He heard the sound of an approaching car. Multiple cars. Seconds later he saw them, black and slow, a funereal procession of law enforcement. Three Fords and a truck, windowless down its long sides. Something for transporting bodies. Neither Chicago cops nor the feds could have traced his call and relayed the information so quickly; maybe a neighbor had heard the shots, or had stumbled upon the house this morning.
Jason cursed himself for leaving Whit in the house. He crouched outside the Terraplane and slid the briefcase of money and the bag of guns beneath it. Then he closed the door gently and crawled beside the bags. The chassis was low and the grass tall, so the cops wouldn’t spot him. Hopefully they would not be thorough—experience showed that cops weren’t. Through the woods he could see the house, see the police parade up the long drive. Seven cops emerged from the vehicles, six of them in uniform and one in a tan suit and a cowboy hat.
He could just barely hear the cowboy yelling something to the corpses inside as the other cops hesitantly took positions around the building. The cowboy used binoculars to look in from the distance, then hollered again. More time passed, and they drew automatic pistols and revolvers. Two unlucky souls were nominated for the honor of approaching the windows to get a peek inside. Jason could see the terror in their jerky movements.
It was hot as hell under the Terraplane and none too comfortable as Jason lay there, running various scenarios through his head. He wasn’t sure whether he should be hoping Whit was awake now or still out.
Then the two cops gazing into the windows Brickbat had shot Jason through waved their colleagues forward. One by one, they entered the house.
Eventually two cops came outside again and seemed to spot the Terraplane. One of them reached into his pocket for binoculars. Jason rolled himself flat and prayed that the grass and the low chassis were as concealing as he’d hoped. He dared to look up a few seconds later and saw that the cops were walking toward him. Their sidearms were still holstered.
The Terraplane’s keys were in his pocket. He double-checked that his automatic was loaded and released the safety and cocked it, then slowly unzipped the gun case.
He could hear them chatting in amazement as they slowly made their way. Finding a dead Firefly Brother in their own municipality—even though the brothers were supposed to have died days ago, in another state—was clearly the greatest thing that had ever happened to them.
“This is weird. Why would they leave it out here?” The cop sounded young.
“For a getaway, stupid.” Equally young, equally excited. “Smart to scatter them like this.”
Jason had used plenty of soap in the shower, and he feared they would smell it. He wished the air weren’t so dry and dusty, and he breathed as shallowly and quietly as possible. He heard them open doors on both sides, felt the chassis sag as they climbed in. Each of them left a foot dangling, their ankles bobbing like bait. Shooting a guy’s foot off would be a hell of a thing, but if he had no other option he could squeeze off the rounds before the second guy had a chance to jump.
“I still ain’t making heads or tails of this.”
“They faked their death in Indiana, dummy. They’re like Houdini, with guns—remember the time Cincinnati police raided a place they were holed up in, but the brothers shot their way out? Or the time they vanished during that stakeout in Toledo?”
“But how do you fake a death?”
“Hell, it’s been done for years. Like in Romeo and Juliet, right?”
“That’s a play, Scooter. It ain’t real.”
“It’s based on a true story, though.”
Jason aimed his gun at the ankle on the passenger side, fearing that this inane banter might be a smoke screen as the two exchanged signals about the man beneath them.
“Then how do we know the ones in there are really dead and ain’t faking it?”
“We don’t, I guess. Shoot. We should get back in there in case the sheriff needs our help.”
The chassis lifted a few inches and Jason saw their ankles and then their legs, the officers seeming to grow from the earth up as they walked back to the farmhouse.
He’d been hiding under the Terraplane for what felt like an hour and was desperate for some water by the time the cops started carrying bodies wrapped in bedsheets from the building. He groaned as he counted four of them; he’d been hoping maybe Whit had woken up and slipped out back, but apparently not.
More time passed as the cops deliberated. Jason did the same: his girlfriend had likely been taken hostage by a wounded Brickbat Sanders, and his brother was in the custody of the Sedalia police. The thought of choosing which to rescue seemed unnatural. Instead, he went with logic: he’d have better luck finding Darcy if he had Whit’s help, but only if he was damn quick about it—and only if Whit woke up.
Two cops climbed into the loaded truck while the cowboy and some subordinates got into two of the Fords. If Jason had his math right, one cop was still in the building, presumably left behind to guard the crime scene. Then the sound of engines starting and clouds of dust down the long driveway.
Jason crawled out from under the Terraplane and loaded the money and the guns. By the time he’d driven through the woods and pulled onto the road, the police truck was the tiniest of specks in the distance. He floored the gas and watched the speck grow.
XXIV.
The woman at the unemployment office listened to Weston’s story. She actually seemed to sympathize. She really wanted to help him. She just couldn’t.
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Fireson. Your employer won’t allow it.”
“I don’t have an employer. That’s why I’m here.”
“I meant your former employer, of course.” A pursed smile, perfectly erect posture. “Employers need to file the appropriate forms for their former employees to be allowed to collect unemployment payments. To verify you’ve been laid off as opposed to quitting. Yours has not yet been filed.”
The Lincoln City Social Services office was a large room on the second floor of a downtown building only five blocks from Mr. Douglasson’s office. Gray buns bobbed as the clerks carefully typed, the hammers mashing government forms in triplicate. The place smelled of old ladies’ perfume and sorrow.
“My former employer can deliberately prevent me from getting unemployment checks from the government?” Weston had been fired a month earlier.
“That would be the net result, yes.”
“So I don’t work there anymore, but I’m technically not unemployed, either?” Only later would Weston realize that this meant the feds were still pressuring Douglasson to make things difficult for him.
“I have to ask you to keep your voice down, Mr. Fireson.” She hadn’t shown any reaction when he’d given his name, but everyone knew it. “Perhaps you could file for state aid.”
He nodded, smiling bitterly. He had heard stories about state aid—it took forever to apply, and they made the experience as unpleasant as possible. They asked about family, friends, and past associates, hoping to discover someone else who might be expected to provide you with funds so the state wouldn’t have to. As if you wouldn’t already have asked them yourself. Weston was a young, healthy man who, since he was single, technically had no dependents—his name would not shoot to the top of the list. And times were as bad as they’d ever been: he’d read in the Sun a few days back that the Lincoln City unemployment rate, now that two more tire plants had closed, had risen above fifty percent.
Weston thanked her and took his leave. He could hear the next guy beginning his story as he walked out the door.
How to spend all this time? Time overflowing, spilling out of his empty pockets. Time flooding the ground before him, washing him away. There was a surplus of time. If only he could have traded it for money, or for something he could hammer, weld, shape, smelt, or otherwise transmute into money. He was a magician staring at a hat, trying to remember the magic words for conjuring bunnies. And all down the street were other failed magicians, dressed in rags, everyon
e looking at one another with vacant eyes, silently asking if they remembered how to cast any spells.
Weston had applied for countless jobs. Anything he could think of. Legal and other white-collar positions at which his experience at Douglasson’s might have proved beneficial, but such offices had no need of applicants, thank you. So, manual labor, at a lumberyard outside town, at a sugar-refining plant where the unionized workers turned him away before he could find the office, at a tool-and-die maker’s shop, a movie theater, a trucking company, a furniture upholsterer. At hotels where he offered to carry luggage for nothing but tips. At restaurants that might need a cook or busboy or janitor. He had passed afternoons standing outside construction sites, just in case one of the men fell injured and the foreman needed a replacement. He had sat there hoping for some disaster, offering immoral prayers that a crane cord might snap, a scaffolding collapse.
He had even wandered into the local supermarket and asked if they needed help, argued his qualifications—his adolescence spent stocking shelves and calling suppliers and counting orders. His voice had cracked. He had been politely refused.
The day after his visit to the unemployment office, Weston spent money he shouldn’t have at the cinema. But even though he carefully avoided gangster films, he still couldn’t escape his brothers, who were featured in a newsreel before the picture started. This was in late May, two months before their death in Points North; J. Edgar Hoover sat at his desk and promised the American people that the Firesons would be captured, but his officious voice was drowned out by the audience’s cheers at the sight of Jason and Whit’s confident faces. Was it hometown loyalty, or did people everywhere love them like this?
He spared himself the streetcar fare by walking home. It was an hour’s walk, and he took breaks on park benches and at bus stops. At least the springtime weather was agreeable, warm but still a couple of weeks before the humid air began suffocating the city.
He was tired, hungry, and a bit dizzy; he’d been cutting back on meals, which made the stomach pains more severe. It was dark when he approached his building. A young man standing on the corner called his name.
Weston recognized the voice from the phone, and he remembered the face from the confrontation at his mother’s door.
“Agent Cary Delaney,” the Justice agent said, extending his hand. He was Weston’s height, and though he stood with confidence, he looked nothing like a cop. “Good to finally meet you in person.”
Surely Jason or Whit would know how to respond, but Weston had no idea how to play this game. Say something witty, or does that mark you for a criminal? Act respectfully, or does that mark you for a heel? So he said nothing.
“Working late?”
“I’m … I’m out of work at the moment.” Surely that was not the right thing to say.
“That’s too bad.”
It took Weston a second to realize Delaney had known that.
“What do you want, Agent Delaney?”
“I want to find your brothers before they cause any more trouble.”
“Why would I want to help you?”
“Because one of these days some country cops are going to shoot them up just so they can hang their heads on a wall. But if you can give me some information on your brothers the Bureau can at least try to bring them in alive.”
“So they can be executed a few months later?”
“Not all the states in which they’re wanted have the death penalty. Maybe I can pull some strings, get them put to trial in states that would only give them life sentences.”
“‘Only life sentences.’ You make it sound so agreeable. You think I want to see my brothers spend the rest of their lives behind bars?”
“I’m afraid that’s their best option at this point.”
“Prison killed my father awfully fast.”
“I understand. I know your mother’s been through a lot. Do you want her to see their faces all shot up on the front page of the Sun? Because that’s where they’re headed. I’ll bet most papers already have the death stories written up; they’ve just left a few blanks for the where and the when. That way, when it happens they can go to press like that”—he snapped his fingers. “I’m offering you a chance to save them.”
Weston laughed despairingly. That seemed to be the only way he laughed anymore. “Save my brothers. You make it seem like I’d be a hero to them.”
“I know they wouldn’t thank you for it. But that’s how family is sometimes—we do things for the good of the people we love, even if they don’t always see it that way. And you’d be saving other people, too. That’s the thing none of these hero-worshippers like to talk about. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your brothers have killed people. Maybe they’re naïve enough to think they didn’t mean it, but fellows who steal at gunpoint can’t blame anyone but themselves for what happens. So, yes, I’m interested in saving your brothers’ lives, but I’m also interested in saving the lives that they’re going to take with them. Some bank clerk trying not to lose his house. Some sad sack in to cash his CCA check. Some farmer hoping—”
“Enough,” Weston waved his hand.
“Yes, of course—who cares about those other people? Empathy only carries us so far, huh?”
“You’re talking about my brothers. You seem to be forgetting that.”
“I think you’re forgetting who they are—who they’ve become—and you’re buying those stories and myths. That they go into Hoovervilles and carry the sick and injured to the hospital and pay their medical bills. That they tear up banks’ new mortgages before they can be recorded. That they spread their money around to help folks keep up with the bills. You’re letting the myths displace the reality.
“Here’s who your brothers really are, Mr. Fireson: they’re men who couldn’t handle the pressures everyone else is facing, so they decided to just take from decent people, even if it means killing along the way. Whit gunned down an old bank clerk who was about to faint from fear. And one day he shot a fifty-year-old bank guard who’d only taken that job because he’d been laid off from a machine-parts factory. An old librarian in Louisiana took a ricochet to the head from a gunfight between your brothers and the police—I’m sure your brothers blame the police for that one. They killed two cops, and Jason shot a federal agent who I personally knew. His name was Mike. He was a Reds fan, had a son—”
“I said, enough.”
“I haven’t even mentioned the reward money. We could get it to you secretly, so no one would know you were involved. Don’t tell me you don’t need it. Don’t tell me your mother and your aunt and her kids don’t need it. I know your mother’s paid off most of her mortgage and your father’s debts with money from bank jobs. But she won’t be getting any more from Jason, not with all the heat on him. Her bills are going to be awfully hard to meet each year, what with feeding and clothing the little ones. Your brothers could have stayed home and supported your family the way everyone else is doing, but they made other choices.”
“Yeah, it’s been going so well for everyone else these days.”
“Maybe they would have had dry spells, I’m not fooling myself. But they could have done it, just like you’re doing it, just like I’m doing it. They chose to abandon your mother, abandon you.”
Weston didn’t contradict him.
The agent reached into his pants pocket and took out a crinkled Hershey’s wrapper.
“Got a little hungry waiting for you to show up, so I stepped into the place around the corner and bought a little snack. First candy bar I’ve had in a long while. Want to hear why?”
“I’m sure it’s a fascinating story, but—”
“I lived off the things for months at a time. In college and law school. I was there on scholarship—my family couldn’t have afforded it otherwise. One time, I was evicted from my apartment and had to live in an old Model T. I moved it around different nights so I wouldn’t get spotted by the campus cops. Living off the candy bars that had been passed out as promotions to
all the students. Anyway, we hear that Jason and Whit have taken to living in automobiles lately, too. Funny coincidence.”
“You know, I was wrong. That wasn’t fascinating.”
Delaney looked insulted as he stuffed the wrapper back into his pocket. “What I’m trying to say is that I know what it’s like to be down on your luck. I know how it feels to be surrounded by people who could help you but won’t. They just don’t care. They’re too concerned with themselves, and maybe if the shoe was on the other foot you would be, too. Look, the Bureau could have sent some thug to yell and threaten charges at you like they tried with your mother, but I understand the pressures you’re under. You’re the one stuck in the thankless position of having to keep everyone else going. Hell, I send most of my paycheck to my mother, too. But I also know there are right ways of dealing with this, and wrong ways.”
“Fuck you.” Weston had never said that before. “Fuck you for even thinking you know what my family’s going through.”
Delaney stood there and took it.
“For God’s sake, you’re asking me to pass a death sentence on my brothers!”
“No, Mr. Fireson. I’m telling you that your brothers are already dead.”
He reached forward and stuffed a business card into Weston’s shirt pocket. “You can add that to your collection. Call me when you’ve made the right decision.” He walked off.
Weston’s anger was so vast, so all-encompassing, that it filled his body, pinned him in place. He lost track of how long he stood there. Other people entered or exited the building, all of them eyeing him queerly.
The anger he’d felt at his brothers was redirected at the Justice agent. Now he almost felt sorry for them, to be pursued like this. Were they really living in a car, or had Delaney made that up? Jason always tried to defuse the myths about them, but he also had implied he was having a grand time. Maybe it wasn’t all booze and cheap women after all.
The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers: A Novel Page 32
