The Lock Artist

by Steve Hamilton

  So it was already looking like a long year.

  When I got back home that afternoon, I took my helmet off and put it on the seat. The engine and the wind were both still roaring in my ears. So I almost walked away from the bike without hearing the beeping noise.

  I opened the back compartment, took the box out, and lifted the lid. I sorted through them until I found the pager that was going off. It was the red one.

  Go to the park, I thought. Go down to the river and throw the whole box in. Watch it float away. That’s the first thing that came into my mind.

  I went inside and dialed the number. Someone picked up on the other end. A voice I’d heard before. He didn’t say hello or who is this or how may I help you. Instead, he simply gave me an address on Beaubien Steet, in downtown Detroit, and a time, eleven o’clock sharp. Tonight. Knock on the back door, he said. Then he hung up.

  I was with Amelia that evening. We had dinner to mark our first days back at school. For better or worse. She told me she hated being back at Lakeland. Especially now, knowing that I was across town at Milford. I kept checking my watch, because I knew I had somewhere to be at eleven. When I left her house a little after ten… well, she knew something was going on. I could never hide that from her. Not then, not ever. But she let me go.

  I road down Grand River, passing the darkened windows of West Side Recovery. All the way down into the heart of Detroit. I swung around the bottom of the big circle where all of the streets come together in Grand Circus Park like the spokes of a wheel. I hit Beaubien Street around ten fifty.

  The address turned out to be a steak house in Greektown. This was the first year for the big casinos in Detroit, and the place looked like it was doing a good business. I rolled into the lot and parked the bike. I went around to the back door, past the garbage cans and the empty produce crates. It was a heavy metal door, just like at the liquor store. I knocked on it.

  A few seconds passed before the door opened. The bright light from the kitchen spilled out into the night, casting two shadows. Mine and the man who stood there looking at me. He was a big man, and he was wearing a big white apron with the belt tied tight around his waist.

  “Come on in.” He led me through the kitchen, where another man in an identical apron was hard at work at the grill. The first man opened the door to the pantry and stood aside for me to enter. I saw three men standing inside the room, which was otherwise filled floor to ceiling with canned tomatoes and olives and peppers, jugs of vinegar and cooking oil, and every other nonperishable thing you’d ever need to run a restaurant. When I stepped into the room, I recognized the three men immediately, and my first impulse was to turn and run out the back door.

  “You’re early,” Fishing Hat said. He was cutting slices from a big stick of pepperoni and passing them to the other two men.

  “I didn’t realize you were the second coming of the Ghost,” Tall Mustache said.

  That left Sleepy Eyes to be heard from. He came over to me, moving slowly. “Why do we keep running into you, kid?”

  “Relax,” Fishing Hat said. “This is him. This is the Ghost Junior.”

  Sleepy Eyes kept staring me down for another long moment, until he finally backed away.

  “You want some?” Fishing Hat extended the big stick of pepperoni to me.

  I put my hands up. No thanks.

  He looked over at Tall Mustache, and the two exchanged smiles with each other.

  “We heard you don’t talk much,” Fishing Hat said. “He wasn’t kidding.”

  “We heard you don’t talk at all,” Tall Mustache said. “Like ever! Is that really true?”

  I nodded once, then looked back out into the kitchen. I could feel Sleepy Eyes drilling a hole in my back.

  For the next few minutes, nobody bothered to make small talk. They just stood there and ate their pepperoni and looked at me.

  “What do you say?” Fishing Hat finally said, looking at his watch. “Is it time to go to work?”

  “Blow that whistle,” Tall Mustache said.

  “Consider it blown.”

  They led me back out through the kitchen, back into the parking lot. We all piled into the same black car that had rolled into Mr. Marsh’s driveway that day. Fishing Hat at the wheel, Tall Mustache riding shotgun. That left me and Sleepy Eyes in the back.

  “Okay, let’s have some fun,” Fishing Hat said. He put the car in gear and pulled out onto the street. He went down to Jefferson Avenue, took a left, and started heading east along the Detroit River. He kept it slow, and he stopped at every yellow light.

  Sleepy Eyes was still looking at me. “How old are you?” he finally said.

  I flashed him ten fingers, then seven more, but he didn’t look at my hands.

  “You’re the boxman now? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  I’m not telling you anything, sir. You can go back to being quiet and that’ll be just fine with me.

  “He must have extra-good hearing,” Tall Mustache said. He turned around to look at me. “Is that true? Do you have extra-good hearing? I mean, on account of not being able to talk?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Sleepy Eyes said.

  “When you lose one of your senses, the other senses get better. Haven’t you heard of that?”

  “Talking is not a sense, you idiot.”

  “Yes it is. You know, seeing, hearing, touching, speaking… What’s the other one? Smelling, right? Is that five?”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Will you guys shut the hell up!” Fishing Hat kept both hands on the wheel, his eyes locked on the road.

  “I don’t work with kids, is all I’m saying. I got enough problems.”

  “If he can do it, he can do it,” Tall Mustache said. “That’s all that matters.”

  “I said enough,” Fishing Hat said. “Can we have a few minutes of peace here so we can prepare ourselves?”

  Everybody was quiet for a while. Sleepy Eyes finally stopped staring at me. I put my head back against the seat and closed my eyes.

  We kept going east on Jefferson. We passed the Waterworks Park. We took a left on Cadillac and started heading north. Then Fishing Hat slowed the car. Everyone seemed to be focused on a little check-cashing joint on the left side of the road. It was closed, but the neon letters still advertised its services. CHECKS CASHED! MONEY ORDERS! GET YOUR INCOME TAX REBATE NOW!

  It was just past eleven thirty. The street was fairly quiet but not deserted. It made sense to me, to be doing this now. Any later and sure, it might be even more quiet, but then you’d really get noticed by the one guy who happened to be awake, or the cop driving by on the night shift. Fishing Hat hung a left down the street, looped around a residential block and came back out toward Cadillac, then hung a right into the parking lot behind the store.

  There was a fence back there, maybe six feet high. A security light above the back door, but it was a simple round bulb, so the light wasn’t directed anywhere specifically. A few of the houses had line of sight, but nobody was outside. We all sat in the car and waited for a few minutes. One man came by, walking his dog. Cars kept driving by on Cadillac, one every few seconds, but none came down the side street.

  It was quiet in the car, the only sound the breathing of four men. Another minute passed. Then Fishing Hat raised one hand. “Okay,” he whispered. “The alarm system should be off.”

  “Should be?” Sleepy Eyes didn’t sound too happy.

  “Yes. That’s what my man tells me.”

  I didn’t know anything about alarm systems yet. Hell, I didn’t know anything period, beyond how to open a lock or a safe.

  Sleepy Eyes opened his door. I assumed I should do the same. The other two men sat tight.

  That made sense when we got to the back door. There was no reason for all four of us standing around while I worked on the lock. I took out my picks and set the tension bar. A place like this would have a great lock on it, I thought. Nothing easy ab
out it. With all the time I’d spent working on the safes, I hadn’t been doing this for a while. The tension bar felt strange and foreign in my hand. God damn it all, what if I couldn’t get this open?

  I could feel Sleepy Eyes getting restless already. He was standing too close to me. I stopped and gave him a quick look. He took a step backward.

  “Make this quick, will ya?”

  I cast him out of my mind and focused on the lock. You’ve done this so many times. It’s so easy. Set the tension, start working your way through the pins. One at a time. Yes, that’s it. Yes.

  A car turned down the side street. It passed by us, maybe twenty-five feet away. It didn’t stop. It didn’t slow down.

  I kept the tension exactly where it was. I told myself to relax. I kept going.

  The seconds ticked by. One pin. Two. Three. Four. Five. Nothing yet. I’m sure these are mushroom pins, at the very least.

  Sleepy Eyes breathing hard now. Shut him out. Just shut him right out. Nothing exists in the whole world but these little pieces of metal.

  Nothing else. Not even Amelia.

  I paused for a moment.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I went back to it. Second set. One. Two. Three. Four…

  I touched the last pin, felt the whole thing give. The knob turned, and I pushed open the door.

  Sleepy Eyes went in first, taking a flashlight out of his back pocket. I followed, and heard someone else come in behind me. It was Tall Mustache, who would apparently serve as the second lookout. Fishing Hat stayed in the car. That’s how they were going to play this.

  The safe was right there in the back room, not ten feet from the door. It was a six-foot behemoth, a Victor brand with a beautiful black finish. I couldn’t even imagine how much this thing would have weighed. No wonder the man who owned this place made no effort to hide the thing. Hell, he could have put it on the sidewalk and it would have been just as secure.

  I went to the dial. First things first, make sure it’s actually locked up. It was. I tried out the couple of Victor presets I knew, but neither of them hit.

  Okay, then. I grabbed a chair from a nearby desk, made myself comfortable, and started doing my thing.

  “How long is this going to take?” Sleepy Eyes said.

  “Just leave him alone,” Tall Mustache said.

  Sleepy Eyes stepped through to the front room. I could see him hunched down behind the counter. Once again, I forced the clown out of my head and concentrated on my work.

  Find the contact area. Spin a few times. Park the wheels. Go back the other way. Pick up one… two… three… four. And that’s it. Four wheels, like I was afraid of. An extra-tough safe for my first time out, but we’ll give it a shot. Spin a few more times. Park at 0. Go back to the contact area. Feel for it. Feel that exact size. Let the safe tell you what’s going on inside it.

  Yes, like that. Park at 3, back to the contact area.

  I kept the side of my face against the metal. Time slowed down. Everything else disappeared. I kept working. I found the areas shortening up around 15, 39, 54, 72. I went back, worked those down to 16, 39, 55, 71.

  I shook out my hands. Tall Mustache had the door open just wide enough for him to see out with one eye. Sleepy Eyes was sitting on the floor now, watching me.

  One last step here. Four numbers means twenty-four possible combinations. I started spinning them all out, starting with 16, 39, 55, 71. Then switching the last two numbers. Then switching the second and the third, and so on.

  I did twelve combinations. I did thirteen. On my fourteenth try, the handle moved.

  That brought Sleepy Eyes off the floor. He came over and hovered behind me as I turned the handle all the way and opened the safe door.

  It was empty.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Sleepy Eyes turned around and went back out toward the front counter.

  “What is it?” Tall Mustache said. He was still standing at the back door. He had no idea how unhappy he was about to become.

  Me? I had a strange mix of feelings, standing there looking into that empty space. There’s nothing quite as empty as an empty safe, for one thing. It’s always given me an oddly elated hollow feeling in my chest, swinging that door open and seeing absolutely nothing. Like the emptiness of outer space.

  So that feeling mixed with the triumph of knowing that yes, I really could open up a safe in this kind of environment, using only my ears and my fingers and my mind. I could really do this.

  Mixed with oh shit, this safe is fucking empty and these three guys are about to go insane. It may not be my fault exactly, but I’ll still have to deal with it.

  That’s as far as I got. Two or three seconds of that before it all fell apart. The next sound we all heard was the distinctive sound of four tires leaving four black marks on the pavement just outside the door. Followed by Tall Mustache swinging open the back door and running out into the night like he had been shot out of a cannon. The last part of that chain reaction was Sleepy Eyes climbing over the front counter, slamming his whole body into the front door, fumbling with the latch and getting it open remarkably quickly, and then falling out onto the sidewalk.

  That left me, an empty safe, and a long shadow in the back doorway.

  I made a break for the other door, thinking it would be a real good idea to follow in Sleepy Eyes’s footsteps.

  “Stop right there or I’ll shoot you right in the fucking back.”

  I stopped.

  “Turn around.”

  I turned. The man was in his sixties maybe. With a rough face. The kind of man who clearly hadn’t taken a lot of shit from anybody in the past and wasn’t about to start now. He was wearing a black leather jacket that might have been a little too young for him, but that wasn’t the biggest problem. The biggest problem was the very real gun in his right hand.

  It was a semiautomatic. It looked like the gun my uncle had under his cash register. It was pointed right at my chest.

  “Your friends are all gone.”

  His voice was perfectly calm. He took a step closer to me, right into a thin beam of light that came into the room, filtered through the front window. I saw his face more clearly. He had a big nose. He had red cheeks. He was badly in need of a shave.

  “I think you need new friends,” he said, taking another step closer. “Don’t you agree?”

  No arguments there.

  “You’re just a kid, eh? So how about this, I’ll make you a deal. You tell me who those other guys were and I won’t put a bullet in your head.”

  I didn’t move. He came closer.

  “Come on, kid. Don’t be dumb. You think any of those guys wouldn’t have given you up in two seconds? Just tell me who they are.”

  That’s going to be a problem, I thought. I don’t think I’m going to be able to help you here.

  The man shook his head and smiled. It looked like he was going to step away, but in the next instant he was right on top of me. He grabbed me by the front of the shirt with one hand. With the other he pressed the gun right into my neck. I smelled the cigar smoke on him. It took me right back to my bedroom in Uncle Lito’s house. A million miles away.

  “It’s a little rude not to answer my question, don’t you think? Are you going to tell me or what?”

  This is it, I thought. This is it right here.

  “Who are they?”

  The gun barrel pressed harder into my neck. He had it angled upward. The bullet would go right up through my brain.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Maybe you don’t know their names. Is that it? Huh?”

  He’s going to kill me.

  “Just tell me where you know them from. Can you do that? Who set you up with these guys?”

  My last minute on earth. It’s right here.

  “Say something, kid. Tell me something right now or I swear to God, I will pull this trigger.”

  Worse things could happen.

  “Three seconds. Talk or die.”

  Worse th
ings than having to live like this.

  “Three.”

  Maybe it’s the only way out.

  “Two.”

  Even if it means never seeing Amelia again.

  “One.”

  I wished I could have said good-bye to her, at least.

  “Zero.”

  A few seconds passed, the gun still pressed into my neck. I kept breathing. From outside, I could hear a car pulling into the lot. The headlights came through the open door and swung across the room.

  The man lowered the gun. He wrapped one arm around my head and pulled it against his shoulder. For one second I thought he was going to break my neck.

  But no. He was hugging me.

  “Okay, kid,” he said. “Okay.”

  Fishing Hat came in through the back door. Followed by Tall Mustache. Followed by Sleepy Eyes.

  Followed by the Ghost.

  “I told you guys,” the Ghost said. As pale as ever, and he seemed agitated and totally out of place here. “Did you think I was making a fucking joke? The kid doesn’t talk. And he wouldn’t rat you out, even if he could.”

  “You were right,” the man with the gun said. He must have been the owner of this place. Doing somebody a favor by letting these guys use it for a theater, and getting into the act himself.

  “I told you he’d be able to open the safe, too. Did I not?”

  “Correct again.”

  Looking back on it, the whole thing did seem a little too choreographed. But at least I had passed the test, right? Local kid makes good, proves himself to criminals.

  They took me back to the restaurant in Greektown. The Ghost didn’t come inside with us. He stood in the parking lot and said good-bye to me again. For real this time.

  “It’s official,” he said to me. “You own the franchise.”

  He got in his car and drove off. The other men took me inside and got me a drink from a bottle I recognized from my uncle’s shelves. I choked down a swallowful.

  “Sorry if we were riding you a little hard,” Fishing Hat said, grabbing me by the back of the neck. “We had to see how you handled it, you know? Make sure you could handle your business. See how big a pair you had if it all went to shit on you.”