The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers (40 page)

“Doesn’t she have money?”
“No, she doesn’t. And her old man’s not inclined to leave her
any in his will, either. I’m not with her for the money, Wes.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Weston asked Jason if he wanted to shower—almost for his own sake, as his
brother was stinking up the room—but he shook his head. “I just
want to sleep.”
They both stood and Weston took one of the pillows
from his bed, then searched the closet for a blanket. “You can have the
bed; I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Nah, I’m used to floors,” Jason said. “How’s
Ma?”
“She’s worried about you two. Real worried.”
“But how is she otherwise?”
“There
is
no otherwise, Jason. She’s afraid her sons are
going to be killed.”
“Do you think she’s still torn up over Pop?”
It was as if he’d asked if she still breathed oxygen. “We all
are.”
“I’d like to think I’m getting past it.”
Jason had removed a pistol from his pocket and was crouching down to place it
under his borrowed pillow as Weston stood there, stunned. He couldn’t
believe what Jason had said. Or how he’d said it—just an offhand
line, tossed to the side as he lay down on Weston’s floor, folding his
arms on his chest. As if Pop had never mattered to him at all.
Weston’s feet felt mortared to the floor as he watched his brother close
his eyes and seem to fall asleep in seconds. Who was this man? Did he even care
about his family, or were the other Firesons just a bunch of suckers to pay off
now and then so they’d leave him alone?
Jason’s breaths were heavy by the time Weston managed to crawl into bed.
Jason had vanished like a ghost by the time Weston woke up. When Weston
hesitantly looked under Jason’s pillow, the gun was gone, too. He walked
into the kitchenette and saw a note scribbled on the back of a used envelope:
DON’T FORGET. GO TODAY OR TOMORROW. THANKS.
Beside the envelope was a single match in a matchbook. Weston shook his head.
But he obeyed, lighting the match and setting fire to the message, which caught
surprisingly quickly and singed his fingertips before he could blow it out.

The sad truth was, he had nothing better to do that day.
After killing time in his apartment, then waiting in the long breadline for
lunch, he walked another twenty minutes to the train station. He
winced at the cost of the local to Karpis; he had planned
to ask Jason for a dollar that morning but had never had the chance.
He couldn’t stop thinking of what Jason had said about Pop. The two had
always fought, Pop scolding Jason for his laziness, Jason wise-mouthing back.
Pop the moralist, Jason the contrarian. Pop the avatar of hard work,
persistence, and decency—all the things that the Firefly Brothers seemed
to be against. Maybe Pop’s death just hadn’t hurt Jason the way it
had hurt Weston. Maybe those two prison stints had done something to the eldest
brother, leeched out his compassion and left only survival instincts. Surely
Whit missed Pop as Weston did—Whit had seemed especially close to the old
man—but then again maybe a year of running with Jason had hardened
Whit’s personality as well. Maybe Weston didn’t know his brothers
anymore. Maybe his brothers—the good part of them, at least—had
already died, as Delaney had said. All that was left was their petty anger and
vengefulness, like poltergeists stripped of everything that had made them
human.
The longer he sat on the train, the angrier he became. Why was he doing this?
What did he owe his brothers anymore? What had they ever done for him, other
than cost him his job?
Last stop, Last Best Chance. He tried not to ponder the symbolism. Instead,
when he arrived he took in the odd sight, an enormous and amorphous gray
building, ugly as a boil and clearly not intended to be viewed by daylight. It
was as if a twister had hit a red-light district and deposited the pieces in
this otherwise unassuming neighborhood.
Weston had checked, but no one was following him. He just wasn’t that
interesting to anyone.
He expected some sort of guard or henchman at the door, but it was unattended
and unlocked. He took a breath and entered his brothers’ world.
Photographs of boxers, soldiers, and pilots stood sentry in a long hallway of
dark-oak walls, which led into a vast ballroom fronted by a serpentine bar
encrusted with hammered tin. Off this central area snaked rooms that receded so
far into the dim light that he couldn’t see the end in most directions.
Hatted men were scattered at the bar and at the tables in the farther reaches.
It was quiet at this hour; Weston could hear a phonograph playing jazz coming
from one direction and a radio broadcast
of the Reds
game from another. Outside of nickelodeons and theaters, it was the biggest
windowless indoor space he’d ever seen.
He smelled steak, and his stomach lurched inside him; he’d still been
hungry the moment he finished his watery stew, ninety minutes ago. But that
animalistic response was nothing compared with what he felt when the woman in
the black strapless dress approached.
She had curly red hair that was almost brown in the darkness, and her shoulders
were so white they looked as if they’d bruise if a man touched them.
Jesus, to be that man. Weston felt overpoweringly self-conscious as she walked
up to him, heels tapping, dark lips smiling but not too much. Maybe she was
just the hostess; he knew that prostitutes weren’t supposed to be
good-looking, that this woman couldn’t possibly be what he’d first
assumed. He told himself not to glance at her chest, but she caught him doing
it anyway.
“And what can I help you with?” She looked a few years older than
him and was all the more intimidating for it.
“I’m, I’m looking for Chance McGill.”
“Mr. McGill is a busy man. I don’t even know if he’s here.
What can
I
help you with?”
It felt as if everyone in the place was watching, but maybe they were just
catatonic with drink.
“He’ll want to talk to me.” He spoke quietly. “I have a
message for him.”
She still had that look, as if she was entertaining and assessing him all at
once. “What kind of message?”
“Please, I’m …” Could he just say it out loud at a
place like this? He lowered his voice even more. “I’m Jason and
Whit Fireson’s brother.”
He had expected the name to change something in her expression, but it
didn’t. “You have Jason’s eyes.” She raised her right
hand to his face, her fingertips gliding against his cheekbone.
“I’ve always liked Jason’s eyes.”
He wondered what else of Jason’s she had liked.
“Sit at the bar.” She turned and walked away, and he watched her
walk. Then he sat at the bar, self-conscious as ever. He stared at the many
bottles arrayed before him, the browns and ochers and clears. The bartender, a
young man who looked fifty pounds fitter than Weston, soon came his way, but
Weston waved him off.
He took another look at the place. Even in its
near-emptiness the joint was impressive. The depression didn’t seem to
exist here. People who walked through that door had money, ill-gotten or
otherwise. As Weston sat there studying the mahogany molding and the glittering
chandeliers, and imagining the clientele who would traipse in once the sun had
set, the waves of envy nearly knocked him from his stool.
He turned back around and saw that an impeccably groomed, silver-haired man had
appeared behind the bar. He was thin and short but didn’t seem to know
it, moving as if he owned the place, which Weston figured he did. His white
oxford shirt was pressed, his cuffs linked with gold, the buttons of his tan
vest tiny pieces of ivory. The man motioned for Weston to move to the far end
of the bar.
“You wanted to see me?” McGill’s calm voice betrayed nothing.
“My brother Jason wanted me to give you a message. For Owney
Davis?”
McGill watched him for a moment. “Didn’t know there was a third
brother.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not really, um,
involved
in what they
do.”
“No kidding.” McGill smirked, giving Weston the up-and-down. Weston
just sat there and let himself be eyeballed.
“What makes you think I know anything about an Owney Davis?” McGill
asked.
“Nothing. I don’t … Jason just asked me if I
could—”
“What makes you think I know anything about Jason Fireson?”
Weston was sick of smelling food he couldn’t eat and staring at booze he
couldn’t drink. And the redhead had returned, standing just far enough
away for her to see but not quite hear the conversation.
“Look,” Weston said, “I don’t know what the rules are
here, okay? I don’t know your secret passwords or etiquette or …
whatever it is you judge people by, all right? My brother asked me to do him a
favor, so I’m spending half my day—”
“All right, all right.” A cigar was between McGill’s teeth,
though Weston had somehow missed its introduction. McGill lit it and was at
least decent enough to exhale to the side.
“No one followed me here, if that’s what you’re worried
about.”
“I know you weren’t followed. What’s the message?”
Weston passed on Jason’s instructions. He still
barely understood them, and McGill neither nodded nor shook his head.
“How’d he look?” McGill asked.
“Like he’d turned into someone else.”
McGill was so stonily calm and motionless that he reminded Weston of the lady
at the unemployment office. It was as if everyone, when confronted by
Weston’s palpable misery, could only hold still and wait patiently for
him to drag his sorrows elsewhere.
“What are you drinking?”
“I don’t, um, I don’t really have enough on me for
anything.”
McGill smirked again. “What are you drinking?”
Weston asked for a whiskey and McGill turned, selected a bottle of something
Weston had never heard of, and gracefully poured a few fingers, more like a
fist, into an octagonal glass.
“You need this pretty badly, I’d say.”
It felt like charity and condescension but tasted much better. McGill poured
himself a smaller version and offered a toast: “To your brothers’ health.
And to yours.”
Weston was so sick of pity. But it was one of the few things he had left.
He took another sip. Even on a full stomach it would have been a lot of booze
for Weston, and he felt a formerly tight space inside his brain opening up.
Emboldened, he dared to ask, “I don’t suppose you need any help
around here? Even busing tables or something like that?”
The skin around McGill’s eyes seemed to soften, but not his lips.
“I can’t have any more Firesons crawling around my place, kid.
Sorry. Nothing personal.”
Thanks again, brothers. His sips had become gulps and his head was swimming. He
glanced at the redhead, still out of earshot, leaning over the bar to share a
story with the bartender.
“So, out of curiosity,” Weston ventured, his eyes still on the
redhead.
McGill said a number far higher than Weston had imagined.
And because he’d already lost face in front of this man, as well as his
own self-esteem, Weston said, “I don’t suppose … I
don’t suppose you owe my brother a favor?”
“Getting a message to Owney is one
hell
of a favor. Jason and I
are
more than square after that. You want a girl to
lay her frame down for you, you’ll goddamn pay her for it.”
Then his eyes gave Weston the up-and-down again and he shook his head.
McGill walked away, toward the bartender and the redhead. He whispered
something to them. Two smiling faces turned his way and Weston averted his
eyes, staring straight ahead, at the glass he was two sips from finishing. But
he could hear them laughing. He hated them all. His face burned as he downed
the glass. It might have been more fitting—a nice
and the hell with
you, too
—to have left that last bit of booze before he walked away,
before he hurriedly fled the building, but he just couldn’t bear to leave
it behind.
He was still drunk and still angry more than an hour later when he made it back
to Lincoln City. He walked out of the train station and crossed the street to a
telephone booth, closing the doors behind him.
He dropped his coin and told the operator long distance, Chicago. The number,
he realized with shame, he had memorized after staring at it for so many
nights. He looked out the windows on both sides to see if anyone was watching.
The world was swirling.
The secretary who answered the phone was coldly professional, as if she knew
why he was calling. As if she were holding the receiver with black gloves.
“I’d like to speak to Cary Delaney, please.”
Weston slept for the rest of the afternoon. He had feared that making that call
would be like tying a noose around his own neck, but instead it was the
opposite, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders and he could
breathe again. He felt weightless, drifting up and into sleep. But when he woke
it was dark and his head was throbbing.
He opened his door to fetch some water from the bathroom and again a man was
sleeping in the hallway. The man hadn’t been there that afternoon, had
he? Weston tried to remember, but the day was fuzzy. He felt a surge of fear
and he wondered if he could be hungover and still drunk at the same time,
because he was being irrational. Surely this couldn’t be—
It was. Jason looked up at him and motioned his head
to the door. Weston nearly dropped the empty glass. He turned and his hand was
already shaking as he twisted the knob. He swallowed and thought for a moment
he might vomit.
Weston took two steps into the room, then stood still as Jason again shut and
locked the door, again checked behind furniture and under the bed, again laid
his natty sheet and long powerful firearm on the kitchenette table.
Jesus, did Jason know? Had this all been some elaborate test of Weston’s
loyalty?
Jason was in the same clothes as the day before. Apparently his night’s
sleep on Weston’s floor hadn’t been a good one, because his eyes
remained red and baggy.
“Didn’t think you were home,” Jason said, his voice
unreadable but tense, like the night before. “I knocked a while back and
you didn’t answer.”
“I was … pretty tired.” Weston tried to act naturally.
“What happened this morning?”
“Nothing. Just didn’t think I should stick around by day. So. Did
you do it?”
He swallowed. His voice was tiny. “Did I do what?”
Jason stared as Weston just stood there, stunned. Weston had done it. And if
this had been a test that he had failed, he would stand here and take his
punishment. He would not back down. This was not his brother anymore.
“Jesus, Wes.” Jason shook his head. “Did you go to Karpis or
not?”
Weston exhaled.
Calm down
. “Yes. I saw McGill, gave him your
message. He, um, I don’t remember him ever explicitly saying that
he’d tell Owney, but—”
“He wouldn’t say that,” Jason interrupted with the first
smile Weston had seen on his face in the past two days. “He’ll just
do it. Perfect. Thanks, Wes.”
The fear began to subside, and Weston felt all the smaller for having been so
scared of his own brother. And angrier. He kept replaying Jason’s words
from the night before:
I’d like to think I’m getting past it
.
“Are you spending the night again?”
Jason shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
Weston seemed to be gaining control of his insides, but
his stomach felt even worse than usual, scoured by alcohol and otherwise empty.
He told Jason that McGill had fed him some whiskey and he desperately needed to
get some water.
He walked to the bathroom and filled two glasses, standing there for a minute
while he drank and refilled and tried to calm down. He hated how meek
he’d been around Jason. Last night he’d wanted to say something but
hadn’t possessed the nerve. He needed to act this time.
Back in the room, he handed a glass to Jason, who twitched at the slightest
sound from the hallway or the street.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,”
Weston said.
Jason waited.
“Have you ever wondered,” Weston asked, “how differently
things might have turned out if it had been me Pop had gone out with that
night?”
Jason didn’t move, but his red eyes were much colder. “How’s
that?”
“Maybe the jury … maybe they would have believed me more than
you.”
“Why?” Jason’s voice was quick now, nearly interrupting his
brother.
“C’mon, Jason,” Weston said, softening already. “I
mean, no offense, but—”
“None taken. Get it out. Why?”