Lock Artist

by Steve Hamilton

  I went back and got the bike and pushed it down the sidewalk to where he stood, holding the door open. It was so dark inside the store, it was like rolling the motorcycle into a cave.

  He closed the door behind us and kicked something aside. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust, but when they did I saw a huge collection of scrap metal, old furniture, cribs and high chairs, a couple of refrigerators standing side by side. Basically it looked like a good portion of the city dump had been transferred here.

  “This way,” he said. I kickstanded the bike and followed him back through the store. He traced his way down a mazelike path through the junk to another door, through which I could see the flickering blue light of a television set. There was a faint haze of dust in the air that I could almost taste.

  “I’m closed on Mondays,” he said. “Reason the lights are off. I’d offer you a beer, but I’m fresh out.” There was a better selection of junk in this second room. Besides the television, there were probably a few hundred items stacked on floor-to-ceiling shelves. A washboard, an iron, some old green bottles. Stuff like that. A few shelves on one wall were bulging with books. This whole place had so much more junk than the junk store back in Milford. I wondered why all the better items seemed to be hidden away here in the back room. But more than that, I wondered why I was sent here.

  “They said you don’t talk much.” He was standing next to a desk that didn’t have one free square inch on it. There were a dozen lamps on it, along with cigar boxes and trophies and a three-foot-high Statue of Liberty. The man slid the statue in just far enough to give himself a surface to lean on.

  “They call me the Ghost,” he said.

  Yes, I thought. That makes sense. Just look at you.

  “That’s the only thing you can ever call me. Are we understood? To you, I’m the Ghost. Or Mr. G. Nothing else.”

  The dust and mildew were starting to get to me. That plus the fact I still had no idea what the hell was going on here, or what was expected of me.

  “You really don’t talk. They weren’t kidding.”

  I was thinking maybe it was time to ask the Ghost for some paper so I could write out a few questions, but he was ready to move on.

  “This way. I’ve got something you might like to see.”

  He pushed open another door. I followed him down a short hallway, squeezing my way past several bicycles until we came to yet another door.

  When he opened it, we were outside. Or rather half outside. There was a makeshift awning above us, long strips of green plastic with gaps here and there that let the sun in. It ran all the way to the back fence, which was overrun with thick sumac and poison ivy.

  “Here we go.” He pushed through a collection of old lawn mowers, past a rusted-out barbecue grill. He picked up an iron gate, something that looked like it came from a haunted mansion somewhere, and moved it aside. He was surprisingly strong for a pale old man who looked like a retired English professor.

  He stepped aside and ushered me into this small clearing within the greater chaos. There, arranged in a perfect circle, were eight safes of various heights, their combination dials facing the center. It was like a Stonehenge of safes.

  “Not bad, eh?” He walked the circle, touching each safe one by one. “Every major brand. American, Diebold, Chicago, Mosler, Schwab, Victor. This one here’s forty years old. That one over there is new, hardly ever been used. What do you think?”

  I did a slow 360, looking at all of the safes.

  “Take your pick,” he said.

  What, he wanted me to pick out a safe? So I could take it home, strapped on my back while I rode my motorcycle?

  He put his reading glasses on again. He tilted his head so he could peer over the lenses at me. “Come on, let’s see you do your thing.”

  My thing, he says. He wants me to do my thing. This man actually wanted me to open one of these safes.

  “Today would be good.” He stood there in the green-tinted shade, finally taking his glasses off and letting them dangle from his neck again. I stood there. I didn’t move.

  “Are you going to open one of these safes,” he said, speaking very slowly, as if to a simpleton, “or aren’t you?”

  I went to the safe closest to me, one of the tall boys. It was as big as a Coke machine. The combination dial was a finely engineered machine of polished metal, like something you’d see on a bank vault. I grabbed the handle next to the dial and gave it an experimental pull. Yet more finely engineered metal said fuck you and did not move the slightest fraction of an inch.

  “All right, now you’re joking around, right? Now you’re being a comedian?”

  I looked at him. What on earth could I possibly do here? How could I communicate that this was all a big mistake? How could I make this man believe that I was sent here because of two absolute morons and that I was simply wasting his time?

  A few more seconds of us both standing there, and at least the bottom line became clear to him. “You can’t open any of these, can you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then what the fuck are you doing here?”

  Hands up. I don’t know.

  “I cannot even believe this. You have got to be fucking kidding me. They’re gonna send this kid over. He’s a natural, they say. An absolute natural. He’s the Golden Boy.”

  He turned away from me, walked away a few paces, and then came back at me.

  “You’re the Golden Boy, all right. You fucking—”

  He stopped and seemed to be working very hard to contain himself.

  “Okay. Count to ten here, huh? The Golden Boy ain’t so golden. It’s not the end of the world.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, put two fingers from each hand on his temples, and started rubbing in little circles. He took a few deep breaths and then opened his eyes.

  “You’re still standing here,” he said. “Why is that? Are you seriously trying to make me have an aneurism?”

  I took a step toward the door, not sure I could even find my way back through the maze.

  “There you go! Now you’ve got it. You can’t open a safe, but you know when to leave. Give you credit for that.”

  He pushed by me and led me through the lawn mowers and barbecue grills. When he opened the back door, we were plunged into darkness again, and I almost killed myself on the gauntlet of bicycles in the hallway.

  “Graceful, too! What a bonus. I’m so glad you came to visit today.”

  He hurried me through the television room and through the main room to the front door.

  “Get your bike, Golden Boy.”

  He held the door open for me while I fumbled with my motorcycle and then finally wheeled it outside.

  “That’s right,” he said when I was finally on the sidewalk. “Get the fuck out of here and don’t come back.”

  He closed the door behind him and that was it. A rousing success! It was hard to see with all the confetti and streamers flying around.

  What the hell, I thought. If that was a job interview, I was kinda glad I hadn’t passed. I rolled the bike to the street and started it. Then I was flying up Grand River, honestly believing that I’d never return.

  I drove right back to the Marshes’ house. I went in through the front door, went up the stairs. I knocked on her door. She was either out somewhere, or else she just didn’t want to deal with anybody right now. Even me.

  I turned to go back down the stairs and saw her standing at the bottom.

  “What are you doing?” she said. “Why did you come back?”

  I went down the stairs.

  “Where did you go, anyway?”

  A pen, I thought. Paper. Why the hell don’t I carry them around with me?

  “Michael, what are you doing for my father?”

  I made a writing motion. Let me tell you.

  “I probably don’t even want to know, right?”

  I tried to grab her by the shoulders. No, not grab her. Just put one hand on each shoulder so she’d stand
there and stop talking for one minute while I found something to write on. She pushed my hands away.

  “I should have seen right through this,” she said. “I mean, I know he’ll do anything to get what he wants. But look at you. One day he’s trying to kill you. You have to break into the house at night just to see me. The next day, all of a sudden you’re his right-hand man. Invited to the family barbecue … You’re the Golden Boy.”

  Again with the Golden Boy. Where did this come from all of a sudden?

  “I was the prize, wasn’t I? whatever you’ve done for him, I’m your reward.”

  Now’s the time, I thought. Time to speak. Make a sound. Anything. Do it right now. Just do it.

  “Don’t you get it? He’s going to drag us down with him. Both of us.”

  Open your mouth. Right now. Let it come out.

  “I can’t be here anymore. Not one more minute.”

  You stupid fucking mutant freak. Say something!

  She tried to push past me. I grabbed her arm. For real this time.

  “Let go. Please.”

  I took her hand, lacing my fingers into hers. I pulled her through the door and out into the driveway.

  “What are you doing?”

  I took the helmet off the seat of my motorcycle and tried to put it on her head.

  “What is this? Where did this motorcycle come from?”

  I held the helmet out to her, waiting for her to put it on.

  “I’m not wearing that.”

  I threw it into the grass and got on the bike. I started it. I moved up to the front of the seat and waited for her. I didn’t even look back. I just waited.

  Finally, I felt her climbing onto the back of the bike. I felt her hands slipping around my waist. Yes, I thought. If this is the only good thing I’ll get to feel all day … I’ll take it. This moment right here.

  “Take me away,” I heard her say behind me. “I don’t care where we go. Just take me away.”

  I knew I couldn’t do it yet. Not for real. Not forever. But for one day … a few stolen hours … yes. We could get as far away from here as this bike would take us.

  I put it in gear and we took off down the street.

  Twenty

  Los Angeles, Arizona

  July, August, September 2000

  *

  As the summer came to Southern California, everyone was back in their holding patterns. Julian and Ramona were selling fine wine and looking for the next mark. Gunnar was doing his tattoos and grumbling about how slow and careful Julian and Ramona were being. Lucy had given up her painting by then. She tried to learn to guitar for a while. Then after maybe one week of that, she started spending a lot more time with Gunnar down at his tattoo parlor. She had finally decided to learn the craft herself. So I was on my own a lot more during the day. I’d either spin my locks or draw. Or I’d get on my bike and go out riding around in the city.

  Then I got another call on the green pager. The last time around, they had asked for the Ghost, remember, and had freaked out when I didn’t say anything. So I wasn’t expecting much this time. But when I called the number, the man on the other end gave me an address in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was less than four hundred miles away, a straight shot down I-10, so I got on my bike and hit the road. Five and a half hours later, I was sitting outside a gas station on Indian School Road, drinking as much water as I could physically get down my throat. I finally got off the bike and sat down with my back against the hard brick wall. When I woke up, the sun was in my eyes.

  I waited around for another hour or two. Until the temperature had once again climbed over 110. Then I got on the bike and headed back to Los Angeles.

  Six more hard hours on the road, and when I got back I could feel the tension in the air. Julian and Gunnar had been fighting again.

  “Oh, and this guy,” Gunnar said when I walked in the door. “This guy gets to go out and do freelance jobs any time he wants! He gets a call, and boom, he’s out of here! Opening up a safe for somebody else, making money. While I have to sit here playing with myself, waiting for you to put something together.”

  It was a bad day to hit me with that line. I didn’t care if he could kill me with his bare hands, I went right up to him, took out my wallet from my back pocket, and took out whatever money I had. A few twenties. A hundred bucks, maybe. I slapped the money against his chest and walked out.

  The next day, I went out to the backyard and picked up one of Gunnar’s low-tech barbells. It was a metal pipe with sandbags tied to each end. I tried curling it a few times. Then I saw Gunnar come charging out of the house. I put the barbell down, figuring I’d just earned myself a hard lesson in keeping my hands off other people’s property. Instead he picked up the bar and gave it back to me.

  “Didn’t anybody ever teach you to do this the right way?”

  He showed me the correct form for a biceps curl. Feet hip-width apart, chest out, abs tight, back straight, elbows tucked into my sides. Keep the elbows still, pause and contract at the top. Inhale on the way down.

  “It’s about damned time you worked out,” he said to me. “I need you to keep up with me when we’re out on a job.”

  Then he made me reverse with the triceps. Everything in balance, he told me. From that day on he became my personal trainer. He started killing me in the backyard every other morning. I mean absolutely killing me. I think it’s safe to say he enjoyed it.

  Until that one morning …

  I was doing bench presses with his iron pipe, cinder blocks chained to each end. The pipe a little too thick to grip properly and the cinder blocks threatening to swing over and bash me in the head. Why he never got real weights, I’d never know. God knows he had the money now.

  In any case, he was spotting me and I was working hard. I was getting toward the end of my set. We had our shirts off in the morning sun. The bench was nothing but a wooden plank set on more cinder blocks. He hardly ever talked to me when we were working out, but today was the exception.

  “I suppose Julian told you the story about the man from Detroit.”

  I was breathing hard, holding the pipe just above my chest and getting ready to lift it again.

  “He told you how he met him? How they went out on his boat? Checked out the safe and everything? What did you think of that?”

  I squinted as I looked up at him. What the hell was he talking about?

  “Think about it. This guy comes through with four million dollars cash in his safe. Julian goes on board and gets busted trying to case out the boat, right? Guy puts a gun to his head, makes him piss in his pants? Takes all his wine and cigars? Does that seem a little funny to you?”

  I couldn’t get up. Not with the weight on my chest. I was trapped there until he finished his pitch. Every last word of it.

  “You know what we could do, Mike? When that boat comes back through this year … you and I could sneak on board and take all of that fucking money. What do you think?”

  I started shaking my head. No. You’re crazy. No.

  “I know this guy owns you, Mike. I know that. I know he’s supposed to be real scary, too. I’m just saying … if somebody would finally grow a set of balls around here, we could take this guy down.”

  I kept shaking my head.

  “I’m not afraid of him,” Gunnar said. He finally pulled the bar off my chest. “I’m not afraid of anybody.”

  I sat up and started to put my shirt on.

  “What if I told you I’ve developed another contact on the boat? Somebody who could help us.”

  I stopped.

  “Somebody who works for one of the other players. I know Julian thinks he’s the only one who can put these things together. Like the rest of us aren’t smart enough. But this guy, I’m telling you … he’s in the same position we are, you know? Always having to answer to somebody. He gets tired of it. Just like you do, I’m sure. So when we got talking, it was like, hey, maybe we can work something out. Something that’ll be great for all of us.”
>
  I stood up and walked away.

  “Just think about it,” he said. “We’ve got some time. Just think about it.”

  There was nothing to think about. It was insanity. It was suicide. But Gunnar wouldn’t let it go. He kept hitting me with it, whenever we were alone.

  “He treats you like a dog,” he said to me once. Talking about the man from Detroit, of course. Like he could see the image I’d always had in my mind. Me being the dog with no place to sleep, who nevertheless had to come running whenever the master called.

  “Maybe for once in your life you should think about biting the hand that feeds you.”

  ______

  Around the end of that month, the green pager went off again. I walked down to that same pay phone and called the number. Even though I was expecting the same clowns who had made me ride all the way out to fucking Scottsdale, Arizona, for nothing.

  But no, it wasn’t them this time.

  “Michael, it’s Banks. Are you there?”

  What the hell?

  “I know you can’t speak. I apologize, I didn’t know that last time. I didn’t know anything about you. Now I do, and you’ve got to listen to me.”

  I was standing on Santa Monica Boulevard. Traffic crawling by me on a hot summer night.

  “The men who called you on this number before … They’re out of the game now. For good. The same thing’s gonna happen to everybody, sooner or later. Are you hearing me? If you trust me, I can get you through this. I’ll do everything I can to help you. I know you must feel like you don’t have a choice anymore. But you do.”

  The half-dirty air coming in off the ocean. The sound of the cars. My own heart beating hard in my chest.

  “Your uncle is worried about you, Mike. Your uncle Lito. I talked to him. He wants you to come home.”

  I pressed my forehead against the glass.

  “I’m in California now, Mike. I know you’re here, too. Let me give you an address.”

  I hung up the phone and walked back to the house.

  The summer went by. September came, but the heat didn’t break. There was one day … one slow, hot afternoon. Gunnar was at the tattoo parlor. Lucy was in my apartment, watching me draw. She seemed a little rattled, which probably meant she had gotten into another fight with Gunnar. She liked to hang out with me whenever she was upset, because she knew I wouldn’t start peppering her with questions. Or with advice on how to improve her life. She kept watching me for a while. Then she asked me if I had any drawings I could show her.