No Man's Land Read Online Free PDF Page B

something
tattooed on his chest in old English letters. The one on the left had
his hair pulled tight by a net, its nylon web gathered in the center
of his forehead like a fearful third eye. Bandana looked to his left
and whispered. Driver reached for his right shoe.
    Bandana spoke. “No no, man. You
gotta wait till we leave.”
    The Mexicans were elbowing each
other, cracking up at what they saw.
    “Look at that thing,” said
Hairnet. “You got to put that thing away, cholo . Got to put
it away.”
    “ Madre de Dios,” said the
other.
    Hairnet covered his mouth and looked
away just in time to see Driver fitting the dowel through the hole in
the toothbrush handle. He’d leaned over and whispered in his
buddy’s ear. They both watched as Driver folded his arms across his
chest, his hands out of sight beneath his arms.
    Kurtz was totally hairless. The lack
of eyebrows made the blue doll eyes seem loose on his face. He was
nearly as wide as he was tall, and his doughy white flesh filled the
room with the smell of camphor and stale sweat. His massive belly
would have hidden a normal cock. As it was, the fat fingers on his
right hand flexed as they stroked an erect appendage that looked more
like a pipe fitting than a penis.
    He had a curious, high-pitched voice.
“Hands and knees,” he said.
    When Driver failed to move, Kurtz
started shuffling his way. As he drew near, Kurtz suddenly raised
both arms to shoulder level.
    “Gonna have to choke you down some,
Mr. Navy.”
    At the last moment, Driver brought
his right hand out from beneath his arm and pistoned it toward Kurtz,
who did what he always did when somebody threw a punch at him. He
ducked his huge bald head and waited for the sound of broken bones to
tell him the fun was about to begin in earnest.
    The plastic point of the toothbrush
had been no match for Kurtz’s bald dome. The shaft bent on impact,
numbing Driver’s arm, sending the point skidding over the sweaty
surface, plowing a bloody trench across the skull until it slid down
the side of his face, in search of softer flesh. The highly honed
point finally found ingress in Kurtz’s right cheek, entering his
mouth at a forty-five-degree angle, skewering his tongue and pinning
it to the soft tissue of his lower jaw.
    Kurtz went mad, throwing himself at
Driver, butting him in the face as he drove him into the wall hard
enough to break three of Driver’s ribs.
    At his resentencing hearing, Driver
had been told he’d stabbed Kurtz another dozen times, including
once through each eye. Not only that, but he’d supposedly stabbed
one of the officers who’d tried to break it up. All of which had
been news to Driver. He didn’t remember anything past the point
when Kurtz butted him back into the shower wall.
    After fourteen days in the hospital,
followed by sixty days of close confinement, he’d been summarily
shipped to Meza Azul. Right next to Cutter Kehoe again. Old home week
until they moved Driver to the punishment cell. And now, here they
were.
    “Hey,” Cutter Kehoe yelled.
    Driver pulled his eyes from the dead
guard being dragged across the asphalt. He blinked several times and
looked around.
    “Don’t be getting loopy on us
now, Captainman. Got a lotta boys inside countin’ on you to lead
’em to the promised land.”
    “Most of these boys are already in
the promised land.”
    “How long you figure we got before
they come for us?”
    “Less than twenty-four hours. They
won’t let it go on for longer than that. It’s bad for morale.”
    Kehoe bent his head toward the fallen
guard. “They ain’t gonna let that one go.” He shook his head.
“Bulls gonna kill my ass for sure, Captainman. They’ll find
somethin’ . . . some reason why I got to die.”
    “Maybe. Maybe not,” Driver said.
    The words stopped Kehoe in his
tracks. He had a half smile on his face as he ambled over and stood
toe-to-toe with Driver.
    “You got somethin going?”
    “Just an idea,” Driver said.
    “And what