The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers (21 page)

Jason reappeared in the kitchen, glistening with such cleanliness he seemed of
a different species than Whit. A white towel gone pinkish in places was bunched
around his muscular waist, and his hair was combed well enough to conceal the
bullet’s entry and exit points.
“Damn,” Jason said, reassessing his unwashed brother. “You do
look terrible.”
“Do you think …” Whit asked, “this is going to keep
happening … forever?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in forever.”
“I’m wondering if someone is trying to tell me I’ve been
wrong about that.”
“Whit Fireson admitting he’s wrong.” Jason searched the
cabinet, his hands emerging with two cups. “Death is an illuminating
experience indeed.”
“This isn’t
funny,”
Whit said. “We need to
figure this out.”
Jason poured coffee, handed a cup to Whit, and sat down. “I’m
focusing my energy on solvable problems,” he said, voicing another of
Pop’s old maxims. It was like hearing a ghost, one dead man speaking in
place of another. “Like getting a new car and finding the girls.”
“But why is this happening to us?” Whit held out his hands. His
brother offered no explanation. “Maybe we should talk to a priest.”
Jason nearly spilled his coffee. “What about your whole
God-is-an-invention-of-the-ruling-class bull?”
“I just figured a priest might be able to, I don’t know, offer some
guidance on this.”
“He’ll throw holy water on you and call
you a heretic.”
“Then I’ll show him my bullet wounds.”
“Why would this have anything to do with God?”
“That’s blasphemy.”
Jason loudly lowered his cup onto the table. “Whitman Fireson, you are
going crazy.”
“That much is obvious, thanks.”
“Look, if God did feel like saving somebody, it would not be us.”
“Well, why anyone other than us? Has to start with someone.”
“Look, after we find the girls you can join a monastery if you like. But
until then, please, save your conversion story for someone else. I might be
able to handle … whatever the hell this is, but I don’t think I can
handle you being saved.”
They sat in silence while they finished their coffee. Dawn was sliding its
delicate fingers through the blinds, the planet still circling, the birds
singing their clockwork ditties. There were still a few things in this world,
Whit figured, that worked the way they were supposed to.

XIII.

C
ary wore his usual no-comment
expression with the hallway reporters that morning.
“The Firefly Brothers robbed two banks in Ohio yesterday—what’s
the Bureau’s take?”
“With Jesse James and the Headless Horseman as accomplices, right?”
he said. “C’mon, guys, have facts really gotten so boring for you
to write about?”
The reporters responded with more questions—what about the numerous
eyewitnesses, the grainy photograph?—but Cary just shook his head as he
escaped through the office door.
One of the agents near Cary’s desk was flipping through telexed copies of
stories from the
Lincoln City Sun
and the
Dayton Daily News
.
“So I hear the Firesons have risen from the dead to rob more
banks?” Cary said.
“Apparently so.” The agent laughed. “Two of the robbers were
shot by police at the second bank—one in the head, supposedly—but
they still managed to escape.”
Cary yawned. “I suppose we should start telling banks to stock up on
silver bullets and garlic?”
He spent his morning returning calls from small-town Minnesota officers and
citizens who claimed to know the whereabouts of Homer Van
Meter,
one of Dillinger’s cronies. After two hours of debunking their false
sightings, he was interrupted by the office secretary.
“Mr. Hoover is on line two.”
Although he was one of the youngest agents, Cary had grown accustomed to
receiving orders from the Director, who had lost confidence in the local SAC
and was taking charge of the Chicago office from afar. Usually it was requests
for follow-up calls or criticisms for incomplete paperwork. Still, Cary’s
stomach was already fluttering as he picked up the receiver.
“Good morning, Mr. Hoover, this is Cary Delaney.”
“Delaney, I trust you’ve heard the latest Fireson stories.”
Dispensing with greetings, the Director always made Cary feel as though he
himself had joined the conversation one minute late.
“Yes, sir. Unfortunately, people love stories like that.”
“I want you to look into the Lincoln City job immediately.”
“Sir, the Lincoln City police said there was no reason to think anyone
linked to—”
“Of course
I
don’t believe the Fireson Brothers were
involved.” Never
Firefly
with Mr. Hoover. “But I want these
stories silenced immediately. We need to keep public perception in mind.”
“I agree completely, sir. I just, ah, didn’t realize it would be
the best use of resources for me to—”
“I’m told one of the Lincoln City bank managers is being
particularly vehement about having seen the actual brothers at the bank. I want
him informed in no uncertain terms that his insisting on such nonsense will
only bring damage to the good name of law enforcement and the U.S. government.
Furthermore, I want him to know that solving the robbery of his bank will
hardly be a priority for the Bureau if he can’t manage to bring himself
into line.”
“Yes, sir.”
After hanging up, Cary scurried through the office in search of the reports.
There had been two bank jobs yesterday, the first in Lincoln City and the
second in the rural town of Hudson Heights. The Firesons had never robbed a
bank in their hometown, and neither had anyone else. The first job was
described as professional, neat, and quick; the second job had begun that way
but was nearly thwarted by the speedy arrival of local police
after a clerk tripped a silent alarm. Usually cops
assumed those were false alarms and sent only their oldest, fattest officers to
check on the bank and receive a free basket of pastries as an apology, but news
of the first job that morning had put the authorities on edge.
Though legend had it that the Firefly Brothers had occasionally robbed multiple
banks in a single day, Bureau records said otherwise. As Cary had come to know
the outlaws’ habits and personalities, he had found them too circumspect
for such moves.
Nonetheless, he had to admit that the jobs’ MO was startlingly similar to
the Firesons’: a getaway driver at the wheel of an idling car, one
Thompson-armed torpedo standing watch in the back or side alley and a second in
front of the bank, one man to manage the staff and the hostages, and one to
enter the vault. (The Firesons initially had used a second car and an
additional torpedo, but records showed that their final jobs had been attempted
with fewer men, evidence of the gang’s dwindling numbers.) Unlike that
lunatic Brickbat Sanders and so many copycat criminals, yesterday’s
crooks hadn’t fired a single round until the Hudson Heights police fired
on them: there had been no bombastic “warning shots” into the ceiling
or at startled pedestrians outside. The Lincoln City job had occurred at nine
o’clock. An attractive man in a dark fedora had appeared at the
bank’s entrance precisely when the teller unlocked it. The man chatted
with her about the weather as they walked toward the teller cage, during which
time two other men followed. He then revealed an automatic pistol, and the two
others brandished submachine guns. One of these men was thin and
“angry-looking;” the other was much older. Only the handsome man in
the fedora spoke, calmly instructing the tellers to sit on the floor, then
ferrying the bank manager into the vault. After it was over, the bank manager
checked his watch as the men hustled into a nondescript black car, possibly a
Plymouth. The entire procedure had taken seven minutes, the police had never
been alerted, and the thieves had escaped without the need for hostages. The
Hudson Heights job had occurred later that afternoon, minutes before closing
time, and though the robbers had managed to escape with a sizable, still
undetermined score, two of them had been shot, perhaps lethally, while running
into their car. They had been chased as far as the Indiana state line.
Cary noticed that eyewitness descriptions of one of the robbers were a
possible match for Marriner Skelty, a longtime Fireson
associate who had disappeared a few months ago.
He dialed Third National of Lincoln City and questioned Ronald Schooner, the
assistant manager.
“I understand you’ve been saying the Firefly Brothers are the ones
who robbed your bank.”
“Yes, sir. That’s because they did.”
“It’s my understanding, Mr. Schooner, and the understanding of most
of this country, that the Firefly Brothers were apprehended and killed earlier
this month.”
“I read the papers, too, Agent Delaney.” Schooner’s voice was
a wide Midwestern hammock of politeness and flexible consonants. “But
I’m telling you that, God as my witness, the Firefly Brothers are the
ones who robbed this bank yesterday. Them and three other fellows.”
“Could you tell me what you’re basing that identification on,
sir?”
“On the fact that I went to school with them.”
Cary sat up straighter. “I’m sorry?”
“I was in the same class as Jason, through high school. I crossed paths
with him a few times after that—before he became a real outlaw, of
course. I know his face, and his brother’s.”
This information wasn’t in either of the newspapers, but somehow Mr.
Hoover had known.
“Mr. Schooner, Jason Fireson was twenty-seven when he died last
week,” Cary said. “If you knew him from school days, that’s
going back, what, ten years? People change over a decade—particularly
when they’ve done time, and have been in hiding.”
“I understand that, which is why I doubted myself at first. To be honest
with you, there were quite a few things going through my mind at the time, what
with armed gunmen ordering me into my own vault.”
“Of course.”
“But after I’d showed him to the stacks—it was Jason leading
the way, with Whit and the older fellow waiting back by the
entrance—I’d calmed down just a bit and had a moment to get a close
look at him. He’d grown a mustache, but I could see it was Jason, and he
seemed to notice me noticing him. See, everyone knew Jason—even back in
school, he was a popular one.”
“I understand, Mr. Schooner. I also understand
you were undoubtedly under quite a lot of stress, as you say, and what with all
the recent attention the Firefly Brothers had been receiving, the pictures in
the paper and whatnot, it’s perfectly understandable for you to have felt
that way. But now that the dust has cleared I need you to understand that it
couldn’t possibly have been Jason or Whitman Fireson. I think the
investigation will proceed much more smoothly if you refrain from making such
… incendiary comments to the newspapers.”
“Look, I’m being as clear as I can possibly be. It was them. And,
as I was saying, he was about to leave the vault when we looked at each other
and I said to him, ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were
Jason Fireson.’ He smiled, like I’d given him a compliment, and
said, ‘You don’t say. So would I.’ So then I said something
about how he’s supposed to be dead, and he said, still smiling,
‘Yeah, that’s what the people who killed us said.’ You
believe that?”
“No.”
Unfazed, Schooner continued. “Then he started backing away again, and he
said, ‘You can tell the cops if you’d like, but I doubt
they’ll believe you. Have a good day.’” Cary heard a loud
exhalation. “Looks like he was right.”
“Mr. Schooner, even if we wanted to pretend the Firesons were still
alive, they never would have robbed a bank where they knew someone. They were
very careful, they spent days researching their targets, and they
wouldn’t have—”
“I was out sick for over a week. Yesterday was my first day back, so they
wouldn’t have known I worked there.”
They continued to parry with decreasing gentleness. Finally, Cary repeated his
warning and assured the assistant manager that the Firefly Brothers would be
robbing no more banks. He hung up.
Cary had not seen the Fireson’s bodies. He and the Chicago SAC had been
pursuing a lead on one of Dillinger’s associates in Davenport when they
received word of the farmhouse shootout. The Points North police had failed to
alert the Bureau during the lengthy stakeout, calling only when the bodies were
cooling. Cary and his superior had tried to fly to the nearest airstrip, in
Gary, but a thunderstorm forced their plane to land in Springfield. By the time
they’d made it to Points North, the bodies had been stolen—before
any member of the Bureau could view them.
Though Cary and the SAC had been willing to shrug off
the missing bodies as a strange footnote to an otherwise triumphant chapter in
their War on Crime, Mr. Hoover was outraged. Part of the Bureau’s job,
the Director had always explained, was to dictate reality—to investigate
reality, fully understand it, and then, under the aegis of Mr. Hoover’s
vigilant public persona, explain that reality to a public cowed by the
depression and frightened by stories of gangsters and increasing lawlessness.
It was the Bureau’s job to reassure people that these shockingly hard
times were merely speed bumps along the shared path to prosperity, and not a
sign that the nation was spiraling into anarchy and madness.
Still, there were other reasons to doubt the bank manager, weren’t there?
Cary tried to suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Points North police
really had killed the wrong men. If Jason Fireson was alive but knew that he
was believed to be dead, why would he so cavalierly rob a bank in his hometown?
Why would he make those comments to Schooner? He should have used the smoke
screen of his purported death to help him disappear forever. On the other hand,
Cary knew that Jason was brash and confident, playful and vain. He may have
felt a need to let people know he was alive, a need—inadvisable but
irresistible—to demonstrate his superiority, smirking all the while.
Cary allowed himself to consider the impossible for a moment. Then he dug out
the report from Points North and read it through, looking for the holes and not
liking how many he found.
He dialed the Points North police and got the same officer as the last time. He
wondered how many cops they even had out there.
“Any progress on those corpses?” he asked, less friendly than
before.
“I thought you said you’d be taking that over for us?”
“That seems to be happening by default, doesn’t it? Let me talk to
whoever identified the Fireson bodies that night.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m looking at your report here,” Cary said. “What of
it you’ve filed thus far, that is. I just want to make sure there’s
no chance you might have shot up two crooks who were not the Firefly
Brothers.”
The officer started to say something, then stopped. “Agent
Delaney,” he said, starting again, “I was there that night.
We’d been told they were in the building, so after we surrounded it we
warned them on the bullhorn to come out and surrender. They ignored
us—didn’t fire at us, didn’t call
out,
didn’t make a peep. We shot in tear gas, still nothing. We waited a few
hours, then we decided to go in. That’s when they started firing. If
there was any chance that we had the wrong guys hemmed in there, wouldn’t
they have yelled out at some point and said so?”
This was all wrong. What Cary was asking the officer was insane, after
all—of
course
it had been the Firefly Brothers; how could it not
have been? Cary would have preferred it if the cop had simply laughed, but
instead he was responding with extreme care.
“Thank you, Officer. I’d just like to speak to whoever identified
the bodies.”
He was put on hold again before being connected to a sergeant who also served
as the county coroner.
“Sorry to trouble you with this, Sergeant, but I wanted to ask you a few
questions about the Fireson Brothers. The bodies were identified as those of
Jason and Whit Fireson based on—?”
“Fingerprints and mug shots.”
“But we don’t have any record of your having sent the prints to our
Washington office for verification.”
“Well, I guess we’ve been a bit slow on the paperwork aspect.
Figured it was just a formality, since we never really had any doubt it was the
Fireflies.”
“We’re pretty strict on formalities here, Sergeant. What about
scars? Jason had been shot on his left arm a few months back—did you
confirm that the body had a scar there?”
“I honestly don’t recall whether we bothered to check that, because,
as I say, we really had no doubt. There was all the money we found on them, for
one, and the guns they had …”