The Lockpicker

by Leonard Chang

  “They’re leaving again,” Rachel said.

  She was resting her palm on the door. He went to the kitchen, ripped off a couple sheets of paper towels, dampened them in the sink, then motioned her away from the door. He wiped it down. He opened the door, did the same with the exterior. Crumpling the towels, he said, “Let’s go.”

  He relocked the doorknob and shut the door behind him. They walked casually down the stairs and out of the building. He threw out the paper towels and his gloves in a garbage can near the bus stop. As they waited for the next bus, Jake felt the key in his pocket and suppressed the rising excitement within him. He turned to Rachel, who had been staring at him. He mouthed the words, Are you okay?

  She nodded slowly, leaned towards him to whisper in his ear. Her cheek brushed against his, and she said, “That was crazy.” When she pulled away she continued to hold his arm. He moved closer to her, pressing his palm against the small of her back, drawing her to him, and said into her ear, “That’s just the beginning.” He lingered a moment, pressing harder, and then withdrew. She blinked rapidly, then gave him a puzzled smile out of the corner of her mouth.

  59

  Jake and Rachel came home to find Eugene watching TV. They stopped, studied him, and Eugene said without turning, “I’m fine. The car won’t be ready for a few days. Rachel, you got a call from Truman. Call him at his home.”

  “What did he want?”

  Eugene shrugged. Rachel picked up the cordless phone and walked to the bedroom. Jake sat down next to his brother, who asked, “Where were you two?”

  “Rachel was helping me with something.”

  “With what?”

  Jake said, “With checking something out.”

  Eugene glanced at him, then turned back to the TV. He flipped through the channels. Jake heard Rachel murmuring in the bedroom. Eugene cleared his throat. “You wouldn’t happen to have some extra cash to lend me, would you?”

  Jake wasn’t sure he heard his brother right. He said, “What?”

  “I’m liquidating my IRA, but it’ll take a few days. I need a few thousand. I can pay you back next week.”

  “What’s an ira?”

  “I.R.A. My retirement account.”

  “Are you having money problems?”

  Eugene said, “A little.”

  Jake sat back. Eugene was asking him for money? He had trouble digesting this. “How much?”

  “This car repair’s going to be more than I thought, and I’ve maxed out most of my credit cards—”

  “How much?”

  “Thirty-five hundred.”

  “For the car?”

  “Also for some smaller bills.” Eugene waved his hand. “Look, it’s no big deal. Forget I asked—”

  “I can write you a check now, or get you cash tomorrow.”

  “A check is fine. I can pay you back next week.”

  Jake nodded and went to the guest room to find his checkbook. These were still the temporary checks the bank had given him, and he wrote one for four thousand dollars. He returned and handed it to his brother. Eugene glanced at it and said, “It’s more.”

  “I like even numbers.”

  “Thanks.” He folded it and slipped it into his breast pocket.

  “Who’s Truman?” Jake asked.

  “Guy at her old job. I think they want her back.”

  “The bank?”

  Eugene nodded. “Maybe she’ll go back now that things are different.”

  “You mean splitting up,” Jake said. He glanced at the boxes. Rachel hadn’t made much progress since yesterday. “Where will you live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How soon do you need me out?”

  “A month.”

  “All right,” Jake said. “How’s your job search?”

  “What job search?”

  “Aren’t you looking?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Eugene said slowly, “I’m not ready.”

  “Don’t you need money?”

  “Are you going to get on my case?” Eugene said.

  Jake shook his head.

  “Let me worry about my problems. You worry about yours.”

  He said, “Sorry.”

  After a minute, Eugene said, “I remember the charts. I had forgotten about those.”

  “The ones about Dad?”

  “Yeah. I’m surprised you remembered them.”

  “I liked that you did that. It was somehow steadying.”

  Eugene nodded. “I did it until high school, and by then I had a pretty thick book. But I never tried to analyze them. It was too much data.”

  “What’d you do with them?”

  “I think I threw them out when I left for school.”

  “Threw them out? All that work?”

  Eugene said, “There was no pattern.”

  “How do you know if you didn’t analyze them—”

  “There was no pattern.”

  “If you say so.”

  Eugene nodded. “I say so.”

  Jake glanced at the clock. He thought about calling the numbers Chih’s wife had given him. He pulled out his cell phone. “Gotta make a call.”

  Jake began to walk out. He felt Lomax’s warranty certificate still folded against his waist.

  “You know,” Eugene said. “You can always go straight. Maybe I can help you find a decent job.”

  Jake stopped. “And make me a millionaire like you were?” He shook his head. “I wish she hadn’t mentioned that.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Eugene said, “Are you sure about that?”

  “No, but I’m doing okay.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Of everyone I know, and that includes you and Rachel, and even Dad, I seem to be the only one not hating what I do.”

  This made Eugene pause. “Maybe.” He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Did you ever visit Dad at work?”

  “No.”

  “I did once.”

  “Yeah? When?”

  “When I was doing the messenger job with Vid-Pro.”

  “When you biked all over town?”

  “That’s right. I had to deliver something to a production company near Pacific Point Boat Repair.”

  “One of the places he worked at,” Jake said.

  “I thought I’d look in,” Eugene said, shrugging. “He had a small corner with a water tank for outboard engines. When I went in the other guys there were looking at a hull. Dad was in the corner working. They called him ‘Chinky’ and asked him to check out the hull.”

  Jake tensed. “Did they,” he said evenly.

  “Dad looked pleased and went over there. He looked at the hull and the guys asked him what he thought. They said, ‘So what’s your big engineering degree tell you?’ And Dad said something I couldn’t hear but the others laughed. One of them said something like ‘You’d sink the boat, you idiot.’ Another one told him to go back to his jap engines. He was just a big joke.” Eugene shook his head. “No wonder he hated his goddamn job.”

  60

  Jake called the first number Chih’s wife had given him. When a man answered, Jake asked for Mr. Hunt, then introduced himself as a friend of Chih’s, needing some help for a job. After a confusing interchange, the man said he was a travel writer and wasn’t sure what Jake wanted. Jake thanked him and tried the second number. This time, as soon as Jake mentioned Chih-seh, the man became quiet.

  “Can you help me?” Jake asked. “With what?”

  “A job.”

  “How’d you get my number?”

  “Chih’s wife.”

  “How is Chih-seh?”

  Jake hesitated. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “He was killed in a robbery.”

  “Yeah, I heard. How’d you hear about me?”

  “Chih mentioned you in the past.”

  “Who are you again?”

  “Jake. He might not have me
ntioned me.”

  “He didn’t. I don’t know you. And Chih can’t vouch for you.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Jake pulled out the warranty, and glanced at the safe name. “What’s the best way to get at a Harding-Bower safe?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “All right. I get it. I’ve known Chih for almost eight, no, nine years. I knew him before that rinky store starting doing well. All I want is some advice for a job.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “Jewelry store.”

  Hunt was quiet. “How big a store?”

  “Not big.”

  “Alarm?”

  “Taken care of.”

  “How big is the safe?”

  “Big. It’s at least four feet high.”

  “You can’t take it?”

  “No.”

  Hunt said, “How much time you have in there?”

  “All night.”

  “You’ll need to bring someone in.”

  “I need someone local.”

  “Local? Where are you?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “Shit. You called me from down there?”

  “I told you. I just need advice.”

  “You don’t know anyone there?”

  “Not for this.”

  Hunt sighed. “You get me interested, then you tell me that. I ain’t going down there for a small job.”

  “You know anyone?”

  “No. Wait, yes. An old-timer. He might know someone.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Hunt paused. “What’s Chih-seh’s rate?”

  “What?”

  “Chih-seh’s rate. You say you knew him. What’s his rate?”

  “It was 10% off the top, plus screwing you over for the jewels.”

  Hunt laughed. “Which you had to sell him. Okay. The guy’s name is Dormer. Doug Dormer. He’s old and out of it now, but he’ll tell you who to talk to down there.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “I met him in San Quentin. He taught me loads of shit.”

  “He’s going to ask me about you. What should I say?”

  “Tell him I ain’t never going to forgive him for that tattoo. He’s in the book. He lives in some shitty place in San Rafael. Retired.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You still talk to Chih’s wife?”

  “I might.”

  “Tell her to stop giving out my fucking number.” He hung up.

  61

  Bobby awoke in a hospital, and for a moment he thought he was in Seattle. He wasn’t sure if he had dreamed the entire trip to San Francisco, and this gave him some relief. All that painful pissing hadn’t happened. A curtain was drawn on either side of him, but directly ahead he saw nurses pushing patients on gurneys, orderlies rushing by. A nurse noticed him, and called a doctor, “He’s awake.”

  A baby-faced Asian man in a white coat approached, and said, “I’m Doctor Fong, the attending. Are you allergic to penicillin or any other antibiotics that you know of?”

  “What happened to me?”

  “Your wound seems to be infected. We need to test for a nosocomial bladder infection. The nurse will take a urine sample. Are you allergic to antibiotics?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Have you had pain when urinating? Blood in the urine? Lower abdomen pain?”

  “Shit, yeah. No blood, but my piss looks different.”

  “How?”

  “Sort of cloudy?”

  “Definitely a bladder infection. How long ago did you have surgery?”

  “Not long. Just a couple of weeks ago—”

  “All right. We’ll run a urinalysis.” He motioned to a nurse, spoke to her quickly, and left.

  Bobby was confused, and said, “Am I in Seattle?”

  The nurse shook her head. “San Francisco Mercy. Your friend brought you in. You passed out from the pain.”

  “Friend?”

  “He’s still waiting for you outside. Here, I’ll help you up. We need a urine sample, but it has to be mid-stream. Urinate for a second or two, then fill this cup. Do you understand?”

  “What friend?”

  “A man with a leather jacket?”

  Underhill. Bobby reached down into his pants, but then realized he wasn’t wearing any. “Hey, where are my clothes! Where are my jeans—”

  “Take it easy. We had to cut them off. Your wound had reopened.”

  Jake’s papers had been in his pockets, and he sat up quickly, “Where’s my stuff!” Then he swooned and lay back down.

  “You lost a little blood, and your infection was pretty advanced. You have to rest.”

  “My stuff?” he said.

  “Right here. We just put them in a bag.”

  He turned and saw his keys, wallet, but he didn’t see Jake’s papers. He said, “Where’s Underhill, the guy?”

  “Outside.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “In a second. Give us a urine sample first.”

  Bobby nodded and let her help him out of the bed. He was trying to figure out Underhill’s angle, and limped to the small bathroom off to the side. He pushed away his paper robe, and stared down at his stitches, now crusty with dried blood, but swabbed with some orange stain. He pissed into the cup, the sting dulled, and then returned to his bed. The nurse took the cup away and asked him to fill out some forms. He waved them away and said, “I don’t have insurance.”

  “All right,” she said. “But you still need to fill these out.”

  He did, but used different names and made-up information. He then lay there, exhausted. When the nurse finally returned, she told him he had an infection possibly picked up at his previous hospital, a severe strain of bacteria, and he’d have to take more powerful antibiotics. She gave him one week’s worth of pills, and a prescription for two more weeks, and handed him his clothes and belongings. His pants had been thrown out, and she told him he could find another pair at the lost and found at the nurses’ station. He dressed, pocketed his wallet and keys, then realized that his gun was missing as well. Underhill. He shuffled out of the emergency room area and towards the waiting room. He shook the vial of pills in his hand.

  He was wearing a pair of jeans that was a size too large; he had rolled up the cuffs, and had to keep hiking up the waist. He saw Underhill sitting in the back, leafing through a magazine. Bobby sat down next to him, and said, “Where is my gun and those papers in my pocket?”

  “The gun I left in the office. They have metal detectors in some hospitals, you know. And they might have called the police.”

  “My papers?”

  “Right here.” He pulled them out of his jacket.

  Bobby grabbed them and checked. They were all here.

  Underhill said, “They fell out when the ambulance guys took you away.”

  “Did you read them?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “From that bank statement you could probably find out the brother’s name.”

  “How?”

  “This guy Jacob have any other relatives?”

  “He might have parents, but I don’t think he’s seen them in a while.”

  “Any ex-wives, kids, anything like that?”

  “I don’t know,” Bobby said. “How can you find out the brother’s name from this?”

  “Hire me and I’ll show you.”

  62

  Jake studied the stolen tubular cylinder key. These ingenious locks were difficult to pick—the pins were arranged in a circle, rather than straight like a pin tumbler, and the key depressed seven pins simultaneously, allowing the cylinder to turn. To pick this, Jake needed to find the shear line of each pin, but the problem was that the cylinder relocked after each small turn. So Jake would have to pick the lock eight separate times to turn the cylinder the full unlocking diameter. He could buy a keyhole saw with a cylindrical bit, and drill out the lock, but that still took time, especially with t
he alarm engaged.

  Without a key, he’d have to shut off the electricity somehow, or maybe rip off the alarm casing and disarm it with a gorilla method.

  It was late, and Jake was in bed. He hadn’t been able to reach Dormer yet, but he’d try again tomorrow. He thought about ways to take the entire safe, but it was too complicated. A safe like that could weigh five hundred pounds. Moving it would draw too much attention. He needed to get in quietly, take what he could, then leave. That was all. He didn’t want to bring anyone in, but until he learned more about that safe, he had no choice.

  He hid the key in his shoe, and read his philosophy book. The section on Heraclitus was short, and contained a list of fragments. Jake puzzled over them. “We never step into the same river twice. We are and we are not.” What was the appeal for Rachel? She liked the contradictions of it. She liked the movement of opposites.

  Closing his eyes, the book resting on his chest, he drifted. He thought about his father being called “Chinky” by his co-workers, and knew his brother’s feelings for their father were complicated, a hint of pity edging his words. Yet Jake’s hatred was so clean and simple. It was founded on violence, on the memory of being punched in the face by a man three times his size and strength. He thought his brother was a sap. And it had gotten worse once their mother had left. Within a week, when their father realized that she had in fact left him, he began drinking more, demanding to know from the boys where she had gone. Once he had thrown them down the steps of the basement, Jake managing to grab onto the bannister to stop his fall, but his brother tumbling down onto the concrete, twisting his knee. Eugene rocked back and forth, cursing and sucking air through his teeth. Jake moved near the furnace. Their father was destroying the kitchen, shattering glass and plates, resting, then throwing pots and pans across the floor. The sounds reverberated through the house, and Jake hunched his shoulders at each crash. Their father yelled in Korean to his missing wife.

  Jake remembered hearing his brother trying not to cry, whispering to himself, Goddammit. Goddammit. Jake hadn’t quite grasped yet that his mother was actually gone. How could that be? He pictured her smiling, but then he saw her bloody teeth. He remembered the way she clapped with her fingers. He wished he had learned Kung-Fu to show off to her.