The Lockpicker

by Leonard Chang

  If Jake stared long enough at the pilot light, then turned towards the darkness and let his eyes adjust, something happened to his vision. He could see in the dark. He saw movement, images, shapes. He saw the bugs crawling in the corner of the floor. He saw the ghostly ripples of trolls and goblins creeping along the wall. Sometimes they stopped, startled that he could see them. They looked at him. He looked at them. They tip-toed away.

  He heard his mother sobbing, pleading in Korean. His father yelled something that he couldn’t understand. Eugene knew more Korean than Jake did, though Eugene never translated the arguments. He did teach Jake some curses, and Jake recognized them when his father bellowed at his mother. Those were easy to understand.

  11

  Jake watched Rachel take off her sweatshirt, revealing her tight-fitting spandex two-piece suit, the black and yellow top hugging her chest, the black shorts painted over her.

  He thought, Whoa.

  Her calves and thighs were beginning to get the same sculpted look her arms had, and when she leaned to the side to drop her sweatshirt in a cubby reserved for members, stretching so that a curved line ran from her hand through her arm, torso, and to her foot, Jake thought of geometry. He wanted to run his hand along that curve. He tried not to think about the fact that he hadn’t had sex in many months. The last time was with a waitress at the restaurant, an alcohol-induced fling that they both regretted immediately, but they had remained friendly.

  Rachel motioned for him to follow, and he did. The muggy gym, low-tech and filled with old free weights and dirty Universal machines, was poorly ventilated, and he broke out in a sweat. He saw half a dozen Hercules clones glance up at them as they moved to a set of machines at the back. Then he remembered that this was a gay gym, and he felt self-conscious. Did they think the straights were taking over? Maybe they thought he was gay.

  “How’d you find this place?” he asked Rachel. “Accident, really. And it’s the cheapest gym around.”

  “It looks old.”

  “Yes, but it has everything I need.” She waved to the weights, then pointed to the treadmills and Stairmasters near the window.

  “Can I say you look really good? Two years of this?”

  “About two years.”

  “What about Eugene?”

  She shook her head. “I brought him here once, but he never came back.”

  “Why?” Jake asked. “Not because it’s a gay—”

  “No. Look at how fit everyone is. He felt awful, really almost embarrassed.”

  Jake looked around. It was true, not one ounce of excess fat in this place. Suddenly Jake felt out of shape. He realized there were no women except for Rachel. He mentioned this to her.

  She laughed. “There are a few regulars, but no, there aren’t that many here.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. But the women here are in better shape than I am.”

  “Really,” he said too quickly.

  Rachel smirked. “Down, boy.” Jake bowed his head contritely.

  They began to alternate on the Universal, spotting each other and talking quietly. Grunts and heavy breaths from across the room punctuated the rhythmic whirring of an oscillating fan by an open window. There was no music. It felt religious. He stared at the sweat collecting on the back of Rachel’s neck as she did lat pull-downs, the front of her top flaring out whenever she raised her arms.

  He asked her politely about work, about how she was doing, and she answered with a shrug. They moved onto the shoulder press and switched off sets. Jake asked how bad things were for Eugene at work. She said, “He doesn’t talk about it anymore. I think pretty bad.”

  “Maybe I’ll drop by tomorrow. I’ve never seen the place.”

  “ManageSoft? It’s just a big office.”

  “I know. But I never quite got what he did for a living. I mean, you’re a banker—”

  “I manage tellers. Just a pencil pusher. And not for long.”

  “But at least I understand it.” They switched positions.

  “I’m a glorified cashier,” she said.

  He began his set. “Whatever. For Eugene, I’m not sure.” He felt a stitch in his groin, and paused. The pain subsided and he continued pulling down the bar.

  “You should visit. Maybe you can scope out his girlfriend.” Jake stopped. “What?”

  “There’s a woman at work who’s hot for him.”

  “No way.”

  She laughed. “Yes way.” She mimicked a high voice, “Oh, Eugene, you know so much about everything.”

  “Eugene? Our Eugene?”

  “Yes. He won’t admit it. He pretends I’m imagining it.”

  “Are you?”

  “Whenever I see this woman, she looks like she wants to slip a knife between my ribs.”

  “Wow. Eugene the stud.”

  “One of these days, he’s going to take her up on it.”

  Jake glanced at the mirror, checking Rachel’s expression. She was half-serious. They exchanged places, and Rachel continued her set. He noticed that she was hunching her back as she grew tired, so he pressed his palm against her spine. She straightened and thanked him. “I don’t know if it’d be such a bad thing, with this woman,” she said.

  “No, you can’t mean that.”

  “Why not? He claims to be so unhappy with me. Let him try someone else for a while.”

  “You want that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, slapping the weights down too hard. They moved to the chest press. As Jake lay down on the bench, Rachel laughed. “Don’t listen to me. I’m just rambling.”

  “He says he’s unhappy with you?”

  “We shouldn’t be talking about this.”

  He looked up. She didn’t appear to mean this, so he pursued it with, “What could he possibly be unhappy about with you?”

  “You should check his list.”

  “He has a list?”

  “Well, we went to counseling for a while and were supposed to write down things that bother us about each other. Things that we said or did or just the way we were.”

  “And you kept one too?”

  “I started to.”

  “And what was on your list?” he asked.

  She grinned. “Oh, just small things, but we stopped going to counseling.”

  “Why?”

  “Things got crazy at work for both of us,” she said. “Though I suspect he’s still writing his.”

  Jake nodded. His brother was always meticulous about homework, and of course Eugene would continue writing down Rachel’s faults.

  He mentioned this to Rachel, who said quickly, “Yes! No kidding! He has everything on his phone. I’m talking everything. Once he left it on and I saw a daily list. You know what was on it?”

  Jake waited.

  “Seducing me was on it. Getting me flowers, wine, all that.”

  “Why?”

  “Something the counselor told us, but on the screen I was listed right after oil change. I’ll never forget that.”

  “He probably didn’t mean anything bad by that—”

  “I know, I know. I’m sure it was time sequence, that he’d go to the oil place after work, then pick up stuff for me that night, but still.”

  “He needs that structure.”

  “I know. He tries to have everything in place,” Rachel said. “Believe me, I know.”

  “Well, I’d have blocked out the whole day,” Jake said, and winked.

  She turned to him. “But you don’t do that, keep lists.”

  “No. I’m not that organized.”

  “Where did Euge get it from? Your parents?”

  Jake shrugged.

  “Your mother?”

  “Maybe. I didn’t know her that well.”

  “How old were you again when she left?”

  “Eight,” he said, surprised that she brought this up again. He asked, “Your father died when you were young, didn’t he?”

  “Fifteen,” she said, moving to
wards the freeweights and dumbbells. Jake followed. They were going to work on their arms. Biceps, triceps, deltoids. Rachel rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck. When she arched her back and stretched her arms behind her, one hand grabbing and pulling the other, Jake remembered she was an only child, and pictured her as a fifteen-year-old, lanky and awkward, her long, messy hair falling over her face.

  She said, “Most of the men in my family died young. My father had a massive heart attack. My uncle was hit by a truck. My grandfather was killed in World War II.”

  “What about the women?”

  “They live forever. My great grandmother is still alive. The women survive. The men blow up.”

  They used different weights, and worked out next to each other, both facing the mirror. After a few minutes of silence, Jake asked, “What did he tell you about our parents?”

  She focused on her reflection, lifting her dumbbell unsteadily for a difficult set. Jake saw the sweat trickle down her chest. He leaned over and spotted her for the rep, helping her with the final couple of inches. She let the weight down slowly. “Thanks.” Sitting down on the bench and breathing heavily, she said, “That your father was a little crazy. Some of this came out in the counseling sessions. It was surprising how we learn things from our parents’ marriage.”

  Jake wasn’t sure what that meant. What could Eugene and he have learned from their parents? Don’t get married. Simple lesson. What else? Don’t beat your wife. Jake turned to Rachel, startled. He said, “Eugene doesn’t get…physical, does he?”

  “What? God, no. I didn’t mean that. No, I meant how our conception of marriage gets formed by what we see.”

  “Sounds like head-shrinking talk.” She smiled. “Maybe.”

  They did the triceps, flys, and forearm curls in silence. Someone went on the Stairmaster and the high-pitched whirring drowned out the other sounds. It was beginning to get crowded and Jake realized this was the after-work rush. He wasn’t used to the schedule of commuters, since his job at the restaurant peaked during the evenings and weekend afternoons. Because of this, his gym was never crowded when he went there in the late mornings, and he never seemed to wait on lines at the grocery or the drug store.

  Although he had been trying to find a normal routine in Seattle, trying cut down the number of jobs and not get greedy, he found that he also liked the excitement. He felt more present. More real. He liked being on the move. This worried him.

  12

  Jake met Bobby Null at Chih’s on a weekday afternoon. First impressions: Bobby was too young—he had a restless look and couldn’t seem to keep still, his leg shaking, his feet tapping. He kept running his fingers through his hair and looking around, never quite meeting Jake’s eyes. They talked in Chih’s back room; the front door chimes rang every few minutes as tourists walked in and out. Bobby took off his windbreaker and sat down. “All right,” he said.

  He was lean and sinewy, his skin pulled tightly over his face and neck. He stood up to turn his chair around, straddling the backrest and resting his forearms on the top. He searched in his jacket for his cigarettes and shook one out. “You mind?” he asked Jake.

  Jake shrugged.

  Bobby said, “Chih said you knew my brother.”

  “A while ago. Back when he was working as a security guard at the card club.”

  “Shit, that was a while ago.”

  “I didn’t know he had a younger brother.”

  “Yeah. We didn’t get along.”

  “Sorry to hear about the shooting.”

  “He was stupid.” He inhaled deeply, and Jake heard the tobacco sizzling.

  “What’ve you got?” Jake asked.

  “Chih said you’re not really doing much anymore.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Losing your nerve?”

  Jake smiled. Man, this kid was young. He said, “Just being more careful.”

  “So what’re you doing now?”

  “Not much.” This reminded him of the restaurant and he glanced at his watch. He said, “But I’ve got things to do.”

  Bobby nodded. “All right. Here it is. There’s this old couple who run a jewelry store—”

  “Where?”

  “Next to the U-district. What is it, Laurelhurst?”

  “Okay,” Jake said.

  Bobby told him how he had been checking out different jewelry stores downtown, but the security, like Chih’s store, was really good. So Bobby looked towards less dense areas, more suburban-type neighborhoods, and found this one store, Good Luck Jewelry, that had expensive, upscale diamonds and gold, but was mom-and-pop enough for him to look closer. “So I watched the store for a while, checking out how busy it is, and what kind of security they have, and get this, every Saturday night when they close, they take most of the stuff and bring it home.”

  “That’s not unusual.”

  “I know, but this is a couple of old people. So I wonder maybe I can hit them in the car, on their way home or something.”

  Jake shook his head.

  “I know. Not smart. There are always a lot people around. So I follow them and check out their routines. Here’s the thing. They go to church every Sunday. They leave their house empty all day. The jewels and stuff is there, with no one home.”

  “All day? Who goes to church all day?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a Korean church further downtown—”

  “Korean church? These are Koreans?”

  “Yeah. That’s how I know they’ll be gone all day. I checked out the church.”

  “Is that why Chih set us up? Because I’m Korean?”

  “Huh? No. I don’t know. I don’t give a shit.”

  Jake nodded. An old Korean couple. This bothered him more than it should have. He said, “Tell me the address of the store and the house. I’ll check it out and let you know.”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Jake said, “No. I want to check it out alone. We’ll meet back here in a week—”

  “A week? That’s too long.”

  “I want to see what happens this Sunday.”

  “I told you what happens. Why you got to wait so long?”

  “I don’t know you, I don’t know how much you missed. I need to check it out myself.”

  “How do I know you’re not going to hit it yourself?”

  “You don’t. But if what you’re saying is right, the house is probably loaded and it’s a two-man job.”

  “And we’re going half—straight down the middle, right?”

  “Even though I’m going to do most of the work?”

  “I found it all.”

  “We go half after Chih takes off the top.”

  “He takes how much off the top?”

  “Ten percent.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Jake turned sharply towards him. “Fucking over the guy who connected us isn’t very smart, and he’s the only fence I trust.”

  “He’s gonna shaft us for the jewelry anyway.”

  “Not me, he won’t. I’ve been working with him for a while.” Bobby frowned.

  His skin looked as if it might rip over his cheekbones—a skull with fragile skin. The skull said, “Whatever. You deal with him then.”

  Jake stared at the talking skull. Jake could never resist an easy hit. He had promised himself he would try to slow down, but this might be a gift. At the very least, he should check out the store and the jeweler’s house.

  13

  There were no showers at the gym, one reason why membership dues were cheap, so Jake and Rachel walked home sweaty, chilled by the evening air. Jake felt his muscles tingling, the aches already setting in. He hadn’t worked out this hard in months. He and Rachel had spent two and a half hours lifting. Jake didn’t have the energy for the machines, so while Rachel had spent another twenty minutes using the Stairmaster, Jake had lain on the mats, exhausted, and had watched Rachel’s butt through half-closed eyes.

  Rachel bought a large pizza and carri
ed it upstairs to the apartment. As they entered the dark room, she said, “Euge tells me you know a little about jewelry.” She flicked on the lights.

  “He’s not home?” Jake checked his watch. Nine-thirty.

  “Are you kidding? He won’t be home for at least a couple more hours.” She motioned to the pizza. “You can start. I’ll take a shower first.”

  “Why do you ask?” he said.

  “About the jewelry? Just curious. I found an earring a few days ago. It might be a diamond, but I’m not sure.”

  “Found it?”

  “On the sidewalk.”

  “Show me.”

  She went to her bedroom and returned with a gold disk and pendant earring, possibly a half a carat in the pendant. He turned on more lights in the living room, and studied it.

  “I was thinking about trying to scratch glass with it to test it,” she said.

  “That might work, but if it’s a real diamond you might damage the facet, even if still scratches the glass.”

  “Ah.”

  “One quick test is to check if it’s glass.” He pressed his tongue to the gem, and waited. It remained cold. “Glass warms up pretty quickly. This didn’t.” He walked to the kitchen and she followed. He put the earring under the sink and ran water over it. “Another test is to drop some water on the gem—if it’s real, the drop of water will hold its shape, but on glass the water drops spread out.” He had trouble seeing anything on this small gem, and said, “I need my loupe. I’ll get it.”

  “Your what?” she asked.

  “My jeweler’s loupe.” He retrieved his loupe from his back pack and brought the ring under the light. He dipped his finger under the running faucet, then sprinkled a drop onto the earring. Through the loupe he saw that the drop was holding its shape. “It’s definitely not glass,” he said. “It has something to do with surface tension—the water drops not spreading out.” But then he noticed the facets, now magnified. He looked through the stone to the back facets, and saw a double edge, a sign of zircon.