The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers (36 page)

Whit had started to yell something when the windshield exploded. Glass stung
like wasps at Jason’s cheeks and neck and fingers. He blinked
instinctively but when he tried to reopen his eyes the right one didn’t
feel like obeying.
Whit was firing at the police car, which had been stationary on the median and
therefore nothing but a memory within seconds. Most of the other automobiles on
this side of the highway were getting the message that continued travel on this
road was not recommended for anyone without firearms, and they were pulling
over. But soon Jason’s speed caught him up to the next pocket of
oblivious travelers. A police car was still trailing them, but so far behind
they could barely hear its siren.
“You all right?!” Whit had to scream to be heard above the hot wind
blowing through the open front.
“I think so!” Jason’s right eye was still shut and still
angry but at least it felt as if it was intact. That and the wind in his face
forced him to squint the other eye.
Whit brushed the glass shards from the passenger seat and climbed up beside
Jason. “You gotta take the next exit before they put up another
roadblock!”
Jason replied that he goddamn knew that, but they hadn’t reached an exit
yet. A minute later, hallelujah, he came upon one. He missed Jake Dimes, his
old wheelman, more than ever. From his bootlegging days, Jason had a number of
chases to his credit, but speeding past firing officers while avoiding
terrified civilians was hardly easy.
Jason had the distinct thought that he would not survive another
death. He didn’t understand his new existence, but
surely there was a limit. More important, surely his adversaries would devise
some countermeasures. If they shot him down again, maybe they’d skip the
press conference and drop his body in a cast of wet cement, and he would spend
eternity trapped inside a commemorative statue of himself. Or the coroner would
saw the brothers’ bodies into a thousand pieces, to be distributed as
trophies to police stations across the country. Or they’d just burn the
corpses. Whether the brothers were enjoying an unfathomable stretch of good
luck or heavenly beneficence, Jason knew it couldn’t last forever.
He flashed his headlights—which might not have been working
anymore—at a meandering Studebaker that was insisting on the left lane.
Finally, Jason angled to pass it on the right, but he was doomed by the
Studebaker’s belated decision to acquiesce. They didn’t hit hard,
but at eighty miles an hour it was enough. The Terraplane’s front wheels
skittered and one of the tires lost its tether to the ground. Jason tried to
straighten the car but that only made it worse. It swerved to the right, onto
the skidway. A roadster was already pulled over there, the hood raised as
someone peered inside. Whit was screaming at Jason to brake and he thought he
was but the car skidded back into the left lane. The Terraplane nosed into the
side of the Studebaker and the steering wheel seemed to leap forward and whack
Jason’s chest, hard. His knees hit against the steering column even harder.
Then Jason lost track of what was happening. Dozens of separate events seemed
to occur every second.
Finally, they were motionless. The stasis was surreal. The Terraplane was
pointed backward, facing oncoming traffic. Not that there was much to face: the
few moving automobiles were like a barely trickling river, slowly winding their
way past the many wrecked or stalled cars that sat like rocks jutting from a
creek bed. Doors were opening and people were emerging, shaking their heads,
rubbing their necks, yelling. Two bodies were facedown on the road twenty feet
in front of a car with no windshield. Women were screaming, children were
wailing. A uniformed milkman was limping and holding his right arm at an
unnatural angle. Someone else’s arm dangled through the open window of a
smashed flivver, his head slumped on the dash. Traffic on the other side of the
highway slowed in morbid curiosity.
Jason’s right eye was working again. Every other
part of his body hurt. “You okay?”
“I’m stuck,” Whit said. “My legs are trapped.”
The front of the Terraplane was crumpled, the hood misaligned by a few feet,
and the dashboard was compressed and knocked down. The interior of the car
reminded Jason of something he’d seen at some terrible art exhibit Darcy
had once taken him to—all the angles wrong, nothing but vanishing points
and no center. Jason looked for Whit’s legs but couldn’t find them.
“Jesus. Can you move them at all?”
“Little bit. I don’t think they’re broke, they’re just
stuck.” Whit was leaning forward, his hands underneath, blindly trying to
feel his way out. “Something’s pressed into my knees. Something
that feels hot.”
Jason smelled gasoline. He offered Whit his hands and started to pull.
“Stop, stop!” Whit winced after the first tug. “It’s
not going to work.”
Jason could just see smoke emanating from the torn hood, the wispy trail fading
into the sky. A police siren was getting louder, and multiplying.
Jason tried to think of something to do other than yank harder and ignore
Whit’s cries. Suddenly a breathless young man appeared at Whit’s
window.
“You fellas all right?”
The man looked about twenty, with a broad chest and thick arms. Jason
couldn’t have thought up a better Good Samaritan if he’d tried.
“What’s your name, friend?” Jason asked as he scooted closer
to his brother.
“Eddie.”
“Eddie, I’m going try to lift the dash with my feet. Grab my
buddy’s hands here.” He turned to Whit. “Once you feel your
legs have more space, tell Eddie to pull. Got it?”
Jason could see that Whit was not enamored of the plan. “Got any better
ideas?” Jason asked him. Whit shook his head.
“That’s smoke, ain’t it?” Eddie asked. Then for the
first time he seemed to notice something funny about Whit’s forehead.
Eddie’s eyes grew wider, and then he saw the very large gun draped across
Whit’s lap. “Oh, goodness.”
Eddie began to backpedal, and Jason quickly
unholstered an automatic and pointed it at him. “Don’t you walk
away, Eddie. You do what I told you to do and we’re square, got
it?”
Eddie nodded and stepped closer to Whit, hesitantly reaching for his hands.
Still holding his pistol, Jason pressed his knees into his chest and placed his
feet against the dash. He counted to three and pushed out with his legs, slowly
exhaling as he tried to muscle the dash off his brother. It refused to budge.
He stopped for breath and the sirens were louder, singing their castrati
chorus.
Then the front of the car glowed, and flames rose from beneath the hood.
“Try it again!” Whit yelled. “Hurry, goddamnit!”
Jason kicked against the dash. In that one inhalation he smelled smoke and
melting rubber and what he hoped was not singed cotton. The force of his kick
broke the seat from the floor and he and Whit fell back, heads snapping.
Whit screamed as his legs were released. Eddie let go of Whit’s hands and
backed up as Whit lunged out of his open window. The Thompson had slipped onto
the seat, and Jason grabbed it with his free hand as he, too, jumped free of
the burning car.
When Jason got to his feet, he saw Whit thrashing on the road in a cloud of
smoke. One of his legs was on fire. Eddie was trying to kick dirt and pebbles
at him, but there wasn’t enough debris to smother it. Jason placed his
two guns on the road and tore at the buttons of his shirt and pulled it off. He
used it to whip at his brother’s leg as Whit screamed and rolled and
kicked. Finally he just fell on Whit, smothering him. He felt a strange heat at
his chest but it faded almost immediately. Whit lay beneath him, gasping for
breath. Jason rolled off, leaning on his hands and staring at his brother. Whit
was on his back, wide-eyed. Dirt and dust hovered in the air; as most of it
settled, more rose into the sky. Jason realized it wasn’t dust at all but
smoke from Whit’s pants.
Superheated metal popped like a gunshot and Jason winced as if struck. The
front of the Terraplane was engulfed now and he felt the heat on his face. He
scrambled to his feet, opened the back door, and grabbed the bag of guns and
the briefcase.
Eddie was still standing by Whit, not realizing he’d just missed his
golden escape opportunity. Jason picked up the automatic
pistol and the Thompson.
Despite the screams and the fire, Whit and Jason had attracted little attention
from the people standing on the road and on the embankment; they were all
immersed in their own private dramas. Cars were no longer winding their way
through the disaster but had pulled up just behind it, creating their own
roadblock that the cops would have to navigate.
Whit was gritting his teeth. His right pant leg had been burned black and was
still smoking.
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” Whit’s voice was a thin rasp between
quick breaths. “Hurts like hell.”
Eddie broke from his stupor and pointed to someone. “There’s some
other fellas look like they need help,” he said, meekly, and made as if
to assist them.
“Hold on—you’re not done helping us yet.” Jason asked
where Eddie’s car was, and if it was still working.
Eddie pointed to a two-toned, black-and-red four-door Dodge that was pulled
onto the skidway, twenty yards away. Jason couldn’t see any signs of
damage. And Eddie had taste. Still holding the Thompson with one hand, Jason
handed Eddie the briefcase with the other and told him to put it on the floor
of the backseat and be quick about it. Then he had him do the same with the
heavy bag of guns. As Eddie obeyed, Jason fished the fedora out of the not yet
burning backseat and put it on.
“You’ll be okay, Whit,” Jason told his brother, handing him
the Thompson. “Hold this and I’ll drag you to the backseat.”
Jason threaded his arms beneath Whit’s armpits, pinned his own forearms
together, and pulled his brother up. Only now did he realize that Whit
wasn’t the only one who’d got banged up. His own chest ached and he
limped on tender knees.
He could see the lights of a police car flashing, its sirens and horns berating
the parked cars that blocked its path. There didn’t seem to be any cops
on foot yet, but surely they’d shoot before making themselves visible.
Hopefully the cops would decide there were too many civilians around for them
to open fire. Most of the drivers and passengers had run to the embankment
beyond the highway, but Jason could see some of them sitting
shocked in their cars, and a few were still standing in
the road. A young boy in a Cardinals cap stood a few feet away from two
facedown bodies, staring.
Jason remembered the chaotic Milwaukee job and realized that any number of
people had gotten good looks at the Firefly Brothers. If one of them had a gun,
he could step forward and try to claim the reward money. Unless it had already
been paid to whoever had plugged them the first time.
He slid Whit into the backseat. Whit, breathing heavily, drool on his chin, sat
up and smashed at the back window with the barrel of the tommy. Eddie
didn’t seem to mind—he was too busy staring at Whit’s forehead.
“That ain’t …” He didn’t want to complete his
sentence. “That can’t be, um …?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Jason told him. He unzipped
the bag of guns and pulled out a Browning rifle. He told Eddie to get behind
the wheel and drive as fast as he could to the next exit.
Before they could move, Jason felt something whiz past his head. Then multiple
shots, and people were screaming again. Whit let loose with a volley from the
Thompson and Jason told Eddie to drive.
Eddie started the engine and Jason took shotgun.
“A hostage means they’re not supposed to shoot at us,” Jason
said. “You’re not a very good hostage, Eddie.”
Jason faced backward and leaned out his window as Eddie apologized. Flashes
timed with the gunshots came from behind a wrecked Reo convertible. A dark
streak of smoke from the burning Terraplane blocked Jason’s view but he
fired anyway. Holes popped out of the Reo’s sides as if it were
inflatable and bursting with air. Windows on other cars exploded from
ricochets. Bits of asphalt geysered ten feet high.
Eddie pressed the accelerator and they lurched forward. Whit’s gun
started to click and he dropped it onto the road, pulling an automatic pistol
from his pocket and firing. Within seconds, they had pulled away from the
scattered wreckage, and from that vantage point Jason could see the squad cars
from the roadblock losing ground as they wove their way through the crashed
cars.
Eddie took the first exit and Jason told him to head east on the country
road. They sped past farms and then the sparse shops of a
tiny main street, then farms again. Jason had hoped to stumble upon terrain he
knew, but he hadn’t yet. In the backseat, Whit had closed his eyes and
was sweating badly, though he still seemed to be conscious. At a country
intersection Jason told Eddie to turn south, hoping to put more distance
between them and the highway. It was still midafternoon and they had many hours
of sunlight to go.

XXVII.

D
o you believe now? Have you accepted
it?
It was pitch-black in the basement. Darcy wasn’t sure if her eyes were
open, wasn’t even sure if she was awake.
“Leave me alone.”
But you are alone. Unless you count the crazy old man sleeping on the chair
beside you. And don’t worry
—
he can’t hear me
.
She hadn’t wanted to believe that there were voices in her head, that she
was losing her grip on reality, but she no longer had the strength for such
denials. This was her world, after all. Voices in her head, Jason supposedly
dying but now alive, an old judge not dying but insisting that he had. She told
herself her sanity would return one day. She hoped she would know what to do
with it when she found it.
“What do you want?”
Brickbat’s upstairs and he’ll be awake soon
—
you
know that. You have to accept Jason’s death and understand that you can
only count on yourself to escape this place. You can’t afford self-pity
or mourning. You need to be thinking, thinking of how you’re going to get
out of here
.
“I seem to be tied up rather well. You are not being helpful. Unless
you’d care to untie me.”
Voices lack fingers, unfortunately. But be ready. He’ll be drugged
when he comes down the stairs. There will be an opportunity, somehow
.
“Why don’t I just wait for the ransom to
be paid? It’s taken so long already—”
Because you know your old man can’t pay it. He can’t save you
—
you’ll
need to save yourself. No one knows you’re here. No one really cares.
People are reading about your story, they’re following it in the papers,
but do you think it matters to them whether you’re set free or your
decomposed body is found in the woods next fall? You’re a story, and
that’s all you are to them. Just like your precious Jason
.
“Jason was not a story.”
He was. He hated being one, of course, and he fought against it, but he
knew. He was a story people could tell themselves, a way for people to believe
that the world wouldn’t always conquer them, that there were ways of
fighting back. All those myths and legends
—
that he could escape
any ambush, that he couldn’t be killed. They said angels watched over the
brothers, deflecting policemen’s bullets. He was a prophet, an Old
Testament judge let loose to save his people. Those stories gave people hope.
Whit understood that, but Jason didn’t care. He was only out for himself
.
“He wasn’t that selfish.” She was crying again.
Wasn’t he? He cared about you, of course. But only because you were
his. He
was
selfish. He was the embodiment of selfishness. What else can
a thief be? Jason was who he was. And you admired him for it
.
“I
do
admire him. And I
despise
you.”
We hate so much about ourselves. He did, too, but he tried not to let you
see it
.
“He showed me everything.”
Not everything. You notice a lot, but you don’t notice everything
.
“Leave me alone. Let me sleep.”
And what would you like to dream about?
“Jason. And escaping.”
That can be arranged
.