Local Hero

Taz plopped down on the linoleum and went to sleep.
    “Not bad,” Skinner announced after he had studied the series of sketches and captions. “Not too bad. This new character, Mirium, you have plans to expand her?”
    “I’d like to. I think Zark’s ready to have his heart tugged from a different direction. Adds more emotional conflict. He loves his wife, but she’s his biggest enemy. Now he runs into this empath and finds himself torn up all over again because he has feelings for her as well.”
    “Zark never gets much of a break.”
    “I think he’s the best,” Radley piped in, forgetting himself.
    Skinner lifted his bushy brows and studied Radley carefully. “You don’t think he gets carried away with this honor and duty stuff?”
    “Uh-uh.” He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed that Skinner wasn’t going to yell. “You always know Zark’s going to do the right thing. He doesn’t have any super powers and stuff, but he’s real smart.”
    Skinner nodded, accepting the opinion. “We’ll give your Mirium a shot, Mitch, and see what the reader response is like.” He let the papers roll into themselves again. “This is the first time I can remember you being this far ahead of deadline.”
    “That’s because I have an assistant now.” Mitch laid a hand on Radley’s shoulder.
    “Good work, kid. Why don’t you take your assistant on a tour?”
    It would take Radley weeks to stop talking about his hour at Universal Comics. When they left, he carried a shopping bag full of pencils with Universal’s logo, a Mad Matilda mug that had been unearthed from someone’s storage locker, a half-dozen rejected sketches and a batch of comics fresh off the presses.
    “This was the best day in my whole life,” Radley said, dancing down the snow-choked sidewalk. “Wait until I show Mom. She won’t believe it.”
    Oddly enough, Mitch had been thinking of Hester himself. He lengthened his stride to keep up with Radley’s skipping pace. “Why don’t we go by and pay her a visit?”
    “Okay.” He slipped his hand into Mitch’s again. “The bank’s not nearly as neat as where you work, though. They don’t let anyone play radios or yell at each other, but they have a vault where they keep lots of money—millions of dollars—and they have cameras everywhere so they can see anybody who tries to rob them. Mom’s never been in a bank that’s been robbed.”
    Since the statement came out as an apology, Mitch laughed. “We can’t all be blessed.” He ran a hand over his stomach. He hadn’t put anything into it in at least two hours. “Let’s grab that taco first.”
    ***
    Inside the staid and unthreatened walls of National Trust, Hester dealt with a stack of paperwork. She enjoyed this part of her job, the organized monotony of it. There was also the challenge of sorting through the facts and figures and translating them into real estate, automobiles, business equipment, stage sets or college funds. Nothing gave her greater pleasure than to be able to stamp a loan with her approval.
    She’d had to teach herself not to be softhearted. There were times the facts and figures told you to say no, no matter how earnest the applicant might be. Part of her job was to dictate polite and impersonal letters of refusal. Hester might not have cared for it, but she accepted that responsibility, just as she accepted the occasional irate phone call from the recipient of a loan refusal.
    At the moment she was stealing half an hour, with the muffin and coffee that would be her lunch, to put together three loan packages she wanted approved by the board when they met the following day. She had another appointment in fifteen minutes. And, with that and a lack of interruptions, she could just finish. She wasn’t particularly pleased when her assistant buzzed through.
    “Yes, Kay.”
    “There’s a young man out here to see you, Mrs. Wallace.”
    “His appointment isn’t for fifteen minutes. He’ll have to wait.”
    “No, it isn’t Mr. Greenburg. And I don’t think he’s here for a loan. Are you here for a loan, honey?”
    Hester heard the familiar giggle and hurried to the door. “Rad? Is everything all right—oh.”
    He wasn’t alone. Hester realized she’d been foolish to think Radley would have made the trip by himself. Mitch was with him, along with the huge, mild-eyed dog.
    “We just ate tacos.”
    Hester eyed the faint smudge of salsa on Radley’s chin. “So I see.” She bent to