“They had no pity. I did not faint. Everything was different. Usually, empathy for others only carries us so far. It’s how we survive—it’s why we survive. But I understood them now. I should have hated them, but I didn’t.
“I made it back to my house just before the storm hit. I took off my clothes and bathed as the windows creaked at the pressure from outside. The bathwater was black with the dust and soil within minutes. Then the storm passed and I left the filthy tub and shook the dust from my clothes, and dressed. I got into my car and drove away.”
He was mad, she decided. He could believe what he wanted. “Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer for a long while. The footsteps upstairs were now intermittent. She heard the sink turn on and off.
“I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m still here. I don’t know why this life has been granted to me. I can think of only one reason, though it makes little sense.”
Silence again. Darcy asked him what the reason was.
“Ultimately, how can a person imagine his own death? We may not be the center of the universe, but we are the center of our own consciousness.
And to imagine an end to that consciousness? This is not possible. We die, but we do not die. No one can imagine it. And so it cannot happen. They tried to kill me, yet I live.”
What egocentric grandness, she thought. “You do look rather alive to me. If it’s any consolation.”
“You can mock me if you wish, young lady. I have been mocked before. I have suffered worse than whatever that man and his gun have planned. I do not fear his plans.”
“Well, I’m not ashamed to say that I do fear them. There has to be some way for us to get out of here.”
Then he closed his eyes and hung his head, as if sleeping.
“Excuse me? Judge Underhill, excuse me? Those of us who aren’t immortal would like a hand devising our escape, Your Honor.”
He opened his eyes but would not look at her. “I’ve been driving for days. I only want to sleep.” He closed his eyes and the shallow rise and fall of his chest was the only evidence that he was indeed alive.
Darcy heard the flush of a toilet. She prayed that Brickbat’s procedure would be an unsuccessful one. She begged for the onset of gangrene, she implored the aid of invisible bacteria. Or perhaps the drunk surgeon would snip an artery by mistake.
It was dank and her head throbbed and within minutes the old man was snoring.
Then the light burned out.
XXVI.
Whit opened his eyes and was blind once again. He tried to move his arms, yet the world narrowly bent around him, a malleable prison confining him. His nails made odd sounds as they tried to claw through, his fingers slick with sweat. The air was scant and he tried to inhale with dry gulps.
Jesus, had they buried him? Was he underground? Terror seized him as he thrashed about. He screamed for someone to dig him out, let him out, help him. He called his brother’s name. Memories of the night in the farmhouse flashed before him. He didn’t remember being shot himself, but he did remember seeing Jason fall. Again.
He finally realized he was in an automobile as it pulled to a stop. Voices that had seemed like tiny, mostly forgotten memories scurrying in the furthest corners of his mind were louder now, not memories at all but persons close by. Muffled by this death shroud and maybe by something else, a wall. He needed to break through.
“Let me out of this! I can’t breathe!”
On and on for nearly a minute and then he stopped. He was panting but he tried to listen to the voices from the cabin.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t hear that,” one of them said.
“What in the goddamn hell …?”
The first voice came in louder now: “Who’s back there? I said, who’s back there?”
“Get me out of this!” Whit screamed. “I can’t breathe!”
The voices were quieter again, conspiratorial or maybe terrified. Seconds later, the sound of two doors opening. Footsteps on dry earth. A metallic yawn and its echo. Then silence.
“Let me out!” He kicked and thrashed, but all he did was roll onto his side. His entire body was wet with sweat. “I can’t breathe!”
“Says he can’t breathe.”
“He’s not supposed to breathe!”
“God almighty.”
“How in the goddamn hell—”
“Which one you think it is?”
“Let me out, goddamn you!”
Finally, he heard them walking toward him, tinny footsteps light with fear.
“All right, hold still.” An unseen hand pulled at the covering over Whit’s face. There was a sudden burst of light along with the whisper of a blade being pulled against cotton, and then a gasp, and a face Whit saw too briefly to be sure was really there.
With his elbows pressed into his chest, Whit managed to poke his two hands through the opening and tear it wider. Air like shovelfuls of snow fell on him. It was divine. He gasped, burning his lungs with it. The world he was staring at was the corrugated roof of a truck, but he focused on the wonderful texture of the air and the feeling coursing through his limbs. The truck’s engine was still on, the world beneath him purring with life.
After he had regained his breath, he sat up and saw two cops staring at him from the far corner of the truck, by the open back doors. The cop was able to meet Whit’s stare for only a moment before conceding defeat and turning white. His fall was cushioned by one of the other bodies on the floor.
His partner stood frozen, unsure whether he should rally to his colleague’s aid. He made the sign of the cross. Whit wasn’t yet sure what to do, so he echoed the man’s gesture.
“Man, it was hot in there.”
“You’re … you’re not …”
A wood railing ran the length of the interior, and Whit used it to pull himself up. He could stand in the truck, but he needed to duck his head. “Your buddy okay?”
“Um …” The conscious cop was middle-aged, with a round, cheerful face and the unimposing physique of a man who spent most of his time at a desk. He hesitantly knelt down to inspect his partner. As he did so, Whit reached forward and grabbed the handle of the cop’s sidearm. He pulled, but it was latched, the gun nestled in there pretty good, and the cop’s head turned while Whit was tugging at it. The officer didn’t think to fight back, just knelt there staring in amazement. Finally, the revolver came free and Whit backed up a step, pointing it at him.
“Just stay down there a minute. I’m not going to hurt you. Which of these is my brother?”
The cop’s eyes were blank, and it took him a moment. “Your brother ain’t here. We found you and three other fellas, but none of ’em was him.”
“You aren’t lying to me?”
The cop shook his head. The poor man did seem incapable of dishonesty at the moment. More important, Whit didn’t want to unwrap three bodies on the off chance that one of them was his brother’s. Had Jason abandoned him? Had his brother survived the shots and escaped?
“Where are we?”
“Sedalia. Just a few miles from the house where we found you.” The cop touched his own forehead, staring at Whit’s. “So that ain’t really a—?”
Whit asked what day it was, and learned that only hours had passed since his passing. He felt neither the confusion of his first resurrection nor the sense of encroaching dread and dismay of the second; this time he mainly was relieved to realize that he’d survived that hellish scene at the farmhouse. Or perhaps survived wasn’t the right word. But, hell, here he was.
The other cop began to stir, so Whit pointed his gun at the first to warn him off, then reached down and relieved the awakening officer of his revolver. He stuffed it into his pants pocket. The officer looked up at him, then clamped his eyes shut again.
“Cuff yourselves to that railing,” Whit told them. “And hand me the cuffs’ keys.” As the cops obeyed, Whit asked where their colleagues were.
“We were behind some squad cars, but they p
ulled away. Must not’ve seen us pull over.”
He asked them again if there was anyone else outside and the cops shook their heads. Still, the others would realize eventually that their caravan had diminished.
And with that Whit heard another engine approaching. Both cops were sitting now, their right hands up and attached to the railing, and behind them the back doors stood just slightly open. Whit glimpsed a car coming toward them. It looked familiar, but Whit had been in many cars during the past year. The engine grew loud as it approached and then came the sound of tires skidding to a stop behind the truck. Sunlight glared off its windshield.
His brother’s fedora-topped head emerged from the driver’s side of the Terraplane, and submachine-gun fire rang out as Jason shot at the van’s tires. The truck sagged and the cops flinched beside Whit, who kicked open one of the doors. He raised his empty hand where his brother could see it.
“Come out real slow!” Jason commanded.
“Jason, it’s me!”
A two-second pause. “Finally decided to wake up, huh?”
Whit jumped out of the back and Jason was walking toward him, a Thompson smoking in his arms. He looked bathed and very put-together, though his shirt was dirty and wrinkled.
“You let ’em put me in a goddamn hearse?”
“Sorry. There were seven of them and one of me. I made the best play available.” Jason peeked in at the captives. “Howdy, boys.” One of the cops waved back with his uncuffed hand.
“They say there were some squad cars,” Whit said.
“Yeah, just in front. Probably going to turn around any minute now. In fact”—he stepped back and gazed down the long highway—“that might be them. Let’s go.”
Jason hurried behind the wheel of the Terraplane as Whit got into the backseat. Jason reached back and handed Whit the Thompson. “Plenty more guns in that case,” he said. “But that’s the only tommy, and we don’t have any extra drums.”
Whit rolled down the rear windows and faced backward as Jason pulled the car around, clouds of dirt obscuring Whit’s view of the squad cars, which were only a few hundred yards away now. Jason pressed the gas to the floor.
“They’re stopping at the truck,” Whit said.
“Good. That buys us about thirty seconds or so, depending on how stupid they are.”
The Terraplane’s speedometer was topping out at eighty. It was a fine ride; the shocks were strong and the brothers didn’t much feel it when Jason drove over rocks or clumps of earth that had blown onto the road. Jason had filled the tank just before they staked out the farmhouse. Still, given their past automotive luck, they easily could blow out a tire or overheat the radiator. Normally on getaways they had spare tires and extra cans of gasoline and boxes of tools, not to mention roofing nails and tacks to throw on the road behind them, and multiple gunmen. Worst was the lack of a git detailing all the side roads and cat roads, listing the landmarks, distances, and average travel times. They knew where the nearest highway was, yes, but still it was like walking into a bank that they’d cased only from the outside. This was how thieves got caught.
Jason hadn’t been impressed by the look of the police Fords, but at least one was keeping up with them fairly well. He couldn’t tell if the other two cops were still behind it or if the drivers had taken side routes to head them off.
“Where’s Darcy?” Whit asked.
“Gone. I woke up and it was just me and four dead bodies, including yours.”
“What about Brickbat?”
“Gone, too.”
“Did he …?”
“Yes. Both of us.”
“I don’t remember being hit.” Whit had taken his eyes off the Ford and was scanning his own body, confused by the lack of bullet holes or gaping wounds. He didn’t even see any blood. “Maybe I was just unconscious.”
“Afraid not. He got you square in the forehead.”
Whit leaned forward to get a look at himself in Jason’s rearview. “Oh, Jesus!” He gingerly touched the hole, then pulled his finger away. He was still leaning forward, obscuring Jason’s view of the trailing Ford, when Jason saw something straight ahead.
“Oh, hell. Sit down!” Jason hit the brakes, hard.
A police Ford raced out of the Sanders farmhouse driveway and pulled into the middle of the road, right in front of them. Off the two-lane road were narrow dirt skidways, and between those and the farmland on either side were ditches that Jason would never clear. He pulled left of the cop onto a skidway, the speedometer’s needle swinging back to thirty, the fastest he could go while navigating such a tiny channel. Yet it was so slow that he and the cop made eye contact as the cop’s head was raised above the Ford’s roofline. Jason could see the old smallpox scars on the man’s face. The cop fired.
The front passenger window spat itself at Jason, his fedora knocked at a slant. He ducked down and the Terraplane sped along, gravel and dirt scraping beneath the wheels. By the time Jason lifted his head and saw that he was still aimed straight and not headed into a ditch, Whit was leaning through the back right window and firing with the Thompson. Jason edged back onto the asphalt.
“Were we hit?” he yelled once they were away. He straightened his fedora and glass shards spilled from the brim. He glanced down and the seat glittered at him; if he so much as shifted, they’d embed themselves in his skin.
Whit leaned his head out the window. “Yes. Two in the body, but I don’t think they got anything important. Wheels are okay. I got his radiator, and his wheels.”
“We’ll be on the highway in a minute.” Hopefully they had already encountered every police officer in this county. “I say we stick to that till we get closer to Jefferson City—I know the side roads there, and we can get off the highway and switch cars.”
“How far is that?”
“Half hour, maybe.”
“That’s a very risky half hour,” Whit said. Surely the cops would get word out to the neighboring jurisdictions; the question was how quickly the wire would hum.
“I’m willing to consider any alternative strategies.”
Whit offered none, instead taking stock of his arsenal and deciding which weapon he’d use once the Thompson was empty. The Firefly Brothers maintained their barely tolerable distance from the two police Fords for the five minutes it took to reach the highway interchange. Jason saw that the short connecting road on his right had been laid at a harsh angle. He waited as long as he could before he started braking for the turn.
Then the cops pulled a quality maneuver he hadn’t been expecting. While one Ford pulled onto the entry path for the highway, the other continued straight on the country road, fast as ever. Which meant that as Jason carefully took the hard turn the second Ford pulled alongside on his left, closing the gap enough to fire a few shots. The Terraplane’s roof seemed to shudder, and what Jason hoped was only a headlight exploded in front. More shots, but then the Ford had made its pass and Jason was on the highway.
Two lanes in each direction, separated by a grass median. One Ford was still tailing them, but the other would be farther behind now, once he turned around.
Whit leaned out the window and inspected the damage again, pronouncing it minimal. There were no holes in the hood, no gaseous clouds escaping from the radiator. The Terraplane was zipping along.
The Ford behind them was no closer than before. Because this stretch of highway was vacant, the cops fired some desperation shots. With the air rushing past at eighty miles an hour, the gunfire sounded farther away than it was. After maybe ten missed shots, the cops stopped firing. Then they remembered to turn on their siren.
In another minute, Jason came upon a few other cars. Drivers gave him dirty looks as Jason veered between lanes, and some of them seemed to notice the bullet holes in the Terraplane. At least the cops wouldn’t fire with civilians around. Jason pulled the brim of his fedora lower and told Whit to avoid displaying his bullet wound if possible; the last thing they needed was for some old codger to pass out at
the wheel and sideswipe them.
Twenty minutes passed this way, long stretches of empty highway in which the police would assert their relevance by firing a few helpless shots, broken up by brief maneuvers through pockets of traffic. They were nearing Jefferson City when Jason noticed a horizontal line in the distance. It was black, though it glowed red and blue.
“They’ve got the highway blocked.”
Half a dozen squad cars were parked across the two lanes and the skidways. The cops had set up just past a right-hand exit so other traffic could get off, but if Jason tried to do the same he’d waltz into a shooting gallery. He told Whit to hang on and he started braking, then swung the Terraplane hard to the left. They drove onto the grass median and now the car’s shocks didn’t seem so impressive. But the axle managed to remain intact and the tires did not burst. Jason turned again and hit the gas, and they were on the opposite side of the highway. He narrowly avoided being clipped by a long touring car, whose owner leaned on his horn in outrage. There was another car on Jason’s right, hemming him in on the left lane. One of his pursuers was pulling a U and was almost behind him again, but the other Sedalia squad car had instead stopped on the median a few hundred yards back. As Jason sped in the direction from which he’d come, he was about to pass that cop at a distance of barely twenty feet. He saw this too late.
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.
The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers: A Novel Page 34