Vanduran tightened his lips and looked over at Angie who was smiling at him with that female all-knowing x-ray vision into his heart and mind.
 
 

"So, Luce is where? What studio lot?" she asked him, very cool and low. Vanduran knew he was in for it, big time now that she and Lucinda would put heads together.
 
 

She’s at Full Moon Pictures, their studios on Santa Monica…hell if I know what lot! It’s the only picture being filmed there right now so I just follow the people running around. It’s a creepy studio…does all horror stuff and weirdo movies."
 
 

"I would say you’d feel at home, Captain- just like Midtown South…" Rollie added, a slight smirk on his face but Marvin gazed at him seriously in return.
 
 

"When I say creepy, I mean it. This movie she’s doing right now is down right sicko stuff. She told me it was based on some serial killer out here back in the 1870’s."
 
 

"Sounds interesting…" Angie chimed in, hugging her knees. If she could keep her mind on movies and seeing the sights in LA, maybe it would help her not think about the past couple of months and then of course, missing Aidan.
 
 

Vanduran shook his head; "I don’t get it. You guys do these horror movies and relish all the blood squirting around and guts flying! I was hoping Lucinda would get a nice part, you know- like Michelle Pfeiffer."
 
 

Rollie started to laugh but was quickly elbowed in his ribs and put his hand over his mouth, coughing. Angie quickly responded then;
 
 

"Captain, Lucinda is not quite there yet, you know- to get those parts that Michelle Pfeiffer gets but I too, would have thought that her next part after Tomb Raiders would be, uh, more major studio release."
 
 

"What’s wrong with horror flicks….done plenty of them and they’ve fed and clothed you, my dear!" Rollie retorted, playing devil’s advocate.
 
 

"Rol, you know I love them! But hey, we have to think about the big picture here. I think Aidan would like to go to college or something," Angie replied, grinning.
 
 

"College?" Rollie’s eyebrows went into a frown as Marvin Vanduran laughed heartily and looked at the two of them;
 
 

"How is that boy?" he asked as they started to pass by Culver City on the freeway heading toward Santa Monica Boulevard.
 
 

Angie’s eyes lit up and Vanduran watched as Rollie suddenly held onto Angie’s knee and dipped his head toward hers;
 
 

"He’s quite a handful! But he’s talking now! Saying mama and uh, some other words…" Angie began as Rollie rolled his eyes and looked into Vanduran’s eyes;
 
 

"But he has a mental block right now for dada or anything remotely resembling paternal regard…" Rollie interrupted and Angie scoffed at him.
 
 

"It’s in all the books, kids usually say "mama" first! Come on, Rollie. He’s going to say it…"
 
 

"Probably saying it right now…" Rollie muttered, "now that I’m not there to hear it."
 
 

"Chin up, Tyler…he’ll come through for you. He’ll be bringing fake blood bags to show and tell before you know it...," Vanduran countered as he sighed and looked out the window. It was starting to get dark and the traffic was horrific as they crawled onto Santa Monica and headed east.
 
 

"So, what’s the agenda?" Rollie asked, yawning and stretching as he leaned back in the limo and smiled.
 
 

"Lucinda told me to bring you to the lot, that’s all I know. She didn’t want you going home until she joined you. From what I know, she has an early night tonight"
 
 

"Oh boy, that means, only ten o’clock…" Angie said, twisting her face slightly, remembering Luce’s ‘early nights’.
 
 

"She’s got something cooking, that’s all I know. She did tell me that Rollie would really like it," Vanduran replied. He wanted to ask them why they had really come, why they had left their son in New York on a sudden whim and come out to LA. He really was trying to be polite but the policeman in him was getting the best of him.
 
 

"Good, I could really go for something good!" Rollie replied and Angie nudged him slightly and looked out the window.
 
 

"I’ve never been to Venice…I was so excited for Luce when she told me that she had bought a house there…I had heard the real estate there is outrageous and that getting a house there was tough. I can’t wait to see it!" Her face showed her enthusiasm and at the same time, a touch of sadness. Vanduran didn’t let that go unnoticed.
 
 

"I can’t stand it! Okay, what the hell happened in New York?" he asked, exasperated and then muttered; "I promised Lucinda but hell, no one is letting me in on the truth here. I tried calling Sanchez and no answer…Gatti is never at home and always ‘out’. So what gives?"
 
 

Both Rollie and Angie’s expressions changed. There was a moment of silence in the car but Rollie finally spoke up and as the gridlock continued outside on the boulevard. He filled in Vanduran on some details of the past three weeks and as the limo reached the studio gates of Full Moon Pictures, Marvin Vanduran felt like he needed another vacation just from hearing all the details.
 
 

"Your father just disappeared at the airport?" he asked, incredulously as the limo made its way back through a narrow road leading toward a main street of sound stages.
 
 

"That’s not uncommon, Captain. He’s not one to really worry about, he always comes back smelling like a rose…" Rollie replied, gritting his teeth. He had not told Vanduran about Mira or Michael Lopez’s deceptions, only that Michael Sanchez had not really died.
 
 

"I have to call Gatti and find out how his daughter is doing…" Vanduran responded, his mind reeling with all the information and voicing a mental note he was trying to make as Angie looked to Rollie, seeing that the somewhat limited edition of the past three weeks was still opening fresh wounds.
 
 

The limo stopped and they stepped out, looking up at a large soundstage appropriately marked as No. "13". But Rollie was looking at the incredible van that was parked next to the building. The van logo was what caught his eye as Angie grinned and gripped his hand tightly. It was Mark Rappaport, FX. The Puppet Man, himself!
 
 

"Bloody fantastic! Luce didn’t say Rappaport was working on this film!" Rollie exclaimed, grinning like a fool.
 
 

"Careful, Rol…don’t let him see you drooling," Angie warned as Marvin shrugged his shoulders and walked toward the soundstage door. The warning light was flashing red above the door as Rollie suddenly stopped him with a tug on his jacket.
 
 

"Uh, Captain, they’re filming right now," and he pointed up to the light.
 
 

"Jeez, so many bells and whistles and lights…thanks! I’ve already done this once before and gotten yelled at by that director. He’s a real finicky guy!"
 
 

Rollie smiled as Angie waited beside him, hugging him around the waist. Within a few minutes, the green light appeared and Vanduran opened the door, winking at Rollie as they all entered the soundstage.
 
 

Making their way toward the set, several people smiled as Vanduran passed and several smiled at Rollie and Angie as they passed. They had worked with several of these familiar faces on other movies and as they came up toward the back of the set, Rollie saw the man who owned the van outside.
 
 

He was huddled in a confined space beside his computer console, his hands working on a set of controls, his expression was one of determination and at the same time, exhaustion.
 
 

He jumped though, hitting his head on the top of the bench as a squeal of surprised delight rose from the set. Lucinda Scott, dressed in 1870’s western frontier calico dress and flying bonnet, raced toward them. The director stood, speechless as his actress left the stage in mid conversation and headed for the strangers standing next to that policeman she was dating.
 
 

"Rollie Tyler! Angie!" she screamed in pure wonderment as she hugged Rollie like a bear and then nearly picked Angie up in her arms. Her face, with a large gash to an open skull was flapping in midair as she laughed and pulled the latex wound off with a grimace.
 
 

"Sorry, Mark…it was scratchy!" she told the FX man who stood now, rubbing his head and frowning slightly but he eyed Rollie curiously and then extended his hand;
 
 

"Rollie Tyler? Tyler F/X?" he asked, and then grinned as Rollie shook his hand with genuine enthusiasm.
 
 

"Mark Rappaport! This is fabulous! The Puppet Master!" Rollie replied, grinning from ear to ear.
 
 

"Shucks! Hey, Avenger man!" Rappaport complemented him back as Rollie beamed. The man had seen his films!
 
 

"Sounds like an F/X convention starting up now," Lucinda warned as she pulled Angie over and hugged her again, "man, you look great!"
 
 

Marvin Vanduran stood, almost forgotten as everyone talked the movie talk and he sighed, pacing in the background.
 
 

"Marv! Thanks so much for bringing Rollie and Angie from the airport, you’re such a sweetie!" Lucinda then said, thanking him as she kissed him firmly in front of Tyler and his wife. His face flushed as the director walked over, his patience having run out.
 
 

"Ms. Scott, do you realize that every moment you spend ripping off your make-up and playing with your boyfriend and other friends, that this movie is not being made and the money is just continuing to flow out of studio coffers…?"
 
 

"Oh gosh, sorry Charlie…hey, meet my friends, Rollie Tyler and Angie Ramirez – uh, Tyler F/X out of New York City!" she told him, as Rollie stepped forward and shook the director’s hand. Angie shook his hand as well as he looked at them with a slightly appraising eye.
 
 

"Charles Boyd, Ms. Scott forgot my full name," he said, gruffly and then with little more than a meager comment added; "worked with Manny Ramirez some ten years ago on a little film; ‘Revenge of the Bayou’."
 
 

"Yes, that was my father! I remember that film!" Angie exclaimed, disregarding the gruffness in his voice.
 
 

"Umm, you were that little tom girl hanging around with him on the set," he added as Angie blushed.
 
 

"And you, yeah- Tyler, know you from your Avenger work and well, Lucinda’s picture, Tomb Raiders. Got some nice effects…" he added, and walked away, mumbling to himself as Lucinda jumped up and down slightly.
 
 

"Hey, he doesn’t do that for anyone. You guys are in like Flint…listen, I have to go back. We have one more scene tonight and then, we’re outta here. Please! Make yourself at home and it won’t take long, I promise!"
 
 

Mark Rappaport pulled at the latex wound that Lucinda had worn and frowned; "I spent all night on this and she ripped it up in ten seconds!" He shook his head and grabbed his kit, following her toward the make-up room.
 
 

"She hasn’t changed a bit!" Rollie said, smiling as he looked around the soundstage. Angie looked over at the Captain who was fidgeting with his jacket and looking miserable.
 
 

"Looks like you need a cigarette, bad," she told him as he took in a deep breath and held it slightly.
 
 

"Does it show that bad?"
 
 

"Aha, from one former smoker- yeah…although I was pretty much a light weight, I did it more to piss my father off and Rollie."
 
 

Vanduran grinned and together they walked over to the catering table. Likely, some cigarettes could be found. Rollie was dazzled by Rappaport’s equipment and wandered slowly over to the set. He entered the make-up room and watched as the man applied his work to the none-stop chattering woman that was his friend.
 
 

"Does she ever stop talking?" Rappaport asked, as Lucinda giggled and took Rollie’s hand.
 
 

"Never, even when she eats, she talks…" Rollie added with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
 
 

"Stop it now!" Lucinda warned, as she tightened her grip on his hand, "remember, I have plenty of stories about you, Mr. Tyler."
 
 

"Mum’s the word!" Rollie answered, sheepishly and he pointed to the final product of Rappaport’s skilled hands; "That’s fantastic! Look’s like real cranial bones…"
 
 

"They are resin casts of the real McCoy…I get them from the medical school at UCLA…they let me make them from time to time…" he replied, added the final touch of a gelled sticky liquid that clung to the opened lining to the brain.
 
 

"Oh, nice spinal fluid leakage…" Rollie complemented as Lucinda made a face.
 
 

"This is really disgusting!"
 
 

They both smiled for that was the best complement that an FX artist could receive.
 
 

As the final scene was filmed and Charles Boyd called for the cut, Lucinda had pulled off her latex wound in a second. She ran into her trailer, pulling herself out of costume as Angie helped. The Captain had stepped out for a smoke and the two of them went into a discussion of Lucinda’s romance immediately.
 
 

Rollie was busy talking with Rappaport who was actually happy to chat with him about the course of the film. By the end of the conversation and announcement by Lucinda that they could leave, Rollie had a good three contacts and personal reference from Rappaport while in LA if he needed them.
 
 

"So!" Lucinda said, as they loaded up her car with their bags and got inside, "Anyone hungry or what?"
 
 

"Now don’t go all out, Luce…we could do with a simple burger or something…" Angie began as Vanduran sat in the front seat, gritting his teeth with Lucinda. This was definitely going to stay crowded and he really wanted to be alone with Lucinda tonight.
 
 

"Nonsense! Hey…burgers huh? Okay!" and she pushed down the gas and they sped out of the studio, the tires screeching as they headed west, toward Venice or so they thought.
 
 
 
 

"The view is magnificent!" Angie said, looking over Lookout Point, down at greater Los Angeles.
 
 

"All those movies that filmed here and now, hey- it’s kinda romantic…" Rollie replied, his hands on his hips as he stood beside her looking out at the dazzling lights.
 
 

Vanduran and Lucinda were seated inside her car. Rollie and Angie had decided to eat their burgers on a rock that was almost shaped into a bench. That way, Lucinda and Vanduran could have privacy and they could talk as well. It was settled without a protest, much to the Captain’s happiness. Lucinda had been almost quiet.
 
 

"Hey, James Dean and Natalie Wood were here…" Angie said, in a haunted voice as Rollie snickered;
 
 

"Yeah, so was Slasher Santa and Cosmic Bill…" he added.
 
 

"Okay, spoil the moment!" Angie retorted, putting her arms across her chest and sitting back down again. She had eaten only a third of her burger and announced her fullness.
 
 

"Ange, do you get the feeling, I mean- that we were meant to be out here?" Rollie asked, his eyes reflecting the lights from city below.
 
 

"No, but hey, do you realize you haven’t once mentioned that you miss Aidan?"
 
 

"What? Come on Angie, you know I miss him terribly. We will see him in six days…what could he do in that time frame?"
 
 

"Um, talk sentences, walk, get more teeth, lose his baby curls, date, go to the prom, go to college…"
 
 

Her smart response was interrupted as she felt his lips on hers and she smiled.
 
 

"I miss you. I miss us as well…right now, I just want to get a bed and…"
 
 

"Ah, I don’t think Luce and ‘Marv’ have waited for that…" Angie remarked, breaking from his embrace and looking back at the steam against the car windows.
 
 

"They wouldn’t really try something like that with us out here and well, that’s sort of hokey, isn’t it?" Rollie asked, standing up, trying to see from their vantage point twenty feet or so from the car.
 
 

"Sit down! They will see you!" Angie warned him, tugging on his arm.
 
 

He chuckled and sat down beside her, then slid off the rock resting his back against it as he pulled her down with him. There was barely five feet left in front of them before the cliff dropped down some five hundred feet into the canyon.
 
 

"I feel like a teenager," Rollie said, in a whisper as he suddenly slid his hand across her cotton knit shirt, coming to rest over her breast as she held her breath.
 
 

His hands, his mouth were doing those things that she literally melted away for, as some clothing ended up tossed to the side. By straddling him, her face to his, she kissed him deeply, feeling his response as she tightened her thighs over him. They were lost in themselves, oblivious to everything ….

"Some yokels getting themselves off at Lookout Point…" stated the voice of patrolman Arvin Deats as he announced his arrest of the embarrassed couple to the sergeant’s desk at the police station in the Valley.
 
 

"Name!" asked the desk sergeant, oblivious to embarrassment or actions of the human denizen of California.
 
 

"Tyler, Rollie Tyler…"
 
 

"Yours?"
 
 

"Angela, Angela Tyler…"
 
 

The sergeant looked up from his paperwork and took a good look at the couple in front of him.
 
 

"This is new…guess I can’t call your mommy and daddy to come get you, now, can I? You must be tourists!"
 
 

Rollie and Angie were mortified and humiliated. It was even made worse when they found out, after being interrupted with the strong beam of a flashlight beside that rock; that Vanduran and Lucinda had NOT been making love in the car at all. He had proposed marriage to her and they had been talking about the future.
 
 

The looks on Vanduran and Lucinda's faces, after being questioned and seeing that Rollie and Angie were being taken in for indecent exposure and some other public lewdness charge was beyond shock. Marvin Vanduran had tried to tell the patrolman that he was a Captain on the force in New York City but it did little good as Angie and Rollie were escorted to the patrolman’s car and put in the back seat.
 
 

As they were seated on a bench outside of the squad room, along with all the other arrested weirdos that evening, Angie turned to Rollie and shook her head;
 
 

"Great, just great…"
 
 

"This just isn’t happening…" Rollie responded, disgusted. He had no idea where Lucinda or Vanduran were as they hadn't been given a chance to even speak with them after getting arrested other than to hear them respond to the officer on their own activities in his report.
 
 

"We just can’t seem to get a break, not once!" Angie moaned.
 
 

"It could only happen when Lucinda Scott is around me," Rollie added, remembering his last embarrassing moment with Lucinda.
 
 

"Great, just great…" replied Angie, remembering that ill-fated memory as well.