The Lock Artist (45 page)

I didn’t see Banks again. Either he was no longer watching the store, or else he was getting better at hiding it. I’d look around for him, and then I’d open the door with the key the Ghost had given me, stumble over the junk in the darkness, and spend a couple of hours spinning in the back. All the while I’d keep imagining that I was hearing footsteps.

The last few days of summer went by. Then it was time to go back to school. I was a senior at Milford High now, remember, and Amelia was a senior at Lakeland. Along with good old Zeke. So that first day back at school was tough. Griffin was long gone to Wisconsin, and even my old art teacher was nowhere to be seen. He was out with some sort of chronic fatigue syndrome and wouldn’t be back on the job until God knows when. So we had a long-term substitute art teacher, some sixty-year-old ex-hippie with gray hair down his back. Who was way more into three-dimensional art than “flatlander art,” as he called it.

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 about 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.