No Man's Land (13 page)

“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.

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.