#5.0

"Tonight," Chester Tate said as he cocked his gun and aimed it at Danny Dallas, his biological son, who he'd just caught in bed with his new wife, Annie, "you die."

Danny and Anne were paralyzed in the bed and both could only focus on the muzzle of Chester's gun.

"You can't do this, Dad," Danny tried to plead with him. "We share blood, you gave me your kidney."

"Yes, and in exchange you took my wife," Chester responded.

"Actually, you left me," Annie felt a need to point out.

"Shut your mouth you slut!" Chester told her. "Jumping into bed with your own husband's son, how dare you?"

"Hey leave her out of this," Danny said, "I'm the one you got a problem with, so let's just get this over with."

"Fine, say your prayers, Dallas," Chester told him in a tough guy tone.

Suddenly the door to the pool house flew open and in came Dutch Leitner, Chester's ex-jailbird son-in-law.

"Hey big guy!" Dutch exclaimed as he came up to Chester. He saw the gun and smacked it out of the other man's hand. "What do you think you're doing? Huh? Your duel isn't until tomorrow."

"Dutch! Do you mind?" Chester asked as he gestured with his hand, "this is a private matter between a man and his son he's going to kill."

"Never mind about that," Dutch said. "El Puerco wants everybody in the house, he's got a plan to rescue Jessica and needs all of us."

"Jessica?" Chester turned on his heel and followed after Dutch, "What is it?"

"I'll tell you, but first we gotta find Burt, El said everybody goes," Dutch told him as they stormed out of the pool house and closed the door behind them.

"Oh my God," Annie heaved a gasping breath as she collapsed back against the pillows, "I don't believe it."

"Neither do I," Danny said as he threw back the covers and started getting dressed. "Annie, you stay here, if everybody's going to Malaguay to get Aunt Jessica back, I guess 'everybody' includes me."

"Are you crazy? Your own father just tried to kill you," Annie pointed out.

Danny bent down and picked up Chester's gun. "I doubt he'll have much luck without this. Annie, you stay here, this is man's work, and if we don't come back…well, I guess that means we're dead."

"Be careful, Danny," she said.

"Annie, please, I'm the deputy," Danny remarked.

Burt slowly opened the door to where his confidential informant had confidentially informed him there was going to be a major drug shipment going down. It had been a seedy enough part of town that he could believe it, but still he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, something more wrong than just drugs being sold in Dunn's River. He felt the hairs pricking up on the back of his neck as it dawned on him he should've gone in with backup, he should've had Danny come with him. One cop against who knew how many drug dealers? Boy that sounded like the perfect setup.

He almost had the door all the way open when from right behind him there was a sudden and startling, "ACHOO!"

Acting on blind instincts, Burt spun around swinging his bat and he instantly hit someone, who could be heard choking and groaning in pain before they dropped to the floor. It was only after the fact that his brain told him what his body had instinctively known, he knew that sneeze.

"You!" he said as he tackled the man writhing and groaning on the floor. "You're that confidential informant."

"You got the wrong guy, pal," the younger man with long black hair grunted.

"Oh yeah?" Burt fumbled around between them and came up with a pair of pantyhose. "What's this, your long johns?"

A series of explosions taking place directly over Burt's head had his eyes bulging and felt like he was going deaf. He realized somebody was shooting the door full of holes, he threw himself flat on the floor and flat against the other man, then thought better of it and moved more to the side of him.

"You set me up, didn't you?" Burt asked, just as the other man opened his mouth Burt stuck his bat in the man's face, "Didn't you?"

"Yeah," the other man grunted, "I did."

"Who sent you? Who?" Burt demanded to know as he wrestled the man into a choke hold.

"Look, I swear I'll tell you," the man said, "but can we do it where there's no gunfire?"

"Oh yeah, that might be a good idea," Burt said, "alright, crawl."

"Crawl?"

"Crawl over to the stairs!" Burt told him, "then we'll run."

He took his own gun out and shot a couple bullets through the opposite side of the door to cover them as they headed for the stairs.

The two of them stormed down the stairs and were halfway out the door when they ran into somebody else.

"Freeze! Police!" Burt drew his gun.

"Burt, it's me!"

"Danny?" Burt did a double take. "Danny, what're you doing here?"

"I went to see you at the station and I found your notes about the big drug bust, how's it going?" Danny asked.

"Swell, swell, they're shooting at us, terrific," Burt said cynically. "Come on, I think they may be running out of bullets soon and then we can ambush them."

"Right."

"And you!" Burt waved his bat at the other man. "Don't you go anywhere."

"Don't worry," the black haired man wheezed as he fell to the ground, "I can't."

"Hey, wait a minute," Burt said. "Aside from setting me up, what's your part in all this? Huh? What were you doing here?"

"I was given orders to cut off your ear and send it back to the guys who arranged all this," the man said.

"My ear?" Burt repeated in disbelief. "What do they want my ear for?"

"To prove you were dead," the man answered.

Burt's eyes bugged out as he blew a razzberry. "What kind of sense does that even make? That's proof? What's that even proof of? Who looks at a guy's ears enough to know if you get one of them, 'Yep, that's him, he's dead'? Who thinks like that?"

"If you were going to cut Burt's ear off, you must have a weapon on you," Danny said to the man.

Burt rolled his eyes.

"Hand it over," Danny said as he drew his own gun on the man.

There was a clatter on the ground and Danny picked up a straight razor.

"You carrying anything else?" Burt asked.

"No," the man groaned in pain.

"You better not be lying because if you are when I come back down here, I'm gonna kick your butt," Burt told him. "Let's go, Danny."

Jodie smiled contentedly as he rocked back and forth in the rocking chair in the nursery and watched the two babies.

The door opened and Mary walked in.

"Jodie…Julius," she said, "how's everything going?"

Jodie turned to her and answered, "Let me get this straight…" he pointed a finger to Wendy's crib. "This little baby is mine?"

Mary nodded.

Jodie nodded in turn. "You nice lady…but that's no baby of mine. My wife and I never had children…she was barren."

"Jodie," Mary tried to say something, but he cut her off.

"We were married 10 years before she told me," Jodie continued, "she was worried that if I know, that we would quit…you know," He wagged his eyebrows at her.

"Jodie, please, that really is your baby girl," Mary said, and pointed at Scotty's crib, "and that's your little brother."

"My little brother? Me, a 90 year old man? Who was my father, Methuselah?" Jodie asked. "And I tell you something else, lady…I been here watching these two for hours." He pointed a finger at Scotty. "This baby don't fly."

"He does fly, I know he flies," Mary said, "he flies, he moves furniture, he draws in three dimensions. That's not normal."

"Normal? What's normal?" Jodie asked. "My brother Sol used to suck on the plumber's wrenches when he came to fix a leak…he was a weird boy, and he was six years old, you're worried about a one-year-old acting strange?"

"Hello, is anybody here?" a high pitched voice called out a second before Chuck and Bob entered the room. Bob's head turned one way and another, "Oh look at this, we got the whole fam-damily here, the space cadet, the old Jew, and Wendy-Wendy-Wendy-Wendy-Wendy!" His head turned towards the other crib, "And Scotty-Scotty-Scotty-Scotty-Scotty!"

"Hey Mary, how's it going?" Chuck asked.

Mary shook her head. "I can't convince anyone of anything, I can't convince Jodie he's Jodie, I can't convince Burt that Scotty flies, I can't convince Burt that I'm not drinking anymore…my sister's been kidnapped and she's going to be executed by communists…my whole life's a mess…our whole family's lives are a mess…" she paused, then her eyes got large, "maybe Jessica was right, maybe it is the Gatling family curse." She clasped her hands together and looked towards the ceiling, "Oh I wish it was still a couple years ago, when my biggest concern was Burt's obsession with making himself invisible by doing this," Mary shook her hands and crossed them over one another then drew them back and snapped her fingers.

Jodie jerked and he looked around the room quizzically.

"Mom?" he turned to the others. "Chuck?"

"Jodie?" Mary barely whispered his name.

Jodie's eyes roamed all around the room and he asked, "What am I doing here? Where's Dr. Rudolph?"

"Hey Jodie, is it really you?" Chuck asked.

Jodie shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "Who else would it be?"

"Julius?" Bob asked.

"Who?" Jodie squinted his eyes.

"Oh my God!" Mary exclaimed as she threw her arms around Jodie, "it's you, it's really you! You're back!"

Jodie was very confused and slowly put his arms around his mother's back. "Back from where? I just went to a therapy session."

"That's what he thinks," Bob turned to Chuck and laughed mischievously.

Jodie felt like his mom was going to crush his spleen and held his arms out helplessly to his stepbrother and his wooden dummy. "Would somebody please explain to me what's going on?"

"Oooh oooh oooh!" Bob said, "let me tell it!"

Chuck shook his head.

From downstairs they heard a door slam, and heard a muffled voice bouncing off the walls, "Mare! Mary!"

"Burt?" Mary turned on her heel as they heard the footsteps booming up the stairs.

"Mary!" Burt ran into the room and right towards her and hugged her.

"Burt, what's going on?" she asked.

"Oh Mare," he groaned anxiously, "you have no idea..." he pulled back, "it's okay, I'm fine, don't worry about me. I just about got killed is all."

"KILLED?" Mary exclaimed. "I need a drink."

Jodie and Chuck both reached out to stop her.

"Mary, some guys set me up for an ambush, but it's okay, Danny and I went in and we arrested them all, we hauled them to jail, we got their full statements, we got names, more big crime syndicates," Burt told her.

"Oh…" Mary folded her arms dismissively, "so you're going after them next."

"No way, are you nuts?" Burt asked. "I almost got killed tonight, I almost got my ear cut off."

"Burt!"

"Mare, when the bullets started flying, my whole life was flashing before my eyes," Burt told her. "And I realized how big a part you were in all of it and how the whole reason I started on this journey to clean up crime in Dunn's River was because of you guys and how much I wanted to keep you safe. That's the only thing that was going through my mind then, that and how much I wanted so desperately to get back here to you and tell you that I love you, without you my life has no meaning. I got caught up in all this fame and publicity stuff, ohhhh, but that don't mean much when all you get out of it is a headstone."

"Does that mean you're not doing the crime task force?" Mary didn't sound like she even dared to hope.

"Oh Mare, it goes beyond that, these guys were offering me a spot as lieutenant governor, then senator…and you know something?" Burt picked up his bat and tried to break it over his knee, but all that happened was he put his foot back down and made a very pained face all the while barely any sound was coming out of him as he tried to maintain some dignity. He shook it off and told her, "Forget it, I've already brought down the heads of several mob families…that's good enough for me, now somebody else can take over…a single guy, a guy without a wife, without a family waiting for him at home…" he turned to his stepson, "Hi, Julius."

"Who's Julius?" Jodie asked.

"You are," Burt answered, then did a double take, "Jodie?"

"Burt?" the young man replied in a matching tone.

"He's back?" Burt asked. "Jodie's back? Who-wha-what happened? Did Dr. Rudolph figure it out?"

"No," Mary shook her head, "I did it, with this," she crossed her hands and snapped her fingers again.

Jodie jerked again and said in his old man voice again, "Oy, what's a 90 year old guy gotta do to get something to nosh on around here?"

Burt's eyes bugged out and his Adam's apple bobbled and he made a high pitched sound under his breath.

Mary crossed her hands again and snapped her fingers, and they watched Jodie's whole body jerk again and he asked in his normal tone, "Did something happen during my therapy session that I should know about?"

"Mary," Burt hugged her again, "our family's normal again."

"Well, almost," she replied. "There's still the issue of Scotty."

"Scotty? What about Scotty? He's just an intelligent prodigy," Burt said.

"Burt, he flies," Mary said. "Now I don't care what you say, that is not normal."

"Okay, okay, I believe you," Burt said. "We can figure that out later, but Mary, right now I gotta go."

"What do you mean go? Go where? You just got back from nearly being killed, where're you going now?" she asked.

"To probably get killed, but don't worry, I'm sure nothing will happen," Burt said.

"What?" Mary demanded to know.

"Mary, El Puerco has a plan to save Jessica, but he needs all the men to go with him, so Danny and I are going," Burt said. "We'll be back in a couple of days, I hope…but try not to worry, I'm sure everything will be fine. Jodie, you're the man of the house while I'm gone."

"Oh there's a laugh," Bob announced.

"Wait, Dad," Chuck said, "we're coming with you."

"What? No, no, no, you can't come, it's too dangerous," Burt said.

"But you just said all the men," Chuck pointed out.

"And," Bob added, "you might recall who came along for the rescue mission to save Jodie and Wendy-Wendy-Wendy-Wendy-Wendy!"

"Okay, fine, you two can come," Burt said, "but I'm driving."

"Fine," Bob responded as they headed down the stairs, "you drive us to the airport, I'll fly the plane."