The Lock Artist

by Steve Hamilton

“The men who called you on this number before… They’re out of the game now. For good. The same thing’s gonna happen to everybody, sooner or later. Are you hearing me? If you trust me, I can get you through this. I’ll do everything I can to help you. I know you must feel like you don’t have a choice anymore. But you do.”

  The half-dirty air coming in off the ocean. The sound of the cars. My own heart beating hard in my chest.

  “Your uncle is worried about you, Mike. Your uncle Lito. I talked to him. He wants you to come home.”

  I pressed my forehead against the glass.

  “I’m in California now, Mike. I know you’re here, too. Let me give you an address.”

  I hung up the phone and walked back to the house.

  The summer went by. September came, but the heat didn’t break. There was one day… one slow, hot afternoon. Gunnar was at the tattoo parlor. Lucy was in my apartment, watching me draw. She seemed a little rattled, which probably meant she had gotten into another fight with Gunnar. She liked to hang out with me whenever she was upset, because she knew I wouldn’t start peppering her with questions. Or with advice on how to improve her life. She kept watching me for a while. Then she asked me if I had any drawings I could show her.

  I didn’t want to show her the pages I was still doing for Amelia every day, but I had plenty of other stuff, including some more drawings of herself and the rest of the gang. She sorted through them one by one, looking at each one carefully.

  “How do you do this?” she said. “You just get us all so perfectly here. I mean, look at this.”

  She pulled out a drawing I had done of Gunnar, right after he had been working out in the backyard. Every muscle and tendon standing out in the sunlight. The scar above his lip. The spiderweb tattoo on his neck. It was one of my better spontaneous drawings, I admit.

  “This is the best drawing of him I’ve ever seen,” she said. “I mean, it’s better than a photograph. It’s like it’s just… it’s him. How did you do that?”

  I had no answer for her. She kept looking at the drawing. When she finally put it down, she went through a few more, finally picking out a drawing of Amelia. I hadn’t even realized it was in there.

  I had an urge to take it from her. To tear it right out of her hands. Then in that very next moment I realized how useless it would be. It was just scratches on a piece of paper, after all. A faint representation of someone I’d never see again. Someone I’d lost forever.

  She looked at the drawing for a long time.

  “This is her,” she said. “The girl you love.”

  I nodded.

  “It hurts, doesn’t it? Wanting something so much.”

  She looked at me. Her hair a complete wreck, as always. The one eyelid slightly heavier than the other.

  “You know that painting of the lion I did? The one Julian hung up?”

  I remembered. It was probably her best, because it wasn’t a cutesy fuzzy lion like some people would do, or a proud and noble lion, either. It looked ragged and half starved. A lion that would rip your face off in a second.

  “When I got off the drugs… I mean, I kicked it, but I knew it wasn’t gone for good. Julian always makes it sound like I got clean in one day and me and Gunnar just joined up with him and Ramona and everything’s been a big party ever since, but he doesn’t realize how hard it is. He doesn’t know what it feels like, when it’s still out there, all the time, just waiting for me to come back to it.”

  She put the drawing down.

  “Did you ever see two lions having sex?”

  I shook my head. Slowly.

  “It’s violent.

  It’s dangerous. It must feel good, but at the same time you might get yourself clawed to death.”

  I was watching her lips as she talked.

  “Imagine if a lion loved you too much. If it wanted to have you too much. That’s what I’m saying. That’s what it would feel like.”

  She reached out to me. She put her hand on my throat.

  “What’s inside you, anyway? Why won’t it let you talk to me?”

  I swallowed hard, feeling her cool fingers against my neck. I closed my eyes.

  “Let me see you try talking.”

  I can’t do this, I thought. I tried so hard for Amelia. I couldn’t do it. Not even for her.

  I pushed her hand away and stood up. A second later she was behind me, so close I could feel her breath on my neck.

  “What’s her name?” she whispered. “Tell me the girl’s name.”

  When I turned she kissed me. She was so unlike Amelia in every way, a different creature entirely. So much more like me really, all broken and fucked up but she was right here and her arms were around me and I could feel her heart beating in her chest. When she took her clothes off… her body looked even more naked than Amelia’s had. More pale and vulnerable. I saw the tattoos that Gunnar had given her. A Chinese symbol on her left shoulder blade, a black rose on her right ankle, and finally Gunnar’s name itself, not in big bold letters but in letters so small I could barely see them, in the small of her back. He had literally marked her with his name to claim her forever, yet here she was with me in my little borrowed apartment in the backyard on a late afternoon and I had no idea what I was doing. It felt good and yet not good and it was all over too quickly. Then as we lay there afterward I heard the faint beeping from under my bed.

  “What’s that noise?” she said.

  I got up and pulled out the shoebox. Another call from my good friend at the FBI? Just what I needed.

  No. This one was for real.

  “Who is it?” she said, looking into the box. “Who’s paging you?”

  I picked up the red pager.

  It’s the master calling, I said to her in my mind. If you’ll excuse me, I have to run barking all the way home.

  Twenty-one

  Michigan

  July 1999

  The next day, when I rode out to the Marshes’ house, I saw the car parked in the driveway. The same long black car from the day before. The car was empty, but as I got off the motorcycle, I could hear the car’s engine still ticking in the heat. They hadn’t been here long.

  I went to the front door and knocked. A voice from inside told me to come in. As soon as I pushed open the door, I saw the three men in the living room. The same three men. All of them now making themselves at home. The man with the tan fishing hat was standing on one side of the aquarium. The tall man with the mustache that didn’t quite go with his face, he was on the other side.

  The third man, the one with the slow, hooded eyes that made him look half asleep, he was just sitting there on the couch.

  “You’re late,” he said to me. “They’re waiting for you. In the office.”

  The other two men looked up at me. I stood there wondering what the hell was going on. And where Amelia might be.

  “Today would be nice,” Sleepy Eyes said.

  I took a few steps forward, pausing at the bottom of the steps. I could see that Amelia’s door was closed.

  “Hey!” Sleepy Eyes said. “Are you deaf or what? Get your ass in there right now.”

  Fishing Hat and Tall Mustache both seemed to think that was funny. Sleepy Eyes pointed one finger at them and was about to say something, but I didn’t hear it. I opened the door to the office and stepped inside.

  Mr. Marsh was in his usual chair, and in the guest chair sat a man I’d never seen before. He had a gray suit on. A white shirt. A red tie. He had dark hair and dark eyebrows. There was something a little rough and sand-papery about his skin. He was smoking a long cigarette.

  “You’re here,” Mr. Marsh said. “Come on in! Have a seat!”

  He jumped up to pull over the other guest chair.

  “I’d like you to meet somebody,” he said. “This is, um…”

  Everything stopped in its tracks right at that second. The man with the cigarette looked up at Mr. Marsh. Mr. Marsh ran his tongue along his lower lip.

  “This is another busi
ness associate of mine,” he said. “Please sit down. We’ve got something we want to, um, talk to you about.”

  I sat down. Mr. Marsh sat back down in his own chair, wiping sweat from his face.

  “So you’re the young Michael,” the man with the cigarette said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “All good,” Mr. Marsh said. “All good things.”

  The man with the cigarette looked over at Mr. Marsh and raised one of his eyebrows. Maybe a quarter inch. Mr. Marsh put up both hands and then kept his mouth shut for the next three minutes.

  “I understand that you went to see Mr. G yesterday, and that the results, at least from this preliminary meeting, were not so good.”

  I sat there, looking at him.

  “Would you agree with that assessment?”

  I nodded my head.

  He leaned forward in his chair, pinching the cigarette between two fingers and being careful not to spill ashes on his pants. I could smell the cigarette and maybe the cologne he was wearing. It was an expensive and exotic smell that I’d never forget.

  “You don’t speak,” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t speak ever.”

  I shook my head again.

  He leaned back in his chair. “Okay then. That is something I can appreciate. In fact, that’s a gift that I wish you could pass on to others.”

  He didn’t look over at Mr. Marsh. He didn’t have to.

  “Norman here tells me that you broke into this house. Is that true?”

  I nodded.

  “He tells me that you refused to give up any of your accomplices.”

  I nodded again.

  “You’re two for two here, Michael. You sound like the kind of man I could trust.”

  I looked over at Mr. Marsh. He was smiling and nodding his head. He had his hands clasped together tight.

  “But then we get to the business with the locks,” the man said. “Because here I was led to believe that you can open up anything. Hence my disappointment when I heard back from Mr. G.”

  I didn’t know how to react to that. I sat there wondering if Amelia was up there in her room, if she was scared out of her mind or pissed off or what.

  “Now, I know that Mr. G can be a little abrupt sometimes. So I’m wondering if maybe the two of you just got off on the wrong foot. Is that possible?”

  I didn’t move.

  “Michael? Is that possible?”

  I shrugged. The man kept watching me.

  “Here’s the thing. Mr. Marsh and his partner, Mr. Slade, both have certain obligations right now, and I’m afraid that neither one of them have been meeting those obligations. In Mr. Slade’s case, well, he seems to have disappeared completely, so I’m not sure how we’re going to deal with him when he does eventually show his face again.”

  He finally looked over at Mr. Marsh. Mr. Marsh was staring at his own hands now. The giant fish loomed over everything.

  “Give Mr. Marsh credit for one thing,” the man said. “At least he’s facing up to the situation. He wants to make good on those obligations, which I appreciate. So I’m willing to work with him. The problem is, he’s sort of overextended himself right now. With the one health club and the plans for another, and these plans for a new housing development… well, I’m afraid he’s already leveraged all of those assets about as far as he can go. Do you understand what I’m saying? The poor man doesn’t have anything else of value that he can use in place of actual cash. But what he does have…”

  He leaned forward in his chair again.

  “Is you.”

  I looked over at Mr. Marsh again. He wouldn’t meet my eye.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I know you’re not his property, but as I understand it, you were sentenced by the court to perform certain services for him, for the rest of the summer. Whatever he sees fit for you to do. Within reason, of course. Which means that while he doesn’t own you, he does, in fact, own a certain amount of your time. A set number of hours, every day. Every week. And that, Michael, is the closest thing to a real commodity that he’s got right now. So in the grand scheme of things, what else can he offer me to help make things right?”

  I watched the smoke from his cigarette curl toward the ceiling.

  “So both of us would like you to think about giving it another shot with Mr. G. I’ve already spoken to him. I’ve explained that you sound like a young man with a lot of promise-which now that I’ve met you I can see is most definitely true-and that you deserve another chance.”

  “It would really help us out,” Mr. Marsh said, finally finding the courage to speak again.

  “It would,” the man said. “It would help me out, because I’m very interested to see just how good you really are. And it would certainly help out Mr. Marsh. And his family, don’t forget. The son, he’s already off to college? Getting an early start on his football career?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Marsh said.

  “Excellent. And your daughter?”

  Mr. Marsh closed his eyes.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No, not at all. She’ll be a senior in high school.”

  “Very good. What was her name again?”

  “Amelia.”

  “Amelia. That’s a beautiful name. Don’t you agree, Michael?”

  He saw me holding on tight to the sides of my chair. He didn’t say a word about it, but I could tell he was registering my reaction.

  “I think we’re all on the same page now,” he said. “Michael, if you’ll excuse us. We have a few more things to talk about. I know Mr. G is waiting, so you might want to go ahead and make your way down there. I’m sure the two of you will have a much more productive time of it today, huh?”

  He sat there and waited for me. I stood up.

  “It was a pleasure, Michael,” he said to me. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.”

  I opened the door and left. I walked past the three men, who were all sitting together in the living room now. They had apparently found their way into the refrigerator, because they were all holding beer bottles.

  “How’d it go, lover boy?”

  I didn’t know who said it and I didn’t care. I went right up the stairs and knocked on Amelia’s door. She wasn’t there.

  “She’s gone,” Sleepy Eyes said. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me. “Daddy sent her away.”

  I went back down the stairs and tried to go around him. He grabbed my arm.

  “You were already on my list, remember? When I say something to you in the future, you’d better not walk away from me.”

  He stared me down for a few seconds, his fingers digging into my arm.

  “Go on, get going. You’ve got business to take care of.”

  I went outside. I stood there for a while with the hot sun in my face, thinking about what to do next. I played the whole scene back in my head, right up to the part where the man with the cigarette said Amelia’s name. Just the sound of her name on that man’s thin lips…

  I got on my bike and headed for Detroit.

  I’ve had more than one moment like this in my life. These moments when I could have taken myself right out of the game. Cut my losses. Taken the whole thing to my probation officer, maybe. I can’t help wondering how differently my life might have turned out if I had played it that way. Even once.

  That’s not how I played it. Not that day. I rode down that same road to that same place. All the way back to West Side Recovery on Grand River Avenue. The clouds gathered in the rising heat, and then the rain came down hard for a few minutes. Then it stopped and the steam rose from the hot pavement.

  I rolled my bike right up to the door this time. I knocked on the door and waited. The Ghost, or Mr. G or whatever the hell I was supposed to call him, opened the door and peeked out at me. He was wearing the same worn-out sweater vest. The same glasses hung from the chain around his neck. He didn’t say anything to me, just shook his head and let out this theatrical sigh l
ike I was a huge inconvenience to him. Then he held the door open for me so I could roll in my motorcycle again.

  “You’re back,” he said. “I’m so delighted.”

  I parked the bike and stood there waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

  “They tell me you’re probably the best I’m going to get. God help us all.”

  He turned and headed toward the back of the store, tracing his way in the near darkness, around the piles of junk. I followed him. To the back room, the television on again, through the narrow hallway crowded with bicycles. Out the back door to the green-lit shade of the yard. The air even heavier today, with the wet heat and the smell from the rain on the sumac and the poison ivy. The Ghost looked a little older to me today. Somehow older and even more pale to the point of being translucent. His hair was like thin straw, with a dozen age spots showing through and scattered across the top of his head. Yet he was so light of foot, like an old athlete or even a dancer. He walked quickly and never looked back to see if I was behind him. He went right to the safes and stopped in the dead center. He put his glasses on, and only then did he finally look at me.

  “I’m losing my eyesight,” he said. “That’s the first problem.”

  He held up his right hand, palm facing the ground.

  “My hands are starting to shake, too. Which is not good.”

  From where I was standing, I didn’t see any shaking. His hand looked rock steady.

  “My daughter’s husband ran out on her, too. Left her with a couple of kids. She’s in Florida, you understand, and even though I hate every fucking square inch of that whole state…”

  He went behind one of the safes and produced a rolling office chair. There was plywood here on the ground, in the circle created by the safes. He spun the chair a half revolution and sat down on it backward.

  “What I’m saying here is… I mean, that’s it. That’s all you need to know about me. Anything else is none of your fucking business. You understand?”

  I nodded once.

  “Do you want to try again with the safes today, or do you really not know anything at all about opening them?”

  There were eight safes, perfectly arranged. One on each point of an imaginary compass, or maybe even on the real compass for all I knew. With another safe positioned exactly halfway between each point. In a building with so much junk in it, here was the one and only place where everything else was pushed aside. A perfect circle carved out of the chaos.