Next Door Neighbor

martial art, done slow. Do it at regular speed, it's right useful.'

As he reached for the radio on his belt, I nodded to him, and made my way to Lucy's room, where I found the three of them sitting on the bed in a huddle, crying.

When they saw me come in, all three jumped up and ran over to hold me for reassurance. I hugged them, and rubbed their backs, and generally muttered comforting words at them until the waterworks dried up.

About that time, there was a knock at the door, and they let me loose long enough to go answer it – finding Agent Gallery there, looking worried.

I let him in, and the first thing he did was to look over at Lucy and the girls to make sure they were okay – and earning himself a LOT of brownie points with me. Then he turned to face me and said 'Dan, I think we need to move you. Tonight. As soon as you can.'

'I understand where you're coming from, Agent Gallery, but that won't be necessary. I'm sure no one will be bothering us tonight.'

'What makes you so sure?'

'You talked to the agent in the hallway?' – he nodded, and I went on 'He heard me talking to Guido. Well, Guido is Jules Francone. He's a member of the local Family, but he's not family, if you know what I mean.' He nodded, and I told him 'Me and Guido, we did a little time together on a mission. He got shot down someplace or other, and me and my boys went in to pull him out before the locals noticed he'd lived. Got a little interesting, but we all made it out okay. On the way out, he told me who he was, and we got to talking the way GI's do. He told me about the Family, and that he didn't want to make his mark that way. Of course, along the way, he picked up the name Guido, kind of a left-handed compliment at him trying to stay out of the family business. Well, when Vinnie and Lugnut out there showed up and had their say, I asked them to call him. Gave him a little description of what was happening, and said I'd like to avoid trouble. He's going to talk to some people, and get back to me. In the mean time, he tried to put the leash on Vinnie. Vinnie tried to get cute, and found out I wasn't interested.'

Agent Gallery looked at me, surprised, and said 'We weren't aware that you had any contacts in the Falcone family.'

'Like I said, I helped pull him out of a jam. No official contact, technically.'

He nodded, and said 'So why are you so sure nobody will bother you tonight?'

'Couple of reasons. First, the first bunch got sent back with their tails between their legs. Second, Jules is going to talk to somebody; I'm willing to bet that even though he's not in the business, he's still got some influence. That'll slow them down enough to think about what happened.'

Agent Gallery nodded, and said 'Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Still, I'd feel better if you didn't go out tonight, okay?'

'That's fine. I was kinda in the mood for room service, anyway.'

He smiled his relief, and suddenly brightened, telling me 'Well, you'll still have Agent Jones here – she told me that she'd be coming to collect the dinner you offered as consolation prize for breaking her record. I'll feel better knowing she's here with you.'

I nodded, and told him 'You got a phone number or something for her?

I probably need to warn her that it's not going to be as dress-up as I'd figured.'

He laughed, and said 'She's already been told what happened. She said she'd be casual.'

I thanked him, and he went over to check on Lucy and the girls before letting himself out.

By the time I'd finished with Agent Gallery, and he'd left, the others had calmed down appreciably; but they were still shaky enough that all were more than agreeable to my suggestion of a group snuggle on the bed. In short order, I had Lucy in my arms on one side, with Robyn and Sandra on the other.

As we lay there, Lucy told me that Agent Jones had been very helpful in making sure the girls had plenty to do, and had even joined in with the three of them on the self-defense classes to let them 'beat up' on her. She'd also shown them a few things that she'd learned on her own, that particularly applied to females defending themselves.

All three agreed that they liked Jones a lot. Lucy even went so far as to tell me 'Every time she talked about you, she got this*look* on her face. Dan, I swear, if you smiled at her right, she'd go to bed with you!' – and I teased her right back, saying 'And of course, YOU would never think about joining me, would you?' and making her blush. All of us had agreed that Amanda Jones was a right attractive female, FBI agent or not.

We were still laying there, holding each other when we heard a knock at the door. Sandra started to get up to answer it, but Lucy quickly gestured for her to stay where she was, getting up to answer the door herself, instead. I heard her ask who it was, then the locks on the door being undone a few moments later. As Agent Jones came in, she gave a silent whistle at the rooms we had as I heard Lucy re-setting all the locks on the door. Agent Jones was dressed in a light cotton dress, pale green to show off her red hair and slightly pale complexion; it also showed that she had a nice pair of trim, muscular legs, and a slim, but definitely female, shape.

When she'd had a good look around, Agent Jones looked at the three of us on the bed, and smiled, saying 'That's about as comfortable group of people as I've seen in a long time!', making Robyn and Sandra smile back at her. Lucy came in then, and said 'Well, you know things got a little 'interesting' out in the hall, and I think all of us just needed to hold each other for a little while.'

Jones said, 'Yeah, I heard. I also heard that it was interesting for the two goons, too!'

Lucy smiled at her, and answered 'Yeah, thanks to Dan.', before looking at me lovingly.

Robyn asked Jones 'Uh, Agent Jones?'

Agent Jones said 'It's okay, Robyn. Just call me Amanda, or Amy.'

'Amy? I wanted to thank you again for what you showed us today. If it wasn't for that, I think I would have done something to mess things up when those guys were bothering us.'

'Yeah, me, too!' Sandra added.

'It's okay – that's what I'm here for' she told them.

I noticed that her eyes kept drifting down to a spot below Robyn's waist. A quick glance revealed that Sandra's hand was on the inside of Robyn's thigh – and rather high up, at that. I decided to try something, telling Amy 'Sorry we didn't get up, but we're a pretty casual group; we're not ashamed or afraid to show affection for each other.'

She pulled her eyes away from where they'd been, and when she saw that I'd been looking at her, blushed faintly, saying 'That's okay.

My own childhood was kind of strict, and I always envied the other kids that had families that were, uh, more open with each other.'

Lucy listened to this, from behind Amy, and gave me a look that plainly asked 'Am I hearing what I*think* I'm hearing?'

Robyn told her 'Well, then, why don't you kick your shoes off, and join us, then? Nobody here bites, and I'm sure we can make room for you between me and Sandra!'

For the first time in what I suspected was a long time, Amy seemed to find herself flustered at the invitation – but after a few moments, brightened up and did just as Robyn suggested – kicked her shoes off, set her handbag on the table, and climbed up onto the bed with us.

Sandra readily moved to the side to make room for her, and in just a few moments, Agent Jones was neatly bracketed by Robyn and Sandra, who both took one of her hands in theirs. Lucy resumed the position she'd had before, next to me.

Though visibly nervous, Amy was a trooper, and stayed between the youngsters even when each of them rested a hand on her leg. As we sat there chatting, she began to calm down, eventually joining in our talk without prompting. When the girls finally let go of her hands, she let them stay in the girl's laps; and even putting them back after using them to emphasize something she was talking about.

After a while, I realized that Amy might have other plans, and asked her if there was anyplace she had to be. She quickly assured me that she didn't, saying that with the additional agents we'd met that morning, there were more teams assigned to us – meaning that she'd work a shift, get a shift off, work another shift, then get TWO shifts off before coming in to repeat the cycle. She had the next day off, and would meet up with us again the next evening.

I told her that I'd planned to feed her something better than room service fare, and she quickly assured me that it was the gesture that mattered – that she'd be just as flattered if I took her out for a burger and fries. I asked