No Man's Land

by G. M. Ford

  When no lightbulbs came on, she grabbed the handle and stepped up into her trailer.

  19

  Six minutes before nine on a bright desert morning. Parked in a self-service car wash diagonally across the street from Crosshairs Guns and Ammo. FINEST INDOOR SHOOTING FACILITY IN THE GREATER PHOENIX AREA the sign proclaimed. Driver was using the wand to spray water on the windshield while they waited for Kehoe to return from casing the place.

  “Just so we’re clear, Frank. You do anything to mess this up and I’ll put one in your spine,” Driver said.

  “I don’t want any part of this,” Corso insisted.

  “Don’t fuck it up.”

  “Come on, man.”

  “Did you hear me?”

  Corso was working his way up to another plea when Kehoe came skipping back across the street. “Two of them,” Kehoe announced. “They came together. Parked out back by the loading dock. Both of them packing heat on their sides.”

  “One of them probably runs the range while the other works out front,” Driver theorized.

  “Place got alarms up the ass,” Kehoe said. “Coupla big bells on the outside of the building. Probably a silent too.”

  “We’re going to have to be quick and dirty,” Driver said. “In and out in three or four minutes tops.”

  “With nobody left behind to be pushing buttons,” Kehoe added.

  The words turned Corso’s stomach upside down, sending the scald of bile to his mouth, causing his head to spin for a moment. He braced himself on the fender of the truck and shook his head in an attempt to clear his vision.

  “She looks like she’s gonna be sick,” Kehoe said.

  “You let me worry about him,” Driver said.

  “Be a lot easier we just off his ass and put him in the back there with the other one.”

  Driver nodded at the building across the street, where the CLOSED sign in the front door had just been flipped to OPEN.

  “Here we go,” he said, pulling the truck door open. “Park it out back. We’ll walk around.”

  Corso hesitated. “Why don’t you just let me—”

  “Get in,” Driver said. “I’m not going to tell you again.”

  Wasn’t until Corso ran the windshield wipers that he noticed the jungle scene painted under the letters on the front of the building. Some guy in a Ramar of the Jungle outfit aiming a rifle at a charging elephant. Flame coming out the barrel. Elephant cringing from the impact. All very bwana.

  Corso dropped the truck into drive and crept out of the stall. Morning in the Valley of the Sun was in full swing. A solid line of traffic whizzed by on both sides of the road. Semis and Sonatas, horses trailers and Hondas, all hurrying to and fro. Took several minutes of nervous waiting before Corso could send the pickup bouncing out over both lanes and into the gravel parking lot beyond. Loose stones popped beneath the tires as Corso wheeled the truck along the front of the building, then looped around back, sliding to a stop next to a green Cadillac STS parked at one end of the loading dock.

  Corso tried to hang back but Driver wasn’t going for it, urging him forward with a tilt of the head, then falling in behind the taller man as they made their way along the side of the store. The sun was bright to the eyes and warm to the cheek.

  “He asks for ID you give it to him, Frank.”

  “I’ve got a felony conviction.”

  A bitter laugh escaped Kehoe’s throat. “Well ain’t you just the dangerous dude.”

  “Just give him the ID, Frank. He asks you anything, you give him an answer.”

  “What am I gonna . . . ,” Corso began.

  “Just make up shit, Frank. It’s what you do for a living.” Driver clapped him on the arm. “Can’t fail, my man. It’s all coming together. The notes are all in place.”

  A quick glance over at Kehoe said he didn’t have a clue either, but by that time, they were on their way up the front stairs, leaving their unspoken questions to flee like bystanders. A harsh buzzer sounded as they pulled open the door. Behind the counter, a big redheaded guy in a black T-shirt straightened up and took them in with a rolling gaze. His hair was thin on top, combed straight back, leaving his freckled scalp to shine in the overhead lights. The expression on his face suggested he had a toothache.

  Something in their demeanor immediately set him on edge. Corso slowed his pace only to have Driver bump him from behind, forcing him closer. Kehoe fanned out to the right, over toward the cases with the handguns. The guy squared his shoulders.

  “Help you fellas?” he inquired.

  “Thought I’d . . . ,” Corso stammered. “Thought I’d buy my brother a gun for his birthday.”

  The black T-shirt had a logo. Same bwana picture as on the outside of the building. Crosshairs on top of the picture. Guns and ammo underneath. He hooked his thumb in his belt, leaving his fingers a scant few inches from the handle of the holstered automatic on his right side. “What sort of gun did you have in mind?” he asked.

  “Oh . . . I don’t know . . . maybe . . .”

  “This one right here,” Kehoe said from across the room. Kehoe kept tapping on the glass countertop with his finger as the guy moved slowly around the room, keeping the counter between the trio and himself, keeping his hand close at the ready. Somewhere along the way, he must have pushed a button or maybe stepped on some lever or something because the door to the shooting range opened and what at first glance seemed like his body double stepped into the room.

  Took Corso a minute to realize the second guy was considerably older than the first. Maybe old enough to be his father. Same red hair and stocky build. Same pained expression on his face. The man stood holding the thick sound-insulated door ajar as the younger man moved past him, over to where Kehoe stood looking down into the case like a kid at a bakery window.

  “You’ve got expensive taste in guns,” the younger man said.

  “That’s a Colt Python Elite. Three-fifty-seven. Stainless steel with a four-inch barrel. Lotta people would tell you it’s the finest handgun in the world.”

  “Lemme see it,” Kehoe said.

  “Eleven hundred dollars right out of the box.”

  Kehoe waved an impatient hand. “Lemme see it,” he said again.

  “I’m gonna need some identification and a credit card.”

  A strained silence settled over the room. The two guys passed a quick “just as we thought” look. Another bump from Driver sent Corso fishing for his wallet. Moving as slowly as possible, he pulled out two pieces of plastic and dropped them on the glass countertop. The younger guy used his left hand to pick them up.

  He fanned them with this thumb and forefinger and brought them up close to his face.

  The sight of an American Express Gold Card and a valid Washington driver’s license stopped the tension from escalating further. It was like everyone took a deep breath at once. The younger man finally pulled his thumb from his belt and used it to open the back of the cabinet. Five seconds later Kehoe had the revolver in his hand. He spent the next minute or so hefting the piece and aiming it here and there.

  “I wanna shoot it,” Kehoe said finally.

  They passed another look. Older shrugged slightly and stuck out his hand, palm up. Junior shuffled over and dropped the license and card into the upturned palm. Kehoe was once gain swinging the gun to and fro as if he were playing cops and robbers.

  Senior held up the AMEX card. “Mind if I run this through the system?” he asked with a thin smile.

  Corso returned the shrug. “Go for it,” he said. The guy took two steps to his left and swiped the card through one of those countertop card readers. One electronic beep later and the tension in the room dropped another couple of notches.

  “There’s a two-day waiting period in Arizona, Mr. Corso.”

  “No problem,” Corso said.

  Senior thought about it for a long moment and walked to junior’s side. “You help Mr. Corso here with the paperwork. I’ll take Mr. . . .” He looked over at Kehoe.


  “Cutter,” Kehoe said with a wide grin. “Mr. Cutter.”

  Elder passed behind younger and made his way to a spot directly across the counter from Kehoe. He held out his hand. For just a flutter, it looked like Kehoe wasn’t going to hand over the gun. Like maybe he was going to bring it upside the guy’s head or something and all hell was going to break loose right then and there.

  But no. One strained beat and Kehoe slid the revolver into the guy’s hand. He watched in silence as the guy opened a drawer in the back of the cabinet, came out with a box of cartridges and a brown rag, which he used to wipe the gun’s shiny surface clean.

  “Right this way,” the guy said, inclining his head to indicate that Kehoe should make his way over to the gate in the center of the room. Her buzzed Kehoe through, then the two of them disappeared into the shooting range. The door hissed to a close. Younger ambled over to the cash register, reached down and came out with a pair of forms. On the way back, he pulled a pen from his pants pocket, scooped the gold card and the driver’s license from the counter and handed all of it to Corso. “Gonna need for you to fill these out,” he said. “I don’t know what the law is in Washington, but somewhere along the line here, your brother’s probably gonna need to register the gun for himself. That’s the way it is here anyway.”

  Corso stuffed the AMEX and the ID into his jacket pocket and began to fill out the forms. Name, address, number of years at above address, Social Security number. Two lines down was the question about whether you’d ever been convicted of a felony. He skipped that one and moved on.

  “Just passing through?” younger inquired.

  “Staying with some friends in Scottsdale,” Driver said. They started jawing on the weather next. Worked their way through that on to how America was going to hell in a handbasket because of liberal politicians.

  Corso was a third of the way down the second form when the guy’s hand leapt from the counter like a scalded rat. Must have been something like the way certain animals can sense an earthquake in the moment before it actually happens. Whatever was going on in the shooting range hit younger’s senses liked a runaway cattle car. Younger’s head snapped toward the back of the store in the same instant his hand hit his gun butt. Driver must have already had his piece in his hand, ready to rumble, because in the second it took the gun to clear the guy’s holster, Driver had gotten a round off.

  The slug took younger just under the right ear, found some serious inner resistance and ricocheted out through the top of his head before continuing up to the fluorescent light above, where it exploded the tube and sent the shade to rocking violently back and forth.

  Back at ground level, the younger guy’s automatic went off before he got it all the way up to level, getting off one round on his way down, sending a nine-millimeter bullet through the back of Corso’s left hand before disintegrating the glass counter below, sending a shower of blood and broken glass streaming to the floor with a bright clatter.

  Corso reeled away with a hoarse bellow. Holding his wrist and screaming at the heavens, he staggered across the room. In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Kehoe, grinning like a madman as he came back into the store, revolver in one hand, canvas bank bag in the other. “We hit it big, Captainman,” he shouted Corso dropped to one knee, rested his torn hand on the other, as Driver began to pull weapons from the racks behind the counter. “Whatta you want?” he asked Kehoe.

  Kehoe shook the shiny revolver in the air. “Got everything I need right here.”

  “Get all the ammo you can find.”

  Corso’s vision swam and he went black for a moment. He was awakened by a bout of vertigo before he could topple all the way over onto his side. When he opened his eyes, Driver was pushing something soft and black into his face.

  “Wrap this around your hand.”

  When he didn’t respond, Driver said it again.

  If the smell of sweat hadn’t been enough to tell him what it was, the hunter and elephant logo certainly sufficed.

  20

  Elias Romero slapped the desktop with the flat of his hand. The action sent a bead of sweat rolling down over his cheek and onto his thick neck, where it surfed the wrinkles before disappearing beneath his collar. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “If they didn’t get it from you, then where in hell did it come from?”

  Iris Cruz appeared to ponder the question. “How am I supposed to know?” she said evenly. “You had me give copies to the governor’s office and to the corporate people. Maybe the TV people got it from one of them.” She wagged a manicured finger in the air. “You got no cause to be treating me this way. I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  “Why would corporate or the state leak a thing like that? It’s their worst damn nightmare. The last thing on earth they want on the boob tube.”

  “You tell me,” she said. “I ain’t no mind reader.” She gestured toward the next room. “The governor’s office got more leaks than an old bucket. You said it yourself, bunches of times.” She cut in the air with the side of her hand. “Maybe you ought to go ask them about it.”

  Romero raised his hand for another assault on the desktop, G.M. Ford but it wasn’t to be. Iris stepped right up into his chest. “And don’t you be raisin’ your hand to me neither,” she said. “I ain’t some dog you think you can scare off with all your noise. You got no damn right to be accusin’ me of nothin’. You remember that. No damn right.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. “I got a union,” she said. “You saying I done something wrong, maybe we better take it up with them.”

  She tried to keep smug off her face but was unsuccessful. The Meza Azul Classified Employees Union, of which she was a duespaying member, held great sway with management. Not like they were in bed together or anything. Quite the contrary. Management hated them like hell. They’d fought the intrusion of the bargaining unit every step of the way. And lost. Every step of the way. What she knew from being on the inside was that the amount of time and energy required to fight the union on small matters was considered by the Randall Corporation to be unworthy of the time and effort. Unwritten company policy was that skirmishes with the union were to be avoided at all costs. Elias Romero showed his mud shark smile. The one that looked like the grill of a fifty-seven Chevy Bel Air. “Come on now, baby,” he entreated, “we ain’t got no reason to be . . .” He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but she brushed it aside.

  Her voice rose. “And don’t be startin’ that baby stuff with me neither,” she said. “You keep accusing me of what I ain’t done . . .”

  “Come on now, baby.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I’ll put your business in the street, Mr. Elias Romero. Swear to God I will. You think I been telling folks stuff . . . I’ll tell ’em for real. Tell ’em about us. Tell ’em how Mr. Respectable been droppin his pants on my floor for the past year and a half. Tellin’ me how he was gonna dump his skinny wife and—”

  “Whoa, whoa now, baby. Take it easy. Don’t go running off on no—”

  “I ain’t gonna end up pushin’ tacos, Elias. Ain’t gonna end up like my sister. You hear me: I worked too long and too hard. I ain’t gonna—”

  The door to the conference room snicked open. The governor’s press attaché, Gil Travor, stuck his bald head into the room. The muted roar of a crowd slipped in through the crack in the door. Travor’s senses immediately picked up the air of tension in the room. He wrinkled his brow and looked from Elias to Iris and back. “You ready?” he inquired.

  Travor’s bald head disappeared, leaving the door ajar. Elias Romero fingered his necktie a couple of times and started for the opening. He flicked his black eyes her way. Iris put on a haughty gaze, folded her arms across her prominent prow and turned her back on him. She was glad he was suffering. Made up some for all the lies he’d told her. For some. Just some. She was glad he’d been picked to do the press conference. Shit rolls downhill they’d told him. It’s your prison. You get out there and ex
plain the leak. Bastard deserved it. He closed the door behind himself as he left. He mounted the dais and began adjusting the microphone upward. Goddamn thing was set up for a midget. Somebody’s idea of humor. Iris maybe. The thought of her threat sent a shiver down his spine. His wife, Constance. She couldn’t find out. Period. End of story. That cat got out of the bag . . . shit . . . no telling what might happen there.

  He could feel beads of sweat forming around the roots of his hair. What with the riot and all, he had no doubt. Any further scandal would surely get his ass out the door. Hell . . . he might be on his way out already.

  The scrape of a hundred shoes and the clatter of television equipment failed to drown out the booming thud that roared from the sound system when the microphone came loose from the stand, leaving Elias Romero standing before the crowd with the mike in his hand like a lounge singer. Took him a full two minutes to get the damn thing attached to the stand again. Even after all of that, he had to bend hard at the waist to get his mouth anywhere near the mike. He wanted to curse and kick the stand over, but restrained himself. He was on his own. Asugea and the corporation people had gone into the cellblocks to have a look around. The governor and his people wanted no part of anything might make them look bad, so, other than Travor, they were nowhere to be found. He was about to be a one-man news conference.

  He looked up and found himself gazing into a sea of unblinking electronic eyes and expectant faces. They were all there. CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC. The whole nine yards.

  He turned away long enough to clear his throat and then began.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said.

  The cameras began to whir. “I’m going to read a brief statement, after which I’ll take a few questions. As I’m sure you all understand, we’re still quite busy securing the facility and will need to keep this as brief as possible.” A buzz of cynicism ran through the crowd. Elias Romero ignored it and forged on. “As of this morning, the facility is completely under control. All inmates are back in their cells and normal prison functions have been reinstated.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket and mopped the back of his neck. “A preliminary count . . .” He paused for effect. “A preliminary count indicates that a total of fifty-seven people were killed during the incident.” The buzz got louder. “Fifty inmates and seven staff members, one of whom apparently died of natural causes.” The buzz had become a roar. Romero held up a restraining hand. “I want to emphasize that these figures are preliminary and that final tallies will not be available until later this afternoon.”