Lock Artist

by Steve Hamilton

  So there we were in Beverly Hills. Julian parked the car on Rodeo Drive, and they steered me into the first overpriced clothing store they could find.

  “All right, let’s do this right,” Julian said. “Just trash him up and we’ll get out of here.”

  I didn’t know what he meant by that, but it didn’t take long for me to find out. The two women dragged me off to the fashion suits and started holding them up to me like I was a dress-up doll. Lucy picked out a suit that was, I swear to God, the brightest red you could ever find in the universe of clothing.

  “Hello?” Ramona said. “Black?”

  “Black is too easy,” Lucy said. “Use your imagination.”

  “He’ll look like Santa Claus, babe. That’s not quite the effect we’re going for.”

  “He won’t look like Santa Claus, he’ll look like Satan. He’ll look absolutely evil.”

  “We don’t have all day,” Julian said. “Just go with the black suit, okay? Lucy, go pick out a red shirt if you want.”

  So that’s how I ended up with the European-cut black suit and skintight red shirt. No collar. Two gold chains. Thin leather black belt. Black leather shoes with no socks. There was no time to have the suit tailored, so it hung off of me a little bit. But Julian said that was just fine. He said it added to the effect.

  He paid for the clothes, and I’ll just say one thing about that. Forget being a professional safecracker. Just open a clothing store in Beverly Hills. The working conditions are a lot better, and you’ll make a lot more money.

  Then they hustled me over to a hair salon and asked one of the stylists to give me a quick once-over. He looked at me and my do-it-yourself haircut and said I was unsalvageable. Julian laid a wad of twenties on him, and he suddenly got a little more motivated.

  “Okay, last thing,” Julian said when we were back on the sidewalk. He took my cheap sunglasses off and threw them into a garbage barrel. Then we went into a fashion “eyewear” store, and the women had their second fight of the afternoon, this time over my new sunglasses. At least I had served to distract them for a while from poor Gunnar stuck in that house in the canyon.

  Finally, with a new pair of ridiculously priced gold-rimmed sunglasses over my eyes, they all looked at me and had me turn around a couple of times. I was pronounced acceptable. We got in the car and took off back to the house in Santa Monica.

  I sat in a chair feeling disoriented and quite freaked out actually while the rest of the gang went off to get dressed. Here’s where I wish I could talk, I thought to myself. Yeah, here’s where talking would be especially useful. So would getting up and walking out the door, for that matter.

  Julian came down the stairs, looking even more dressed to kill than I was. His fashion suit was the color of freshly poured cream. He had a purple silk shirt with an actual collar, and the whole outfit looked like it had been especially created and tucked and tailored just for him. He had a bottle of cologne with him. He put some on his hands and slapped my cheeks.

  “You’re looking sharp,” he said. “You’re looking like you belong in this town.”

  He washed his hands in the kitchen sink. Then he poured a couple of glasses of red wine and handed me one. He didn’t sit down. He went to the window, looked outside, went to the kitchen, and looked at the clock. Then he went back to the window.

  Another half hour passed. Finally, both of the women came down together, their high heels clicking on the stairs. Ramona was in black, Lucy in a dark shimmering burgundy. Skintight, lots of leg, lots of chest. Hair pinned up. Lipstick and long dark eyelashes. Eye shadow almost glowing. Lucy looked especially transformed with all the makeup. The unevenness of her eyes was even more pronounced now, but somehow it made her bone-chillingly beautiful.

  Julian looked at them and smiled. “What do you think?” he said to me. “Do they pass?”

  “How long has it been?” Lucy said. “Gunnar must be going crazy by now.”

  “You know how he is,” Julian said. “He’s the Zen master.”

  “Let’s just go. I can’t stand waiting.”

  We all piled back into the Saab. It was dark now. A cool Thursday night in January in Los Angeles. We rolled down Santa Monica Boulevard again. The traffic was even heavier now. The weekend had already begun, or so it would seem.

  Julian turned north and took us right into the heart of Hollywood. A right on Sunset Boulevard, past nightclub after nightclub, all with long lines out front. Eventually, he pulled into a parking lot, just past Vine Street. He chose a spot right near the street and parked nose facing out.

  “Okay,” he said. “Game faces on. Michael? Just act bored. That’s all you have to do.”

  We got out of the car. Like all the other clubs on Sunset Boulevard, this one had a long line of people waiting to get in. Everybody dressed to kill. Julian led us right to the front of the line. There was a bouncer standing there, a prototypically cast-iron man bulging out of his shirt. He took one look at Julian, gave him a little nod, opened the ropes, and let him in. He gave Ramona and Lucy the same little nod. I got a quick once-over, but he didn’t stop me. I took a look back at the people waiting in line as we walked past them. Nobody seemed especially happy to see us waltz through, but nobody looked ready to start a riot over it, either.

  As soon as we got inside, my ears were assaulted by the music. The relentless, pounding beat you could feel right up your legs, into your gut. The lights were flashing from every direction. Spotlights and lasers, all in perfect time with the beat of the music. We were still twenty feet from the dance floor, but Julian had his hands up in the air already. He edged his way through the crowd to the back corner of the room, where a tight spiral staircase led up to the balcony level. There was another bouncer at the top of the stairs. Like the first one, he gave Julian a nod and let us go past.

  Most of the tables up here on the balcony were already taken. The rich and famous and beautiful. Or so I gathered. They didn’t look any different to me than the people downstairs. Julian went to the corner table, in its own little cage like one of those private boxes in an old theater. He unhooked the rope and let us into the cage. There was just enough room for the four of us.

  A hundred people were all dancing right below us, as if for our entertainment. The lights kept painting everything red then yellow then blue then green. I sat there, drinking it all in. Wondering what the hell was going on. Wondering how the hell this had anything to do with Gunnar sneaking inside that house up in the canyons.

  “Drinks, ladies? Michael?”

  Ramona and Lucy wanted champagne to start off the evening. I shrugged my shoulders. Champagne, whatever. I’m fine.

  There was a little button set into the frame of the cage. Julian pressed it, and about five seconds later, a woman dressed in what looked like a black wetsuit unzipped halfway down her chest came calling.

  Julian ordered a bottle of Cristal, and she was gone. Two minutes later, she came back with a bottle, an ice bucket, and four champagne flutes. She popped the bottle and poured. Then it was time for the toast. Julian looked into Ramona’s eyes and said five words.

  “A la Mano de Dios.”

  We all drank to that. Then Julian settled back into his chair and watched the dancing crowd, moving his shoulders to the beat. Finally, a dark figure appeared and leaned into our cage.

  “So the party can begin now!”

  He was tall and thin. His suit was dark gray with pinstripes. White shirt with the top three buttons undone. His hair was tied back in a tight ponytail. Somewhere in the ocean, a shark was missing its cold eyes because this man had them.

  Julian stood up, shook the man’s hand and did the half-body hug. The man kissed Ramona’s hand, then went for Lucy’s. Then he got to me.

  “Do I have the pleasure of finally meeting your friend?”

  “Indeed you do. Wesley, this is Mikhail. All the way from Moscow.”

  “I’m honored,” he said. “I hope you had a good trip.”

  “He doesn
’t speak any English,” Julian said. “He refuses to learn even a single word.”

  That seemed to impress the man profoundly. “I hope you’ll enjoy the hospitality of my club tonight,” he said, shaking my hand. “Even though I realize you have no idea what the fuck I’m saying.”

  He laughed at his own joke. Then he whispered something into Julian’s ear. Then he was gone.

  “You made an impression,” Julian said to me. “He thinks you’re beautiful, too.”

  “Americans are suckers for Russians,” Ramona said.

  Just roll with it, I thought. For once, I’m glad I can’t say the wrong thing.

  Julian took a sip of champagne, then looked at his watch.

  “Now that we know our man Wesley is on the premises …”

  “Let’s go,” Lucy said, standing up and taking my hand. “You and me.”

  Julian and Ramona stayed in their seats. As I stood up, I spotted our host on the other side of the balcony, putting the power schmooze on another table. I nodded toward him, and Julian gave me a little smile.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s the man we’re taking down tonight.”

  Thirteen

  Michigan

  July 1999

  *

  Mr. Marsh led me out into his backyard. I had been there once before, of course, but it had been dark then, and I hadn’t really been paying much attention to the landscaping. In the bright light of day, I could see that the grass had recently been planted, a thousand green shoots poking their way up through a thin layer of straw. There was about a half acre or so, ending in a line of trees that looked like part of an old apple orchard.

  “You guys didn’t do my new grass any favors, either,” he said, pointing to a wide patch of new straw. “I should have waited and made you fix it.”

  I looked down and saw four different sets of footprints.

  “Anyway, if you really want to take this rap all by yourself, you’re going to be mighty lonely back here.”

  Meaning what, exactly?

  He walked out into the yard, stopping about twenty yards from the house. He picked up a shovel he had apparently left there. It was brand-new, with a yellow fiberglass handle and a shiny blade that had yet to touch dirt. A few yards away was a wheelbarrow with the price tag still taped to one of its handles.

  “They asked me to have some sort of work for you to do for me,” he said. “Four hours a day, six days a week. For the rest of the summer. That’s a lot of time.”

  He handed me the shovel.

  “I marked it out,” he said. “Make sure you follow the lines exactly.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. Until I noticed the length of twine at his feet. It was strung along a series of wooden pegs, one inch above the straw. I followed the line, maybe thirty feet or so until it took a right turn. Then three more right turns to complete a large rectangle.

  “Don’t worry about depth yet. Just start and we’ll see how it looks, eh? When you fill up the wheelbarrow, just take it over to that spot by the trees and dump it.”

  This was going to be a swimming pool. The man actually expected me to dig him a swimming pool in his backyard.

  “There’s a plastic jug over there by the faucet,” he said. “That’s how you get your water. You need to take a piss, you use the woods. I’ll let you know when it’s four o’clock. Any questions?”

  He waited for a few seconds, as if I’d actually say something.

  “Let’s get one more thing straight here,” he said. “You’re dealing directly with me and nobody else. You don’t step foot in the house unless I tell you to. As far as my daughter goes, well, I’m just hoping that if she sees you working back here, maybe she’ll realize you’re not so terrifying. You hear what I’m saying? I want her to see that you’re just a cheap punk and not a monster so she can sleep at night. Beyond that you have nothing to do with her. If I see you so much as look at her sideways, I will kill you. You got that?”

  I held the shovel. I looked at him. I felt the sun beating down on my back.

  “My son, on the other hand … like I said, he’s already up in East Lansing, so you probably won’t get to meet him. You better pray you don’t, actually, because if he ever comes home and sees you … let’s just say I won’t have to worry about killing you anymore.”

  He stopped, shook his head, and did a bad job fighting off a smile.

  “I’ll be out later to check on you,” he said. “Remember, one word from me and you get sent to the juvie camp. So you sure as hell better get digging.”

  I watched him walk away from me. He didn’t look back. When he opened the door and disappeared, I just stood there for a while, looking around me at the great rectangle marked in the grass and straw. There wasn’t a single cloud to pass above me. No trees to offer their shade. I swallowed hard and dug my shovel into the ground. I lifted a small mound of dirt and carried it over to the wheelbarrow. The dirt hit with a hollow thump.

  One down. Seven million to go.

  There are prison programs where you leave the grounds for a few hours every day to help out on some kind of project or other. Clearing out debris from a demolition, say, or maybe even helping to build something if you have the skills. It’s a chance to get out of the prison, ride a bus down a real street, see real women walking along on the sidewalk, then to actually do something constructive when you get there. Most inmates would gladly stick a knife in someone else’s back to get that kind of assignment.

  It’s not like in the old days, like when they made the prisoners themselves build Sing Sing from the ground up. With regular whippings for anyone who didn’t pull their weight. No, they just don’t do that kind of thing anymore. No more backbreaking labor. No more rock piles and sledgehammers. No more whippings. They sure as hell don’t stick you in the middle of a field by yourself and tell you to start digging a swimming pool. That kind of cruel and unusual punishment would get a modern warden fired by the end of the first day.

  But I wasn’t in a prison. I was here in the Marshes’ backyard and would be here everyday except Sundays. For the rest of the summer. I didn’t think I had much choice in the matter. I sure as hell didn’t want to find out if that juvie camp was an idle threat. So I put the shovel back in the ground, pushed down with my foot, lifted the dirt, and threw it into the wheelbarrow.

  I kept going. I filled the wheelbarrow, rolled it over to the edge of the woods, and dumped it. I rolled it back and picked up the shovel again. While filling up the second load, I started to hit rocks. Some of them were big enough I had to shut everything down and spend the next few minutes working around it, until I finally got enough leverage to pry the damned thing free. My hands were starting to hurt already. My back, too. I was pretty sure I hadn’t even been digging for half an hour yet.

  The sun was punishing me. I put down the shovel, took the plastic water jug over to the house, and turned on the faucet. The cold water felt good on my hands. I knelt down and splashed my face with it. Then I filled the jug and took a long drink. When I turned off the faucet, I could hear Mr. Marsh from inside the house. He was yelling at someone. I didn’t hear anybody respond, so I figured he must be yelling into the phone. I couldn’t make out the words. Only the anger.

  Probably wouldn’t be a great idea to have him come out right now, I thought, see me sitting here by the house. I took the jug back with me and started digging again. I could see that I was barely making a dent in the ground. This would have to be something not to think about. At all. Just turn off your brain, I told myself, and keep digging.

  Another half hour passed. Another few loads of dirt, moved from inside the stakes to the growing pile at the edge of the woods. The sweat was starting to sting my eyes. I didn’t see Mr. Marsh come out of the house. All of a sudden, he was just standing there behind me.

  “You’re going to destroy your back,” he said to me. “You won’t last two days like that.”

  I stopped and looked at him. He was holding a drink, some kind
of summer cocktail with fruit and lots of ice.

  “Use your legs,” he said. “Keep your back straight and use your goddamned legs. Then you might last three days.”

  I pushed the shovel into the ground, bending with my knees. I hit another big rock.

  “You can’t do this by yourself. You know that.”

  I wiped off my face, then started working around the rock. This felt like the biggest one yet.

  “You’re being a fool,” Mr. Marsh said. He took a long sip from his glass and squinted as he looked up at the sky. “This sun will kill you. Are you listening to me?”

  I stopped and looked up at him.

  “You give up the others, I’m telling you … I’ll let you sit out here under an umbrella.”

  I went back to work on the rock.

  “Fine, keep digging,” he said. “Let me know when you’re ready to reconsider.”

  He walked back into the house, shaking his head. I spent the next twenty minutes hauling out a rock the size of a basketball. Things got a little hazy after that. I remember two birds high above me. I could hear one of the birds screaming at the other. When I looked up, I saw that the screaming bird was chasing a much bigger bird, drawing jagged shapes against the blue sky. The bigger bird could have flown away, or it could have turned on the smaller bird and knocked it out of the game entirely. It didn’t seem to want to do either, maybe as a point of pride. The smaller bird kept after it, screaming those same notes over and over again.

  You cannot do that, a voice coming from somewhere inside my overheated head. Never mind the flying. You can’t even make a sound like that. The most elemental thing that any bird or lowly animal can do … it is beyond your abilities.