The Lockpicker

by Leonard Chang

  “Quiet, like the other night. You?”

  “Fine,” he said. “Ready?”

  She nodded. He handed her the police scanner, set to the San Francisco P.D. frequency, and told her to use the earpiece, since the frequency would be active. He slipped on a pair of latex gloves. His backpack with all his tools was at his feet. He asked, “You have a good view of the street and the store from here. Keep me posted.”

  She said, “I will.”

  He saw how pale she was. He was about to try to calm her, but she said, “I’m okay. Go. Let’s do this.”

  He left the car and walked to the jewelry store. He turned up his two-way radio, checking the street around him. At the pull-down security grilling, he knelt and inspected the padlock. Warded. It was easy, but he didn’t want to get lazy. He examined it closely. A warded padlock is held shut by a locking spring, and the key simply fit through the notched wards and turned to unhitch the locking spring. He pulled out a special double-headed “T” pick that enabled him to go past the wards and hit the locking spring. He didn’t even need more light. He could do this just by touch. He inserted the pick, pressing against the lock shackle, and felt the first set of retainers binding. He pushed the pick to the second set, spread them, and it clicked; he opened the lock. He unlatched the grilling, and raised it a few feet. He crawled under it, dragged in his backpack, then closed the grilling behind him. He glanced up at the windows across the street. Everything was quiet and dark.

  He knew he looked suspicious, and hurried with the deadbolt first. He took out his snapping wire, inserted his tension wrench and then slid in the wire. He began snapping lightly, carefully, then increased the tension when he felt a pin aligning. After a few more snaps, he aligned all the pins, and opened the deadbolt.

  Then he worked on the regular lock. He snapped it open on the second try, surprising himself. Before opening the door, he pulled out the alarm key.

  Okay. He took a deep breath. After this point, everything was uncertain.

  He looked up through the display window and saw the old alarm unit. He wasn’t sure about the delay, so as soon as he opened this door he had to disable the alarm. He quickly considered the worst-case scenario: the key didn’t fit. If there was a long enough delay, he’d try destroying the alarm. If it began ringing immediately, he’d get out of there.

  He felt his heartbeat quickening. He took a slow breath. This was what it was all about. He opened the door, made it to the alarm control in three steps, and pushed in the key.

  It didn’t fit.

  He heard his eardrums pulsing as he counted off seconds, still trying to force the key in, ready to try to knock the whole console out of the wall, but when he turned the key one-eighty degrees and tried again, it fit. He shook his head, rattled, and quickly twisted the key in the lock as the bell began ringing. He switched it off in mid-ring. A loud, frustrated clang echoed down the street. He hurried to the door, pulled in his backpack, checked to see if the Honda was still there, then headed to the back room. He could hardly hear anything—his eardrums were pounding. He let out a small laugh and thought, Calm the fuck down.

  He pulled the key out of the alarm console, and pressed the keyhole with his finger. Goddamn you little sucker.

  His two-way radio squelched, and Rachel said, “What was that?”

  “My fault,” he said into the radio. “Anyone notice?”

  “I don’t think so. It scared the hell out of me.”

  “Me too. Keep listening to the scanner.”

  “I am.”

  He clipped the radio to his belt and examined the door to the back room. Rachel said she had seen no evidence of another alarm. He knew that a second alarm here was impractical, but he had to be ready. He tested the door handle. Unlocked. He opened the door slowly, listening for the beeps of an armed alarm, but didn’t hear anything. He looked into the darkened room, and searched quickly for LED’s, any alarm indicator lights. Nothing. He closed the door behind him and turned on the lights.

  The room was as Rachel had described it: a cold concrete room with metal shelving, a jewelry repair station, a desk, and a safe. Before checking the safe, he slipped out of the room, closed the door, and checked how noticeable the lights would be. A thin outline of the door glowed, but he didn’t think anyone on the street would see this. He went back in.

  The Harding-Bower was four feet high, and three feet wide. Jake searched for the UL tag, and found it on the side: “The Harding-Bower Safe Co. Underwriters’ Laboratories Inspected Safe. Class A Fire. Class T-20 Burglary. No. TRTL-60.” There. TRTL-60.

  So it had a “high degree” of protection. The lab people had done a sixty minute test on the door and body.

  He checked the iron door to the back alley, and realized that in addition to picking this lock, he’d have to break the rusted padlock outside to open this. Too much time and trouble. He lost his emergency exit. He turned back to the safe.

  He searched through the adjacent desk and looked among the books on the shelves. Dormer hadn’t mentioned this, but Jake knew that often someone would write the combination down nearby, just in case. He would be negligent if he didn’t at least do a cursory check. He flipped through the jewelry repair, design, and appraisal books on the lower shelf, and looked over the customer files and store receipts in the desk. Nothing.

  Now, as he began unpacking his tools, he felt a tinge of apprehension. Dormer’s fee, the car, the extra equipment—Jake had already invested quite a bit in this, and he had no way of knowing exactly how much was in here. He hadn’t followed Lomax home tonight, so it was possible that Lomax had decided to take everything out of the safe. Or perhaps Lomax had a second, hidden safe.

  Jake fit the drilling template over the dial and escutcheon plate. Perfect fit. He colored in the wheel-pack peephole with a magic marker, and removed the template. He’d find out soon enough. He strapped on the portable drill press, the flexible metal bands held together with mini-clamps, and positioned the press over the black dot. He locked in the first drill bit, masking tape marking the depth required on all the bits, though he’d probably go through many of these. He then set the angle, using the notches next to the joint, and tightened the swivel handle. Almost ready.

  He unrolled the electrical cord and crawled to the outlet on the other side of the desk, and to his surprise he found that the cord didn’t reach.

  He stopped. The cord to the drill was five feet long, and he hadn’t considered this hitch. He looked for another outlet closer to the safe, but there wasn’t one.

  He thought, Shit. Why hadn’t he prepared for this possibility?

  He tried to move the safe. It wouldn’t budge.

  He sat down, thought about this for a moment, then began looking along the shelves for an extension cord. There weren’t any. He laughed. This was how you knew the difference between an experienced safecracker and an idiot.

  Grabbing a small flashlight, Jake slipped out of the back room and searched in the display room for an extension cord. Finally, with some relief, he found one connecting a light in the wristwatch display case to an outlet further along the wall. He unplugged this and returned to the back room.

  Once everything was plugged in, he doublechecked the clamps, tightened the drill bit in the jaw, and tested the trigger; the drill buzzed to life.

  He radioed Rachel. “You read me?”

  Static. “I do.”

  “Let me know if I make too much noise.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Fine.”

  He got to work.

  77

  Bobby told Eugene to sit down. Eugene didn’t. Bobby said, “Doughboy, I don’t care if you’re alive or dead. I’m waiting for your brother. You going to sit or maybe I should shoot out a leg?”

  Eugene sat down.

  Bobby’s head felt stuffed. The extra bennies he had taken were having the opposite effect he wanted. Everything was cloudy. He had popped too many too soon, and was both jittery and fuzzy. He tried to s
hake this off. He focused on Eugene, whose face seemed to expand and contract, and asked, “Where’s Jake right now?”

  “I don’t know. Are you the one who tried to double-cross him? His ex-partner?”

  “Me double-cross him?” Bobby had forgotten how this had started. He smiled. “We double-crossed each other.”

  Eugene rubbed his eyes and let out a tired sigh.

  “Where’s the stash?” Bobby said. “He came down here with my stash. Where’d he hide it?”

  “What?”

  “My jewelry, my cash.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bobby could tell he was lying, the way he answered so easily. He said, “So Jake tells you about me, but he doesn’t say why he ran? You think I’m fucking stupid? He came here with jewels. My jewels. Where is it?” Bobby glanced at the hallway. “Down there?”

  “I don’t know anything. I just want to be left alone.”

  Bobby cocked his head, amused. “Don’t you care about dying?”

  Eugene stared up at him. “I’m not sure.”

  Bobby pointed to the rooms. “Get up. We’re going to do a little looking around. What’s in all these boxes?”

  “My stuff. My wife’s stuff. We’re moving out.”

  “Where’s Jake’s?”

  “The guest room. Straight ahead.”

  “Move,” Bobby said. He pointed the gun, and Eugene stood up slowly and shuffled towards the guest room. Bobby followed, and when he saw two metal briefcases on the floor, he pushed Eugene aside and quickly opened them. They were empty except for molded foam padding. “What was in here?”

  “Tools of some kind.”

  “What kind?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Bobby opened a paper bag and found drill bits, tape, epoxy, and packaging for putty. He looked up, and said, “You got to be shitting me.”

  “What?”

  “Is he doing another job?”

  “Job?”

  “Hitting another place? Breaking into some place?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bobby checked the outline of the foam padding and recognized a hand-held drill. The other briefcase held something with a cylinder and narrow hose. Definitely break-in shit. But Bobby wasn’t sure what kind. Jake was going to hit another place. What else could it be? Bobby searched through Jake’s clothes, but found nothing. He motioned Eugene back to the living room and pushed him onto the sofa. He said, “Where’d he put my stash?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How’re you with pain, doughboy?”

  “Huh?”

  Bobby used the handle of the gun, and hit Eugene on the side of the head—hard but not too hard. Eugene covered his ear and yelled, “Shit! That hurt!”

  Bobby smiled. “No kidding. Now, I want to know a few things, and I got all night.”

  “I told Jake not to tell me anything. I told him to keep straight while he stayed here.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I didn’t want him to bring any trouble here.”

  “What, you think if you close your eyes and cover your ears nothing bad will happen? What are you, five years old?”

  Eugene sunk into the sofa. “Just leave me alone.”

  Bobby smacked him in the face with an open hand. “Rule number one: when I ask you a question you answer it. My question is, What are you, five years old?”

  He held his cheek, and shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

  “Good. Now, let’s begin.”

  78

  Jake had gone through six drill bits, and was making slow progress with the hole. He had half an inch left, and his sweaty shirt clung to his back. His hands and arms were sore from the constant pressure, and his ears rang from being so close to the motor. He had to raise the volume on the two-way radio. His fingers quivered.

  The bits heated up and became blunt after ten minutes of drilling, so he had to blow on the chuck and collar before loosening the bit for a replacement. This slowed him down. When he had practiced on the safe at Dormer’s, he had done this at a leisurely pace, so the bits cooled down before he changed them. Dormer should’ve warned him. His latex gloves felt sticky from the heat.

  “There’s a couple about to walk by,” the radio cracked.

  Jake stopped. He picked up the radio. “Okay.” He gave his hands a rest, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his arm. Earlier Rachel had said she could hear the faint drilling from the street, though it was unrecognizable. Still, it had surprised him, so he decided to stop if anyone approached.

  “They’re gone,” Rachel said.

  “Got it.”

  He continued. By the tenth drill bit, he was almost done. He saw the piece of tape approaching the surface, and pushed harder. The bit snapped and flew up, barely missing his ear. It pinged against the cement floor. He refit a new drill bit.

  The eleventh bit broke through. He said, “Finally.” He pulled out the drill, unlatched the press, making sure he carefully stowed away all the pieces. He didn’t want to leave anything behind. He blew on the hole, metal dust falling away. He unpacked the scope and attached the light to the viewer.

  “Jake,” Rachel’s whisper radioed through. “Jake, there’s a cop car turning the corner.”

  He asked, “Did anything come through on the scanner?”

  “Nothing in this area.”

  “Stay down. It’s just a patrol.”

  Jake hurried to the light switch and flicked it off. He opened the door a crack and looked out. From his angle he saw a sliver of the street, and when the cop car drove by, he waited to see if it slowed. It didn’t. He closed the door and turned on the light. The longer he spent here, the more exposed he’d be. Inserting the thin tube into the hole, then turning on the light and strapping on the eyepiece, Jake slowly adjusted his vision to the fish-eye view of the interior wheel pack. He pulled, pushed, and twisted the tube until he saw a glimpse of the combination plates, then began maneuvering the scope until he had a direct view of the top, and found four plates instead of the three he had practiced on at Dormer’s. No matter.

  He spun the combination dial a few times to start the sequencing, and began turning the dial to the right, waiting for the last plate to move into alignment, but he noticed that the second to last plate was moving instead. He tried this again, and the same thing happened. He stopped, unsure why this was happening. Then, thinking about the four plates instead of three, he wondered if the sequence began with the left turn, instead of the right turn, and restarted the combination, spinning the dial a few times to the left. He watched the plates, and saw the notch in the last plate moving into view. Okay. Another thing Dormer hadn’t mentioned: not all safes begin with the right turn.

  He jotted down the number on the dial that corresponded to the notch—85—and began to spin to the right. The notch on the second plate moved into position: 46. Then the third plate: 59. Finally, the fourth plate: 61. He pulled out the scope, and took off the eyepiece.

  85-46-59-61.

  The faint ringing in his ear seemed to grow louder as he stared at the numbers he had written on a scrap piece of paper. He thought, Jesus, I’m actually doing this.

  He checked the dial and estimated a difference of about twenty to thirty numbers, and began trying the combinations, starting with thirty subtracted from the starting ratios, and moving up from there. His first set—55-16-29-31—didn’t work, and he moved it up by one.

  Dialing carefully, not wanting to miss a number and screw up the sequencing, Jake exhaled and focused. The notches on the dial were tiny. He went through the combinations, noting on the piece of paper whenever he moved up a number. He tried not to think of what he’d do if this didn’t work. He’d go through the entire dial if he had to, but if nothing happened, then what?

  “Jake,” Rachel radioed. “Some guy is walking towards the store.” Shit. He finished this sequence, which didn’t work, and radioed back, “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep me
posted,” he said. He wasn’t going to stop. He went through three more series, and on the fourth, the initial ratios minus twenty-one, he felt something click in the handle.

  He stopped. The ringing in his ear subsided.

  He pulled down on the handle, and it gave way with a satisfying thunk. He slowly pulled open the safe door, and saw the trays of jewelry and watches on the top shelves, stacked neatly. A cash register tray sat on the middle shelf, the twenty, ten, five, and one-dollar bills still in their slot. A wad of fifties and hundred-dollar bills were stacked next to the tray.

  The bottom shelf held two felt neck displays, slender purple necks with diamond necklaces around both of them. Stunned, he leaned forward and reached for the first diamond necklace. It was an antique, the white gold setting looked handmade, and the entire necklace was covered with small round cut diamonds, leading to a large Marquise cut. A very large Marquise, maybe four carats.

  He pulled out a small canvas bag from his backpack and began filling it with the jewelry, starting with the diamond necklaces. He emptied the top trays of all the rings, brooches, earrings, bracelets, and lesser necklaces. He calculated quickly, seeing some of the inferior pieces he had noticed the first time he had come into the store. He needed to appraise these, but this was everything in the store. Everything. He then dumped the cash on top of the jewelry, flipping through the wad of fifties and hundreds before dropping them in. At least ten thousand in cash alone, probably more.

  His breath came out unsteadily. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes. His heart was leaping into his throat. Here was everything in the store.

  After emptying the safe, he doublechecked the back, then closed and relocked it. Then he pulled out the last two remaining goodies from his backpack, putty and epoxy. Dormer had mentioned covering the hole to buy more time, but Jake had thought of something better. The epoxy came in a double syringe, the two liquids kept separate because once they mixed, the solution would soon set into a strong glue. He had found a brand with a narrow double head, and he opened the ends now. He inserted it into the drilled hole. He slowly pressed the plunger, watching the black stopper push the liquid from two cylinders out, injecting the glue into the wheel pack of the safe. He emptied as much as the wheel pack would hold, and then it began leaking from the drilled hole. He wiped it clean.