No Man's Land (33 page)

“I’m not giving you a choice here, Corso.”

“I was you . . . I’d take all the help I was offered,” Corso
said. Before another word could be spoken, the screaming began. More
like a shout, at first, then rising and rising in pitch until it
reached operatic octaves. Then silence.

“Go,” Rosen said to Timmons.

Timmons was halfway to the car when the upper half of Martin Wells
was thrust out the back window of the RV. His hands were fastened
behind his back somehow. His face was covered in sweat. His breathing
came in short, ragged gasps. “Please . . . please . . . please . .
. ,” he begged.

Timmons was in the car, backing crazily down the longdeserted
highway. The whine of the transmission was lost around the second
corner. Only the sounds of the wind and Marty’s agonized pleading
reached the ears.

“Forty minutes,” Rosen said. “They’ll have a team in here
in forty minutes.” His voice held equal parts authority and
conviction.

“I don’t think Marty’s got forty minutes in him,” Corso
said. Rosen kept his thumb and forefinger pinching his lip. “I’m
open to suggestion,” he said with a trace of sarcasm slipping
through the muffle.

“We can’t just sit here and wait to see what he’s going to
do to those people. We’ve got to
do
something.”

“Such as?” Rosen inquired.

Corso shrugged. “Maybe we . . .”

Again, Martin Wells’s screams rose to a fever pitch. His thrusts
and convulsions rocked the vehicle. At the moment when it seemed
Marty surely could endure no more, the pitch of his protestations
rose yet another octave.

The sound was more than Corso could bear. He straightarmed Rosen
and walked around the corner. “Stop it, godammit,”

he shouted up the hill.

Westerman threw herself forward in an attempt to stop Corso; that
was when Rosen let go of his lip long enough to catch her by the
collar and pull her back behind the sheltering escarpment. They could
hear Corso’s boots slapping on the pavement. The woods rang with
his curses. They furrowed their brows and waited for a volley of
gunfire to cut him down. Miraculously, no shots were fired.

“Stop it, godammit,” Corso shouted again as he walked along.

“What the fuck is the matter with you ? Is this how you want
this thing to end? This is . . . this is disgraceful . . . this is .
. .”

And then the sound of gunfire filled the air. Corso could feel the
slugs as they buzzed inches from his head like angry bees. He waited
for an impact that didn’t happen. He was nearly at the back of the
RV by then. He could hear Marty’s low moan coming from somewhere in
the interior. He could sense Driver’s coal black eyes scouring him.

“This isn’t how the story ends, man. I have to live so I can
tell everybody how it all came down.”

And then . . .
bang
. . . the top half of Melanie Harris
was thrust out the rear window of the vehicle. Her hair was wild and
G.M. Ford tangled; her mouth was taped; her breasts hung down from
the window frame.

“Puppet show,” Driver shouted from somewhere in the interior.
And then Melanie went wild. Her muffled screams painted the air and
the trees. Her desperate attempts to escape her bonds shook the big
vehicle as whatever was happening to the bottom half of her crossed
into primal territory, into a place where only the pain mattered and
where screaming was the sole option. Corso ran at full speed and
leapt like a basketball player going for a rebound, trying to get his
hands entangled in Melanie’s hair, but just a moment too late as
Driver jerked her back inside, allowing Corso to slam against the
metal siding like an insect against a windshield.

Driver laughed. “Audience participation,” he said. Corso got
to his feet. The back window was empty, so he dusted himself off and
walked up to the passenger-side door. He grabbed the handle. The door
swung open in his hand. He stepped inside.

Driver stood in the middle of the coach. The carbine was slung
across his bare chest. Behind him, Melanie and Marty sat huddled on
the floor.

“You’ve got balls. I’ll say that for you, Corso,” Driver
sneered.

“A number of unenlightened souls have called it a death wish.”

“Were they right?”

“If you’ve got a death wish, all you’ve got to do is step
out into traffic.”

Driver nodded his agreement. “It’s about life,” he said.

“About choosing how you’re willing to live it and how you’re
not. That’s what prison teaches you.”

“What’s that?”

“Your limits.”

Corso changed the subject. “Where’s Cutter? He on his way to
Canada?”

“Cutter’s on his way to hell.”

“I don’t think he’d be surprised.”

“He was planning on it.”

Corso took a deep breath. “Looks to me like you’ve staked out
your ground here, Driver.” Corso inclined his head toward the pile
of humanity at the back of the coach. “Why don’t you let me take
those two and be on my way. After that, you can play this thing out
any way you want.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because leaving them here with you is outside
my
limits.”

“You could join them.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Me neither.”

“What do you say?”

Driver thought it over. “You see my mother on TV last night?”

Corso said he had.

“I was coming for her. We were going to leave the country
together.”

“That’s why you wanted me along, wasn’t it? I was the only
person on earth who knew where to find her. You wanted me with you
so’s I couldn’t tell anybody else. That way, you two could have
disappeared together.”

“I always said you were a smart guy.”

“And all that Driver’s losing his mind stuff . . .” Corso
let it hang.

“Got me out of my cell. If I’d needed a regular doctor, they’d
just have brought the prison sawbones to my cell. A shrink they had
to let me out for.”

“We probably got another best seller in how you pulled that one
off.”

“Don’t patronize me, Corso. I’ll kill you where you stand.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“So what do you say?” Corso tried again. “Let them go. You
need a hostage, I’ll be your hostage.”

Driver shook his head. “The regular citizens there are the only
thing keeping me from getting shot to pieces.” He smiled. “I’m
like you. I haven’t got a death wish either.”

“I’m not leaving without them.”

“Then you’re not leaving.”

“So be it,” Corso said quietly.

Driver took the carbine in his hands and aimed it at Corso. Right
between the eyes. Corso stopped breathing. He closed his eyes and
waited.

“It didn’t have to end this way,” Driver said. Corso wanted
to agree but couldn’t force the words from his throat.

Corso cracked an eye. The carbine was still pointed directly at
his face. The tension had partially revived Melanie. Her eyes were
focused on Driver and Corso.

Corso took a deep breath and held it. Driver’s impassive black
eyes told him nothing. He swallowed a couple of times. “If you’re
going to do something heroic, you better hurry,” Corso said.

“They’ve got SWAT teams and helicopters on the way.”

Driver lowered the rifle. “You really fucked things up, Corso.”

“Me? You’re the one got me into this. You put me in a position
where I had to show up at Meza Azul. I was minding my own damn
business. Then you made me come along on some cross-country crime
junket. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I told you every step
of the way. All I wanted was out. You owe me.”

Driver’s eyes were hard and flat as rivets. His lips were thin
enough to pass for scars. “Owe you what?”

“You owe me a ticket out of here.”

“So go.”

“I need to take them with me.”

Driver threw a glance at the back of the room.

“Those assholes killed my mother,” he said without conviction.

Corso waved a hand at him in disgust. “We both know that’s
bullshit. They may have been there when it happened, but that doesn’t
make them the reason she had a heart attack. She had a heart attack
because she had a bad heart.” He waved his arms.

“Hell . . . back when I knew her, she’d already had a couple
of heart operations. Who are we kidding here? You remember what you
said about Kehoe. How he hurt people because it made him feel better
about himself.” Driver didn’t answer, but Corso kept talking
anyway. “You want to be that way . . . well I guess that’s
between you and your conscience.” He pointed at the pile of flesh
that was Marty and Melanie. “But don’t be telling yourself they
had anything to do with your mother’s death, because that’s crap
and you and I both know it.”

Driver’s eyes flickered. He turned away. Corso kept at him.

“They were just doing what they do, feeding the machine. Making
somebody the celebrity of the day.” Driver turned his eyes back to
Corso. “Celebrity has become the opiate of the people. It’s the
new heroin. Everybody wants to be famous, even if it’s only for a
day or an hour or one episode of
Evening Edition
. Everybody
wants their fifteen minutes of fame. You and I . . . we’ve already
had ours. It’s time to move on. Onward and upward. Bigger and
better things. It’s not their fault the people they work for won’t
put you on television. All that proves is their employers think a
whole hell of a lot more of themselves than they do of the people who
work for them.”

A long silence ensued. Finally, Driver pushed his way past Corso
and walked to the front of the vehicle. “Take ’em,” he said.

“Take ’em and get the hell out of here.”

Corso moved quickly. He lifted the cushion and the lid, dug around
in the storage area and came up with a couple of blankets.

He pulled the tape from Melanie’s mouth with a single rip. She
squealed and gulped air. Marty wasn’t moving. Corso found a pulse.

He found the ends and unwound the tape encircling her wrists and
ankles. She was shaky getting to her feet but managed it. She pulled
the blanket tight around herself and leaned against the wall while
Corso wrapped Marty up in a blanket and lifted him from the floor as
if he were a child. “Go,” Corso said to Melanie.

Melanie walked unsteadily up the aisle, never letting her eyes
come to rest on Driver as she stepped down out of the vehicle. Corso
had to turn sideways to squeeze Marty through the door. He turned
back and spoke to Driver. “Good luck,” he offered. Driver closed
the door. Melanie slipped and fell.

“Get up,” Corso said. “I can’t carry both of you.”

She struggled to her feet and began to shuffle forward. Corso
turned back. “Just for the record . . . in case anybody asks me . .
. what was it you wanted to say?”

“What?” Driver appeared dumbfounded.

“You wanted all this airtime from ABC. What were you going to
say?”

Driver gave a halfhearted shrug. “I don’t know,” he said. “I
figured I’d make it up as I went along. Maybe . . .” He stopped
and seemed to laugh at himself for a moment. “I just wanted to go
out with a bang was all. Just wanted people to remember I was here on
this planet with the rest of them.”

“They’ll remember,” Corso said.

The RV started. The rumble of its engine filled their ears as they
moved downhill. Corso heard the RV drop into gear and begin to move.
He picked up his pace. Ahead of them, down at the corner, Westerman
took a peek. Then Rosen and Marino. Westerman hustled out and threw
an arm around Melanie. Martini offered his arms to Marty, but Corso
shook him off.

“He’s coming,” Corso said as he bent low and set Marty on
the edge of the road. He stood for a moment and shook out his
trembling arms.

Melanie stood in Westerman’s encircling arms. Corso called her
name. Melanie looked at him. “Come on,” he said. “We need to
get out of the way.”

She moved like she was in a trance, crossing the two-lane highway
to Corso’s side. She wanted to say something . . . to express her
thanks . . . something kind, something loving . . . maybe even
something more than that, but her lips couldn’t form words. He body
felt like a tree in a windstorm, waving back and forth, at the mercy
of forces beyond her control.

Corso lifted her from her feet and placed her among the rocks on
the low side of the road. He slipped over the edge, rolled Marty into
his arms, and began to pick his way down the hillside.

“Come on,” he said over his shoulder to Melanie. She
sidestepped along, unwilling to remove either hand from the blanket,
following Corso downward to the same crevice he’d occupied earlier.
He set Marty carefully on the thick moss, then hurried to her side.

The sound of an engine pulled his head around. He picked her up,
covered the ground quickly and set her down next to Marty.

“We’ll be okay here,” he told her.

“Is he coming?” Her eyes overflowed with terror.

“Not here,” Corso said, smoothing her tangled hair away from
her face. The gesture seemed to send her back to the last happy
moment she could remember. She brought a hand to Corso’s cheek.

“The sex was great,” she said with a loopy smile. Corso looked
around to see if anyone else had heard. Mercifully, Marty was out of
it and the feds were too busy figuring out what to do next to pay any
attention to civilians. “We’ll talk about it,” he said. “You
know, when things aren’t so . . . you know . . . aren’t so . . .”

The roar of an engine snapped his head around. The big RV came
barreling around the corner, scattering the FBI like so many leaves.

They got off one shot each. One slug went wide right. Would have
hit a passenger right in the face if there’d been one. One lodged
somewhere in the body of the vehicle. Driver felt the impact of metal
on metal. The third bullet plowed through the windshield and into the
tabletop Driver was holding between his legs as he drove. Half again
as long as it was wide, the tabletop covered Driver from the chin
down, except for his hands and arms, which he needed to steer. The
tapered end was down by his feet, allowing him to work the pedals.
The piece of laminated three-quarter-inch particle board stopped the
slug cold.