Local Hero

the afternoons, I’m available, and I’m willing. Besides, I may even be able to use Rad as a consultant. He’s good, you know.” Mitch indicated the drawing on the refrigerator. “The kid could use some art lessons.”
    “I know. I was hoping I’d be able to swing it this summer, but I don’t—”
    “Want to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Mitch finished. “Look, the kid likes me; I like him. And I’ll swear to no more than one Twinkie an afternoon.”
    She laughed then, as he’d seen her laugh a few hours before from his window. It wasn’t easy to hold himself back, but something told him if he made a move now, the door would slam in his face and the bolt would slide shut. “I don’t know, Mitch. I do appreciate the offer, God knows it would make things easier, but I’m not sure you understand what you’re asking for.”
    “I hasten to point out that I was once a small boy.” He wanted to do it, he discovered. It was more than a gesture or impulse; he really wanted to have the kid around. “Look, why don’t we put this to a vote and ask Rad?”
    “Ask me what?” Radley had run some water over his hands after he’d finished talking to Josh, and figured his mother was too busy to give them a close look.
    Mitch picked up his wine, then lifted a brow. My ball, Hester thought. She could have put the child off, but she’d always prided herself on being honest with him. “Mitch was just suggesting that you might like to stay with him after school in the afternoons instead of going over to Mrs. Cohen’s.”
    “Really?” Astonishment and excitement warred until he was bouncing with both. “Really, can I?”
    “Well, I wanted to think about it and talk to you before—”
    “I’ll behave.” Radley rushed over to wrap his arms around his mother’s waist. “I promise. Mitch is much better than Mrs. Cohen. Lots better. She smells like mothballs and pats me on the head.”
    “I rest my case,” Mitch murmured.
    Hester sent Mitch a smoldering look. She wasn’t accustomed to being outnumbered or to making a decision without careful thought and consideration. “Now, Radley, you know Mrs. Cohen’s very nice. You’ve been staying with her for over two years.”
    Radley squeezed harder and played his ace. “If I stayed with Mitch, I could come right home. And I’d do my homework first.” It was a rash promise, but it was a desperate situation. “You’d get home sooner, too, and everything. Please, Mom, say yes.”
    She hated to deny him anything, because there were too many things she’d already had to. He was looking up at her now with his cheeks rosy with pleasure. Bending, she kissed him. “All right, Rad, we’ll try it and see how it works out.”
    “It’s going to be great.” He locked his arms around her neck before he turned to Mitch. “It’s going to be just great.”

Chapter 3
    Mitch liked to sleep late on weekends—whenever he thought of them as weekends. Because he worked in his own home, at his own pace, he often forgot that to the vast majority there was a big difference between Monday mornings and Saturday mornings. This particular Saturday, however, he was spending in bed, largely dead to the world.
    He’d been restless the evening before after he’d left Hester’s apartment. Too restless to go back to his own alone. On the spur of the moment he’d gone out to the little lounge where the staff of Universal Comics often got together. He’d run into his inker, another artist and one of the staff writers for
The Great Beyond
, Universal’s bid for the supernatural market. The music had been loud and none too good, which had been exactly what his mood had called for.
    From there he’d been persuaded to attend an all-night horror film festival in Times Square. It had been past six when he’d come home, a little drunk and with only enough energy left to strip and tumble into bed—where he’d promised himself he’d stay for the next twenty-four hours. When the phone rang eight hours later, he answered it mostly because it annoyed him.
    “Yeah?”
    “Mitch?” Hester hesitated. It sounded as though he’d been asleep. Since it was after two in the afternoon, she dismissed the thought. “It’s Hester Wallace. I’m sorry to bother you.”
    “What? No, it’s all right.” He rubbed a hand over his face, then pushed at the dog, who had shifted to the middle of the bed. “Damn it, Taz, shove over. You’re breathing all over me.”
    Taz? Hester thought as