Lock Artist

by Steve Hamilton

  “I wanted to turn myself in,” he said. “I really did.”

  I put my hands down.

  “I’m serious. I was going to do it.”

  I made a Y with my right hand and shook it in front of my forehead. Ridiculous.

  “I still can, Mike. Do you want me to? Would that help you any?”

  I shook my head.

  “Are you sure? I can tell them everything.”

  I hit him in the shoulder, a little harder than I meant to.

  “Those other guys,” he said. “I bet they don’t feel bad at all. I bet they haven’t been dying inside like I’ve been.”

  I nodded at that, thinking, yeah, thanks a lot. I looked out the window.

  “I still feel bad. I’m going out to Wisconsin. You know, that summer program thing, before school starts in the fall. I feel like I’m just abandoning you here.”

  He thought about it for a minute.

  “Still,” he said. “I mean, one more year until you graduate. Then you can go to art school, right? Maybe even come out to Wisconsin and join me? That would be cool, right?”

  I shrugged. He stopped talking again for a while.

  “I owe you one,” he finally said. “Okay? I’m totally serious. Anything you ever want. I totally owe you.”

  I nodded again before I got out of the car and watched him drive away. I couldn’t help wondering if the visit had made him feel any better.

  No, he’ll still feel just as guilty, I thought. Maybe more than ever. He’ll never be comfortable around me again. The only real friend I ever had. He’s going to leave town now, and I’ll never see him again.

  I was right.

  The next day, I drove over to the Marshes’ house. I knew being late would be Strike One, so I got there at eleven fifty-seven. It felt strange to be there at that same house again. It looked even bigger in daylight, the white paint so clean you needed sunglasses to look at it. I parked the car on the street, only a matter of yards from where I had parked just a few nights before. I walked to the front door, feeling the sun burning down on my head. I knocked on the door and waited.

  Mr. Marsh opened the door. Instead of the perfect suit and tie, now he was wearing a white sleeveless workout shirt and a pair of tight blue compression shorts. He had a headband on to complete the effect.

  “It’s you,” he said. “You’re here.”

  Like I had a choice?

  “Come this way.” He left the door open and turned away from me. I closed the door and followed him.

  “We’ll have a little chat in my office,” he said. “After you see this.” He led me through the living room, where the aquarium had been replaced, and where the exact same fish were now swimming around as if nothing had happened. All of the other damage had apparently been fixed as well. There was no trace of the invasion.

  “Twelve hundred dollars,” he said. “Between the new tank, the water damage on the rug and the furniture …”

  He stood there and waited for me to react in some way. To acknowledge what he was saying.

  “I should have waited to let you do it, but hell, that wouldn’t have made any sense. What were you going to do, glue the glass back together?”

  Now you’re arguing with yourself, I thought. I’d better do something here. So I lifted both hands a few inches, then let them fall back to my sides.

  “Yeah, sure. You’re damned right. What else is there to say?”

  He turned and went to a door just past the stairs. He opened it and gestured for me to enter. It was a room I hadn’t seen the first time around. There was a bookcase of dark wood on one wall, a huge projection television screen on another wall. A large picture window looking out over the backyard on the third wall, and on the fourth, the biggest goddamned stuffed fish I’d ever seen. It was one of those huge blue marlins, at least eight feet long with another three feet of spear nose. It was stuffed and mounted and lacquered, looking so real you’d think it was still dripping wet.

  “Have a seat.” He indicated the leather guest chairs in front of his desk. He sat behind the desk, the great fish just behind his head. He produced one of those little rubber exercise balls and started squeezing it. For a long time, he didn’t say anything. He just looked at me and squeezed.

  “I caught that damned thing off Key West,” he finally said, without actually looking up at the thing. “I fought it for three hours.”

  He squeezed some more. He didn’t take his eyes off of me.

  “Okay, I admit, I’m a little torn here. Part of me still wants to kill you right now.”

  He paused and watched me, no doubt measuring the effect of his words.

  “The other part of me just wants to hurt you really badly.”

  This isn’t the way this was supposed to be going, I thought. Not according to my probation officer.

  “Let me ask you this. Have you ever had your home broken into?”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you have any idea what it feels like?”

  I shook my head again.

  “It feels like you’ve been violated. Like someone has reached right into your guts …”

  He held up his ball and squeezed it as hard as he could.

  “Like someone has taken something away from you that you’ll never, ever get back. Your whole sense of security. Of being safe in your own goddamned home. Do you understand what I’m trying to say to you?”

  I sat there and looked at him.

  “What’s with the not speaking, anyway? What’s that all about?”

  With his free hand, he reached over and picked up a framed photograph that had been facing away from me.

  “I have a daughter who’s the same age as you,” he said. “Ever since the breakin … ever since the violation of this house …”

  He turned the frame toward me. I saw her face.

  “Things have been hard enough for her, is what I’m trying to say. Since her mother’s been gone.”

  He stopped for a moment.

  “Since her mother took her own life. A few years ago. I’m telling you that just so you know what she’s already been through, okay? Amelia’s been living in her own world ever since. Getting better, maybe. I don’t know. But now … fuck, with you breaking in here … I can’t even imagine how scared she must be. You have no idea, do you? You have no fucking idea.”

  In the picture, she was wrapping herself up in a hooded sweatshirt, her hair whipped around by the wind off a lake in the background. She wasn’t smiling.

  But she was beautiful.

  “I hope to God you have kids someday. I hope you have a daughter like my Amelia. Then I hope you have a few cheap lowlife punks break into your house and terrorize her. So you get to feel what I’m feeling right now.”

  Amelia. It was the first time I heard her name out loud. Amelia.

  He turned the frame back away from me. I had a bad feeling in my stomach now, hollow and raw. I hated the idea of her being afraid in her own house. Someone who had been through at least some of the same things I had been. Someone who could draw those drawings I had seen in her bedroom.

  “Now, my son … Adam …” He picked up the other picture on the desk. This picture was twice as big, which should have told me something right there.

  “He’s on a full scholarship to Michigan State. My alma mater. He’s already up there for summer conditioning.”

  He turned the frame so I could behold the full glory of his son. Adam was in his Lakeland uniform, kneeling on the ground with one hand on his helmet.

  “I know what happened here,” he said. “I know why you guys broke into this place. Why you felt you had to put that banner in Adam’s bedroom. I mean, after four years of him beating your team up and down the field. Hell, it must have been pretty frustrating. I guess I can understand that part.”

  He actually smiled at that point, for the first time. He put Adam’s picture back on the desk, carefully aligning it until it was in just the right place. Then he opened up a drawer in his desk a
nd took out a small pad of paper and a golf pencil. He slid them over the desk until they were directly in front of me.

  “So let me ask you something, Michael. You feel like writing some names down for me?”

  He leaned back in his chair and began passing the exercise ball from one hand to the other.

  “I know this didn’t come out in court. This is just between you and me, is what I’m saying. It doesn’t leave this room. I know that Brian Hauser was one of the gang who were with you that night. I mean, let’s not even pretend that he wasn’t here. Are we good so far?”

  I sat there.

  “That buddy of his, the quarterback … Trey Tollman? Who can’t even throw a ball forty yards? Are we talking about him, too?”

  Another moment of silence.

  “They used to be friends, you know that? Adam and Brian, I mean, back when they were in junior high school.”

  He paused for a while, thinking about it.

  “Then Brian goes to a different high school and starts taking cheap shots at Adam. You know he almost destroyed Adam’s knee once? Could have ended his whole career. Funny how a kid can turn into an asshole so quickly. Guess it runs in the family. You ever meet his dad? The state trooper? Couple of useless fat fucks, both of them. Anyway, I know you took the rap for him, Mike. I know it and you know it. So like I said … just between you and me … Nod your head if I’m right so far.”

  This wasn’t my battle. God knows none of those other guys ever thanked me for taking the blame for him. And yet …

  “I’m waiting.”

  And yet fuck this guy. I wasn’t moving a muscle.

  “Come on, Mike. Don’t be a chump. It’s not worth it.”

  I can do this all day, I thought. I’ll sit frozen in this chair while you keep talking.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “If that’s the way you want to play this.”

  He stood up and came over to me. I still hadn’t moved yet. I waited for him to put his hands around my neck.

  “You know what? One phone call from me and they’ll find something else to do with you. If I tell them you’re not being a good little probationer here. You follow me? They’ll send you to one of those camps with all the other juvies. I’m sure your little silent act will go over real big with those guys. Is that what you want?”

  I finally looked up at him.

  “You’re putting me in a real difficult position here. I get you from what, noon to four, six days a week? So get your ass out of my chair and come outside.”

  I stood up and followed him. He led me through the kitchen, through the very same door I had opened with a screwdriver and a safety pin. He opened it and was about to head into the backyard. Then he stopped suddenly and looked at the doorknob.

  “By the way … this was the door you came in through, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Was it unlocked?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then how the hell did you open it?”

  I made like I was holding something in each hand.

  “What, did you get a key somehow?”

  I shook my head and made the motion again. Two hands. A tool in each.

  “Are you telling me you picked the lock?”

  I nodded.

  He bent down and examined the knob. “You’re lying. There’s not a scratch on this thing.”

  Whatever you say, I thought. I’m lying.

  “We’re not getting off to a great start here,” he said, almost laughing. “That’s all I can say.”

  He stood there looking at me for a moment.

  “Last chance. Are you going to tell me who else broke into my fucking house, or not?”

  I didn’t tell the police, I thought. Why the hell would I tell you?

  “Okay, fine,” he said. “I guess we’ve got to do this the hard way.”

  Twelve

  Los Angeles

  January 2000

  *

  The motorcycles went into the garage on the back end of Julian’s lot. A gun-metal gray Saab came out. It seemed a little understated for this crew, but then maybe understated is exactly what you need sometimes.

  We all got in the car. Julian driving, Ramona shotgun, me in the back with Gunnar and Lucy. Gunnar took the middle, keeping himself between me and Lucy, no doubt. An undercurrent I was already aware of, no matter that they were all six or seven years older than me, that he should have been looking at me like I was nothing more than a lost child.

  It was late afternoon. The sun hanging over the ocean. We rode back toward Beverly Hills, but this time we cut north, heading up Laurel Canyon Boulevard, into the Hollywood Hills. The road twisted and turned as we went higher and higher. There were houses on either side of the road. Big money boxes. Bold statements of modern architecture. Some of them hanging off the edges of the cliffs, daring an earthquake to tip them over into the canyon below.

  We passed Mulholland Drive, then a private gated road with a smartly dressed guard sitting in his little white guardhouse. Up another hairpin turn, then another. Julian pulled the car over onto the shoulder. Everyone got out. They seemed to know their parts in the play, exactly what they were supposed to be doing at every moment. Julian took a good look around, making sure we were out of anyone else’s direct sight. He went right up to the edge of the gravel shoulder, where there was a dense growth of sage and chaparral and other hostile-looking plant life, all leading down into the canyon. Gunnar joined him on the edge. He gave Julian a quick hug, turned to give the rest of us a wave, and then disappeared into the brush.

  Ramona scanned the canyon below us with a pair of binoculars. Julian produced a cell phone. While the two of them kept watching Gunnar’s progress down the canyon, Lucy popped open the trunk.

  “Here,” she said, handing me the jack. “Make yourself useful.”

  I gestured to the wheels. Which one?

  “Doesn’t matter. Take your pick.”

  The right rear tire seemed to be on smooth level ground, so I hooked up the jack back there, put the tire iron in the slot, and started cranking. It was a solid idea, I realized. If somebody drove by, it would look perfectly natural for us to be here. We could even finish up and drive away if we really needed to, and then come back later.

  “Our man’s upstairs,” Ramona said. “I don’t see the bodyguard.”

  She kept watching. Julian stayed ready with the phone. I was ready to look busy with the tire if I heard a car coming up the road. Lucy was pacing now, muttering to herself. She looked more nervous than the rest of us put together.

  Finally, the phone made a low buzzing sound and seemed to jump in Julian’s hand. He pushed a button and listened.

  “We’re trying to locate the bodyguard,” he said. “Just hang tight.”

  Ramona kept peering through the binoculars, moving them back and forth slowly.

  “There,” she finally said. “The guard’s upstairs now.”

  I looked down the canyon and saw a residential road, about a quarter mile below us. On the far side of that road was another large ultramodern house, one of the most impressive of all. Nothing but shining metal and glass. The yard was gravel and Japanese topiary. A long black sedan sat in the horseshoe driveway, partly eclipsing the front door.

  As I kept watching, I saw a figure crossing the road, moving quickly but not frantically. Hurrying but not rushing. He went around the car and stopped directly in front of the door.

  “You’re clear,” Julian said into the phone.

  Gunnar opened the door, stepped inside, and then closed the door behind him.

  That’s when I heard a car coming up the road. I tapped on the back of the trunk to alert the others. They hid the binoculars and the phone while I went around to the side of the car, as if inspecting the tire.

  A little red Porsche rounded the curve, winding through its gears. I saw sunglasses, blond hair, and then the car was gone. The driver didn’t even slow down.

  Ramona went back to the binoculars.

&nb
sp; “He’s on his own now,” she said. “Do you see anything?”

  “No,” Julian said. “I don’t see anybody. Anywhere.”

  “Fuck fuck fuck.”

  “He’s okay,” Julian said. “You know he’s okay.”

  “I’m sure that prick has a gun in the house.”

  “Gunnar’s okay.”

  “I need a drink.”

  “That won’t help.”

  “It won’t help you.”

  “Guys, please,” Lucy said to both of them. “Just shut up for a minute, okay?”

  “He’s okay,” Julian said. “Everybody should stop freaking out here.”

  “I said shut up!”

  That got everyone quiet for the next few minutes. I could only wonder how these guys could be the absolute best if they acted this way all the time. Lucy took the binoculars away from Ramona and peered down at the house. Julian kept scanning the landscape, looking at the other houses in the distance, no doubt wondering when someone would finally notice us all standing up here.

  Then his phone buzzed again. He looked at it without answering it.

  “He’s in,” he said. “He’s okay.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ramona said.

  She pulled Lucy away from the edge and opened the back door for her. I pulled the jack off and put it in the trunk. A few seconds later, we were all in the car and Julian was spraying gravel as he pulled onto the road.

  “Take it easy,” Ramona said. “Don’t get us killed, eh?”

  “I hate this part so much,” Lucy said. “We should all stay together. All the time.”

  “This is the only way,” Julian said. “He’ll be fine.”

  “What time is it now?” Ramona said, looking at her watch.

  “We’ve got a few hours to kill,” Julian said. “Plenty of time to go get dressed.”

  “What about him?” Ramona said, looking over the seat at me.

  “Yeah, we’ve got time for that, too,” he said. “Michael, what do you say we go do a little shopping?”

  ______

  I still didn’t know how this was supposed to work. Gunnar had just sneaked into somebody’s house, and the rest of us had apparently just abandoned him there. To go shopping.

  Now, if it sounds like these guys were just leading me around by the nose, you’ve got to understand … I mean, yes, the Ghost had drilled the rules into my head. You’re the specialist. Make sure you understand exactly what’s going on before you commit to anything. If it doesn’t feel right, you walk away. At the same time, he also told me that these guys on the other side of the white pager were as good as it gets. Unorthodox, yes, but money in the bank. So what was I supposed to do here? Right or wrong, I decided to let it play out. At least for the time being.