The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers. Thomas Mullen

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       VII.

      The depression was making people disappear.

      They vanished from factories and warehouses and workshops, the number of toilers halving, then halving again, until finally all were gone, the doors closed and padlocked, the buildings like tombs. They vanished from the lunchtime spots where they used to congregate, the diners and deli counters where they would grab coffee on the way in or a slice of pie on the way out. They disappeared from the streets. They were whisked from the apartments whose rents they couldn’t meet and carted out of the homes whose mortgages they couldn’t keep pace with, lending once thriving neighborhoods a desolate air, broken windows on porches and trash strewn across overgrown yards. They disappeared from the buses and streetcars, choosing to wear out their shoe leather rather than drop another dime down the driver’s metal bucket. They disappeared from shops and markets, because if you yourself could spend a few hours to build it, sew it, repair it, reline it, reshod it, reclod it, or reinvent it for some other purpose, you sure as hell weren’t going to buy a new one. They disappeared from bedrooms, seeking solace where they could: a speakeasy, or, once the mistake of Prohibition had been corrected, a reopened tavern, or another woman’s arms—someone who might not have known their name and certainly didn’t know their faults well enough to judge them, someone who needed a laugh as badly as they did. They disappeared, but never before your eyes; they never had that magic. It was like a shadow when the sun has set; you don’t notice the shadow’s absence because you expect it. But the next morning the sun rises, and the shadow’s still gone.

      Jason Fireson himself disappeared whenever he needed to, which was quite often.

      Indeed, for all the glorified stories of his prowess at shooting his way out of dragnets, his fabled ability to slide his wrists out of handcuffs or simply vanish after a job, Jason knew that much of his success was due, quite simply, to his tolerance for long drives. When you robbed a bank in southern Illinois, cops wouldn’t expect you to be hiding in St. Paul the next day. When you knocked over a bank in Akron, the heat wouldn’t even be simmering in the Ozarks. All it usually took was a good ten to twenty hours of driving and he’d not only be safely beyond the authorities’ reach but beyond their comprehension. The bulls assumed that hoods were lazy, and maybe most were; good, old-fashioned work ethic was what separated Jason from the others. Maybe Pop would have been proud after all.

      The sun had barely risen when Jason and Whit set out for Cleveland, the morning after their visit with Chance. Jason had borrowed money from Ma—money that he had paid her after an endeavor, but money he now needed back; he couldn’t travel north to gather a gang without cash for food and gasoline. But he was deeply ashamed to take the cash and was worried about what it might mean for her. He vowed to get her more within the week.

      What bothered him the most wasn’t the bullet wounds in his chest, which seemed to be fading rather rapidly, but his empty pockets.

      Their telegrams to Darcy and Veronica had gone unanswered. In desperation Jason had risked being overheard and called Darcy from a downtown pay phone the previous night. But she never picked up. He’d tried again that morning after leaving Ma’s, with the same result. Whit’s luck hadn’t been much better. He’d called Veronica’s mother’s place in Milwaukee—for which he had occasionally paid the rent, not that they treated him any better for it—but the suspicious old lady wouldn’t put Veronica on or even confirm whether she was there.

      Jason’s mind had trailed every conceivable path for Darcy, and none of them were a pleasant ride. Had she been arrested for aiding and abetting but the press hadn’t reported it yet? Had she received his message but was under heavy surveillance and couldn’t respond? Was she convinced he was dead and had descended into hysterics, or something worse? She was an impulsive girl, prone to brazen acts and startling shifts in temper. He regretted that he and Whit were driving to Cleveland and not straight to Chicago, but the brothers had agreed that they needed to get a gang together before making any other moves.

      It always seemed to come back to this. The need for money, and the only means for obtaining it.

      Jason Fireson had started bank robbing a few months after his release from Indiana State Prison for his second bootlegging rap. During that second stretch, the visits from his mother and brothers had been far less frequent than the first time; they were busy trying to keep the family business afloat while Pop was in Lincoln City jail awaiting trial, and then, after Pop was convicted and sent to prison in Columbus, the remaining Firesons had only so much time to divide between their two imprisoned family members.

      Pop in jail? None of this seemed real. It was impossible. Pop arrested for murder? For killing a business partner and bank man who reneged on an agreement? Patrick Fireson, mild-mannered, hardworking, churchgoing, tithe-paying, Hoover-supporting, flag-waving civic Booster extraordinaire? It was a sick joke, a horrible mistake, a vicious frame, one more symptom of a world gone not only mad but cruel.

      All the bad news had hit while Jason was waiting for his release: he learned by telegram that Pop had been convicted of second-degree murder, and then, less than six months later, Weston had visited Jason alone, his face still white even after that long drive, to tell him that Pop’s heart had given out the night before.

      Jason had petitioned his warden to be allowed to attend his father’s funeral under guard, but he’d been refused. The last time he ever laid eyes on Pop was when he took the stand months earlier, offering futile corroboration of Pop’s alibi.

      After Jason’s release, the brothers went their separate ways. Weston disappeared to his law office and his newly rented room—even the good son needed distance from the remnants of their broken family—Whit to his factory gig and the tiny flat he shared with three other working stiffs, and Jason to his itinerant band of ex-cons and ne’er-do-wells. He had always liked guys like these, men who didn’t want to fit into society’s staid categories. But the rising tide against Prohibition—it would be repealed by summer, people were saying—and Jason’s bitterness over his two stints in jail had made him think differently. These men seemed so much less than he remembered. With bootlegging jobs on the verge of extinction, their new ideas seemed either juvenile (petty thefts) or hopelessly grandiose (train robbery). Their skills were nominal, their views of the world badly blurred. Would he continue to link his fate with men like these? Maybe this was growing up: realizing that you’re better than the situation you’ve landed in.

      He told himself the straight life wasn’t all bad and he tried to find a job, but he barely understood this world, let alone the vast changes that had befallen it during the past few years. Hat in hand, Jason walked into countless offices, his self-esteem shrinking each day. With Pop and his business gone, he didn’t even have that to fall back on anymore. Whit’s factory was laying men off; Weston’s lawyer boss wouldn’t even meet with Jason. And, Jesus, the looks he received, full of either pity or outright scorn. He was used to being greeted with smiles, fresh drinks, pretty ladies, and all the other signs of respect. Now the tone of his voice was unrecognizable to himself.

      The closest he came to finding honest work in that cold and constricting winter of ’32–’33 was with a small shipping outfit. The owner needed another driver, so Jason explained his qualifications, lying about the exact kind of freight he had experience shipping, and even provided references. Two days after that meeting he walked back into the man’s office, and the references had been checked. The job was about to be his.

      The office was a single long room at the front of a warehouse, with drivers and other lackeys hustling in and out, grabbing keys, checking clipboards, telling jokes. He could do this. It was so busy that he hadn’t noticed another man walk in behind him.

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