It was just after twelve when Rollie and Angie got to the warehouse facade.  They went over to Manny, who was standing beside the car on the loading platform.  The car was identical to the one that would be used in the stunt.

“I hear you had to do a second take,” the F/X artist commented.

Rollie smiled, still amazed at how fast news traveled inside a studio.  “Yeah, that’s why we’re so late.  If we hadn’t gotten it on Take Two, we wouldn’t have made it over here in time.”

“Do you still want to do a run through yourself or just wait for the stuntman?”

“I think I’ll still do it myself.  It might take a few tries to get it right, and Andy--that’s the stuntman--isn’t going to have a lot of time to experiment by the time he gets here.”

“Then it’s all yours,” Manny said.  He and Angie got down and went over to the end of the platform where the ramp had been built.

Rollie climbed into the car and started it.  He looked down at the opposite end of the platform.  He would have to accelerate quickly to reach the desired speed in time.  Rollie put the car in gear and stepped on the gas.  As the other end of the dock approached, he put his hand on the door handle.  Just as the front tires left the platform, he thrust the door open and jumped out, twisting his body back toward the platform, which the car was now off of.  His hands reached out for the platform’s edge.  His fingers touched it, then slipped off, and Rollie fell onto the thick mattress beneath him.

The car crashed into the water-filled plastic containers that had been set up to stop it.  Without a word, Rollie got up and went to the car.  He backed it up the ramp and to the other end of the platform.  As he waited for more water containers to be set up, the Aussie went over the stunt in his mind, judging how far he’d been off.  If he’d jumped one second sooner, he would have made it.

Angie was watching Rollie in fascination.  She'd never had much interest in watching stunts unless they were part of a gag her father was involved with.  But it was exciting to see Rollie doing them.  She was amazed at how he could so casually jump from a moving car.  She would be terrified to do something like that.  When he jump out of the car, her body had gone tense, and when he missed the edge of the platform, she’d felt the same disappointment that he no doubt had.  Now, he was going to try again, and she couldn’t wait to see if he would succeed.

Angie’s excitement grew as the car leapt forward to speed across the platform.  Closer and closer it got to the end, then, at almost the same place as before, the door flew open and Rollie leaped out.  His body twisted lithely as he reached for the platform.  His hands touched it, grabbed on--and held.

“Yippee!” Angie yelled.

Rollie let go of the platform and walked toward them, a grin on his face.

“Well, you made that look easy, though I know it wasn’t,” Manny commented.

“If it was easy, it wouldn’t be any fun,” Rollie replied.  “We know it can be done now, though, unfortunately, there was no way we could factor in the explosion in this test. Hopefully, it won't be a problem.  When Andy gets here, I’ll tell him what I learned.  I’m hungry.  Shall we go eat?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Rollie thought he saw a movement, but, when he looked, he didn’t see anyone.  Shrugging, he hopped into the cart with Manny and Angie, and the three of them headed over to the commissary.

After lunch, they returned to the warehouse facade.  A few minutes later, Andy Marconi came strolling up.

“Hi guys!  So, I hear you’ve got it all worked out for me, eh, Rollie?”  The stuntman smiled, then made a face and put a hand to his stomach.

“What’s wrong, Andy?  Have you been eating Francesca’s cooking again?” Rollie asked.  “You know what that spicy food does to your stomach.”

“Nope, I learned my lesson enough times with that.  I’m just feeling a touch queasy.  It was probably the burrito I had for lunch at the roach coach.  Well, shall we get this thing started?”

Rollie took him over to the car, which was back up on the platform.  Angie watched as the Aussie explained everything to the stuntman, his arms and body moving animatedly.  Then he jumped off the platform and joined her and Manny.  Angie watched Andy perform the stunt, but wasn’t nearly as interested as she had been when Rollie had done it.  As the stuntman leaped from the car, it seemed to her that he didn’t do it nearly as gracefully as Rollie had.  He missed the first time, just as Rollie had, then also missed the second time.  Rollie went back over to him and talked some more.  She saw Andy’s head nod a few times.  On the third try he made it.  He did it a fourth time, just to be safe, making it again.  By then, it was time for them to go over to the location where the real thing would be done.

The car was ready and sitting on the dock.  The cameras were in place and the director was ready to start filming.  There was just one problem.  There was no sign of Andy.  No one there or at the studio knew where he was.  The director was really starting to get ticked off when he got a call on his mobile phone.  As he hung up, he called Manny and Rollie over.

“He’s sick.  Someone finally found him in the john.  I guess it’s some kind of flu bug or food poisoning.  There’s no way he can do the stunt.  Damn!  This is going to cost us a lot of time, not to mention money.”

Rollie looked over at the car and made a quick decision.  “I’ll do it,” he said.

“You?” asked the director.

“Yes.  I was a stuntman before I went to work for Manny.  In fact, I did the initial run through for this stunt.”

“Well, great!  Then let’s get started.”

“Rollie, are you sure you want to do this?” Manny asked as they walked toward the car.  “You’ve only had one successful practice run, and there isn’t going to be a nice soft mattress to catch you if you miss.”

“I’m sure.  I see no sense in wasting time and money by rescheduling the gag when I can do it.”  A grin came to Rollie’s face.  “Besides, what a spectacular way to end my career as a stuntman.  And, if I screw up, all that’s going to happen is I get wet.”

“And cold.  Don’t forget that the water is freezing.  It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to get hypothermia.  They’ll have divers waiting in the water, just in case, but be careful all the same.”

“I will, don’t you worry.”

Manny helped Rollie put on the padding that would protect his body from injury and got him dressed in the clothes that matched what the actor would be wearing.  Luckily, Rollie was similar in build to Andy, though he was a couple of inches taller.  The Aussie then got into the car and started it.  He looked at Angie, who was silently staring at him.

“Now, don’t you start worrying, too,” Rollie said.

“I won’t.  I know you’ll make it.”  She gave him a kiss on the cheek.  “Break a leg.”

Rollie smiled at the traditional theatrical wish for good luck as he watched father and daughter head over to the end of the dock where one of the six cameras was set up.  Manny picked up the remote that would first trigger the incendiary device under the hood, then detonate the explosives.  A minute passed, then the director yelled, “Action!”

Rollie stepped on the gas.  There was a muffled explosion and flames started shooting out from the hood of the car.  This was as planned.  He could feel the heat from the flames coming in the open window.  Then he started feeling warmth down at his feet.  The warmth quickly grew uncomfortable.  He looked down and saw fire coming up through the floorboards.  This was not right!  He could feel the flames licking at his feet and legs.  If he didn’t get out of there soon, his pants would catch on fire.  Choosing to abort the stunt, Rollie looked down again and saw that flames were shooting up from beneath the brake pedal, making it impossible to use it without stepping right into the fire.  He would have to jump.  Rollie pulled the door handle--and nothing happened.  The door remained closed.  His gaze went to the lock and saw that it was in the unlocked position.  Starting to panic, Rollie flung himself against the door again and again, but the door remained stuck.

There was now smoke in the cab of the car and a choking stench from the melting rubber floor mat.  Rollie coughed, fighting to see what was in front of him.  He saw the end of the dock looming before him and realized that it was too late to get out the other side.  He threw himself against the door one last time.  It flew opened.  As the car’s wheels sailed out into the air, Rollie leaped from the burning vehicle.  He reached out for the dock.  An explosion rocked him as the car blew up less than three yards away.  The concussion hit him, throwing him off target.  Desperately, he twisted his body in midair.  His hands grabbed the edge of the dock and held on, then his body swung down and slammed into the side of the dock.  He clung to the edge with all his strength.  Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the car, engulfed in flames, hit the water with a boom and a fountain of water.  Rollie pulled himself up, not breathing easy until he was lying safely on the dock.

“Cut!  Perfect!  Great job, Rollie!” called the director.  “Okay, everyone.  Let’s get over to the next shoot.  We’re running behind schedule.”

As Rollie slowly climbed to his feet, he saw Angie running toward him, grinning from ear to ear.

“You did it!  You did it!  I just knew you would!”

Manny, following at a more sedate pace, was grinning, too.  “I think I understand why you love stunt work, Rollie.  My heart was in my throat as you jumped, and when you made it, I felt like cheering.”

Rollie smiled, then bit his lip.  “Um, do you have a first aid kit in the van, Manny?”

“Sure.  Why?  Did you get hurt when you hit the dock?”

“Uh, no, not exactly.”  Rollie reached down and carefully pulled up his right pant leg.  His skin was an angry red and blisters had come up in several places.

“My God!  What happened?”

“Fire was coming up through the floorboards.  It got a little hot in there.”

“Damn it, Rollie!  Why didn’t you get out of the car sooner?  You should have forgotten the blasted stunt.”

“Believe me, Manny, if I’d had a choice, I would have been out of that car long before it reached the end of the dock, but the door stuck.  I couldn’t get it open.”

Manny stared at him.  He had grown very still and very quiet.  The man’s eyes were dark with emotion.  “Rollie, I opened that door a dozen times while I was rigging the car.  There was nothing wrong with it, and there is no way that those flames could have gotten through the floorboards.  The firewall was reinforced with several extra layers.  Something is wrong here.  I don’t like this at all.  When they raise the car, I’m going to go over it thoroughly.”

“What are you thinking?  That it was sabotaged?”  Rollie couldn’t believe that someone would actually do that.

“I don’t know, but if it was, it was by someone who is deadly serious.  If you hadn’t gotten out of the car, you could have been seriously injured or even killed.”

Angie stared at her father, then at Rollie, suddenly feeling very scared.  Rollie had almost died!  She moved over close to him and took his hand, holding on tightly.  Rollie squeezed her hand and looked down at her.  His brown eyes were full of shock and more than a touch of fear.

Rollie winced at the pain in his burned legs.  With Manny’s insistence, he had been taken to the hospital.  The doctors had treated the burns and released him.  Manny and Angie were now fussing over him like he was an invalid.  Some secret part of Rollie enjoyed the attention he was getting.  He hadn’t had anyone give him this much attention in a very, very long time.  It made him feel really good knowing that they cared about him.

“Can I get you any more coffee?” Angie asked him.

“No, Ange.  I’m just fine.  Thanks, though.”

“How about something else to eat, then?  Maybe a sandwich or an apple?”

Rollie laughed.  “Angie, if I eat another bite, I’ll explode.  I’m fine, really.”

“Angie, are you mothering Rollie again?” Manny asked as he came in the door.  There was an amused smile on his face.

“No, I am not mothering him,” Angie said indignantly.  “I just want him to be comfortable.”

Manny looked at the pillows heaped up on the couch under Rollie’s feet, the pillow behind his back, the pillow behind his head, the foot high pile of magazines sitting within easy reach, the leftovers from the king-sized meal Angie had fixed for him, and the cups of soda, tea, and coffee collecting on the coffee table.

Manny started to laugh.  “Angie Girl, if you make him any more comfortable, he’ll never leave the couch again.”

Angie stomped her foot.  “Oh, you just don’t understand!”  She walked off in a huff.

Still laughing, Manny sat on the edge of the couch by Rollie’s feet.  “So, how are you doing?  Are you surviving my daughter’s ministrations?”

Rollie let out a laugh of his own.  “Surviving?  I feel like visiting royalty!  Is she like this when you get sick?”

“No, not nearly this bad.  But then, she’s never had to deal with anything more serious than the flu with me.”  Manny grew serious.  “I think this really scared her.  In case you haven’t noticed, Angie has gotten to like you quite a bit.  Since her mother died, it’s been just the two of us.  There were the occasional assistants, but none of them were more than employees.  Even though we’ve known you for only two days, I believe Angie already thinks of you as a friend, perhaps even family, and it frightened her to think how close she came to losing you.  She’s already lost so much.”

Rollie looked over at Angie, who was sitting at the kitchen table, her back to them.  He didn’t know what it felt like to have a brother or sister, but what he felt toward Angie must be very much like it.  He would never have imagined that he could come to care about someone so much, so quickly.  He thought about what it would be like to leave and not see her again, and it actually hurt.  He realized that he would miss her terribly.  He’d miss her crystal blue eyes looking up at him with trust, her quick, bright smile shining in her lovely little face, her voice full of the intense, mercurial emotions of childhood.  Angela Ramirez had captured his heart, and he knew that his life would never be the same.

“You get some rest now, okay?” Manny said.  “You are staying the night, of course.  No, don’t bother objecting.  I insist.”

“Thanks, Manny.  I really appreciate all this, even though it isn’t necessary.  I mean, it’s not like I’ve never been hurt doing a stunt before.”

“I know, but I’m the one who rigged the stunt.  I feel responsible.  Even if it turns out that I have no blame in what happened, that won’t change.  So, you just let me do whatever I can for you, okay?”

Rollie studied the man’s face and knew that Manny was being sincere.  “Okay,” he agreed.

A smile returned to the F/X artist’s face.  “Well, I will leave you and let my daughter get back to smothering you with motherliness.”  He wished Rollie goodnight, then went over to Angie.  He bent down to her.  “So, do I get a kiss goodnight or are you going to punish me?”

Angie remained silent for a moment, then gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Is that all?  Oh boy, I really am in the doghouse, aren’t I.”  Manny leaned over and whispered something in his daughter’s ear.  Angie giggled and put her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.  Manny returned the hug.

Rollie watched them with a smile, thinking how wonderful it must be to have a father that was so warm and loving.  It made him think of the relationship he’d had with his mother.

Manny kissed his daughter goodnight and went upstairs.  Angie came over to Rollie.

“Come here,” the Aussie said, patting the couch.

Angie sat beside him.  “Are your legs hurting much?”

“A little.  The pain pills are helping, though.”  Rollie studied Angie’s face.  “Would you like to talk about what happened?”

Angie’s gaze dropped from his.  “N-no.  I just got a little scared, that’s all.”

“Because I could have died?”  Rollie’s voice was low and gentle.

Angie nodded, still not looking at him.

Rollie put a finger under her chin and lifted her head up.  Their eyes met.  “I’m not going anywhere, Ange.  Nothing’s going to happen to me.  I’m here to stay for as long as you and your dad want me to.”

Angie looked deeply into his eyes.  Rollie held out his arms to her and she went into them, laying down beside him.  Rollie hugged her close, feeling her warm little body snuggle up to his.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Angie asked after a few moments.

“Nope, no girlfriend.”

“How come?  Don’t you like girls?”

“I like girls a lot.  I just don’t have one that I like in that way.”

“Oh.”  Angie was staring at the buttons of his shirt.  “You like kids, don’t you?  I mean, maybe not all kids, but. . . .”  Angie looked up at him, an expression of earnestness in her eyes.  “I can do lots of things that other kids can’t, and I know lots of stuff, too.  I’m a lot more grown up.  I could help you with things whenever you wanted me to.  We could be. . . .”  Her voice trailed off, and her gaze dropped.

Rollie studied Angie’s face.  She seemed to be attempting to impress him, as if she was desperately trying to make him like her.  He understood her feelings of insecurity.  He’d felt it a lot as a child when the kids teased him for being smart.  “Hey, you don’t have to impress me.  I already think you’re terrific.”

“You do?”  Angie’s face was glowing.

“Sure I do.  I like you a lot, Ange.  I really do.  I think we could be friends for a very long time, maybe forever.  Would you like that?”

Angie nodded happily.  She laid her head down on Rollie’s chest and snuggled even closer to him.  He heard her give a soft sigh.  Rollie smiled and closed his eyes, feeling more content than he had in many years.

Hours later, Manny came down to find Angie and Rollie fast asleep on the couch.  With a gentle smile, he covered them with a blanket, then returned to bed.
 

CHAPTER SEVEN -- SABOTAGE

The sky was just beginning to lighten when Rollie awoke, his right leg throbbing and his head splitting.  Angie was curled up against his side.  Though he felt rotten, the sight of her innocent, sleeping face made him smile.  Trying not to jostle her, Rollie reached for the bottle of pain pills on the coffee table.  He took some and lay still, waiting for the medication to take effect.  Manny was coming downstairs just about the time that the pain had reached a tolerable level--the pain in his leg, not his head.  That stubbornly stayed put.  Trying not to let the pain show, Rollie smiled at the F/X man.

“Good morning,” Manny greeted softly.  “How did you sleep?”

“Pretty good,” Rollie whispered.  He looked down at Angie as she stirred in her sleep.

“Don’t worry about waking her.  She could sleep through an earthquake,” Manny commented.

“Not much scheduled for today, is there?” Rollie asked.

“No.  Mostly workshop stuff.  But they’ll be raising the car today.  I want to go down there and take a look at it.”

Rollie nodded, wondering what they would find when they examined the car.  He was certain that they’d find it had been tampered with.  There was no way that there could be two such disastrous failures at the same time accidentally, not on a gag Manny Ramirez had set up.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“That would be great.  Thanks.”

As Manny went into the kitchen, Rollie gently moved Angie over a bit and got off the couch.  He watched as she snuggled down into the warm hollow where his body had been.  Tucking the blanket around her, Rollie glanced up to find Manny standing beside him with two cups in his hands.  He was looking at Rollie warmly.

“You have a way with children,” the F/X artist said as he handed one of the cups to Rollie.

“I do?  I never really thought about it.  I haven’t had much experience with them.  I always did wish that I had a little brother or sister, though.”

Manny nodded.  “I think Angie wishes that, too.  She’d be quite the little mother to them.”

“You’re telling me,” Rollie said with a smile as he sat down, remembering Angie’s motherly attention to him last night.

Rollie and Manny talked as they drank their coffee.  The F/X man asked the Aussie about his life in Australia.  Rollie told him a bit about what it was like with the Aborigines, but steered clear of the subject of his mother.  He didn’t like talking about it or about what happened afterwards with Luther Cale.  The memories were just too painful.  Manny talked about Cuba, but said little about his wife.  Rollie figured it was probably for the same reason.

Once he was through with his coffee, Rollie limped up the stairs to the bathroom.  He was dying for a shower, but he couldn’t get the bandages on his legs wet.  He splashed some cool water on his face and neck, feeling hot for some reason.  He pressed his hand against his forehead and realized that he was feverish.

“Well, this is bloody terrific.  First I get burned, then I come down with the flu.”  And that’s what he felt like he was getting.  The headache was still raging, and all he really felt like doing was going back to sleep.

Finishing up in the bathroom, Rollie nearly bumped into Angie on the way out.  “Well, good morning, Angie.  You’re up early for a Saturday.”

“Oh, I always get up early.”  She smiled up at him.  “How are you feeling?  Do your legs feel better?”

“The left one’s not bad.  The right one’s bugging me a bit, but I’ve felt worse.”  He stepped aside and let Angie pass.  “The bathroom’s all yours, ma’am.”

Rollie limped into the kitchen and took some aspirin, not really caring if it interacted with the prescription medications.  While standing at the sink, he abruptly broke out in a sweat.  Suddenly feeling cold, he sat on the couch and wrapped himself in the blanket, but it didn’t stop the shivering.  Then, after a few minutes, he felt hot again and the sweating had stopped, which made no sense to him.  Shouldn’t he sweat when he felt hot and not sweat when he felt cold?  Rollie couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this bad.  He wondered what in the heck he’d caught.

Fortunately, Manny had gone upstairs and hadn’t seen what happened.  The Aussie heard him coming back down and made an effort to look cheerful.

At that moment, the phone rang.  The call was to let them know that the car was about to be lifted out of the water.

“We’d better get going, then,” Rollie said.

“There’s no need for you go, Rollie.  Why don’t you just stay here and keep off your feet.”

“No, I want to be there.  I want to see what was done to that car.”

Manny sighed and shook his head.  He could tell that no amount of arguing was going to change Rollie’s mind.  The young man was as stubborn as he was.

The Aussie quickly changed clothes, and the three of them went down to the dock.

As they pulled up, the burned remains of the car were being lowered onto the dock.  Water was pouring out like a waterfall.  The crane was disconnected and the cables removed.  As the workers moved away, Manny headed to the car.  He opened the driver’s side door, letting the water still inside drain out.  Getting down on his knees, he examined the floorboards.  It took him all of ten seconds to realize what had been done.  He stood and turned to Rollie, a grave expression on his face.

“Somebody took an industrial drill and put holes right through to the engine compartment.  They must have covered the holes with something so that they wouldn’t be seen.  This was deliberate, Rollie.  Someone tried to sabotage this stunt.”

“But why?  Who would want to ruin the stunt so badly that they’d be willing to kill someone?” Rollie asked.

“I don’t know.  I have made a few enemies along the way, F/X companies who lost jobs because the producers decided to hire me instead.  A fatal accident could have ruined my reputation and put me out of business.  What’s got me worried is that, since they failed this time, they may try again.”

“Then we’re going to have to check everything right before each stunt.”

“And what if we miss something?  If someone was seriously hurt or killed, I’d never forgive myself.  I’d rather quit right now and never do another movie.”

“Papa, no,” Angie said, upset at her father’s words.  She knew how much his career meant to him.

“Manny, if you quit, then you’re giving this person exactly what he wants,” Rollie said.  “There’s no way I’m going to let that happen.  We need to find out who did this and make sure they can’t do it again.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

“I don’t know.  We should call the police.  They’re the experts on this sort of thing.  They obviously won’t get any fingerprints off the car, but they might find some other evidence.”

“All right, we’ll call the police, but I still mean what I said.”

Two NYPD detectives showed up at the dock an hour later.  As one was examining the car, the other started asking Manny and Rollie questions.

“You were the one driving the vehicle, Mister Tyler?”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re saying that you couldn’t open the door, even though it had worked fine before?”  The detective was writing in a notebook.

“Yes.”

“Well, we’ll have a forensics team check the door for tampering.  Do you know of anyone who would want you dead?”

“Me?  No, not a soul.  Besides, I couldn’t have been the target.  I wasn’t the person scheduled to do the stunt.  I volunteered to do it after the stuntman, Andy Marconi, got sick, and that was only just before we did the stunt.”

“I see.  Do you know of anyone who’d want this Mister Marconi dead?”

“I can’t believe anyone would want that,” Rollie said.  “Andy’s a great guy.  I think that it’s more likely this was done to ruin Manny’s business, and a death on a stunt he set up could do that.”

“You may very well be right, but we need to check out all possibilities.  Who had access to the car?”

“Almost anyone in the studio could have gotten to it,” Manny said.  “It was left pretty much unattended from the time I rigged it to when it was brought over here.  It’s a stunt car, so someone could do almost anything to it right out in the open, and no one would give them a second glance.”

“I see.  Well, we’ll have the car examined and see if we come up with anything.  Mister Ramirez, we’ll need a list of everyone you think might have a reason to do this.”

The detective asked a few more questions, then he and his partner left.  A truck had arrived to take the car over to where the police forensics team would examine it.  Rollie watched them load it onto the flatbed, thinking again about how easily this could have ended with his death.  If he hadn’t managed to get the door open, he would have gone into the ocean with the car.  Manny obviously would not have set off the explosives, but the impact of hitting the water could have knocked Rollie out.  He would then have drowned before the divers could get to him.

Rollie suddenly realized that he was feeling even worse than he had before.  He felt like he’d been stuck in a sauna, and the headache had returned worse than ever.  He had to sit down before he fell down.

Manny noticed that Rollie looked more than a little pale.  A feeling of guilt assailed him.  He truly liked this young man whom he had made his apprentice, and it tore him up to think that Rollie was suffering because someone was out to ruin Manny’s business.  Why couldn’t this person have attacked Manny directly?  Why did he have to do something that would hurt or even kill a person who had nothing to do with his grudge?

The F/X artist took hold of Rollie’s arm.  “Come on.  You need to sit down, Rollie.”  He led the Aussie over to the car.  Rollie sat in the passenger seat and closed his eyes for a moment, his head lying against the headrest.  Manny leaned down and studied Rollie’s drawn face.  “Are the pills wearing off?”

“No, I think I’m coming down with something.”

Angie looked at Rollie with concern.  He really looked sick.  She tentatively touched his forehead.  “Papa, he’s really hot,” she said.

Manny felt Rollie’s forehead.  “You’re right.  Rollie, I think we’d better get you back to the hospital.  You may have an infection.”

Rollie didn’t object.  He was feeling worse by the moment.

The drive to the hospital was all a haze to Rollie.  Angie had sat in between him and Manny and was holding the Aussie's hand.  He focused on the feel of her hand in his and tried to ignore how rotten he felt.  His temperature had dropped again and he’d begun to perspire heavily.  Then, a sudden, violent chill gripped him.  His body began to shake and his teeth chatter.  Angie’s grasp on his hand tightened.

“Rollie?”  There was fear in her voice.  When Rollie didn’t answer, she turned to her father.  “Papa, hurry!”

Manny glanced at Rollie’s violently shaking form and pushed his foot down harder on the accelerator.  They screeched to a halt at the hospital’s emergency entrance, and Manny got out to get some help.  Two orderlies came out with a gurney.  They got Rollie out of the car and onto it.  The Aussie fought not to cry out as the movement sent blazing pain shooting all the way up his right leg.  He was immediately wheeled to an examination room.  Angie had latched back onto Rollie’s hand as soon as they’d gotten him out of the car and hadn’t let go until the nurse adamantly refused to allow her into the exam room.  She had been forced to sit out in the waiting area.

A couple of minutes passed before a doctor came in.  The first thing he did was cut Rollie’s pant leg.

“Damn.  There goes another pair of pants,” Rollie mumbled, feeling a bit delirious.

As the material was pulled back, both Manny and the doctor immediately saw red streaks traveling up Rollie’s leg from someplace hidden beneath the bandages.  Manny knew what that meant.

“Septicemia,” commented the doctor, speaking aloud what Manny had been thinking.  “All right, we’re going to have to admit you and get this taken care of right away.”

Leaving the doctor to treat Rollie, Manny went out to his daughter.  Angie jumped up when she saw him.

“How is he?  Is he okay?” she asked, her words tumbling over each other in their haste to get out.

“He’s got a case of blood poisoning.  The doctor is in with him now.”

Angie heard the word poison and immediately panicked.  Poisoned!  People die when they get poisoned!

“I-is he going to die?” she asked in a scared little voice.  She was starting to cry.

Manny had seen the terror leap into his daughter’s eyes, then watched as they clouded up with tears.  Quickly, he knelt before her.  “No, no, baby.  He’s not going to die.  It isn’t that kind of poisoning.  It means that there is a kind of infection in his blood.  Rollie’s going to be just fine.”

Angie looked closely at her father’s face.  Was he telling the truth or was he just trying to make her feel better?  Laura Witham’s father had told Laura that her mom was going to be okay, but her mom died two days later.

“Really?  You’re not just saying that?”

Manny smiled.  “Yes, really.  Rollie isn’t going to die.  That’s a promise.”

Joy flooded through Angie.  If he promised, then that meant it was for real.  Her father would never break a promise to her.  “Can I see him?”

“Not right now.  The doctors are treating him.  After he gets put in a room, I’ll make sure you can see him, even if I have to smuggle you in under my coat.”

A couple of hours passed as Manny and Angie sat in the waiting room.  Finally, the doctor came to see them.

“How is he?”  Manny asked.

“He’s doing fine.  We’ve got him on higher doses of antibiotics, and they seem to be working.  We found out what caused the septicemia.  There was a large sliver of wood deeply embedded in his leg.  It went unnoticed because of the burns.  We’d like to keep him here overnight, but he should be able to go home tomorrow.”  He looked at Manny, then Angie.  “Are you relatives of Mister Tyler?”

“No, Rollie is my apprentice.  He was injured during a movie stunt.  This is my daughter, Angela.”

“Ah.  Well, you should make note that Mister Tyler is resistant to penicillin.  He apparently didn’t know this.  His regular doctor should be informed.”

“We’ll make sure he is.  Is Rollie well enough for visitors?”

“Certainly.”  The doctor looked down at Angie.  “I’m afraid that hospital policy won’t allow minors in the room unless they’re relatives, though.”

“But you have to let me see him!” Angie cried.

“Look, Doctor . . . Hartman, Rollie has no relatives except for his father, and he doesn’t know where his father is.  Right now, we’re the closest thing he has to family.  Can’t you bend your rules just this once?” Manny asked.  One way or another, he was going to get Angie in to see Rollie.

The doctor looked down at Angie again.  After a moment, he let out a sigh.  “I really shouldn’t do this, but . . . all right.”

Angie beamed.  “Thank you, Doctor Hartman!”

Rollie was sitting up in bed as Manny and Angie came into his room.  He looked a good deal better than he had before.  Angie immediately went to Rollie’s side.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked.

“Much better, Ange, and better still now that you’re here.”

Angie smiled brightly and sat on the edge of the bed.

Manny shook his head.  “When you get hurt on a stunt, you sure don’t do it by half measures, do you,” he commented teasingly.

Rollie grinned.  The smile quickly turned sheepish.  “I guess I should have known something was wrong when I woke up feeling so bad.”

“Yes, you should have, and you should have told me about it.  Let’s set the rules right here and now.  If you ever feel bad, like you’re coming down with a cold, or flu, or anything else, you tell me.  I don’t want someone who’s sick trying to concentrate on setting up a gag.  That could lead to accidents.  Are we clear on that?”

“Yes, sir,” Rollie said meekly.  Then he smiled.  “What about when you get sick?  Does this reporting go both ways?”

“Wise guy,” Manny muttered good-naturedly.  “But you’re right.  It should work both ways.  Before, when I got sick, I had to work anyway.  It will be nice having someone around to help when I don’t feel good.”  Manny grinned.  “I knew I hired you for some reason.”  It felt good to joke with the young Aussie.  Though he would never admit it to Rollie, Manny had been pretty scared on the drive to the hospital.  Rollie had really looked bad.  It was even more frightening to think that, if another day had passed without getting him to the hospital, the young man probably would have died.

Manny had felt hatred for a fellow human being only once before in his life, but what he felt now for the person responsible for Rollie being injured, was quickly growing into that emotion.  He swore to himself that, no matter what it took, he’d make sure that person paid for what he’d done.

Manny and Angie stayed with Rollie for a couple of hours.  They wanted to stay longer, but Manny said that he had to get back to the loft to do some work.  About an hour after they’d left, Sam poked his head in the door.

“Well, hey there, kiddo!  I leave you on your own for a day and look what happens.”

“I guess I just can’t stay out of trouble without my babysitter,” Rollie said with a grin.  “How did you find out I was here?”

“Well, I was out on location most of the day yesterday and didn’t find out about the trouble with the stunt until this morning.  I called your place first, then I tried the Ramirez’s.  I didn’t get anyone, so I left a message.  Manny called back a little while ago and told me what happened.”  The stuntman had grown serious.  “Is it true?  Was the stunt sabotaged?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.  Whoever it was, Sam, they’re dangerous.  They obviously don’t care if someone gets hurt or even killed.”

“Well, if I get my hands on him, he’ll be wishing that he’d been born on another planet.”  There was anger in Sam’s eyes.  “So, what exactly happened?”

Rollie gave him the details.  He’d no sooner finished when the door opened and none other than Louie Farrell walked in.

“Well, Louie!  How nice of you to drop by and see me,” Rollie said.

The stuntman snorted.  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world, Tyler.  So, I guess you and Ramirez aren’t the hotshots you thought you were.”

Anger leapt up in Rollie, not so much for the slur on him, but on Manny.  “If you had bothered to pull the cotton out of your brain, you might have heard that the problem with the stunt wasn’t an accident.  Someone deliberately wrecked it.”

“Yeah, right.  Come on, Tyler.  You and I both know that this sabotage thing is just a coverup to salvage Ramirez’s career,” Farrell sneered.

“Well, the police don’t think so.  They’ve opened an investigation, and they’ve got a forensics team going over the car looking for evidence on who did this.  It’s only a matter of time before they solve the case, then whoever sabotaged the car will go to prison for attempted murder.”

Farrell didn’t look quite so arrogant anymore.  Rollie saw anger and some other emotion momentarily flash across the man’s face, then Farrell turned away.  “Accident or not, your precious Manny Ramirez’s reputation just got a big dent in it with a stunt that important being blown.  Don’t expect this new job of yours to last long.  I’m looking forward to the day you come crawling back to the Association, wanting your old job back.”

“Hate to burst your bubble there, Louie, but the stunt wasn’t blown,” Sam said.

Farrell spun around.  “What are you talking about?”

Sam smiled broadly.  “Well, it seems that my pal here, despite the fact that his legs were being burnt to a crisp, and despite the fact that the door of the car had been sabotaged, still managed to complete the stunt as planned.  In fact, he did it so well that no one even knew anything was wrong until Rollie told them.”  The stuntman crossed his arms over his chest smugly.  “I’d like to see you pull that off.”

Fury exploded across Farrell’s face.  “Damn you, Tyler!  You’ll get yours yet.  One way or another.”  He stormed out of the room.

“Was it something I said?” Sam asked innocently.

The stuntman stayed with Rollie a while longer, then left.  Alone, the Aussie stared up at the ceiling, thinking about all the things that had happened since the day he stepped onto the set of Gangster Alley.  His thoughts then turned to the act of sabotage.  If they didn’t find out who had done it, the person would no doubt try again and keep trying until they succeeded--and someone was either seriously injured or dead.
 

Rollie awoke with a start, certain that someone was watching him.  As the cobwebs of sleep were swept from his mind, he looked around the darkness of the room.  Only silent, unmoving shadows met his searching gaze.

“Hello?  Is someone in here?” he asked tentatively, a part of him still gripped by the feeling that he was not alone.  The silence and stillness remained.  Rollie shook his head.  “Must have been a dream,” he muttered.  He was in a hospital, though.  Maybe a nurse had come in to check him.

Rollie lay back down, not really convinced about the nurse theory.  What he had felt had been somehow . . . malevolent, like the person watching him had not had his best interests at heart.

Certain that it must have been a dream, Rollie pulled the covers up and closed his eyes.  It took a long time for him to get back to sleep.
 

CHAPTER EIGHT -- A NEW LIGHT

The next morning, Manny and Angie came to pick Rollie up.  The doctor had given him a stern warning to take it easy and stay off his feet as much as possible for the next few days.

As they were leaving, a woman came up to them whom Rollie recognized as one of the nurses on duty the night before.

“Mister Tyler, if you are ever a patient in this hospital again, please inform your visitors that we have set visiting hours that are there to prevent the other patients from being disturbed.”

“I’m sorry.  I’m afraid that I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rollie said.

“Someone went to your room late last night.  It was around one o’clock,” the nurse explained.

Rollie’s body tensed.  Could it be that his dream hadn’t been a dream after all?  “You saw someone coming out of my room?”

“Well, no.  He was standing outside your door and had his hand on the handle.  Then he suddenly drew back and walked away.”

The news was making Rollie feel more than a little nervous.  “What did this man look like?”

“I didn’t see his face.  He was wearing a heavy coat with the hood pulled up.  I called to him, but he just ignored me.”  She studied Rollie’s face.  “I apologize.  I can see that you were unaware of this visitor.  Well, whoever he was, he should have known better than to skulk around a hospital in the middle of the night.”

“What was that all about?” Manny asked as they got into the car.

“I don’t know.  Someone apparently came to my room last night.”

“At one in the morning?  Who would do that?”  Manny looked at the expression on the Aussie’s face.  “What is it?  I can tell something’s bothering you.”

Rollie shook his head.  “It’s crazy.  You’ll think I’m nuts.”

“Try me.”

“Well, sometime during the night, I suddenly woke up out of a sound sleep convinced that someone was in the room.  It felt . . . I hate to say this . . . evil.  It gave me the willies.”  Rollie looked at Manny.  “I told you it was crazy.”

There was a thoughtful look on the F/X artist’s face.  “Don’t be so sure.  I’ve seen some strange things, Rollie, and heard of even stranger things.  Don’t dismiss what you felt.  There’s a good chance that your instincts were warning you of something.”

Angie looked back and forth between the two adults.  “You mean that man might have come to hurt Rollie?”

“No, I doubt that,” Rollie said.  “He might have just been someone who didn’t like me much.  There are a few stuntmen who aren’t particularly fond of me.”

“Why?” Angie asked.  She couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t like Rollie.

“To be honest, I’m not really sure.  Some of them have called me an upstart.  I guess I did graduate to the difficult stunts more quickly than what usually happens.”

“You think they were jealous?” Manny asked.

“It’s possible.  Some stunt people work for years before a stunt coordinator will let them do the kind of stunts I was doing six months after I started.  I hate to admit it, but I guess that could cause some bad feelings.”

Manny started the car and they drove out of the parking lot.  “I think you’d better stay with us for the next few days, at least until you’re well on the mend.”

“That really isn’t necessary, Manny.  I’ve been pretty much taking care of myself on and off since I was a kid.  A few burns and a touch of blood poisoning aren’t serious enough for me to need watching over.  Not that I don’t appreciate it.”

“Please humor me, Rollie.  I’d just prefer it if you stayed with us for a while, okay?  Besides, the more you can stay off your feet, the quicker you’ll heal and be able to get back to your duties as my apprentice.”

Rollie studied the expression on Manny face and decided that he might as well give in.  Manny wasn’t going to take no for an answer.  “All right, but just for a few days.  I guess you’d better take me over to my apartment so that I can pick up a few more things.”  Rollie smiled faintly at the memory of the last time they’d gone over to his apartment.  It had been on the way back from the hospital after he’d gotten burned.  His pant legs had been cut open and he’d wanted to change.  While they were there, Manny had told Rollie to put a couple of things in an overnight bag “just in case.”  Rollie should have known right away that Manny was going to insist he stay at the loft that night.

Manny nodded with satisfaction at Rollie’s acquiescence.  His insistence that Rollie stay at the loft was only partly because of the Aussie’s physical condition.  The incident with the late night visitor had given Manny a bad feeling in his gut.  He didn’t know what it meant, but he would feel a whole lot better knowing that Rollie wasn’t alone.

The F/X artist smiled to himself, wondering where these almost fatherly feelings toward his young apprentice had come from.  Perhaps it was because of the strong relationship that had so quickly developed between Rollie and Angie.  They got along so well together, better than most brothers and sisters.  Manny knew that could change as Angie got older.  She was at a very vulnerable time in her life.  Losing her mother and being torn from her home and friends in Cuba had made her desperate for love and friendship.  That was why Manny had insisted that she go to a regular school rather than being tutored at the studios and on location.  He had wanted her to find friends, to have as normal a life as possible.  Unfortunately, Angie had found few real friends at school.  She was highly intelligent, strong-minded, vociferously opinionated, and loved to work with her father--not your usual giggling, eleven-year-old girl who’s interested only in playing, boys, TV, and ‘girl stuff’.  He knew that she’d been lonely, especially since they had learned of Lillian’s death.  Now, a young man comes into her life who is kind, extremely intelligent, shares her love for F/X, and treats her as an equal.  It was no surprise that she would instantly like him.

Manny pulled up to Rollie’s apartment building, and the three went in.  As Rollie changed and packed a small bag, Manny looked at the few photos Rollie had on his shelves while Angie wandered around the place.

“Oh, wow!”  Angie cried.

Manny looked up to see his daughter in the little kitchen.  He went over to find out what had earned the exclamation.  On the counter were a number of amazing gadgets, some of which were like nothing he’d ever seen before.  What drew his attention more than any other was something that looked like a cross between a metal spider and a robot.  He picked it up and began studying it with a professional eye.  A few moments later, Rollie came into the kitchen.

“What’s all this?” Manny asked.  “Where did it come from?”

“Oh, this?  It’s just some stuff I put together.  It’s sort of a hobby of mine.”

“You built all of this?”  Manny was amazed.  Though he didn’t know what half the things were, he recognized the high level of technological knowledge and mechanical skill that it would take to create them.

“Yeah.  A lot of them are just toys, though I guess they could have some practical value.  That little guy you’re holding is something I’ve been working on lately.  Here, let me show you.”

Rollie placed the metal, spider-like robot on the floor.  He picked up a device that looked similar to a remote for a radio-controlled car.  Rollie flipped a switch and gently pushed the lever forward.  The spider moved, its legs carrying it forward at a slow, steady pace.  Rollie moved the lever to the left, making the robot turn.

“It’s just a toy now, but I think it could be a lot more.  If I could make it programmable and able to control its own movement, it could be used to do lots of things, maybe even stuff on a movie.”

“This is wonderful,” Manny said.  “What about the rest of this stuff?”

“Well, a few of them I put together while I was trying to figure out an easier way that a gag or stunt could be done.  Some of the things are, um, F/X ideas I had.  They’re really nothing much.”  Rollie was a bit embarrassed by the last admission.  Here he was talking to one of the best F/X artists in the business about his silly little inventions.

Manny picked up an object that was sitting by itself on the table.  “And this?  It looks like a braking system of some kind.”

Rollie had grown serious.  “It is.  I started working on that a couple of weeks ago after a stuntman was killed on a gag.”

“I heard about that.  A winch failed, right?”

“It didn’t just fail, it was defective.  You could see that it was a flaw in the manufacturing.  Anyway, after the accident, I began working on that.  The principle is similar to the emergency braking system on an elevator.  If the winch fails, this will kick in and stop the cable from dropping.  It isn’t finished yet.”

“This could save a lot of lives,” Manny commented, very impressed.  “I’d like to take a closer look at these things, if you don’t mind, and have you demonstrate what they do.”

Rollie was astonished.  He hadn’t expected Manny to show this much interest in his gadgets.  “Uh . . . sure.  We can take them to the loft, if you want.  I have some more stuff in the closest.”

“Great.”

They boxed everything up and put them in the trunk of the car, along with Rollie’s suitcase.  When they got back to the loft, they found a message on the answering machine.  It was from the police, asking them to come down.  They unloaded the car, then Rollie and Manny headed over to the station.  Manny thought it best for Angie to stay at the loft.

“How are you feeling, Mister Tyler?” the detective who had questioned them before asked.  “I heard that you had to be taken to the hospital again yesterday.”

“I’m fine, thanks.  So, what did you find out?”

Detective Gray picked up an object in an evidence bag.  “This device was found in the driver’s side door.  It is a secondary locking mechanism.  It was apparently triggered when the car was started, locking the door.  As long as the engine was running, that door would have been impossible to open.”

“But I did get it open at the last second,” Rollie said.

“That’s because the device shorted out.  The wiring from it to the starter was apparently damaged by the fire.”

“So, what you’re saying is that I’m alive because of sheer dumb luck?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” the detective admitted.

“But you could also say that you’re alive because whoever did this screwed up,” Manny commented.  “They should have realized that the chances of that wiring getting damaged were very high, what with the incendiary going off and the fire.  If it had been me, I’d have fireproofed the wires.”

“What if they couldn’t?” Rollie said in a thoughtful voice.

“What do you mean?” asked the detective.

“Well, what if this wasn’t planned?  What if it was thought up at the last minute?”

“But this device isn’t something you could throw together at a moment’s notice,” the detective pointed out.

“No, it isn’t,” Rollie agreed.  “Like you said, this isn’t something you could go buy at Radio Shack, but it is something that an F/X person might have.  I think Manny has a couple of similar devices.”

“Yes, I do.  I’ve used them on a number of gags.  So, you think that this wasn’t planned ahead of time?”

“It makes sense.  With the right kind of tools, this could have been done within an hour’s time.  If I had wanted to sabotage the stunt and had a few hours–even two or three--I could have come up with several ways that would have been guaranteed to work.”

“There is something else you need to know that sheds a whole new light on this case, and, I have to be honest, it’s a light that I do not like at all.”  Detective Gray’s face was grave.  “We found the remains of another device that looks to have been attached to the detonator on the explosives.  It was a timer that had also been wired to the starter.  It would have started counting down from the time the car was started.”

“Wait a minute,” Manny said, a note of horror in his voice.  “Are you saying that the explosives were rigged to go off regardless of whether or not I set them off with the remote?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“My God!  That means that if Rollie hadn’t gotten out of the car he would have been blown up!  He would have been killed for sure!”

“Yes.  This wasn’t just an act of sabotage.  It was a deliberate murder attempt.  Someone wanted the driver of that car to die.”

Rollie suddenly felt like he needed to sit down.  This was worse than he’d thought it was, a lot worse.  What kind of sick bastard would brutally murder someone just to get even with Manny or drive him out of business?  Unless they weren’t after Manny.  Was it actually possible that someone wanted Andy dead?  Rollie still couldn’t believe that.

“Have you talked to Andy yet?” Rollie asked.

“Yes, and he swears that no one but his ex-wife would have any reason to want him dead.  He was joking about the ex-wife.”

Someone called to the detective, telling him that there was a phone call for him.  As he excused himself, Rollie sat down in a chair.

“I have to tell you, Manny, this thing has got me scared.”

“You’re not the only one.  If someone is ready to deliberately murder somebody to get back at me, I’m not sure I want to be in this business anymore.  I’ve heard of cutthroat competition, but this brings a whole new meaning to the term.”

Rollie heard a muffled commotion and turned to see an argument going on in the captain’s office.  A man dressed in casual clothes was arguing with a man in a three-piece suit.  A third man was standing a few feet away, apparently trying to stop the argument.

Suddenly, the casually dressed man stormed over to the door and flung it open.  “Look, I was off duty when I nailed the scum.  In fact, I’m still off duty.  I don’t have to take this crap.”

“McCarthy, get back here!” the third man, who was apparently the captain, yelled.

The man named McCarthy paused.  He looked out into the squad room, and, for one brief moment, his eyes met Rollie’s.  Then he turned away and went back in the office.  The captain closed the blinds on the windows, blocking Rollie’s view.

Gray came back.  “Sorry for the interruption.  We still don’t have any leads on who did this, though we are investigating several of the individuals on the list you gave us, Mister Ramirez.  As soon as we come up with something, we’ll give you a call.  In the meantime, you may want to stay out of the studio.  Whoever did this may try something else.”

“That’s going to be a little hard,” Rollie said.  “We’re right in the middle of a movie project.”

“But, if we have to, we’ll make other arrangements,” Manny said.

Rollie looked at Manny, but remained silent.  This was not the place to go into that discussion.

Back in the car, Rollie broke his silence.  “Manny, I hope that last remark of yours doesn’t mean what I think it does.”

“Rollie, if someone is that determined to put me out of business, no amount of double checking is going to be enough to guarantee that the gags I set up will be safe.  The only reason you’re alive is a lucky set of circumstances.  We might not be so lucky next time.”

Rollie thought for a moment.  “What if I could guarantee that no one would get near anything to sabotage it?”

Manny studied the look on Rollie’s face.  A crafty smile had curved the Aussie’s lips.  “What are you thinking?” the F/X artist asked.

“Well, part of it has to do with one of the gadgets I put together.  The other part involves my fellow stuntmen.  I’ll need to make a few phone calls, and I need your permission to rig something to your van.”

“You’ve got it, of course.  You’re not going to tell me what you’ve got planned, are you.”

“Not until it’s set up.  I want to make sure this is going to work.”

On the drive home, Rollie remained silent.  Something didn’t fit here, and he just couldn’t figure out what it was.  His mind was too full of what they’d found out from the police.  It was terrifying to think that something like this was actually happening to them, to him.  He felt like he’d gotten stuck in one of the movies he’d worked on.  It just seemed so unreal.  He wondered if this was how other people felt who were suddenly thrust into situations like this.

They were nearly home when a piece of his jumbled thoughts fell into place.  “He had to be there.”

“What?  Who had to be where?” Manny asked.

“The person who did this.  He had to be at the dock.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Detective Gray said that the timer was rigged to the starter so that it would begin when the car was started.  The car would have been taken to the stunt on a flatbed, right?”

“I would think so,” Manny said.  “That’s what is usually done with stunt cars that have been rigged with explosives.  It’s a public safety issue.  We can’t take the chance that the car would get into an accident on the way over to the location.”

“Okay, then.  It would have to be driven up onto the flatbed.  If the timer was hooked up before then, it would have started counting down,” Rollie explained.  “Now, maybe it was rigged to stop if the engine was turned off, but the whole thing would be too iffy.  There would be no way of knowing how long it would take to put the car on the flatbed or take it off.  What if the car was started, then the guy who was going to drive it onto the ramp walked off and left it for a few seconds or got into a conversation.  It could have blown up right there in the studio.”

“You think that he rigged the car at the dock?  That’s pretty dangerous considering that the camera crew and a few dozen other people would have been there.  They would have wondered why he was messing with the stunt car just before the gag.”

“I think that he did most of the rigging beforehand.  All he would have to do at the dock is connect the wires to the starter.  That would have taken no more than a few minutes, if he knew what he was doing, which he obviously did.”

“I’ll find out who worked the stunt and ask them if they saw anyone hanging around the car.”  Manny pulled onto Brewery Lane and parked the car in front of the building that would be Rollie’s home for the next few days.

“Do you want Angie to know what we found out?” Rollie asked.

“I’ve never kept secrets from my daughter.  I don’t think this is the time to start.  Besides, I doubt we could keep it from her for very long.”

Angie saw the expressions on the two men’s faces and knew something was up.  “What did the police say?”

Manny and Rollie shared a glance that made Angie even more certain that something was really wrong.

As Rollie took a chair, Angie’s father sat with her on the couch.  He told her what the police had found.

Angie stared at her father, then looked at Rollie, anger and fear mixing together into one big hard knot in her stomach.  Someone had wanted to kill Rollie.  They hurt him and tried to kill him.  “But why would somebody want to hurt you?  Why would someone want to kill you?” she asked.

“It wasn’t me, personally, that they wanted to kill, it was whoever was driving the. . . .”  A look of dawning comprehension filled Rollie’s eyes.  “Of course!  Why didn’t I think of this before?”

“What?  What are you talking about?” Manny asked.

“Something has been bothering me ever since we found out about the timer, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I just now realized what doesn’t fit in this whole thing.”
 

CHAPTER NINE -- PLANS AND DECISIONS

“If he intended to blow up the driver, why did he put the holes in the floorboards so that the fire would get into the car?” Rollie asked.  “What was the point?  In fact, now that I really think about it, it makes no sense at all.  If it wasn’t for the fire, I wouldn’t have even known something was wrong until I tried to open the door.  The fire actually warned me and may have saved my life.”

“You’re right.  It makes no sense,” Manny agreed.  “Is it possible that this person is unbalanced?  Maybe he wanted the driver to suffer before he died.”

“But wouldn’t that mean that this was a personal attack on the driver?  I mean, this was a vicious act.  Why would someone who did this to get back at you want to torture somebody who had nothing to do with their grudge?  Andy hasn’t been a part of anything that would have made someone hate you, has he?”

“No, I’d never met him before Friday.”

Rollie’s gaze fell away from Manny’s.  He stared off into space for several seconds, then a look came into his eyes, a look of acceptance and a touch of fear.  “It can’t be anything else,” he murmured.  Rollie’s eyes returned to Manny’s.  “You and Andy don’t have an enemy in common, but you and I do, at least one that I can think of: Phil Ulrich.”

“The owner of FX-tra?”

“He thinks that I ruined his reputation because I caught the mistake on Assassin, and he blames you for his business going under because you officially confirmed that it was his defective equipment that was responsible for the blown gag on his last picture.  And on the day that the car was sabotaged, he found out that I’m now working for you.”

“But, Rollie, we already decided that you couldn’t have been the target since you weren’t supposed to do the stunt,” Manny pointed out.

“I know.  But there’s something I didn’t think of before.  Maybe I didn’t want to think of it.  I did the stunt because Andy got sick.  What if he didn’t get sick by accident?  What if somebody put something in his food or drink?  Quite a few people knew that I had done practice runs for the stunt.  This guy may have guessed that, if Andy suddenly got sick at the last minute, I’d step forward and do the stunt myself.”

Manny was staring at Rollie, his face drawn with worry.  “I have a terrible feeling that you’re right.  But it would have taken more than an hour or two to set all this up.”

“When did I first say that I wanted to do a run through?  Wasn’t it shortly after we got into our argument with Ulrich?  What if someone overheard that conversation?  Ulrich himself could have circled back and spied on us.  Whoever this was may have figured that he had an opportunity to get even with us both--kill me and put you out of business.  He would have had enough time to get whatever it was that he put in Andy’s food and sabotage the car.”

“I hate to say this, but it makes sense,” Manny said.  “How do we prove it?”

“Unfortunately, there would be no way of confirming that Andy was poisoned.  Any toxins in his system would be gone by now.  We can tell Detective Gray about our theory, but that’s really all it is.  There may be only one way to nail this guy, and that’s to catch him in the act when he tries it again.”

“You think he’ll try again now that the police are involved?”

“I don’t know.  I guess it depends on how much he wants his revenge.  I’d say he wants it pretty badly.”

Angie listened to the conversation in silence, a burning rage kindling deep inside her.  Somebody wanted to hurt her daddy!  Somebody wanted to kill Rollie!  Angie knew that it was wrong to hate, but she didn’t care.  ‘I hate him, I hate him, I HATE HIM!’ she silently screamed.  She wasn’t going to let anybody hurt Rollie or her father.

“You do realize that for him to try again you’d have to let yourself be a target.”  Manny’s stomach was knotted with fear.  How could he even consider letting Rollie risk his life to catch this guy?  Because they had no choice.  As long as Ulrich, or whoever was doing this, was running free, none of them were safe.

“I know.  Believe me, I know.  I guess the first thing we have to decide is what gag we’re going to let him try to sabotage.”

“Well, tomorrow we’ll be doing the lighthouse gag,” Manny said.  “There isn’t going to be anything particularly dangerous with that one.  After that is the high fall off the cliff.  The only way he could sabotage that is to do something to the parachute.”

“No, that isn’t what he’s looking for.  He’ll want to pick a gag that’ll let him get his revenge on both of us at the same time.  Manny, there really are only two gags that he would try for: the boat and the fire.”

Manny shifted uncomfortably.  “The boat gag is controllable.  It’s just one isolated explosion.  But the fire. . . .  There are a lot of ways that could be sabotaged.”

“I know.  Which is why I think he’ll aim for that one,” Rollie said gravely.  “We’ll be right in the middle of all those incendiaries and explosives.  All he’d have to do is set off one when it wasn’t supposed to be and the whole set could go up in flames.”

“And you and I and maybe half a dozen other people with it.”

Angie’s hand suddenly gripped her father’s.  Manny saw fear in his daughter’s eyes.  He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

Rollie watched father and daughter.  Above anything else, he had to make sure that nothing happened to either of them--or to anyone else.  “Angie, could you do me a favor and get me a couple of pillows for my feet?”

Angie looked at Rollie, her suspicious nature telling her that Rollie wanted to talk to her father without her around.  “Sure,” she said.  Angie went up the stairs and went through the door leading into hers and her father’s private living quarters.  Peeking out at them, she waited until they weren’t watching, then slipped back out and snuck over to the railing.  Lying on the floor of the landing, she concentrated on listening in.

“Manny, I have to ask you to do something.  I want you to stay out of the line of fire.”

“Rollie--”

“No, please listen to me.  You’ve got Angie to take care of.  If something happened to you, she’d have no one left.  Please, Manny.”

There was a long pause, then, “I know you’re right, Rollie, but the thought of leaving you alone to face whatever this guy does goes against every instinct I have.”  Manny sighed.  “What do you have planned?”

“Well, we’re going to be setting the gag up on Thursday morning.  I think I have a way to guarantee that he can’t sabotage anything while we’re setting up, which means that he will have to do it after we break for lunch.  If I’m the one who makes the final check on the explosives, it will give him a perfect opportunity to try something.”

The more Angie listened, the more scared she got.  Rollie sounded as if he was going to let this terrible person try to kill him.  What if something went wrong and Rollie died?  The thought of Rollie being dead hurt so much that she almost cried out.  Tears filled her eyes, and she choked back a sob.  She just couldn’t stand thinking about it.

Angie got up and hurried through the door and to the linen closet for the pillows Rollie had asked for.  As soon as she started down the stairs, she heard Rollie’s and her father’s voices grow silent.  Good.  She didn’t want them to talk about this anymore.  She didn’t want to think about it anymore.  If no one talked about it or thought about it, then it would all just go away.  Deep down inside, she knew that wasn’t true, but she was going to pretend that it was.

Rollie took off his shoes and put his feet up on the pillows, smiling his thanks.  Angie had settled on the arm of the chair.  She was looking down at him, her blue eyes wide and fearful.  Rollie scooted over and made room for her on the chair.  Angie sat beside him, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

“Well, it’s nearly lunch time,” Manny said.  “Can I make you a sandwich, Rollie?”

“Sounds good.”

“What about you, Ange?”

Angie shook her head.  “I’m not hungry.”

“Hey, a growing girl like you has to eat,” Rollie said.

Angie shrugged.

“Well, I’ll make you one anyway.”  Manny went to the kitchen.

Rollie put an arm around Angie’s shoulders.  “Would you like to talk about all this?  There’s nothing wrong with being afraid, Angie.  I’m scared, too.  So is your father.”

“I know.  It’s just that. . . .”  She looked up into his eyes.  “What if you die?  I don’t want you to die, Rollie.  I lo--” Angie stopped suddenly.  She had almost told him that she loved him.

Rollie looked at her, realizing that she must have eavesdropped on his conversation with her father.  “Listen to me, Angie.  I’m not going to lie and tell you that I know everything is going to be all right.  I don’t know that.  Something could happen.  But we can’t let that stop us.  We have to find out who this person is.  Do you understand that?”

“I guess so.”

“Your dad and I are going to do everything we can to make sure nothing goes wrong.”  Rollie smiled down at her.  “I plan on being around for a long, long time to come.  I want to see you grow into the beautiful woman I know you’ll be.”

Angie looked up into his eyes.  She realized that her feelings for Rollie were changing.  They were . . . bigger somehow.  She couldn’t really describe them.  She only knew that she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.

Rollie gazed into Angie’s eyes, feeling his bond with her grow even stronger.  He bent down and placed a kiss on her forehead.  “I love you, too,” he whispered.

Angie’s face lit up.  ‘He loves me!’ she cried in silent joy.  She wrapped her arms around Rollie’s waist and hugged him tightly.

When her father came back with the sandwiches, Angie dug in with enthusiasm.  The three ate in silence, each of them wondering what the coming week would bring.

After lunch, Rollie went through the gadgets they had brought from his apartment.  Pulling out a few items, he got a roll of electrical wire and some other things from Manny and got to work on the van.  Though he was curious about what his young apprentice was doing, Manny left him to work in peace.  The F/X man went to a worktable and focused his attention on some things he’d need for one of the upcoming gag.

Angie watched Rollie in quiet fascination.  She didn’t know what he was doing, but, whatever it was, he seemed to know just how to do it.

Rollie’s feeling that he’d gotten dropped into a movie plot was stronger than ever.  He’d never have imagined that he’d have yet another enemy in his life who would hate him enough to try killing him.  When Luther Cale had tried to kill him, he’d barely survived.  Rollie sincerely hoped that things would go better this time.

What was even more amazing, though, was that he was now actually planning a scheme to capture a saboteur and attempted murderer.  How had his life gotten so turned around that he was suddenly playing the cop--and without the benefit of a badge and gun?

Rollie abruptly paused in what he was doing, overcome by a very odd feeling.  He shook his head, laughing softly.  What a ridiculous notion.  He got back to work, ignoring the brief feeling that this would only be the first of many times that he would be involved in capturing a criminal.

A while later, Rollie stood back and surveyed his handiwork.  “Manny?  Would you like to take a look at this?” he called.

Manny came over and looked at the device that had been attached to the back door of the van.  “Is that what I think it is?”

Rollie smiled.  He punched a code into the keypad of the device.  “Angie, come here.  Now, place your thumb right there on that square.”  Rollie hit a green button on the gadget.  A faint beep sounded.  “Good.  Now, watch this.  Let’s pretend that I’m someone who is trying to get into the van.”  Rollie grabbed the door handle and jerked it.  A deafening alarm blared from the van.  Angie clamped her hands over her ears as Rollie quickly punched another code into the device. The alarm was silenced.  “Okay, now put your thumb back on the square.”

Angie did as she was told, and they heard the door unlock.  “Cool!” she exclaimed.

“I could have done it with a voice recognition device, but I was afraid that our ‘friend’ might tape record one of our voices.  The fingerprint scanner is safer,” Rollie explained.

“I’d dearly love to know where you learned to build a fingerprint scanner and install a car alarm system.”

“Well, I learned about car alarms when I got a summer job at a place that installed them.  It was one of the few times that my father and I stayed long enough in one place for me to get a real job.  As for the fingerprint scanner, that was a fluke.  We picked one up at a flea market.  The person who had it didn’t have a clue what it was, and I have no idea where he got it.  Half the circuitry was toast, but I salvaged some of it and was able to figure out how it worked so that I could build one of my own.”

“How old were you?”  Amazement was clear in Manny’s voice.

“Um, sixteen.”  Rollie smiled.  “You see, shortly after we came to the States, Dad discovered that I had a bit of a knack in fixing electronics and mechanical equipment.  After that, he started buying every broken gadget he saw, hoping that I could fix them so he could sell them at a few hundred times what he paid for the things.”

Manny laughed.  “And did it work out?”

“More times than not.  Some of the stuff was irreparable, but it was profitable enough that he kept at it until I went to work as a stuntman.  I remember that, before, if I wanted to buy a book, I had to use my own earnings.  Then, after Dingo realized that there was big money in fixing and selling the ‘techie stuff’, as he put it, he was continually buying technical manuals and ‘How To’ books for me.”

“Amazing.  Did you ever think about going to college?”

Rollie sighed.  “All the time.  I would love to have gone to M.I.T. or one of the other schools that specializes in the technical fields, but it just wouldn’t have been possible.  There’s no way that we could have afforded the tuition, let alone all the other things.  My entire high school education and a good deal of my earlier schooling was gotten via home study courses while we were on the road.  I never did take the SAT’s.”

“I have a feeling that you could have gotten a full scholarship if you’d tried for it,” Manny said.

“Really?  I never thought that I’d have a chance for one.”

“Oh, I think it’s safe to say that you would have had a pretty good chance.”

Rollie’s eyes grew distant, dreaming about what might have been.  Then he shook himself, coming back to the real world.  “Anyway, this will keep our saboteur from getting into the van.  Now, I just have to make some arrangements to assure that he won’t be able to sabotage anything at the studio or on location until we want him to.  If you will excuse me, I need to start making some phone calls.”

Manny took a closer look at his apprentice’s alarm system.

“Rollie really is a genius, isn’t he,” Angie said.

“Yes, he is.”  Manny’s thoughts turned his daughter.  With all the things that had been happening lately, he’d begun to give serious thought as to what would become of Angie if something happened to him.  He hated the thought of his daughter being put in the home of strangers, but all his relatives still lived in Cuba, and he knew that Angie would never want to return to that place, not with all the painful memories it held.  Except for a few cousins and an uncle she’d never met, she had no relatives on her mother’s side.  He’d once thought that AC would be a good person to be named as Angie’s legal guardian in the event of his death, but the producer’s life and career left little room for family, which was the reason why the man had never married.

Manny looked at Rollie, who was busy chatting with someone on the phone.  He’d only known the young man for four days, yet he already knew so much about him, not about Rollie’s past, but about the important things.  He’d come to know the Aussie’s character, and what he saw he liked very much.  “You like Rollie a lot, don’t you, Ange?” he asked his daughter.

“Uh, yeah,” Angie replied hesitantly.  She wondered why her father was asking this now.

“Let’s say that I had to go someplace where I couldn’t take you along.  If you had the choice of staying with anyone you wanted to, who would you choose?  Now, be honest.  I really want to know.”

“Papa, why are you asking this?  Are you going somewhere?”

“No, I just want to know, just in case,” Manny said quickly.

Angie stared at her father.  She could tell that he was keeping something from her, which wasn’t like him at all.  She wondered if this had something to do with the man who was trying to hurt him and Rollie.

“I’d want to stay with Rollie,” Angie said emphatically.

“You’re certain?  You wouldn’t rather stay with AC or someone else, even if it might be for quite a while?”

Angie shook her head.  “No, I’d want to stay with Rollie.”  Her voice was full of certainty.

Manny nodded.  His gaze returned to his apprentice.  This was not a decision to be made lightly.  He would have to think about it long and hard before making it.
 

CHAPTER TEN -- ACTS OF RAGE

The lighthouse set had been finished on time, and there were no catastrophes as Rollie and Manny quickly set up and readied their equipment.  So far, so good.  Keeping their fingers crossed, they stood by and watched as filming commenced.

The actor who played the hero dashed down the stairs.  Partway down the staircase, a stuntman took his place.  Immediately after the director yelled “action” again, a couple of men standing on a platform dropped fake debris down on the stuntman, who pretended to be stunned by the barrage.  His feet slipped out from under him.  As he began to fall, his hand reached out and grabbed the railing.

“Cut!” the director called.  “Okay, Ray, get back in there.”  The actor was brought back in and the rest of the shot was finished.

As the debris was cleared away, Rollie and Manny double-checked the prop lighthouse light that would smash through the wall on the next shot.  Everything seemed to be working fine.

The stuntman climbed the stairs and waited.  Filming started.  The light swung down and smashed through the fake lighthouse wall.  More debris was dumped onto the stuntman.  The director was just about to yell “cut” when the stuntman accidently slipped on a piece of debris and tumbled down the stairs.  He caught himself after falling only a few feet.

“Cut!  All right, let’s get everything cleaned up and reset,” the director ordered.  “Hurry people!  We don’t have all day.”

Manny and Rollie quickly went to reset the light.  Rollie paused as he passed the stuntman.

“You okay, Freddy?”

“Sure, Rollie.  That one wasn’t even worth talking about,” the stuntman replied.

Rollie gave him a smile and a pat on the shoulder, then climbed the ladder to the platform where the prop light was.  He and Manny raised the light back up, and several people got to work rebuilding the wall.

The second take went off without a hitch and everyone went off to the next shoot, leaving the two F/X men alone to disassemble and put away their equipment.

“I was studying the model of the lighthouse last night,” Rollie said.  “It looks great.  Too bad it’s going to be blown up.”

Manny smiled.  “Yeah, that’s the way it is with a lot of what we special effects people do.  We pour dozens, and even hundreds, of hours into things only to see them destroyed in a matter of seconds.”

“But it is fun being able to blow things up for a living, isn’t it?”  There was a big grin on Rollie’s face.

Manny returned the grin.  “You’d better believe it.”

Thinking about the fun parts of the job made Rollie think of something else.  “Angie was not very happy about having to go to school this morning, was she.”

Manny chuckled.  “That’s putting it lightly.  I do love how you got her to finally go, though.  I just about split a gut.”

Rollie’s grin broadened.  “I learned quite a bit about reverse psychology watching my dad and his wheeling and dealing.”

“Well, don’t be surprised if, when she gets here, Angie is still mad at you for that crack you made.  And believe me, my daughter is not someone whom you want to stay mad at you for long.”

“Oh, I believe it.  She is going to be quite a handful for the man who marries her,” Rollie observed.

“I just hope she’ll find someone who can take what she throws at him and send it right back.  Actually, that’s probably the only kind of man she’d marry.”  Manny didn’t add that Rollie himself was the kind of man that he could imagine his daughter marrying, the kind of man that he would be pleased to see her marry.

“Actually, I should also have insisted that you not come to work,” the F/X artist commented.  “You’re supposed to be resting, not scrambling up and down ladders and staying on your feet for hours at a time.”

“I’m fine.  I’ll take a break after we get this done.”

Manny shook his head.  “Lord help me.  Now I’ve got two pig-headed people to deal with in my life.”

Angie headed for her father’s van.  She could see him and Rollie loading stuff into it.  Angie frowned faintly at the sight of the tall Aussie, still a little mad at him for what happened that morning. . . .

“But, Dad!  There’s nothing important happening at school today.  There aren’t any tests until Friday.  We’ll probably just go over a whole bunch of stuff that I already know.”

“There’s no reason for you not to go to school, Angie.  There’s nothing special going on at the studio today.  Rollie and I will probably be finished by the time you get out.”

Angie’s chin firmed stubbornly.  She didn’t want to go to her stupid, boring school when Rollie and her dad were going to be doing so many interesting things at the studio.

“Manny, why not just let her come with us?” Rollie asked.  “I mean, if she doesn’t want to learn anything, then that’s up to her.  You don’t really need a good education to get a job.  There are lots of things she could do.  She could probably get a job flipping burgers at a fast food place, though, actually, they do prefer high school graduates.  Or she could get into garbage collect--”

His voice was cut off by the front door slamming behind Angie as she stormed out of the loft.  How dare he say that she was going to grow up stupid!  Well, she’d show him!  She’d grow up smarter than both him and her dad put together. . . .

Angie had been even madder an hour or so later when it dawned on her that Rollie had said what he did to trick her into going to school.

As she drew near to the van, she saw that Rollie looked a bit pale.  He was limping again and was walking more slowly than usual, which meant that his legs must really be bothering him.  But he didn’t stop.  He just kept right on helping Angie’s father until Manny made him sit down to rest.  Seeing Rollie in pain drove the lingering traces of anger from Angie’s heart.  Why couldn’t he take it easy like the doctor told him to?  If she had come to work with them, she might have been able to do things for Rollie so that he wouldn’t have had to work so hard.

Rollie saw Angie and smiled.  She immediately pretended to still be angry at him.  Not looking at him, she went up to her father and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“How did the lighthouse gag go?” she asked.

“Good, though we did have to do a second take,” Manny said.  “I heard they had trouble with the deathbed scene.  It took nine takes.  The actors kept flubbing their lines.  Oh, and the leading lady had a fit when she broke a nail.”

“That is just so stupid.  I couldn’t care less what my nails look like.”

Manny picked up her hands and examined the thoroughly chewed fingernails.  “Yes, I can see that,” he commented.

Angie jerked her hands away and subjected her father to an angry glare.  Still not looking at Rollie, she then pretended to become completely engrossed in studying a piece of equipment.  After a couple of minutes, she heard the Aussie come up behind her.  As he sat on the ground, he gave an almost inaudible hiss of pain.

“So, I guess you’re still mad at me,” Rollie commented.

Angie remained silent.

“That’s what I figured.”  Rollie sighed.  “I suppose you’ll be torturing me slowly and brutally with silence for the rest of the day, huh.  Wouldn’t you rather just stick me on the rack or shove bamboo slivers under my fingernails and get it over with?”

Angie tried very hard to suppress the laugh that bubbled up in her throat.  She almost succeeded.  In an effort to cover up the bit that escaped, she said, “I’m not going to grow up stupid.”

“Angie, I didn’t say that.  I would never say that.  You’re just as smart as anybody I know and smarter than a lot of them.  But an education is an important thing.  You mustn’t take it for granted.”

“I know.  I just wanted to be here with you and Papa.  I could have helped you with stuff, and then your legs wouldn’t be hurting now.”

“Thank you, Angie.  I really appreciate that.  But I’ll survive.  I’d rather see you go to school and have fun with your friends there.”

“I don’t have--” Angie cut herself off.  She didn’t want Rollie to know that she didn’t have any real friends at school, not the kind of friends that she could talk with about things, like she could talk to Rollie.

Rollie studied her face closely.  She had a feeling he knew exactly what she stopped herself from saying.

“Did I ever tell you what it was like for me in school?” Rollie asked.

“No.”

“Well, before my mum died, I went to this little school a few miles from where we lived.  There weren’t many kids there.  We were pretty far out in the outback.  Most of the kids were from the ranches and farms in the area.  Anyway, none of the kids were interested in the things that I liked.  Most of them called me the equivalent of a geek or a nerd just because I liked to use my brain, and I never got into fights.  I didn’t have any friends, except for one little girl who sometimes ate her lunch with me.  After Mum died, I stopped going to the regular school.  For several months, I got most of my schooling with the Aboriginal children when Dad left me there as he went off looking for money, which made me happy since I’d hated going to that other school.  After. . . .”  Rollie stopped for a moment, then continued.  “Later, he started taking me with him all around the country.  But then, for a few months, we settled down in a town, and I went to a real school again.  Things were a lot better that time.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe because the kids were older and because I became more interested in normal kid things.  I made some friends, and school started being fun for me.  What I’m trying to say, Angie, is that things will get better.  By the time you graduate high school, you’ll probably have dozens of girlfriends and a hundred boys wanting to have dates with you.”

“Oh, I will not.  Besides, I don’t want a hundred boyfriends.  I only want one,” Angie stated.  Then she blushed, and her eyes dropped away from his.

“And a lucky one he will be, too,” Rollie said with conviction.  He stood up.  “Well, I’ve been resting long enough.  Time to get back to work.”

Rollie went around to the back of the van where he found Manny sitting on the bumper.  Though the F/X artist said nothing, Rollie could clearly see the gratitude in his eyes.  Manny gave him a faint nod that held a wealth of meaning, then the two finished putting the equipment in the van.

They had just finished when Manny abruptly stiffened, his face hardening.  His eyes were focused on a point behind Rollie.  The Aussie turned to see Phil Ulrich watching them from a few yards away.

Angie followed the gaze of the two men and saw who they were looking at.  All of a sudden, something snapped inside her, and fury exploded through her body.  Her hands clenched tightly into fists, she marched over to the owner of FX-tra.

“Just go away!  Leave them alone!”  She started pummeling the man with her fists and kicking his shins.  “I won’t let you hurt them!  I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!”

Angie was sobbing with rage and fear as a strong pair of arms wrapped around her and pulled her away.

“Angie!  Stop it!  Stop it!” she heard her father crying.  She continued to struggle against the arms that imprisoned her.  Then, abruptly, she stopped.  Her body still shaking from the violent emotions that had taken control of it, Angie continued to glare at Ulrich.

“She’s insane!” the man yelled.  He was clutching his bruised legs.  “She should be locked up!  You’d better believe I’m going to report this to the studio executives.  They’re not going to let that wild, uncontrollable brat run around here anymore.  I should smack her one just to teach her a lesson!”  His hand lifted suddenly as if to strike.

If Manny hadn’t been holding Angie, he would have gone after the F/X man right then and there.  Instead, he quickly pulled his daughter farther away.  That’s when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.  He turned to see Rollie, a Rollie that he’d never seen before.  There was a terrifying rage blazing in the Aussie’s eyes and a murderous look on his face.  He came at Ulrich like a striking cobra.  His fist lashed out, smashing into the man’s jaw.  Ulrich fell back and hit the ground, hard.  Dazed, he looked up at the young man standing over him.

“If you ever lay a hand on that child or do anything to hurt her, I’ll kill you, Ulrich!” Rollie voice was trembling with fury.

The owner of FX-tra backed away from the Aussie, fear showing in his eyes.  He got to his feet slowly.  Then the expression on his face changed.  “I’ll have you arrested for this, Tyler.”

“No, you won’t,” someone said.

They all turned to see none other than the studio manager.  The woman was glaring at Ulrich.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, but I saw you attempt to hit Angela, Ulrich.  If I had been this young man, I’d have done exactly the same thing.  If you breathe a word of this to the police, I’ll make sure not only they, but everyone one in this industry, from the lowliest gofers to biggest producers, know that you’re the kind of slime who would strike a child.  I want you out of this studio, now, and I don’t ever want to see you here again!”

Ulrich stared at the woman, then turned his furious gaze on Rollie and Manny.  “This isn’t over,” he said.  He stalked away, heading toward the east exit.

The studio manager focused her attention on Rollie.  “I don’t believe that we’ve been introduced.  I’m Carla Bernstein.”  She held out her hand.

Rollie took the woman’s hand and shook it.  “Rollie Tyler, ma’am.”

“Rollie is my new apprentice, Carla,” Manny explained.

“Apprentice?  Why, you must be the young man I’ve been hearing so much about these last few days.”

“Me?  What could you have been hearing about me?” Rollie asked in surprise.

“What haven’t I been hearing?  First, I hear that you rescued Derrick Bray’s script from a pitiful attempt to rewrite the laws of physics, then I hear that you were instrumental in getting that sorry excuse for a human being kicked out of the F/X business.  And then I hear that you managed to flawlessly execute a difficult stunt despite the fact that the inside of the car was on fire and the door wouldn’t open.  When you decide to make an impression, young man, you certainly do it in a big way.”

“I had no idea that the studio executives had heard about all that,” Rollie said, amazed.

Carla Bernstein smiled.  “It might sometimes seem as if we’re sitting over there in our ivory towers, but we do like to keep abreast of what’s going on in our backyard.  Actually, I came out here to find you two.  I don’t like this business about the sabotage.  I feel like it was a personal slap in the face, it happening here in my studio.  I hear that the police are involved.”

“They’ve started an investigation, though there isn’t any solid evidence for them to go on,” Manny said.  “We have come up with some new ideas, though, that may help them.  I guess we really should let you in on this, since it involves this studio.  There’s a chance that Ulrich is the saboteur.”

“What?  Well, I always knew he was no good, but I never figured him to be the kind to attempt murder.  I think I understand now what was going on between you four a few minutes ago.  I’d better make sure that the security force is alerted so that they’ll keep an eye out for him.  I don’t want that snake getting back in here.”

“Actually, we want him to come back,” Rollie said.

“Excuse me?”  There was confusion on the woman’s face.

“If he is the saboteur, we think that he’ll try again.  We want to catch him in the act,” Rollie said.

“That could be pretty dangerous, couldn’t it?”

“Yes, but it’s the only way that we can stop this thing,” Rollie explained.  “We’ve already begun making plans.”

“Well, you be sure to keep me informed on this.”  Carla walked with them over to Manny’s van.  “What’s this?  Manny, when did you get so rich that you can afford to use a fingerprint scanner for security?  Maybe I should change careers.”

“Actually, I didn’t buy it.  Rollie built it.”

“You’re kidding!  Well, Rollie, you must be quite the technological wiz, not to mention a first class programmer.  The recognition software in this would be quite the programming feat.”

Rollie laughed.  “Me a programmer?  I barely know a thing about that.  I’ve always wanted to learn, but I don’t get many chances to get my hands on a computer.  About half of this I put together from parts I took out of a damaged unit.  I lucked out because the programming was still intact, by some miracle.  A friend of mine who’s a security expert showed me how to clear the codes and set new ones and how to operate the scanner.”

“All the same, it was quite an achievement to build.  It must have taken you a while to do it.”

“Yeah, it did.  It wouldn’t have taken quite as long if I hadn’t had to save up my money to buy the parts, though.  They weren’t cheap.”

“I should imagine not.”  Carla smiled and shook his hand again.  “Well, it was very nice meeting you, Rollie.  I hope you’ll be staying in the business for a long time to come.  We could use more people with some brains.”  The woman walked back to the cart she had come in and drove away.

“That’s the first time I ever heard of a studio exec personally coming to look for someone.  They usually send an assistant,” Rollie commented.

“Well, Carla has never forgotten how she began.  As cliché as it may sound, she really did start out in the mail room.”  Manny studied the Aussie’s face.  “Rollie, you’ve just helped me make a decision I’ve been thinking about for quite a while.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.  As you’ve seen, I haven’t really gotten into the computer aspects of F/X yet.  My knowledge in that field is pretty limited, not to mention that the kind of system that would do us any good would cost the earth.  Up until now, I’ve had a third party do the computer work, but I’ve been thinking about investing in a system of our own.  If we could get into those aspects of the business, I think we could really have something.  I have a feeling that computers are going to play a much larger role in F/X in the years to come.  Until a few minutes ago, I hadn’t made up my mind whether or not I was going to do it.  Now I have.  I’m going to get that system.”

“It sounds like a great idea to me, but how did I help you make up your mind?” Rollie asked.

“Like I said before, my computer knowledge is limited, and I’m not sure I’d have the skill to progress very far.  But, you and I together might just be able to accomplish something.”

“And when I go to college, I could take computer classes and learn lots of stuff,” Angie added.

“You sure could.  Then, you’ll make both of us look like dummies in comparison,” Manny said.

Rollie noticed someone walking toward them and saw that it was Detective Gray.  The man was wearing his seemingly perpetual frown.

“Good afternoon, Detective,” Manny said.

“Afternoon.  We just got finished questioning everyone who was at the dock during the time that the sabotage would have taken place.  One man said that he saw someone hanging around the car, but he was too far away to identify the person.  We also checked into Phil Ulrich’s background.  His company’s gotten quite a bad reputation in the movie industry for being a screw up.  His financial situation has been going steadily downhill for the past five months, which, by what you told me, would coincide with the incident on that movie, Assassin.  Then, after that problem that you got involved with, Mister Ramirez, things just went right down the tubes.  The man definitely has reason to hate both of you.  Normally, we’d have brought him in for questioning, but I don’t think we should tip our hand yet.  We have no real proof that he did it.”

“Then you agree now that we should try to trap him in the act?” Rollie asked.  The detective had not liked the plan when they’d told him about it late Sunday afternoon.

The frown on the man’s face deepened.  “I still don’t like the idea of putting civilian lives in danger, but it may be the only way we can get this guy.  Are you certain you can control this thing, that it’s not going to blow up in our faces--literally?”

“Well, he won’t be able to get in the van to sabotage the equipment, and I’ve made arrangements that will prevent him from sabotaging anything on the set before the lunch break.  If he’s going to do something, it will have to be during lunch,” Rollie explained.

“And we’ll be there waiting for him,” Gray said.

That evening, Rollie got back to work on the braking system.  A winch was going to be used in one of the upcoming stunts, and he wanted to fit it with the emergency brake.  He knew that the chances of two winch failures happening within the space of two weeks was pretty unlikely, but, after what had happened, he just didn’t want to take the chance.

Manny sat down at the table and watched him for a few minutes.

“I saw it happen, you know,” Rollie said, his voice low.

“The accident?”

Rollie nodded.  “Walt was being lifted up into a helicopter.  Everything seemed to be going fine.  Then, suddenly, he was falling, and there was nothing that anyone could do.”  Rollie shuddered.  “I don’t ever want to see anything like that again.  And the worst part of it is that it could have been prevented.  If they had just tested the winch before they did the stunt, or even thoroughly examined it, they would have known that it was defective.”

“Did you tell the authorities about the winch?”

“Yeah, I talked to the first detective on the scene.  He got there just a few minutes after it happened.  He said that there was a possibility of criminal negligence charges being filed.  They weren’t, though.”

“Oh?”

“No.  All that’s happened so far is a lawsuit being filed against the studio, the production company, and the F/X company by Walt’s wife.  They’re fighting it.  It’s supposed to go to court later next week.”  Rollie paused.  “I don’t know.  It just doesn’t seem right that a man loses his life because people were too lazy or busy to take a few safety precautions, and all that’s going to happen to them is that they may lose a few bucks.  I just wish. . . .  I wish that I could have done something.  Maybe I could have checked the winch myself.”

“Rollie, you can’t be responsible for the safety of every person who works on a shoot.  It just isn’t possible.  Accidents happen.”

Rollie sighed.  “I know.”  He smiled faintly.  “You know, I didn’t used to be like this, hung up on this whole safety thing.  I’ve been known to take more than a few chances in my time.  I guess seeing Walt die really affected me.”

“Well, that’s understandable.”  Manny smiled.  “I have a feeling it will pass, though.  I have a sneaking suspicion that guy who likes to walk on the edge is still in there somewhere.”

Rollie returned the smile, then got back to work.

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