Mojo and the Pickle Jar Read online

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Copyright

  For Lynn, Brendan, Jessica, and Rachel

  1

  Mojo had a talent for spoons.

  Mojo could bend spoons with his mind. It was not a trick he had learned. Even as a child Mojo had been able to bend spoons and open locks and rearrange the position of cards in a deck without even touching it. It was spoons, however, that gathered the other kids around him at recess and made him popular in spite of his lopsided smile and bad homelife. It was spoons that allowed Mojo to grow up straight and tall and proud instead of bowed and bent and weasel-eyed like the other children whose mothers had “Make Love, Not War” tattooed on their thighs. It was spoons that first introduced Mojo to the wonder of girls.

  * * *

  Mojo had a talent for girls.

  From the seventh grade on girls flocked around Mojo like so many cooing doves. Mojo could talk that sweet talk. It was the sweet talk that attracted the girls, and it was the sweet talk that led to his nose being broken by Emilio Esperanza, the brother of Janie. It was the sweet talk that convinced Mrs. Rothman to give him a C in English instead of the D he deserved, and it was the sweet talk that sent Marcie Glover to the Frances Shepherd Home for Unwed Mothers and Mojo to work in his uncle’s store.

  * * *

  Mojo had no talent for business.

  “I’ve got this girl name of Juanita,” Poteet promised him, leaning so close that his stale cigarette breath blew into Mojo’s face. “She’s gonna bring the junk across and deliver it to you at your uncle’s store. All you gotta do is drive it up to me in Albuquerque and wait while I deal it to a guy I know. Then I’ll cut you two grand. Check it: two grand. Easy.”

  A snap.

  A cinch.

  A piece of cake.

  * * *

  The girl name of Juanita had long black hair that swung in rhythm to her walk. She walked through the front door of Ortfeldt’s Interstate Service Station and Grocery Store at the appointed time carrying a big straw basket like those sold in Mexican markets. The basket, which had a small green burro embroidered on it, was bulging. Her shoulder was sloping under the weight of it. Mojo couldn’t take his eyes off the basket.

  He was so intent on the basket that he didn’t notice she was walking a little too fast as she approached the counter. He didn’t notice the fear in her eyes. He didn’t notice the way her lips were trying to form silent words that might have been “rear door.” He didn’t notice the way her lips were trying to form silent words that might have been “rear door.” He didn’t notice death wearing tight pants and a mauve silk shirt slip in the door behind her.

  * * *

  Death took a shot at Mojo.

  The shotgun blast whumped past Mojo’s ear and into a rack of potato chips. A cloud of shredded plastic and potato flour swirled about his head, dancing to the kettledrum rattle of the front windows.

  Mojo dove for the floor.

  The girl named Juanita dove over the counter.

  “Quick! Where’s the back door?” Juanita demanded, digging her nails into Mojo’s shoulder for emphasis.

  Mojo pushed her away and scuttled across the filthy linoleum, heading for the cash register. The old man kept a gun under the register.

  Two voices whispered, low but insistent, followed by the tick-tack of boots walking slowly towards the counter.

  “Answer me! Where’s a door?!” Juanita wrapped an arm around Mojo’s neck and squeezed. He wondered whether she would be able to choke him to death before the shotgunner got another chance.

  “Come out. Out where I can see you.” The voice was low, guttural, with a heavy Spanish accent.

  “Don’t listen to him!” Juanita hissed in Mojo’s ear. “He wants to kill us!”

  Mojo didn’t listen. He didn’t give a rat’s ass damn for what either one of them wanted. He knew what he wanted. He wanted to get the gun, and he wanted to get the hell out.

  The boots stopped in front of the counter. Mojo pulled the snub-nosed .32 from behind the shiny paperback dictionary. No one had ever used the dictionary in his memory. No one had ever used the gun either.

  A long cold black barrel snaked over the counter.

  Mojo pointed the pistol at it. His hand was shaking and the pistol wavered from the shotgun barrel to a Rolaids display and back again.

  A face followed the shotgun: a flash photo of a dark pompadour and narrowed eyes staring down at him from behind the shotgun barrel.

  Mojo fired.

  A piece of plastic trim flew off the counter edge and into the shotgunner’s face. Overhead, the rusted air-conditioner vent twanged and shook in unison with a scream of pain.

  The shotgun roared again and the counter in front of Mojo dissolved into air and wood pulp.

  “Run!” Mojo lurched to his feet, dragging Juanita up with him, and ran.

  He shot out from behind the counter, Juanita in tow, rounded the magazine stand, and bolted for the back door. A shelf of cereal tumbled in his wake. Then some canned goods. Someone yelled something. He turned and fired blindly over Juanita’s head, bringing down the front plate-glass window and two overhead fluorescent lights. The yelling stopped.

  The back door was unlocked.

  Mojo and Juanita bolted through the back door and ran gasping into bright sunlight. They were in a junkyard of abandoned home appliances and freezer displays and worn-out tires. They were standing there wondering what to do next when a brand-new, shiny white Cadillac Seville rounded the rear corner of the station and rolled up in front of them. The Cadillac had a bumper sticker with “Gun Control Is Hitting What You Aim At” printed on it. Mojo’s uncle was behind the wheel.

  Mojo didn’t hesitate.

  “Uncle Ort!” Mojo rushed to the side of the Cadillac. “Thank God, you’re here, Uncle Ort!”

  This about W. A. “Ort” Ortfeldt, Mojo’s uncle: He had once explained to his wife, Ethel, that the world was divided into two classes of people: solid citizens and scumbuckets. Solid citizens were easily recognizable: They made good grades in school; they worked hard; they grabbed the initiative anytime you gave them a chance at it. They grew up to be doctors, lawyers, and independent operators of interstate service stations.

  And then there were scumbuckets. Trust and responsibility were foreign concepts to scumbuckets. Scumbuckets could be counted on to slip through school—if they got through at all—to avoid responsibility and personal involvement at every opportunity, and to end up in suitable positions as barmaids, pump jocks, and assorted oil field trash.

  Ort even claimed scumbuckets co
uld be recognized from a distance by their appearance. Scumbuckets were genetically predisposed to rayon shirts, greasy hair, and tattoos. And of these telltale signs, tattoos were the most telling. You could always count on a tattooed person to let you down in the clutch. You could always count on a tattooed person to think of himself first and his friends and responsibilities second. You could always count on a tattooed person to shirk his duties.

  Tattooed people smuggled drugs.

  Tattooed people ran off without giving notice.

  Tattooed people stole their own relatives’ vehicles.

  Mojo had a black widow on his left buttock.

  “There’s a couple of drunk Mexicans busting up the store, Uncle Ort! I tried to stop them, but I couldn’t!”

  Uncle Ort’s eyes narrowed. “Busting up the store? What the hell do you mean, busting up the store?”

  “I mean they’re tearing it to pieces, Uncle Ort! They’re roaring drunk, and they’re tearing your store to pieces!”

  “Sonofabitch!” Uncle Ort scrambled out of the Cadillac. “Then what the hell are you doing out here? Why aren’t you in there doing something about it?!”

  “I didn’t know what to do, Uncle Ort. I was afraid they might hurt this lady, so I brought her out here where she’d be safe.”

  Juanita lowered her eyes demurely.

  “You didn’t call the police?”

  “No, sir.” Mojo hung his head.

  “You didn’t get my gun out from under the counter?”

  “No, sir.” Mojo’s head drooped even further.

  “Why, you worthless little dickhead! I leave you in charge for one friggin’ afternoon, and look what happens!” Ort’s normally red face grew even redder. His eyes bulged. “You wait here!” He jabbed a stubby finger in Mojo’s face. “You just wait here. I’ll go inside and handle these Mexicans, but I want to see you when I’m finished!”

  “Yes, sir.” Mojo’s chin touched his chest.

  Uncle Ort stormed away towards the rear door, his short arms pumping to keep up with his bowed legs.

  As soon as the door slammed behind Uncle Ort, Mojo’s head snapped up. He grabbed Juanita and shoved her into the Cadillac.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Mojo told Juanita grimly as he slid underneath the wheel.

  * * *

  Mojo burned the Cadillac out past a 1950s washing machine, slid around a butane stove, and bumped over a half-buried water pipe that marked the boundary where the junk ended and the desert began. Mojo floor-boarded her. The Cadillac tore across the desert, bouncing heavily, crushing small shrubs in its path.

  “See anything?”

  Juanita raised herself on the seat and peered intently through the rear window. “Nothing. Too much dust.”

  They hit a ranch road a few hundred yards out and Mojo turned west onto it. Now they could see. In the distance the tin roof of the store shone where it wasn’t rusted. Nothing else but brush and emptiness.

  Mojo sighed in relief. “I guess they’re too busy with Uncle Ort to come after us.” He felt drained but strangely exhilarated at the same time. “Or maybe they’re in there helping themselves to the cash register.”

  “Maybe you killed that one.” She sounded hopeful.

  “Maybe.” He didn’t believe it. A man would have to be awfully unlucky to die from a piece of plastic counter trim.

  “What was that all about?” Mojo asked.

  “What do you think it was all about? You need a road map? We were trying to steal their dope.”

  “But how could they have found out? Did you tell them?”

  “Me? Tell them? Me?! Are you crazy?!”

  “Well, you must have done something to make them suspicious.”

  “Hey! I didn’t blow this deal, Jack! You did. You or that bigmouthed pendejo Poteet.”

  Mojo had to admit that Poteet was a noted big talker.

  “Well, it might have been Poteet, but it wasn’t me,” Mojo assured her.

  “I’ll bet,” Juanita sniffed.

  “It wasn’t. I swear to God.”

  “So what? So what if it wasn’t you? You or him, it was still a stupid Anglo pendejo who screwed this deal up.”

  “Is that right? Well, you’re not exactly a genius yourself, are you? To let those guys follow you all the way into the store?”

  Juanita looked away without replying.

  They rode in an uneasy silence for a few minutes.

  “And what about my money?” Juanita demanded. “I was supposed to get two thousand dollars. How am I supposed to collect that money with these pistoleros running around trying to kill me? I need that money. I need that money bad.”

  “Why’s that? Is it an emergency? Someone sick?” Mojo asked solicitously.

  “Yeah. Me. I’m sick. Sick of West Texas. I want to go to L.A.”

  Mojo nodded. “Me too. Only I had Las Vegas in mind.”

  “Las Vegas?” She said it as though she had never heard of it. “Is it as good as L.A.?”

  “Better,” Mojo confided. “More action. Vegas never shuts down. Action twenty-four hours a day.”

  “What’ll you do there?”

  “I’m gonna go to dealer’s school,” he told her. “Get a job at one of the big casinos on the Strip. I’ll have my own condo. With a pool. And a car. A fast one. Maybe a Trans Am.”

  “Just bullshit,” she sniffed. But he could tell she was impressed.

  * * *

  A distant pop.

  Mojo might have ignored it except for the splash of dust in the road just ahead.

  “They’re there. Right behind us.”

  Mojo’s heart shifted into overdrive. He pressed the accelerator down. The Cadillac began to drift on the slick caliche road. He cursed the old man for being too cheap to buy all-weather tires.

  “I can’t see anything … Wait! There’s another car!”

  Mojo glanced in the rearview mirror. “A Suburban. They’ve got a Suburban. Damn.”

  Juanita got up on her knees on the seat. The dark bulk of the Suburban drifted in and out of the Cadillac’s dust plume. “There’s a man hanging out one of the windows.”

  “He’s the one shooting at us. You’d better get down.”

  “No, I’ll help you.”

  “You think you’re Patton? Get down!”

  “Who’s Patton?”

  “Get down, damn it!”

  * * *

  “Quit shooting, damn it!” Nuncio stretched a hand across the front seat of the Suburban, his fingers grasping for Frank, who was just out of reach.

  “Why? What’s wrong?” Frank raised his head from sighting down the rifle barrel. There was a large purple bruise over his right eye.

  “I told you not to shoot at the girl! That’s what’s wrong!”

  “I’m not. I’m aiming at the boy,” Frank said indignantly.

  “And what happens if you hit him? I’ll tell you. He wrecks the truck. The truck wrecks, the truck catches on fire. The truck catches on fire, it burns up. The truck burns up, Ray’s dope burns up with it.”

  “Crap. It’s not the dope you’re worried about; it’s the girl. You want some of her. That’s why you were so pissed when I shot at her in that store.”

  “Hey, you’re full of it!” Nuncio shouted. “You want me to tell Ray how you burned up his ten kilos? That what you want? ’Cause if that’s it, start firing! Blow them away, man, if that’s what you want!”

  “Okay, okay!” Frank drew the gun back into the Suburban. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait until you’ve had your fun.”

  * * *

  There are no nice yellow Highway Department signs announcing curves on ranch roads. It is expected that anyone using a ranch road will know where all the curves, washouts, and gates are. And if they don’t, then they didn’t have any damn business on that road in the first place.

  “What the—!” Mojo had known about the curve and slowed enough to get around it. What he hadn’t known about was the new barbed-wire gate twenty yard
s past.

  Not that he would have stopped anyway.

  “Hang on!”

  They flew through the gate as if it weren’t there, the Suburban close behind. For a moment Mojo thought that they had somehow missed it altogether. Then a cedar post shot up into the air over the left fender of Uncle Ort’s shiny new Cadillac. It hung there kitelike on several twanging strands of wire before rocketing back down into the hood, crumpling the metal and sending paint and cedar chips flying.

  “Uh-oh.”

  A second post appeared on the right side. Together they began the job of beating in the sides of Uncle Ort’s new Cadillac.

  Mojo pushed the gas pedal to the floor. There didn’t seem to be anything better to do.

  The Cadillac flew down the road.

  The Suburban flew after it.

  * * *

  The right-side gatepost was working its way back to the front seat of the Cadillac. When it got close enough to crack the windshield, Juanita screamed. When the next blow took the sideview mirror off, she didn’t need Mojo to advise her to get down.

  Mojo rammed the brake to the floorboard.

  The Cadillac whipped around on the slick caliche roadbed, and suddenly they were traveling backwards. Mojo could see the faces of the two men in the Suburban. The one behind the wheel was screaming something at the one in the passenger seat. The one in the passenger seat scooted over and poked a rifle out the Suburban’s side window. Just then the gate jumped off the Cadillac’s front grille. The gate, a whirlwind of barbed wire and tumbling posts, bounced once off the roadbed before leaping up onto the Suburban. One of the gateposts shot into the air and then straight down, spearing the Suburban in the center of the windshield.

  The Suburban swerved.

  The rifle retracted.

  The Suburban swerved again.

  Mojo watched the Suburban swerve back and forth across the road. His hands were white on the wheel. He was afraid to move them. He had never gone seventy in reverse before and wasn’t sure how it was handled.

  The Suburban slid to the left. One of its wheels caught on a soft sand shoulder. It slid out of control.

  The Cadillac was down to ten miles an hour when the Suburban left the road. The Cadillac rolled to a stop as the Suburban crashed through a pocket of bright green creosote, leaped over a small arroyo, and finally centered-out on a sand dune, its rear wheels spinning frantically.