Mucho Mojo: A Hap and Leonard Novel (2) by Joe R. Lansdale (English) Paperback B

Description: Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale Lansdales classic Hap and Leonard characters return in this incredible, mad-dash, Edgar Award-winning mystery, loaded with crack addicts, a serial killer, and a body count. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Mucho Mojo is the basis for the second season of the new Sundance TV series Hap and Leonard. Hap and Leonard return in this incredible, mad-dash thriller, loaded with crack addicts, a serial killer, and a body count.Leonard is still nursing the injuries he sustained in the duos last wild undertaking when he learns that his Uncle Chester has passed. Hap is of course going to be there for his best friend, and when the two are cleaning up Uncle Chesters dilapidated house, they uncover a dark little secret beneath the houses rotting floor boards—a small skeleton buried in a trunk. Hap wants to call the police. Leonard, being a black man in east Texas, persuades him this is not a good idea, and together they set out to clear Chesters name on their own. The only things standing in their way is a houseful of felons, a vicious killer, and possibly themselves. Author Biography Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. Lansdale has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. A major motion picture based on Lansdales crime thriller Cold in July was released in May 2014, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice). His novella Bubba Hotep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtimes "Masters of Horror." He is currently co-producing a TV series, "Hap and Leonard" for the Sundance Channel and films including The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. Lansdale is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats. Review "A witchs brew of a tale. . . . [Lansdale has] a folklorists eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteurs sense of pace."—The New York Times Book Review"Mucho Mojo is some major magic. . . . as funny as all get out. . . . A story of richness of character and setting."—Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel "Lansdales prose has the mean terseness of James M. Cain. . . . Welds the grungy nihilism of pulp to the deliberate exaggerations of the tall tale."—Newsday"Like 10-alarm chili, Lansdale is pretty hot stuff."—People Review Quote "A witchs brew of a tale. . . . [Lansdale has] a folklorists eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteurs sense of pace." The New York Times Book Review " Mucho Mojo is some major magic. . . . as funny as all get out. . . . A story of richness of character and setting." Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel "Lansdales prose has the mean terseness of James M. Cain. . . . Welds the grungy nihilism of pulp to the deliberate exaggerations of the tall tale." Newsday "Like 10-alarm chili, Lansdale is pretty hot stuff." People Excerpt from Book 1.It was July and hot and I was putting out sticks and not thinking one whit about murder.All the other rose-field jobs are bad, the budding, the digging, but putting out sticks, thats the job they give sinners in Hell.You do sticks come dead of summer. Way it works is they give you this fistful of bud wood, and you take that and sigh and turn and look down the length of the field, which goes on from where you are to some place east of China, and you gird your loins, bend over, and poke those sticks in the rows a bit apart. You dont lift up if you dont have to, cause otherwise youll never finish. You keep your back bent and you keep on poking, right on down that dusty row, hoping eventually itll play out, though it never seems to, and of course that East Texas sun, which by 10:30 A.M. is like an infected blister leaking molten pus, doesnt help matters.So I was out there playing with my sticks, thinking the usual thoughts about ice tea and sweet, willing women, when the Walking Boss came up and tapped me on the shoulder.I thought maybe it was water break, but when I looked up he jerked a thumb toward the end of the field, said, "Hap, Leonards here.""He cant come to work," I said. "Not unless he can put out sticks with his cane.""Just wants to see you," the Walking Boss said, and moved away.I poked in the last stick from my bundle, eased my back straight, and started down the center of the long dusty row, passing the bent, sweaty backs of the others as I went.I could see Leonard at the far end of the field, leaning on his cane. From that distance, he looked as if he were made of pipe cleaners and doll clothes. His raisin-black face was turned in my direction and a heat wave jumped off of it and vibrated in the bright light and dust from the field swirled momentarily in the wave and settled slowly.When Leonard saw I was looking in his direction, his hand flew up like a grackle taking flight.Vernon Lacy, my field boss, known affectionately to me as the Old Bastard though he was my age, decked out in starched white shirt, white pants, and tan pith helmet, saw me coming too. He came alongside Leonard and looked at me and made a slow and deliberate mark in his little composition book. Docking my time, of course.When I got to the end of the row, which only took a little less time than a trek across Egypt on a dead camel, I was dust covered and tired from trudging in the soft dirt. Leonard grinned, said, "Just wanted to know if you could loan me fifty cents.""You made me walk all the way here for fifty cents, Im gonna see I can fit that cane up your ass.""Let me grease up first, will you?"Lacy looked over and said, "Youre docked, Collins.""Go to hell," I said.Lacy swallowed and walked away and didnt look back."Smooth," Leonard said."I pride myself on diplomacy. Now tell me it isnt fifty cents you want.""It isnt fifty cents I want."Leonard was still grinning, but the grin shifted slightly to one side, like a boat about to take water and sink."Whats wrong, buddy?""My Uncle Chester," Leonard said. "He passed."I followed Leonards old Buick in my pickup, stopping long enough along the way to buy some beer and ice. When we arrived at Leonards place, we got an ice chest and filled it with the ice and the beer and carried it out to the front porch.Leonard, like myself, didnt have air-conditioning, and the front porch was as cool a spot as we could find, unless we went down to the creek and laid in it.We eased into the rickety porch swing and sat the ice chest between us. While Leonard moved the swing with his good leg, I popped us a couple."Happen today?" I asked."They found him today. Been dead two or three days. Heart attack. They got him at the LaBorde Funeral Home, pumped full of juice."Leonard sipped his beer and studied the barbed-wire fence on the opposite side of the road. "See that mockingbird on the fence post, Hap?""Why? Is he trying to get my attention?""Hes a fat one. You dont see many that fat.""I wonder about that all the time, Leonard. How come mockingbirds dont normally get fat. Thought I might write a paper on it.""My uncles favorite bird. I always thought they were ugly, but he thought they were the grandest things in the world. He used to call me his little mockingbird when I was a kid because I mocked him and everybody else. I see one, I think of him. Hokey, huh?"I didnt say anything. I focused my eyes on the floorboards at the edge of the porch, watched as a hot horsefly staggered on its disease-laden legs, trying to make the little bit of shade the porch roof provided. The fly faltered and stopped. Heatstroke, I figured."I want to go to Uncle Chesters funeral tomorrow," Leonard said. "But I dont know. I feel funny about it. He probably wouldnt want me there.""From what youve told me about Uncle Chester, spite of the fact he disowned you when he found out you were queer--" "Gay. We say gay now, Hap. You straights need to learn that. When were real drunk, we call each other fags or faggots.""Whatever. Im sure, in his own way, Chester was a good guy. You loved him. It doesnt matter what he would have wanted. What matters is what you want. Hes dead. Hes not making decisions anymore. You want to go to the funeral and tell him bye because of the good things you remember about him, go on.""Come with me.""Hey, Im sorry for Uncle Chester on account of what he meant to you, but I dont know him from brown rice. Fact is, him dying, you coming around upset, and me leaving the rose fields like that, I figure 1 dont have a job anymore. He screwed up my income, so why the hell would I want to go to his funeral?""Because I want you to and youre my friend and you dont want to hurt my teeny-weeny feelings."This was true.I didnt like it, but I agreed. Going to a funeral seemed harmless enough.2.Funeral was the next day at three in the afternoon, so early next morning we drove to LaBorde in Leonards car and over to J. C. Penneys.We went there to buy suits, something neither Leonard or I had owned in years. My last suit had had a Nehru collar and a peace symbol about the size of an El Dorado hubcap on a chain a little smaller than you might need to tow a butane truck. Leonards last suit had been designed by the military. Suits from Penneys didnt come with a vest and two pairs of pants anymore, least not the decent ones, and the prices were higher than I remembered. I thought perhaps we ought to go over to Kmart, see if they had something in sheen green.Something we got tired of wearing, we could use to upholster a chair.I ended up with a dark blue suit and a light blue shirt and a dark blue tie. I bought black shoes, socks, and a belt. I tried the stuff on and looked at myself in the mirror. I thought I looked silly. Like a tall, biped pit bull in mourning.Leonard bought a dark green Western-cut suit, a canary-yellow shirt, and a tie striped up in orange and green and yellow. Shoes he got were black with pointy toes and zippers down the side. Kind of shoes you hoped they stopped making about the time the Dave Clark Five quit making records."Youre gonna bury Uncle Chester," I said. "Not take him on a Caribbean cruise. Show up in that, he might jump out of the box and throw a blanket over you.""Jealousy is an ugly thing, Hap.""Youre right. I wish I looked like a head-on collision between Dolly Parton and Peter Max."We changed back into our clothes, and I paid up because I was the only one working these days, even if it was sporadically, and because Leonard never let me forger it was my fault his leg was messed up. Hed say stuff like, "You know I got this leg messed up on account of you," then hed pick something he wanted and Id pay for it, because what he said was true. Wasnt for him, my funeral would have come before Uncle Chesters.The services were in a little community on the outskirts of LaBorde, and after we went home and hung our awhile, we put the suits on and drove over in Leonards wreck with no air-conditioning.Time we got to the Baptist church where the funeral was being held, we had sweated up good in our new suits, and the hot wind blowing on me made my hair look as if it had been combed with a bush hog. My overall appearance was of someone who had been in a fight and lost.I got out of the car and Leonard came around and said, "You still got the fucking tag hanging on you."I lifted an arm and there was the tag, dangling from the suit sleeve. I felt like Minnie Pearl. Leonard got out his pocket knife and cut it off and we went inside the church.We paraded by the open coffin, and of course, Uncle Chester hadnt missed his chance to be guest of honor. He was one ugly sonofabitch, and I figured alive he hadnt looked much better. He wasnt very tall, but he was wide, and being dead a few days before they found him hadnt helped his looks any. The mortician had only succeeded in making him look a bit like a swollen Cabbage Patch Doll.After the eulogies and prayers and singing and people falling over the coffin and crying whether they wanted to or nor, we drove out to a little cemetery in the woods and the coffin was unloaded from an ancient black hearse with a sticker on the back bumper that read BINGO FOR GOD.Underneath a striped tent, with the hot wind blowing, we stood next to an open grave and the ceremony went on. There was a kind of thespian quality about the whole thing. The only one who seemed to be truly upset was Leonard. He wasnt saying anything, and hes too macho to cry in public, but I knew him. I saw the way his hands shook, the tilt of his mouth, the hooding of his eyes."Its a nice enough place to get put down," I whispered to Leonard."Youre dead, youre dead," Leonard said. "You told me that. Its a thing takes the edge off how you feel about your surroundings.""Right. Fuck Uncle Chester. Lets talk fashion. Youll note no one else here looks like a black fag Roy Rogers but you."That g Details ISBN0307455394 Author Joe R. Lansdale Short Title MUCHO MOJO Language English ISBN-10 0307455394 ISBN-13 9780307455390 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Year 2009 Residence Nacogdoches, TX, US Birth 1951 Pages 320 Series Number 2 Subtitle A Hap and Leonard Novel (2) Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2009-01-06 NZ Release Date 2009-01-06 US Release Date 2009-01-06 UK Release Date 2009-01-06 Publisher Random House USA Inc Series Hap and Leonard Series Publication Date 2009-01-06 Imprint Random House Inc Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! 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