Page 11 of Hero

Justine looked at the three night men. “Didn’t any of you tell them?”

Baker said, “They just got here.”

Justine turned to the two cops and said, “I think this is about me.”

“Why would this be about you?” the cop said.

“The night before last Ben was keeping an eye on Jerry and Estelle Pinsky, and noticed there was a carload of young guys circling the restaurant where they were. Ben knew I would probably be ending myassignment, so he called and told me to wait at the Pinsky house in case it was a follow-home. You don’t know about this? Ben and I were in the Mid-Wilshire station for hours answering questions about what happened.”

“Even if you were, can you tell us again?”

“I drove over there, parked in back to hide my car, and made sure nobody was waiting for the Pinskys. When the Pinskys arrived, the carload of robbers pulled into their driveway behind them and got out to rush them. I turned on my tactical flashlight and told them to stop. They had guns, fired at the light, and I shot two of them. At least one of the other three fired at me, so I ducked and ran, then called the police from outside the gate. Ben and the police arrived within about a minute of each other. The three ran, and the police caught and arrested them. One of the two I shot was dead, and the other died in the hospital.”

“And you think this was the motive for Mr. Spengler’s murder?”

“Yesterday, Ben Spengler warned me somebody would want to take revenge on me for shooting the two robbers. He wouldn’t let me work and he wanted me to stay at his house last night, in case somebody connected with the robbers came looking for me at my place. When I told him I thought I’d be safer here surrounded by the rest of the staff, he said I should sleep in his office. If only I had just stayed at his house, at least it would have been both of us against whoever did this. He wouldn’t have been there alone.”

The other cop was older, and he had gray hair and sad eyes that looked sympathetic. “You all seem to be hit pretty hard by this. I take it Mr. Spengler was a good boss?”

“Hell yes,” said Decker.

“More than that,” Harris said. “A friend.”

“An older friend, like a coach or an uncle that makes you want to be like him,” Baker said. “He taught us how the job was done, and he was out there with us when something went wrong or we were short a man, or sometimes like this last time, when it was old clients who liked having the boss take care of them.”

Justine said, “He said that the people who were behind the robbery would be looking for me. I think he was right, and they went to his house to find me, but found him instead.”

“Were you and he especially close friends?”

Justine decided to pretend this wasn’t just a way of asking if she’d been sleeping with the boss. “He was especially close with all the people he trusted to protect a client. He needed to be sure he knew you. But I don’t think I was closer than anybody else.”

She saw one cop’s eyes were on her and the other was looking only at the others, searching for some sign that they thought she was lying.

A third plainclothes cop, this one older than the others, came from the communications room, where he must have been asking the same sorts of questions. He said to the others, “They want us at the scene.”

Justine watched the other two follow him into the hallway and then walked to the window and looked out. After about a minute she saw the three cops emerge from the building and get into a plain blue car that was parked at the red “No Parking” curb in front of the building and drive off.

She turned away and looked at the three men from the night shift. She cleared her throat so her voice would be loud and strong and wouldn’t break. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “If I’d guessed, I would have been there instead of here.”

8

It took a moment for Leo Sealy to wake and see where he was. His phone rang again. He snatched it up and looked at the screen. The caller’s number meant nothing to him, so he considered declining the call, but he couldn’t do that in the middle of a job. He pressed the green oval. “Hello?”

“Leo.” It was Mr. Conger. “There’s something wrong with your phone. It sounded like it rang four times, but then when you picked it up we didn’t get connected. Or maybe you should set it louder.”

“Yeah, the settings sometimes change when I carry it around in my pocket. Sorry.”

“Get one that doesn’t do that,” Mr. Conger said. “Or check that the ring is on before you set it down.”

Sealy sat up in bed. “I’ll be more careful.”

“You got Spengler last night, didn’t you?”

“I had to,” Sealy said. “I know that wasn’t the job, but the woman wasn’t at her condo, so I went to his house to see if she was staying there.”

“I can guess she wasn’t, since they only found one body. It’s all over the news. You got Benjamin Spengler.”

“Yeah. He fired and I fired. Now we’re both home, but I’m the only one taking phone calls.”

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