Page 1 of Hero

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Justine Poole sat at her desk in the middle of the big open office of Spengler-Nash Security and stared at her computer screen. The image was from a security camera on the corner of a house’s roof. It was in color and it was clear. The equipment was high-end and well-aimed, focused on the front gate. The house wasn’t visible from this angle, but it was obviously large, like the two houses partially visible across the street, and it had a high hedge that Justine guessed must keep it very private from the ground level. The gate was also high, flanked by brick stanchions with antique-looking lights mounted on the tops. This was during bright daylight, so the lights were off. The stanchion on the right had a keypad and intercom facing the driveway.

A young woman was pushing a baby carriage up the sidewalk outside the fence toward the house. Behind Justine, Rena Todar said, “LA Mother of the Year. That baby can’t be more than three months old, but Mom’s already wearing a crop top to show off her abs.”

“Yes,” Justine said. “I’m thankful that I have a lovely personality and don’t have to cheapen myself with exercise and sensible eating.”

“What is that, anyway?”

“Security camera footage Ben sent me to take a look at. It’s a follow-home. She’s about to get robbed.”

As the young mother pressed a code on the keypad at the gate, a car pulled up in the street behind her and parked. The gate’s electric motor rolled the gate open and the woman pushed the carriage into the driveway and punched in the code again. She turned to continue up her driveway as a man jumped out of the back seat of the car and ran to straddle the single track for the gate’s wheels. The woman pushed the stroller toward the house, but the gate didn’t close behind her.

“See?” Justine said. “He’s standing in front of the electric eye so the gate won’t close.” The gate reversed its motion to reopen the rest of the way, and the car swung to get its nose into the driveway and stopped. The woman took a few running steps up the driveway, pushing the carriage ahead of her.

“Nice car,” Rena said. “Brand-new Audi.”

Now that the car was blocking the gate, the man was free to catch the woman, which he did in three steps. He put one hand on the carriage’s push handle to stop it and kept his other hand in the pocket of his hoodie. He seemed to be holding a gun. The progress of the carriage resumed, but slowly, with the mother and the robber walking together toward the house. They passed under the camera and disappeared from its view.

The car’s driver remained at the wheel, but two other men wearing hoodies now emerged from the car with their hands in their hoodies’ pockets and walked quickly under the camera and out of sight. Justine said, “And that’s that. If you fast-forward about ten minutes you see the guys reappear carrying big trash bags, get in, and drive away. What do you think?”

“I think that’s a problem,” Rena said. “There’s a state law that you have to install the electric eye to keep a gate from closing if there’s anything in front of it, but it might be worth thinking about rewiring around it at our clients’ houses.”

“That’s a nonstarter.” Ben Spengler had come out of his glassed-in office to the open bay. “As soon as we do that, somebody’s kid is going to get squished in his parents’ gate.” Justine and Rena swiveled in their chairs to face the blond, heavyset man.

Rena said, “What good is having an unscrupulous employer if we have to follow rules like that?”

“Beats me,” Spengler said. “Any other ideas?”

Justine said, “So far all that occurs to me is to tell them to look over their shoulders every fifty feet, or hire us to do it for them.”

“That one sounds good. You can double my income. Which reminds me.” He held up a sheaf of papers in his hand and shook it to make a shuffling noise. “I’ve got some last-minute changes to the assignments for tonight. One’s for you, Justine. You’re going with Marcia Min tonight. She’s doing a surprise appearance at the Comedy Pit to try out new material. You’re alone on this one, but the bouncers there know you, and they’re competent.” He walked away across the big room and yelled, “Baker! Mitnik! Fresh assignments!”

Two hours later Justine drove up to Marcia Min’s building in her own small gray car. The policy at Spengler-Nash was that surprise appearances at clubs should be actual surprises, so the celebrity needed to be spirited in. Justine liked it, because anyone who might cause trouble would not have time to dream up something ugly and get ready to do it. Justine looked up and could see Marcia’s face in the window of her upper-floor apartment looking down at her. From so far away Marcia looked like a child—a sad, lonely one. She disappeared from the windowand Justine returned her attention to the street, the sidewalks, and the nearby buildings. After about five seconds she talked into the speaker on her phone.

“This is Poole. I’m at the client’s home and we’re on schedule.”

A female voice said, “Acknowledged.” Neither of them said the client’s name or the address or the destination, any of which would be inviting company.

Marcia Min was dangerously popular right now. Two years ago, she’d had a big national stand-up tour and a streamed television special, and then spent last year in LA shooting two full seasons of a television show based on her comedy, calledShanghaied. That title had made Justine wince, but she supposed the only people the world could be sure had never shanghaied anybody were the people who lived there, and a hit was a hit.

The whole country wanted a third season, even though only the first one had aired so far. The network had given Marcia’s agent an opening offer for a third but it was insultingly cheap, so her agent had leaked a rumor that the show was being canceled. The resulting wave of online outrage had been so overwhelming that the network had been rocked back on its heels, but not so much that it forgot to use the public reaction as a chance to raise their advertising rates for the show’s already-shot second season. Justine suspected that Marcia’s sudden impulse to test new material at the Comedy Pit was actually a quiet reminder to the network that any time she wanted to go back to making a fortune on the live performance circuit, all it would take was asking her agent to hire a bus.

Justine saw Marcia come out the front entrance of her building wearing a pair of jeans and a leather jacket, trot to the car, and take thepassenger seat. “Hey, Justine,” she said. “You know where we’re going, right?”

“Yep,” Justine said. “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I love that jacket, by the way.”

“If you let my enemies kill me, you can strip it off my body before the cops arrive. You can have the bullet hole patched good as new.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Justine said.

“Maybe we can even do a trade. I like those bodyguard suits you guys wear to some of these gigs. They have sort of an Anime Badass Motorcycle Emergency Sex thing going on.”

“That’s my world, all right,” Justine said. “Let me tell you what I’d like to do when we get to the club. The bouncers are saving a parking spot in back by the dumpster. There are two bouncers, I think both of them hired since you played there. Ali is a slim, dark man about forty who’s a lethal martial arts guy, but he looks normal. Bobby is a big guy, looks like a college linebacker. I’d like Bobby to go in ahead to block the view of you a little until we get to the stage. I’ll be right behind you, so nobody approaches you that way. You step right up onto the stage. Barry, the manager, will be acting as emcee. He’ll hand you the microphone and step away. The only lights will be on you, and I’ll be at the front table to your center left. If you see a problem from up there, point at it.”

Marcia said, “Sounds good.”

“Great,” said Justine. “Anything I should watch for tonight? Offended religious groups? Political stuff? Process servers?”

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