Intemperance IX - the Inner Circle
Copyright© 2025 by Al Steiner
Chapter 9: Open Arms
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 9: Open Arms - The ninth book in the long-running Intemperance series finds Jake Kingsley balancing family, music, and media chaos as his world grows stranger—and more fiercely loyal—by the day. With fame fading and life deepening, the Kingsleys and their inner circle face new challenges in love, trust, and the price of peace.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa BiSexual Fiction
Oceano, California
June 12, 2004
It was 4:25 PM on a beautiful almost-summer afternoon along California’s central coast. Jose Ramirez was happy to be spending the day at the Kingsley house on the cliff above Oceano—the first of the planned Saturday visits during summer break. The whole Ramirez family was here. Jose was out on the deck with Jake Kingsley, who was tending a Texas-style brisket on some kind of newfangled meat-smoking contraption he’d apparently been obsessed with for weeks. Juanita was inside, drinking wine in the entertainment room with Laura Kingsley, Celia Valdez, and a fancy rich lady named Rachelle—Greg Oldfellow’s new girlfriend. Greg himself was out back with the men, nursing a Cuban cigar and a glass of Lighthouse Ale that Jake had poured for him.
Carlos and Emilia, the two Ramirez children, were about thirty or forty feet up the big oak tree next to the deck. As had been the case at Casa Ramirez, Caydee was the highest of them. Even higher, however, was a crow flitting from branch to branch, cawing loudly and continuously at the children as if angry at them for playing in his tree. Caydee kept calling the crow “Pa-Ho,” and now even Carlos and Emilia were doing it. It was very odd.
But also kind of sweet. And clearly normal—for them, anyway.
It was an odd family, but a nice one.
And a rich one. Jose could not help but admire his surroundings.
“One more chunk of oak in the firebox and that’ll bring it home,” Jake said, picking up a small, seasoned branch from a pile he’d been soaking in water all day. He’d been adding them to the fire every hour or so—at least, that’s what he told them. Jose and his family had only been there about forty-five minutes.
He opened the firebox on the side of the contraption. Inside were charcoal lumps which were burning away at slow speed and temperature. The charred remains of the previous piece of oak sat atop the pile. Jake put the new branch atop of this, positioned it a bit (and burning his fingers a bit in the process) and then, satisfied, closed the box again. Almost immediately, fragrant smoke began to emit from the little exhaust pipe on the cooking section of the device.
“How long has the meat been on this ... thing?” Greg Oldfellow asked, a clear hint of distaste in his tone.
“I lit the first batch of charcoal at midnight,” Jake said. “Put the brisket on at one o’clock in the AM. Been coming out every ninety minutes since to regulate the temperature and add more oak or more charcoal.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than a Weber,” Jose said. He had a knockoff from Walmart they’d bought as an anniversary gift five years ago. He was good with it—but this offset smoker looked like it needed a diploma to operate.
“It is,” Jake said, “but not that much. I’m basically oven cooking the meat but with a source of wood smoke for flavoring.”
“At low temperature though?” Jose asked.
“That’s right. I’ve been keeping the temperature at around 230 to 240 degrees. A nice, slow, unhurried cook to break down those muscle fibers and infuse the meat with a smoke ring. It’s my first try at a brisket since I got the thing. I’ve done a couple of chickens, a pork shoulder, and some salmon, but this is my first try at Big Casino. Hopefully I haven’t spent the last sixteen hours setting us up for a pizza run.”
“I’m sure it will be delicious,” Jose said. It certainly smelled good.
“Sixteen hours of your valuable time to cook a brisket?” Greg said with a shake of his head. “I admire your dedication, but I myself would have simply hired someone else to do it for me. There are men with trucks and years of expertise who will prepare a full feast for you for a reasonable price. They even bring their own portable bathroom with them so you don’t have to let them inside your house.”
“Don’t mind Greg, Jose,” Jake said. “He’s just your basic blue-blooded snob. He’s not looking down at you or I personally. He looks down on the entire human race. It’s part of his charm.”
“Snob is such an ugly word,” Greg said, sipping from his beer.
“Not when it’s used by itself,” Jake said. “Now if you throw the F-word into it, then it starts to take on tones of insult. ’Greg, you’re a fucking snob.’ You see? More bite that way.”
“I do see your point,” Greg said carefully.
“How would you say that in Spanish, Jose?” Jake asked. “I don’t think I’m advanced enough to pull it off. Say, ’Greg, you’re a fucking snob’ in classic Mexican street profanity.”
“Well ... in polite company, I would say Greg, eres un poco fresa—which means, you are a little fancy.”
“Fancy?” Jake said. “Fuck that. Go for the jugular, Jose. We’re not polite company.”
“In that case,” Jose said, “I would say: Greg, eres un pinche mamón fresa.”
“Isn’t fresa the word for strawberry?” Jake asked.
“In a literal sense, sí, ” Jose said. “But it’s mainly slang for a snob—someone privileged, obsessed with appearance and status.”
“That sounds like Greg all right.”
“I did not come here to be insulted,” Greg said stiffly.
“Actually, you did,” Jake said. “Consent to insult you is implied the moment you drive through the gate.”
Jose smiled at the jest, feeling unexpectedly good. He was standing on a rich man’s deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean, smoking an illegally imported cigar that probably cost more than his weekly grocery budget, and sipping the finest beer he’d ever tasted. And he wasn’t just with a rich man—he was standing with Jake Kingsley and Greg Oldfellow, two of the most famous entertainers in the country.
And he was here not because he’d won some contest or done something important—he was here because his son had made friends with a little redheaded girl in kindergarten.
What was even stranger? They weren’t talking down to him. They weren’t humoring him. They were just ... talking. Like equals.
It was a very strange sensation. But not a bad one.
Though he and Juanita still did not fully understand the dynamic between Jake, Laura, and Celia Valdez, it didn’t really matter. Underneath it all, they were just a normal American family doing normal American family things. There was no weirdness here at all.
At that exact moment, the sliding door to the entertainment room opened and Laura stuck her head out. There was a look of alarm on her face.
“Jake, sweetie,” she said, her voice tight, “we need you in here. We’ve got a situation.”
“A situation?” Jake asked. “What is it?”
Laura sighed. “It’s a sequence of events that occurs without warning and requires immediate action,” she said. “But that’s not important right now. There are two fire engines, an ambulance, and two patrol cars at our gate. They want to be let in because there’s some fucking idiot trapped halfway up our cliff.”
“No way,” Jake said.
“Way,” Laura said dryly. “Now get in here and do some man-of-the-house shit, will you?”
Yes, Jose thought, his eyes wide now. No weirdness here at all.
There was a full line of emergency vehicles parked in front of the gate when Jake stepped into the office and looked at the video feed. The lead vehicle was a forest-green Ford Excursion with white California Department of Forestry markings. The man visible in the camera feed was wearing a battalion chief’s uniform and staring straight into the lens. Behind the SUV were two CDC fire engines and a ladder truck from Pismo Beach. Behind those, two green-and-white units from the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department and an ambulance.
This was not an elaborate practical joke. Probably not, anyway. The Kingsleys did have some strange friends.
Jake sat down in the desk chair and pressed the intercom button. “This is Jake Kingsley,” he said. “I understand we have a problem on our cliff?”
“I’m Battalion Chief Walker, CDF,” the man said. “I’m the incident commander here. Yes, Mr. Kingsley. There’s a problem. We got a guy stuck on the cliff. He called 911 from his cell phone and we GPS pinged it to that location. Can you let us in so we can assess the situation?.”
“Absolutely,” Jake said, pushing the button.
Jake watched as the gate opened and the vehicles began rolling through one by one. Before the last of them cleared, another patrol car pulled up—this one with Sergeant Stivick behind the wheel. Stivick had recently transferred from morning watch (what other professions called the graveyard shift) to swing shift, but he was still the ranking supervisor for the county’s coastal division.
Jake closed the gate behind Stivick’s car and turned toward the hallway, switching gears.
Laura was standing in the doorway.
“Make a quick sweep of the public areas,” he said. “Anything related to ganja—get it out of plain sight.”
“On it,” she said immediately. “I’ll start in the entertainment room.”
“C?” Jake called.
“Right here, Rev,” Celia answered.
“Can you man the desk for a bit? More vehicles are likely coming—and probably some pap or media clowns too. If they’re monitoring the scanner, they’re already on their way. Let in emergency vehicles only. Anything without flashing lights stays outside.”
“Sounds good,” she said, moving behind the desk.
Jake nodded. “I’ll go let the boys in.”
Jake opened the front door just as the battalion chief was reaching for the bell.
“Chief Walker?” Jake said, offering a quick handshake.
“That’s me,” the man replied, gripping his hand. “Thanks for letting us in. Where’s the access point?”
“Out back,” Jake said. “Through the house, across the main deck, and down to the hot tub overlook. You’ll see it.”
“Roger that.”
Behind Walker were a pair of paramedics in full gear—one tall and broad, the other much younger and smaller. Jake blinked when he recognized the larger man’s face. He had seen it before—in the feminine hygiene aisle of the Oceano Alph-Beta store on a fateful afternoon a few years back.
“Trower?” he asked, startled.
The paramedic did a brief double-take, then broke into a grin. “Well, holy shit. I thought I recognized those tats on your arms. Jake Kingsley, back from the dead.”
Jake stepped forward and shook his hand firmly. “I never got to thank you,” he said. “You and Julie—right? You two saved my life that day.”
Julie, standing just behind him with her trauma pack, smiled and gave a small wave. “Glad you’re still with us, Mr. Kingsley.”
“Jake,” he said. “Just Jake. Seriously ... thank you. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you two.”
Trower clapped him on the shoulder. “That was a hell of a call. You look a lot better than last time I saw you.”
“I feel better too,” Jake said, though his shoulder ached just a little at the contact. “Let’s go see what kind of dumbass climbed onto my cliff.”
As they moved inside, another familiar face peeled off from the rear of the convoy—Sergeant Stivick, dressed in his county-issued green and khaki uniform and mirrored sunglasses.
“Hey, Sarge,” Jake greeted. “It’s always interesting when you visit our humble domicile.”
“Of course it’s your humble domicile,” Stivick muttered, falling into step beside Jake. “I heard the call go out and just started shaking my head.”
Jake smirked. “Never a dull moment in Kingsley Manor.”
“Swear to God, this place needs its own dispatch code.”
They walked briskly through the entryway and into the entertainment room. Jake paused only long enough to check for any stray stashboxes, joints, or bongs left behind from recent music sessions, but Laura had already made her sweep. The place was clear.
Out on the back deck, the sun was bright and low, casting a golden glow over the yard and the shimmering ocean beyond. Greg and Jose were still sitting at the deck table, beers in hand, both now watching the line of emergency personnel streaming past them like a Fourth of July parade.
“What seems to be the situation?” Greg asked, rising from his seat.
“Apparently there’s a guy stuck on our cliff,” Jake said without breaking stride. “Climbed up from the rocks below. Probably a pap.”
“Christ,” Greg muttered. “They’re evolving.”
Jake led the group down the stamped concrete path and out onto the hot tub deck. From here, the bluff dropped straight down—120 feet of sheer cliff face, nothing but air, wind, and jagged rocks below. The tide was in, the surf crashing violently against the base of the cliff. What little beach existed at low tide was completely swallowed now, buried beneath the rising water.
About thirty-five feet down, clinging to a narrow ledge, was a man with a camera bag slung around his neck and pure panic on his face.
“Well, there’s your idiot,” Jake said.
Chief Walker stepped up to the railing and peered over. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
“Yup,” Jake said. “Welcome to my Saturday.”
Trower stepped up beside them, shading his eyes as he looked down. “Can’t believe this guy’s alive.”
“Give him time,” Jake muttered. “He’s working on it.”
“How we gonna do this, chief?” asked one of the firefighters. “Vertical rescue?”
“That’s one possibility,” Walker said. “We can rig a line to the support of the hot tub deck. I got the VRT coming in from SLO city fire. They should be here in another fifteen minutes or so. They can assess the situation. We also got a coast guard bird coming from SF. They’ll be here in about an hour.”
Just as they were discussing it, the sound of a helicopter reached them. It was not the heavy, deep bass sound of an HH-65 Dolphin, like the coast guard choppers that flew by the cliff now and again while on patrol. Instead, it was the lighter, friendlier beat of a Bell 206.
“That’s CHP,” one of the firefighters remarked.
“Yep,” the chief said. “They’re based out of Paso Robles. Must’ve heard the call and came to check it out.”
“Can they use that helicopter to pluck this dude off my cliff?” Jake asked.
“Not with that bird,” Walker said. “They’re putting together a vertical rescue chopper but it’s not up and running yet.”
“A bummer,” Jake said. “That would have been rather convenient.”
One of the firefighters made contact with the man below. It involved a lot of yelling. He was able to relay that his name was Drew and that he was stuck solid. He couldn’t climb any higher—no more toe holds—and he couldn’t go back down because one of his anchor rocks had fallen into the ocean. Below him now was nothing but empty air and crashing surf.
Besides, he added, the tide had come in and the beach had disappeared.
There was nowhere left to go. And no, he did not have any fucking safety gear. No ropes. No carabiners. Not even gloves. He was literally just clinging to the side of the cliff like a bug on a wall.
“Ask him if he’s had kids yet,” Walker said to the communication firefighter.
“What?” the firefighter asked, eyes wide. He was very young (Jake thought he looked about fourteen) and probably on his first long-term contract after a few seasons on wildfire hand crews.
“Why would I ask him that?”
“So we know whether to give him a fuckin’ Darwin Award when he splatters all over those rocks.”
“Oh ... okay,” the kid said, clearly having no idea what a Darwin Award was. But, since he was in a paramilitary organization where blind obedience was expected of newbies, he leaned back over the cliff and shouted: “Do you have any kids?”
A pause.
“What??” came drifting up from below.
Sergeant Stivick, standing next to Jake, chuckled. “Ahhh, the rookies,” he said. “They’re so cute before life destroys their very souls.”
The sound of heavy tires on gravel reached them from the side yard, near the gate leading up from the garage and side driveway. They couldn’t see the vehicles directly from the hot tub deck, but Jake knew the layout well enough to guess.
“That must be your VRT,” he said, glancing at Chief Walker.
A few moments later, the gate swung open and four firefighters appeared, hauling gear: ropes, anchor plates, harnesses, helmets. One of them—a tall, serious-looking woman with a calm face and braided hair—took in the scene with a practiced eye. She gave a small nod to Walker.
“Chief,” she said.
“Martinez,” Walker returned. “We’ve got a live victim about thirty-five feet down. No gear, no harness, no way up or down. The beach is underwater. We’re looking at a hoist or a vertical pick.”
Martinez stepped to the edge of the deck and peered over, her face unreadable. Her crew followed her, staying clear of the railing but already opening packs.
“This deck stable for anchor?” she asked.
“We think so,” Walker said. “It’s sunk on concrete posts down to bedrock, rated for a ten-person hot tub and surrounding patio traffic.”
“We’ll need to check it ourselves,” she said. “But from first glance, I don’t love the angle. It’s a sheer face and the ledge doesn’t give us much. We can get a line down to him, but if he slips while we’re lowering in, there’s no margin. He goes over.”
“I’ve seen better rappel platforms,” one of the other team members muttered, tightening a strap.
As they spoke, Greg Oldfellow wandered up from the main deck, looking vaguely annoyed and holding his beer glass like it was a wine glass. He still wore his linen button-up, now slightly wrinkled, and his expression carried the irritation of a man whose curated evening ambiance had been rudely interrupted.
“Is this still happening?” he asked the group at large. “Because I was promised a sunset and artisanal melancholy. Instead, I’m getting unnecessary drama due to bad decisions.”
“They’re workin on it,” Jake said. “Might take a little bit though. The Coast Guard’s sending a bird. VRT’s doing their site check.”
Greg blinked. “Coast Guard?”
Walker nodded. “HH-65 from San Francisco. ETA forty-five, maybe less depending on wind.”
Greg’s irritation vanished in an instant. His eyes lit up like a rescue beacon. He stepped forward, completely ignoring the crew, the cliff, and common sense.
“They’re sending a Dolphin?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Walker said warily.
“That is very appropriate,” Greg said. “Let them do it. Honestly, it’s the cleanest solution. Lower from offshore, fly in stable overwater air, swimmer comes down the cable, captures the target, lifts straight out. No friction points, no rope drift, no cliffside risk. That’s the move.”
Martinez, the VRT team leader, turned slowly to look at him. “And you are...?”
“Greg Oldfellow. I played Lieutenant Michael Andrews, USCG rescue pilot, in So Others May Live and So Others Won’t Die. I trained with Kodiak, Sitka, and Astoria units for five months. The real thing, not just staged footage. I’ve performed this exact rescue dozens of times—in training and on screen.”
Martinez blinked once, very slowly.
Walker, hiding a smirk, said, “Well, Greg, thank you for the input.”
Greg nodded sagely. “Just offering professional insight. Not trying to tell you how to do your jobs.”
Jake, standing just behind him, said, “You absolutely are trying to tell them how to do their jobs.”
“I’m just saying,” Greg replied, “it’s the appropriate rescue technique for this scenario.”
Martinez gave a tight look of extreme annoyance and turned back to the cliff edge.
“Actually, he’s kind of right,” she said, even more annoyed now that she had to admit it. “We’ll rig up and stand by. But yeah ... if the Coasties are bringing the hoist, we’ll defer. It’s much safer that way.”
“Smart move,” Greg said, walking away as if he’d just delivered a briefing to the Joint Chiefs.
The young firefighter continued shouting updates to the trapped man on the cliff while they waited. There was no small talk—too much wind, too much distance, too much at stake.
The VRT team rigged a line to one of the support legs beneath the hot tub deck and tossed it down. At the end was a rescue harness, which Drew was instructed to wrap around his waist—a safety hold, in case he slipped.
But Drew never even reached for it. Frozen by fear, he wouldn’t let go of the cliff long enough to make the grab. The harness dangled just feet away, useless for the moment. Still, they told him to grab the rope if he started to fall.
“I will,” came the ghostly, hollow reply from below.
They waited.
Jake used the pause in the action to trot back up to the house. He pulled the brisket off the smoker and carried it inside, setting it down on a large cutting board on the kitchen island. He then briefed everyone on what was going on and what the plan was.
“What about the meat?” Laura asked.
“It’ll be fine. It has to sit for at least forty-five minutes before carving anyway.”
“Okay,” she said. “I just finished the salad and the beans are still simmering.”
“Let ‘em keep simmering,” he instructed. “Hopefully we won’t be too late for dinner.”
He went back outside and back to the hot tub deck. Greg was still advising Chief Walker and Captain Martinez on the best approach for the chopper and where the LZ should be located. Everyone else in the house except Celia, who was manning the gate access, came out to the deck and the pool area to watch the show.
Finally, they heard the bass rumble of a big chopper approaching. The calvary was approaching.
The helicopter appeared from the northeast, skimming low over Pismo Beach and Highway 101. It was red and white, the acronym USCG plainly visible on its sides and underbelly, maybe two thousand feet up, tracking straight for them. As it passed overhead and went feet wet just north of the property, it began a wide, deliberate turn and a sharp descent. Dropping to three hundred feet above the water, it slowed into a creeping, forward hover toward the cliff—steady, mechanical, and patient.
Chief Walker, the incident commander, was able to establish direct communication with the Coast Guard bird. He relayed wind and terrain information and assured the pilots that there were no power lines in the vicinity.
“Power lines are invisible from above,” Greg said wisely when he heard this part of the report. “Nothing to contrast with them when the ground is the background. Chopper pilots fear power lines more than anything else.”
Jake simply nodded. His statement made sense and was likely very true, but he did not want to encourage the actor.
In the end, it was almost anticlimactic. Everyone on land backed well away from the edge of the cliff and became no more than spectators to the rescue. The chopper moved in a little closer and its side door opened. A figure in red rescue gear and a bright white helmet appeared in the open doorway, one gloved hand resting casually on the frame like he’d done this a thousand times. He slid out of the aircraft, dangling by a line he was attached to. He was lowered down, still offshore, until he disappeared below the cliff.
The helicopter moved in slowly, almost imperceptively.
It hovered in place for the better part of five minutes, the face of a crewman looking out the door and down at the rescue swimmer on the rope. Finally, the helicopter moved backwards again, away from cliff. Once it was well clear, it rose higher into the sky, bringing the end of the cable back into view. The rescue swimmer dangling at the end of the cable now had a human being strapped against him.
The pilot moved ashore again and gently lowered the two dangling men to the ground just between the hot tub deck and the main deck. The swimmer undid some straps and let go of Drew and his camera bag. Drew fell back onto his butt when his shaky legs refused to hold him up.
Once Drew was free, the swimmer began to rise into the air as he was pulled back toward the chopper. The chopper itself rose up as well, settling at about five hundred feet above the cliff. Once the swimmer was back inside the aircraft, it turned and headed off to the northeast, climbing as it went. Their part of the job was over.
Now it was time for Sergeant Stivick and his people to do their jobs.
They approached Drew in a slow, practiced semicircle—spread out, hands resting on holstered pistols, eyes tracking every movement, none of them in each other’s line of fire if it came down to that.
“Just slide that case over to the left, my friend,” Stivick said. “And keep those hands where we can see them.”
“It’s just my camera,” Drew replied. His voice trembled more than he probably wanted it to.
“We’ll see about that in a moment,” Stivick said. “Right now, we’re making sure you’re not carrying any guns, bombs, or hand grenades.”
Two deputies stepped in, each taking one of Drew’s arms. They helped him to his feet, then instructed him to place his hands on the back of his head.
“I’m not a criminal,” Drew said, trying to sound indignant but landing squarely in whiny.
“You were trespassing,” Stivick said, as calm as if he were ordering lunch.
“The people of California own the coastline,” Drew protested. “I climbed up from the water. That’s public land.”
Stivick nodded. “The beach, sure. But the moment you started climbing that bluff, you were on private property—Kingsley property. That’s a criminal trespass. We’re conducting a criminal investigation, and while your cooperation is appreciated, it is not required.”
He stepped a little closer.
“If you’d prefer that Miller and Stein throw you on your face and cuff you, just keep flapping your jaw.”
Drew wisely stopped flapping.
Miller and Stein searched him first, then his gear bag. His bag contained a Nikon D1X body with an 80–400mm telephoto zoom, a few spare battery packs, and a half-smashed protein bar.
No grenades.
Just a camera—a camera that cost more than the guy had probably paid in rent last year. And not a single fucking five dollar carabiner. Nor was there a Pacific Coast tide chart. Something that would have cost the man three bucks at a local gas station and might have saved him untold trouble if he had paid heed to it.
They did not handcuff him.
“How about some identification, my friend?” said Deputy Stein, a thirty-two year old recently divorced female cop who was a frequent visitor at Jake’s Pine Cove sessions. She was a fan of alt rock and was always trying to get Jake to do some of his solo material but he always refused. Guitar-sing time was fun time, not work time.
Drew looked like he was about to start spouting out about his rights but then thought better of it. He meekly pulled out a wallet, opened it up, and pulled out his driver’s license. He handed it to Stein, who, in turn, handed it to Stivick.
“Andrew Conners,” the sergeant read. “DOB seven-four of eighty-three. Born on the Fourth of July, huh?”
“Uh ... yeah,” Drew said. He was visibly shaking from the adrenaline of being plucked from a cliff and flown through the air.
“Still living at fourteen-eighty-seven Vernon Street in LA?”
“Yeah,” Drew said. “That’s my address.”
Stivick gave him a steely look. “Tell me something, Conners. What’s a nice boy from the Valley doing on a private cliff in San Luis Obispo County with a five-thousand-dollar lens and no climbing gear and no fucking tide chart. I know you don’t live close to the ocean in LA, but they have an ocean there, don’t they? You are aware that the ocean advances and retreats at predictable and chartable intervals, don’t you?”
“I ... I didn’t think the tide would matter,” he said. “There was beach there.”
Stivick shook his head and looked up at the heavens theatrically. “How wide is that beach at its widest, Jake?” he asked. “Maybe thirty feet?”
Jake shook his head. “Even during the most extreme negative tides we’ll only get about twenty feet or so. Most low tides—like today’s, for instance, which peaked at 11:33 this morning according to the chart on the tide website I use—we’ll only get about ten feet or so, sometimes only five or six.”
“How long were you down there, Conners?” Stivick asked. “Did you start your climb around noon when the tide had just turned?”
Drew looked very nervous now—not flying through the air nervous, but the cops are questioning me about what they just caught me doing nervous. “I ... uh ... I think I’m going to invoke my right to remain silent.”
Stivick’s glare deepened. “But I didn’t tell you that you had the right to remain silent yet,” he said. “How can you invoke a right you haven’t been advised of?”
Andrew’s eyes went wide. The look on his face was priceless as he considered the thought that he might have just dropped into a Quentin Tarantino flick.
And then Stivick’s face softened and turned to amusement. “Just fuckin’ with you, Andrew,” he told him. “We get so little joy in life, us cops.”
“It isn’t easy to be us,” said Stein, deadpan.
“So ... what now?” Drew said. “Am I under arrest?”
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