interject logic. Your brother’s too far gone. And Arnie? Chill, my boy. If you insist on getting the number directly from the source, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait till the lady gives it to you.”
He scowled at his dad.
“The death glare doesn’t change anything, but nice try.”
Without thinking, he suddenly exploded and blurted out a stream of consciousness even he found startling.
“There’s something in the air, Dad. I can feel it.” He touched his stomach. “In here.”
Jumping to his feet, he stormed around the kitchen, practically bouncing off the walls.
“I’m fucking caught between what’s real and what’s felt.” He waved an arm at the work in progress. “This is real. Work has form and substance.”
Arnie caught the wide-eyed expression on his brother’s face. Repairing their relationship meant they talked about a lot of stuff but never Arnie’s extrasensory life—not with any specificity.
As he clutched his stomach, his eyes bored into his dad’s. “This is nothing but raw feeling. Intuition. Right brain stuff. What-fucking-ever you want to call it. For me, what’s felt is real. I can’t turn it off any more than I can ignore it. Something is coming,” he asserted as strongly as he could. “It might already be here.”
There was a long, tense silence. His father studied him, and Arnie did nothing to throw up a defense.
Crossing the space between them in two lengthy steps, his father put a hand on Arnie’s bicep. “What do you need from me?”
He thought about it for a moment. Was it time to circle the wagons? Being sure was important. Acting rashly or too soon could potentially expose their presence, and he hadn’t come this far to have it all go sideways now.
Do it. Do it quickly.
“Alert everyone with a chip in the game. It’s going down. Time to man the battle stations.”
His father sneered. “Rigged for silent running?”
Arnie could feel him thinking about how good it was going to feel when they took Giselle down.
“Stan, get the equipment ready. Everything Milo gave us. Show Dad how to use the flash-bangs.”
It took an internal debate before he called the local LAPD contact King passed along. Law enforcement had enough on their hands without riling them up unnecessarily. He explained the situation as succinctly as possible to the person taking the call. King’s contact gave off a no-nonsense tough guy vibe. His laughter sounded like what you’d expect if you tickled Frankenstein’s funny bone.
“Don’t care much for a bunch of Yankee shitheads coming to my town, trying to act big and bad. Just let me know what, where, and when. My team is ready to answer the call.”
There were better things to call Giselle and her minions than Yankee shitheads, but he wasn’t about to argue the man’s point.
As the evening stretched on, they stayed put and hunkered down. While Dad had a lengthy phone call with his girlfriend, Stan parked it on an old-school folding lounge chair he found on sale at Walmart, grabbed an iPad, and watched Cary Grant grimace his way through Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.
Needing something to do, Arnie dragged two heavy five-gallon paint buckets to the window next to the side door—the one with a view of the driveway next door and the front of the house.
On top of the buckets, he positioned a one-by-six plank of wood. Spying a moving blanket in a corner, he shook it out, folded it up, and created a seat cushion. Plopping onto the makeshift seat, he scanned the Gerry’s house and driveway from behind slatted blinds. If anything changed or moved, he’d notice.
It was interesting what you saw during a stakeout. Before now, he’d found the exercise boring, but boy, oh boy, his perspective sure did change once he had a dog in the fight.
Activity across the street caught his attention. The two guys he’d seen coming and going from what Arnie assumed was their marital home were in the front yard dismantling an array of seasonal blow-up displays. Their interaction was amusing when they didn’t think anyone was watching.
Someday, he was definitely going to get in trouble for saying it, but he f-loved everything about the LGBTQ community. Gay guys made the best friends. Several of the hard-core, ass-kicking mercenaries he’d known over the years were also rainbow-colored to their core yet could be bloodthirsty and unyielding if the situation called for it. It wasn’t always about stereotypes. What he found most compelling was the honesty. Gay guys knew who they were. Catching them at ease, in