Thomas Mullen - The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers

The brothers stood beside each other in their stolen clothes. Something needed to be said. But neither had any idea what that might be.

Footsteps from above jarred them, and what had been a faint murmuring from the other side of the building suddenly grew louder. Laughter, or applause. They were having a hell of a time out front. And there were a lot of them. Much as it pained Jason, they would have to leave their money behind. You can’t take it with you, he thought.

Jason fed a round into the Colt’s chamber and stepped into the empty hallway, checking both directions. Whit followed him to the exterior door. Jason lifted the latch and slid the bolt, then nodded at his brother.

The door wasn’t as heavy as it had seemed and when Jason threw it open it slammed into a brick wall. The side of the police station extended twenty yards, and before them, above the lot in which a dozen cars were huddled, the redbrick backs of storefronts rose three storys, fire escapes switchbacking past windows laid out with perfect symmetry. All the windows were dark, like the starless sky above.

Skeletal tree branches spiderwebbed overhead. Midsummer, and the tree was dead. The leafy branches of neighboring elms swayed in the breeze but this one stayed motionless, forlorn.

They scanned the tags until they found the car. Jason handed Whit the Colt and opened the driver’s door.

He started the car and pulled out of the lot, headlights illuminating a badly paved road. From here they could see along the side of the station, and it was clear there was quite a gathering out front. The side street and the main avenue were choked with parked cars, and through some of the windows he could see the flashes of news cameras. The room appeared full of men, dark shoulders and hatted heads vibrating with laughter and proclamations.

“Somebody in that room,” Whit said, unable to finish. He tried again. “Somebody in that room—”

“Well, congratulations to them. Poor saps can feel like heroes for a few hours at least.”

He turned left, putting the station in his rearview. The street soon intersected with the town’s main drag.

“Recognize anything?” he asked.

“No.”

Jason tapped the top of the wheel. Driving without a git to guide them felt risky, amateurish. Main Street was dark, the theater marquee unlit and the storefronts displaying nothing but reflections of the Pontiac’s headlights. He thought he’d been through Points North once—stopped for lunch, maybe, or gasoline—but he’d seen so many Main Streets in so many states that he often confused them.

They continued at a calm twenty-five miles an hour. Eventually the tightly packed buildings were replaced by the widely spaced front yards of darkened houses. Jason let his foot fall heavier on the accelerator.

“You hungry?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Thirsty?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither. Christ, this is strange.”

A hole tore in the cloud cover and there were the stars, informing Jason that he was headed north. He soon passed a sign for the state highway. Ordinarily they would stick to the country roads, but Jason figured there would be no roadblocks if the police thought the Firefly Brothers had already been apprehended.

“Why couldn’t this have happened to Pop?” Whit asked.

Jason swallowed, driving even faster now. “I was thinking the same thing.”

The highway took them through farmland so flat and featureless it was as though they were crossing a black, still sea. Jason remembered an old yegg from prison telling stories about the Florida Keys and how he’d planned to retire there after one last job, remembered the man’s stories of a road cutting through long islands where the emerald ocean glittered on either side. If that was a paradise on earth, then Jason felt he was navigating its opposite. He wished it was day, wished there was something to look at, wished he had someone to talk to other than his taciturn brother, who had been struck mute since leaving Points North. He wished Darcy were here; one of the many questions throwing stones in his mind was where she was. Hell, what day was today? How long was the black hole of memory he was carrying inside him?

Jason could feel a wind chopping at the side of the Pontiac. Clouds had reclaimed the sky. He had been driving for two hours when he realized they were low on gasoline. Didn’t anyone in this damned country keep his tank full? Jason had driven an untold number of stolen cars, sometimes just for a few miles and sometimes for days-long escapes, yet he could count the number of full or even half-full tanks on one hand. And then there were the cars that broke down inexplicably, or stalled out at stop signs, or dropped their fenders, or had no water in their radiators, or had their wheels loosen on rough roads and slide into ditches. If only his fellow Americans would keep better care of their automobiles.

The brothers had decided their destination was Lincoln City, Ohio, and they had many hours to go. Jason pulled off the highway after passing a hand-lettered sign for a filling station in the town of Landon, Indiana.

“Jesus,” Whit said suddenly. “Jesus Christ!”

“What?”

“Jason! We’re goddamn dead!”

“Keep yourself together.”

“What the hell’s going on?”

Jason pulled onto the side of the road. He turned to face his brother.

“I don’t know, but I know that losing our heads isn’t going to help things.”

Whit opened his door and stumbled out.

“Where are you going?” Jason opened his own door, following. Whit was pacing in quick strides on the dry grass, running his hands through his hair.

“Whit. Get in the car. All I know is that until the news spreads, most cops still think we’re on the prowl, so if anyone ID’s us we’re in for a gunfight.”

“A gunfight? Who cares? What’ll they do, kill us again?” Whit stopped moving, his hands on his hips. Behind him cornstalks gossiped in the wind.

“What do you think would happen if I shot myself right here?” Whit took the pistol out of his pocket and pointed it at his chest.

“I’d have to clean up one of your messes, as usual.” Jason sighed. “C’mon, brother. It’s late. We need to get some gasoline while we can.”

Whit was on the verge of tears. “Whit,” Jason said, stripping the impatience from his voice. “Put the gun in your pocket and sit down. Let’s just bandage ourselves up and sit for a while. All right?”

Whit finally obeyed. Jason reached into the Pontiac and pulled the gauze and dressing out of the glove compartment, then stepped aside so his brother could sit. No cars passed.

Whit unbuttoned his shirt as Jason unwound some gauze. He dared to glance at his brother’s chest; fortunately, he could barely see the bullet hole in the dark, could pretend it was just a large bruise. He placed the gauze against it. “Hold this here,” he said, and after Whit’s fingers replaced his he taped down its edges. “All right.”

Then Jason unbuttoned his own shirt, and this time Whit taped the makeshift bandages onto his brother’s chest. The wounds weren’t bleeding and didn’t hurt at all, so the bandages served no purpose other than to remove these monstrous questions from view.

“Good as new,” Jason said, patting his brother on the shoulder.

Then he saw headlights, far away but approaching.

“C’mon, we have to get going,” Jason said.

They drove another half mile to the filling station, a tiny glimmer of financial life beside a shuttered general store and a collapsed barn.

“Lean your head to the side like you’re sleeping,” Jason said. “I don’t want you talking to anyone right now.”

Whit did as he was told, grumbling something his brother couldn’t hear. A moment later, a gangly teenager in overalls yawned as he walked toward the Pontiac.