Thief's Odyssey

by John L. Monk

  Crouching first, then lying down in the unkempt yard for so long had me daydreaming, then dozing despite all the sleep I’d gotten. When I popped awake, my leg was numb. Exasperated, I got out my phone and checked the time—I’d slept for forty-five minutes. It had to be something in the Bahamian air.

  There was a light on in the house, same as the other night, though I couldn’t tell if Danny was alone. It took another hour, but I eventually saw him, going into the kitchen to get a beer. I didn’t see Alvita.

  It was now close to midnight, and I worried Danny might be a night owl. No sooner had it crossed my mind than the kitchen light went out. About ten minutes later, the bathroom light followed, and then the light in the master bedroom.

  I hissed and slapped another mosquito. I needed to get inside while there was still enough of me left.

  Through an exercise in prudence, I decided to wait twenty minutes for Danny to fall asleep. After about ten, I gave up and crept to the back door, then unlocked it with the spare key I’d pocketed the night before.

  The feeling upon entering the cool, dry, mosquito-free kitchen was so good I almost forgot to listen carefully for a television or signs someone was still awake and moving about. The house sounded quiet. My goggles showed a slightly messier kitchen than the night before, and my nose picked up the faint smell of marijuana sweetening the air.

  I hurried to the little room with the massage chair and the Dean Eclipse floor safe. The closet was a walk-in, which was great because I could shut the door behind me to do my work. But before I could begin, I had a few things to set up.

  First, I checked the window for an alarm—it had one, but it was too late to worry about now. If Danny walked in, my best bet would be to run past him wearing my goggles so he wouldn’t recognize me, then out the back door and through the woods to my scooter.

  With my escape route settled, I emptied the boxes from the closet and stacked them beside the door. Next, I pulled out my pad of graph paper and a special night-vision pen used by military pilots, but available to anyone for $49.99. I flashed the safe with the IR illuminator and smiled: the numbers, white on dark metal, came up beautifully on the black and white display. Sure, I could have turned on the closet light, but I didn’t want to make it any easier to find me, and a strange door-shaped outline in a dark room might seem suspicious.

  As all the really smart people know, there’s no way to crack a safe by listening through a stethoscope like they do in the movies. When someone buys a safe, the guy at the store will even say so. “Maybe in the 1800’s,” he’d say, having a good laugh at the absurdity of the notion—while in reality, getting away with a horrendous lie purely on a technicality. That’s because most modern safes with a combination dial aren’t secure from someone with the knowledge and time to crack them. Stethoscope or no stethoscope. A deaf person could crack a safe—without a drill or oxyacetylene torch or plastic explosives or any of that. All they’d need were hands and a basic understanding of the safe they wanted to open.

  From my online repository of copied safe manuals, which I’d read by the pool while sipping piña coladas, I learned Danny’s model had a group II combination lock with three numbers. Very comforting, because I only had four hours to get this done before it got too late in the morning.

  Most good safe guys drill their safes, it being the fastest, most effective way to get in, short of using the combination. But they don’t just drill anywhere—they drill in specific, manufacturer provided locations, then poke through with a thick wire and push the wheels to a point where the notches line up. This allows a little bar called a fence, floating over the wheels, to drop into the groove created, freeing the bolt to move with an easy tug of the handle. If you knew where to drill, it was simple—and loud. Not to mention smelly. Even louder if the smoke from the drill set off a fire alarm.

  Dial manipulation, on the other hand, is a maddening practice used more by locksmiths than safecrackers. Much like drilling, a thief or locksmith has to understand how a safe locks and unlocks if they hope to get it open. Unlike drilling, dial manipulation requires the locksmith to know how a safe is actually made. By knowing that, they also know its tolerances and how to exploit them.

  A little-known secret in the industry is that these tolerances are built into the safe on purpose. If the construction is too exact, too tightly controlled, not only could the lock seize up or break, but locksmiths couldn’t get in if an owner ever got locked out. My old boss, Greg, charged two hundred an hour to get people out of jams without ruining their shiny steel doors. Watching him sit there for two and three hours at a time, calling out contact point measurements and potential gate locations for me to graph, was a great learning experience. After moving on, I’d purchased my own cutaway safes to practice with at home.

  A true master can do it without graph paper in an astonishing blur of activity. I’d watched a guy do it this way at a tradeshow Greg had taken me to. He’d cracked a five-wheel safe in under a half hour without graphing. Even Greg had been impressed.

  When I was learning how to do it, everyone my age was dating or partying or studying for tests. I, however, was sitting in my apartment staring at wheels turning on the spindles of my cutaways, flipping them this way and that, back and forth while watching TV or listening to music. When that got boring I’d turn off all the lights and do it, feeling the wheels turn and trying to perceive when I reached those lovely little notches that corresponded to the combination, all to gain that special connection to the system I hoped to one day overcome. Thank goodness the manufacturers were so willing to help.

  In every safe, there’s one wheel per number in the combination. All the wheels together make up the “wheel pack.” At the far end of the wheel pack is another wheel with a rounded notch in it called a “cam.” When all the notches in the wheels line up to the one in the cam, the fence drops and allows the bolt to move with a pull of the lever. To visualize it, hold three quarters together and place a pencil over the top. Chances are, the pencil/fence will ride the highest quarter, leaving a small gap over the other two. Now imagine a V-shaped notch magically appears in that tall quarter where it touches the pencil—the pencil falls down onto the next-tallest quarter.

  A safe’s wheel pack operates exactly the same way. By measuring the distance between the left and right side of the V-shaped notch, you can find the lock’s combination.

  Tiny, slight differences in each wheel’s radius can be exploited by a safecracker to get in. You’d think in our modern times someone could stamp these wheels with perfect precision, but they don’t. For each wheel, they stamp it or cut it, then grind it, then smooth and polish it. And between all that grinding and cutting and polishing there’s a lot of clamping and forced contact. On top of that, the metal itself isn’t uniformly thick throughout, and this causes slight sheer to either side over the surface of the entire disk. Then they attach each wheel to the spindle, which has its own imperfections. And over the whole of it rides that little bar—the fence. Not only does it have to be perfectly straight, but its mounting brackets had better be perfect as well. Getting all these perfectly machined parts to work together without one of the wheels riding a hair’s width higher or lower than the others is possible, sure, but that’d make the lock hideously expensive. Even giant bank vaults often skimp on these super locks, they’re so pricey. Home safes are sold by the pound, and the locks are cheap.

  Sitting in that little closet, I took comfort that Danny had chosen a company known for making strong but relatively inexpensive safes. They were good against brutes with sledgehammers and torches, up to a point, or amateurs trying to drill through the dial for some reason, but I hoped to take it down with a feather’s touch.

  I spent the first hour doing the initial graph, three numbers at a time. Another half hour was spent going back and rechecking the general locations I’d found. Then I made a second graph for each of those, blown up to the same size as the original, and did my measurements in eighths of an inch. After
another hour, I had three more-or-less numbers to work with.

  I tried them one after the other in the order they were graphed, and it didn’t open. I tried it again the other way and still no luck. Then I pushed the middle number to the end, and when that failed, pushed it to the front. It didn’t open. Then the final two possibilities came and went and I slumped back against the wall scratching my head. Carefully, I scrutinized my two graphs and thought I knew what the problem was.

  Because I was counting on imperfections in the wheel pack, I was also at the mercy of those flaws. What that meant was, if I ran into a real whopper of a flaw, it’d take a perfectly notch-free section of wheel and make it seem like a number in the combination. Looking at the graph, I found three good indicators—the numbers I’d tried—and a small convergence between the left and right contact points of another section. Now I needed to do my one-eighth measurements on that one, too. Work, work, work.

  By this time, my hands were shaking and I was tired from leaning over for two-plus hours on my sore elbows. I needed water and had to take a leak. Because I’m such a smart guy, I didn’t bring a bottle of water with me, which could have assisted me with either if used in the proper order. Now I wondered how I was going to eat my scratchy roast beef sandwich on wheat without something to wash it down.

  It’s times like this when it’s good to be a thief.

  A look at the clock when I got to the kitchen showed it was well after two in the morning. I leaned down over the sink and got a drink, happily noting the plumbing was quiet and in good shape. For my next trick, well … let’s just say I decided not to risk a trip to the bathroom. After I finished, I made sure to whisk as much water around as possible. At least I was tidy.

  I laid my sandwich down and opened the fridge to see what they had. I was in luck—both mayo and mustard. I’d left my butter knife back in the closet, but I was in a kitchen. There were at least twenty knives to choose from. After putting everything away, I cleaned off the knife, put it quietly back in the drawer, and got a glass of water. Then I set to work on the sandwich.

  About ten seconds in, a door opened from the direction of the master bedroom. Quickly, I slunk down into a dark corner, partially hidden from half the kitchen by the bottom cabinet. My stomach gave a terrific lurch and my nerves screamed oh no when a young black lady, completely naked, walked in as if she owned the place.

  Staring at her curvaceous body from my poor-man’s hidey-hole five feet away, I realized this must be Alvita. She looked great. Too good for Danny. There had to be something wrong with her.

  She opened the refrigerator, pulled out a gallon of milk and poured herself a tall glass. Then she rooted through the fridge again and came up with a carton of ice cream from the freezer. When she saw my sandwich lying out on the counter plain as day, I knew I was caught.

  Chapter 13

  I was caught—just as soon as she turned and saw me.

  Alvita snorted and said, “What a pig,” then took the sandwich, milk, and ice cream to the small breakfast table against the wall, where she sat down with her back to me. Calmly. As if she’d lovingly ordered that roast beef on wheat with salt and pickles and American cheese. Helpless to stop her, I watched her begin eating from where I’d left off.

  Yeah, that’s right. Alvita stole my sandwich.

  Torn between relief at not getting caught—yet—and moral outrage over the theft, all I could do was watch and wait to see how the next few minutes played out.

  They played out with Alvita gnawing away bare-assed on Danny’s nice chairs, taking big slurps of milk and generous helpings of ice cream right from the carton. I had a mind to wake up Danny and let him know.

  After finishing, she issued a tremendous burp. Then she got up and padded out of the room, leaving everything out—even the ice cream. I hovered between an understandable elation and a weird, out-of-nowhere anger at the mess she’d left behind. That was a nice table, dammit, and the condensation from the cold carton would leave a ring in the finish. Because I’m a gentleman, I didn’t follow after her and tell her a thing or two. Instead, I grew numb with horror when I realized she wasn’t going back to bed. From the living room, the sudden sound of the television almost scared me straight. And she didn’t mute the volume any for Danny, who I assumed was trying to sleep. She turned it up loud and proud.

  Stuck in the kitchen, I listened as Alvita flipped from movie to commercial to news program to reality show to commercial to music video, then a different music video, then to what sounded like…

  A careful peek around the corner with my goggles tilted up showed Alvita slouched on the couch with her hands between her legs watching hardcore pornography. Apparently she had an itch, because she kept scratching and didn’t stop for the next ten minutes. Peeping Thomas I am not, but I experienced a certain fascination at the strange spectacle of humanity flickering in the sleazelight glow of the television.

  Beyond the kitchen, someone cleared his throat.

  I slipped back to my hidey-hole, prepared to bust through the back door and into the night just as soon as Danny walked in. When nobody flicked on the light and demanded to know what I was doing there, I crept back and peeked out, unprepared for what I saw and wondering how long until I forgot. There stood Danny, dimpled flubber bottom facing partially my way, his hand clamped tightly in Alvita’s bushy hair while she engaged in simulated cannibalism of a nature in kind to that playing on the flat screen. Whatever curiosity I’d had quickly got pushed aside by anything I could think of to distract me as I tried to tune out all the excessive grunting from Danny and pretend oohing from Alvita.

  Just when I managed to find a happy place where the sounds couldn’t reach me, my heart nearly burst when Danny let out a bloodcurdling, “YEAAAAH!”

  My elbow banged loud against the cabinet beside me, and I stood up, ready to dash out of there. But then he yelled, “YEAAAH!” again and I realized he hadn’t heard me.

  I almost barked a laugh when Alvita joined in with an anguished, “PAPAAAA!”

  What followed was a loud session of affected panting, with many a “whew” and “oh God” and other self-congratulatory verbiage. Then Danny walked in the kitchen and threw on the light.

  I stood up, already hiding my face to shoot through the door, but then Alvita said, “Danny, you fucking asshole—you scratched me!”

  Halfway into the room, he turned back, somehow missing me standing right there, his expression torn between dread and exasperation.

  “Baby, I’m sorry,” he said, his tone sugary and nice. “I don’t know myself when I get like that. It’s like I’m an animal or something.”

  Good grief.

  Alvita said, “I am light skinned. This will get dark and everyone will see. Goddammit you fucker!”

  Alvita wasn’t light skinned by American standards, but she wasn’t as dark as most of the Bahamians I’d seen.

  I heard a slap, followed quickly by another one, then Danny said, “Jesus, bitch—calm the fuck down, okay? I said I was sorry! You want me to hit you back? Is that what you want?”

  I wondered what I’d do if he hit her. Then my heart sank at the thought of the lost loot waiting for me in the closet. So I guess on some level I knew.

  “You hit me I’ll call the police and they’ll believe me. You see? Now help me put cream on this fucking cut or I swear I will call them anyway.”

  The two of them left the room. Judging from the echoing argument, still raging, it sounded like they’d migrated to the master bathroom. I took my cue and hurried back to the room with the safe. Then I flipped down the goggles and shut the door.

  I shook my head and said, to no one in particular, “Next time, don’t forget to bring water, dummy.”

  Ten minutes later I had another number staring at me from a fifth sheet of graph paper. I subbed it in for each of the other three. After seven tries, the bolt released with a heavenly click, confirming the numbers: 1-27-68.

  Curious about the numbers, I pulled out my sma
rtphone and opened the file I kept with Danny’s important emails, which I’d lifted from the folder where he kept all his passwords and account numbers. The subject read, “Safe Combination.” Sure enough, the numbers matched.

  Under normal circumstances, I would have used my illicit knowledge and gotten out of there as soon as possible. But the last time I’d cracked a safe this way was three years ago, and since then I’d been itching to do it again.

  With a smirk worthy of any super-thief, I removed the heavy unhinged door and set it aside. Then I gazed down at my unjust reward.

  “No way,” I said.

  It couldn’t be. Piled high in the safe were DVDs with lurid pornographic scenes on them. For whatever reason, Danny had chosen to stash nasty videos in there. I racked my brain but could only think of one thing—he sometimes shared the place with his bitchy wife and he was hiding them from her. Hoping against hope, I pulled the videos from the square-shaped vault and stacked them off to the side. After only a few, my mood brightened considerably.

  I smiled a Grinchy grin at the bundles of stacked American cash. Risking a little light, I pushed my goggles up and examined them under my penlight: hundred dollar bills stared at me in thick packs like they often showed in movies.

  For the last two years, once a month, Danny had been delivering small boxes to his Nassau post office box. Though I’d suspected untaxed cash from under the table business deals, those deliveries could have been anything.

  The deep safe was a lot emptier than when I’d first opened it, even after I put back all the DVDs. Wanting to get back to the hotel to count my haul, I turned the dial four times to the right, picking the wheels up for a final spin, then covered the safe with the steel plate and rug. After packing away the money and graph paper, I tiptoed to the door and peeked out. The way was clear, but I waited a while more, listening. Not for the last time, I wished I’d purchased one of those cool hearing aides advertised on late-night TV to let you listen in on conversations. I always remembered while on a job but forgot after the need had passed. I’d probably never get one, just like I’d probably never remember to look up whether daddy longlegs were fangless, yet had the deadliest venom in the world. I’d been hearing that from one person or another since I was a kid and always forgot to look it up online when I had the chance.