The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers. Thomas Mullen

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СКАЧАТЬ natives and bank-robbing duo known as the Firefly Brothers, will terrorize no more financial institutions, murder no more officers of the law, and, one hopes, inspire no more misguided fealty among our more disaffected countrymen.

      The Firefly Brothers were shot to death in a gunfight early Thursday morning that also claimed the life of Points North police officer Hugh Fenton, 42. Officers had been alerted by an anonymous tip that the brigands, who have at least seventeen bank robberies and five murders to their credit, were using an abandoned farmhouse outside the town of Points North as a temporary refuge during an attempt to flee the law and hide out in the western United States. More than a dozen Points North officers and deputies, led by County Chief Yale Mackinaw, surrounded the building under cover of darkness past midnight. After obtaining visual confirmation that the villains were in the building, Chief Mackinaw used a bullhorn to demand that they surrender. The brothers did not respond to that or to subsequent entreaties, and the intrepid officers stormed the building at approximately 1 A.M.

      The Firefly Brothers, armed with Thompson submachine guns and automatic pistols, fired countless rounds from several weapons before they were vanquished. Chief Mackinaw would not divulge which of his officers fired the fatal shots, instead praising his entire force for its bravery and dedication.

      Nearly $70,000 was discovered on the felons, the police reported.

      “Those who choose to live outside the law will be brought to justice,” Chief Mackinaw said. “We gave the brothers ample opportunity to surrender, but they chose to try shooting their way out instead.”

      The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation had declared the Firefly Brothers the nation’s top Public Enemies three weeks ago, after its fatal ambush of John Dillinger eliminated him from those notorious ranks.

      Jason Liam Fireson, 27, was unmarried and believed to be childless, though several young women have made claims to the contrary. Whitman Earnest Fireson, 23, was married and the father of an infant son, though the whereabouts of widow and child are unknown. The Firesons’ mother continues to reside in Lincoln City, where the desperadoes were born and raised, as does a third brother.

      Calls to the Fireson residence requesting comment were sternly refused.

      The story continued in that vein for many paragraphs, recounting bits of the brothers’ pasts, noting that they were “sons of a convicted murderer,” melding fact with legend and assuming readers were unaware of such alchemy. It offered no more details about the circumstances of their apprehension.

      “I don’t remember any of this,” Whit said. “And it says Veronica and Patrick’s whereabouts are unknown—that can only be good, right?”

      Yet neither felt celebratory. Reading the story of their death was an experience both disturbing and oddly unaffecting.

      “And it says there was an anonymous tip,” Whit added. “From who?”

      “Seventy thousand dollars.” Jason shook his head. Then he thought of something. “That means we never paid Owney his share.”

      Whit reread the article while Jason peered through the windshield, running different scenarios in his head.

      “So today’s Friday,” Whit said, calmly reciting a fact, something definite. Even these were things to be questioned. He finished reading, then sighed and looked at his brother. “What are we going to tell Ma?”

      

      Lincoln City saddened Jason. Idle men and breadlines could be found in any city, but Lincoln City was his—his past, his childhood, his family—and therefore it was more painful to witness all that the depression had wrought there. Better to see unfamiliar street signs standing beside evicted families on sidewalks. Better to see factories where none of his relatives had ever worked falling into disrepair. Better to see perfect strangers in some other town foraging in the dump.

      Mostly, though, being in Lincoln City reminded Jason of his father.

      The city was waking slowly. Jason, at the wheel now, skirted the factories and spied a few stragglers slowly making their way without apparent purpose. It was unusual to see anyone reporting to work late these days—the last thing a fellow needed to do was give his employer a reason to replace him with some other hungry bastard—and the empty expressions on the men’s faces argued that they hadn’t worked in weeks, or months. The boarded windows of vacant buildings displayed new inscriptions: union now, communism not depressionism, even the weirdly out-of-date hoover go to hell. Lawns were unmowed and sidewalks unswept, as if the inhabitants of these homes had simply vanished, which many of them had.

      Upon reaching the intersection at which he would have turned right to reach their mother’s house, Jason slowed down and scanned the street. He couldn’t quite see the house, but he did notice several cars parked on the side of the road. He continued forward, driving another block before cutting down the parallel street. Jason pulled into the short driveway of a small two-story home that had been vacant for more than a year.

      “Glad to see the neighborhood hasn’t rebounded,” Whit said. They had pulled in here before, an unexpected benefit of the evictions that plagued this side of town.

      The city still spent its scant dollars boarding up windows with plywood to prevent derelicts from breaking into vacant buildings, but Jason had heard of evicted families who merely moved a few doors down, one household squatting in the foreclosed remains of another’s. That couldn’t have been done in the beginning, of course, when the banks were fixing up and reselling the properties, but now that there were so many foreclosures and so few buyers the banks weren’t even bothering. Word was, if a bank hadn’t foreclosed on you yet it probably wouldn’t, because it couldn’t afford to.

      It was insane, what had befallen their world. The foundations of normalcy had been revealed as imaginary. Reality had come crashing down on top of them, buried them alive.

      “Let’s be quick about it,” Jason said. They weren’t worried about the car being traced; they had stopped in the middle of the night to exchange tags with a broken-down Ford by the side of the road.

      They climbed the five steps to the front door. A stray, mangy black dog was suddenly at their heels, sniffing excitedly.

      The door was locked, so Whit, as the one wearing shoes, kicked it in. The door swung awkwardly on its loose hinges, which had been busted by past Firefly entrances. Why someone kept fixing the lock was a mystery.

      They closed the door behind them, though it wouldn’t quite latch, and the dog gleefully nosed it open as it followed them. At least that allowed the daylight to throw a thin sliver down the long hallway, puddles offering stagnant reflections. The house smelled like piss and something dead.

      Jason instinctively unpocketed his pistol. The wood floor was sticky beneath his bare feet, as if the building were sweating.

      They had spent time in no small number of vacant houses and barns across the Midwest, some of which had smelled worse. They hadn’t known the family who lived here, had never visited back when it had actually belonged to someone. As Jason moved, he wondered if he heard whispering from upstairs or if he was just imagining things.

      The dog followed them into the kitchen, still sniffing their feet. It licked Jason’s bare toes, and Jason began to fear that the tongue was only a precursor to the teeth.

      He looked up at Whit. “We don’t…smell, do we?”

      It took Whit a second to realize СКАЧАТЬ