Dillinger's Got Nothing On Us: The Short Life and Interesting Times of the Jay Gang (5/5)
J2 RPS AU
PG-13
Part 5 of 5
Master post
Art
Spring 1934
Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana
It never takes them long to get back into the swing of things, and they only need a brief adjustment period in St Louis, a city they remember well and fondly. It's also the home of Steve's friends Jason and Krista, who are more than happy to have the boys over for dinner and to get acquainted. Krista is very pregnant but refuses their help with anything more difficult than getting stuff of a high shelf, although she does let Jared listen to her belly and feel for any baby kicks.
But the banks beckon, as they always do, and Peoples Bank in Troy is particularly inviting and unguarded.
At least, it looks that way when Chad drops the other three off at the entrance and they stride into the bank holding up their guns and demanding cooperation. Jared covers the door, Chris covers the tellers, Jensen takes the bank manager to open the vault.
It's not even two minutes before Chris interrupts him.
"Jen!" he yells. "We got cops! We gotta leave!"
"But - "
"Take what you got and let's go!" Chris gestures with his shotgun and Jensen snatches the bag of money with his gun hand and the back of the bank manager's jacket with his other and follows Chris out.
Jensen pushes the manager out the door in front of him - the poor man is crying "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I have three kids!" - and sees two cops on the sidewalk behind him and what could be another cop or an FBI agent in front of him. The car's right there. He watches Chad aim out the driver's side window and fire, watches one of the cops duck, hears Chris yell "Come on!" from where he's half inside the car.
One of the cops behind him shoots over his head. He lets go of the bank manager, startled. The cop in front of him trains a gun on him.
"Hands up!" the cop demands. "Drop the money!"
"Jen!" That could be Chris or Jared, he can't tell.
"Go!" he yells back. "I'll be fine!"
He won't, he knows he won't, but that's besides the point. The longer they idle in front of the bank, the greater the chances someone will get shot and they'll all go to jail. Better just him. This way they'll be free to get him out.
He lets go of the bank manager and holds up his hands. One of the cops rushes up, grabs his arms, yanks them down and behind him, and snaps cuffs on his wrists. They stuff him into a squad car and drive him to the jail, where they fingerprint him, photograph him, and book him.
He's assigned a public defender, a Mr Flanery, who promises to try and get him a reduced sentence based on the fact that it's never been proven that he killed anyone. That's how he phrases it - "No one ever proved you killed anyone" - and Jensen wants to protest that it's because he hasn't killed anyone. Hell, for a number of months he robbed banks with an empty gun. He prays that the others think to call Jason and Krista, because he doesn't hold out much hope in this man.
The best Jensen can say about his lawyer is that the prosecutor wants to hold the trial in St Louis, in a big city court, necessitating moving Jensen to a larger, higher-security jail, but Mr Flanery appeals to the sheriff's pride in her prison and manages to keep the trial - and Jensen - in this small town. The sheriff, a woman apparently named Sam Ferris, bristles at the idea that her guards can't hold on to one lone bank robber and that her town might not be able to field an impartial jury, and tells the prosecutor in no uncertain terms that Mr Ackles is staying right here in her jail.
Jensen hates that he's thinking about these things, that he likes this court-appointed attorney because the guy is making it easy for Jensen's friends to bust him out. He hates it but at the same time he'd rather be grateful for a chance to avoid doing time, than be worrying about how he's going to survive doing time. If his mother could see him now, she'd cry.
Jim is not unused to getting out-of-state phone calls from men in the various branches of law enforcement, be they detectives or chiefs of police or Rangers or FBI agents. But he is unused to getting calls from female sheriffs who want to talk to him about criminals in their custody.
"Agent Beaver," this woman says, "my name is Samantha Ferris and I'm the sheriff of Troy, Missouri. I believe I have in my jail a man who held up one of your banks last January."
"You know almost as much about him as I do," Jim tells her, trying to disguise his sudden excitement. "Go on."
In fifteen minutes this Sheriff Ferris gives him at least as much information as he's been able to find in more than a year of trying. She can only give him one name - she only has one name - but she can also give him a city, and it's a start.
After they hang up he just stares at the phone for a minute. Someday he'd like to meet this Sheriff Ferris in person and buy her a drink.
"Miss McCoy!" he yells.
"Sir?" Miss McCoy appears in his doorway.
"Stop with the ‘sir'. Call the Dallas office, speak to Agent Sands. Tell him we'll be there bright and early tomorrow morning with the information we have on the Jay Gang, and I expect him to share anything he has. I don't expect him to have much, but don't say that. Tell him I've been collecting information from other sources. Tell him or don't tell anyone, got it?"
"Not the SAC?"
"Dallas SAC's not gonna help me. I already talked to him. His hands are full with his own mess. Ask for Agent Sands, leave a message to have him call you back if he's not there. That's it. Ok?"
"Talk to Agent Sands or don't talk to anyone. Yes sir - sorry, sorry. I got it."
"Good. We're gonna get these boys." He turns towards the back room. What the hell are they doing back there? "Collins! Downey! Pack your bags, we're going to Dallas!"
The same day Sheriff Ferris announces that Jensen is staying put, which is the same day she calls the FBI in San Antonio, he gets a visitor.
"Your wife's here, Ackles," one of the guards tells him, coming into the day room to snap cuffs on his wrists and lead him into the visiting room.
To Jensen's great surprise, Krista from St Louis is sitting at a table, looking exceptionally pregnant in a flowered dress and with a straw purse resting on her round baby belly. Jensen schools his face to look more excited at seeing his "wife", and less surprised that she's probably here as part of a plan to bust him out.
"Hi honey," he says, leaning over the table to give her a kiss, and missing completely.
"How are they treating you?" she asks. "Are you getting enough sleep?"
It's such an absurd thing to ask, and she looks so incongruously concerned, that he laughs.
"Is that a no?" She still looks concerned, which means she's either a very good actress or genuinely worried about him. Or possibly both.
"That's kind of a no."
Jensen isn't entirely sure how convincingly he can play the part of loving, incarcerated husband, but Krista doesn't seem at all concerned about his ability to keep up the charade. She leads the conversation and he follows, and her code is easy to interpret - Jason is her brother, Chris is Jensen's cousin, Steve is the guy who married Krista's sister. Because they've already spent some time together, pretending to be happily married isn't as hard as Jensen would have thought. Besides, he's had a lot of practice pretending to be a bank robber, and it's not difficult to act like he cares about Krista and is glad to see her.
They don't get a lot of time, but it's enough. Jensen has faith that his friends are looking after him and working to get him out of this place.
After maybe twenty minutes, the guard announces that visiting hours are over and it's time for Mrs Ackles to leave.
"Give me a kiss before I go," Krista says, and, mindful of the guard watching and Krista's actual husband no doubt worrying, Jensen kisses her chastely on the mouth. "Excuse me?" she says to the guard, her voice half softness and half steel. "Do you mind? Can I get a little privacy with my husband here?" She makes a twirling motion with her finger, apparently indicating that she'd like the guard to turn around, and he grunts and turns his head halfway to the side.
"Give me a real kiss," Krista tells Jensen, eyes twinkling. He's pretty sure she's giving him a hint. He should take it.
Your husband is going to kill me, he thinks, but he dutifully takes her face between his cuffed hands and kisses her like he means it, like they're the most happily married couple on the planet, like this isn't just a ruse for... whatever it is she's planning. After twenty minutes of conversation, all he knows for sure is that there seems to be a plan. He hasn't a clue what it actually is.
When they break for air, she pulls his hands off her face, covers them with hers folded over her belly, and manages to pass a very small handgun into his palm. She smiles fondly, then leans in again, ostensibly to kiss him on the cheek.
"Eight tonight," she whispers in his ear. "Jared and Chris are coming."
"I owe you more than I can ever repay," he whispers back. "Don't tell Jason I kissed you."
She pulls away. "Be good for the nice guards," she says, patting his cheek before heaving herself to her feet. The guard comes over to help her but she waves him off. She does however let him escort her to the door, and in the brief minute when he's alone, Jensen sticks the very small pistol into his waistband under his shirt, where he can cover it with his cuffed hands held in front of him.
They took his watch along with everything else he was wearing when they booked him, so Jensen has only a vague idea what time it is when he and his fellow prisoners are herded into their cells after dinner. He hopes like hell it's almost eight because Jesus Christ, it's boring in here.
He hears yelling and a gunshot in the corridor outside his cell, jumps off the bed, and tries to see past the bars holding him in.
"Jen!" someone yells - it sounds like Chris - and then his cell door opens along with apparently everyone else's, and he's free.
Well, free of the cell, anyway. Getting out of the jail is a whole other thing.
He starts down the corridor, heading towards the voice, and then Chris is there, carrying an overcoat and a shotgun, grabbing Jensen's arm and hurrying him along.
"Put this on," Chris says as they jog down the corridor, handing Jensen the coat. "Where's the gun Krista gave you?"
"Stop!" a guard yells behind them, and Chris half-shoves Jensen out of the way to take a shot at the guy.
"Go, go!" They're through the door to the cellblock, almost in the day room. Jensen's fellow prisoners crowd around and past them.
This must've been Chad's idea, Jensen thinks, to break me out by causing chaos. He's "Mayhem" for a reason.
"That way" - Chris points to a door - "that's the kitchen. Chad should be outside."
"Where's Jared?"
Another guard, or maybe the same one, fires into the crowd, and Chris shoves Jensen hard through the kitchen door, where they're surprised by a cop - not just a prison guard, but an actual cop - who has just enough time to point his pistol at them before Jared appears behind him and whacks him on the head with the butt of a rifle, knocking the man out cold.
"Where were you?" Chris demands, but before Jared can answer he's hustling Jensen outside and slamming the door closed behind them.
Jensen realizes the little handgun that Krista helpfully passed to him that afternoon is still in his cell, under his mattress. He feels really, really stupid, and really, really useless.
"Come on," Jared urges, grabbing Jensen's sleeve and yanking him along the back wall of the jail. Bells and sirens are going off everywhere, no doubt signaling a jailbreak, and even though they're in an alley and not out on the street, it's a wide alley designed for deliveries and there's nowhere to hide. They'll be lucky if no one thinks to go out through the kitchen to look for them.
They creep along the wall to the corner of the building and Chris peers around it. "Where is he?" he hisses over his shoulder.
Then a car turns into the alley from the other end and flicks its lights at them as it pulls closer.
The driver's side window rolls down and Chad leans out. Jensen hadn't known he was holding his breath until he starts breathing again.
"Get in!" Chad snaps, and they do. He doesn't even stop the car, although he does slow down for them, and as soon as he's out of the alley and on the street he steps on the gas and zooms away, leaving the sirens and escaping prisoners and angry, frustrated guards behind them.
He drives in almost complete silence for about ten minutes, the four of them no doubt relieved their jailbreak went off ok without any of them getting hurt.
Jared is rummaging through the glove box, probably looking for a map, when he pulls out a piece of paper, squints at it, and exclaims "Shit, guys, we stole the sheriff's car."
"What?" Chris says from the back seat. He leans over Jared's shoulder.
"I found the registration. Ferris. Isn't that the sheriff?"
"Samantha Ferris," Jensen murmurs. "Oh Jesus Christ." First she unintentionally makes it easy for Chris and Chad and Jared to break him out, then she unintentionally makes it easy for them to get away.
By some miracle they make it back to Jason and Krista's house in St Louis, where they stop just long enough to throw some things in the sheriff's Ford before vanishing out of Missouri.
"We can't ever go back there," Jensen says. Add it to the list of places they can never return.
"It's too bad," Chad muses. "I liked St Louis."
It turns out that freeing all the prisoners and hoping the chaos covered Jensen's escape was indeed Chad's idea. Chad's proud that his plan worked, but Jensen can tell that Chris wants more and more to smack him silly.
"I'm not doing this any more," Chris mutters, a couple of weeks later. "That boy's gonna get us killed."
It doesn't help that the papers are full of news about more famous gangsters - Dillinger, Nelson, the Barkers - and the FBI's "war" on crime. The boys know that someone somewhere has a name for them and considers them a criminal gang as well, and it seems more and more as if their days as bank robbers are numbered.
Jensen thinks about the pinched look his mother wore continuously the last time he saw her, and how defeated his father seemed. He thinks about Chris' uncles having to abandon the farm their grandfather homesteaded. He thinks about bank foreclosures. He thinks about all the money that has passed through their hands the past sixteen months, money they've spent or lost or carried with them or sent home. He realizes he has no idea how much money that is.
He thinks about someday, maybe, having a house of his own. Some land. A good bed to sleep in. The ability to take those looks off his parents' faces forever.
He hopes his capture in Missouri wasn't a harbinger of things to come.
"One more job," he tells Chris. "I'll talk to him."
"You think he's gonna listen to you? Boy calls himself Mayhem. You think he's gonna listen to anyone?"
"He'll listen to Jared." Jensen sighs. "Tell you what. If it gets that bad, you can hog-tie him and leave him in front of the police station in San Antonio."
"Don't tease me," Chris says, but he's smiling.
It's a month or so after Jensen's big jailbreak when the boys feel secure and safe enough to waltz through the front door of a bank in Prescott, Arkansas, a bank that (like the Farmers and Merchants in Abilene) looks easier to take than it really is.
And just like their first robbery in San Antonio, all it takes is one voice yelling "Stop!" and one person raising a gun for everything to change.
The most terrifying sound in the world, Jensen thinks, is the sound of someone cocking a shotgun, when you know that someone is not on your side. He and Jared both freeze - Chris is already out the door - and then Chad leans on the horn outside, the spell breaks, and they're both running. There are men in suits outside, maybe FBI agents, and they look armed and competent. Chris is throwing himself in the front seat of the car, the cops are yelling at them to stop, and when a gun goes off Jensen thinks it's Chris trying to cover their escape.
It's not.
Jared stumbles into him and Jensen reflexively grabs his arm as Chris pushes the back door open and they shove themselves into the car. Chad peels away from the curb before the door's even closed, tearing through an intersection while FBI agents fire at them from the sidewalk. The car rocks around one corner, then another, Chad apparently trying to confuse anyone who might be following. Jensen looks behind them, but no one is.
Jensen realizes he's still holding on to Jared's arm, and that Jared is squeezing his leg. Jared has a very strong grip.
"You can let go of me now," Jensen says, trying to pry Jared's fingers off his thigh. "We lost them. We're going to - what's wrong?" Jared's face is pale. He looks a lot baffled, and a little scared.
"I think I got shot," he says. He looks down at his arm, the one pressed against the door, and his eyes get wide. "Jen." His hand tightens on Jensen's leg. Jensen leans around him and is pretty sure his own face goes pale at the sight of the dark stain that is definitely blood spreading down Jared's sleeve.
He must make a noise, or Jared does, because Chris twists around in the front seat, apparently takes in the scene, and swears "Jesus H Roosevelt Christ", which has the odd effect of snapping Jensen out of his shock.
"Let me see," he says, trying to get Jared to turn towards him so he can get a better look at the wound. Jared hisses in pain but shifts himself and lifts his arm a little. "Chris, give me your - " As Jensen looks over at Chris to ask for his tie to make a bandage - it's the first thing he can think of - Chad cranes his head around to see over his shoulder and the car swerves in the road.
"Road!" Chris snaps at him.
"I'm ok," Jared says breathlessly, the most patently ridiculous thing he's ever said.
"Chad," Jensen tells him, "watch the road. Chris, give me your tie. Jared? Are you with me? Keep breathing, ok? I'm just going to try and bandage it." He flaps his hand in Chris' direction and is rewarded with a length of patterned silk tie draped over his palm.
The most terrifying sound in the world, he thinks now, is not the sound of someone cocking a shotgun. It's the sound of someone gasping in pain as you try to bind the bullet wound in his arm in a moving car.
Chad, to his great credit, keeps driving at top speed until they're clear of Prescott and pulling into some random little town about twenty minutes away. It's not far enough for Jensen's comfort but they can't keep going indefinitely, they should ditch the car, and Jared really needs some medical attention. He's conscious but pale and sweating and in pain, and Jensen is pretty sure he's scared to death.
Chad bounces off the road - Jared barely stifles a yelp - and stops close enough to a stand of trees for them to hustle themselves out and hide.
"Don't go anywhere," he commands. "I'm getting rid of the car and looking for a pharmacy." He drives off.
"Well, shit," Chris mutters.
"Come here," Jensen tells Jared. Jared just blinks, so Jensen walks over to him. "Let me see your arm."
Jared's coat sleeve and Chris' tie are both covered in blood, and when Jensen carefully unknots his makeshift bandage Jared grabs at him and says, faintly, "I think I oughta sit down."
"Don't pass out on me. Can you get your coat off? Chris, get over here and help me."
Between the three of them they get Jared's coat off, which means Jensen can rip out the clean sleeve and use it and his own tie to wrap Jared's arm again. Jared finally sits down in the grass, leans against a tree, and promptly passes out.
"We need some help," Jensen says, talking to Chris even though he's looking at Jared.
"We can handle this," Chris tells him.
"No we can't. Did you see that wound?"
"Bullet went clean through. You know we can't take him to a hospital."
"I didn't say we should. Let me think."
"You got five minutes."
I got until Chad comes back, Jensen thinks, but what he says is "We'll go to Danneel's. She shouldn't be more than a couple hours away, the way Chad drives."
"Danneel. When's the last time you talked to her, Jen? A year? Two?"
"A long time ago. I don't remember." He's written to her, but the last time they actually talked on the phone? He hasn't a clue.
"What makes you think the FBI hasn't gotten to her? You read the papers - they're tapping phones now."
"If she hasn't heard from me in a year and a half, how would they even know to look for her? Besides, she can lie with the best of them. She can say she hasn't seen or heard from me in ten years and they'll believe her. They're not gonna think there's a reason to watch her."
"You want to lie low, we'll go back to Steve's. He's got the space, he knows us - you want to leave Chad in the same room as your ex? - and we're not wanted in Kentucky. Where the hell is she now, anyway?"
"Shreveport."
"Shreveport," Chris repeats flatly.
"Stop fucking repeating everything I say. Yeah, Shreveport. We're not wanted in Louisiana either."
"That's more than a couple hours' drive, Jen."
"I don't think it is. You got a better idea?"
"If he can make it" - Chris gestures at Jared, now stretched out on the grass - "we should go back to Steve's. Or we can find a motel and stay here a day or two."
"We can't stay here. We're thirty fucking minutes from Prescott. We need to get out of the state." Chris opens his mouth, no doubt to argue some more. "Danneel's a nurse, Chris."
Well, she's a nursing student, or she was the last time he heard from her.
Chad eventually returns with a nondescript black Ford, a roll of gauze, a few cotton pads, and a bottle of iodine.
"Iodine," Chris says, raising an eyebrow.
"What?" Chad snaps. "I don't know - I never had to treat a gunshot wound before!"
They wake Jared up, put the cotton pads on his arm over his coat sleeve, wrap them with the gauze, and help him into the car.
"Shreveport," Jensen tells Chad, when they're all in.
"What's in Shreveport?"
"A nurse. Go south."
They stop at a gas station just inside the city so Jensen can call Danneel, make sure she's home, and warn her that he's about to turn up on her front step with a bleeding friend, but whoever picks up the phone and says "Hello?" doesn't sound like her.
"Danny?" he asks.
"No, I'm her roommate," the voice says. "Genevieve. Who're you?"
"My name's Jensen, I'm a friend of hers. Is she home?"
"She's housesitting." This Genevieve sounds dubious, and Jensen can't blame her. "Oh, I know who you are!" she says. "Danneel's mentioned you. You're from Dallas."
"Not for a while. Look, where is she? I have to see her." He covers the mouthpiece and hisses "What?" at Chris, who is making faces at him.
"Are you in town?"
"Just now, yeah. Genevieve, please, I need to see her, where is she?"
"What's going on?" Chris whispers. "She's not home, is she. I said this was - "
"Shut up," Jensen hisses.
"Excuse me?" Genevieve says sharply.
"Not you, sorry. Where's Danny?"
"Let me find the address, hold on."
"I'm talking to Danny's roommate," he tells Chris. "She's housesitting. We'll go there. Calm the fuck down."
Genevieve gives Jensen the address where Danneel is staying and some vague directions on how to get there from the highway, and they only get lost twice before they find the house. Chad pulls into the driveway like they belong there but Jensen makes the other three stay in the car while he walks around to the back and knocks on the kitchen door.
"Gen called to tell me you were coming," Danneel says as she opens the door and ushers Jensen in. He knows she means her roommate, but it throws him to hear the shortened form of his name applied to someone else to his face. "Give me a hug and tell me why you're here." She seems pleasantly surprised to see him and not at all suspicious.
"I really, really need your help," he says into her shoulder. "My friend's hurt." She pushes him back and peers at his face. "I'm fine. He's outside. Can I bring - "
"You must be Danny," Chad says, appearing in the half-open kitchen door with Chris, the two of them practically carrying Jared between them. They look a little overburdened. "I'm Chad, that's Chris, the walking wounded is Jared, where's, oh, there's a chair."
"Um," Danneel says.
"Call her Danneel," Jensen says. "This is... yeah. My friend who needs help."
Jared looks terrible in the light of the kitchen, worse than he looked in Arkansas. His arm is bent over his head to elevate it, and when Danneel gently pulls it straight so she can look at it, he winces.
"Hey, Danny," Chris says, his tone oddly casual, considering the circumstances.
"Hey, Chris," she answers, distracted. She unwraps Jared's arm, which seems to be bleeding a little less. Jensen notices that Chad is squeezing Jared's other shoulder, and is grateful that at least someone can offer some kind of comfort.
"This is a gunshot wound," Danneel says, in a tone of voice that seems to imply she thinks they'll lie to her about how it happened. "Doesn't look like a very large caliber bullet, at least." She picks at Jared's shirtsleeve and tries to look at his arm from every angle without having to move it too much. "Actually, this should close up on its own. I need to wash it out and clean up the edges and bandage it, but you won't need stitches. The bullet went right through, missed the bone. You're lucky."
"Yay," Jared mumbles, and then "Ow."
"Sorry. Chris, get me a towel. Bottom drawer next to the sink. Wet it with warm water. You guys got any more of these pads?"
"They're in the car," Chad says.
"Go get them." He leaves. Danneel takes the wet towel from Chris. "There's a doctor's bag in the bathroom," she tells him. "Go get it for me." He does so and Danneel starts gently wiping Jared's arm, trying to clean up the wound and wash the blood away. His shirtsleeve is soaked, but she can't roll it up far enough to get to the hole in his arm. Jensen has no idea what to do with himself, besides watch her hands instead of Jared's face.
"Do you have any bourbon or whiskey or something?" Chad asks, returning with the extra cotton pads and the roll of gauze.
"Chad, come on," Chris says, annoyed. He puts the doctor's bag on the kitchen table, and Danneel turns her attention from Jared's arm long enough to open it, root through it, and pull out a pair of small, sharp scissors.
"It's not for me."
Jared weakly waves his good arm.
"Stop moving," Danneel tells him. "Sideboard in the dining room," she tells Chad, who goes to get it. She cuts off Jared's shirtsleeve near the shoulder, wipes the remaining blood from his skin, and dabs around the wound with a cotton ball. She peers at it, digs a pair of long, pointy tweezers out of the doctor's bag, and very carefully picks at some cotton threads that seem to have gotten stuck in it.
Jensen has to look away.
Danneel doesn't say anything more, other than occasionally reminding Jared to breathe, and none of the boys say anything either. Eventually she's finished, Jared's arm is cleaned and rebandaged, and Jensen thinks that everything might actually be ok. Maybe.
"This might take six weeks to fully close up," Danneel tells Jared, "and probably six months to heal completely. You can't stay here, but go lie down in the bigger bedroom and try to rest a little bit while I figure out where to take you. Drink some bourbon. Not too much. Don't bleed on the sheets. You go watch him." She points to Chad. "You go lie down in the other bedroom," she tells Chris, and "You stay here," to Jensen, as he starts to stand up. He sits back down. After the other three have left, she fixes him with a Look and asks "What are you mixed up in, Jen?"
"Do you read the papers?"
"Sometimes."
"Watch the newsreels before the movie?"
"Of course."
"Have you heard of the Jay Gang?"
"I think so. Maybe. Why?"
"That's us. We rob banks."
He's not sure what kind of reaction he was expecting, but laughter isn't it.
"Oh," she finally says, realizing that he's not laughing with her. "You're serious."
"Jared was shot leaving a bank in Arkansas. We've never been to Louisiana, we know the FBI won't look for us here."
"The FBI?" she repeats in disbelief.
"Yeah." He hopes he looks sheepish, because he certainly feels it.
"Shit, Jensen. What happened? You were always an honest guy." She sighs. "Ok, fine. Now you really can't stay here - if your friend's going to bleed on someone's sheets, better he bleed on mine." She stands and starts cleaning up.
"I'm sorry, Danny," he says. He grabs her hand. "We can't go to a hospital. I didn't know what else to do."
"Why do you do it? Rob banks." She looks genuinely curious. Not judgemental, not accusatory, not even disbelieving. Just curious.
"My parents need the money. Chris has a couple uncles who lost their farm."
"Maybe you shouldn't tell me." She pulls her hand away, takes the scissors and bloody towel and drops them in the sink. "Come on. We'll sit on the couch and act like normal people and then you'll all come home with me."
They sit on the couch and talk and Jensen can't believe how awake he is after the day he's had, but when he mentions it Danneel just tells him it's adrenaline and he'll crash eventually. And he does, but not for another couple of hours, not until after Danneel takes them back to her place, the situation is briefly (and not entirely truthfully) explained to Genevieve, and Jared is put to bed in Danneel's room. Jensen plops down in an armchair and the next thing he knows it's morning and Chris is shaking his shoulder and telling him there's coffee.
They hole up in Danneel's apartment for almost two weeks, despite the fact that six people in a space usually occupied by two makes things unpleasantly cramped. But Danneel and Genevieve, who is also a recently-graduated nurse, are gone during the day and a few nights, and Jensen and Chris and Chad can, if necessary, make themselves scarce. Danneel gets Jared a sling for his arm and doses him with antibiotics and painkillers when he spikes a fever. Genevieve develops a crush on him and takes over his medical care, much to Chad's inarticulate annoyance.
Jensen suspects Chad is annoyed because he thinks Genevieve is cute, and if Jared weren't wounded and in need of nursing, Chad would have a fair shot at her. Danneel thinks it's because Chad wants to be the one taking care of Jared, since he and Jared have been friends for so long.
The boys buy some clothes and toiletries, scour the papers for useful news, try to keep their heads down, try not to worry. Jared seems to be recovering as well as can be expected, which is some relief, but Jensen can't forget Danneel's assessment of how long it will take him to heal, and he can't stop thinking about what it means for their criminal career.
She doesn't repeat a word of what Jensen told her at the house, that the boys are bank robbers and wanted men, and he's as grateful for that as he is for her caretaking.
"You're a good friend," he tells her one night, without preamble. She's in the kitchen cleaning up Chris' attempt to make dinner.
"I know," she says. He kisses her on the cheek and can feel her grin.
"I don't know how I can ever pay you back."
"Oh, I know," she says, turning her head to leer at him. He laughs. "Not with all these other people in my house, though. But we could've had sex while I was housesitting." She flicks soapsuds at him. "Go sit with your friends, unless you want to help me wash the dishes."
"Chris should be doing that."
"He should! Chris!" she yells into the other room. "You should be doing the dishes!"
She repeats Jensen's words back to him much later that night as he's sitting a chair next to her bed watching Jared sleep.
"Don't blame yourself," she adds.
"I don't," he says. It's true. He doesn't.
"You love him, don't you."
"He's my friend. Of course I do." Then he remembers the kiss he and Jared shared on New Year's Eve and wonders what definition of "love" and "friend" either of them means.
Not that it really matters - he has more important things to worry about.
Danneel squeezes his shoulder. "You're a good guy, Jen. Robbing banks doesn't sit right on you."
"I have to do it. I had to."
"'Had'?"
"I don't know, Danny. I don't think I can do it any more. I don't want anyone else to get shot. Chris is going to beat the shit out of Chad one day, I swear."
"They don't like each other, do they." She chuckles.
"Chris doesn't." He sighs. "I keep thinking I'm putting my parents in danger, like the FBI is going to find them or something, because of what I've done."
"You know I don't want to know the details." She lets go of his shoulder, ruffles his hair, and kisses him on the top of his head. "Go to bed. Try and sleep. You'll figure something out. I'll help you as long as you need me."
"Thank you." He stands up, brushes his hand over her hair, and kisses her on the mouth. "Sometimes I'm sorry we broke up."
"I'm not." But she's smiling. She pats him on the cheek, "Go to bed, Jensen. You need the rest."
A couple days later he's napping in Danneel's room when she shakes him awake, hard.
"You have to leave," she hisses in his ear.
"Wha-?"
"There is a policeman outside, on the sidewalk." She's enunciating very clearly, which means she's either pissed off or scared. Or both, considering. "Gen passed him on her way back from the store. He is staking out the building, waiting for you. Chad went out the back to the alley and is getting a car, and the four of you are going to get out of here."
That means Chad is stealing a car. Well, what other options do they have? Jensen hauls himself off the bed. "Shit."
With the girls' help, he and Chris pack up their stuff and hustle themselves and Jared downstairs and out the back of the building. Jensen hates having to rush their goodbyes - he knows they might have just put Danneel and Genevieve on the FBI's radar, and the girls helped them out more than he can repay - but they can't stick around.
Chad drives south for lack of any better ideas, and the boys spend a good half hour arguing about where to go next. Jensen thinks they should avoid any state where they might be wanted men. Chris points out that every state they can immediately get to falls into that category, except Mississippi. Chad wants to go to New Orleans but is voted down. Chris mentions his friend David in Houston. Jared thinks Kentucky would be good, except he doesn't want to bounce around in the car that long. His arm aches.
Against Jensen's better judgement, despite his vociferous disagreement, and because Chris insists David can hide them as did Steve and Danneel, they go to Houston. But they discover that David packed up and moved at the beginning of the year, chasing potential oil money farther west. The boys rent a cabin at a tourist court just outside the city and hunker down while Jared's arm heals up. Jensen is sure this is tempting fate.
Then they read about the deaths of Bonnie and Clyde in the paper, and Chad suggests the four of them take a trip to Dallas.
"We're not going to Dallas to gawk at Bonnie Parker's funeral," Chris says. "Show some respect."
"You can see your folks," Chad tells Jensen. Jensen just shakes his head. He can send them money, he can save them money, but he can't see them. He won't put them in jeopardy like that. He doesn't even like being in the same state as they are, never mind the same city.
"I can see your folks," Jared says brightly. Jensen just raises an eyebrow at him, and Jared grins.
"I bet that's why there were cops crawling around Shreveport," Jensen muses. "They were looking for the Barrows. You know how close we came to getting caught?"
"We keep being close," Chad says dismissively, "and we keep not getting caught."
"I got caught. You remember Missouri, right?"
"I got caught," Jared adds. "Sort of." He lifts his elbow in Chad's direction.
"And yet we're all still here," Chad says. "With money."
"It's a matter of time," Chris says. "Jensen's right. We can't keep doing this. I don't want to go to jail, and I really don't want to end up like Clyde Barrow."
"Well good, because who'd be Bonnie?" Chad grins. Jared smacks him on the back of the head. "Hey!"
"Danneel said it would take six months for my arm to totally heal," Jared says. "I can't hold up a bank one-handed."
"You can drive. You can steal cars. Do you want to take a five-month break?"
"No."
"I don't want to do it any more," Jensen says. Chad goggles at him. He just shrugs. "I'm tired. I want to be a normal person and live a normal life and sleep in the same bed for more than two weeks at a time. I want to buy a house. I want some land. I don't want to worry that I'm getting my friends and my parents in trouble. I don't want to live out of the fucking car for another few months until the FBI catches up to us, and I sure as hell am not going back to jail."
"Maybe we should sleep on it," Chad concedes.
"I'll think the same way in the morning."
And he does.
Chad seems more amenable after they've slept, but still not ready to quit the criminal life, and it takes another full day of discussion and argument to get him to even consider giving it up.
The morning after that, they send him out to find a decent breakfast, and while he's gone Chris makes coffee in the tiny cabin kitchen and he and Jensen and Jared seriously discuss hanging up their guns and their gangster disguise and going straight. The risks are becoming too great, and each hold-up disaster is worse than the one before.
Chad is still a little resistant but actually seems more agreeable than he has been, and just to make sure, Jared takes him out for a drive after breakfast.
"We should split up," Chris says to Jensen, while they're gone. "Go our separate ways. We'll be harder to track. I'll get ahold of Steve, let him know where I am, so you can always find me."
Jensen doesn't love this idea - he's gotten used to living and traveling with the other three, Chris has been his best friend for years, he's pretty sure he's started to care for Jared more than he'll admit, and he just isn't sure he's ready to head into the world alone - but it makes sense.
"I'll do the same," he agrees. "We should do it today, when Chad and Jared get back."
"Maybe you'll find a golf club that'll have you." Chris grins, teasing, and Jensen punches him in the shoulder.
"I'm gonna miss you, man."
"I haven't left yet. We'll get back together, Jen. We're too good together to be apart for too long."
Chad and Jared finally return with a second car, a dark red Ford that Chad insists Jared broke into one-handed. The extra car seems like a sign to Jensen.
"I hope that's the last car I ever have to steal," Jared says, and that seems like a sign too. Jensen notices him flexing the fingers of his wounded arm.
"Are you ok?" he asks.
"Yeah. Why?"
"Nothing. Chris thinks we should all split up and I agree with him."
Chad nods. Jared scratches his nose thoughtfully.
"You want to take off by yourself?" he asks.
"Not really," Jensen admits, "but it's safer."
"Well, I've been shot, you've been to jail - seems like the two of us have already tempted Fate and won."
"You want to come with me?"
"Yeah. I want to come with you." He grins. Chad snickers. "Shut up, Murray."
"Mayhem," Chad insists.
Chris smacks Chad on the side of the head one more time for posterity, and just like that, that's the end of the Jay Gang.
Jim Beaver, FBI Cowboy, San Antonio SAC, is not having a good day. The former Detective Downey is now firmly on his way to being Agent Downey, and the San Antonio chief of police is pissed. Jim's daughter is down with a cold, Collins is alternately scatterbrained and highly focused and the constant switching is giving Jim whiplash, and Tigerman might be looking to move to another office, or even out of the Bureau altogether. Miss McCoy has been more distracted than Jim has ever seen her which means she keeps misfiling things and forgetting to take phone messages and losing papers. He hopes it isn't boy trouble. He doesn't know how to talk to his secretary about personal matters.
And after Jim's brief trip to Dallas and a promising lead in Arkansas, the trail of the Jay Gang has gone cold. There was a potential sighting in Louisiana, but any effort he could have put into following it up was swallowed by the FBI's hunt for the Barrow Gang, and now Dillinger and the Barkers and every last one of America's most popular criminals are taking all his time.
He has to give them up. He'll never find them. He doesn't know where they are, he'll never know where they go.
They're gone, vanished like the ghosts they probably always were.
And where did they go?
Most accounts say that Chris holed up at Steve Carlson's place in Kentucky for a while. It's a logical assumption - he'd never committed a crime in that state and Steve had already successfully hidden them once. Some say he took up boxing again. One source puts him in Colorado in 1937, running a gym. Some say the FBI caught up with him and threw him in jail.
Some accounts say Chad went to Los Angeles, changed his name, and became an actor. Some say he went to Chicago, some say Montreal, some say New York, and some say - most improbably - that he fetched up in Georgia, driving untaxed moonshine for bootleggers and racing in the nascent southern stock car circuit. There are a couple of contemporary accounts of a racer calling himself Mayhem Michaels, but as to whether or not that was really Chad, no one can say for sure. Some think the FBI caught up with him as well, and that he ended his days in prison.
As for Jared and Jensen, who can say? Did they find a house of their own, some land, horses and dogs? Did they go to Mexico? Or Canada? Did they travel farther afield? No one knows.
And so this is where their story ends, with the two of them heading down the road in the wine-colored Ford, the last car Jared ever stole, driving out of history and into the myths that plagued their contemporaries, the shroud of mystery that protects them still.
Author's notes and babble | Extras
PG-13
Part 5 of 5
Master post
Art
Spring 1934
Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana
It never takes them long to get back into the swing of things, and they only need a brief adjustment period in St Louis, a city they remember well and fondly. It's also the home of Steve's friends Jason and Krista, who are more than happy to have the boys over for dinner and to get acquainted. Krista is very pregnant but refuses their help with anything more difficult than getting stuff of a high shelf, although she does let Jared listen to her belly and feel for any baby kicks.
But the banks beckon, as they always do, and Peoples Bank in Troy is particularly inviting and unguarded.
At least, it looks that way when Chad drops the other three off at the entrance and they stride into the bank holding up their guns and demanding cooperation. Jared covers the door, Chris covers the tellers, Jensen takes the bank manager to open the vault.
It's not even two minutes before Chris interrupts him.
"Jen!" he yells. "We got cops! We gotta leave!"
"But - "
"Take what you got and let's go!" Chris gestures with his shotgun and Jensen snatches the bag of money with his gun hand and the back of the bank manager's jacket with his other and follows Chris out.
Jensen pushes the manager out the door in front of him - the poor man is crying "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I have three kids!" - and sees two cops on the sidewalk behind him and what could be another cop or an FBI agent in front of him. The car's right there. He watches Chad aim out the driver's side window and fire, watches one of the cops duck, hears Chris yell "Come on!" from where he's half inside the car.
One of the cops behind him shoots over his head. He lets go of the bank manager, startled. The cop in front of him trains a gun on him.
"Hands up!" the cop demands. "Drop the money!"
"Jen!" That could be Chris or Jared, he can't tell.
"Go!" he yells back. "I'll be fine!"
He won't, he knows he won't, but that's besides the point. The longer they idle in front of the bank, the greater the chances someone will get shot and they'll all go to jail. Better just him. This way they'll be free to get him out.
He lets go of the bank manager and holds up his hands. One of the cops rushes up, grabs his arms, yanks them down and behind him, and snaps cuffs on his wrists. They stuff him into a squad car and drive him to the jail, where they fingerprint him, photograph him, and book him.
He's assigned a public defender, a Mr Flanery, who promises to try and get him a reduced sentence based on the fact that it's never been proven that he killed anyone. That's how he phrases it - "No one ever proved you killed anyone" - and Jensen wants to protest that it's because he hasn't killed anyone. Hell, for a number of months he robbed banks with an empty gun. He prays that the others think to call Jason and Krista, because he doesn't hold out much hope in this man.
The best Jensen can say about his lawyer is that the prosecutor wants to hold the trial in St Louis, in a big city court, necessitating moving Jensen to a larger, higher-security jail, but Mr Flanery appeals to the sheriff's pride in her prison and manages to keep the trial - and Jensen - in this small town. The sheriff, a woman apparently named Sam Ferris, bristles at the idea that her guards can't hold on to one lone bank robber and that her town might not be able to field an impartial jury, and tells the prosecutor in no uncertain terms that Mr Ackles is staying right here in her jail.
Jensen hates that he's thinking about these things, that he likes this court-appointed attorney because the guy is making it easy for Jensen's friends to bust him out. He hates it but at the same time he'd rather be grateful for a chance to avoid doing time, than be worrying about how he's going to survive doing time. If his mother could see him now, she'd cry.
Jim is not unused to getting out-of-state phone calls from men in the various branches of law enforcement, be they detectives or chiefs of police or Rangers or FBI agents. But he is unused to getting calls from female sheriffs who want to talk to him about criminals in their custody.
"Agent Beaver," this woman says, "my name is Samantha Ferris and I'm the sheriff of Troy, Missouri. I believe I have in my jail a man who held up one of your banks last January."
"You know almost as much about him as I do," Jim tells her, trying to disguise his sudden excitement. "Go on."
In fifteen minutes this Sheriff Ferris gives him at least as much information as he's been able to find in more than a year of trying. She can only give him one name - she only has one name - but she can also give him a city, and it's a start.
After they hang up he just stares at the phone for a minute. Someday he'd like to meet this Sheriff Ferris in person and buy her a drink.
"Miss McCoy!" he yells.
"Sir?" Miss McCoy appears in his doorway.
"Stop with the ‘sir'. Call the Dallas office, speak to Agent Sands. Tell him we'll be there bright and early tomorrow morning with the information we have on the Jay Gang, and I expect him to share anything he has. I don't expect him to have much, but don't say that. Tell him I've been collecting information from other sources. Tell him or don't tell anyone, got it?"
"Not the SAC?"
"Dallas SAC's not gonna help me. I already talked to him. His hands are full with his own mess. Ask for Agent Sands, leave a message to have him call you back if he's not there. That's it. Ok?"
"Talk to Agent Sands or don't talk to anyone. Yes sir - sorry, sorry. I got it."
"Good. We're gonna get these boys." He turns towards the back room. What the hell are they doing back there? "Collins! Downey! Pack your bags, we're going to Dallas!"
The same day Sheriff Ferris announces that Jensen is staying put, which is the same day she calls the FBI in San Antonio, he gets a visitor.
"Your wife's here, Ackles," one of the guards tells him, coming into the day room to snap cuffs on his wrists and lead him into the visiting room.
To Jensen's great surprise, Krista from St Louis is sitting at a table, looking exceptionally pregnant in a flowered dress and with a straw purse resting on her round baby belly. Jensen schools his face to look more excited at seeing his "wife", and less surprised that she's probably here as part of a plan to bust him out.
"Hi honey," he says, leaning over the table to give her a kiss, and missing completely.
"How are they treating you?" she asks. "Are you getting enough sleep?"
It's such an absurd thing to ask, and she looks so incongruously concerned, that he laughs.
"Is that a no?" She still looks concerned, which means she's either a very good actress or genuinely worried about him. Or possibly both.
"That's kind of a no."
Jensen isn't entirely sure how convincingly he can play the part of loving, incarcerated husband, but Krista doesn't seem at all concerned about his ability to keep up the charade. She leads the conversation and he follows, and her code is easy to interpret - Jason is her brother, Chris is Jensen's cousin, Steve is the guy who married Krista's sister. Because they've already spent some time together, pretending to be happily married isn't as hard as Jensen would have thought. Besides, he's had a lot of practice pretending to be a bank robber, and it's not difficult to act like he cares about Krista and is glad to see her.
They don't get a lot of time, but it's enough. Jensen has faith that his friends are looking after him and working to get him out of this place.
After maybe twenty minutes, the guard announces that visiting hours are over and it's time for Mrs Ackles to leave.
"Give me a kiss before I go," Krista says, and, mindful of the guard watching and Krista's actual husband no doubt worrying, Jensen kisses her chastely on the mouth. "Excuse me?" she says to the guard, her voice half softness and half steel. "Do you mind? Can I get a little privacy with my husband here?" She makes a twirling motion with her finger, apparently indicating that she'd like the guard to turn around, and he grunts and turns his head halfway to the side.
"Give me a real kiss," Krista tells Jensen, eyes twinkling. He's pretty sure she's giving him a hint. He should take it.
Your husband is going to kill me, he thinks, but he dutifully takes her face between his cuffed hands and kisses her like he means it, like they're the most happily married couple on the planet, like this isn't just a ruse for... whatever it is she's planning. After twenty minutes of conversation, all he knows for sure is that there seems to be a plan. He hasn't a clue what it actually is.
When they break for air, she pulls his hands off her face, covers them with hers folded over her belly, and manages to pass a very small handgun into his palm. She smiles fondly, then leans in again, ostensibly to kiss him on the cheek.
"Eight tonight," she whispers in his ear. "Jared and Chris are coming."
"I owe you more than I can ever repay," he whispers back. "Don't tell Jason I kissed you."
She pulls away. "Be good for the nice guards," she says, patting his cheek before heaving herself to her feet. The guard comes over to help her but she waves him off. She does however let him escort her to the door, and in the brief minute when he's alone, Jensen sticks the very small pistol into his waistband under his shirt, where he can cover it with his cuffed hands held in front of him.
They took his watch along with everything else he was wearing when they booked him, so Jensen has only a vague idea what time it is when he and his fellow prisoners are herded into their cells after dinner. He hopes like hell it's almost eight because Jesus Christ, it's boring in here.
He hears yelling and a gunshot in the corridor outside his cell, jumps off the bed, and tries to see past the bars holding him in.
"Jen!" someone yells - it sounds like Chris - and then his cell door opens along with apparently everyone else's, and he's free.
Well, free of the cell, anyway. Getting out of the jail is a whole other thing.
He starts down the corridor, heading towards the voice, and then Chris is there, carrying an overcoat and a shotgun, grabbing Jensen's arm and hurrying him along.
"Put this on," Chris says as they jog down the corridor, handing Jensen the coat. "Where's the gun Krista gave you?"
"Stop!" a guard yells behind them, and Chris half-shoves Jensen out of the way to take a shot at the guy.
"Go, go!" They're through the door to the cellblock, almost in the day room. Jensen's fellow prisoners crowd around and past them.
This must've been Chad's idea, Jensen thinks, to break me out by causing chaos. He's "Mayhem" for a reason.
"That way" - Chris points to a door - "that's the kitchen. Chad should be outside."
"Where's Jared?"
Another guard, or maybe the same one, fires into the crowd, and Chris shoves Jensen hard through the kitchen door, where they're surprised by a cop - not just a prison guard, but an actual cop - who has just enough time to point his pistol at them before Jared appears behind him and whacks him on the head with the butt of a rifle, knocking the man out cold.
"Where were you?" Chris demands, but before Jared can answer he's hustling Jensen outside and slamming the door closed behind them.
Jensen realizes the little handgun that Krista helpfully passed to him that afternoon is still in his cell, under his mattress. He feels really, really stupid, and really, really useless.
"Come on," Jared urges, grabbing Jensen's sleeve and yanking him along the back wall of the jail. Bells and sirens are going off everywhere, no doubt signaling a jailbreak, and even though they're in an alley and not out on the street, it's a wide alley designed for deliveries and there's nowhere to hide. They'll be lucky if no one thinks to go out through the kitchen to look for them.
They creep along the wall to the corner of the building and Chris peers around it. "Where is he?" he hisses over his shoulder.
Then a car turns into the alley from the other end and flicks its lights at them as it pulls closer.
The driver's side window rolls down and Chad leans out. Jensen hadn't known he was holding his breath until he starts breathing again.
"Get in!" Chad snaps, and they do. He doesn't even stop the car, although he does slow down for them, and as soon as he's out of the alley and on the street he steps on the gas and zooms away, leaving the sirens and escaping prisoners and angry, frustrated guards behind them.
He drives in almost complete silence for about ten minutes, the four of them no doubt relieved their jailbreak went off ok without any of them getting hurt.
Jared is rummaging through the glove box, probably looking for a map, when he pulls out a piece of paper, squints at it, and exclaims "Shit, guys, we stole the sheriff's car."
"What?" Chris says from the back seat. He leans over Jared's shoulder.
"I found the registration. Ferris. Isn't that the sheriff?"
"Samantha Ferris," Jensen murmurs. "Oh Jesus Christ." First she unintentionally makes it easy for Chris and Chad and Jared to break him out, then she unintentionally makes it easy for them to get away.
By some miracle they make it back to Jason and Krista's house in St Louis, where they stop just long enough to throw some things in the sheriff's Ford before vanishing out of Missouri.
"We can't ever go back there," Jensen says. Add it to the list of places they can never return.
"It's too bad," Chad muses. "I liked St Louis."
It turns out that freeing all the prisoners and hoping the chaos covered Jensen's escape was indeed Chad's idea. Chad's proud that his plan worked, but Jensen can tell that Chris wants more and more to smack him silly.
"I'm not doing this any more," Chris mutters, a couple of weeks later. "That boy's gonna get us killed."
It doesn't help that the papers are full of news about more famous gangsters - Dillinger, Nelson, the Barkers - and the FBI's "war" on crime. The boys know that someone somewhere has a name for them and considers them a criminal gang as well, and it seems more and more as if their days as bank robbers are numbered.
Jensen thinks about the pinched look his mother wore continuously the last time he saw her, and how defeated his father seemed. He thinks about Chris' uncles having to abandon the farm their grandfather homesteaded. He thinks about bank foreclosures. He thinks about all the money that has passed through their hands the past sixteen months, money they've spent or lost or carried with them or sent home. He realizes he has no idea how much money that is.
He thinks about someday, maybe, having a house of his own. Some land. A good bed to sleep in. The ability to take those looks off his parents' faces forever.
He hopes his capture in Missouri wasn't a harbinger of things to come.
"One more job," he tells Chris. "I'll talk to him."
"You think he's gonna listen to you? Boy calls himself Mayhem. You think he's gonna listen to anyone?"
"He'll listen to Jared." Jensen sighs. "Tell you what. If it gets that bad, you can hog-tie him and leave him in front of the police station in San Antonio."
"Don't tease me," Chris says, but he's smiling.
It's a month or so after Jensen's big jailbreak when the boys feel secure and safe enough to waltz through the front door of a bank in Prescott, Arkansas, a bank that (like the Farmers and Merchants in Abilene) looks easier to take than it really is.
And just like their first robbery in San Antonio, all it takes is one voice yelling "Stop!" and one person raising a gun for everything to change.
The most terrifying sound in the world, Jensen thinks, is the sound of someone cocking a shotgun, when you know that someone is not on your side. He and Jared both freeze - Chris is already out the door - and then Chad leans on the horn outside, the spell breaks, and they're both running. There are men in suits outside, maybe FBI agents, and they look armed and competent. Chris is throwing himself in the front seat of the car, the cops are yelling at them to stop, and when a gun goes off Jensen thinks it's Chris trying to cover their escape.
It's not.
Jared stumbles into him and Jensen reflexively grabs his arm as Chris pushes the back door open and they shove themselves into the car. Chad peels away from the curb before the door's even closed, tearing through an intersection while FBI agents fire at them from the sidewalk. The car rocks around one corner, then another, Chad apparently trying to confuse anyone who might be following. Jensen looks behind them, but no one is.
Jensen realizes he's still holding on to Jared's arm, and that Jared is squeezing his leg. Jared has a very strong grip.
"You can let go of me now," Jensen says, trying to pry Jared's fingers off his thigh. "We lost them. We're going to - what's wrong?" Jared's face is pale. He looks a lot baffled, and a little scared.
"I think I got shot," he says. He looks down at his arm, the one pressed against the door, and his eyes get wide. "Jen." His hand tightens on Jensen's leg. Jensen leans around him and is pretty sure his own face goes pale at the sight of the dark stain that is definitely blood spreading down Jared's sleeve.
He must make a noise, or Jared does, because Chris twists around in the front seat, apparently takes in the scene, and swears "Jesus H Roosevelt Christ", which has the odd effect of snapping Jensen out of his shock.
"Let me see," he says, trying to get Jared to turn towards him so he can get a better look at the wound. Jared hisses in pain but shifts himself and lifts his arm a little. "Chris, give me your - " As Jensen looks over at Chris to ask for his tie to make a bandage - it's the first thing he can think of - Chad cranes his head around to see over his shoulder and the car swerves in the road.
"Road!" Chris snaps at him.
"I'm ok," Jared says breathlessly, the most patently ridiculous thing he's ever said.
"Chad," Jensen tells him, "watch the road. Chris, give me your tie. Jared? Are you with me? Keep breathing, ok? I'm just going to try and bandage it." He flaps his hand in Chris' direction and is rewarded with a length of patterned silk tie draped over his palm.
The most terrifying sound in the world, he thinks now, is not the sound of someone cocking a shotgun. It's the sound of someone gasping in pain as you try to bind the bullet wound in his arm in a moving car.
Chad, to his great credit, keeps driving at top speed until they're clear of Prescott and pulling into some random little town about twenty minutes away. It's not far enough for Jensen's comfort but they can't keep going indefinitely, they should ditch the car, and Jared really needs some medical attention. He's conscious but pale and sweating and in pain, and Jensen is pretty sure he's scared to death.
Chad bounces off the road - Jared barely stifles a yelp - and stops close enough to a stand of trees for them to hustle themselves out and hide.
"Don't go anywhere," he commands. "I'm getting rid of the car and looking for a pharmacy." He drives off.
"Well, shit," Chris mutters.
"Come here," Jensen tells Jared. Jared just blinks, so Jensen walks over to him. "Let me see your arm."
Jared's coat sleeve and Chris' tie are both covered in blood, and when Jensen carefully unknots his makeshift bandage Jared grabs at him and says, faintly, "I think I oughta sit down."
"Don't pass out on me. Can you get your coat off? Chris, get over here and help me."
Between the three of them they get Jared's coat off, which means Jensen can rip out the clean sleeve and use it and his own tie to wrap Jared's arm again. Jared finally sits down in the grass, leans against a tree, and promptly passes out.
"We need some help," Jensen says, talking to Chris even though he's looking at Jared.
"We can handle this," Chris tells him.
"No we can't. Did you see that wound?"
"Bullet went clean through. You know we can't take him to a hospital."
"I didn't say we should. Let me think."
"You got five minutes."
I got until Chad comes back, Jensen thinks, but what he says is "We'll go to Danneel's. She shouldn't be more than a couple hours away, the way Chad drives."
"Danneel. When's the last time you talked to her, Jen? A year? Two?"
"A long time ago. I don't remember." He's written to her, but the last time they actually talked on the phone? He hasn't a clue.
"What makes you think the FBI hasn't gotten to her? You read the papers - they're tapping phones now."
"If she hasn't heard from me in a year and a half, how would they even know to look for her? Besides, she can lie with the best of them. She can say she hasn't seen or heard from me in ten years and they'll believe her. They're not gonna think there's a reason to watch her."
"You want to lie low, we'll go back to Steve's. He's got the space, he knows us - you want to leave Chad in the same room as your ex? - and we're not wanted in Kentucky. Where the hell is she now, anyway?"
"Shreveport."
"Shreveport," Chris repeats flatly.
"Stop fucking repeating everything I say. Yeah, Shreveport. We're not wanted in Louisiana either."
"That's more than a couple hours' drive, Jen."
"I don't think it is. You got a better idea?"
"If he can make it" - Chris gestures at Jared, now stretched out on the grass - "we should go back to Steve's. Or we can find a motel and stay here a day or two."
"We can't stay here. We're thirty fucking minutes from Prescott. We need to get out of the state." Chris opens his mouth, no doubt to argue some more. "Danneel's a nurse, Chris."
Well, she's a nursing student, or she was the last time he heard from her.
Chad eventually returns with a nondescript black Ford, a roll of gauze, a few cotton pads, and a bottle of iodine.
"Iodine," Chris says, raising an eyebrow.
"What?" Chad snaps. "I don't know - I never had to treat a gunshot wound before!"
They wake Jared up, put the cotton pads on his arm over his coat sleeve, wrap them with the gauze, and help him into the car.
"Shreveport," Jensen tells Chad, when they're all in.
"What's in Shreveport?"
"A nurse. Go south."
They stop at a gas station just inside the city so Jensen can call Danneel, make sure she's home, and warn her that he's about to turn up on her front step with a bleeding friend, but whoever picks up the phone and says "Hello?" doesn't sound like her.
"Danny?" he asks.
"No, I'm her roommate," the voice says. "Genevieve. Who're you?"
"My name's Jensen, I'm a friend of hers. Is she home?"
"She's housesitting." This Genevieve sounds dubious, and Jensen can't blame her. "Oh, I know who you are!" she says. "Danneel's mentioned you. You're from Dallas."
"Not for a while. Look, where is she? I have to see her." He covers the mouthpiece and hisses "What?" at Chris, who is making faces at him.
"Are you in town?"
"Just now, yeah. Genevieve, please, I need to see her, where is she?"
"What's going on?" Chris whispers. "She's not home, is she. I said this was - "
"Shut up," Jensen hisses.
"Excuse me?" Genevieve says sharply.
"Not you, sorry. Where's Danny?"
"Let me find the address, hold on."
"I'm talking to Danny's roommate," he tells Chris. "She's housesitting. We'll go there. Calm the fuck down."
Genevieve gives Jensen the address where Danneel is staying and some vague directions on how to get there from the highway, and they only get lost twice before they find the house. Chad pulls into the driveway like they belong there but Jensen makes the other three stay in the car while he walks around to the back and knocks on the kitchen door.
"Gen called to tell me you were coming," Danneel says as she opens the door and ushers Jensen in. He knows she means her roommate, but it throws him to hear the shortened form of his name applied to someone else to his face. "Give me a hug and tell me why you're here." She seems pleasantly surprised to see him and not at all suspicious.
"I really, really need your help," he says into her shoulder. "My friend's hurt." She pushes him back and peers at his face. "I'm fine. He's outside. Can I bring - "
"You must be Danny," Chad says, appearing in the half-open kitchen door with Chris, the two of them practically carrying Jared between them. They look a little overburdened. "I'm Chad, that's Chris, the walking wounded is Jared, where's, oh, there's a chair."
"Um," Danneel says.
"Call her Danneel," Jensen says. "This is... yeah. My friend who needs help."
Jared looks terrible in the light of the kitchen, worse than he looked in Arkansas. His arm is bent over his head to elevate it, and when Danneel gently pulls it straight so she can look at it, he winces.
"Hey, Danny," Chris says, his tone oddly casual, considering the circumstances.
"Hey, Chris," she answers, distracted. She unwraps Jared's arm, which seems to be bleeding a little less. Jensen notices that Chad is squeezing Jared's other shoulder, and is grateful that at least someone can offer some kind of comfort.
"This is a gunshot wound," Danneel says, in a tone of voice that seems to imply she thinks they'll lie to her about how it happened. "Doesn't look like a very large caliber bullet, at least." She picks at Jared's shirtsleeve and tries to look at his arm from every angle without having to move it too much. "Actually, this should close up on its own. I need to wash it out and clean up the edges and bandage it, but you won't need stitches. The bullet went right through, missed the bone. You're lucky."
"Yay," Jared mumbles, and then "Ow."
"Sorry. Chris, get me a towel. Bottom drawer next to the sink. Wet it with warm water. You guys got any more of these pads?"
"They're in the car," Chad says.
"Go get them." He leaves. Danneel takes the wet towel from Chris. "There's a doctor's bag in the bathroom," she tells him. "Go get it for me." He does so and Danneel starts gently wiping Jared's arm, trying to clean up the wound and wash the blood away. His shirtsleeve is soaked, but she can't roll it up far enough to get to the hole in his arm. Jensen has no idea what to do with himself, besides watch her hands instead of Jared's face.
"Do you have any bourbon or whiskey or something?" Chad asks, returning with the extra cotton pads and the roll of gauze.
"Chad, come on," Chris says, annoyed. He puts the doctor's bag on the kitchen table, and Danneel turns her attention from Jared's arm long enough to open it, root through it, and pull out a pair of small, sharp scissors.
"It's not for me."
Jared weakly waves his good arm.
"Stop moving," Danneel tells him. "Sideboard in the dining room," she tells Chad, who goes to get it. She cuts off Jared's shirtsleeve near the shoulder, wipes the remaining blood from his skin, and dabs around the wound with a cotton ball. She peers at it, digs a pair of long, pointy tweezers out of the doctor's bag, and very carefully picks at some cotton threads that seem to have gotten stuck in it.
Jensen has to look away.
Danneel doesn't say anything more, other than occasionally reminding Jared to breathe, and none of the boys say anything either. Eventually she's finished, Jared's arm is cleaned and rebandaged, and Jensen thinks that everything might actually be ok. Maybe.
"This might take six weeks to fully close up," Danneel tells Jared, "and probably six months to heal completely. You can't stay here, but go lie down in the bigger bedroom and try to rest a little bit while I figure out where to take you. Drink some bourbon. Not too much. Don't bleed on the sheets. You go watch him." She points to Chad. "You go lie down in the other bedroom," she tells Chris, and "You stay here," to Jensen, as he starts to stand up. He sits back down. After the other three have left, she fixes him with a Look and asks "What are you mixed up in, Jen?"
"Do you read the papers?"
"Sometimes."
"Watch the newsreels before the movie?"
"Of course."
"Have you heard of the Jay Gang?"
"I think so. Maybe. Why?"
"That's us. We rob banks."
He's not sure what kind of reaction he was expecting, but laughter isn't it.
"Oh," she finally says, realizing that he's not laughing with her. "You're serious."
"Jared was shot leaving a bank in Arkansas. We've never been to Louisiana, we know the FBI won't look for us here."
"The FBI?" she repeats in disbelief.
"Yeah." He hopes he looks sheepish, because he certainly feels it.
"Shit, Jensen. What happened? You were always an honest guy." She sighs. "Ok, fine. Now you really can't stay here - if your friend's going to bleed on someone's sheets, better he bleed on mine." She stands and starts cleaning up.
"I'm sorry, Danny," he says. He grabs her hand. "We can't go to a hospital. I didn't know what else to do."
"Why do you do it? Rob banks." She looks genuinely curious. Not judgemental, not accusatory, not even disbelieving. Just curious.
"My parents need the money. Chris has a couple uncles who lost their farm."
"Maybe you shouldn't tell me." She pulls her hand away, takes the scissors and bloody towel and drops them in the sink. "Come on. We'll sit on the couch and act like normal people and then you'll all come home with me."
They sit on the couch and talk and Jensen can't believe how awake he is after the day he's had, but when he mentions it Danneel just tells him it's adrenaline and he'll crash eventually. And he does, but not for another couple of hours, not until after Danneel takes them back to her place, the situation is briefly (and not entirely truthfully) explained to Genevieve, and Jared is put to bed in Danneel's room. Jensen plops down in an armchair and the next thing he knows it's morning and Chris is shaking his shoulder and telling him there's coffee.
They hole up in Danneel's apartment for almost two weeks, despite the fact that six people in a space usually occupied by two makes things unpleasantly cramped. But Danneel and Genevieve, who is also a recently-graduated nurse, are gone during the day and a few nights, and Jensen and Chris and Chad can, if necessary, make themselves scarce. Danneel gets Jared a sling for his arm and doses him with antibiotics and painkillers when he spikes a fever. Genevieve develops a crush on him and takes over his medical care, much to Chad's inarticulate annoyance.
Jensen suspects Chad is annoyed because he thinks Genevieve is cute, and if Jared weren't wounded and in need of nursing, Chad would have a fair shot at her. Danneel thinks it's because Chad wants to be the one taking care of Jared, since he and Jared have been friends for so long.
The boys buy some clothes and toiletries, scour the papers for useful news, try to keep their heads down, try not to worry. Jared seems to be recovering as well as can be expected, which is some relief, but Jensen can't forget Danneel's assessment of how long it will take him to heal, and he can't stop thinking about what it means for their criminal career.
She doesn't repeat a word of what Jensen told her at the house, that the boys are bank robbers and wanted men, and he's as grateful for that as he is for her caretaking.
"You're a good friend," he tells her one night, without preamble. She's in the kitchen cleaning up Chris' attempt to make dinner.
"I know," she says. He kisses her on the cheek and can feel her grin.
"I don't know how I can ever pay you back."
"Oh, I know," she says, turning her head to leer at him. He laughs. "Not with all these other people in my house, though. But we could've had sex while I was housesitting." She flicks soapsuds at him. "Go sit with your friends, unless you want to help me wash the dishes."
"Chris should be doing that."
"He should! Chris!" she yells into the other room. "You should be doing the dishes!"
She repeats Jensen's words back to him much later that night as he's sitting a chair next to her bed watching Jared sleep.
"Don't blame yourself," she adds.
"I don't," he says. It's true. He doesn't.
"You love him, don't you."
"He's my friend. Of course I do." Then he remembers the kiss he and Jared shared on New Year's Eve and wonders what definition of "love" and "friend" either of them means.
Not that it really matters - he has more important things to worry about.
Danneel squeezes his shoulder. "You're a good guy, Jen. Robbing banks doesn't sit right on you."
"I have to do it. I had to."
"'Had'?"
"I don't know, Danny. I don't think I can do it any more. I don't want anyone else to get shot. Chris is going to beat the shit out of Chad one day, I swear."
"They don't like each other, do they." She chuckles.
"Chris doesn't." He sighs. "I keep thinking I'm putting my parents in danger, like the FBI is going to find them or something, because of what I've done."
"You know I don't want to know the details." She lets go of his shoulder, ruffles his hair, and kisses him on the top of his head. "Go to bed. Try and sleep. You'll figure something out. I'll help you as long as you need me."
"Thank you." He stands up, brushes his hand over her hair, and kisses her on the mouth. "Sometimes I'm sorry we broke up."
"I'm not." But she's smiling. She pats him on the cheek, "Go to bed, Jensen. You need the rest."
A couple days later he's napping in Danneel's room when she shakes him awake, hard.
"You have to leave," she hisses in his ear.
"Wha-?"
"There is a policeman outside, on the sidewalk." She's enunciating very clearly, which means she's either pissed off or scared. Or both, considering. "Gen passed him on her way back from the store. He is staking out the building, waiting for you. Chad went out the back to the alley and is getting a car, and the four of you are going to get out of here."
That means Chad is stealing a car. Well, what other options do they have? Jensen hauls himself off the bed. "Shit."
With the girls' help, he and Chris pack up their stuff and hustle themselves and Jared downstairs and out the back of the building. Jensen hates having to rush their goodbyes - he knows they might have just put Danneel and Genevieve on the FBI's radar, and the girls helped them out more than he can repay - but they can't stick around.
Chad drives south for lack of any better ideas, and the boys spend a good half hour arguing about where to go next. Jensen thinks they should avoid any state where they might be wanted men. Chris points out that every state they can immediately get to falls into that category, except Mississippi. Chad wants to go to New Orleans but is voted down. Chris mentions his friend David in Houston. Jared thinks Kentucky would be good, except he doesn't want to bounce around in the car that long. His arm aches.
Against Jensen's better judgement, despite his vociferous disagreement, and because Chris insists David can hide them as did Steve and Danneel, they go to Houston. But they discover that David packed up and moved at the beginning of the year, chasing potential oil money farther west. The boys rent a cabin at a tourist court just outside the city and hunker down while Jared's arm heals up. Jensen is sure this is tempting fate.
Then they read about the deaths of Bonnie and Clyde in the paper, and Chad suggests the four of them take a trip to Dallas.
"We're not going to Dallas to gawk at Bonnie Parker's funeral," Chris says. "Show some respect."
"You can see your folks," Chad tells Jensen. Jensen just shakes his head. He can send them money, he can save them money, but he can't see them. He won't put them in jeopardy like that. He doesn't even like being in the same state as they are, never mind the same city.
"I can see your folks," Jared says brightly. Jensen just raises an eyebrow at him, and Jared grins.
"I bet that's why there were cops crawling around Shreveport," Jensen muses. "They were looking for the Barrows. You know how close we came to getting caught?"
"We keep being close," Chad says dismissively, "and we keep not getting caught."
"I got caught. You remember Missouri, right?"
"I got caught," Jared adds. "Sort of." He lifts his elbow in Chad's direction.
"And yet we're all still here," Chad says. "With money."
"It's a matter of time," Chris says. "Jensen's right. We can't keep doing this. I don't want to go to jail, and I really don't want to end up like Clyde Barrow."
"Well good, because who'd be Bonnie?" Chad grins. Jared smacks him on the back of the head. "Hey!"
"Danneel said it would take six months for my arm to totally heal," Jared says. "I can't hold up a bank one-handed."
"You can drive. You can steal cars. Do you want to take a five-month break?"
"No."
"I don't want to do it any more," Jensen says. Chad goggles at him. He just shrugs. "I'm tired. I want to be a normal person and live a normal life and sleep in the same bed for more than two weeks at a time. I want to buy a house. I want some land. I don't want to worry that I'm getting my friends and my parents in trouble. I don't want to live out of the fucking car for another few months until the FBI catches up to us, and I sure as hell am not going back to jail."
"Maybe we should sleep on it," Chad concedes.
"I'll think the same way in the morning."
And he does.
Chad seems more amenable after they've slept, but still not ready to quit the criminal life, and it takes another full day of discussion and argument to get him to even consider giving it up.
The morning after that, they send him out to find a decent breakfast, and while he's gone Chris makes coffee in the tiny cabin kitchen and he and Jensen and Jared seriously discuss hanging up their guns and their gangster disguise and going straight. The risks are becoming too great, and each hold-up disaster is worse than the one before.
Chad is still a little resistant but actually seems more agreeable than he has been, and just to make sure, Jared takes him out for a drive after breakfast.
"We should split up," Chris says to Jensen, while they're gone. "Go our separate ways. We'll be harder to track. I'll get ahold of Steve, let him know where I am, so you can always find me."
Jensen doesn't love this idea - he's gotten used to living and traveling with the other three, Chris has been his best friend for years, he's pretty sure he's started to care for Jared more than he'll admit, and he just isn't sure he's ready to head into the world alone - but it makes sense.
"I'll do the same," he agrees. "We should do it today, when Chad and Jared get back."
"Maybe you'll find a golf club that'll have you." Chris grins, teasing, and Jensen punches him in the shoulder.
"I'm gonna miss you, man."
"I haven't left yet. We'll get back together, Jen. We're too good together to be apart for too long."
Chad and Jared finally return with a second car, a dark red Ford that Chad insists Jared broke into one-handed. The extra car seems like a sign to Jensen.
"I hope that's the last car I ever have to steal," Jared says, and that seems like a sign too. Jensen notices him flexing the fingers of his wounded arm.
"Are you ok?" he asks.
"Yeah. Why?"
"Nothing. Chris thinks we should all split up and I agree with him."
Chad nods. Jared scratches his nose thoughtfully.
"You want to take off by yourself?" he asks.
"Not really," Jensen admits, "but it's safer."
"Well, I've been shot, you've been to jail - seems like the two of us have already tempted Fate and won."
"You want to come with me?"
"Yeah. I want to come with you." He grins. Chad snickers. "Shut up, Murray."
"Mayhem," Chad insists.
Chris smacks Chad on the side of the head one more time for posterity, and just like that, that's the end of the Jay Gang.
Jim Beaver, FBI Cowboy, San Antonio SAC, is not having a good day. The former Detective Downey is now firmly on his way to being Agent Downey, and the San Antonio chief of police is pissed. Jim's daughter is down with a cold, Collins is alternately scatterbrained and highly focused and the constant switching is giving Jim whiplash, and Tigerman might be looking to move to another office, or even out of the Bureau altogether. Miss McCoy has been more distracted than Jim has ever seen her which means she keeps misfiling things and forgetting to take phone messages and losing papers. He hopes it isn't boy trouble. He doesn't know how to talk to his secretary about personal matters.
And after Jim's brief trip to Dallas and a promising lead in Arkansas, the trail of the Jay Gang has gone cold. There was a potential sighting in Louisiana, but any effort he could have put into following it up was swallowed by the FBI's hunt for the Barrow Gang, and now Dillinger and the Barkers and every last one of America's most popular criminals are taking all his time.
He has to give them up. He'll never find them. He doesn't know where they are, he'll never know where they go.
They're gone, vanished like the ghosts they probably always were.
And where did they go?
Most accounts say that Chris holed up at Steve Carlson's place in Kentucky for a while. It's a logical assumption - he'd never committed a crime in that state and Steve had already successfully hidden them once. Some say he took up boxing again. One source puts him in Colorado in 1937, running a gym. Some say the FBI caught up with him and threw him in jail.
Some accounts say Chad went to Los Angeles, changed his name, and became an actor. Some say he went to Chicago, some say Montreal, some say New York, and some say - most improbably - that he fetched up in Georgia, driving untaxed moonshine for bootleggers and racing in the nascent southern stock car circuit. There are a couple of contemporary accounts of a racer calling himself Mayhem Michaels, but as to whether or not that was really Chad, no one can say for sure. Some think the FBI caught up with him as well, and that he ended his days in prison.
As for Jared and Jensen, who can say? Did they find a house of their own, some land, horses and dogs? Did they go to Mexico? Or Canada? Did they travel farther afield? No one knows.
And so this is where their story ends, with the two of them heading down the road in the wine-colored Ford, the last car Jared ever stole, driving out of history and into the myths that plagued their contemporaries, the shroud of mystery that protects them still.
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