Lock Artist

by Steve Hamilton

I shook my head. No idea.

  He shook his head and handed me his crate.

  “I gotta do everything around here,” he said. Then he dove back down under the water.

  I had a big beach towel wrapped around my shoulders. I stared out the window as we drove back north along the coastline. Nobody said anything. Nobody was celebrating. Because even though we had all gotten out of there alive, our plan was still only half done.

  Two hours later, we were back at the house. Ramona and Lucy brought out their hair dryers and started in on the wet bills. Julian was back to his pacing. Gunnar sat on the couch, staring at his phone.

  “I hate this,” Julian finally said. “This is the part we have no control over.”

  But it’s the part I really care about, I thought to myself. It’s the only part that matters to me. I don’t care about the money.

  “My man is on it,” Gunnar said.

  “These guys know each other. They’re not going to believe that one of them would rip off the others.”

  “They hate each other, okay? They take this trip every year just so they can show each other up. You think they trust each other?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just—”

  “Why the hell do you think they bring their bodyguards with them? Eight mobsters, eight bodyguards, all armed to the teeth. Does that sound like a pleasure cruise to you? One little spark, my guy says. One little spark and boom.”

  “And he knows exactly what to do?”

  “Piece of cake,” Gunnar said. “Talk to all the other bodyguards, like hey, something’s funny here. I saw these guys carrying all of these boxes, throwing them overboard. There was this other boat I could see coming up in the distance. You don’t suppose they found out the combination to the safe, do you? He’ll sell the whole thing, don’t worry. Just like I told you. He’ll come by in a few weeks, by the way. He’ll be happy to find out his share got doubled.”

  “I still don’t think we should be sitting here. We should be moving, just to make sure.”

  “It’s as good as done,” Gunnar said. “Just relax.”

  So we kept waiting. When the money was dry, we put it all in the safe. That very same safe in the secret room, which Julian had bought for me to practice on before that first job in the Hollywood Hills. It was just big enough to hold eight million dollars in hundred-dollar bills.

  Then more waiting.

  Then more waiting.

  Then just after ten o’clock that night, Gunnar’s cell phone rang. He hit the button and listened. He didn’t say a word.

  When he finally hung up, he just looked at us, one by one.

  “It wasn’t pretty,” he said, “but it worked. The two men we wanted fed to the sharks got fed to the sharks.”

  Nobody said anything. We all knew exactly what we were doing, every step of the way. But now it was real. Two men were dead. Two men who wouldn’t be missed, of course. Two men that the world would keep revolving quite nicely without. Nevertheless they were both dead because we made it happen.

  Julian and Ramona hugged each other. Gunnar kept looking at his phone. Lucy came over to me and put a hand to my cheek. I turned away from her and walked out of the room.

  I went back to my little apartment next to the garage. This one little room, my home for the past year. I couldn’t help thinking back on all of the things that had happened here. All those times I had checked those pagers … Kept the batteries charged … my ritual, every single day. See if a call has come in. See if you’re needed somewhere. Call back immediately. Especially if it’s that red pager.

  No more.

  I was no longer owned by the man from Detroit. I would never again have to answer one of these pagers. My days as a safecracker for hire were over.

  I was free.

  The next day, I wrote a letter to Amelia. I actually had an address for her now, after all. Care of that dormitory in Ann Arbor. I didn’t fill up the letter with drawings this time. I didn’t try to capture everything that had happened the day before, with the boat and the money and me in the water. There’d be time for that later. For now, all I wanted her to know was that I was on my way back home.

  I figured we could work out the details when I got there. I mean, she was in art school, and I’d never take her away from that. Hell, maybe I could buy myself another new identity and start life over. Maybe even register for classes there. Buy a house not far from the school and have her live there with me. Anything was possible, right? I had money now, and there was no reason I couldn’t go back and make it all happen.

  I went out to mail the letter. When I had done that, I kept riding around on the motorcycle, amazed at how different it felt already. Not having to think about the pagers or the next big job. Or anything at all.

  Eventually, I rode down to the Santa Monica Pier and walked right out to the very edge. I leaned over the railing and looked down at the ocean.

  You can’t have me, either, I thought. Not even you.

  ______

  It was late afternoon when I rode back to the house. Already wondering how long it would take me to pack and say good-bye to them. Wondering what it would feel like to leave, knowing I’d probably never see them again.

  Until I went inside.

  I knew right away that something had happened. There were newspapers and magazines on the floor, like somebody had knocked them off the table. From somewhere upstairs, I could hear water running.

  The sound got louder as I went up the steps.

  I looked in Gunnar and Lucy’s bedroom first. There was nobody there. Nothing looked out of place.

  I went into Julian and Ramona’s bedroom. The mattress was slightly askew, like someone had pushed their way past the bed and not bothered to fix it. The sound of the water was louder now. It was coming from their bathroom. I didn’t want to open that door. But then I did. I had to.

  I stood there and let the whole scene wash over me. Julian. Ramona. Every little detail. The water running in the tub, mixing with their blood. I took it all in and then I closed the bathroom door.

  I bent over, feeling the blood rush to my head. I thought I would pass out right there. Then the feeling passed.

  How did this happen? Who did this?

  And who got it first?

  They brought them upstairs. They bent them over the edge of the bathtub. One by one. They blew the top of Ramona’s head off. Then Julian’s.

  Or did they do Julian first?

  That’s all I could think of. For some reason, it mattered to me.

  I wanted to know who went first.

  Then the very next thought … Where are Gunnar and Lucy? Are they dead, too?

  I went back across the hall to their room and pushed open their bathroom door, getting myself ready for another horrible sight. But no, it was empty.

  I went downstairs and back out the front door. I looked up and down the street. Then I went back around to my apartment. It was empty, too.

  You knew this had to happen, I told myself. In the back of your mind, you knew. Sure, you killed the man from Detroit and Sleepy Eyes. You killed them just as surely as if you had thrown them in the water yourself. But it’s not that easy. It’s never that easy. How could you ever think it would be?

  Somebody else figured out where the money went. That somebody else is hunting you down now. You don’t even know who he is. He, they, whoever. You have no idea in the world. All you know is that you’re dead. You’re as dead as Julian and Ramona. As dead as Gunnar and Lucy will be, wherever they are right now.

  You can’t even call them. You can’t warn them. You can’t do anything.

  There is one thing, I thought. There is one thing you can do.

  I took out the box of pagers, pushing them aside until I found the cell phone I had brought back with me from Michigan. The cell phone I had taken from my uncle’s kitchen counter. It was the first time I had even turned it on since coming back here. As I did, I saw that there were a dozen voice mail messages. Which didn’t surpr
ise me. If Banks found out I had been back in Michigan, and had taken this phone, he’d keep calling until he finally got through to me.

  I didn’t need to hear any of his messages right now. I knew what the general idea would be. Turn yourself in before it’s too late, I’m only trying to help you, same old story. I never believed it. But now, well … everything had just changed. The way Julian and Ramona had been killed—that would be me someday. If not today, someday soon.

  And if I really went back to Michigan, then it might be both of us. That same scene. Amelia and I together.

  I looked up the one single number stored on the cell phone and hit the TALK button. It rang twice. Then Banks answered.

  “Michael, is this you?”

  I kept the phone to my ear as I went back, stepping over Gunnar’s barbells on the way.

  “I’m glad you called. Here’s what I want you to do. Are you near a police station?”

  I went inside the house and sat down at the table.

  “Hello, Michael? Are you there? Just stay on the phone, okay?”

  That’s when I saw that the bookcase door was slightly open. The door to the secret back room. I ended the call and put the phone down on the table. I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then got up and went over to the bookcase.

  As I pulled it open, I saw Gunnar kneeling by the safe. Another man was standing over him.

  It was Sleepy Eyes.

  When he saw me, he drew out his gun and aimed it at my chest. Not that he had to worry. I was too surprised in that moment to do anything. He came over to me and pulled me into the room.

  “It’s about time,” he said to me. “Your friend here’s having a little problem with the safe.”

  “Michael and Lucy are always changing this combination,” Gunnar said. Which was true. She’d reset it and I would open it. Keeping up with my touch. “So he’s the one who can open it.”

  He was acting way too calm, I thought. He’s not being forced to do this.

  “Just open the safe.” Gunnar’s voice was totally flat, devoid of any feeling. “Don’t make this any harder.”

  “You didn’t even know,” Sleepy Eyes said, that sick little smile on his face. That smile I hated so much. “A Judas in your midst and you had no fucking idea.”

  That’s when it all started to make sense to me. Gunnar did have a contact on the boat. Sleepy Eyes. Everything else was an illusion. They set this whole thing up together.

  Why didn’t I see it coming? They were so much alike, now that I thought of it. They even sounded alike, the way they complained about always having to do the grunt work. Resenting everyone else around them. Gunnar just did a little better job of hiding it.

  “I’m not going to say I’m sorry,” Gunnar said to me. “Not to you, anyway. I believe I did tell you to stay away from Lucy, right? Did I not say that?”

  “Where is she, anyway?” Sleepy Eyes said. “That’s the little redhead, right?”

  “Look, you got everything you wanted,” Gunnar said. “You’ve got four million dollars coming. You even got rid of your boss.”

  So they did pull off that part of the plan. The man from Detroit is dead. For Sleepy Eyes, this whole day is a dream come true.

  “I asked you a question,” Sleepy Eyes said. “Where’s the redhead?”

  “She’s gone. Don’t worry about her.”

  She can’t be involved in this, I thought. Gunnar, I can almost believe. But Lucy? No way. He must have just kept her in the dark, and then sent her away when it was done. She’s probably waiting for him right now. Somewhere out there. With no idea of what happened here.

  Sleepy Eyes kept staring him down. Then he turned his attention back to me.

  “How about you?” he said. “You got any surprises for me?”

  I wish I did. A gun in my pocket, say.

  “So just open the safe, okay?”

  Gunnar stood up so I could take his place. I didn’t move.

  “I’ll ask you one more time,” Sleepy Eyes said. “Please open the fucking safe.”

  Nothing, I thought. You get nothing.

  Sleepy Eyes raised his gun to me. For the first time, I really looked at it. The barrel was so much longer with the suppressor screwed onto the end. It was the first time I had ever seen one.

  “Pretty please.”

  Then he turned and shot Gunnar between the eyes.

  It was a hollow sound, not at all like a real gunshot. It took me a moment to realize that it had even happened. Gunnar kept standing there for a long moment, a look of surprise on his face. Part of his forehead suddenly gone and a splatter of red on the wall behind him. Then he went down.

  “Open the safe,” Sleepy Eyes said. “Right now.”

  I kept standing there in front of him. Going all the way back in my mind, to that robber in the liquor store, remembering the way he held that gun. More scared of it than we were.

  How different it was now. All these years later, another man and another gun, but this man wasn’t scared at all. He would shoot me as calmly as a man turning on a television.

  “I’m going to put a bullet in your left leg,” he said. “Then your right leg. I’ll keep going until you have the safe open. Do you understand?”

  I still didn’t move.

  “I’ve done it before. My record is twelve shots. With a reload. It was a man who wouldn’t type in a password on a computer, but same idea. Would you like me to try for thirteen today?”

  He pointed the barrel at my left leg. That got me moving finally. I went down on one knee and started spinning the dial.

  “I always kinda liked you,” he said. “I hope you know that.”

  Four spins to the left. Three to the right. As soon as I turn this handle, I thought, he’s going to kill me. I think that’s pretty much guaranteed.

  Two spins to the left.

  I was one more spin away from dying. Hell, if he knew about safes, he could have killed me right then and just made the final spin himself until it stopped.

  I spun a few more times to the left. Time to start over.

  “Stop with the stalling, okay? Just open it.”

  I cleared the numbers, spun again, four to the left, three to the right, two to the left. I looked up at him.

  He gave me that little smile.

  I spun the dial to the right. Now all I had to do was turn the handle.

  The voice came from the open bookcase door. “Drop the gun.”

  Sleepy Eyes looked up.

  “Drop it. Right now.”

  Harrington Banks stepped slowly into the room, his gun still aimed squarely at Sleepy Eyes’s chest. I could see three more men behind him, with enough firepower to cut him in half.

  Sleepy Eyes gave me one last little smile before he dropped his gun.

  It was the cell phone that had brought them there. I know this now, about how when a cell phone is left on you can track the signal to its approximate location. It brought them to the right block, at least. All they had to do was work their way through the houses until they got to this one. If it had been one more house, I probably would have been dead already.

  A few minutes later, Sleepy Eyes was taken away in handcuffs. Banks took me out to the table and sat me down. He asked me if I wanted something to drink. I shook my head.

  I wouldn’t get to see Amelia again. That was the only thing I was thinking about. I wouldn’t get to keep my promise.

  “You’re a hard man to catch up to,” Banks said to me, “but I’m glad you called.”

  When we all stood up, one of his partners started to cuff me.

  “Don’t even bother,” Banks said. “No need to embarrass ourselves.”

  Twenty-seven

  Still Locked Up Tight

  but Another Day Closer

  *

  So I come back to where I began. I’ve been right here in this cage for almost ten years now. Ten years. Do you remember what I said about how this all works, back when I was arrested that first time? You
get on the wrong side of the law, it turns into three or four people all getting together to decide what to do with you. Nothing more.

  In my case, I had a few things going for me. I was the Miracle Boy, first of all. The product of a broken home. Traumatized. Psychologically damaged. Beyond that, well, I was doing things that weren’t completely voluntary, if you looked at it the right way. I mean, if you squinted real hard and held your head a little sideways … I was a teenager practically brainwashed into being a safecracker, right? I did not fully understand the full ramifications of what I was doing.

  You get the picture. That’s how my lawyer played it. That same lawyer who got me the probation after that first breakin.

  But my strongest card of all was what I could tell them about the jobs I did and who I did them for. Or even the jobs where I was just along for the ride. Especially that assemblyman in Ohio. They were particularly interested in that one. The orders came from Sleepy Eyes’s boss, of course, the same man who was my boss. The same man who owned us all, and who was now very much dead. But Sleepy Eyes himself? He was a much bigger fish than I was. He was as big as that fish hanging on Mr. Marsh’s wall.

  Funny how it works out, huh? Because of Gunnar’s double-cross, Sleepy Eyes ended up living. And in the end he was worth a lot more to me alive than dead.

  Add it all up and I was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of at least ten years and no more than twenty-five. I was eighteen years old when I was arrested. Nineteen by the time I was finally sentenced. I ended up right here, and you should have seen these people for that whole first month, treating me like I was the amazing Houdini, able to escape from any prison in the world. Like I’d actually be able to break my way through my cell door, then the block door, then the wing door, and probably seven other doors before I got to the outside world. It was almost laughable.

  But like I said, ten to twenty-five. Leaning toward ten, I’d like to think. And ten’s just about up. So now I’m in the zone, right? Any day now, I could get the news.

  Any day now.

  I’ve had a lot of time to think, of course. What else am I going to do? I play everything back and I see the places where I could have gone down another road. How that would have made everything turn out differently.