The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers (38 page)

XXIX.

T
he number of reporters in the hallway
had increased. Cary needed to employ much patience as well as elbow work to
force his way through the packed hallway to the Bureau’s office door.
He exhaled deeply as he shut the door behind him. It was eight at night but the
bullpen was frenetic. Cary had been getting ready for dinner when he received a
call from Gunnison telling him to hurry back to the office and to bring a suitcase
with a couple days’ clothes.
“The Firefly Brothers are alive,” Gunnison had said. “We
think.”
That was all he would say over the phone. As Cary hurried into the bullpen,
Gunnison stomped toward him in a shirt stained with coffee.
“What’s happened?” Cary asked.
It was only that morning that they’d driven out to Points North and heard
Chief Mackinaw’s admissions. Then they had driven back to Chicago and
Cary had filed a carefully worded report for Washington. He didn’t want
to sound hysterical by hypothesizing that the Firesons might somehow be alive,
but the last thing he wanted to sign his name to was a statement that the
Firesons were indeed dead only to find out later that the outlaws were still at
large. And here was Gunnison telling him they were larger than ever.
“They were in a gunfight with police in Missouri this afternoon. Started
in Sedalia, continued on to Route 50 west of Jefferson City. Two
officers and three civilians were killed on the highway,
and a few folks in the hospital might get added to the list.”
“Who says it was the Firesons?”
“Numerous witnesses.”
“Why are we believing them?”
“We’re not entirely sure we do. But the Sedalia cops swear to it;
they say they got prints from a car the brothers abandoned, and from the scene
of another shooting. They’re sending the prints to the Washington lab for
final comparisons.”
Cary had dropped his suitcase somewhere. He sank into the chair of whomever was
behind him. “What other shooting?”
Gunnison sat on the desk. “Sedalia police got a call from a probate
attorney who said he’d stopped by what was supposed to be an abandoned
property and saw some dead bodies. Cops find four corpses, one of which they
identify as Whit Fireson, and a lot of shell casings but only a few guns.
During the drive to the morgue”—and Gunnison
chuckled—“the cops claim that Whit started yelling from inside his
hearse. They pull over, unwrap him, he jumps up and accosts the officers, who
were rather stunned. Then, from out of nowhere, Jason drives up and takes him
away. A chase ensues.”
Cary had to take a few seconds. What Gunnison was saying was impossible, yet he
relayed the data in the matter-of-fact tone of a bleacher bum recapping a
one-two-three inning for a friend returning from the John.
“Whit was only
pretending
to be dead?”
“St. Louis agents are interrogating the two cops who claim Whit came back
to life. The cops are reportedly being unhelpful and have been quoting Bible
verses.”
All around Cary, agents were shouting into phones, running in and out of the
bullpen, into the SAC’s office, into the interrogation room. The mood was
more panicked than usual.
“I know Mackinaw seemed like a dolt, but still, how can you fake a death
and trick the police—twice?”
“We’re rustling every underworld doc we can think of—one of
them has to be involved in this. Maybe someone’s come up with a kind of
sedative that can knock a fella out so bad it’ll convince an incompetent
coroner
he’s dead, only to wake up a few hours
later. Who knows, I ain’t a scientist. All I know is, when we do find these
fellas we need to blow their damned heads off to be sure the job’s
done.”
Cary asked about the scene at the farmhouse.
“One of the other bodies was ID’d as Elton Roberts. Apparently the
house used to belong to a relative of Brickbat Sanders, though it looks like
Brickbat, if he was ever there, made it out alive. Cops found some
women’s items and two drafts of notes that are almost verbatim to the
ones that had been delivered to one Jasper Windham the last few days.”
“They’re the ones who kidnapped Darcy Windham?”
“Or pretended to. ’Cause it gets even more interesting. We’ve
been talking to a limey insurance investigator from Lloyd’s of London. It
seems Windham had taken out a kidnap insurance policy on himself and his lovely
daughter a couple years back—it’s the thing to do among the moneyed
and paranoid, I guess. Policy offers to cover ransoms up to two hundred
thousand. But the fine print says that all is null and void if any of the
insureds have ‘criminal or unsavory’ associations.”
“So the policy was voided because Darcy ran with the Firesons.”
“One would think. I guess Lloyd’s has been slow about mailing its
cancellation notices, ’cause Windham was under the impression the policy
still stood. He’s been on the phone all week hollering at the adjusters,
saying they need to cover the ransom for him. It seems the finances at Windham
Automotive aren’t what they used to be. Windham’s also been
receiving some suspicious calls lately from someone who sounds, according to
one of our agents, a lot like Jason Fireson. One of the calls was traced to the
Sedalia farmhouse.”
“Jesus Christ. They faked their deaths thinking that if Darcy had no
underworld associates, at least no
living
underworld associates, the
policy would be good. Then they kidnapped her, or pretended to, thinking
they’d collect the ransom either from Windham or the insurer.”
“Give the college boy an A.”
“Is Windham in on it?”
“He’s under questioning at his estate. Started yelling at our
agents and saying they were putting his daughter’s life in jeopardy. Then
our agents started yelling back, and he asked for his lawyer.”
Some things were clicking, but just as many things seemed unconnected.
“So the Firesons faked their second death at
this Sanders family farmhouse, but the other bodies really were dead?”
“Allegedly. We told the Sedalia cops to lock ’em up in the morgue
and put ’em under armed guard just in case. Once they stink, we’ll
know for sure.”
Cary exhaled. “If this is all an elaborate ruse for a kidnapping, why
would the Firesons kill all their partners?”
“So they could get a bigger slice of the pie? Who knows. Windham had
agreed to let us tape his calls, so we got Jason on tape—sounds like he
was speaking in code or something, talking about angels. And he name-dropped
Nitti. We’re trying to figure it all out. I say Windham breaks by the end
of the day.”
Cary shook his head and looked around. Every agent at least tangentially
involved in the Fireson case or the Windham kidnapping was in the bullpen. Men
on the phone held their receivers with white knuckles, as if trying to strangle
out confessions.
“Good God. Please tell me Dillinger is still dead.”
“Last we checked. And his old man had him buried under six feet of
concrete and scrap iron to keep out grave robbers. So I think we’re
safe.”
The Bureau chartered a flight into Jefferson City, piloted by a chatty old man
who claimed to have been part of the crew that had shot down the Red Baron in
the Great War. He also bragged that he was the only American military pilot to
crash seven times and live. He was very good at crashing, he explained. Cary
noticed that the plane lacked seat belts.
Cary and Gunnison were traveling with ten other agents, one of whom, Norris,
had arrived only two days ago from the Oklahoma City field office. There had
been no official announcement, but word was that Norris was going to be
installed as the new Chicago SAC, and as such he was taking charge of the newly
reformed Fireson Squad. He was as powerfully built as Gunnison but taller. He
was bald, and even his scalp looked muscular. He spoke in a dry voice that Cary
couldn’t always hear above the sounds of the engine.
“Mr. Hoover has made clear what he expects of us,” Norris said once
they were airborne. “People are telling all kinds of wild stories about
the Firesons, all because of the mishaps in Points North and now Sedalia. We
are being sent to correct those mishaps.” The
agents discussed various locations where the Firesons—if this really was
the Firesons—might be trying to hide: safe houses they or other Public
Enemies had used in the past, nearby addresses of past associates or
ex-girlfriends or stepsisters. The nearest mechanics of ill repute, in case
they had car trouble, and the nearest underworld physicians, in case they were
injured. It wasn’t a long list, and the possibility existed that the
Firesons could be attempting to flee to Lincoln City, but the Missouri police
claimed to have sealed off the eastern border.
Norris detailed the weaponry he had arranged to have loaded onto the plane:
submachine guns, automatic rifles, grenades, and a few things Cary hadn’t
heard of and would have to ask Gunnison about later. Now Cary felt even less
safe on the plane. More weapons were waiting for them at the St. Louis office,
Norris explained.
The plane shook during its descent and Cary glanced out the window. They were
already low enough, and the moonlight bright enough, for him to see the
patchwork of farms and country roads neatly laid out like the chess set of a
bored midwestern God.
“People like to say the Firefly Brothers are bulletproof,” Norris
continued. “We’re going to give the brothers an opportunity to
demonstrate that ability. The Director wants the Firesons—or whoever
these people are— eliminated, dramatically. That was his choice of words.
Dramatically
. We leave nothing to chance. If we trace them to a
building, we blow the building up and burn the rubble. If we see them in a
vehicle, we shoot the gas tank and strafe it to ribbons. We let the American
people see there is no way these crooks can possibly escape this time. Justice
and order prevail. The Director holds a press conference and you-all get to
catch up on sleep.”
And then
, Cary thought,
I return to a safe routine of phone calls and
paperwork, and I send my résumé to every law firm I can think of
.

XXX.

D
arcy woke to the judge standing before
her, whispering insistently. The dim bulb was behind him, yet she could see the
welt rising from the left side of his face. His hard fall had snapped his
chair, and he must have slid his bound wrists through the breaks in the wood to
free them, although they were still behind his back. He had wriggled his feet
from their bindings as well; loops of rope hung loosely around his ankles.
“I’m going to look for a blade or some glass,” he told her,
and she nodded. The gag had pinned her tongue to the bottom of her mouth. The
insides of her cheeks felt moldy.
After his beating, the judge finally seemed to have accepted that he was
mortal, after all, and had to get out of here. Darcy tried to keep calm, but
she could feel herself trembling. Was Brickbat still upstairs? He had mentioned
something about an errand—was he still gone?
Something landed on the cement floor, and seconds later the judge emerged from
the mess. He stopped in front of the bloodstained pillow and bent down as far
as his aged knees would allow, an awkward position with his hands bound behind
him. Then he dropped the something onto the pillow: it was a small window frame
with four panes of glass. With his feet, he carefully slid the window off the
pillow and onto the floor, then nudged the pillow on top of it. He stamped and
the pillow crunched.
The judge kicked off the pillow and bent down to pick up a piece of
glass. His stiff old body made this a complicated task
indeed. Darcy silently, desperately, cheered him on. It was like watching a
starving, toothless man bob for apples. Finally, he stood again. His expression
as was vacant as before, and sweat ran down his temples.
“I’m holding a small piece of glass,” he said as he walked
behind her. “When I tell you to, saw your hands back and forth.”
He gave her the cue and she obeyed. She felt a stabbing at her wrist, so she
stopped. He adjusted the way he was holding the glass and they started again.
She moved her hands slowly, cautiously, her muscles warm as they moved in that
awkward position, torsion numbing them. She felt bits of frayed rope tickling
her palms, and a surge of excitement caused her to move too fast. Stabbing
again, but now she didn’t care. She was so close! Then her hands lunged
and she felt an even more painful scrape— but her hands were free.
She pulled them in front of her face. She had seen so little of her hands these
many days of blindness and bondage. Ten long fingers, white knuckles, bloody
wrists and palms. They were beautiful.
Darcy wrenched the gag down her jaw and moaned with relief. She opened her
mouth, unclenching the muscles as she got to work on the judge’s ropes.
She sawed him loose in seconds. Then she leaned over and cut at the bindings on
her ankles. It felt
so
good to stand. She took a few steps to remind the
blood that it could flow.
“There are no windows,” the judge whispered. “No exterior
door. We’ll need to go up the stairs.”
They stared at the ceiling. Suddenly they could hear Brickbat’s voice, a
low murmuring. Had it been there before and they hadn’t noticed? Who was
he talking to?
Darcy looked down at the dead body of the doctor. His chest was damp, a stain
darkening his gray shirt but not quite reaching his open collar. She wondered
what he had in his pants pockets.
She bent down and dared to check. She would not have had the stomach to frisk
his jacket pockets—they were likely soaked with blood—but she
didn’t need to, because in his right pants pocket she found what she was
looking for: a small revolver, nestled there quite unobtrusively.
Then the basement door opened.
Their eyes met in panic. Already Brickbat was walking
down the stairs, albeit slowly.
Give me the gun
, the old man motioned.
She didn’t have time to deliberate, only a moment to think that, yes, she
probably was not the best one to wield a firearm. She handed him the gun, which
he promptly opened.
“No bullets.” She could barely hear his whisper. Then he lay down
on the floor, in more or less the same position he’d fallen in before.
Why was he just lying there? Surely he could at least bluff Brickbat into
disarming. The footsteps getting lower and closer. She barely had time to find
a weapon of her own: there, on the ground in front of her, part of the
destroyed window, a five-inch-long sliver of wood with a triangular piece of
glass protruding from it. Yes, maybe she could hold the wood and drive it into
… Her dazzled mind would go no further. The footsteps louder now.
She sat in her chair and pulled the gag back up to her mouth. She had to bite
hard to prevent it from falling off. Then she bent over, picked up her
makeshift dagger, and pulled her hands behind her back as if she were still
bound.
The judge had moved the pillow back on top of the other pieces of glass,
concealing evidence of their movements.
Then a thought: her feet. She had cut her bindings. Brickbat would notice if he
looked.
And there he was, standing ten feet away. Watching her. Looking at her ankles?
She wasn’t sure. The cocky smile he’d worn before was gone. He
seemed ashen. Or determined. He was holding something large and flat.
“Nice nap, kitten?” He stepped a few feet in front of her, bending
over and pulling out the legs of a card table he’d carried down. At least
now he couldn’t see her feet. He placed upon it a small black sack;
whatever was inside it sounded heavy and metallic. Then Brickbat wandered over
to her right, deeper into the basement. Darcy looked down at the judge, who was
still playing dead. Her fingers were shaking and she wondered if that meant her
shoulders were, too.
Brickbat emerged from the catacombs and placed another rickety chair at the
table, opposite Darcy. Before sitting on it, he leaned forward and pulled her
gag down. If he noticed that it hadn’t been very tight, he didn’t
show it.
“Might as well give you a chance for some last
words.”
She swallowed. Her throat ached. She wanted to ask what he meant, but she
feared her voice would break. He unholstered his silver gun and placed it on
the table before him. Then he reached into the sack and pulled out a long, thin
metal rod, a small can of oil, two soiled rags, and a coarse brush. Her mind
reeled at the possibilities.
“Things haven’t turned out well, kitten. This has been a goddamn
catastrophe.” He seemed to be addressing his gun, which he was slowly
disassembling. He laid the pieces on the table, then used the scouring brush to
clean the barrel. His fat fingers moved with surprising dexterity, performing
this ritual with a calmness approaching reverence. “I never planned on
killing you. I don’t like to kill dames.”
“You don’t … you don’t have to.”
He looked at her. “But I do.” He returned his attention to his
quartered and beloved device. “That’s the sad thing. No other way
out for ol’ Brickbat. And no payoff. All this work, all this goddamn
waiting. Elton dead, the other guys.” He shook his head. “This is
why I never tried yaffling before, and I shoulda remembered that. It’s a
lesson for me.”
He was essentially unarmed while the gun was in pieces. If she was going to
strike him, she had to do it now. Instead, feeling like a failure, she asked,
“Why?”
He poured oil onto one of the rags, then rubbed it on the various pieces of
disassembled weaponry.
“Because your old man messed up is why. He got himself arrested, you
believe that? S’what I get for working with an amateur. Because
that’s what he is, kitten: an amateur. He had some connections and I let
that make me think he knew things, but he doesn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
He looked at her again. She saw, from the corner of her eye, that she had
smeared blood on her sweater. Not much, but it was certainly there, almost
glowing on the white cotton. He hadn’t seemed to notice it yet. She had
to keep him talking. She had to act.
“It was all his idea, kitten. An insurance scam. But the dumb suit
didn’t read the fine print on his policy, and the company ain’t
gonna ante up. On account of you being a known accomplice of the Firefly
Brothers. Ain’t that just the kicker? You being Jason’s twist is
what’s gonna get you
killed. If you’d been
just another rich girl, the insurer would be paying the ransom and
this’d’ve gone off without a hitch. But because you were slut to a
bank robber you’re uninsurable. You’re worthless.” He began
reassembling the gun.
It took even more time for Darcy to reassemble the facts he had laid out. They
did not yet assume the shape of a coherent whole.
“My
father
arranged this?” She had long hated him, but
something like this she hadn’t thought possible. The world slowly came
together, in a sickening way, an even darker place than she had imagined but,
alas, one that made its own cruel sense. She willed herself to concentrate, to
ignore what Brickbat was saying. She tightened her grip on her weapon.
“Yeah. Badly, too. Last time I work with a goddamn carmaker. And you know
his cars are junk? I’ve stolen a few, and they always die on me.
Everything dies on me.”
Where was she supposed to aim? His neck? The soft spot of his temple? If she
leaned forward, she could reach him. But she would need to stretch. And her
hands were so very far away. He would see it coming.
Brickbat peered through the barrel of the gun, assessing his work. He blew into
it, then looked again. The gun was nearly whole now, everything but the
magazine lying beside it. Pointing the gun to his right— away from Darcy
as well as from the two bodies on the floor—he pulled the trigger and it
snapped ruthlessly.
“Don’t move.”
Brickbat managed to show little emotion at hearing the judge’s voice. She
saw Brickbat’s eyes narrow, a tightening of the skin, and his large head
slowly rolled toward his left. The judge had sat up and was aiming the revolver
at Brickbat’s chest.
“Didn’t hit you hard enough, I guess.” The unloaded pistol
was still in Brickbat’s hand, the magazine within easy reach. The
fingertips of Darcy’s right hand were slick with blood. His neck would be
too hard to hit; he barely even had one. The face, then. The right temple. What
would happen? How would it sound, feel? Could she do this?
Brickbat was reaching for the clip.
“I said, don’t move.”
“I heard you, old man. Go ahead and shoot me with that empty gun.”
He snapped the magazine into place. Then he stood up and kicked the
judge in the face. The old man’s body lifted into
the air, his bent legs straightening until he was stretched to almost his full
height before gravity regained control. Then his body folded up again and
collapsed into itself, a puddle on the floor.
Brickbat snapped the clip into his gun. The sound of readiness, of
inevitability. He was standing a good five feet away from her. She had missed
her chance.
“Stupid bastard. You think I hadn’t frisked the doc?” He
shook his head at the old man. Darcy didn’t know if the judge was breathing
this time. She didn’t care. She herself was breathing twice as fast.
She let her head sag for a moment. She heard Brickbat lightly kick the judge to
see if he needed a bullet. Then she stood up and stepped forward and swung.
She realized she was shouting only when she stopped. And she stopped because
her blow had found its mark. Not its intended mark, but something. Jesus, had
she closed her eyes? She had. She opened them. Her arm was stiff, energy
surging through it. Paralyzed with power. Her fingers throbbed from the impact.
They were clenched around the wood handle and the glass had vanished inside
Brickbat’s raised left forearm. For such a big man, he was fast. They
were motionless for a moment, joined together in that violent embrace, and then
she saw the blood seep out of his wound. Now he was the one screaming.
He yanked his arm away from hers but the weapon was still embedded there. He
reached for the wood with his right hand, but he was holding his gun with it,
so he couldn’t pull the blade out. He looked blind with rage and pain. He
bit down on his bottom lip as he straightened his right arm and pulled the
trigger.
The gun jammed again. He yelled at it:
Goddamn gun, fucking jamming,
goddamnit
. He was staggering in a semicircle, keeping his distance while he
shook his gun hand and tried again. Nothing. He looked at the gun, shook it,
peered into the barrel, and screamed at it. He shot himself in the head.
Brickbat was staring at her but not seeing her. There was a hole in his
forehead, and she looked away. Then she heard him land.
She was breathing even faster now, hugging herself. She spun in a circle. What
had happened? She smelled an industrial smoke. The gun had
jammed, and then it hadn’t. This wasn’t
possible. He had shot himself in the face. He was dead. She looked up and saw
the soles of his shoes, the toes pointing up at angles. Near them the
judge’s eyes were open and lifeless. Nothing was moving but her.
She ran up the stairs.
There was a small table in the kitchenette and on it a set of keys. She ran out
the door and into the night—a deep, quiet darkness. The doctor’s
car was an old Chevrolet, and one of the keys worked in the ignition. The
engine started and she drove in reverse, too fast, scraping shingles from the
side of the house as she pulled out.
Brickbat was dead, yet still she felt pursued. Surely there was someone else.
She needed to be free. Was this freedom? Where was she going? She backed into
the street and realized the Chevy’s lights weren’t on. She turned
them on but nothing happened.
Fine, fine, just go
. She could see well
enough. There were arc lights, a moon. She pressed on the gas. Every movement
was more than she meant it to be. The car lunged and her head snapped back. She
took a corner too hard, tires squealing. There was a car approaching.
Brickbat’s confederates coming to his aid? Whoever they were, they were
in her way. Or she was in theirs. Yes, this was the wrong side of the road. The
other car honked its horn and she twisted the wheel and the Chevy leaped a sidewalk.
She didn’t brake in time.
She was breathing fast but it seemed she was only exhaling. Nothing was
reaching her lungs, let alone her brain. She hated herself. She was stronger
than this. God, she was hungry. She lifted her head and wondered if she’d
been knocked out. Perhaps she was dead. Yes, of course. Why would Brickbat have
shot himself? He must have shot