The third afternoon a bartender told her where she could find Jason at six o’clock. And there he was, sitting with his brother at a booth in a dimly lit Italian restaurant. Only blocks from the State Capitol, where powerful men stared at their hands and wondered if they were indeed powerful anymore or if the times had swung the balance elsewhere. Whit shook his head at this woman who had already foiled a perfectly good plan, then stood and walked away. Jason was wearing a black double-breasted silk suit with a red-and-white striped tie and a red spillover handkerchief. She matched him, in a red velvet dress he had paid for two weeks earlier. It was too fine a dress for a place like this, but she didn’t mind. People would look at her regardless.
“I hope the cops aren’t as smart as you,” he said. He tried to appear emotionless, but his eyes betrayed him.
“Surely they aren’t as single-minded.” She slid beside him.
“You’re taking a chance.”
“Less of one than you seem to think.”
He kissed her and neither seemed to care if people watched. He told her he was glad she had come. And that he was sorry.
“Yes, you are rather sorry, sometimes.” She grinned. “But the rest of the time you’re exceptional.”
She didn’t have any moral qualms about his chosen profession—stealing from the sorts of privileged bankers she’d met through her father hardly seemed a sin—but she did warn him once that money wouldn’t solve all his problems, whatever they were.
“Spoken like someone who’s never suffered from want,” he said.
She half-smiled. “I want plenty of things.”
“I meant need.”
“Yes, we confuse the two, wanting and needing. But my point is that money can be surprisingly insufficient at delivering contentment.” She knew how men treated money, how they judged one another by it, valued and devalued their foes and friends alike.
“That may be true,” he said, “but it does dispel fear. Fear that you’re going to lose your house, that you’re going to go hungry, that your loved ones will be cold and sick. Folks with money don’t have to think about that, and they don’t realize how light their shoulders are because of it.”
She looked away for a moment, then back at him. “I suppose I’ve never really worried about my loved ones. I don’t think I’ve ever had one before.” She traced his jaw with a fingernail.
“Sorry to add complication to your life,” he said.
“I suppose I’ll manage.” She kissed him, then asked how many banks he had robbed. He answered. It was a decidedly lower number than the newspapers claimed, but impressive all the same.
“And how many do you want to rob?”
“Exactly as many as I need to.”
“Need, or want?”
“Need.”
“Need, for what?”
“To never need again.”
“That sounds like an awful lot of banks.”
“I have an awful lot of needs.”
She didn’t remember doing any more talking that night.
Of course, the lifestyle she had chosen was not without its downside. Jason was away quite a bit, always scouting his next location, running dress rehearsals with his fellow actors in crime. And the constant relocations quickly grew monotonous. Their excursions to Florida and New Orleans had been fun; the work trips to Peoria and Toledo and Cedar Rapids, decidedly less so. Darcy did play a few roles; her accursed finishing school had included seamstress lessons, which she put to good use by sewing secret pockets into the men’s jackets and pants, and the admittedly limited information she had picked up from her father on the automotive arts helped Jason devise new places to stash extra license plates or pistols. She was frequently employed as errand runner, since someone as attractive and doe-eyed as she was beyond suspicion. And her voracious appetite for information—she bought as many newspapers as she could—kept the brothers well informed about current events in their various haunts.
She often wrote in her journals when alone, describing the gang’s activities and even her private moments with Jason. It was fun to record the various escapes and close calls, to remember the warts of this money launderer or the cabbage ear of that bouncer. One day she would publish them, under a pseudonym, of course, and changing the brothers’ names and key characteristics. The country was so interested in crime these days. Prohibition had forced nearly everyone to become a criminal, and so the moralizing of previous ages had faded as people realized how tenuous the lines between crooks and commoners were.
Jason had never read her journals, but she knew that he would not have approved of the vast amount of evidence those books contained. Still, they had never gotten the gang into trouble. Her scrapbooks, however, nearly had.
She saved every article she could find about the brothers—a task that became more and more time-consuming, and required her to expand her reading habits, as you never knew what trashy pulp or high-minded political leaflet might include a few words about the notorious Firefly Brothers. Whit loved to flip through the scrapbooks—it was the only time he had complimented Darcy for anything—but Jason seemed disinterested.
In late April, the gang had spread out in a few small houses in a quiet Davenport neighborhood, from which they scouted banks in town and across the river in Moline. Veronica and her baby were with family then, so Darcy was often alone or with Bea, the wife of Owney Davis, Jason’s oddly religious compatriot. When she wasn’t running errands or writing, she and Bea would spend the days shopping, having lunch, walking along the Mississippi, or indulging in the occasional steamboat ride when the weather was good. One afternoon she took the bus back to the house— Jason and the men were using the cars to time escape routes, and Bea was seeing a matinee—and she saw two sedans parked on the street. As she approached them, she noticed a pair of hatted heads in each car.
She thought about walking away, but where would she go? Quickly she took a mental inventory of the house. She wasn’t the neatest of ladies, but she was certain no contraband had been lying about when she left that morning.
Darcy turned up the walkway and began reaching into her purse for the keys. She heard the car doors opening behind her. She concentrated on keeping her hand from shaking as she slid the key in.
“Mrs. Tenley?”
She turned to offer them a polite if surprised smile. “Yes?”
They were Davenport police. The one in front showed a badge, introduced himself as Detective Collins, and asked if they could come in.
“Of course, of c—” Then she stopped, theatrically, but hoping she wasn’t overdoing it. “Has something happened to my husband?”
“We’d like to talk to you about him, actually,” Collins said. Behind him, one of the others smiled. She noticed from the corner of her eye that a squad car was slowly driving down the street.
The best way to conceal her nerves, she decided, was to keep acting. But she had barely taken a step into the living room before she realized that all was not as she had left it. She could see into the kitchen and noticed that many of the cabinet doors were still open, and two half-empty glasses of water were sitting on the coffee table, beside her scrapbooks, which she had not left there.
“Oh my,” she said. “Someone’s been in here. Is that why you’ve come? Have I been robbed?”
“We took the liberty of looking around the place, Mrs. Tenley. Your landlord, Mr. Gleeson, did us the honor of letting us in this morning.”
“But whatever for?”
“Take a seat, please, Mrs. Tenley.” Detective Collins was calm and seemed quite proud of himself. She sat on the sofa, in front of the scrapbooks, and the other two detectives sat in chairs opposite her.
She tried to think what could have gone wrong. If Jason or any of the other men had been detained while doing their reconnaissance work, they would have arrested her by now. These local cops haven’t been hunting for the Firefly Brothers, she told herself. They just think they’ve stumbled onto world-class criminals, and thousands of dol
lars in reward money.
“Why don’t you tell us where your husband is, Mrs. ‘Tenley’?”
She ignored his emphasis on her alias. “He’s up in St. Paul today, then Rochester for a few days, but he should be back at the end of the week. His sales job takes him away from home rather longer than I would like, but one can’t complain about one’s employment these days. Now, could you explain why—”
“Your landlord’s received a few calls from one of your neighbors complaining about men coming and going at strange hours, ma’am. He did some poking around this morning and called us after he found what he did.”
“And what did he find?”
He smiled at her innocence. “It’s right in front of you.”
“My Firefly Brothers scrapbooks?” Her journal, thank goodness, was in her purse, which she’d been carrying with her that day. “I’m rather confused, Detective Collins.”
The cops exchanged glances. Apart from Collins, they remained mute.
“Are you saying you don’t know where we can find Jason and Whit Fireson?”
She was beginning to worry that her uncomprehending expression would wear thin.
“Your husband’s name is Charles Tenley?”
“Yes, of course. And I’m Darcy Windham Tenley, of Chicago.” Jason had signed for the place using the names Mr. and Mrs. Charles Tenley— Marriner had doctored an ID for him a few weeks ago—but Darcy decided on the spot to include her real name as a maiden name. She amplified the patrician accent in which she’d been trained as a young lady. “We moved here just a few weeks ago after our wedding. Charlie was put in charge of this region for Daddy’s company, and it’s true that some of the other salesmen do stay with us when they’re passing through, as the company is trying to save money on hotel costs these days, and sometimes they do get in quite late, though I’m rather annoyed the neighbors chose to bother you with it instead of doing me the courtesy. But I still don’t quite understand ….”
She watched the gears turn behind Collins’s eyes. “You’re related to Jasper Windham?”
“Of course, he’s my father.” Darcy’s name had not yet been linked with the Firesons (her father knew about her dalliance with Jason, but he certainly wasn’t going to publicize it, as it didn’t quite go with the aura of hardworking know-how he’d put forth in his recent, briskly selling autobiography). Jason had always figured word would get out eventually, but Darcy was betting these Iowa cops weren’t wise to it. They had been expecting to find some low-class hussy in the Firesons’ lair, a foul-mouthed working girl or prostitute.
“It’s true, I did marry a bit beneath my station,” she continued. “But what can I say—we find love in mysterious places. Daddy gave Charlie a bottom-rung sales job rather than placing him up high right away, you know—force him to learn the business, that sort of thing, which I quite agree with. I wouldn’t want anything just handed to us. I believe in hard work as much as the next person.”
Their morning search would have turned up some of Jason’s clothes but no photographs, as he owned none, and no incriminating papers, as he always kept his escape routes and other important notes on his person. Most of his cash he also kept on him, or hidden at some other location; he had learned his lesson from past experiences with unexpected police raids, when he’d had to abandon hideouts and many thousands of dollars.
Jason usually stored his extra guns in the toolshed in the backyard. She hoped they hadn’t thought to look there. There was no sign that they’d checked for fingerprints, either.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to trouble you, but could I see some identification?”
“Of course.” She reached into her purse and removed the ID, apologizing for the fact that she hadn’t yet changed her old Illinois one for an Iowa one with her married name. Collins read it slowly and handed it back.
One of the other cops finally spoke, motioning to her scrapbooks. “So what’s with all this Firefly Brothers stuff, Mrs. Tenley?”
“I’m rather interested in them, I must say. I’m a Chicago girl, you know, so I must confess that I’ve grown perhaps too … accustomed to the existence of crime. And these Firefly characters intrigue me. I’ve been compiling all I can find on them, as I was thinking I might like to write a book about them. After they’re caught, of course. It would be better for me if they were taken in alive, so I might be able to interview them in jail, but I suppose if they’re killed it will only increase the interest. That is how it tends to work in our society, sad as it is.” She went on like this for a bit, even flipping through the pages to point out some of her favorite pieces. The cops who had been sitting stood up and shot Collins angry glances. One of them went over to the window and waved the squad car off.
She let her voice trail off and looked at Collins as if noticing him for the first time. “Wait, you don’t mean that you … that you thought my husband might be Whit Fireson?”
“Ah, um, no. Jason Fireson, actually.”
Darcy laughed. “Oh my, I can’t wait to tell him. Honestly, he looks a bit more like Whit, I think—he’s not quite so handsome as Jason, but don’t tell him I said that. Oh my, that’s funny. My husband, a Firefly Brother. I’ll have to tell Daddy that; he thinks I married poorly enough, but at least I didn’t marry a dangerous criminal!”
She kept the banter going even though she could tell they were dying to leave. Then the phone rang, and she excused herself to the kitchen.
“Tenley residence,” she said.
“How are you, sweetness?” Jason asked.
“Oh, Sally, so good to hear from you.”
It took him a second. “Who’s over there?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll be there. I’m actually entertaining at the moment, but I believe they’re on their way out. Anyway, I’m so looking forward to it, and I’ll bring the cakes.”
“Local cops? Feds?”
“Oh, the first, of course. Nothing to worry about—I was afraid I was going to burn them, but everything came out just fine.”
“Did you just get home? Were they waiting for you there?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Then don’t leave yet—no matter how good you are, they’ll probably still watch you. Make it two hours. Take the bus to the diner where we ate on Wednesday. Leave the clothes and whatever you can’t stuff into a small bag. We’ll drive to the front of the restaurant ten minutes after you get there. Order something and leave money for the waiter and walk out without explaining why.” He hung up.
She had been watching the cops exchange accusatory whispers the whole time. When she walked back into the parlor, Collins offered her a smile so forced that it seemed to pain him.
“I’m sorry to have troubled you, Mrs. Tenley. Please wish your husband good luck from us. When did you say he’d be back in town?” She repeated her lie, and she didn’t skip a beat when he asked for the name of the hotel where he’d be staying in St. Paul.
“Well, again, he’ll be staying with the local sales director while in St. Paul to save on costs. I believe the man’s name is Mr. Johannsen? Something Nordic like that.”
She started packing a small bag as soon as they had driven away. She would have to leave most of her things behind, but no matter. She packed the scrapbooks, of course, all those reports and exaggerations and flat-out falsehoods. They had almost caused the brothers’ capture, but she preferred to think that they instead had made possible her ingenious escape.
XV.
WINDHAM DAUGHTER KIDNAPPED
Ransom Demanded from Stunned Auto Magnate
CHICAGO—Darcy Windham, daughter of Jasper P. Windham, President and CEO of Windham Automotive Manufacturing, was abducted from the streets of Chicago one week ago by an unknown ring of gangsters.
Mr. Windham has received notes believed to be written by his daughter along with typewritten instructions from the perpetrators instructing him to pay a steep ransom to prevent harm from befalling his eldest child. Although Chicago law enforcement and the federal Department of
Justice immediately offered their services to Mr. Windham, the magnate wishes to make clear that he is not working with the authorities, in accordance with the kidnappers’ wishes.
“We are following the instructions laid out by the people in question,” Windham explained.
It is believed that the kidnappers are demanding a ransom of $200,000.
Witnesses claim that last Friday afternoon Miss Windham, 20, was on the sidewalk outside a downtown apartment building where she allegedly had been renting a flat under an assumed name. An unknown number of men wearing dark hats spirited her into a waiting automobile, identified only as a black sedan with dirt-covered tags. Some witnesses claim to have seen firearms, including submachine guns, brandished by the captors.
Miss Windham has been rumored to be a past associate of the Firefly Brothers, though she and her father have repeatedly denied such allegations. Police would not say whether they suspect any connection between this crime and the remaining, at-large members of the Firefly Gang.
In what police believe to be an unrelated matter, Third National Bank of Lincoln City, Ohio—the hometown of the deceased desperadoes—was robbed yesterday morning by armed bandits who apparently modeled their appearance on the Firefly Brothers (see story).
Mr. Windham would offer no further comment on his daughter’s kidnapping and is said to be …
The article jumped to a back page and Jason read it twice without making a sound. Finally, he dropped it on the motel bed.
They had left the hideout an hour earlier, while Marriner was still out. Randy had locked himself in one of the bedrooms, terrified. The brothers had dressed in spare outfits that weren’t bullet-riddled and counted the loot. It wasn’t as fabulous a take as they’d been hoping, since they’d rushed the Hudson Heights job—though obviously they hadn’t rushed enough—but they cleared twenty-five thousand dollars. After Marriner’s expenses for the cars and the guns, and figuring in the lesser percentages the brothers had imposed on the two rookies, Jason and Whit were left with a total of twelve grand. Jason had stacked their share in a beige suitcase, and in a second case he had stuffed assorted weapons and, after some hesitation, two bulletproof vests that had emerged unscathed.
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