The Lock Artist

by Steve Hamilton

  “What are you doing back here?” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to be staying away from the criminal?” No genuine worry in his voice. More a double-edged insult, that I was a criminal but a criminal not worth taking seriously. I was already fighting the urge to hit him in the face with the shovel.

  “I was just asking him a question,” Amelia said. “I thought you were at the gallery.”

  “It was just boring today. Is anybody home?”

  “I don’t know. I think my dad went out.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Don’t get any ideas. He could be back any second.”

  “His car’s loud enough. We’ll hear him.”

  “I told you, Zeke…”

  The conversation stalled for a moment. This intimate back and forth I was forced to listen to, and on top of that now the utter ridiculousness of his name. Zeke!

  “Come on,” he said. “Leave the miscreant to his digging.”

  “His name is Michael,” she said.

  “Whatever.”

  She crumpled up the piece of paper she had been writing on and threw it toward me. Then she walked off with him. She paused to look back over her shoulder at me, until Zeke put a hand on the small of her back. When they were gone, I picked up the paper. She had crossed out my words. Below them she had written her own.

  When’s the last time you tried?

  ____________________

  That was a hard day. It really was. I mean, aside from my hands hurting and my back hurting and feeling like I was two minutes away from heatstroke. I was digging a rich man’s pool, working like a slave behind the kind of house I’d never live in. And Amelia… who made me ache. If only there was some way to get through to her. To make her see that I wasn’t really a criminal. Or a freak.

  There’s only one way, I thought. I have to draw something for her. No matter how hard I have to work at it, it’s my only chance.

  Somehow, that thought gave me the energy to keep digging for that last hour. I rolled the last wheelbarrow over to the woods, rolled it back by the hole, which was actually starting to look like a real hole now after eight total hours on the job. I put the shovel in the wheelbarrow and went around to the front of the house. That’s when I got my first look at Zeke’s car sitting there in the driveway. It was a cherry red BMW convertible. The top was down, so I could see the black leather seats and the stick shift gleaming in the sun. Then, just a few feet away, the old two-toned Grand Marquis with the rust along the edges.

  When I got home, I didn’t go into the liquor store. I didn’t want Uncle Lito to see me and start threatening to call the judge again. I went right into the house. I took a shower. I ate something. Then I sat down to draw.

  I had failed so miserably the night before. Trying to capture Amelia on a piece of paper… it seemed impossible.

  You were trying too hard, I thought. You were turning her into the Mona Lisa. Just draw her like you’d draw anyone else, like she wasn’t someone who made you sick whenever you looked at her.

  I was still going at midnight. I was so tired, but I was so close now. Maybe that’s what I needed, to be so wiped out I could barely see straight. To have to do it all by gut instinct. Just move the pencil and let it come out.

  In the drawing, she was standing on the edge of the hole. She was wearing her cutoff shorts and her black tennis shoes and her black T-shirt with the machine gun on it. Her hair all over the place. One arm across her body, holding her other arm near the elbow. Her body language a mixed signal. Her eyes slightly downward. Looking at me but not really looking.

  Yes. This was better. I was getting her now. More importantly, I was getting how I felt about her. How I saw her in my mind’s eye. This was almost passable.

  Now all I had to do was to figure out how to get it to her. Could I roll it up, keep it in my pants somehow? Or maybe if I put it in a big envelope, keep it flat. No matter what, I had to have it right there with me, ready to give to her if I saw my chance.

  Yes, that’s it. If you’re patient, the chance will come. For now, take your wreck of a body to bed and get some sleep so you’ll be ready for another day.

  When I got up the next morning, I felt just as bad as the day before but no worse. I ate something. Then I drove to the Marshes’ house. This whole idea with the drawing, it had seemed like the perfect plan at midnight. Now in the light of day I couldn’t help wondering if it was a big mistake. But what the hell, right? What did I have to lose?

  I got there on time. The drawing was in a large brown envelope, under my shirt, flat against my back. I figured I could take it out and hide it in the woods on my first trip with the wheelbarrow. Leave it out there so it wouldn’t get ruined by my sweat. Then if Amelia stopped by at any point during the afternoon, I could go get it for her. I just hoped to God that she’d actually take it from me. That she’d open the envelope and look at it. I didn’t think that was too much to ask.

  Mr. Marsh was waiting for me. He had the locksmith with him. Not again, I thought. This I do not need today.

  “You remember Randolph,” Mr. Marsh said to me.

  I nodded. The locksmith had a knowing little smile on his face today, like he had a little present for me and couldn’t wait for me to open it.

  “Come around back again,” Mr. Marsh said. “If you don’t mind.”

  I didn’t get the feeling that I had a choice in the matter. So I followed them. The locksmith’s toolbox was sitting by the back door. The old lock had been taken apart and lay in pieces on the ground. The shiny new lock was in place now, waiting for me.

  “The tools, if you will,” Mr. Marsh said.

  The locksmith took out the same leather case from the day before and slapped it in my open hand.

  “How do you feel about serrated pins, kid?”

  Serrated pins? That was a new one on me.

  “You’re giving it away,” Mr. Marsh said. “I thought this was supposed to be your big demonstration.”

  “I’m not worried,” the locksmith said, smiling at me. “If he’s never done ’em before, knowing what’s in there ain’t gonna help him.”

  I opened the case and took out the hook pick and one of the tension bars. If I bend down to do this, I thought, is he going to see the envelope stuck to my back? Maybe I should just give up right now, concede defeat, and go grab the shovel.

  “Go ahead,” Mr. Marsh said. “What are you waiting for?”

  I had to make a show of it, at least. Take a minute to work the lock, making sure my shirt didn’t ride up in back. Then stand up and give the locksmith his tools. That was my on-the-spot plan. So I got down on one knee, set the tension bar, and got to work. It didn’t take long to feel out each of the six pins. Hell, I thought, this lock doesn’t feel any harder than the last one. In fact, the pins weren’t very tight at all. No high-low-high-low to make things tricky. I worked from the back, feeling each pin set. It was too easy. When I got to the front pin, I didn’t think the plug would turn yet. If these weren’t plain block pins, as surely they weren’t, there would be a false set on each and I’d have to go back and do each pin again. I kept the tension just right, went back and felt the back pin go up another fraction of a millimeter. Then the one in front of that, and so on until I was back at the front pin.

  Okay, here’s where you might want to think about what you’re doing, I thought. Don’t even set the front pin. Just throw your hands up, shake your head, give the locksmith his tools. Let him think he beat you with this lock. Let Mr. Marsh think he’s finally got a door that I can’t open. Stop having to go through this every day, especially if you plan on smuggling in any more drawings under your shirt.

  “I told you he wouldn’t be able to open it,” the locksmith said.

  “It’s a shame,” Mr. Marsh said. “I was beginning to think this kid could actually do something impressive.”

  I looked up at the two of them. At their self-satisfied smiles. Then I went back to what I was doing. I pushed up the front pin. I felt
it set. Now the plug turns and I’m done.

  Except it didn’t.

  I took the tools out of the lock, feeling the pins fall back into place while the locksmith laughed over my shoulder. I held up one hand to silence him, put the tools back in the keyhole, and started again. Back to front. Set a pin, then the next. I knew these were false sets. I knew I had to go back and bump each pin one more time. This is how a good lock works. False sets, real sets, open.

  I got to the front pin again, felt it go up just enough. It was right there now. Every pin should be in place. The plug should turn.

  It didn’t. The fucking thing didn’t turn.

  “Never send a boy to do a man’s job,” the locksmith said. “Did I or did I not say that to you?”

  “You did,” Mr. Marsh said. “But come on, it’s not like you just beat a world-class jewel thief or something.”

  “Maybe not, but upholding the integrity of my craft-that’s a big deal in my book, any day of the week.”

  “Whatever you say. Just take your tools so the kid can go dig his hole.”

  I tried to wave him off so I could give the lock one more go, but he grabbed the tools out of my hand. “Just give it up,” he said. “This isn’t a toy. You can’t open it. It’s guaranteed punk-proof.”

  I stood there looking at the door, at the shiny new lock plate. I didn’t want to move.

  “Go on, get to work,” Mr. Marsh said to me. “Playtime is over.”

  I kept replaying it in my mind as I finally walked away. Each movement in that lock seemed so clear. There was no way I could have overset any of the pins.

  My head was pounding. I couldn’t breathe.

  For the first time, I had tried to open a lock, and I had failed.

  Fourteen

  Los Angeles

  January 2000

  There was another staircase leading down to a back door of the club, apparently for use by VIPs only. Lucy opened the door, and we were back out in the parking lot. The night was cooler now, a light wind coming in off the ocean.

  We got in the car. I sat up front next to her. She pulled out onto Vine Street.

  “You’re doing okay,” she said. “Just keep it up. Stay cool.”

  She drove back down Sunset Boulevard, then took a hard right and headed up into the hills. We retraced our route from earlier that day, up Laurel Canyon Boulevard. We took the same turn and stopped in the exact same spot. Now that it was dark, the whole city was lit up and spread out below us as far as the eye could see.

  “Get out,” she said to me.

  She waited for me to come around the car, to where she was standing.

  “Take your clothes off.”

  Excuse me?

  “You don’t want to mess up the new outfit, do you?” She popped the trunk and took out a pair of jet black coveralls. Then she waited while I took off the suit jacket, the shirt, the pants.

  “Shoes, too. I’ve got a couple pairs here you can try on.”

  She took my clothes and put them in the backseat. I was standing there on the side of the road in nothing but my underwear. She looked me up and down before handing me the coveralls and a pair of black running shoes. When I was all dressed up in my new simple black, she took my sunglasses right off my face.

  “Gunnar will have the phone,” she said. “He’ll call me when you guys are finished. If he can’t for some reason, take the phone from him and press the number nine. That’ll ring me and I’ll know to come get you. If I don’t hear anybody talking, I’ll know it’s an emergency, in which case I’ll find some way to come directly to the house. No matter what I have to do to get there. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “What button?”

  I put up nine fingers.

  “Good boy.” She grabbed me and kissed me hard on the mouth.

  “I really do hate you,” she said, “but Wesley was right. You are beautiful.”

  Then she turned me toward the darkness of the sage bushes and the long slope leading down to the house below.

  “He’ll be waiting for you at the back door,” she said. “Now get your ass down there.”

  Then she pushed me over the edge.

  It didn’t take me long to get to the bottom. Funny how gravity can speed things along when you’re sliding down a fifty-degree slope. When I got to the bottom, I felt like I’d been whipped over and over with a length of barbed wire.

  I caught my breath for a moment, looked both ways down the street, and then crossed over to the house. I went around to the back. There was a pool with a dozen underwater lights around the perimeter. The view over the railings would have been spectacular if I had been in any mood to appreciate it. There was so much more light coming from the house itself. So many windows open and no curtains. It was like looking into a giant aquarium. I went to the back door. Before I could knock, Gunnar opened the door and held it with only twelve inches or so for me to squeeze through.

  “Move very slowly,” he whispered to me.

  I slid in and saw that there was a wire running from the top of the door to the frame. It was a magnetic switch that would have activated the alarm if the contact had been broken. It looked like Gunnar had made a small notch in the wires leading to either side of the switch and then had run a jumper wire between them. With the circuit still complete, the alarm wouldn’t go off when he opened the door.

  The second thing I noticed was that the house was hotter than hell.

  “Listen very carefully,” he said. “Do you see that unit on the wall over there?”

  I looked over at the far wall and saw the rectangle, about four inches by three inches. It had a small screen set into the top half. On the bottom half there was a small black circle.

  “The secondary security in this house is passive infrared. Meaning that it picks up the heat in your body as you move across its field. I’ve cranked the heat up as far as it can go, which will help neutralize the difference between your body and the air temperature. But you still have to be very careful.”

  He must have used the alarm delay to sneak out of his hiding place and adjust the thermostat, I thought. Then after that, it had just been a waiting game.

  “The safe’s in the other room,” he said. “Follow me and don’t go any faster than I do.”

  He took a slow step across the floor. I followed behind him. Without the superheated air, we wouldn’t have had a chance. There’s no way we could have moved slow enough, no matter how hard we tried. Even with the heat advantage, we both kept our eyes on that sensor. All it had to do was turn red one time and we’d have to think about pulling the plug on the whole operation.

  “There’s another sensor in the next room,” he said. “So there’s no letup. You have to stay slow.”

  We kept inching our way out of that room, around the corner where I could see into the main part of the house. I saw a huge fireplace, lots of modern art paintings on the wall that looked exactly like the work my old friend Griffin used to do. The big windows and the glowing swimming pool outside. I could even see the lights from the city, and for one second I couldn’t help but wonder which one of those lights was reaching up to us from that nightclub where Julian and Ramona were waiting.

  We turned another corner finally. There was a big black desk with two space-age lamps suspended above it. Bookshelves. More paintings. Right there, on the wall, just a few feet from us, another infrared sensor.

  And a safe.

  It was, as Julian had promised, the exact same model he had shown me in his back room. Leaving nothing to chance, he had said. At the time I had wondered if he was taking his preparation to ridiculous lengths. Now I was happy that I’d gotten the chance to practice.

  “Very slow now,” he said. We were passing just a few feet from the sensor. I kept waiting for that light to go on. I felt so hot now. How could this thing not sense that we were in the room? Gunnar put one foot in front of him, slowly shifted his weight. Put another foot forward, shifted again. It took us another fiv
e minutes just to make our way past it.

  When we got to the safe, I sank down onto my knees. That finally gave me a moment to catch my breath and to wipe the sweat from my eyes. Funny how exhausting it is to move so damned slowly.

  “It’s the same safe,” he said. “You should be able to open it.”

  No kidding, I thought. I put my hand on the dial and started spinning.

  “Because if you can’t, we’re all pretty much fucked here.”

  Thanks for the vote of confidence. Now just leave me the hell alone.

  As I turned back to the safe, I could feel the sweat running down my back. It felt like the good old days in Mr. Marsh’s backyard. The dial was slippery in my hand, but I knew I’d be able to open it. From my practice session, I already knew that there were four wheels. I already knew what the contact area would feel like. All I had to do was work through the dial, then once I had found the numbers, to crank through the combinations. We wouldn’t have any problems here.

  Not yet.

  When I had the right combination, I turned the handle and started to swing open the door. Gunnar put his hand out and stopped it. I had forgotten to be careful.

  We both looked over at the sensor. The light was still off.

  “Here,” he said, slowly pulling a black garbage bag from his back pocket. “Do your thing.”

  When the door was fully open, I could see that my thing would consist of taking many bundles of cash and putting them into the bag.

  “That’s what three-quarters of a million dollars looks like, in case you’re wondering.”

  Looks just fine to me, I thought. A hundred twenty-dollar bills in each bundle, that meant 375 bundles. I started shoveling them into the bag, a handful at a time.

  “Take it easy,” he said. I think he was about to bend down and start helping me when he stopped himself short. “Did you hear that?”