Page 7 of Hero

“Reload,” he said. “Not literally. But rest up. Your name will be announced or leaked, and a day later, your address and whatever else they can find will be on computer screens. These same people will be on your front lawn and banging on your door five minutes later.”

“You think it’ll be that bad?”

“A lone woman fights off five criminals to save an old couple.” He amended it. “A famous, rich old couple, both of whom give money they got from producing beloved TV shows to lots of good causes. And once the camera gets a look at you, it will be worse. A lot of media people will make you their favorite human until too manypeople know too much about you for you to be safe. And what the hell are you even doing here? It’s not even your shift, and if it was, we couldn’t send you out to protect a client. You’re the subject of a police investigation.”

“Investigation?” she said. “Did anybody call it that? Won’t they just check my record and ask the only nonsuspect witnesses—you and the Pinskys—what happened?”

“I don’t know what the Pinskys told the cops last night. I know the cops asked them to hold off on any public statements for now, because I talked to Jerry and Estelle a while ago. Look, I’d like you to go home and pack a suitcase. You can stay at my place for a few days until we know where this is going.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

“I plan to hang out here at the office while you have my house to yourself. That big couch in my office is where I sleep best anyway.”

She walked into the office and sat on the couch. “Maybe I should be the one to sleep here. I’d be surrounded by armed bodyguards twenty-four hours a day.”

He thought for a moment. “You’re right. It hadn’t occurred to me, but this is about as safe as a place can be. We’re on the fifth floor, and there aren’t any taller buildings close enough to make a rifle shot practical.”

She shrugged. “Sounds like my dream house.”

“I’m not kidding,” Spengler said. “Do it and we’ll both sleep better.”

5

There was no list of employees on the Spengler-Nash website and there were no photographs that had people in them. Leo Sealy had never expected there to be a “Meet Our Bodyguards” section, but careless mistakes could happen. This time they hadn’t.

He took screenshots—a picture of the headquarters building on South Broadway above a description of the business they were in and a display of phone numbers for particular services. What they said about themselves sounded true. They claimed to be the oldest personal security agency in town, founded in 1922. They claimed to be the preferred provider in the Los Angeles area and demonstrated that they were reasonably ethical by not mentioning the names of any past or present clients.

He had heard from a man in the kidnapping end of the extortion business, who had been trying to hire him, that Spengler-Nash, in addition to protecting some of the most recognizable names in the entertainment industry, was retained to protect a steady stream of nearly anonymous executives of big companies. These were people who wanted to arrive in LA, do some billion-dollar transaction, and leave without having their presence noted by competitors or outside investors, or placing themselvesin danger of attracting someone like Sealy’s kidnapper friend. Many of these people were foreign nationals, and it was their home-country security companies that contracted with Spengler-Nash to make sure their paths in Los Angeles were safe, clear, and unnoticed.

Sealy looked up the address on Google Maps. It was in the downtown area near Clifton’s Cafeteria and some former banks and other old buildings that used to be fancy and glamorous, but during his time in LA were always being ferociously remodeled, replaced, or converted, five or six at a time. The pictures on the Spengler-Nash website showed modern, high-tech communication and computer facilities, but the exterior didn’t seem to have changed much since the 1920s. He corrected himself. At some point they had put in an underground garage, and that had to be modern, probably a conversion of a basement.

The company interested him. He forced himself to postpone thinking about the possibilities that might present themselves if he pursued a study of Spengler-Nash’s clientele to look for profitable victims instead of hunting down this one Spengler-Nash bodyguard. Some day he might want to return to the idea, but not now. Sealy’s self-discipline had brought him prosperity, and he had a contract to fulfill.

There were sure to be a dozen ways to find the woman who had the gunfight with the follow-home crew. There had to be a police investigation and that would mean she would probably hire a law firm. That would be another set of people who knew all about her—a bunch of secretaries, paralegals, and lawyers. One of the lawyers would probably be making public statements. What lawyer ever passed up an opportunity to be on TV? A press conference was better than a dozen commercials, and it was free.

Still, Sealy was betting on the cops. In a day or two there would be a press conference. If the police spokesperson didn’t mention the woman’sname, some reporter would ask. In fact, when a story like this was developing, it wouldn’t matter if a police press conference wasn’t about this case. Reporters would ask anyway, both on and off camera. They wanted the name as much as Sealy did.

Sealy set the DVR on his television system to record all of the local television news channels—2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. One of those stations would have the name soon. He also knew that while the minutes passed, Mr. Conger would be after the name using his own sources. He acted as though he could hire somebody to handle something and forget it, but he was a very smart man, and he never seemed to rest. He wanted things done promptly.

While Sealy waited for the afternoon news to be recorded, he performed random searches about bodyguard companies, Jerry Pinsky, Beverly Hills crimes, and follow-home robberies. He had completed his daily run early in the morning before the sun was up and the air was still cool, and then done his morning calisthenics, chin-ups, and push-ups. Now he had another long period of waiting, because the next round of local news would begin at five. He passed the time completing his weight training. After his survey of the five to sevenP.M. reports, he had to wait again until 8:00P.M., so he spent the time punching his heavy bag.

After the eight o’clock news Sealy was disappointed again. He spread the newspaper on the kitchen table and got out his gun-cleaning kits to care for his equipment. He wore surgical gloves and was always careful not to touch any part of a weapon, tool, or accessory with bare hands. When he had cleaned, oiled, wiped, and reassembled his guns he loaded a few spare magazines, never touching ammunition or magazines without gloves. His pistols were ghost guns, assembled out of factory-made parts except for the lower receivers, which had been custom-made withoutserial numbers by a machinist. Filing or drilling off serial numbers was ineffective, because even after the numbers could no longer be seen, it was possible for a crime lab technician to read one by detecting changes deep in the steel.

Sealy finished the cleaning, put away his equipment, and turned the television to watch the Channel 7 eleven o’clock news while the other channels were being recorded. It was an odd beginning. The anchor Mark Emery said his “Good evening” and then, “We begin tonight with a live report by Terri Marsten.” There was Terri Marsten in her latest new suit, this one a light gray with the gold “7” pin on the left lapel. Sealy immediately recognized the building behind her and turned up the sound.

She said, “Mark, tonight I’m at the headquarters of Spengler-Nash Security Services. Just an hour ago we learned that the bodyguard who engaged in a gun battle with five suspects in an attempted follow-home robbery at the home of comedy creator Jerry Pinsky is Justine Poole, age twenty-nine, of Los Angeles. She is employed by Spengler-Nash and was assigned to protect Mr. Pinsky and his wife, Estelle, on their way home from a dinner meeting at Mystique Restaurant. Since the story broke last night, many have already hailed Ms. Poole’s actions as heroic.

“Tonight we learned there have been negative reactions from others, including the Anti-Violence Coalition, which tweeted that Poole’s actions were the worst form of vigilantism and that an armed private police force that protects only the wealthy and privileged is a threat to public safety. So far, police spokespersons have not responded. Nor has Benjamin Spengler, owner of Spengler-Nash. Back to you, Mark.”

Justine set her overnight bag on the desk in Spengler’s office, closed the blinds, and went into his private bathroom and changed into the sweatpants and T-shirt she had brought. It was too early for her to be able to sleep, but she lay on the big couch and pulled her blanket over her. Ben Spengler had been right. The oversized couch was as comfortable as some beds. She sat up again.

The late-shift people were on the other side of the building from Ben Spengler’s office, where she could barely hear the hum of their voices, and words were too muffled to understand. The sound was reassuring to her, almost the way she had felt as a young girl when she would lie in bed and hear the steady, calm voices of her mother and grandmother coming from the living room. It meant that someone was awake and paying attention, so she could let go and sleep. She tried lying down once more and remembered that she had been up most of last night at the Pinskys’ and then in the police station, and she hadn’t stopped since then. She pulled the soft blanket up and closed her eyes.

Leo Sealy spent time considering his options and opportunities. He knew that the woman’s name was Justine Poole, so he began by searching the internet for her. It didn’t take long to realize there was something off about Justine Poole. She had no presence on social media—no Facebook, no Twitter, no TikTok, no LinkedIn, no anything. Google had over a hundred entries about her, but all of them had come from news stories or premature opinion pieces written about her by people who knew nothing about her or the shooting. There was nothing on the internet that had originated with a Justine Poole who lived in or near LA.

The news had said she was twenty-nine. He found a site that gave the names, addresses, and ID photos of ten women named Justine Poole, and another site with pictures of eleven others, and many of them were not the same women. There seemed to be at least twenty in all. About eighteen lived outside California, and the others he could find were too young, too old, or didn’t fit. Nobody was going to be both a neurosurgeon and a bodyguard, or an airline pilot and a bodyguard.

He was beginning to think the reporter had gotten the name wrong. Was there an actual woman in America who hadn’t signed on to a social network by age eighteen, let alone twenty-nine? Maybe she had been in the military overseas and hadn’t been allowed to communicate on open sites. Her recent behavior under fire might fit with that theory. Or maybe she had married a Mr. Poole but kept everything online in her old name. A lot of women would certainly like to do that, and maybe a woman in the personal security business had the skill or connections to accomplish it.

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