This wasn’t the first time Donny Campanella stared down the muzzle of his brother’s nickel-plated SW1911.

But with Frankie in an intemperate mood and reeking of cigarettes and bourbon, Donny hoped it wasn’t the last.

“You took the old broad’s jewelry.” Frankie pinned Donny to his bed, straddling his waist with the gun’s muzzle aimed up Donny’s left nostril. “You motherfucker. You went to fuckin’ Needles behind my back and you took the old lady’s jewels, and now she’s dead. I bet you killed the old broad, too.”

“Frankie, shut up,” Donny said to his shorter, fatter and older brother. “Besides, you went to Vegas to screw around, what was I supposed to do?”

“What was this bullshit at the gas station, you and Tommy Chunks? Helluva long way to go to suck each other’s dicks, fruitcup.” Frankie slapped Donny’s right cheek with his left hand.

Good thing Frankie had a steady trigger finger. But Donny figured, enough was enough. “For once and for all, I am not gay, shit for brains.”

Frankie laughed. “With those fruity clothes? Look at you, a girlie-girl pink shirt. No real man wears a freakin’ pink shirt, baby doll.”

“This thing cost me a wad. Besides, you’re wrinkling it.”

“Don’t forget, I caught you shaving your chest the other day, too.”

“It’s called ‘manscaping’ and it wouldn’t hurt you to try it once in a while.”

“And the eyebrow waxing. Shit. Tell me that ain’t fruitier than a freakin’ San Francisco yogurt stand.”

“Yeah, well, I love what you’ve done with your unibrow.”

Frankie snorted. “You watch that ‘Queer Eye’ show every week and do all the fruity stuff they want you to do, and then with a straight face, which may be the only thing straight about you, you tell me you ain’t a faggot.”

“If I was a fag, like you say I am, then I wouldn’t have screwed Rhonda Tutwiler, in her room, with her parents downstairs, in the den, three times in one night.” Back in junior high.

“What, ‘Old Butterface’?” Frankie snorted again. “Don’t know how to tell you this, little bro, but that was sloppy seconds.”

“All I’m saying is, you could take lessons in style from me, and that’s all I’m gonna say. Just look at yourself for once.”

Frankie did. On his head was a pure black New York Yankees cap, its flat bill slanted over the right side of his forehead. He wore a red hoody sweatshirt, baggy black jeans that came halfway down his wide butt and exposed blue-and-red striped boxer shorts, and unlaced, pure white, low-cut sneakers. Under the sweatshirt, a massive gold-plated chain with a Mercedes hood ornament stolen from a genuine Mercedes hung from his neck.
Frankie slapped Donny again, retaining control of his trigger finger. “Let’s get back on point, numbnuts.” He took his cell phone from his pocket and pulled up a picture. He showed it to Donny. “Okay, sweet cheeks, so what’s this you’re giving Tommy? Huh? Something tells me there ain’t no toothpaste and floss in that toiletry bag. Am I right or am I right?”

Based on the angle, Donny figured Frankie took the picture from around the corner of the Texaco station, slightly behind and to the left of Donny and Tommy and out of their line of sight. Donny chastised himself for not spotting Frankie or his convertible Corvette when he reconnoitered the area twenty minutes before Tommy Chunks arrived. He assumed Frankie parked behind the station when Donny went inside to buy a Diet 7-Up and a copy of Men’s Health. “Shit.”

Frankie advanced to the next picture. “See, here in this one you’re giving him some envelope.” The next picture showed Frankie lying on a sidewalk. He held a beer in his hand as the Stratosphere Tower in Vegas sprang from his crotch. “Oh.” He clicked on the next pic. In it, a drunken Frankie hoisted a giant martini in a nightclub while two twenty-something girls engaged in a full lip-lock beside him. “Dammit, wrong way.” He flipped the phone shut. “Anyway, I’d be right about all that, huh, Queer Eye?”

Donny nodded. The gun’s muzzle in his nose followed the motion of his head. “Yeah, dipshit,” he said, his next move in place.

Frankie’s was, too. “So where’d you send him?”

“I think you already know.”