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Actors, they ca for work

Linus Quiehand for thirty years For the last ten, he’d been top dog That’s why he’d been offered the head job at the New Globe, that’s why he pulled in the highest wage the union could squeeze out of the stingy bastards of ement

And even then, his pay didn’t come close to what the actors raked in

And where would they be without him?

That was going to change now Because he had it figured

Pretty shortly the New Globe was going to be looking for a new head stagehand Linus Qui to retire in style

When he worked, he kept his eyes and his ears open He studied Nobody kneas what and hat to who in a theater company the way Linus Quim knew

Above all, he was an expert on tie

He knew the last time he’d seen the prop knife Exactly when and where And knowing that left only oneof opportunity for the switch And only one person, to Linus’s thinking, who could have h ti room

It had taken guts, he’d give ‘em that

Linus stopped by a corner glide-cart for a late-ht yellow mustard

“Hey!” The operator snatched at the tube with a hand protected with ratty, fingerless gloves “You gonna use that onna pay extra”

“Up yours, am” Linus added another blob for the hell of it

“You use twice too much” The operator, a battle-scarred Asian with less than three months on the corner, danced in place on tiny feet “You pay extra”

Linus considered squirting as left in the tube in thefortune Ita fifty-cent credit out of his pocket, flipped it in the air