by R. L. Maizes
A landscaping truck rattles to a stop in front of the house. Through a window, Zev sees two members of the crew enter the backyard. They trim acacia trees, their chainsaws tearing through branches. Any minute, one of them might see the shattered window. From a child’s bedroom, Zev spots a worker in front, too, spraying weeds that emerge from rock beds. He’s trapped.
Flattening himself against a wall, he listens for a sign the workers have noticed the break-in. If they do, they might summon the police. They might not call, too, having their own reasons for avoiding authorities, but it’s not a chance he can take. The sour stink of the Colorado jail—a mix of body odor, urine, and fear—fills his nostrils. The chainsaws fall quiet. When Zev peeks outside, two workers are gathered around the broken window. He can’t hear what they’re saying as they make their way toward the front yard, where he assumes they’ll tell the other member of the crew what they found.
Knowing his time is limited, he bolts downstairs and out the back door. He climbs into the foothills, darting around brush, his feet slipping on loose earth and rock, his lungs clamoring for air. He loses his hat, and the sun bakes his head. When he’s crested a hill and is no longer visible from the house, he looks back without stopping and trips, scraping his hands. He scrambles to his feet, his side aching. Though no one’s chasing him, he runs until his body rebels, then stops to rest. A lizard darts over the rocky earth.
As the sun climbs, heat shrink-wraps his skin, snakes into his lungs until he feels they must be burning. It’s deathly quiet. Jetliners streaming contrails pass through a pale sky, too high for their sound to reach him. A buzzard circles overhead, and Zev waves to let it know he’s still alive.
When he begins to descend, his knees protest. Eventually, he emerges onto a road. Relieved to be on flat land, he returns the battery to his burner phone and plots a course back to his car, keeping an eye out for the police and avoiding the block of the house he robbed. Dust coats his shoes, but he doesn’t stop to wipe them.
As he walks, a creature charges from the brush, huffing and barking, its flesh bristly and gray. He’s never seen anything as ugly, the devil himself in the form of a pig. Zev takes off but can’t outrun it. The animal gores his calf. He stifles a cry, afraid to draw the attention of homeowners. Swinging his bag, he catches it in the snout, slowing but not stopping it.
He runs down one block and then another, the animal following. Finally, he spots his car. Sweat drips down the side of his face. His knees pulse. As he reaches the door, a tusk pierces his ankle. Pain shoots up his leg. Drawing the wrench from his bag, he slams the creature’s head, and it staggers. Zev scrambles into the car and shuts the door, pressing the button for the automatic locks, though it’s doubtful the animal could operate the door handles. He drives off, blood dripping from his wounds onto the carpet. Rattlesnakes one day, wild pigs the next. The city’s Chamber of Commerce website failed to mention the unfriendly wildlife.
In his apartment, he does his best to clean himself. He doesn’t have a first-aid kit, so he improvises, washing the wounds with soap and water and wrapping them with napkins and the duct tape he bought because he knew he’d find a use for it. He stuffs his bloody pants into the kitchen trash.
At the gas station the car dealer recommended, Zev sells for too little what he stole, then drives until he comes to a bar. The place smells of cleanser and stale beer. A stool creaks and wobbles as Zev climbs on. He orders a Scotch from a tall, unshaven bartender with a grin that comes easily, part of the job.
The bartender sets the drink down. “How’s your day going?”
People should mind their own business. “I won the lottery.”
“Lucky you.”
It’s one in the afternoon. Zev’s injuries throb. Perhaps the close call with the landscapers and the encounter with the pig are signs he ought to retire his wrench and crowbar and focus on locksmithing. The price of getting caught has grown too high.
When the bartender offers a refill on the house, Zev nods. The guy’s increasing his tip at the owner’s expense, but why should Zev care?
Later that afternoon, he hobbles to the pool. Julia’s on her chair, wearing a green one-piece. Watching her, he trips over an uneven walkway. In the bright sunshine, he sees his new black swim trunks are a bad choice, accentuating highways of blue veins that run along his ashen legs. Though he picked up first-aid supplies and rebandaged his wounds, he still looks battle-scarred as he limps toward her.
“What happened?” She tilts her head and waits, a technique he imagines inspired others to talk. When it doesn’t work, she tries again. “How’d you hurt yourself?”
He plays with the tie on his swimsuit, tightening the loops. “You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Now I’m really curious.”
“I was getting in my car and a pig charged me. Twice.”
“Probably a javelina. You may have surprised a female near her babies. Where were you?”
Zev removes a twenty-ounce soda from a plastic bag and twists off the cap. “I was in the parking lot.”
“Strange. I haven’t seen them around here.”
He lies on the chair next to hers, cringing as his calf hits the rubber mesh.
“You still up for dancing?” she says.
He can almost feel his hand on the curve of her waist, but the pain in his leg is worsening. “Maybe another time.”
Her smile fades, but only momentarily. “How about a movie?”
He hasn’t forgotten the trouble he got into over the French film. “An American one?”
“Car chases and explosions. That’s what you want to see?”
“Sounds perfect.”
She lowers her sunglasses and gives him a dubious look, and he admires her eyes again. Adjusting her sun hat, she says, “There’s something I want to ask you.”
Zev prepares himself for another prying question. Ripples lap the side of the pool, trapping a yellow foam noodle against blue tiles.
“I’m having a dinner party,” she says. “I wonder if you’d like to be my guest.”
“A dinner party?” Soda slides down his windpipe, and he coughs.
“You okay?”
He nods, though he’s still having trouble breathing.
“Just a few friends. Next week. I’ll do all the cooking. You won’t have to do a thing.” She squeezes sunscreen from a tube and spreads it on her arms and legs though they already glisten.
Is that what people do with their time? When it’s so much easier to pop a frozen dinner into the oven? What will he talk about? “I’d rather not.”
She rubs lotion on her shoulders. Zev would offer to do her back but doesn’t want to seem presumptuous. “You could get to know some new people,” she says.
He doesn’t want to meet anyone new. He wants to go about life quietly, as he always has. After spending time with Julia, as much as he enjoys it, he always feels like he needs a nap. “I’m giving the cat a bath.”
“I haven’t even told you when it is.”
“Whenever it is, that’s when I’m giving her a bath. Besides, crowds are breeding grounds for diseases.” He read about it while waiting in line at the supermarket.
“I only invited four people.” Julia presses her water bottle to her neck. “Two couples. To tell you the truth, I feel awkward being the only single.” She looks toward the pool, her face drawn.
At the edge of the property, a prickly pear blossoms. The ostentatious yellow flower and the spiny cactus make an odd pair. “Okay,” he says. “Assuming I don’t get a call and have to work. Your friends may hate me, anyway.”
She squeezes his arm, and in the rush of her pleasure, he can’t remember why he hesitated. “They won’t hate you. Your taste in movies, maybe. But not you.”
16
Clem drops off the dogs on Friday. As La La walks them, Black stumbles stepping off a curb. The night swirls before La La’s eyes; the sky appears beneath her feet before righting itself. Helping Black up, La La notices how the whi
te in his fur has spread from his muzzle throughout his neck and chest.
Back at the house, she calls her mother’s number again. She hangs up after four rings, when she’s learned it will go to voice mail. Maybe Elissa’s taken Chloe to a movie. Bought her popcorn and a large soda. Or maybe Elissa recognizes La La’s number now and is avoiding her. Would it kill her to pick up just once? If only to tell La La to stop bothering her? The muscles in La La’s neck twitch. She flexes her hand, imagining the weight of a crowbar.
As La La changes into loose jeans, Blue trots by and snatches the yin-yang necklace from the dresser. La La extracts it, wet, from his mouth and drops it into her jewelry box. She slides her feet into men’s boots, then drives the Mercedes through a neighborhood of million-dollar homes she found on Zillow. Giant television screens flicker behind floor-to-ceiling windows. Residents move from one lit-up room to the next as La La follows their progress. A raccoon triggers a floodlight, turning a hidden corner of a property into a bright stage.
Nighttime is riskier. Most people are home and on alert. “Might as well call the cops yourself,” Zev used to say about working after five. But La La’s in the clinic during the day.
Passing a garden inhabited by ceramic frogs and gnomes barely visible in the moonlight, La La’s hand aches as if it’s broken. The house is dark and there’s no security system. As she rings the bell, she wonders in what condition she’ll find the animal. A dog begins to bark. Raucously. Unlike the reception she usually gets. “It’s okay, boy,” she says, but the animal continues to raise an alarm.
Retreating to the sidewalk, La La glances up and down the block. At the far end of the street, a black 4Runner idles. When she recognizes the vehicle, her legs weaken, and she stumbles back to her car. The bounty hunter nearly caught her breaking into the house. La La hadn’t even realized she was being followed. The woman must have hoped La La would lead her to Zev. Pain radiates through La La’s hand as she grasps the steering wheel. She feels for the animal but can’t go inside while being watched.
17
It takes Zev a week to round up the locksmith equipment he needs. On eBay, he finds used key copying and coding machines and sets them up in the trunk of his car. At a locksmith supply shop, he buys blank keys and an assortment of door and window locks and peepholes. He advertises his services on Craigslist. With Roger Cohen’s social security number, he opens a bank account.
His first call comes at two in the morning. Returning from a night out, a guy named Jackson discovered his lock was jammed. Zev pulls on clothes and a light jacket. The place is twenty minutes away. Through empty streets, he drives as fast as he can without speeding. A stray dog bites the edge of a fast-food bag but can’t pull it through the side of a mesh garbage can. The animal’s ribs stick out like iron fence rails. If Zev weren’t in a hurry, he would find the dog something to eat in honor of La La.
He looks forward to helping Jackson. When his customers in Colorado thanked him, Zev would say it was nothing, but he didn’t mean it. The job proved he was more than a burglar. For years, he thought about working exclusively as a locksmith and would have if the money he made stealing weren’t so much better, if he didn’t have La La to raise and get through school.
Perhaps Jackson will be so relieved to get back into the house, he’ll offer a tip on top of the fee. Zev will decline it, magnanimously, telling him the charge is fair. He’ll hand Jackson one of the cards he had printed with ROGER COHEN, SAFETY LOCK AND KEY, and his number in bold.
As Zev pulls over in front of the house, he sees a van, RELIABLE LOCKSMITH glowing on its side, and a guy in a jumpsuit already working on the lock. Hovering behind the locksmith is a man in stylishly torn jeans and black cowboy boots.
“Are you Jackson?” Zev asks, walking up to the door. “I drove twenty minutes to get here.”
“I was improving my odds.”
Zev turns his head to avoid the alcohol on Jackson’s breath. The guy in the jumpsuit doesn’t look up.
“Anyway, where’s your van?” Jackson says.
“I don’t need a fucking van. I should make you pay for my gas.”
“I don’t think you could make me do anything, old man.” When Jackson crosses his arms, his muscles strain against his black T-shirt.
“If you’re going to fight, pay me first,” the other locksmith says over his shoulder.
Zev can’t afford trouble. He just has to accept the night is a waste. It’s happened before, more often than he likes to remember. He’ll try to get there faster next time.
Driving back the way he came, he doesn’t see the hungry dog. Even if he did, he wouldn’t look for something to feed it. The expansive feeling he had is gone. Wide awake, he plugs the address of the Mesa Animal Shelter into his GPS, though what he hopes to see in the middle of the night he can’t say.
Pulling up to a plain, two-story brick building, he parks beneath a sign showing a cartoon dog and cat dancing. ADOPT DON’T SHOP is stenciled across the building’s front window and illuminated by floodlights. He thinks about the animals caged inside. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for anything locked up. Yet their chances of seeing Elissa are better than his.
He returns to his apartment, where Mo sleeps on the nightstand. “Fucking drunk customer,” he says to her as he undresses, but she doesn’t stir. If he doesn’t get a few jobs soon, he’ll have to return to stealing.
Tomorrow is Julia’s dinner party, and the idea of eating with strangers keeps him awake. Maybe he should cancel. He doesn’t know what she’s making. Probably something exotic, a part of an animal you were better off discarding. If he sees her at the pool, he’ll ask and beg off, claiming to be allergic. When at last he drifts into sleep, he’s not thinking of food at all, but of Julia, dozing with a magazine on her lap, her mouth open.
Although he lingers at the pool the next day, Julia never stops by, perhaps too busy preparing for company.
Arriving at her house empty-handed, he immediately realizes his mistake. One couple brought tulips and chardonnay; the other, a box of chocolate truffles. He’s dressed wrong, too. Wearing black pants, a white button-down shirt, and formal shoes—black lace-ups that he picked up at a thrift store and shined—he looks like a waiter. The other men are in shorts and polo shirts, flip-flops. Julia’s tulip-patterned dress looks like something she might throw over a bathing suit.
Dee-Dee runs over and sniffs him, then squats and pees on his shoe. Too late, Zev yanks his foot back, barely restraining the urge to punt the dog across the room. The puddle is so large, the tiny dog must have been waiting all day to empty her bladder.
“I’m so sorry. She’s just being submissive,” Julia says, and she retrieves wet paper towels from the kitchen. Zev tries not to inhale the sharp smell as he wipes his soaked laces. After washing his hands, he takes the glass of Scotch Julia offers and downs it. The evening is off to a thoroughly bad start.
Introducing him around, Julia says, “This is Roger Cohen, my new neighbor.” He would have preferred she said “friend.” Zev adds he’s a locksmith, something she didn’t volunteer, either intentionally or because she forgot.
The house is well kept (not as clean as his apartment, but few homes are), decorated with fresh flowers and watercolors. Sheer drapes hang motionless on the still night. Taking a mushroom stuffed with crabmeat from a tray, Zev surprises himself by liking it.
Paige, a broad-shouldered divorce lawyer with platinum hair, says to Zev, “I have one of your friends on speed dial.” Crystal sharks dangle from her ears.
“Same,” says her husband, Rick, a real estate agent. With his index finger, he traces the strip of beard on his chin.
“I guess you take whatever work comes your way. You can’t pick and choose. Get it? Pick and choose,” says Cam, a pale CPA with a bulbous nose.
“Funny,” Zev says.
Dee-Dee retires to her bed in a corner, but Zev keeps an eye on her.
“I called one of you guys a few months ago,” says Lana, Cam’s wi
fe, her eyebrows bunching. “Cam locked himself out while I was at a conference. On the phone, the man said it would cost eighty-five dollars, but when he got there, he charged three hundred fifty.” The stockbroker wipes her mouth, depositing the napkin on a shelf.
Zev collects the napkin and tosses it into the kitchen trash. “Maybe he couldn’t pick the lock, though most can be picked if you know what you’re doing.” It figures that when he offers an honest service, people suspect him of cheating. He refills his drink from a bottle on the granite island that separates the kitchen from the dining room.
“Show us,” Cam says, on his second Scotch, too. “Pick Julia’s lock.”
He isn’t a circus performer.
“You don’t have to,” Julia says.
“And it would be embarrassing if you couldn’t,” says Cam.
Zev takes a ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket. He breaks off the clip and bends the edge, improvising a tension wrench. He asks Julia for a bobby pin to use as a pick, and she plucks one from a kitchen drawer.
When she locks him out, he’s tempted to leave, and would if he didn’t promise to be her date. The night is quiet and cool. Alone, he relaxes. He doesn’t much like her friends. Inserting the clip, he turns it, putting a light tension on the cylinder core. He jabs in the bobby pin and draws it out, raising the pins inside the lock one by one. The door pops open.
“Impressive,” Paige says. “Dangerous skill in the wrong hands.”
“You think I should get a better lock?” Julia asks.
“I’ll install it for you,” Zev says. “No charge.”
While Julia prepares dinner, Zev sits on the couch, nursing his drink. The others discuss financial markets, a topic that doesn’t interest him. He’s never put a dime in stocks. He rarely has extra money and wouldn’t trust a broker not to steal it.