the right place to shit, and finally settled down.
    “One day, that place over there might have a fire,” Leonard said.
    “Yeah, I’d hate that,” said the white cop. “Me being friends with Melton like I am.”
    “I could tell he liked you too,” I said.
    “We can’t get enough of each other,” Charlie said. “We see each other time to time at the station. Melton Danner’s who he is, but he goes by Strip to them guys. I went to high school with him. I was a couple years up on him. He was OK then, I guess.”
    I said, “What I can’t figure is why you can’t just take those fucks off the street for good.”
    “We’re figurin’ on that one ourselves,” Charlie said. “We’ve asked Uncle Sam about it, but he don’t have any answers, and I guess we’re not smart enough to come up with any on our own. Shitasses like that, they got rights, you know? And they got expensive lawyers ’cause they got lots of dope money. Kind of makes us feel inefficient, running them in at night so they can get out in the morning after a hot meal and a shower.”
    Hanson came out of the house. He took his chewed cigar out of his mouth and flicked it gently and put it back inside his jacket. He walked to the edge of the porch and spat out a little hunk of tobacco. He looked at Charlie and he looked at us. “What?” he said.
    “We were just talking to Melton,” Charlie said.
    “Sweet boy, that Melton,” Hanson said. “And already got his door fixed from last time we knocked it off the hinges.”
    “He’s a beaver, all right,” Charlie said.
    Leonard said, “Find anything else?”
    “Not yet,” Hanson said. “Come on. Let’s go. Don’t fuck things up, Charlie.”
    “Hokeydoke,” Charlie said, and we followed Hanson out to his car.

12.
    A burger joint was Hanson’s idea of fine dining. I got coffee, a cheeseburger, and fries. The coffee tasted as if a large animal had crapped in it, but the burger and fries had just the right amount of grease; you wrung out their paper wrappers, there was enough oil to satisfy a squeaky hinge.
    Hanson said to Leonard, “You doing OK?”
    “Not really,” Leonard said, “but another hundred years, things will get better. You didn’t just invite us to eat so you could cheer me up, did you? You got something on your mind?”
    Hanson experimented with his coffee. His was good too—I could tell the way his upper lip quivered. He put the cup down and got out his cigar and put it in his mouth, talked around it. “I knew your uncle. He’d been down to the station.”
    “For shooting my neighbors in the ass,” Leonard said.
    “And he