Jason sat at the foot of the bed again. They talked about Pop and their childhood, growing up, when the world was so normal but so full of wonder. They sat there and breathed their past—their family, their selves— back to life.
XXXIV.
Darcy woke alone the next morning, shaking from a nightmare. In her dream, too, she had woken alone, but she had heard the shower running. So she had walked through the hallway of the cabin, which in the dream felt more like a honeymoon suite. She had thought to herself that perhaps she and Jason should call a justice of the peace to make it official, and had laughed at the thought, at how impossible it was.
Still dreaming, she had slipped inside the bathroom where he was showering, warm mist enveloping her. The shower curtain was an opaque white, so Jason couldn’t see her as she slipped out of her dress and kicked off her underwear. She had gently pulled at the far edge of the curtain, just enough to lean her head in and get a good look at Jason before pouncing. He had been facing away, his head beneath the spigot. She had always loved that backside and marveled at his powerful calves, but her eyes were drawn elsewhere.
His back was covered in welts. Not really welts, as those would have been three-dimensional and these were the opposite: ghastly concavities in that precious flesh. Her first instinct was not pity but a revulsion she could neither suppress nor deny. These were no mere wounds.
Finally, Jason had noticed the draft and turned around. Her eyes inspected his unblemished chest and legs and the rest of him, but then she finally saw his eyes, which were wide with surprise and with what she figured—for she’d never seen it there before—was guilt.
“Sweetness.” He had sounded calm, almost apologetic. His eyes were red, as if he’d been crying.
“Jason, what … what happened?”
“I had a vest on, Darcy.” He had looked so absurd trying to explain. “I got hit, but they didn’t go deep. I know they look pretty bad, but they’re just flesh wounds.”
She had backed away. The sight of her wounded lover was again covered by the curtain, a flimsy death shroud. Then he had turned off the water and yanked the curtain open, snatching a towel and wrapping it around his waist.
“Darcy, I’m fine, really.”
Water beaded on his clavicle and ran down his chest. The scrapes on his cheeks and forehead were less noticeable now with his face red from the heat.
And then she had woken up.
In the same bedroom now, the same loneliness. Where was Jason? He’d woken earlier than she, perhaps. Or had he ever been here at all? Fragments of the dream echoed in her head. She heard a sort of fuzziness— was that the shower running, or only the memory of sound from her nightmare? She needed air.
She could almost hear the Voice clearing his throat.
She hurriedly put her dress on and walked into the hallway, her mind reeling, and stopped at the small dining table. A stack of napkins sat beside some car keys, which she picked up. Get outside, walk, breathe a bit. It will all make sense then, she wanted to tell herself. But hadn’t he warned her that it wouldn’t?
Outside, the grass was wet with humidity, dirt sticking to her bare soles as she staggered to the Ford. She put the keys in the ignition and pulled away from the cottage, unsure where she was going, knowing only that it needed to be away, that she needed to be alone. This last day and a half had been so divine, hadn’t it? To not be alone. But she hadn’t really been alone before, either—there had always been others. Maybe she only needed some air and a country road and, God, perhaps a drink.
She was mad. This couldn’t be happening.
She navigated the labyrinth of cottages, and after pulling onto the road she noticed all the autos pulled over in the far-side ditch. Some of them police cars, others dark sedans. Reality had begun to register when three men strode into the middle of the road, only a few feet before her. Their left hands clasped badges at their breasts and their right hands were held high.
She stopped the car. Another man was walking up to her open window. She could smell honeysuckle from the trees drooping around her, and on the man’s breath jerky and cigarettes.
“Darcy Windham? We’d like you to step out of the car, please. Keep those pretty hands where we can see them.”
Since landing in St. Louis, Cary and the other agents had dispersed across a dozen locations each time a new discovery revealed itself, demanding analysis, the taking of notes and photographs, the lifting of prints and the moving of more bodies. At least three so far: Brickbat Sanders, at long last; Chet Wasserman, an underworld physician who had been living in North St. Louis under an assumed name; and an old Iowan judge who had disappeared days ago after nearly being lynched outside his courthouse by a mob of angry farmers. The judge had died in Wasserman’s squalid basement, of a crushed skull. The other two bodies had been shot at close range, and someone had sunk half of a shattered window into Sanders’s left forearm. The local police had received a tip from a neighbor who’d heard a shot late at night. Cut ropes beside wooden chairs indicated that two people had been held captive there. The house was rife with prints, so the Bureau would have answers soon enough.
Cary had little direct experience with corpses and had hung in the back while the city cops did their guesswork as to what, exactly, had transpired. Sanders had a recently treated shoulder injury and apparently had sought the doctor’s aid, but something had gone wrong. And how was the judge involved?
Word out of Chicago was that Jasper Windham had finally confessed to hiring Sanders (the muscle) and Elton Roberts (the brains) to kidnap his daughter. But he claimed to have nothing to do with the Firesons, and he said his daughter wasn’t in on it. No one could figure why he would implicate himself but lie to protect the two outlaws, who clearly were involved. Maybe Windham was scared of them—everyone seemed to be either scared of the Firefly Brothers or in awe of them.
The aggrieved police chief in Sedalia, meanwhile, had checked in to say that the other bodies from the farmhouse shootout were still dead and were smelling very bad indeed.
And then came the kind of rare tip the Bureau always hoped for. It was routed to Cary, sitting in the Bureau’s St. Louis field office after leaving the local police to their chemistry kits in Wasserman’s basement. He found himself speaking to the manager of a tourist camp in the riverside town of Ferris, Missouri. The manager said a suspicious character had shown up at his establishment very late on the night of the Firesons’ last known appearance. A man who might have been Jason had paid for three nights and had requested the most remote cabin. This man had since been seen running errands in town with an attractive young brunette. There had been a second man in the car that first night, but he hadn’t shown himself since.
The information was no more striking than the hundreds of other useless tips that had washed in. The manager had sounded sincere, but so did most people who were wrong. To be professional, Cary had asked him for the number of the town’s pharmacist before thanking him and hanging up. Remembering reports of the previous day’s fiery wreck, Cary dialed the number and asked if by any chance someone had purchased burn ointment that day. Why yes, he was told. The purchaser—a tourist, no doubt—had worn his sunglasses inside the pharmacy, which the old druggist found rather uppity. People around here aren’t like that.
It was probably nothing. Still, Cary called the cabin manager back and told him to keep watch but not to do anything. Then he contacted the Ferris police and found a car.
Again Darcy was surrounded by men who knew her but whom she did not know. First it had been goons on a Chicago sidewalk ferrying her into a car, and now it was police on a wooded street hurrying her out of one. So at least there was a certain symmetry. At least madness had a sense of humor.
Hands again on her forearms, circulation cut off once more. No blindfold this time, unless you counted the morning sun piercing its way through the woods. She demanded explanations and was told they were police officers, or federal agents, or Pinkertons. Then arguments broke out, v
arious parties insisting on primacy here, jurisdictional disputes. She told the man on her right to release her arms unless he wanted to be walking funny the rest of the week.
An authoritative voice told someone named Buzz to obey the lady. Her arms were freed and she was able to employ a hand as a visor against the sun’s glare. She saw a tall, thick, bald man stride up to her. He had a long nose and looked like some hairless anteater, the cigar in his mouth an extension of his tongue.
“Miss Windham, I’m Special Agent Guy Norris with the Department of Justice. Are the Firefly Brothers in that cottage?”
“The Firefly Brothers?” She tried to laugh. Or she laughed without trying to. Which had it been? Moments skipped by, her mind fixated on what she’d seen in the shower. But hadn’t that been a dream? “The Firefly Brothers are dead.”
He smiled, a man patiently enduring the repetition of a joke he hadn’t found funny the first time.
“We haven’t frisked her yet, boss,” one of the cops said.
“She’s fine.” Norris’s hands were fists on his hips. “You do look awfully good for a lady who’s supposedly been kidnapped. Maybe someone should kidnap my wife sometime. I can’t wait to hear your story, but first there’s some things I need to know, like who else, if anyone, is in there with them.”
More than a dozen men had materialized. Some were uniformed officers and others wore plain suits. She had never seen so many guns at one time, which was saying a lot. Behind the row of parked cars were two green trucks containing God knew what kind of freight. Heels tapped on the asphalt and birds called confused responses to the clicking and snapping of magazines.
She turned and saw that other men were stationed behind some of the cottages, heavily armed. The last cottage was out of view from here, but its thick woods doubtless concealed more invaders.
“Your long ride is over, Miss Windham. Your father’s fessed up and your pals in there are surrounded. Why don’t you just tell me who else is in that cabin before the local police drive you off to their nice jail.”
“No one’s in there. No one.” Her own voice sounded foreign, a recording played back at the wrong speed. “I’m alone.”
“I’m sure. We’re all just wasting our time out here, aren’t we?”
“I haven’t done anything wrong.” She finally regained control of her facial muscles and pulled their strings like the expert she was. “I was kidnapped, for God’s sake, and I escaped and I needed some time alone to get my head right and thank God you’re here, it’s been so terrible and—”
“Then I guess there’s no reason we can’t shoot up the building, just to be on the safe side.” Darcy Windham was capable of eliciting male sympathy from even the most heartless of sadists, but Norris only seemed entertained. “Look around you, miss. They’ve made some great escapes before, but not today. Either you tell me the truth, and there’s a chance we can get them out of there alive, or you can keep acting, and I’ll have no choice but to protect my men by blowing that cottage sky-high.”
“I’m telling you the truth. The Firefly Brothers are dead.”
He watched her for a moment. Then he turned to one of the men at his side. “Delaney, cuff her and put her in your car. If she has a change of heart, let me know.”
With cuffs he had borrowed that very morning, Cary shackled Darcy Windham’s wrists and guided her to his car. She looked as if she had just woken up, her hair a mess and her face unpainted, but still she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever touched. Her eyes were large from sleep, fogged almost, but he found himself staring at them so long that when she broke from her spell and looked back at him he dropped his glance as if scolded.
His hand on her shoulder, he guided her into the back of the Ford, then closed the door. The windows were down and he stood beside the car, keeping her in sight but trying not to stare.
“There are so many of you. It seems rather an overreaction, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t think I would say that, Miss Windham. Your friends are dangerous men.”
“I’ve heard.” She sounded as if she were in a trance. Maybe she was always like this, carefully parceling herself in small amounts, aware of her power.
“I’m sure they’ve shown you a different side, miss. I know they have a way of winning over the people around them. But they aren’t so kind to the people who get in their way.”
“They’re two men. You have dozens. And so many guns.”
He’d heard the criticism before—that the Bureau was inflating the threat of bank robbers to justify an increase in government power, that Hoover was nothing but a PR man puffing up the exploits of a few country thieves, all the better to frighten a cowering nation into handing a big stick and a blank check to its self-appointed protectors.
Its sleep-deprived protectors. Cary and Gunnison had been the first ones here, just after sunset. They had shown the manager their best photos of Jason and Darcy, and the old man swore they were the couple staying in cottage No. 12. Local cops canvassed shops in the town’s tiny business district, and a number of store owners had looked at the photos and nodded, marveling at the enormity of what they had missed. More agents soon arrived, and by ten o’clock Norris had even phoned Mr. Hoover in Washington to receive marching orders.
As silently as they could, the agents and cops had emptied the other cottages, one by one. Some of the agents had wanted to storm the Firesons’ cottage immediately, but Norris had held off. The Bureau had received plenty of flack for the perceived recklessness of the Dillinger shooting, which had taken place in a crowd. Mr. Hoover wanted the Firesons dead, yes, but he wanted a perfectly executed execution—a spectacle, but a reassuring one. After civilians from the other cabins were quietly removed to safety, Norris had mapped out his strategy and assigned positions, and Cary wondered whether he should have felt insulted or relieved that he was not one of the men Norris wanted to surround the cottage.
Eventually the birds had awoken, and the sky had brightened, and fears began to spread that locals or the press would learn about the stakeout if this took much longer. But Norris was patient. Just another hour, he had advised, and the time was nearly up when the cottage door opened and out came a very flustered Darcy Windham.
“Miss Windham, I know a lot of the men out there holding those guns,” Cary said. “I’d rather not see them get shot today just because your friends want to be dramatic about this. Why don’t you tell me exactly who’s in there and what kind of weapons they have, and we can end this peacefully?”
All she did was smile and echo the word, “Dramatic.”
“I’ve spoken to their mother, you know. I’ve spoken to their brother. I know how much they mean to the people who love them. We don’t need this to get out of hand. Maybe we could even let you use the bullhorn and talk them into surrendering.”
He dared to look at her again and this time when her eyes focused on his he didn’t break the stare.
“They’re dead,” she said. “They’re not really in there.”
“We know you aren’t alone.”
“Fine. They are in there. But they’re dead. It doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter to you?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
He had read about her, had imagined the type of woman she might be. This was not who he had expected, this coldness, so detached.
“If you don’t help us, they’re going to die. For real this time.”
Something in her turned, and it was as if she were there for the first time. Then she laughed, freely and happily. Like she had just figured something out. Or like she was completely mad.
She was so loud about it that other agents were giving Cary looks. He opened her door and hastily rolled up the window, then closed it. She was still laughing in there. He drummed the hot roof of the car with the fingers of his left hand. Jason Fireson had been a lucky man, for a while at least.
Darcy leaned forward and held her head in her hands. The young agent asked thro
ugh the window if she was all right, but she didn’t answer. She was tired of him. She was tired of this, whatever this was. She had never been one for routine, of course, but she craved her bed in Chicago right then. Her memories, at least the few good ones. She wanted to hide in those memories, wrap their warmth around herself.
The agent tried to talk to her again, but she ignored him. Later she heard a man’s voice over a bullhorn. He was calling out to Jason and Whit, telling them that they had Darcy, ordering them to come out. She pressed her fingers into her ears, but the voice was too loud.
There were always voices that you didn’t want to hear.
We will have no choice but to use deadly force.
Did you really believe they could be alive? After all I’ve tried to explain to you?
Come out with your hands up.
You’re as bad as the rest of them. Clinging to the impossible, drunk on belief and faith. Staggering with it. Time to stagger home, or to what’s left of it.
You leave us no choice.
And then gunfire. She ducked, even though surely they had put her someplace safe. She had to be safe, didn’t she? Was she ever safe? Gunshots upon gunshots, exponentially increasing as if each time a gun fired it was replaced by five larger weapons. Now it wasn’t gunshots but explosions, fists rapping on her skull. She couldn’t push her fingers into her ears deeply enough. She felt the concussions on her chest, her stomach. She tried to press her fingers in through her ears, press on her brain and tell it to stop working, press on her heart to make it stop beating. The car was shaking, the roof rattling above. She could feel the shuddering beneath her damp feet, the dirt crumbling from her toes.
It stopped.
The silence was so wonderful, but then so frightening. Slowly she had the courage to pull her fingers out. She heard voices. Men were running. She looked out the window and the young agent was many feet away, his back to her. A plume of smoke curled in the air like a finger beckoning her forward. She reached with her cuffed hands—she’d grown quite accustomed to maneuvering her hands while bound, and the agent had foolishly cuffed them in front of her—and opened the door. She took a few steps until she was nearly beside the agent. She could see where the cottage was supposed to be but wasn’t. There was, instead, only a heap of rubble— wood and plaster and dust and dirt rising up and falling again—several snapped branches, and a downed tree. In the midst of it all, the shower inexplicably stood intact. She could hear men talking about guns; she heard the word grenades. Why was the shower still there? Did its tiles look wet?
The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers: A Novel Page 43