He pulled out a pair of surgical gloves and snapped them on. Rachel watched him, startled.
He turned to her and said, “You ready to try something a little risky?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s my ‘poking around’ phase. I look around a little bit.”
“Where?”
He pointed towards Lomax’s building.
57
Bobby found a phone book in the lobby. The stale carpets stank of mold. The overstuffed chairs near the front desk were crimson and green; small tears had been sewn with differently colored threads. Old men with crumpled newspapers filled every chair. There was a wrinkled Chinese guy in one of the chairs, reading a Chinese newspaper. A sign near the front desk read, “Welcome to the Bishop Residence Hotel. Weekly and Monthly Rates.”
Bobby had called only a dozen Ahns in San Francisco. The phone book had over forty listed, and he knew that Jake’s brother might not even have a public number. It was possible, too, that the brother lived outside of the city, since Jake could’ve said “San Francisco” as the general area. Wasn’t Silicon Valley south of San Francisco?
Bobby slammed the phone book shut. Everyone looked up.
He had to start over. Jake was careful, but not careful enough. Bobby had his social security number, bank numbers, a Seattle address, and pay stubs. There must be something here, but he needed help. He looked through the Yellow Pages for “private investigators” and searched for an office nearby. He found one on this same street, 16th, memorized the name and address, and returned to his room to get Jake’s paperwork. With these in hand, he left the hotel and walked six blocks to an old brick office building. He checked the listings near the stairwell—immigration lawyers, bailbondsmen, a dentist—and saw that Underhill Investigations was on the fourth floor. The elevator had an “Out of Order” sign on it. Someone had scribbled “Fuck you LandLord” underneath.
Bobby was growing tired, and looked glumly up the long flight of stairs. He had spent the entire night in pain, going to the bathroom every two hours and trying to piss. He had been feverish until this morning, and he still was a little shaky. He touched his cheek; his face was clammy. He began climbing the steps slowly, figuring that he was here and he ought to check this guy’s rates.
A flash of burning pain crackled deep inside his stomach. He stopped walking and cursed. Something was really wrong, and he knew he’d have to find a doctor soon. This was all Jake’s fault. He gritted his teeth and said Jake’s name with each step up. His back was slick with sweat.
Underhill Investigations was a small room with a desk and a computer. The door was wide open, but no one was there. Bobby sat down in the hard wood chair across from the desk and waited. He thought of a cover story, practiced it, then looked around. His hotel room was bigger than this office, and he also had a window. Here it felt like a jail cell—dark, cramped, and cold. He glanced at some of the papers strewn on the desk, and read what looked like letters to lawyers and businesses, trying to sell Underhill Investigations’ services. Bobby read the line “We specialize in background checks and employee screening” but then saw in a different letter that Underhill specialized in “worker’s compensation cases and insurance fraud.” He snorted.
“Find anything interesting?” a voice said.
Bobby turned slowly and saw a small, skinny man with a brown bomber jacket that hung too loosely. He had a cup of coffee in his hands. Bobby said, “How can you specialize in all those things?”
The man walked behind his desk and pushed the letters aside. He shrugged off his jacket. Underneath he wore a shirt and tie. He sipped his coffee, and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. “You shouldn’t be looking at my personal mail,” he said.
“You shouldn’t leave your door wide open with your mail lying around,” Bobby answered. He felt another stinging pain in his stomach and grimaced. The man noticed this, but didn’t say anything. Bobby asked, “Are you Underhill?”
“I am. What can I do for you?”
“I need you to find someone, but I want to know your rates.”
“Depends on how much information you have.”
Bobby told him what he wanted, Jake Ahn’s brother, and what he had: Jacob Ahn’s former address, bank statement, pay stubs, and former girlfriend. “But the catch is I don’t know this guy’s—Jake’s brother—first name.”
“Why don’t you ask this Jake?”
“He’s disappeared.”
“But you don’t want me to find him?”
“I need to find the brother, not Jake.”
“How’d you get all that information?”
“I got it,” Bobby said. “How much to find this guy?”
“The guy with no name? That’s tough. They have the same last name?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s in the area?”
“Supposedly. I have some background, like the guy’s a techie, has a geek name like Dexter or something.”
“Why do you want to find this guy?”
Bobby said, “Doesn’t matter, does it?”
“No. Why’d the brother disappear?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Underhill leaned back in his chair and touched his fingertips together. “You said you have a bank statement?”
Bobby nodded. His back was sweating again, a chill running up and down his spine. “So how much?”
“I can charge you a flat rate. $1000 for a week’s work. Expenses included.”
“You got to be shitting me. A grand to find a guy?”
“You’re not giving me much to go on.”
“Forget it,” Bobby said, standing up. He was dizzy. “I’ll do it myself.”
“If you tell me more, it might make it easier. Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah.” He sat back down. “What do you want to know?”
“Why do you want to find this guy?”
Bobby felt a heaviness pushing down on his chest. He was getting sick of all this. He just wanted to go back to L.A. to his old life. Fuck Jake for doing this. He said, “This guy, Jake, owes me money. He’s gone. The only way I can find him is through the brother.”
“Why don’t you hire me to find Jake?”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s what I’ve been doing. He’s pretty slippery.”
“How much does he owe you?”
“None of your fucking business.”
Underhill held up his hands. “Hey, I’m just asking—”
“And I’m telling you it’s none of your business.”
“You don’t look so good,” he said. “You want some water?”
This made Bobby think of pissing, and then he suddenly felt the need to go to the bathroom. Not again. He said, “You know, never mind. I gotta go.” He stood up, wavered, and held the door as he tried to leave. His vision suddenly went fuzzy, his head swimming, and the pain that travelled though his stomach now sharpened and buzzed into his groin. He cursed, and doubled over, but this gave him a head rush, and he started to black out. He felt himself hitting the ground, heard Underhill saying “Yo, what are you doing?” and then everything went quiet and dark.
58
The first lock: Lomax’s security gate. Standard pin tumbler, worn from overuse and probably could be snapped open, but Jake only had his picks. His snapping wire was back at the apartment. Plenty of leeway and action here, though, but spring-loaded for one-handed unlocking and opening. With a key, a resident only had to twist it an eighth of the way and push the door open. The key sprung back into position. This made it a little difficult because Jake had to keep the tension wrench firm—any loosening would jar the pins out of place. The latex gloves felt wrinkled and warm from being in his pocket. He knelt. He was able to rake the pins up, and opened the gate in about twenty seconds.
“Jesus,” Rachel said.
“Keep watch,” he warned.
She looked up and down the street.
He moved
to the front entrance, yellow light spilling around him. Rachel stayed by the security gate, holding it open and checking for pedestrians, cop cars. He crouched and inspected the second lock: another pin tumbler, spring loaded. He inserted the diamond pick and felt inside for the last pin, found it, then twisted in the tension wrench. He began raking quickly, forcing the pins into place. He felt the wrench turning, loosening, and then, after the tenth rake, click, the pins lined in place, and he turned the wrench. “Okay, come on,” he said to Rachel, who followed quickly behind, the security gate slamming shut. They entered the building, and Jake kept the tension wrench in his hand, warming it, keeping it flexible.
He glanced at Rachel, whose jaw was tense, her face pale.
Apartment one was on his right. He examined the doorknob and deadbolt; they looked fairly new. There was a second door mid-way down the hall, and he guessed number three was at the end. Lomax’s apartment was number six, and Jake pointed to the ceiling. They took the stairs at the end of the main hallway. The walls were painted a shiny pale yellow, the floors rust red. Everything was concrete. He looked around for cameras, security panels, anything problematic, but found nothing.
On the second floor the layout was the same, apartment number four next to him. He walked quickly, passing number five, and saw Lomax’s door around the corner, recessed from the hall. None of the doors were in the line of sight of the other doors, a good privacy measure, but also making it safer for Jake. He knelt down.
“Wait,” Rachel whispered. “You’re going in?”
He stopped. “What did you think?”
“I thought you were just going to look around in here.”
“No. I want to look inside. The more I know the better off I am.” He examined the door, pushing it in to feel how snug the lock was, and said to Rachel, “You can stay out here, warn me if you hear someone coming.” He started on the doorknob lock, knowing this might take a bit longer. Newer doorknobs always had more rigid shear lines. He wasn’t certain from the action, but the deadbolt might not be engaged. With both doorknob and deadbolt locks in the jamb, the door would be tighter. Also, he was guessing that Lomax, in a hurry to start his date, might have simply left one lock on. He tried raking the doorknob lock, but that didn’t work. As he worked the pick into the back of the lock, and felt in the tension wrench the first pin lining up and breaking easily, he thought about the possibility of alarms inside. From the poor set-up of the windows, he doubted this—there wasn’t much point in securing the door if the windows were exposed, but he wanted to be prepared. There was always a ten-to twenty-second delay from the door opening to the alarm, and if, once he entered, he saw any alarms, he and Rachel had time to get out.
Click. Another pin slipped into place. Three more. He moved through the next two pins quickly, but the last one gave him some trouble. He couldn’t find the shear line. Rachel fidgeted. He tried to concentrate. He raised and lowered the pin, searching, and was careful to keep the tension on the wrench even. If he moved the wrench in either direction just a millimeter, he’d have to start over.
“Jake?” Rachel whispered.
He didn’t reply, searching, searching, then felt the last pin click into place. But when he tried to turn the wrench, the cylinder wouldn’t give. He let out an annoyed breath, and eased the wrench very slightly, hoping that it was just one pin overextended, and with the right touch it might fall into the breaking point.
“Jake,” she said. “I don’t like this.”
“Hold on,” he whispered, feeling the wrench give. Then, reapplying the pressure as soon as he felt another click, he turned the cylinder and unlocked the knob. All right. He pulled out the pick and wrench, and pinched his finger over the keyhole. He said to Rachel, “If I say ‘Go’ I want you to hurry out of here as quickly as possible.”
“What?”
Jake turned the doorknob and pushed in the door. The deadbolt wasn’t engaged, and he slipped in, looking quickly at the surrounding foyer. Control panels? Blinking lights? Contact plates? He scanned the walls, then ran towards the kitchen, also scanning. Nothing. No alarm. He hurried back to Rachel, who was crouched, ready to run. “It’s okay,” he said.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Just in case there was an alarm.”
“Alarm?”
“I’m going to look around in here. Keep watch. If you hear anyone coming in downstairs, let me know.”
“What if it’s Lomax?”
“Then let me know fast. I’ll have time to get out.”
She nodded. “I’ll wait near the stairs so I can hear better.”
Jake hurried back into the apartment. It was a large concrete room with high ceilings and a small open bedroom area up a set of narrow stairs. He checked the windows; a long aluminum pole hung next to them, required to unlatch and pull open the upper sections. He saw in the corner a desk with a computer, and approached the file cabinet. He was about to open it, but stopped. He again checked for alarms. Nothing.
Lomax’s files were organized by personal, business, and home sections. Jake wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just information about the store, the alarm, the kinds of jewelry perhaps, a deeper kind of surveillance. He flipped through the business files, finding old tax forms, expense and income reports, and jewelry newsletters and magazine clippings. He had trouble with his gloves, his fingers awkward with the papers. He paused when he saw brochures and warranty certificates for jewelry repair equipment. Then, when he saw “Lifetime Warranty for Harding-Bower Safes,” he stopped. He pulled it out. The safe was guaranteed for fire and water damage. At the bottom was a space for the make and model number of the particular Harding-Bower safe, and Lomax had filled it in. Could be very important. Jake folded this and shoved it in his pants. He continued flipping through the files, looking for alarm or security information. Nothing.
He closed the filing cabinet, and turned his attention to the desk. The main drawer was filled with pens and office supplies. The top drawer on the right had Franklin & Sons stationary, envelopes, and business cards. The bottom drawer was locked.
Examining the small keyhole, he thought it might be one of the older lever locks. He needed a light, though. He turned on the desk lamp, and saw the lever mechanism. These were easier than pin tumblers because there were no pins. The key simply fit into certain grooves, and once it turned, the lever was released, opening the lock. All Jake had to do was use his hook pick, search for the moving parts—the levers—and push them back by twisting the pick in the right motion. He did it on the first try. The shackle spring clicked, and he pulled the drawer open.
A small wad of cash bound with a rubber band, two boxes of checks, and more files. In the corner, though, there were three keyrings, each with five or six keys. He pulled them out and lay them on the desk. One set was labelled, and he almost laughed when he saw “Xtra Store Keys” written on the small plastic tab. The other two weren’t labelled but they looked like more back-up or old, unused keys. He didn’t want to take the whole ring, because Lomax would notice. There was only one tubular cylinder key, a small key with a half-inch notched cylinder at the end. This had to be the alarm key. He thought, Today is my lucky day.
He saw another tubular cylinder key on the ring with a set of older, worn keys. He compared the two cylinders, and they didn’t match. The older one could’ve been for another alarm, a coin box, even a Coke machine. Jake unhooked the store alarm key, pocketed it, then replaced it on the chain with the older tubular cylinder. Unless someone tried to use this key, the switch probably wouldn’t be noticed. Then he examined the other store keys, identifying the warded padlock key for the security gate, the door and deadlock keys, and possibly the back room key. There were two more he wasn’t sure about, but it didn’t matter. He was tempted to take them all, though the only one he really needed was the tubular cylinder.
Rachel burst into the door and closed it quickly. “Someone’s coming!”
“Lomax?”
“I�
��m not sure. They just ran in. I didn’t have time—”
“Sh.” Jake turned off the light, replaced all the key chains as he had found them, and closed the cabinet. He had to re-lock it, but there wasn’t time. He ran to the door. “How many voices?”
“At least two.”
“A woman?”
“I couldn’t tell. They were in a hurry.”
The voices came up and rang through the second floor halls. Laughter. Jake didn’t recognize Lomax’s voice, but he couldn’t be sure. He slowly engaged the deadbolt, and locked the doorknob.
“What are we going to do?” Rachel asked, her voice tight.
Jake glanced up at the windows. Could they climb it? He heard more laughter as the voices neared. He held the deadbolt latch and said, “Can you get out through those windows?”
“Up there? Are you kidding? And we’re two floors up! How will we get down—”
“Quiet.”
She grabbed his arm tightly. “Jake—”
“Sh.” He held the deadbolt tighter, hoping that it would seem jammed. His breathing quickened, and he held it as he listened.
The voices stopped. He heard keys jangling, but they weren’t at this door. He let out a small sigh. “It’s the neighbor. It’s number 5.”
Rachel made a fist and pressed it into her other palm. “Jake.”
“I need one more minute—”
“What? Let’s get out of here—”
“One minute. Stay here.” He unlocked the door and opened it a crack. “Stay here and listen. One minute.”
“What if Lomax comes—”
“He won’t.”
“How do you know?”
He motioned to the room. “Don’t touch anything. Fingerprints.”
She stiffened. He hurried back to the desk, crouched in front of the bottom drawer lever lock, and picked it again. Locking it was the same as unlocking it, but because he was a little rattled, it took him a full thirty seconds. He finished, checked the desk, and noticed that he had moved the lamp. He moved it back.
The Lockpicker Page 20