Angie closed the lid of her suitcases and took the bags downstairs.  She set them beside Rollie’s bags in front of the door.  In less than two hours they’d be on a plane heading to Saudi Arabia and the start of their honeymoon.  She could hardly wait.

Angie joined her husband in the kitchen.  He was sitting over a cup of coffee, yawning.  She knew that he hadn’t gotten much sleep that night.  Ever since Loubar’s death, he’d been having trouble sleeping.  He was still upset over the fact that he’d shot and killed the man, even though he had no choice.  Angie had chosen not to pressure Rollie into talking about it.  When he was ready, he’d come to her.

Rollie smiled as she sat down beside him and gave her a kiss.  “All packed?”

“Yep.”  Angie brushed a lock of hair off his forehead.  “You okay?”

Rollie returned his attention to the coffee.  “Yeah, I’m fine.  Just a little sleepy.  It’s a long flight.  I can catch a nap on the plane.”

Angie smiled wickedly.  “Yeah, you’d better get all the sleep you can on the flight, because, once we get over there, you’re not going to be getting much.”

Rollie returned the grin.  “Why, whatever do you mean, madam?”

Angie wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close.  “Guess,” she murmured.

Rollie’s lips came down on hers in a long, passionate kiss.  They drew apart as they heard a horn outside.

“That would be the taxi,” Rollie commented.

Angie straightened her clothing and smoothed down her hair.  They headed for the door.

“Watch the place while we’re gone, Blue,” Angie said.  The robotic dog answered with a bark.

The plane lifted into the air like a great steel bird.  As the ground fell away, Rollie smiled.  This trip was going to be good for both of them.  So many things had happened in the last few months.  There were a lot of unpleasant memories that needed to be put aside, and a month of nothing to do but enjoy themselves was just the thing to help them do it.

Once the seatbelt sign had turned off, Rollie and Angie settled back to enjoy the flight.

“Rollie Tyler.  I thought that was you,” said a voice beside them.

Rollie turned to see who had spoken.  “Well, Jake Bradford.  What do you know.  How long has it been?”  He shook the man’s hand.

“Oh, must be five years, at least,” replied the man.  He sat down in the vacant seat beside Angie.

“Angie.  Great to see you again.  I swear you’re even more beautiful than the last time I saw you.”

Angie smiled and thanked him, knowing that Jake had been sincere in his compliment.

“So, you guys going off to some new movie project?”

“Nope, this trip is purely pleasure.”  Rollie smiled broadly.  “We’re on our honeymoon.”

“Honeymoon!  Well, well.  So, you finally got together.  That’s great.  Congratulations!”

“Thanks.  So, where are you off to, Jake?” Rollie asked.

“Oh, there’s a problem at our office in Lisbon.  I have to go straighten it out.  Ah, the curses of being an operations manager for an international corporation.  But enough about me.  You know, you never did tell me how you two met or how you got into the special effects business, Rollie.”

“That’s a long story,” the Aussie responded.

“Well, this is a long flight, and I don’t have any pressing engagements.  So, how about it?”

Rollie laughed and shook his head.  “All right, Jake.  You asked for it.  Well, let’s see.  It’s over fourteen years now.  I guess you could say it all started on location for a movie called Cold Vengeance. . . .”

Rollie Tyler thoroughly checked the harness and line, then checked them again.  They were the only things that would be between him and a very long drop into the East River, and he was going to make sure they were in perfect working order.

“Come on, Rollie.  This is the last gag.  How many times are you going to check that thing?” complained fellow stuntman Louie Farrell.

“As many times as it takes for me to be satisfied,” replied Rollie.  “I’m not going to end up like Walt.”

“Walt was a walking accident.  It was only a matter of time before he ended up spammed.”

“Well, he wouldn’t have been ‘spammed’ if he’d bothered to check the equipment before the gag.  I took a look at the winch afterwards, and it was clearly defective.  He would have seen that--almost anyone would have seen that--if it had been thoroughly tested beforehand.  If I had been the stunt coordinator on that movie, Walt would still be alive, and the producer and studio wouldn’t be getting their butts sued off.”

“Listen to you.  You’ve been a stuntman for, what, two years, and you think you’re an expert.”

“I’m not even close to being an expert, Louie, but I do have enough brains not to put my life or the lives of others on the line with equipment that hasn’t been properly tested.”

“Well, when you’re the boss, something I doubt will ever happen, then you can be demanding.  Until then, you take orders from the S.C., and he says that you’re taking too long.”

“The S.C. can bloody well. . . .”  Rollie’s voice trailed off as he saw the name on the van pulling up to the producer’s motor home.

“Ramirez F/X?  What are they doing here?”

“I heard that they’ll be working on the producer’s next project, Gangster Alley.  They’re probably here to discuss the details.”

“Ramirez F/X is among the best in the business.  I’ve never heard of anyone getting seriously hurt on a gag they set up.”

“Yeah, well, it has nothing to do with you,” said Louie.  “Production on the movie starts day after tomorrow, and they’ve already hired the stunt people they need for it, so don’t bother trying to get a job on it.”

“Tyler!” someone yelled.  Rollie turned to see the stunt coordinator striding toward them.  Dirk Kowalski never had anything but a frown on his face, but the frown was even more pronounced at that moment.  “Are we going to get this thing done sometime this year?”

“I’m ready to go whenever you are.  I just finished checking the gear, and everything is fine.”

“Well, that’s just wonderful.  So, get over to the bridge.  They’re all anxiously awaiting your arrival.”

Rollie picked up his gear and headed toward the camera crew.  He looked back over his shoulder to see a man and a little girl exit the van with Ramirez F/X painted on the side.  “Now that’s what I’d love to be doing,” he murmured to himself.  Then he laughed.  Yeah, right.  Like he’d have any hope of getting into that business.

Rollie approached a man standing at the railing.  The man was shaking his head.

“Are Kowalski and Farrell giving you grief again?” stuntman Sam Turner asked.

Rollie shrugged.  “Yeah, but I’m used to it.”

“Don’t listen to them, kid.  You’ve got more brains than both of them put together.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again; you’re wasting your talents in this job, Rollie.  How many other stunt people would have figured out that the charges under that car on Assassin were placed wrong and would flip it right back into the camera?”

“And what did that get me?  The F/X company had me fired.”

“Because you caught a mistake that they should have.  You made them look like idiots.  Aren’t they on the verge of bankruptcy now?”

“Yeah, they screwed up a major gag.  After that, word started getting out about their other screw ups, and they began losing jobs.”  Rollie looked over at the camera crew, seeing that they were done setting up.  “Well, we’d better get this thing done before I get fired off this job, too.”

The harness line was tied under the bridge.  Rollie removed his coat and put on the harness.  He and Sam checked to make sure that each buckle was securely fastened before putting the coat back on.  Rollie stood up against the railing.  The actor, Tom Bradbury, stood in front of him, a prop gun aimed at his chest.

“All right, everybody set?  Then let’s do this," the director said.  The take number was called, and the director yelled action.

The gun went off and Rollie threw himself backwards over the railing.  He did a flip in midair, turning his face toward the water below.  The Aussie felt the rush of adrenalin as he fell.  Then the line snapped taut, stretched, and bounced back up, carrying Rollie with it.  Bobbing on the end of the line about twenty-five feet above the surface of the river, he heard the director yell cut, then say that it was a print.  A boat that had been hidden under the bridge maneuvered under Rollie and a cherry picker-like basket was raised toward him.  He was helped into the basket.  After disconnecting the line from the harness, Rollie was lowered to the deck of the boat.

Another stunt pulled off without a hitch.  If this had been a couple of months ago, he’d have been elated, but lately, his pleasure in doing the stunt work had not been what it used to be.  By the time he got involved in a stunt, it had already been planned out and the equipment designed and built.  He had no part in any of that, and Rollie was beginning to realize that he wanted to be.  He wanted to be a part of figuring out how a stunt or gag could be done and then help put it together.  He wanted to feel the satisfaction of seeing a gag go off without a hitch, knowing that he’d played a part in its creation.

Rollie’s frustration about not being involved with the design and setup of the stunts and gags had gotten worse since starting Cold Vengeance.  He had so many ideas about how things could be done, but he couldn’t tell anyone.  They’d just look at him and see nothing but a stuntman.  When he’d pointed out the mistake with the car bomb on Assassin, he’d done it because he knew that, if he didn’t, someone could get killed.  Even though he’d gotten fired, if he had to do it all over again, he’d do the same thing.

As Rollie rejoined the film crew, Sam came over and congratulated him.  Then he noticed the expression on the young man’s face.

“So, what’s wrong?” he asked.  “You don’t look all that happy.”

“I’m beginning to think that this job isn’t for me.  It isn’t enough anymore.  I want to be able to use my brain and my imagination.  I can’t do that jumping off bridges and crashing cars.”

“No, you can’t, which is what I’ve been trying to tell you for quite a while now.  So, if you quit stunt work, what would you do?”

“I don’t know.  Without training or practical experience, there aren’t many jobs that I could get.  I suppose I could keep doing the stunts and take some classes at night and on the weekends, though, with a stuntman’s schedule, I’d probably miss more classes than I’d make.”

The man and girl that had arrived in the F/X van were coming out of the producer’s motor home.  The producer followed behind them, deep in conversation with the man.  Rollie watched them, again thinking about a life in special effects that he'd never have.

“Hey, Rollie?  I seem to have lost my lucky pen.  Could you check to see if I left it over where we had lunch?” Sam asked.

Rollie turned to the stuntman.  He studied the man, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.  He could have sworn that he’d seen the pen in Sam’s pocket just a moment ago, but there was no sign of it now.

“What are you up to, Sam?” Rollie asked.

“Up to?  I’m not up to anything.  I’m just asking a simple favor.”

“Oh, and I suppose that it’s just a coincidence that the table where we had lunch happens to be right beside the producer’s motor home.”

“Now what would that have to do with my lucky pen, Rollie?” Sam asked innocently.

“Not a thing, Sam.”  Rollie laughed.  “All right.  I’ll go look for your pen.”  He headed off toward the motor home.

Sam watched him leave.  With a smile, he slipped a silver ballpoint pen out of his pants pocket and stuck it back in his shirt pocket.  Then he turned away and, whistling a happy tune, sauntered off to join his fellow stuntmen.
 

CHAPTER TWO -- A NEW JOB

Manny Ramirez smiled down at Miles “AC” Bobb.  The two of them had been friends for a long time, ever since the producer gave him, a young man with a fledgling F/X company, his first job.  Since then, they had worked on many projects together, and now they were going to start another one.

“So, see you on Thursday, then,” said AC.

“We’ll be there.  There are a few things in the script that we need to go over, though.  Some stuff is going to have to be reworked,” Manny explained.

“Hmm.  That could be a bit of a problem.  If it was only up to me, I’d give you complete control to change whatever had to be, but my co-producer also wrote the script, and he’s pretty touchy about it being fiddled with.”

“Well, if he can’t take having his scripts revised, then he should stick to producing.  None of us have the time to waste on an obstinate writer.”

“Don’t you worry about it, Manny.  If there are any problems, we’ll get them worked out.”  AC turned to Angie, Manny daughter.  “Are you taking good care of your dad, Sweet Potato?”

Angie smiled back at AC even though she hated the nickname the producer had given her.

“Oh, she takes very good care of me,” said Manny with a smile.  “She makes me eat all my vegetables and makes sure I don’t stay out after midnight when I’m not on a job.”

“Dad!” protested Angie.

Manny laughed and tousled his daughter’s hair.  Then he turned back to AC.  “We’d better get going.  Angie has a part in a school play tonight.”

“Oh, really.  A budding actress, eh?  So, what’s the play?”

“Beauty and the Beast.  Angie has a very important part.”

“I do not,” declared Angie.  “I’m only playing some stupid teacup.  Carrie Green got the big part of Beauty.”

“Sounds like a case of miscasting to me,” commented AC.  “This Carrie person couldn’t possibly be a better Beauty than you, Angie.”

Angie looked at AC, her eyes narrowed.  “You’re just teasing me.”

“Hey, now would I do that?  Show business runs in your blood, Angie.  Can Carrie Green say that?”

“No,” Angie admitted.

“Well then, need I say more?  I bet her agent greased some wheels to get her this part.”  AC held his hand out and rubbed his fingers together.

Angie giggled.  She really liked AC, despite the nickname thing.  She couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been in her life.  He was almost like an uncle to her, and, with her mother being dead, Angie needed all the family figures she could get.

“Come on, Ange,” Manny said.  “We’d better get going.  You wouldn’t want to be late for opening night.”

Manny and Angie said goodbye and climbed into the van.  AC watched them leave, then headed toward the film crew.  That’s when he saw a tall, slim young man on the other side of his motor home.  The man was peering underneath one of the tables that had been set up for the crew to have their lunch breaks at.  AC recognized him as one of the stuntmen.  He remembered that the young man’s name was Rollie Tyler.  Normally, he didn’t remember the names of the stunt people who worked on his films, but he’d heard some things about this one that had interested him.  AC decided that it was time to meet this particular stuntman.

“Did you lose something?” he asked as he walked over.

Rollie, who’d stuck his head under the table, straightened suddenly, cracking the top of his head on the underside of the table.  Swearing softly and rubbing his head, he got to his feet.  The producer was standing in front of him.

“Uh, no, not me.  One of the other stuntmen said he thought he lost his pen over here.  I was just checking for him.”  Rollie was trying to hide his nervousness, but didn’t think he was doing a very good job.  This was the producer he was talking to.  Stuntmen seldom had much contact with producers.

“You’re Rollie Tyler, right?”

Rollie smiled in surprise.  Miles Bobb actually knew his name.  “Yes, I am.”

The producer held out his hand and Rollie shook it, hardly believing that this was happening.

“Well, Rollie, we still need a couple of stuntmen for my next project, Gangster Alley.  Would you be interested?  I think you guys are all done with this one, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yeah.  I just did the last stunt.  But I thought you already had all the stunt people you needed for Gangster Alley.  I was talking to another stuntman, and he said there were no more openings.”

“As far as I know, we still need a couple more men, but if you’ve already got something else lined up, that’s okay.”

“No, I’m free.  I’d be happy to work on Gangster Alley, sir.”

“Sir!  What’s this ‘sir’ business?  Everybody calls me AC.  That means you, too.”

“Thanks, uh . . . AC.”

“Here, let me get you a script.”  The producer went into his motor home.  He came out a few seconds later with a script and a shooting schedule.  “Look it over and familiarize yourself with the scenes we will be shooting.  We’ll be starting on Thursday at seven.  Come over around six, and we’ll make your hiring official.  We could still use one more man, so if you have anyone in mind, bring him along.”

“Yeah, I’ve got someone in mind.  Thanks a lot, AC.”

“Don’t mention it.  Remember, six o’clock.”

“We’ll be there.”

Rollie and Sam headed over to Stage Six.  The place was populated by men in trench coats and hats carrying Tommy guns.  They waded through the semi-controlled madness over to a man sitting behind a table.  The man had a list in his hands and was directing some extras on where they needed to go.

“Hello, I’m Rollie Tyler and this is Sam Turner.  We’re stuntmen.  Miles Bobb told me to come over today.”

“Yeah, AC told me about you.”  He handed Rollie and Sam forms to fill out.  “It’s the usual stuff.  You can fill them out over there.”  The man looked down at the list he held.  “We’ll be needing one of you over on Lot Three for a car crash they'll be shooting in an hour.  You can do that, Turner.  Tyler, AC wants you to work inside on the gun battle sequence.  The F/X people are in there right now setting things up.”

The two stuntmen took the forms over to a small table and sat down to fill them out.

“Ho ho!  Now you’ve got producers personally deciding what stunts you should be doing.  Very impressive,” commented Sam with a smile.

“Would you quit it,” Rollie pleaded.  Sam had been at it ever since Rollie told him about his conversation with AC.  “I’m probably just going to be a stand-in for some actor.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  We’ll see.”

“I’ll tell you, though.  The script has some problems.  You know that lighthouse gag?  It is way past reality.”

“I didn’t get that far in the script.  Tell me about it.”

“Well, in the script, evidence against the mobsters has been hidden on the top floor of a lighthouse.  The heavies search for it, but can’t find it, so they decide to blow the lighthouse up.  After planting the bomb, they get in a boat and take off.  Meanwhile, the hero, who was hiding under the stairs, runs up to retrieve the evidence.  There isn’t enough time to disable the bomb, so he grabs the stuff and hightails it down the stairs.  He only makes it a few feet when the bomb goes off.  The force of the explosion blows the light right out of the lighthouse.  It sails through the air and smashes into the boat, killing the very men who had set the bomb.  Great poetic justice, but a complete violation of physics.”

“How so?”

“Do you have any idea how heavy one of those lights are?  The amount of explosives it would take to knock that light off its mount and hurl it some sixty to eighty feet through the air would completely destroy the lighthouse.  Yet they have the hero right there inside it, and he hardly gets a scratch on him.”

“Knowing you, Rollie, I suppose you’ve got something else all figured out.”

“I was kind of working something out in my head, for all the good it does.”

“Maybe you should tell them,” Sam suggested.

“You’ve got to be kidding.  I don’t want to get fired off another job.  Besides, Ramirez F/X will catch it.  They’re too good not to.”

The two stuntmen handed the completed forms to the man behind the table.  He glanced over them, then sent Sam to Lot Three.  Rollie went on into Stage Six.

Manny was setting up explosive charges among some oil barrels when AC came up to him.

“You really do need someone to help you with this stuff, Manny.”

The F/X man turned to the producer, who was looking down at him, shaking his head.

“Why don’t you hire some regular help?” AC asked.

“And have another incident like last time?  That gag could have ended with some serious injuries if I hadn’t caught Donnelly’s mistake in time.  Then he had the nerve to say that it was my fault, that I’d told him how to do it incorrectly.  No, I’ll get the grips to help rig the equipment and hire temps to help with makeup, but that’s all.”

“Manny, Manny.  You just need to find the right sort of person, someone you can take under your wing as an apprentice.  You need someone with brains, who isn’t afraid to ask questions or admit he doesn’t know something, but will state his opinions and ideas when he has them.”

“Well, if you find someone like that, let me know, will you?” Manny said.  He appreciated what AC was trying to do, but he’d had too much trouble with employees in the past to hurry up and hire another one.

AC smiled.  “Come over here.  I want to show you something.”  They walked out past the barrels.  The producer pointed to a young man on the set.  “You see that tall, good-looking kid over there?  Watch him for a while.”

The two men watched as the young man wandered around the set, taking in everything that was going on.  He seemed to be paying special attention to the F/X equipment that was being set up.  Occasionally, he’d stop and talk to someone, apparently asking questions, then paying close attention to the answers.  Manny noticed a grip who was trying to install a gear mechanism incorrectly.  He was just about to step forward when the young man went up to the guy and showed him the right way to do it.

His eyebrows lifting in surprise, Manny asked, “Who is he?  Some kind of rep from the safety commission?”

“No, he’s a stuntman.”

Shocked, Manny turned to the producer.  “You’re joking.”

“No, I’m dead serious.  He just finished up on Cold Vengeance.  I got him on this because I’d heard things about him that interested me.  He’s a smart kid, Manny, a really smart kid, too smart to spend his life crashing cars.  Did you hear about that incident with FX-tra where a stuntman pointed out some misplaced charges?”

“Yeah, but I pretty much ignored the part about the stuntman.  You know how gossip can get distorted way beyond the truth in this business, and it was a bit hard to swallow that a stuntman would catch something that technical.”

“Well, believe it.  It really happened.  He’s the one who found the mistake.”

Manny turned back to the young man.  “Him?  But, if he has that kind of knowledge, why is he doing stunt work?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe you should ask him.  He’s a nice kid, Manny.  I think you’d like him.”

Just then, the co-producer walked onto the set.  He spied AC and Manny and headed straight toward them.  He did not look happy.

“What is this crap about the lighthouse?” Derrick Bray shouted.

“No crap, just a simple fact of physics,” explained Manny.  “You can’t have an explosion powerful enough to hurl that light seventy, eighty feet and still have a lighthouse standing afterwards.  The lighthouse would be history, and there would be nothing left of your hero.”

“This is one of the most important scenes in the movie, not to mention the most spectacular.  Then there’s the whole irony of what ends up happening.  I’m not going to do a complete rewrite and ruin the movie because you say it couldn’t happen that way.”

Manny shrugged.  “If you want to insult the intelligence of the viewing audience, that’s your prerogative, but I’m going to tell you that people will be leaving the theater shaking their heads at the piece of fantasy they just got through watching.”

“People don’t go to movies to use their brains, they go to be entertained.  This is entertainment.”

“I really despise attitudes like that.”  There was anger in Manny’s voice.  “Without the viewers you wouldn’t be in business, yet you look down your nose at them.”

“The scene stays in as written, and that’s final,” Bray said, ignoring what Manny had said.

“Excuse me?” said a soft voice with an Australian accent.

Manny turned to see that the young stuntman had walked over to them.  The F/X man looked into a pair of gentle, warm brown eyes.  “Yes?”

The stuntman’s eyes shyly shifted downward for a moment, then returned to his.  “There might be a way to do the gag and keep in all of the most important elements, yet make it closer to reality.”

“Who are you?” asked Bray, looking the young man up and down.

“What does it matter?” said AC.  “What’s your idea, kid.  Go on, we won’t bite.”  The producer smiled encouragingly.

“Well, I was thinking that, first, the mobsters have trouble getting the motor on the boat started, so, when the bomb goes off, they’re a lot closer to the lighthouse.  Second, give the hero a chance to get further down the stairs.  When the bomb explodes, it knocks the light off its mount and out of the lighthouse and rains debris down on the hero, nearly knocking him down the stairs.  The light swings down on the end of the electrical cables and smashes against the wall, knocking a big hole in the lighthouse and more debris down on the hero.  The light hangs there for a few seconds, then the cables snap and it falls.  It strikes the edge of the cliff at an angle, ricochets off, and goes flying through the air right into the boat.  It stills stretches the realm of possibility, but not as much as the other way.”

All three men stared at the young man for a long moment.  Manny was amazed.  The idea was brilliant.  What the hell was this kid doing in stunt work?

“I love it!” exclaimed AC.  “You’ve still got the explosion, the light flying through the air, and you get an added element.  Those seconds when the light is dangling at the end of those cables--great tension builder!  We could do a closeup of the cables stretching and breaking.”  AC turned to his fellow producer.  “Well, Derrick?  How about it?”

The man shrugged.  “I admit that it has potential.  I can work with it, make some alterations,” Bray said grudgingly.

“Oh, get off it, Derrick.  It’s perfect just the way it is.  The kid’s a genius!”

The young man blushed, and his gaze momentarily dropped to the floor again.  A shy smile flashed across his face.  Manny instantly decided that he liked him.

“All right, I admit it.  It’s perfect just the way it is.  Now, if you will all excuse me, I need to do a rewrite.”  Bray strode away, pointedly not thanking the young man.

“Just ignore him, Rollie.  Derrick Bray’s ego could keep an oil tanker afloat.”  AC patted the young stuntman on the shoulder.  “Rollie, this is Manny Ramirez.  Manny, Rollie Tyler.”

The two men shook hands.  “It is a great honor to meet you, sir,” Rollie said.

“Call me Manny, Rollie.  May I ask you a question?  Your idea for the lighthouse gag.  Did you just think that up?”

“No, I put it together after I read the script last night.  I knew that the force of the explosion as it was written would destroy the lighthouse.”

Manny nodded.  “Tell me, was there anything else you found wrong?”

“Well . . . this sequence you’re setting up now has some problems.”

“Such as?”  Manny found that he was growing more intrigued with the young man by the moment.

Rollie glanced at AC.  “Um, the feds have a shootout with the mobsters in this warehouse.  At one point, a bullet puts a hole in one of the oil drums.  Oil leaks out, a spark ignites it and the barrels blow, but the battle continues until the feds capture the mobsters.  First off, petroleum burns, but it doesn’t explode, not without a whole hell of a lot more heat.  Then there’s the fact that oil fires burn with a lot of thick black smoke.  This whole warehouse would be filled with it in seconds.  Not only would everyone be coughing their lungs out, they also wouldn’t be able to see anything.”

“So, how would you change it?”

“That’s easy.  Change the oil to gasoline.  You’ll get a nice big explosion, and it burns more cleanly.”

Manny smiled.  “That’s one of the first changes I requested.  The script has already been revised.”  He paused, studying the stuntman.  “Rollie, how would you like to hang around for a while and help me out on this job?  I had to fire my assistant a couple of months ago, so I’m shorthanded.  I would, of course, pay you a regular wage.”

The F/X man saw a light grow in Rollie’s eyes, then it faded away.  “I would love to, but I’ve already taken a job here as a stuntman.  AC hired me.”

“And I can also unhire you,” the producer said with a smile.  “Hey, I can get stuntmen anywhere.  Good special effects people are a lot harder to come by.”

The light in Rollie’s eyes was back, along with a big smile.  “Thanks, AC, and thank you, Manny.  When do I start?”

“How about now?  I could use some help planting squibs and checking the job the grips did on setting up some of the equipment.  Do you think you can handle that?”

“The squibs are no problem, but I don’t really know enough to be sure if some of the equipment is set up right.”

Pleased at the young man’s humility, Manny smiled.  “Well, if there’s anything you’re not sure on, just let me know.”

“Will do.”

Manny told Rollie where the squibs were and the general locations they should be placed.

As Rollie went off to do his job, AC spoke up.  “I told you that you’d like him,” he said with a satisfied grin.

“Yes, you did, and you were right.  He seems to be quite the young man.  We’ll see how he does over the next few days and take it from there.”
 

CHAPTER THREE -- A NEW ASSISTANT

Rollie felt like he was walking on clouds.  He couldn’t believe this was happening.  His dream might actually be coming true.

He worked nonstop throughout the morning.  Once he’d finished placing the squibs, he moved on to checking what the grips had set up.  His experience as a stuntman had given him knowledge on the rigging and equipment used for the stunts, so he was easily able to tell that they had all been set up correctly.  He tested all of the equipment to make sure it was functioning properly.  Rollie found that most of the F/X for this sequence involved explosives, and those were being placed by Manny himself.  He closely studied how they had been set as Manny told him what each one was supposed to do.  The F/X man then showed Rollie a few other devices that were being used and explained how they worked.  Afterwards, Manny gave him some more jobs to do, smiling warmly as he did so.

Rollie liked Manny Ramirez.  The man was full of passion for life and for his work.  He was clearly the kind of man that wouldn’t take any garbage from anyone, not even the people who hired him.  He had his opinions and beliefs and stuck to them.  Rollie had seen a lot of F/X companies kowtow to the wishes of the directors and producers, even though they knew it was a mistake.

As the lunch break was called and the others left, Rollie continued to work.  At about quarter after twelve, Manny came up to him.

“Come on, Rollie, time for lunch.”

Manny retrieved a bulging paper sack from his van.  “My daughter fixed my lunch and, as usual, made way more than I could possibly eat by myself.  Care to share it with me?”

They sat down and dug into the generous meal.

“I saw you talking to AC day before yesterday.  The little girl with you was your daughter?” Rollie asked.

“Yeah, that’s my Angela.  I’m afraid she inherited her old man’s passion for the business.  But then, she’s spent most of her life growing up around it, so I guess it’s only natural.”

“What about her mother?”

The smile on Manny’s face vanished.  “Her mother died a couple of years ago.”

“I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have asked.”  Rollie could tell that the man was still grieving over the loss of his wife.

The F/X artist patted Rollie’s shoulder.  “That’s all right.  You couldn’t have known.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes.  Rollie noticed the F/X man occasionally glancing at him.

“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?” Manny finally inquired.

“Nineteen.  I’ll be twenty in July.”

“Nineteen?  I’m surprised.  You struck me as being older.  So, how did you get into stunt work?”

Rollie smiled.  “I used to work with my dad in his, uh . . . business.  He got involved with this guy who was an investor in some B movie.  It turned out that one of the actors in the movie kind of looked like me and was the same height and build.  They needed a stunt double for him.  It sounded interesting, so I agreed to do it.  It was just a fist fight and a low fall out a window, but I enjoyed the action and the whole movie making thing.  I decided to keep doing it.”

Manny nodded.  “So, it’s the thrill that attracted you to stunt work.”

“Mostly.  I love the rush, the excitement of being on the edge.  I’ve been doing it for over two years now, and it’s been great, but. . . .”

“Go on.”

“I want to do more.  I want to be a part of creating the whole thing--the planning, the designing, all of it.  I want to do, well, what you do.”

Manny smiled.  “You seem to have the basic knowledge.  That’s really the first step.  Where did you learn about explosives?”

“After I got into stunt work, I wanted to learn all I could about the things that are used in the stunts and gags.  I asked a lot of questions, read everything I could find, and watched things being set up whenever I could.”

Manny nodded.  “I should tell you that I know about what happened on Assassin.”

“Oh.”  Rollie fidgeted with his fork.  “I guess that might make you mad that a stuntman stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong, huh.”

“Not at all.  FX-tra should never have gotten into business in the first place.  They were careless, used inferior equipment, and hired the cheapest labor they could get.  You probably saved some lives that day.  An accident like that would have been tends to shine a bad light on all F/X companies, not just the one involved.  You did us a favor.”

Rollie smiled hesitantly.  “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

People were starting to come back onto the set.

“I guess we’d better get back to work, eh?” Manny said.

With a nod, Rollie returned to the job he’d been on before.  As Manny watched him leave, he realized that he already liked the young man much more than he had anyone else who’d worked for him.  He also realized that Rollie had the intelligence and talent to be a great F/X artist, perhaps even better than him.  Deciding that he liked that idea, Manny got to work himself.  It would be interesting to see what Angie thought of her father’s new assistant.

Angie waved to the guard as she went through the studio gate, then hurried her pace.  The warehouse shootout was scheduled to begin at 3:30, and she didn’t want to miss it.

A crewman on Gangster Alley saw her running and offered to give her a lift in his cart.  Thanking him, she climbed aboard.  They just barely made it inside before the red light went on over the door, indicating that filming had started.  As quietly as possible, Angie moved closer to the set.

The director called, “Action!”

The sound of Tommy guns and shotguns filled the air.  Squibs exploded everywhere, simulating bullet hits.  Stuntmen hurled backwards and lay still as the characters they played were brought down by gunfire.  A small series of explosions caused part of the floor of a catwalk to break out, and the two stuntmen on it fell through the hole, landing in the airbag hidden behind some crates.  Another stuntman violently flew backward against some more crates, his body having been yanked back by a device her father had designed.

Angie grew tense.  The big one was coming up.  Several squibs went off among some oil drums.  Then, with a tremendous roar, a huge fireball shot up.  Oil drums and men went flying.  As the flames lit the set with their orange glow, the battle continued.  Finally, the men who were supposed to be feds overwhelmed the ones who were playing gangsters, and the battle ended, as did the filming.

The director yelled, “Cut!” then, “That’s a print, everyone!  Great job!”

Men with hoses and fire extinguishers moved in to put out the flames.  Angie walked through the debris over to her father.  That’s when she noticed a tall man standing beside him.  Manny was clapping him on the back enthusiastically, and both men had big grins on their faces.  Angie stopped and looked at the man curiously.  She didn’t remember ever seeing him before.

Manny turned and saw her.  “Angie Girl!  Did you see it?”

“Yeah, it was super, Papa!  Everything went like clockwork.”  Angie came up to them.

“Angie, this is Rollie Tyler.  He’ll be working with us on this movie.”

The young man looked down at her.  A smile spread across his face and filled his soft brown eyes with a warm light.  Angie felt her heart do a little flip flop in her chest.  She suddenly felt all hot inside, like she was catching the flu.

“G’day, Angela,” the man named Rollie said with a wonderful Australian accent.

“Hello.”  Angie knew she was staring, but found it very hard to stop.  Finally, she turned to her father.  “Are we still going to be doing the high fall explosion next?”

“Sure are.  Rollie’s already done most of the setting up.”

“He has?”  Angie was surprised.  Her father never allowed a new assistant to set up an F/X sequence on his own.

“I’m not sure if I got everything set exactly right,” Rollie said.

Again, Angie was surprised.  Her dad’s last assistant, Donnelly, would never have admitted that he might not have gotten something right.  It was because of the man’s stupid ego that they’d almost had a bad accident with one of their effects.  Donnelly had been kicked right out of Ramirez F/X, almost literally.

“Well, let’s go over and check right now,” Manny said.

The three of them headed over to Lot Two.  Angie kept glancing at Rollie.  She watched the way he walked, the way his wavy brown hair moved in the wind.  She studied his face as he talked with her father and the way that his eyes expressed the emotions he was feeling.  He was so cute!  And she loved his voice.  Angie had heard Australian accents before, but something about his was just so cool.

Angie had this quivery feeling inside, like she’d swallowed a whole jar full of butterflies that were now fluttering about inside her.  She had never felt like this before and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.  There was one thing she did know for sure.  She liked the way her father’s new assistant made her feel.

They climbed the two flights of stairs to the top floor of the building that was often used for high falls.  For this movie, the interior had been made to look like the inside of a 1930's office building.  Outside the window, blue screens had been set up.  Later, an image would be added to the film showing a cloudy sky and a Chicago cityscape.  Years ago, they would have had to set up painted backdrops.

Manny went to where Rollie had placed the plastic explosives.  He made a few adjustments, explaining the reason for each one to Rollie.  Instead of acting moody and put out like Donnelly would have, Rollie carefully watched and listened to everything Manny said, nodding his head frequently.  Again, Angie found herself staring at him.  At one point, he suddenly looked up and met her gaze.  The wonderful smile came to his face again.  Angie smiled back and silently sighed.  He was just SO CUTE!!!

Manny placed and set the detonators, which Rollie couldn’t legally do until he was certified to use explosives.  As he was setting the last one, the elevator doors opened, revealing the camera crew.  At almost the same time, the stuntman who would be doing the high fall came up the stairs.  He looked over to where Manny and Rollie were.

“Rollie!” he called.

Rollie looked up and grinned.  “Sam!  Did they rope you into doing this?”

“Yep.  The S.C. knew about my experience with the hot stuff and decided that I was the perfect man for this stunt.”

“Well, he’s right.  Sam, I’d like you to meet Manny Ramirez of Ramirez F/X.  Manny, this is Sam Turner, a good friend of mine.”

The two men shook hands.

Sam looked at Rollie, then at Manny, then back to Rollie.  “So, what’s happening here?”

“Um, I’m going to be working with Manny on this movie.”

“Oh, really,” Sam said, his voice fairly dripping with curiosity.

“We can talk about it later,” Rollie said.

“Okay, whatever you say.”  The man’s eyes were sparkling with delight.

The stunt coordinator, who had just come up, called the stuntman over.  Angie went over to Rollie.

“So, you know some of the stuntmen?”

“I know a lot of stuntmen.  I’m one myself.”

“You’re a stuntman?!” Angie exclaimed in disbelief.  “But I always thought that stuntmen were just macho jer--”  She stopped suddenly, wanting to bite her own tongue out.  How could she have said that to him?  ‘Oh, he’s going to hate me now!’ Angie screamed at herself, wanting to curl up and die.

“Just macho jerks who’d rather use their muscles than their brains?” Rollie finished.

Angie furiously stared down at the floor.  She’d said it, and she wasn’t going to take it back.  She had always thought that about stuntmen, and she wasn’t about to apologize and say she didn’t mean it.

Expecting to hear Rollie berate her, she was utterly shocked when he let out a laugh.  Angie’s head shot up, and she stared at him.  His eyes were twinkling with mirth.

Rollie leaned down close to her, and Angie felt like her whole body was just going to explode from him being so close.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Rollie whispered.  “A lot of them are.”  He smiled, then gave her a wink.

Feeling like she was going to melt right down into a little puddle, Angie smiled back.  “But you’re not,” she said, immediately embarrassing herself.  Why did she keep saying these things she didn’t want to?  Had her brain lost control of her tongue or something?

Rollie’s smile grew.  He straightened.  “Why, thank you, Angela.  A few of us have managed to keep our heads down to a reasonable size.  I guess we figured there were already enough Good Year blimps to go around.”

Angie giggled, a picture coming to her mind of a bunch of stuntmen floating through the air, their heads inflated to the size of dirigibles.

Manny called to Rollie.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Rollie said with another wink.  He returned to Angie’s father.  She followed him, listening to them as they discussed the stunt that was coming up.

“Would you like to get your friend set up for this?  You know as much about what’s involved as I do,” Manny said.

“Sure, I’d love to,” Rollie replied.  He went over to the stuntman.  Angie moved closer so that she could listen in.

“Okay, Rol.  Are you going to tell me how all this happened or am I going to have to die a slow, painful death by curiosity?” Sam asked.

“You’ll have to suffer a while longer, Sammy Boy.  We need to get you set up for this thing.”

Sam sighed dramatically.  “Torturer,” he muttered.  “Okay, Boss.  Just tell me what to do.”

“You’re a gangster who has just discovered a bomb planted by a rival family.  The bomb is here, as you can see.”  Rollie pointed under a desk.  “You run away in this direction.  As you pass by the window, the bomb goes off.  The blast knocks you out the window.  There are two shaped charges.  The larger one will be blowing away from you and will take most of the debris from the desk in that direction, but the other one, which will be blowing toward the window, is still a pretty good size charge.  It’s going to get hot, Sammy.  For the scene to come out right, you’re going to have to wait until the fire is right on top of you before going out the window.  You’ll have a protective suit on, of course, and we’ll put flame-retardant gel on the exposed areas of your skin.  We’ve even got a fireproof wig for you to wear.  It’s still going to be a tricky one, though.”

Angie could hear the concern in Rollie’s voice.  For the first time, she began to realize how very dangerous stunt work could be.  She thought of Rollie doing this stunt, and it scared her.  How many times in the past had he risked injury or even death just so that some director would get a great shot for a movie?  She’d never thought about it this way before.

“Hey, don’t worry, Rol.  This is Sam Turner you’re talking to, remember?  You just take care of the F/X, and I’ll do the rest.”

The stuntman stripped down to his boxer shorts, and Rollie helped him don the fire-retardant suit, which looked like a pair of thermal underwear.  With his clothes back on, Sam sat down in a chair.

“Angela, could you bring me the gel?” Rollie asked.

“Sure.”  She fetched the jar from her father.  As she handed it to Rollie, their fingers touched, and Angie felt a thrill course through her.

As Sam put the gel on his face, Rollie spread some on the back of the stuntman’s neck.  Once the face and neck were covered, Rollie put the stuff on Sam’s hands.  He then put the wig on the man.

“Okay, you’re all set,” Rollie said.

The director came over to say that they were ready to roll film.

Sam stood up and moved over beside the desk.  Angie, Rollie, Manny, and everyone else on set moved to the far wall where the number one camera crew was set up.

“Everyone set?” asked the director.  “Okay, then.  Cameras and . . . action!”

Sam ran away from the desk toward Camera One.  The explosives went off and fire blossomed forth, engulfing the stuntman.  With a crash, he flew out the window.  The flames sputtered out, and the director yelled cut.  Men with fire extinguishers moved in to douse the smoking debris as Rollie, Manny, and Angie ran to the window.  They looked down to see Sam climbing out of the airbag below.

“Hey!  Anybody got some marshmallows?” the stuntman called.  A few laughs rose up.

A wicked smile flashed across Rollie’s face.  Then, to Angie’s surprise, he pulled a little bag of marshmallows out of his pocket.  He threw the squished marshmallows down at his friend.  They bounced off the stuntman’s head, and Sam picked them up.

“Oh, very funny, Rollie,” Sam called up.  Everyone burst out laughing.

Rollie turned to Manny and Angie, grinning hugely.  “I’ve been waiting nearly four months to do that.  Ever since Sam did a high fall through a flaming roof, he’s been getting more stunts that involve fire.  I just knew that, eventually, he’d make some crack about marshmallows, so every time we worked on a movie together, I’d bring along a little bag of them.”

“You two are pretty close,” Manny commented.

“Yeah, Sam and Rick Forsythe--he’s another stuntman--are my two best friends.  They’re my mates.  They took me under their wing when I first started stunt work.  Sam’s a veteran.  He’s been doing this for fifteen years.  Rick’s only been at it a couple of years longer than me, but he’s a real wild man.  Loves the danger.  He’s over in Rio now on location.”

Derrick Bray came up to them.  “That went well, just the way I wrote it,” he commented smugly.  He looked down at Angie.  “Hello, Angie.”  He reached out to pat her head, but Angie jerked away from him.  Frowning, the producer returned his gaze to the adults.  He looked only at Manny, seemingly ignoring Rollie.  He gave a copy of the script to Angie’s father.  “Well, the changes have been made.  I hope you’re happy now.”

“Delighted,” replied Manny.  “And the audience will be, too.”

Bray muttered something under his breath and walked away, still pointedly not looking at Rollie.

“Ooh!  That guy is such a creep!  Talk about a dirigible-head!  How can you stand him, Papa?” Angie said.

Rollie stifled a laugh at Angie’s comment.

“Dirigible-head?” asked Manny.  “Where do you get these sayings, Daughter?”

Rollie choked on another laugh, and Manny focused his penetrating gaze on his new assistant.

“Um, I think I’ll go find something to do,” Rollie said.  He snuck Angie another wink as he strolled off.

“What change was Bray talking about?” Angie asked.

“Oh, the lighthouse gag.  It’s been completely rewritten.  Here, take a look.”  Manny turned the script to the correct page and handed it to Angie.

She read through the scene, years of practice making it easy to understand the terms used.  “This is cool!  Did you think of it?  How did you get him to change it?”  Manny had discussed the scene with her last night.

“No, I didn’t think it up, Rollie did.  He worked it out after he read the original script.  He had realized the same thing I did.  It was Rollie’s idea and AC’s pushing that finally got Bray to change the script.”

Rollie thought up the scene?  That made it even cooler.  “So, that’s why he’s acting like such a jerk to Rollie.  He’s mad because Rollie thought of a better way to do it.”

Manny smiled.  “That’s pretty much it.  You know, now that I think about it, dirigible-head might be a good word for Bray, after all.”

Father and daughter laughed and headed downstairs to find Rollie.
 

CHAPTER FOUR -- KINSHIP

Because of all the successful first takes, filming wrapped up earlier than usual that day.  As Rollie, Angie, and Manny packed up the equipment, the Aussie found himself smiling for no particular reason.  It had been a fantastic day.  He was kind of sorry to see it end.

“What are your plans for dinner, Rollie?” Manny asked.

“No plans.  I’ll probably just go home and fix something quick.”

“How about coming over to our place for dinner?”

Rollie looked up, surprised.  He’d never had a boss invite him to dinner before.  “Thanks.  I’d really like that, but I wouldn’t want to put you to any extra trouble.”

“It would be no extra trouble at all.  Angie and I share the cooking duties.  It’s my turn tonight, and it’s just as easy to cook for three as it is for two.”

“Then, sure, I’d love to come over.”  Rollie smiled again.  The day wasn’t done after all.

Manny wrote their address and some instructions on a piece of paper.  “Shall we say seven o’clock then?”

“I’ll be there.”

After Manny and Angie had left, Rollie went in search of Sam.  He didn’t have to go far--all of five yards.  Sam was standing right there on the lot, a Cheshire cat grin on his face.

“Okay, kiddo.  Time to tell me all the juicy details.  You’re not going to get out of it this time.  What happened?  How is it that you are suddenly an F/X man?”

Rollie smiled and shook his head, knowing that the stuntman wouldn’t leave him alone until he’d gotten every last detail from him.  “Correction, Sam.  I am an assistant to an F/X man.”

“Oh, yeah, right . . . an assistant.  Sure.  You were just assisting him when you placed the C4 for the high fall explosion.  You were just assisting him when you got me set up for the stunt.”

“How did you know that I placed the C4?”

“One of the prop men told me.  A couple of them were there for the shoot.”  Sam crossed his arms over his chest.  “No more stalling.  You might as well tell me now because you ain’t gettin’ off this lot until you do.”

Rollie sighed and proceeded to tell the stuntman what had happened since he set foot on Stage Six.

Sam crowed.  “I knew it!  I just knew if you opened up and showed someone that brain of yours they’d realize the potential you have.  I’m proud of you, Rollie!  You could go a long way with this.  Ramirez F/X is one of the best in the business.  You could end up having your own F/X company.”

“Whoa now!  Let’s not go overboard here.  Jeez, Sam!  I get a job as an assistant and you already have me owning my own company!  Even if I do eventually start my own company, that will be a long time in the future.  I don’t even know if this job is going to last.  Manny may decide that I’m not cut out for it.  He’s only hired me for this one movie.”

“Rollie, Rollie.  You are so blind,” Sam chastised.  “If there is anyone on this planet who was born to be an F/X artist, it’s you.  So just quit it with all this ‘not cut out for it’ garbage, and tell me what’s coming up next.”

“Dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“Manny invited me to dinner at their place.”

Sam grinned so broadly that his face looked in danger of splitting in half.  “That cinches it.  You are in, kiddo.  You might as well tell the Stuntmen’s Association that you aren’t a member anymore.  Hmm.  Tyler F/X.  I like the sound of that.  It hits just right on the ears.”

Rollie sighed again.  “I give up.”

He drove Sam home, having to listen throughout the entire trip to the stuntman gloating over how he had known all along that Rollie was going to make it big.

“Papa, if you want, I can make dinner tonight.”  Angie made the offer casually, as if it didn’t really matter either way.  “Then, if Rollie comes over early, you can talk,” she hastily added.

Manny looked at her in surprise.  Then a tiny little smile turned up the corners of his mouth.  So, his daughter liked the young Australian.  This would be the first assistant he’d had that had gained Angie’s approval.  All of the others had been either “jerks” or “idiots” in her opinion.  Some she had called both.  He’d always taught his daughter to speak her mind, but, sometimes, he wished that he’d also taught her the value of being tactful.  Hopefully, she would learn that as she got older.  Then again, maybe not.  She was very much her father’s daughter.

“That would be fine with me.  You’re a better cook than I am anyway.  You get that from your mother.”

Manny instantly regretted speaking of his wife when he saw Angie’s eyes cloud up.  She had been ripped from her mother’s arms at so young an age.  Her heartbroken cries as they pulled away from the dock--Lillian standing there watching them leave--haunted him to this very day.  Then to find out less than a year later that Lillian had died at the hands of the very man who had forced her to stay was almost more than Angie and he could bear.  Those had not been good times.  At least there had been some measure of justice in the end.  The general had been assassinated by one of his own men only two months later.

Attempting to lighten Angie’s mood, Manny asked, “So, what are you going to fix for our guest?”

“I was thinking maybe Chicken Tetrazzini.”

“Yum.  Sounds great to me.”

“I wish we had something for dessert, though.”

“Well, you fix the dinner, and I’ll go get the dessert.  Deal?”

“Deal.”

As Manny left to get dessert, Angie got busy on dinner.  She wanted everything to be perfect for Rollie.  She wanted to show him how good a cook she was, and how she could do lots of things that adults could.  Angie had no idea why she wanted to gain Rollie approval, she just did.  All the way home, all she could think about was him.  She kept seeing his face and hearing his voice.  Is this what it was like to be in love?  She’d listened to other girls in her class talk about how they were in love with this boy or that boy, and she’d always thought it was so stupid and childish, especially when, a week or so later, the girls would be talking about some new boy.  Angie knew that what she was feeling wouldn’t go away in a week or two.

Forty minutes later, the Chicken Tetrazzini was in the oven and Manny was back with a triple-layer chocolate cake.  Angie put a pan of vegetables on the stove, started heating water for mashed potatoes, and put some brown-and-serve rolls on a cookie sheet.  They would go in the oven as soon as the entree came out.  Manny came into the kitchen and stood watching her.

“So, do you think you might be keeping Rollie on as an assistant?” Angie asked, trying to make it sound like she was only mildly interested.

“It’s beginning to look that way.  Only, if I keep him on, it will be as an apprentice, not an assistant.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, an assistant is someone who helps you out in your job, but an apprentice is someone whom you train and teach everything you know to.  If I make Rollie my apprentice, he could be working with us for a long time, perhaps years.  Would you like that?”

Angie wanted to jump up and down with glee.  Her dad had said that Rollie could be with them for years!  Oh, wow!  Though she was shouting on the inside, Angie kept her voice calm.  “Sure, that would be all right with me.  Rollie’s okay.”

“Just okay, huh.”  Manny was smiling.

“Well, maybe better than okay.”

“Hmm.  Maybe a lot better than okay, eh?”

“Dad!  You’re embarrassing me again.”

“Sorry.” Manny turned away, the smile still on his face.  “I like him a lot, too, Angie Girl,” he commented as he left the kitchen.

Rollie knocked on the green double door, thinking that this was an odd place for Manny and Angie to be living.  The door opened to reveal Manny’s smiling face.

“Rollie!  Perfect timing.  I think that dinner is just coming out of the oven.”  Manny stepped aside for Rollie to enter.

The Aussie made it in about three feet, then stopped cold.  His mouth dropped open in awe.  The place was full of all kinds of F/X props from movies that Ramirez F/X had been on.  It was amazing.  Then, as he came in further, he saw worktables full of F/X equipment and tools, and he realized that this place was more than just a home, it was also Manny’s workshop.

“Wow,” Rollie murmured.  “This place is incredible.”

“I thought you’d like it.  It used to be a brewery.  I bought the place shortly after Angie was born.  Back then, we only lived here occasionally.  Now, it’s both my workshop and our home.”

“Dinner’s ready.”

Rollie looked up to see Angie standing just outside the kitchen.  She was wearing a little print dress.

“You’re looking very pretty tonight, Angela,” Rollie commented with a smile.  He knew that all females, no matter how old they were, enjoyed being complimented.

Angie smiled, blushing faintly.  “Thank you.”

“Angie did the cooking tonight instead of me, so be prepared for a treat.”

A few minutes later, Rollie discovered what Manny meant.  “This is delicious, Angela.  It has been a very long time since I had a home cooked meal that wasn’t fixed by me.  My dad wasn’t much for cooking.  He pretty much stuck to the simple stuff.  But then, when you’re living in a travel trailer, not much of anything is done in a big way.”

Angie immediately noticed that Rollie said nothing about his mother.  She wondered if his parents were divorced or if his mother was dead.  She wanted to ask, but thought it would be rude.  Instead, she asked another question.  “You lived in a trailer?”

“Yeah, for two years.  Dad bought it when we came to the States when I was fifteen.  We traveled all over the country in it.”

“What does your father do for a living?” Manny asked.

Rollie shifted in his seat.  He suddenly appeared very uncomfortable.  “Mostly, he, um, hits the flea market circuit.  He buys stuff cheap, fixes it up or polishes it up, then sells it for several times more than he paid for it.”

“And you did this, too?”  There was surprise in Manny’s voice.  Rollie wondered what the man was thinking.

The Aussie nodded.  “After I left the Aborigines.”

“You lived with the Aborigines?” Angie had learned about them in school.  They were kind of like the American Indians were a long time ago.

“Sure did.  They were like my family, especially Mangela.  He taught me everything about the People--their beliefs and customs, their history, how they hunt.  For a while, I was more Aboriginal than White.”

“That’s really cool,” Angie said.  “What’s it like in Australia?”

“Oh, a lot different from here.  Where I lived, in the outback, it gets very hot.  There’s lots of sand and rocks, and the kind of foliage that grows in arid regions.  Not many trees.  But it is very beautiful.”

“You miss it,” Manny commented.

“Yeah, sometimes.  There isn’t much there for me now anymore.”

The conversation turned to the day’s filming and what was scheduled for tomorrow.  After dinner, Manny showed Rollie around the place.  The young Aussie soaked everything up like a sponge.  Even if the job didn’t work out, he’d still be happy that he’d gotten the chance to see all of this.

The more time he spent with the Ramirez family, the more he liked them.  He looked at Angie, thinking how nice it would have been to have a little sister or brother.  His life would have been a lot less lonely.  He envied the relationship that Manny and Angie had.  How different it was from the one he had with his father.

The phone rang, and Manny excused himself to go answer it.  Rollie sat on the couch, and Angie sat down beside him.  She saw that he was looking at a photograph.  The picture was of her parents and herself.  It had been taken just a few months before she and her father fled Cuba.

“Is this your mother?” Rollie asked softly.

Angie nodded.

“She was beautiful.  You look a lot like her.”

“She died when I was nine.”  Angie was fighting to keep from crying.  She didn’t want Rollie to see her cry.

“I know.  My mum died when I was eleven.”  Rollie voice was very low, hardly more than a whisper.

“How. . . .  Never mind.”  Angie had been about to ask how Rollie’s mom had died, but decided that it wouldn’t be nice.

Rollie must have guessed what she was going to ask.  “Do you know what an embolism is?”

“No.”

“That’s when a blood vessel gets blocked by a blood clot or air bubble or something like that.  That’s what happened to my mum.  She . . . she was all alone when she died.  I wasn’t there--”

Rollie’s voice broke off suddenly.  He turned away, but not before Angie saw the tears in his eyes.

Rollie kept his head turned away from Angie, embarrassed by the tears.  He hadn’t meant for this to happen.  It was still just so hard thinking of his mother dying out there in the outback all alone, her body lying in the heat and the dust for those three long days.

A small hand slipped into his.  Surprised, Rollie looked down at it, then at Angie.  He gazed into a pair of eyes so full of understanding and shared grief that he felt like his heart would break.  They looked at each other for a long time, then Angie lay her head down on Rollie’s shoulder.  With a shuddering sigh, Rollie put an arm around her, pulled her close, and lay his own head down on hers.

Manny watched the two young people, his throat tight with emotion.  In that moment, he made up his mind.  He would make Rollie his apprentice.

For one brief second, Manny got the strangest feeling, like he’d just made one of the most important decisions of his life.  He shrugged the thought away, but couldn’t quite shake the feeling that his and Angie’s lives would never be the same after today.  He didn’t know what this meant, but, looking at Rollie and Angie on the couch, he did know, without the tiniest doubt, that Rollie Tyler would forever be a part of their lives.
 

CHAPTER FIVE -- ENEMIES

Rollie looked down at Angie and saw that she had begun to cry.

“My mom was killed by a terrible man,” she whispered.  “He made us leave her, then he killed her.”

Horrified, Rollie sat unmoving, holding Angie tightly.  What a horrible way for her to have lost her mother.

“He’s dead, now,” Angie finished.

Rollie reached up and began stroking her hair, feeling a bond forge between them.  Strangely, it reminded him a little of the connection he’d felt with Mangela from the day he’d met the Aboriginal man.  Wondering what Mangela would say about that, Rollie continued to hold her for a few more minutes, then he turned her face up to his.  She was still crying.

“Hey now, let’s have no more of those.  I want to see a smile there.”

A weak, shaky smile curved Angie’s lips.

Rollie frowned.  “You can do better than that, can’t you?”

The smile firmed and grew bigger.

“That’s better.  Now, am I mistaken or did I see a chocolate cake somewhere around here?”  Rollie looked over his shoulder and met the gaze of Manny Ramirez.  The man was staring at him, an unreadable expression in his eyes.  Rollie quickly stood up, not knowing what to say.  Manny must have been standing there the entire time.  There were all different ways that Angie’s father could react to what had happened.

Still not knowing what to say, Rollie remained silent.  He held the man’s gaze for what seemed like a long time, but actually couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.

“The cake is on the kitchen counter,” Manny said.  “Angie, could you go cut it for us?”

Angie looked at her father, then at Rollie.  She was smart enough to figure out that her dad wanted to talk to Rollie alone.  She hoped that she hadn’t gotten Rollie into trouble.  Fathers could just be so silly sometimes.  They always felt like they had to protect their kids, even when there wasn’t anything to protect them from.

Without a word, Angie went into the kitchen.

“Rollie, let’s take a little walk.”  Manny turned to his daughter.  “Ange, we’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”

Angie watched them leave, even more worried that her father was mad at Rollie.  If he did something to make Rollie leave and never come back she would never ever forgive him.

Rollie and Manny slowly walked down the dark, silent road.  The cold, damp air promised to bring snow soon.

“Rollie, when I told you about firing my assistant, I didn’t tell you the whole story.  We came very close to having a bad accident because my assistant was too cocky and proud.  He told me he knew how to do something that he didn’t.  If I hadn’t double checked his work, someone could have died.  That wasn’t the first time I’ve had trouble with an assistant.  My luck with them has not been good.  I’d pretty much decided not to hire another one.  Then you came along, and I decided to take another chance.”

“Manny, if this is about Angie, I--”

“No no, Rollie,” Manny interrupted.  “This has nothing to do with what happened inside.  Well, actually, that isn’t true.  When I saw you together, it helped me make up my mind.  Angie and I have not talked about her mother’s death in months, yet I watched her reach out to you and share her grief with you.  I’m grateful to you for that.”

“I didn’t really do anything,” Rollie said.

“Yes, you did, but that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.  I’ve come to the conclusion that an assistant is not what I need.  What I should have is an apprentice.”

“An . . . apprentice?”

“Yes.  It’s time that I began teaching the things I know to someone else.  I won’t be around forever.  Someday, I’ll want to retire, and I won’t want to hand my business over to just anyone.”

“But what about Angie?”

“If Angie wants to pursue a career in F/X, it would be all right with me, but I want it to be her choice.  I want her to have other options.  I want her to go to college and be exposed to other things besides the movie industry.  If, afterwards, she decides that she still wants to follow in my footsteps, things could be worked out then.”  Manny stopped walking.  He turned to Rollie.  “I’ve found someone whom I think is the right man to be my apprentice, and I believe he’ll want the job.”

Rollie’s gaze dropped to the ground.  He’d just known this was too good to last.  Manny was getting ready to fire him.

“So, what do you say?” the F/X artist asked.

Rollie looked up.  “What do I say?”

“Yes.  Would you like to be my apprentice?”

Rollie couldn’t believe he was hearing right.  Manny Ramirez was offering to teach him everything he knew about F/X.  This was beyond anything he could have dreamed.

“I . . . I. . . .  Me?” Rollie stammered.

“Well, of course you.  Who did you think I was talking about?”

“I don’t know.  I mean, I thought. . . .  Yes.  Yes, I’d be honored to be your apprentice.”  Rollie felt like someone could knock him over if they breathed on him too hard.

“Good!  Now, let’s get back inside before it decides to start snowing.”

Angie studied the expression on Rollie’s face as the two men came back inside.  He looked stunned.  Actually, he looked like he was in shock.  He excused himself and went upstairs to the bathroom.

“Dad, what did you say to him?!” Angie demanded, her temper flaring.

“Oh, not much.  I just asked him to be my apprentice,” Manny replied with a smile, delighted that his daughter appeared ready to defend Rollie against attack.

All set to get into a battle with her father, Angie had to do some quick mental backpedaling.  “You . . . asked him to be your apprentice?”

“Yep, and he accepted.”

A smile spread across Angie’s face.  “That’s great!”

“Great, huh?  I thought that Rollie was just ‘okay’ in your books,” Manny teased.  He saw the expression on his daughter’s face and quickly said, “Sorry.  I’m embarrassing you again.”  He turned away to hide the smile on his face, more certain than ever that he’d made the right choice.

Rollie returned from the bathroom looking a good deal more composed.  They sat down to enjoy the cake.  The conversation stayed mostly on topics in the news.  At ten o'clock Rollie decided that it was time to go home.  Angie and Manny wished him goodnight and watched him leave.

“How old is Rollie?” Angie asked.

“He’ll be twenty in July.  Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I was just wondering.  Goodnight, Papa.”

“Goodnight, Ange.”

Angie climbed the stairs, a secret smile on her face.  There was only a little over eight years difference in their ages.  That wasn’t very long.  There was eleven years difference between Kathy Trask’s parents.

“I can’t wait until tomorrow,” Angie murmured as she lay her head on the pillow.  In a matter of minutes, she was asleep.

Rollie awoke with eager anticipation for what the day would bring.  Manny Ramirez’s apprentice.  He kept saying it, yet he was still having a hard time believing it.  In a single day, his entire life had changed.

As he pulled into the studio parking lot, Rollie saw Sam getting out of his car.  The stuntman spied him and waited.  Keeping his face serious, Rollie approached his friend.

“Hey, Rol!  So, how did it go last night?”

“Well, I’m not Manny’s assistant anymore,” Rollie said.

A look of shock passed over Sam’s face.  “What?!  I don’t understand.  What happened?”

“Quite a lot.  Manny decided that he didn’t want me as his assistant.”  Rollie paused, enjoying himself thoroughly.  “He wants me to be his apprentice.”  Rollie’s smile finally cracked through.

“His. . . .”  A look of comprehension swept across the stuntman’s face.  “Yahoo!”  He pounded Rollie on the back so hard that the Aussie thought his teeth would pop out.  “You did it, Rol!  You really did it!  Now, didn’t I tell you that you had a future with this guy?”

“Yes, you did, Sam.  You were right.”

“Of course I was right!  Sam Turner is always right.”

The two men passed through the gate, then walked toward the lot where the first shoot of the day would take place.  Rollie saw that the Ramirez F/X van was already there.  Manny was getting out of it followed by Angie.  Angie spied Rollie and ran over to him.

“Hi, Rollie!”

“Hi yourself, Angie.  What are you doing here?  Don’t you have school?”

“They’re having teacher conferences today.  No school.  I get to spend the whole day here.”  Angie took Rollie’s hand and pulled him toward the van.  “Come on.  Papa’s waiting for us.”

“Duty calls, Sam.  I’ll see you later.”  Rollie let Angie lead him over to Manny, who was busy working on some equipment.

Angry voices drew their attention.  A short, red-faced, balding man was yelling at the producer of the movie that was filming on the next lot over.  Rollie instantly recognized the man as Phil Ulrich, the owner of FX-tra.

“You gave this contract to my company,” Ulrich yelled.  “You are not going to back out of it now!”

“Look, Ulrich, I gave you a chance to get your act back together, but you blew it,” the producer said.  “You’re washed up in this business.  Now, get out of here before I call security.”

His face even redder than before, Ulrich turned away.  That’s when he saw Rollie and Manny.

“You!  Ramirez!  You’re responsible for this.”  He strode over to them.

“All I did was confirm that the accident on Recon Force was due to faulty F/X equipment,” Manny said.

“And got me fired because of it.  Then I started losing my other contracts.  It was all because you made them believe the accident was my company’s fault.”

“It was your fault.  If you hadn’t been using inferior equipment and had properly maintained it, it wouldn’t have happened.  I didn’t cost you your business, you did.”  There was now anger in Manny’s voice.

Ulrich took a threatening step toward Manny.  Rollie put out a hand and stopped him.

“Mister Ulrich, why don’t you go and cool off before you do something you’ll regret,” Rollie suggested, his voice quiet and calm.

Ulrich focused his attention on Rollie.  “I know you.  Yeah, that’s right.  You’re that nosy stuntman who caused trouble for me on Assassin.  You’re as much to blame for this as Ramirez is.”

“I was the one who got fired off that job, not you.”

“And do you know what happened afterwards?  Do you know what I’ve had to listen to on every job I’ve done since then?  I’ve had to put up with the laughter and jeers of people saying that my company was so incompetent that a stuntman could spot our mistakes.  You ruined my reputation even before Ramirez stabbed me in the back.  Well, I got you fired off Assassin.  I can figure out a way to get you fired off this movie, too.”

“No you can’t!” Angie yelled, her blue eyes burning with rage.  “Rollie’s working for my dad now.  He’s his apprentice!  You can’t get him fired, you big, fat, dumb jerk!”

Ulrich glared at Angie, then turned his furious gaze on Rollie.  “So, you wormed you way into Ramirez F/X.  Well, sooner or later, you’ll both go down.  Mark my words.”  The man stormed off, cursing at both of them.

“Ooh!  I hate him!” Angie seethed.  “He is the biggest creep in the world!”

“And you certainly did tell him off,” Rollie commented with a grin.  “I sure hope than I’m never the target of one of your tongue lashings.”

“Oh, that would never happen,” Angie said with conviction.

John Rake, the producer who had been the first object of Ulrich’s rage, had come up to them.

“I’m sorry about that, Manny,” the man said.  “I wanted to give Ulrich one last chance to save his company, but he started causing trouble on the set.  I had to fire him.”

“It isn’t your fault, John,” Manny said.  “You did more for him than a lot of other producers would have.”

Manny introduced the producer to Rollie.

“I’m happy to see that Manny’s found someone to help him full time.  He’s one of the best F/X masters in the industry, but he works way too hard.  He needs someone to take some of the load off.  Well, I’ve got to get back.  I need to go find another F/X company.  It’s too bad you aren’t available, Manny.”

“Maybe on the next one, John.”

Manny returned to what he had been doing.  Rollie sat and watched him.

“This afternoon’s gag is going to be tricky,” the Aussie commented.  “I’ve been going over it, and I can’t figure out a way to attach a safety line to the stuntman.  If he doesn’t time the jump perfectly, he’s going to get wet.  And that explosion is going to be awfully close to him.  The blast could make him miss the dock.”

“Yes, I know.  I’ve been worrying about it myself.  You’re a stuntman, Rollie.  At what point do you think the driver should jump from the car that would give him the best chance, yet still give the producers and director what they want?”

“Well, without actually running through it a couple of times, that would be tough to say.  We really should run through it, you know.  Is there some way that we could set something up?”

“You mean without actually dumping the car in the ocean?  I don’t know.”  Manny thought about it for a few seconds.  “Wait a minute.  You know, there may be a way.  Over on Lot One there’s a warehouse facade.  A wide loading platform runs the entire length of it.  A ramp could be built on one end of it.”

“Yeah, that would work.  Is the lot being used?”

“Not today.  I’ll go tell the director what we want so that we can get that ramp built.”

“And I’ll find out who’s scheduled to do the stunt,” Rollie said.

“Angie, we’re getting low on blood packets.  Could you fill some while we’re gone?” Manny asked.

“Sure.”

The two men went off in different directions.  They both returned at just about the same time.

“A crew will get to work on the ramp right away,” Manny said.  “Did you find out who’s doing the stunt?”

“Yeah.  I’ve already told him what we’re going to do.  He’s got another stunt this morning, so he won’t be able to get over there until after lunch.  I was thinking that I’d run through it myself a couple of times, if that’s okay.”

“It’s fine by me.  Just don’t break something.  I wouldn’t want my new apprentice to end up in the hospital,” Manny said, smiling.

“I’ll try my very best not to,” Rollie replied with a grin.

AC was coming toward them.  By the look on his face, Rollie could tell that something was wrong.

“Manny, we’ve got a problem,” the producer said.  “Miller sprained his ankle.  He’s not going to be able to work today.”

Harrison Miller was an actor with a large role in the movie.  He was to be in the scene they were going to film next.

“We’re going to have to rearrange the shooting schedule,” AC continued.  “Is there any way at all that you could do the drive-by shooting next?”

“I don’t know, AC.  We’ve got a lot to do to get set up for this afternoon’s gag.”  Manny focused his attention on Rollie.  “Actually, we could do it if Rollie took care of the drive-by while I continued setting up for the dock gag.”

Rollie’s eyes opened wide.  “You mean do it on my own?  But I’m not ready for that!”

“Why not?  It’s an easy gag.  It’s just some squibs and blood packets.  You’ve had to deal with those before as a stuntman, and you did just fine setting the squibs on the warehouse gag.  Angie can help you.  She’s watched me enough times to know a thing or two about setting something like this up.”

“I . . . I guess I could handle it.”  Rollie was fighting to stay calm.  He was going to be setting a gag up on his own without Manny there to check what he did.  He hadn’t thought that this would happen so soon.

“Okay, then.  I’ll let the director and everyone else know,” AC said.  “How much time do you need to set up, Rollie?”

“Uh, about an hour, maybe a little more.”

“Well, I can give you an hour and a half.  It’ll take a while to get the crew over there, the cameras set up, and everything else.  We’ll be setting up on the east end of this lot at the restaurant facade.”

Rollie gathered what he would need for the gag.  With Angie beside him, he headed across the lot.  The camera crew had not arrived yet when they got there.  Rollie and Angie got to work planting the squibs in the wall of the restaurant facade.  Squatting beside the wall, Rollie glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of a familiar face.  He stood up and faced Louie Farrell.  The man’s presence here confirmed what Rollie had suspected for a while now.  Ever since he found out that there were job openings on Gangster Alley after all, he’d suspected that the stuntman had deliberately said there was nothing available because he didn’t want Rollie working on the movie.

Seeing Rollie, the stuntman strode toward him.  “Tyler!  What the hell are you doing here?”

“Well, a funny thing happened, Louie.  I was talking to AC--you know, the producer--and I just happened to find out that they needed more stuntmen for this movie after all.  I guess you must have heard wrong.  Funny, huh.”  Rollie’s tone of voice, though it may have sounded cheerful to a casual listener, made it clear to the stuntman that Rollie knew what he’d done.

Louie glared at him.  “Well, since you’re here, the S.C. needs someone over on Stage One.”

“Sorry, no can do.  You see, I’m not doing stunt work anymore.  I have a new job.  You’ve heard of Manny Ramirez of Ramirez F/X, right?  Well, I’m his apprentice now.  In fact, I’m in charge of setting this gag up.”  Rollie let just the tiniest bit of gloating slip into his voice.  Rollie found that he was enjoying himself immensely.  Louie was a conceited jackass that desperately needed taking down a few pegs.

The Aussie watched the expression on Louie’s face change from shock to resentment, then to rage.

“No way, Tyler.  I’m not going to let some know-it-all kid boss me around.  I don’t care who you’re working for.”

“Is there a problem here?”

Rollie turned to see AC approaching.

“Hi, AC,” Rollie said.

“How are things going, Rollie?” AC asked warmly, patting Rollie on the back.

“Great!  We’re just having a little difference of opinion here, that’s all.”

“Really?  Well, Manny said you had the knowhow to set up this gag, so that’s good enough for me.  You’re the boss.”  AC turned to Louie.  “There isn’t going to be a problem with that, is there?”

“No.  No problem,” the stuntman said, just barely managing to keep his tone civil.

“Good, good.  Good luck on the shoot, Rollie.”

“Thanks, AC.”  Rollie looked at Louie as the producer walked away.  “So, Louie, is there going to be a problem?  If there is, we can always get someone else to do the stunt.”

The stuntman looked as if he was about to pop an artery.  “I’ll do your stunt.  I won’t give you the satisfaction of pulling me off it.”

“Good.  I didn’t want to pull you off it.  I want you to do it.”

The stuntman snorted and strode away.

“Rollie, is that one of those Good Year blimps we were talking about?” Angie asked, her voice deliberately loud enough for Louie to hear.

Rollie started laughing so hard that tears came to his eyes.  Louie had spun around and was staring furiously at them.  He knew that he’d just been insulted somehow, but didn’t know what the comment had meant.

“Yes, I do believe that it is, Angie,” Rollie gasped between fits of mirth.

His face almost purple with rage, Louie stalked off to go sulk in a corner.

Once Rollie had regained control, he finished planting the squibs.  He then got started on the thinly padded vest that Louie would wear under his shirt.  The Aussie attached the blood packets to it and carefully placed squibs over each packet.

“Rollie, the director is coming over,” Angie said under her breath.

Rollie stood to greet the man.

“I understand that you’re setting up this gag.  We’ve got a last minute addition to it.  When the mobsters open fire on the Manetti character, we want some of the bullets to hit this sign overhead and bring it crashing down just as Manetti gets nailed.  That won’t be a problem, will it?”

“Uh . . . no, we can handle it, but it will take some more time to set things up.”  Rollie managed to keep his voice calm and confident.

“No problem.  Would an extra half hour work?”

“That’ll be okay.  We’ll need a ladder.”

“You’ll have one.”

After the director had gone, Rollie let his calm slip.  “Angie, I’m going to have to tell your dad about this change.  Could you stay here and finish putting these squibs on the vest?”

“Sure, no problem.”

Rollie trotted back over to where Manny was.  The F/X artist was busy setting the charges in the car that would be used on the gag that afternoon.

“Rollie!  Are you done already?”

“No, and there’s problem.”  Rollie told him about the sudden change in the gag.  “So, what do I do?”

“How is the sign hung?” Manny asked.

“With chains.”

Manny went over to his van.  He came back out a moment later with a small brick of plastic explosives, some detonators, a remote control, and two cans of spray paint.  “Okay, just wrap a very thin strip of plastique around each of the chains, just about like this.”  He rolled out a thin strip of the explosive material.  “This remote is already set for these detonators.  What color is the chain?”

“Uh, silver.”

Manny handed him the can of silver spray paint.  “This will help hide the explosives.  I assume you know how to set the detonators.”

Rollie nodded.  “But, I'm not really supposed to be doing that until I'm certified, am I?”

“Well, we'll let it slide this time.  The charges are so small that there's no risk of injury from them.”  Manny stuffed the things in a bag and handed it to Rollie.

The Aussie stared down at the bag.  Manny, noticing the expression on his face, laughed.  He gave Rollie a pat on the back.

“You’ll do just fine.  You’d better get back over there.  You don’t have much time.”

Rollie hurried back over.  When he got there, he found that a ladder had been set up beneath the sign.  Rollie rolled out two thin strips of plastique and wrapped them around the chains.  He attached the tiny detonators where they would be least visible to the cameras.  Then he sprayed everything with a light coating of silver paint.

Rollie got off the ladder and stepped back a few feet to see how it looked.  The explosives were only barely visible.  It was good enough.

“Did you get the squibs set, Angie?”

“Yeah, they’re all set.”  She handed the vest to Rollie.

He checked it over and found that everything was set right.

“Great job.  I guess we’d better call that dirigible-head over here, eh?” Rollie said with a wink.  He turned toward the stuntman.  “Louie!  We’re ready to outfit you.”

Clearly still angry, the stuntman came over to them.  He said nothing as Rollie put the vest on him.

“Has the S.C. walked you through this?” Rollie asked.

“I know what I’m supposed to do, Tyler.  I don’t need you to tell me.”

“All right.  Did they tell you about this last minute change with the sign?  When it comes down, you need to be sure you’re out of the way.”

“Yeah, I know about it.  You just do your job and I’ll do mine.”

“Fine.  I just wanted to make sure we didn’t have an accident.”  Shaking his head, Rollie removed the ladder as Angie cleared the other stuff away.

Rollie caught the attention of the director and signaled that they were all set.  The director called to everyone to take their places.  Louie took up position in front of the restaurant window.  Rollie studied where the stuntman was standing and thought that he was too far away from the window.

“Louie, shouldn’t you be closer to the window?” he called.

The stuntman just glared at him, saying nothing.  Rollie was about to make another comment when the director yelled, “Action!”

A car squealed around the corner.  A man leaned out the window with a Tommy gun and started shooting.  Rollie triggered the squibs.  Bits of plaster and sparks flew as the squibs detonated in the wall.  Then the squibs attached to the blood packets went off, splattering fake blood everywhere.  Louie’s body jerked spasmodically as he pretended that he was being riddled with bullets.  He threw himself backwards toward the window.  At the last instant, just as he was about to push the remote switch for the explosives, Rollie saw that Louie was not going to hit the window right.  He pulled his finger away from the switch.  Sure enough, Louie went through the window too low.  Instead of flying all the way back through the window, only his upper body went through it.  As he fell, his legs were left dangling over the windowsill.

“Cut, cut!” yelled the director.  “Farrell, you’re supposed to go all the way through the window, not be hanging halfway out.”  The director turned his attention to Rollie.  “What happened to the sign?”

“At the last second, I could see that Louie wouldn’t make it through the window right, so I held off on the charges.”

The director looked at Rollie in surprise.  “That was quick thinking.  Yeah, that’s right, you did tell him that he was too far away, didn’t you.  You seem to know more about stunt work than he does.”

“Not at all.  I--”

Rollie was interrupted by Louie, who had come over to them.

“You screwed up, Tyler.  Your squibs were placed wrong.  They threw me off balance.  That’s why I didn’t go through right.”

“Horse pucky,” the director said.

Surprised, both Louie and Rollie stared at the man.

“Excuse me?” said the stuntman.

“You heard me.  We all know that you were too far away from the window, so don’t try blaming this on Tyler.  This is going to cost us a good two hours to clean up, put in a new window, and re-rig everything.  Try to get it right on the next one.”  The director walked away, giving orders to have the mess cleaned up.

“You’re really pushing it, Tyler,” Louie growled.  “How would you like me to mess up that pretty face of yours?”

“I’d like to see you try it,” Rollie shot back.  “Why don’t you let some of the air out of your head, Louie.  You might think better.”

“Why you . . . !”  The stuntman came toward Rollie, his fist raised.

“Farrell!” someone yelled.  Both men turned to see the stunt coordinator striding toward them.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?  I just finished talking to the director, and he told me what happened.  Now, I get over here and see you fighting with the F/X man.  He was right, you were wrong.  Get over it or find another job.”  The man looked at Rollie and shook his hand.  “Rollie Tyler, right?  We worked together on Dangerous Thoughts.  It’s nice to see a fellow stuntman making a successful career change.  Keep up the good work.”

“Thanks.  I will.”

As the S.C. left, Rollie turned away from Louie, deciding just to ignore him until the man had to be reoutfitted.  He could feel the stuntman’s eyes boring into him.  Then Louie spun around and strode away, mouthing curses.

“Rollie, that guy kinda scares me,” Angie said.  She had remained in the background during the entire incident.  At first, she had been infuriated by the stuntman’s accusations, but, after seeing the hatred in the man’s eyes, she was now more frightened than mad.  “He wouldn’t try to hurt you, would he?  I mean, really hurt you?”

“Who, Louie?  No, I don’t think so.  He’s a hothead, but he wouldn’t do more than maybe throw a few punches.”  Rollie saw the fear in Angie’s eyes.  “Hey.  Don’t you worry, Ange.  He isn’t going to hurt me.”  He gave her a confident smile.

Angie smiled back.  She liked it that Rollie had called her Ange.  Before, only her father had ever called her that.  Somehow, Rollie using the shortened form of her name seemed so . . . intimate.

With Angie’s help, they patched up the holes in the wall and put in new squibs.  While they did that, new glass was put into the window frame.  Rollie then attached more blood packets and squibs to another vest.

With a mental sigh, Rollie called Louie over.  He could sense the rage in the man as he put the vest on him.

Once everything was set, the director called for Take Two.  Everyone took their places.  This time, Rollie saw that Louie was positioned correctly.  Filming began.  As before, the car skidded around the corner and the man opened fire.  The squibs went off and Louie threw himself backwards.  The moment his body hit the window, Rollie pressed the switch on the remote.  Two tiny explosions severed the chains holding the sign.  The metal and wood sign came down with a crash in the same instant that Louie hit the floor inside the restaurant.  The car squealed away down the street.

“Cut!  And that is a print!  Okay, everyone.  Let’s go ahead and break for lunch.”

Rollie looked down at his watch, appalled to see that it was going on noon.  Knowing that he had to do the run through on the dock gag, he and Angie quickly gathered their stuff up.  They borrowed a cart and headed over to Lot One.

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