The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers (41 page)

“You were on the stand in a prisoner’s outfit, for God’s
sake. I’m not blaming you, I’m just saying that maybe if it had
been me, then—”
“You’re not blaming me.”
“I only mean—”
“You’re not blaming me.”
He would not cower. He would not shake his head or let this subject go
undiscussed one moment longer. “I’m just saying I wish Pop’s
alibi hadn’t been a guy in a prisoner’s uniform. A guy with two
arrests.”
Jason sucked in his bottom lip and nodded to himself, as if Weston had
confirmed something he’d always known. “They didn’t not
believe me because I had a record, Wes. They—”
“It certainly made it easier.”
“—didn’t believe me because I was his
son
. Any son
would have lied for his father, and they knew that. The alibi was all Pop had.
Any son
would have lied. The only difference between
you and me is I can lie better.”
“What does that mean?”
Jason waved his hand at Weston. “I am so sick of carrying this with me.
No, Wes, I
don’t
think of how it might’ve been different.
Because it would have been
worse
if you’d been the one up there
perjuring himself.”
Weston’s tongue still worked, but his chest had trouble forcing the air
out. “What are you saying?”
“Do you have any goddamn idea how difficult that performance was? The
prosecutor tried to poke his fingers into every hole he could think of, but I
had an answer for him each time. And you had the goddamn nerve to be angry at
me
for not being with you all during the trial. Not being able to
‘support’ you and the family.” He shook his head.
“Support you? I was the one shuttling back and forth from a prison cell
to the courthouse, I was the one turning that prosecutor back with every answer
and not breaking a sweat. I never stuttered. I didn’t blink. You think
you could have done that? You think you have that in you?”
Weston didn’t remember stepping backward, but he was now leaning against
the wall. The world had moved around him.
“Pop was
lucky
I was the one.”
“Do you mean—?”
“I knew Whit bought it, but you, too?” Jason laughed in derision or
disbelief. They felt the same to Weston. “I figured you were smarter than
that. I figured that, at the very least, you were smart, Wes. Jesus
Christ.” Jason shook his head. “Fine. Believe what you want. If it
had been you, Pop would’ve been acquitted. If it had been you, all would
be well. A big, happy family. I didn’t mean to stomp on your beliefs,
Wes.”
Jason reached into his back pocket and put on a grimy brown cap, pulling it low
over his forehead. Then he picked up his rifle, wrapping it in the filthy
bedsheet and cradling it in his left arm.
Things were happening too quickly for Weston. He didn’t understand. No,
he did understand—he just didn’t want to.
“You’re, you’re sure? Pop … told you?”
Without answering, Jason walked to the door and had his hand on the knob before
Weston could ask, “Wait, what are you doing?”
“Leaving. Don’t worry, Wes, I’ll
find a way to pass you some of the money once I get it washed, no problem. And
then you can forget about me. You’ll never have to look at me again, and
you can blame your no-good brother for all your life’s problems.”
“Wait, Jason, please. I didn’t know, I never thought he, I mean,
how—”
“Shut up!”
Jason spoke through gritted teeth. He pulled at
the knob and realized he had forgotten to unlock it. “Just stop talking,
Wes, before you make it even worse.”
The images still hadn’t finished forming in Weston’s
head—Jason’s story, this new awareness of things.
Good God, what had Weston done?
“No, please, don’t go to Detroit.”
Jason was unlocking the door. Weston had to tell him.
“Jason, you can’t go there. You don’t un—”
But instead of turning the knob Jason put his hand in his pocket, and when it
came out there was a pistol in it.
“I swear to God, Wes, you say one more goddamn word and I’ll
snap.” He was pointing it at his brother and his eyes were wet. Weston
had never seen Jason look so unhinged.
“Stop talking
. Just
stop.”
He had to tell him. But the gun was pointed at his chest, and Weston’s
mouth was too dry to say a thing.
Then Jason opened the door and stepped out. Weston expected a slam, but his
ever-wary brother shut the door quietly.
Weston didn’t remember sitting down but here he was on the floor. Had he
fallen? The world had moved up three feet and knocked him down. Had he passed
out?
He had to warn Jason. His legs were shaking but he managed to stand, pulling
himself up alongside the table. He could chase after Jason, but would his
brother really shoot him? Was he that angry, that deranged?
Weston ran to his bed, pulling open the curtains and lifting the window.
“Jason!” He didn’t see his brother out there but he screamed
all the same. “Don’t go to Detroit! They know you’re coming!
The feds know about it!”
Two pedestrians looked up at him, this madman screaming into the
night. Jason should have reached the bottom of the stairs
by now, should have made it outside. Tears were running down Weston’s
cheeks.
He screamed his warning again. He screamed that he was sorry. Someone yelled
for him to shut the hell up. Weston screamed and screamed and finally
collapsed, his head on the windowsill, hoping his brother had heard him.

XXXII.

H
eading north from St. Louis, Jason had
driven as long as Whit could tolerate. Whit’s scorched leg was hurting
more with each passing hour; he needed rest, and not in the backseat of the
car. Jason drove past the bedroom communities and into quieter country,
stopping at a tourist camp just off the Mississippi. He figured everyone in the
state would be hearing radio updates about the Firefly Brothers and he hated
the idea of letting rooms from a suspicious proprietor, but the only
alternative was to pull into a park and sleep in their latest vehicle, a stolen
Ford. He’d spied signs for the camp on the country road he’d been
driving, and had followed its cursory directions here, off an even smaller
road. He surveyed the area—a dozen small cabins scattered about the
property, connected by walking trails. The branches of oaks and hickories hung
heavy with leaves; the camp would be hidden in shadows even by day.
The manager was indeed listening to the radio, bluegrass twanging in the
moonlight, but he was elderly and probably had bad eyesight. Jason gave a false
name and paid for three nights in advance, asking about fishing conditions as
if he gave a damn.
The cabin was in the back, with an obstructed view of the road. The gentle
shushing of the river in the distance was the only sound. He roused Darcy and
guided her into one of the bedrooms. Whit so reeked of booze that Jason feared
being vomited on as he helped him hop his way into the second bedroom. When
Whit lay down, Jason checked his leg again: it
looked
worse than before, and he wondered if they’d misjudged the severity of
the injury. He gave Whit two more painkillers and downed a few himself.
Next he carried the money and the guns into the cabin and locked the door.
With wet towels he cleaned Darcy’s wounds and dressed them with the
bandages and some towels. Lying on the bed, she bit her lip as he did this, but
she didn’t seem to be in as much pain as he thought she would be. He
would need to buy more dressings, and some antiseptic, but this was good enough
for now.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No. I did that to myself, cutting my ropes loose.”
He leaned over and kissed her on the lips.
He hadn’t slept since his last death, if you could call that sleep. Given
their all-night watch outside the kidnappers’ lair, that meant he
hadn’t slept in two days—days that had covered hundreds of miles
and many gunshots. And the car crash: various muscles he’d never even
felt before ached with each motion.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“Let’s talk about it in the morning. We should sleep while we can.
It’ll make more sense then.”
“I don’t want this to make sense.”
“That’s good, because, honestly, it won’t. But I’m
tired, and you look exhausted.”
“My father did this.”
“Did what?”
She told him her father had been arrested earlier that day for masterminding
the kidnapping. Jason told her he would buy the morning papers and see if it
was true. But already he knew that it was. Windham had somehow arranged for the
brothers to be killed, likely through his Mob connections, and then he was free
to kidnap his own flesh and blood. As if sending his grieving daughter to a
sanatorium those many years ago hadn’t been enough, now he’d gone
this extra mile. Jason wished he had figured this out before the cops had, just
so he could have had the pleasure of sparing the old bastard from life in
prison. Windham deserved a different fate indeed.
Jason lay beside her, both of them fully clothed on top of the sheets.
She half rolled onto him, one arm across his chest. He
winced but didn’t let on how sore he was. He carefully clasped her
bandaged hand, and even though the light was still on he closed his eyes and
fell asleep.
In the morning, Darcy was still out cold when Jason left her a note and drove
to the nearest town.
His various injuries had worsened overnight. He shuffled cautiously, and again
he had to hope that because he looked so bad off no one would possibly think he
could be the great Jason Fireson.
At a clothing store he bought pants and shirts for himself and Whit, as well as
two dresses, undergarments, some bandannas, and a yellow tam for Darcy. He
slanted a new boater atop his head and donned a pair of dark-amber sunglasses
as soon as he was out of the store. Next he bought some groceries, more
ointment and bandages, another bottle of rye, and the
Post-Dispatch
,
which he read in the car. Stories about the Firefly Brothers took up the entire
top half of the front page, and many other pages besides. Police in Sedalia as
well as state cops from the highway shootout had identified them, despite their
alleged death twelve days ago. This had spurred J. Edgar Hoover into admitting
he was no longer convinced that the brothers had been killed or even arrested
in Points North. But at the same time Hoover warned people not to get carried away
with far-fetched stories of miraculous escapes, reminding citizens that his
very capable agents would rectify any mistakes made by less competent local
police squads.
Jason read the stories twice. Reporters invariably got most of their facts
wrong when writing about the brothers, and today the conjecture was
intensified, as the impossible events of the past two weeks had left the poor
hacks with vast holes to fill. The Firesons were also blamed for a bank robbery
in Jefferson City, as well as a shootout in Liberty and the burning of a
library in Macon. There were no updates on Darcy’s kidnapping or any
hints of her father’s involvement, and there didn’t seem to be
anything about Brickbat or the doc.
Ten minutes later, Jason was back at the cabin and Darcy was still asleep.
Whit had certainly been in better moods. He woke up either drunk or hungover or
some vicious combination of the two. Jason handed him a
doughnut
and a bottle of orange juice when he finished applying a new coat of ointment.
They talked about what was in the paper and what it meant for them. Normally,
Jason’s strategy would be to drive as far from a police presence as
possible, but Whit’s leg and Darcy’s exhaustion required a
different strategy. The cops probably thought they were trying to get somewhere
in Jefferson City, or maybe even back home, so hopefully they were relatively
safe here.
“Let’s stay the night,” Jason said. “Maybe the next
one, too. Then we can head up and get Veronica and Patrick.”
He still had his California restaurant plan, but he hadn’t the faintest
idea what Whit was considering as his next step. He had a feeling Whit
didn’t, either.
After the short-term plan was settled, Jason folded a piece of gauze in half,
affixed some medical tape to it, and reached down to stick it on Whit’s
forehead.
“What’s the idea?”
“You have a bullet hole there, remember? Darcy didn’t see it in the
dark, luckily, and I don’t want to have to explain it to her
later.”
“So how do I explain a bandage on my forehead?”
“You grew a wart. Real nasty one. I’m sure she’ll believe
that.”
Whit popped another doughnut into his mouth, and a cloud of powdered sugar was
all that Jason heard of Whit’s curse before he walked into the other
bedroom.
Darcy woke with a start. She was on a bed. Praise be, an actual
bed
. She
had been dreaming of a bed for so long. Her body had not been perfectly
horizontal like this in, what, a week? More? The events of the previous evening
returned to her. Had she really seen Jason? But the bed was empty. Where was
she? Wait, a note. Running an errand, food and medicine. His handwriting.
Proof.
She walked out of the bedroom. The chintzy cabin smelled of mildewed freshwater
from previous occupants’ forays into the river. The curtains in the
living room were drawn, but Darcy cracked open the windows for some air. She
kept thinking of Brickbat Sanders walking down the stairs. She would never
enter a basement again.
What time was it? Ten o’clock, and Jason’s note had been written
nearly an hour ago. Should she be worried? She hoped he
was buying her some clothes. She wanted to burn these. She checked the bathroom
and saw that there were some thin towels and a slightly used bar of soap. A
marble tub would have been nice, a lavender bubble bath with floating rose
petals, three bars of Parisian soap, and a plush bathrobe, but an old bar of
lard in a sportsman’s cottage was good enough for today. She turned on
the water and waited for it to be almost scalding. There was much she needed to
burn off. She undressed and climbed in.
In the shower, the bandages fell from her hands and the soap stung at the raw
wounds, but she didn’t mind the pain. She washed until the soap was a
mere sliver, falling from her hands again and again until there was nothing for
her to drop; it was just vapor, she was just vapor, and even on that hot day
the air was so full of steam that she needed to breathe through her mouth.
Not until the hot water was fading did she turn it off. One towel attempted to
contain her unruly hair—its time was up; she would go flapper as soon as
she found a blade—and another she wrapped around her torso, though it was
immodestly small. Hopefully Whit wasn’t prowling about. She opened the
door and as the moisture escaped in a cloud so did she, floating to her room,
closing the door, and lying on the bed. She stared at the ceiling and closed
her eyes and didn’t wake until Jason walked in.
“Hungry, beautiful?” He looked smashing. Wearing the same dirty
clothes as yesterday, the ones he had slept in.
“I could eat a farm.”
She sat up and he walked over to kiss her. Then he laid out the Sports section
of his newspaper like a picnic blanket on the bed and opened a bag of pastries.
An acceptable snack, but after dispatching her share (and most of his), she was
ready for bacon, ham, chicken, steak.
He asked about the days she’d been held, but there was nothing she wanted
to do less than relive that. She wanted to drive with him, lie with him, laugh
with him, do whatever they could to expunge the memory of those hellish days.
Whether this was a healthy or a pathological response to her situation she
didn’t care. She was alive and so was he and they were going to
live
,
goddamn it.
“I bought you some new clothes.” He motioned to a bag he’d
left by the bedroom door.
She kissed him. “I don’t feel like wearing
clothes. I’ve been wearing them for days.”
They kissed again, and he lowered himself onto her. He tasted like pecans and
chocolate. It hurt when she ran her cut palms over his chest, but she ignored
the pain, or told it she didn’t care. Pain would always be there, after
all. Many people spent much time and even more money trying to run from pain,
but she had learned you could never escape it. You just needed to tell it that
it could not master you. She grabbed one of his hands with hers and interlocked
their fingers and squeezed, so tightly she felt a wound reopen, the work of
millions of white blood cells undone in one motion. She squeezed again and when
he came up for air she laughed with him.
They were lying beside each other, the sheets and her towel and most of his
clothes somewhere on the floor, although he’d strangely insisted on
leaving his undershirt on. Sunlight glowed on the drawn curtains.
“This may sound a bit odd,” Jason said, “but, should I ever
die, promise me that you’ll have them wait awhile before they put me in a
coffin. A long, long while. Maybe a week.”
“That
does
sound odd, Jason. Please. I don’t want to think
of you as a corpse.”
“I’ve been thinking of myself as one for a while now.”
“Jason! Enough! It’s not like you to be so … macabre.”
“I know it’s strange, but I need you to promise me. At least a week
before I’m put in a coffin and buried.”
“Jason
—”
“Just promise me, Darcy.”
“Very well. I promise I won’t let anyone bury you until an
inordinate amount of time has passed, and I’ve been consigned to a home
for wayward necrophiliacs. Thank you for painting such a bright future for me.
But
you
have to promise
me
you won’t die.”
“Hmm. I definitely can’t promise you that—”
“Jason!”
“But I
can
promise I won’t stay dead very long. I can very
confidently promise that.”
“I’m falling asleep again, Jason. You’re not making sense.
You’re babbling,
and I’m falling into the
babble. Your words are cushions. They comfort me regardless of what they
say.”
“Then I’ll throw words all around you.”
“Mmm
. Bury me in them.”
“I look forward to digging you out when you wake up.” He kissed her
forehead. “Just promise you’ll do the same for me when the time
comes.”
They woke after noon, hungry again. Jason donned one of his new outfits, a
simple white oxford and light-gray slacks, dispensing with a jacket. Darcy had
pronounced the two dresses he bought for her “rather drab,” and
he’d told her that was the point. She chose the yellow one, which hung
shapelessly around her. Darcy was not accustomed to being unmemorable, but she
seemed to understand the situation.
She pulled her hair back and tied it with a matching yellow bandanna. She
looked as un-urban and un-Darcy as he’d ever seen her, but it worked.
“Maybe I should forget the restaurant idea and buy a farm instead,”
he teased. “Think you’d like milking cows?”
“Oh, it sounds divine. And milking goats, and milking horses, and milking
chickens …”
“Never mind.”
Before leaving, Jason went to check on Whit. He could hear his brother snoring
before he even opened the door. Whit was sprawled on his back, the new bottle
of rye unopened on his nightstand. Jason was about to skulk off again but he
backed into the doorjamb, his heel loud against the wood.
Whit’s reflexes would have impressed Jason under other circumstances. Whit
hadn’t even stopped snoring yet when he opened his eyes, reached behind
his pillow, and pulled out an automatic.
Jason held out his palms. The fuzziness in Whit’s eyes faded with
startling quickness and he frowned, a force more powerful than sleepiness or
wakefulness or regret pulling at him. Finally, he put the gun down on the bed.
They stared at each other for an awkward moment.