The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers (32 page)

Not that Jason had much experience trying to do the right thing. He had worked
at the family store after his first jail stint, but that hadn’t lasted.
By the time he left again, he and Pop had achieved an awkward truce; Pop seemed
resigned to the fact that Jason was fraternizing with the old troublemakers and
returning to past behavior, walking a path that would lead inexorably back to
jail.
Still, Jason had been confident he wouldn’t get caught again. He was
bootlegging, yes, but he was spending more time in the speakeasies and
restaurants and less time behind the wheel, all with an eye to learning the
restaurant business. Repeal would happen eventually, he figured, and then with
the money he’d saved he could open his own, legitimate place.
One night, more than a year later, Jason was between rum runs and
had stopped at home for dinner, as he tried to do about
once a month. He was struck by how preoccupied Pop had become with the hard
times and their impact on his business. The old man had always been consumed by
his work, of course, but what before had seemed a healthy, if annoying
obsession now looked more like demonic possession or mental illness, the old
man frequently muttering to himself during dinner or scribbling notes that he
stuffed into his pocket. That night Jason asked if he was all right, and Pop
said, Sure, fine.
After dinner Jason and Pop listened to more terrible news on the radio, sipping
scotch in the parlor. Pop poured a second, which Jason had never seen him do
before, when he turned off the radio. His eyes had turned glassy, and Jason
asked again if he was okay.
“Things have gotten … a bit out of hand,” Pop admitted.
“I’m still trying to figure it all out myself, to be honest with
you.” He shook his head.
Finally, he explained how the troubles in Lincoln City were affecting the
store. He’d gone in on some real-estate deals just before the crash, but
now the construction teams that were supposed to build new housing were pulling
out. He was paying steep mortgages for empty land that no one would build on
anytime soon, because who could afford to buy or even rent new homes? The new
supermarkets were eating into his business, and, worst of all, the tire
factories were so cash-poor they’d started paying their workers in
scrip—Pop’s registers at the stores were filled with the useless
paper, each slip a tiny wish. It was as if his entire life, a series of
carefully configured financial transactions, were in fact a set of dominoes
ready to tip.
Jason wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. Pop had never been one to
unburden himself like this.
“If you need some money, Pop, I’ve saved a good amount
and—”
Pop shook his head, slashed at the air. “Oh, no, Jason, I’m not
asking you for money.” An awkward laugh.
“I just meant, um, I’d like to help somehow if I can.”
“It would be great to have you back at the store.”
Jason shifted in his seat. “Ah, Pop, you know I’m no good at that.
I’d only make things worse somehow. Better to have Weston and Whit
there.”
He talked in circles, telling Pop he was sure things would work out.
Ma and his brothers came into the room and they talked about other things. The
fear that Pop briefly had revealed now seemed tucked away,
and Jason relaxed a bit. Only later would he realize
he’d said all the wrong things. Then it was late and Jason was off once
more, off to his own life.
Jason would often think about that night, about how things might have turned
out if he’d played it differently. Had he really believed that Pop would
just figure out a way? Hell, it only made sense that Jason pursue his living
the best way he knew how; booze was a far better source of income than helping
at the store. Or was Jason so full of pride in his own success that he refused
to let himself be tainted by someone else’s struggles, even if it was his
own family?
Weeks passed, and Jason was too busy to make it back home. He spoke to Ma on
the telephone a few times and could hear how concerned she sounded over the
family’s finances. Pop wasn’t telling her everything, he gathered,
but she had picked up on enough.
Then one night Jason’s own career came close to disaster when a partner
drove into a stray cow on a country road outside Dayton. Jason helped the
driver load his crates onto his own truck, and they removed the tags from the
disabled vehicle, but the farmer who’d emerged from a nearby farmhouse
was irate over the loss of his property and further incensed by the smell of
booze coming from a busted crate. He’d been running to fetch his shotgun
when the bootleggers finally got back on the road.
The thought of returning to jail haunted Jason. He knew the farmer hadn’t
owned a telephone—he had chosen that road partly because it lacked
telephone lines—but he found himself wondering what if this had happened
somewhere else. Jason would have been tempted to shoot the man, and that
realization haunted him as much as the prospect of jail itself.
Maybe working for Pop again wouldn’t be so terrible. He could do it
temporarily, share some of his savings with Pop, and put the rest under a
mattress. Work just long enough to help Pop get his house in order. Maybe this
had been Jason’s destiny all along, his blood, and he’d been
stubborn to run from it. Maybe he could come home one last time, stay awhile,
take Whit and Weston to a few ball games, try to take their minds off their
troubles without allowing himself to be dragged into them permanently.
But is that exactly what wound up happening? Had he allowed himself to be
dragged back in? The night of his return turned out so very differently
from what he’d imagined. Jesus, all that
blood—at the time, he’d never seen so much. Jason closed his eyes,
but the images lingered.

He opened his eyes. No sense pondering past problems when new ones surrounded
him.
And so Jason stepped forward and dared to inspect the bodies of the kidnappers.
The one who had tried to hide behind the corner wall was Elton Roberts. Jason
didn’t know the naked guy at the foot of the stairs, but he recognized
him from somewhere. The face was white and waxy, the lips curling into his
mouth. The sleeping man on the sofa had lost too much of his face to be
identified. The guy in the kitchen was a stranger. Jason rifled through pockets
and drawers but found no identification or receipts or letters, nothing with a
name.
The two men who’d been leaving the farmhouse in the Chrysler—one of
them had claimed they’d freed Darcy. Had he actually been telling the
truth? That would explain why they had driven off the property so quietly, with
their headlights off.
He walked into the kitchen and found the phone; it even had a dial tone. He
dialed Jasper Windham at his office.
The secretary was as excited as ever to be answering the old man’s calls.
She put him through to her boss without argument.
“Have you heard from her? Is she okay?” Jason hadn’t meant to
sound so panicked.
“Ah, Gabriel. I was beginning to think I’d only imagined your first
call.”
Jason exhaled, the hope draining from him. “I lied about my name.
I’m not the archangel Gabriel. I’m Lucifer, and I’m having a
very bad day.”
“Forgive me if I don’t sound sympathetic.”
“Has anyone contacted you in the last twenty-four hours?”
“I don’t understand who you really are or what games you’re
trying to play here, sir. I am doing all that has been asked of me. Funds are
being procured, and unfortunately that takes a bit longer than the mere
snapping of my fingers. I would—”
“Shut up a minute. I know the cops have your line wired, so, Hello,
boys. Do yourselves a favor and trace this call.
You’ll find a hell of a scene when you get here. But at least one of them
got away, and he must have taken Darcy with him. The guy you want is Brickbat
Sanders. It might take him a while to regroup, and he’s likely to be
very, very angry. I wouldn’t be surprised if he winds up asking for more
dough, Windham, so brace yourself.”
“Ah. So this is just another ploy to get more out of me, is that it?
I’ve told you, sir, that no matter—”
“Damn it, I’m not in on this! You know who I am. And I’m
surprised a guy like you would have so much trouble with a few low-life
kidnappers—Nitti and his Syndicate pals should be happy to bail you
out.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re trying to hint at,
sir, but—”
“I know you haven’t had any troubles with the union
lately—Mr. Nitti’s done a swell job keeping the stiffs in line for
you. But I wonder why he isn’t helping you track down your
daughter?”
“I have nothing to do with Frank Nitti, and I resent the
accusation.”
“Oh, that’s right, this is a party line. I forgot. Wink, wink.
Gotta go, you crooked bastard.”
He placed the receiver on the table rather than hanging up, assuming this would
help the cops run the trace. He wandered onto the porch to escape the old
man’s voice.
Windham hadn’t admitted anything, but his hemming and hawing was enough.
With Capone in jail, Frank Nitti controlled the unions and had also involved
himself in some of Windham’s shadier financial dealings. Brickbat Sanders
had once worked for Nitti’s chief rival, Tommy O’Neill, before
supposedly running afoul of the big man and bolting from Chicago. Some of Nitti’s
boys had visited Jason in Chicago the previous winter, requesting assurances
that Jason wasn’t involved with O’Neill’s mob and warning him
to stay away from Brickbat, whom the Syndicate had targeted for a painful
demise. It was that warning, more than Brickbat’s penchant for turning
endeavors into shootouts, that had been the true impetus for Jason’s
decision to part ways with him and his pal Roberts. Jason hadn’t told
anyone about his meeting with Nitti’s boys, as he didn’t like
admitting how terrified he’d been. He scrupulously avoided Chicago bank
jobs from then on.
But maybe they had come down on him anyway. A couple of months
ago, Chance McGill had warned Jason of rumors that the
high price on his head was beginning to entice gangland assassins.
So either Brickbat and Roberts had masterminded Darcy’s kidnapping
themselves—getting a few lackeys to help snatch Darcy from the very
controlled streets of Chicago, at an exact location that few people knew
of—or they had received aid from the Mob, likely O’Neill’s
mob. Was O’Neill using them and Windham as proxies in his war against
Nitti? Thinking about all this made Jason’s head hurt.
Okay, he told himself, forget the Mob angle for now. Just find Darcy, which
meant: find Brickbat. Who had been shot in the shoulder.
Jason walked back inside, hung up the phone, then picked it up again to make
another call. It rang and rang. Either the good doctor wasn’t in or he
was rather busy.
He hung up and checked on Whit again, finding him unchanged. A slab of flesh
awaiting a spirit, Frankenstein’s monster sans lightning.
Walking through the house, he collected every firearm he could fit into a large
canvas case he’d found on the living-room floor. There was little extra
ammunition, though—he found only two clips for an automatic and no extra
Thompson drums.
Jason stepped outside into another searing day. He’d left his fedora in
the Terraplane and he squinted in the sun. He was wearing a white shirt and tan
slacks, both of which fit too loosely, but in this weather that wasn’t so
bad. His black shoes really didn’t look right with the slacks.
The empty space behind the farmhouse had nothing in the way of a hiding place
except for the barn, so he trudged toward it and opened the side door. Enough
light fell through the ceiling cracks and wall slats for him to see a busted
old tractor, but little else. He called Darcy’s name. Even in desperate
times, it was hard to imagine her choosing to hide in a hayloft. It
didn’t even smell of hay, the contents having been used up long ago.
He left the barn and called her name a few more times.
Jason might not see her again. Brickbat might conclude that the ransom was a
lost cause and that killing her was the only way to tie the loose ends. Jason
tried not to think about this.
He retrieved the heavy case of guns from the porch and carried it carefully
into the grove of trees he and Whit had skulked through. Eventually he came
upon the Terraplane. The kidnappers’ Chrysler was gone. Brickbat
must have untied the men and driven off, unless
they’d somehow freed themselves. Either way, they were gone.
And then, the latest miracle: the briefcase was still under the driver’s
seat, still full of cash. However the men had escaped, they’d been in too
much of a hurry or were too plain stupid to search the brothers’ car.
Jason put the case of guns in the back, picked his fedora off the seat and put
it on, then sat behind the wheel. The first death was still a black void in his
mind, and the second had happened too suddenly to remember or even be aware of.
But this latest had left plenty to ponder.
Brickbat had just sat there, smiling. He’d even laughed a few times. But
he hadn’t said anything after his initial taunting, as if he hadn’t
wanted to interfere with the purity of the act. Jason had been a spectacle. The
passing of life, the turning of the earth, the changing of the seasons. It had
hurt more than he could possibly describe.
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.