Nightmare in Angel City (7 page)

Smiling back, Callie stopped and said, "Hi, Ms. Ki." She gestured to the Hardys. "These are friends of mine from out of town, Frank and Joe." To them she said, "This is Ms. Ki. She's in charge of my program."

Ms. Ki held out her hand, and in turn the Hardys shook it. "My pleasure," she said. "Callie, what did you do at Meteoric yesterday morning? The studio called up after the field trip to ask about you—where you lived and all. The man said they were thinking of offering you a screen test!"

"Screen test?"

"Have you heard from them yet? I told them you're interested in journalism, not acting, but they wouldn't listen to me."

"No," Callie said, still dazed. "But I haven't been home much. I'll check with my aunt — "

"Well." Ms. Ki gave them another big smile. "Break a leg."

"Thank you," Callie said. Ms. Ki went into the video lab, and Callie and the Hardys left the building.

"Meteoric Studios?" Frank asked when they were outside.

"We took a tour there yesterday. I had just been to the video lab and remembered the production class field trip . . ." Callie said, trailing off. All of a sudden her eyes widened. "It was later yesterday afternoon, after I witnessed Patch's meeting with the policeman and after the field trip, that the policeman showed up at school asking about me. And that was the last I thought about the field trip. Is it important?"

Frank snapped his fingers, an intense look on his face. "Now I know what else about that cop was bothering me."

"What?" Joe asked, excited.

"His badge. It didn't have a number on it. We could go back and check on the videotape, but I'm sure — "

"No need to do that," Joe said. "Now that you mention it, I remember too." He groaned. "How could we have missed that for so long?"

"So what?" asked Callie. "I don't get it."

"So the uniform must be a costume," Joe explained to her. "A real policeman would have removed his badge altogether if he didn't want to be identified. Better yet, he wouldn't wear a uniform at all."

"But with a fake badge and no regulation shoes, chances are very good it's a costume," Frank continued. "And if what you say about it being illegal to rent a police uniform is true — "

"Then he must have swiped it from a — a studio wardrobe—" said Callie.

"Bingo!" said Frank. He and Joe beamed at her.

Callie beamed back. "So, this bank robber works at Meteoric Studios and saw me there yesterday, after he saw me on the beach."

"It's a long shot," Frank answered. "But it's the only solution that makes any sense. The 'studio' did call your professor to find out about you."

As they turned the corner of the building, their thoughts were broken by an engine revving to life. A car on a blocked-off street? Callie wondered for a second. Suddenly a van squealed into motion, racing right toward them.

"This way," Joe shouted, ducking into an alley. As the van zoomed closer, Frank grabbed Callie and pulled her into the alley too. "Don't!" « yelled Joe. "It's a dead end. Get out!"

As if the driver had heard them, the van wheeled around and careened into the alley.

Joe reached the dead end and pressed in vain against the wall. "No good," he yelled. "Solid brick."

His words were drowned out by the roar of the engine as the huge van bore down on them.

"FRANK," CALLIE SCREAMED. "What are we going to do?"

Frank barely heard her. "We'll flatten ourselves against the side wall, you go under," he yelled to Joe, keeping his eyes on the onrushing van. In the middle of the narrow alley, flush against the back wall, Joe began to tense.

"Now!" Joe yelled. Frank slammed an arm across Callie, flattening himself on top of her against the wall. Joe fell to the ground, directly in the path of the van. He pulled his arms in tight to his body to avoid the spinning tires and rolled safely under the center of the van.

The van just brushed against Frank and Callie and smashed into the back wall. From inside the van came the wail of a car horn. It didn't stop.

"Joe!" Frank called. Although the van had missed them, the crackup had them pinned in the corner. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," came Joe's voice from under the van. "Get the driver."

"We can't," Callie shouted. "No room to open the door." The driver ducked his head and covered his face with his hand. His head down, he stumbled through the van and out the back door.

"Got him," Joe said. His hand snaked out from under the van's rear bumper and caught the driver's ankle as he hit the ground. But the driver didn't trip. His other heel ground down on Joe's wrist, and Joe splayed his fingers in pain, releasing the man's leg.

In a flash the driver sprinted to the end of the alley and vanished.

Joe crawled out from under the van, wincing and massaging the pain from his hand. "Hold on," he told Frank and Callie as he climbed in the back of the van. Then he was in the driver's seat and closed the driver's door.

"Can you get us out?" Frank asked.

Joe looked at the dashboard. There were no keys in the ignition, but two colored wires dangled from the steering column. "Just a minute. I think it was hot-wired."

"Stolen?" Callie said.

"Probably," Joe said. "Most people don't use their own cars to run other people down." He leaned over, grabbed the two wires, and touched the exposed ends together. The van rumbled to life. Joe shifted to reverse.

With a tortured whine of metal scraping cement, Joe backed the van out of the alley, leaving trails of silver paint along the alley wall. Frank and Callie followed him out, and were waiting for him when Joe climbed out of the van.

"Who was driving?" Joe asked. "Patch or the policeman?"

"We didn't get a chance to look," Frank replied. "Our next job is going to be finding out who this so-called policeman is."

"How do we do that?" Callie said. "Head for Meteoric Studios?"

"No," Frank said sternly. "Joe and I go. You go into hiding, somewhere safe." Callie got ready to argue.

Joe stepped in. "Frank, you know under most circumstances I'd agree with you. But you know Callie's not going to leave the city. It's her case, her story. We'd never let anyone cut us out of a case, and you know Callie's no different. Anyway, there's nowhere for her to go. She wasn't safe with the street people, and she won't be safe with her aunt. At least with us she'll be protected."

For a long moment Frank stared at Joe. "Okay," he said finally. Callie smiled.

"Thanks, Joe," she said.

"Don't mention it," Joe replied. "And I mean that. Don't ever mention it again."

In a valley between two mountains in the Hollywood Hills lay Meteor Town. In the 1970s it had almost closed, saved at the last minute by the surprise success of one of its low-budget movies. Since then Meteoric Studios had grown to be one of the largest film production companies in the world, so large that now it brought in thousands of tourists daily.

Frank stood at the ticket booth at the main gate. "Three adult tickets, please," he said politely. When money and tickets had changed hands, he joined Joe and Callie at the entrance.

"We're in," said Joe. "Any ideas on where we start looking for this policeman?"

"I think we should join a tour group," Frank said. "They'll take us everywhere, and that way we won't attract any attention. Just three more tourists sight-seeing." Callie had her sunglasses propped on her head. Frank gently lowered them over her eyes, saying, "Keep yourself disguised as much as possible. Remember, the cop knows what you look like. We don't want to tip him off."

Callie removed the sunglasses and put them in her purse. "He knows your faces too. Who'll blow whose cover? Anyway, what are the odds we'll run into him?"

"That's just it," Joe reminded her. "We won't know until it's too late. We don't really know what he looks like now, without his sunglasses and mustache, only what he looked like ten years ago."

Silently, the three of them got in line behind a group of people being corralled into small railway cars. The small railway, Frank could see, looped all through Meteor Town. In keeping with the studio's outer-space image, the cars were designed as rocket ships, with a dozen or so people to a car. Frank, Callie, and Joe got into the first car and sat down. Metal bars folded down over their laps to keep them in their seats.

"You may get out at each rocket stop," said the tour guide, a slender, dark-haired woman in a shiny silver suit who stood at the front of the rocket. "But while the rocket is in motion, it's very important you stay seated for your own safety."

;· She cleared her throat. "Welcome to the Meteoric Studios tour. For the next two hours you'll be learning all about the wonderful world of movies, and how the things you see on the big screen are done. There will be a refreshment stop halfway through, and if we're lucky, we may see some actual filming. If you have any questions, be sure to ask. Now, if everyone's ready, let's blastoff." She sounds like she's reading a script, Joe thought. A loud roar came over the loudspeakers then a hiss like a rush of air, and the car lurched forward, throwing everyone back in their seats. After a second the pressure died, and the car wobbled slowly along the tracks.

To his left Joe saw a small arena, where other tourists were gathered to watch stunt cars crashing.

The rocket train chugged along the edge of the Meteor Town parking lot, then turned sharply to the left. Suddenly the car sped up, rushing headlong toward solid rock ahead. Surprised passengers began to scream and tug at the braces holding them in their seats, but the braces held firm.

The rock parted into strips of cloth that spread harmlessly around the car, and the train pass through a man-made tunnel.

"You've been tricked by illusions," the tour guide revealed. "We never sped up. Images were projected onto a screen," — she gestured at the strips of cloth now hanging straight down again to look like a solid wall — "and we increased the speed at which those images changed."

"In other words," Frank piped up, "because it looked like we were going faster, we thought it felt like we were going faster."

"Right," said the tour guide, looking at him approvingly. Frank smiled back at her, and Callie gave him a slight nudge with her elbow.

They left the tunnel and stopped in front of a concrete building, with large sliding doors, that looked like an airplane hangar. The train's seat braces slid aside. "Everyone follow me," the tour guide said. The group filed into the building and stood in front of a stage.

A blond young man in a jumpsuit, with a smile as bright as the tour guide's, stepped onto the stage. He wore a holster with a six-shooter in it. "Hi," he said loudly, and all the tourists shouted, "Hi!" back. "I'm Peter," he continued. "Ever wonder how we do those shootouts on television?" A resounding yes roared from the group, and the young man named Peter rambled on.

As Peter spoke, a rope dropped from the ceiling behind him, and a ninja, garbed head to toe in black, slithered down it to the floor. The audience made warning noises, but Peter seemed not to notice. Drawing a sword from a scabbard strapped to his leg, the ninja raised it to plunge into Peter's back.

Suddenly Peter drew his six-gun and spun. Two shots went off, and the ninja fell backward, blood spreading across his chest. The hall filled with screams.

The ninja leapt to his feet, and he and the young man bowed to the crowd. "That was done with something we call a squib," said Peter. He set the six-shooter down behind him and drew a small wad out of his pocket as the ninja left the stage. "It's a little packet of jelly with a tiny explosive charge that we sew into clothing. When a gunshot using blanks is fired, these little packs of jelly are exploded with a radio signal. It makes it look like someone has been shot. Come on, I want two volunteers to try it."

No one moved, but the tour guide stepped behind Frank and Joe and cocked her head toward them. "How about you?" Peter asked Frank and Joe, and amid a hail of applause the Hardys took the stage.

Peter slipped a quilted jacket onto Joe. "This young man wears a jacket filled with squibs," he told the audience. He stepped to Frank and handed him the gun. "Now this young man is going to kill him, just as he would on TV."

As Peter cried, "Ready!" Frank aimed the gun. "Aim!"

Joe grinned broadly and swaggered a little, hamming it up for the audience. Then he looked back at Frank and his grin froze. He blinked in astonishment. Frank didn't have the prop six-gun in his hands, but a .44 revolver. The gun aimed at his chest was real.

"Frank — " he cried, reaching out toward his brother.

"Fire!" commanded Peter.

Frank's finger squeezed the trigger.

THE GUNSHOT ROARED in Joe's ears. He felt something explode against his chest, knocking him backward. Stunned, he staggered two paces, touched his hand to his collarbone, and looked at the smear leaking across his fingers.

Red jelly. The gun was a phony after all.

"Quite a kick, eh?" said Peter cheerfully, and the audience began to laugh and clap. He slipped the squib jacket off Joe. "Even the tiny blast you get from a squib will make you totter if you're not ready for it. Our actors are trained so that they know what to expect." He shook hands first with Joe, then with Frank, and led them to the stairs and off the stage. "Let's have a big round of applause for my two partners."

"Frank, you're as white as a ghost," Callie said as the Hardys returned to the floor. "It was just a stunt."

"Callie," Frank began, then turned to look at Joe with horrified eyes. He whispered, "You know, I almost killed you just now. That was a real gun."

"I thought so." A shiver rippled through Joe. "I suspected it was, but when nothing happened..."

"You didn't see what I saw," Frank continued. "I wasn't aiming at you. I'd never do that, not even as a joke. I shot to one side, and I saw dust fly up where the bullet hit the wall. We're just lucky a curtain kept the audience from seeing. It was real all right."

"I doubt that forty-fours are a regular part of the act," Joe concluded. "That means we've been spotted."