Locksmith

by Nicholas Maes

  LOCKSMITH

  LOCKSMITH

  Nicholas Maes

  Copyright © Nicholas Maes, 2008

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  Editor: Michael Carroll

  Designer: Courtney Horner

  Printer: Webcom

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Maes, Nicholas, 1960-

  Locksmith / Nicholas Maes.

  ISBN 978-1-55002-791-4

  I. Title.

  PS8626.A37L63 2008 jC813’.6 C2008-900681-X

  1 2 3 4 5 12 11 10 09 08

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

  Printed and bound in Canada

  www.dundurn.com

  Dundurn Press

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  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  To Gershom, Yehuda, and Miriam: what father has ever been blessed with such riches?

  Acknowledgements

  Heartfelt thanks to my wife, Deborah, who read Locksmith with the eye of an appreciative child (and not a scoffing critic), and thanks also to my editor, Michael Carroll, who has a soft spot for stories about maniacal chemists and made this book possible.

  CHAPTER 1

  Lewis Castorman was way behind schedule. His alarm clock had gone off at half-past seven, but he had stayed in bed and had waited for his father to wake him. It was only at 7:56 a.m. when the radio played an ad for the Fort Knox Locking System that his dark brown eyes opened in worry and he remembered that his father hadn’t come home.

  Today was what? Lewis glanced at a calendar from Houdini Armour and Company and saw that it was Tuesday already. His dad should have been home the Friday before. Saturday would have been okay, but Sunday was … preposterous! His father had been late before, like that time he had opened a swing bridge in Florida, but he had always telephoned to keep Lewis informed. So why this silence for five long days?

  “Lewis!”

  At the sound of Mrs. Gibson’s voice Lewis ran for his clothes.

  “Hurry up! We overslept and you’ll be late for school!”

  “I’ll be down in a minute, Mrs. Gibson,” Lewis called, stuffing a leather case into his pocket after checking to see that all its picks were inside. “Always have your tools on hand,” his father continually told him. “Because you never know when a door will lock behind you.” His equipment in place, Lewis entered the bathroom, where he washed his face and combed his chestnut hair. He stared at his reflection.

  “Dad’s okay,” he whispered to himself. “It’s not like … you know what. He’ll be home in time for supper.”

  “I’ve prepared some oatmeal,” Mrs. Gibson announced when Lewis was seated at the kitchen table. “I had to make it quickly because I slept through my alarm.”

  “It smells delicious,” Lewis said, wondering why there was onion peel in it.

  “And be sure to drink up,” Mrs. Gibson added, handing him a glass of juice that smelled like cheese.

  “Thanks,” Lewis said, containing a groan. Mrs. Gibson had been with them for almost a year, but he still wasn’t used to her cooking habits — the way she mixed weird ingredients together, then expressed surprise when he didn’t want to eat.

  And her cooking was just the tip of the iceberg. He had seen her every day for the past twelve months, but her appearance still struck him as unusual. Not only was she large —six foot six and four hundred pounds — but her head was wide and football-shaped, and beneath a mask of talcum powder her skin was green. Her hair was orange, thick as cord, and looked a lot like an old floor mop. She also wore a pair of rubber gloves and a metal ring around her neck — for good luck, she explained. Finally, her voice was lower than his father’s, and he had seen her eat six apple pies in one sitting.

  “Good morning, everyone,” Mr. Todrey announced, emerging from the back room and sitting at the table. “Aren’t you two running behind schedule?”

  Mrs. Gibson sniffed. “I got up late. Although it’s hardly your concern.”

  “Is there any oatmeal left?” he asked, scanning the front page of the Mason Springs Gazette, “New York State’s Finest Morning Paper.” “It smells delicious.”

  “There is, but I’m eating it. I’m Lewis’s housekeeper, not your personal cook.”

  “Look at that,” Mr. Todrey said. “Grumpel’s closing branches in Maine and Quebec. He’s shut eight factories over the past three months.”

  “Don’t mention his name!” the housekeeper cried.

  “But it’s odd,” he mused. “Everyone’s nuts about his chemicals, so why are his companies shrinking in number? If anything, he should be opening new branches.”

  “I said don’t mention his name in this kitchen!”

  “All right. Calm down. There’s an article here about Yellow Swamp. I’ll read it in silence if you’ll serve me some oatmeal …”

  Mr. Todrey might have been Mrs. Gibson’s twin. Not only was he the exact same size, but his skin betrayed an identical shade of green under a lavish coating of Grumpel’s Facial Ointment. His orange moustache was just like her hair, and he wore rubber gloves and a ring around his neck. Needless to say, this was more than a coincidence.

  Unlike Mrs. Gibson, however, Mr. Todrey liked chemistry textbooks. When he wasn’t reading the paper, or filching snacks from the kitchen, he was wrapping his head around molecular acids, ionized suspensions, and nucleonic squeezes.

  But he was nervous, Mr. Todrey was. The man was always peering out the window and asking Lewis about the people he had seen. If Lewis mentioned he had talked to a stranger, or that his class had been taught by a substitute teacher, Mr. Todrey would gasp and question him closely. Who were these people? Had they asked where Lewis lived? Had they mentioned anyone named Gibiwink or Todrus?

  Lewis sometimes suspected Mr. Todrey had broken some law, but his father always laughed at this suggestion and said they were lucky to have such interesting tenants.

  His father. Lewis’s fears flooded back with a vengeance. Why wasn’t he home? Why
hadn’t he phoned? Had he met with trouble? Had there been an accident? To stop himself from panicking, Lewis left the table. “I’m off,” he declared.

  “You haven’t eaten anything,” Mrs. Gibson wailed.

  “I’ll be late,” Lewis called, moving toward the door.

  “What about your homework?” Mr. Todrey asked.

  “My composition!” Lewis cried. “Thanks. I almost forgot.”

  He approached a staircase that led to the basement. At the head of these stairs stood a squat wooden column whose top had been fitted with a strip of glass. The glass was blue and was tilted at a sixty-degree angle. Holding his hand to the glass, Lewis smiled as a sensor scanned his handprint and caused a bolt on the downstairs door to open, at which stage several lights in the stairwell flickered on. He descended the steps two at a time. By the time he reached the bottom, the basement door had opened and the well-lit space beyond was visible. As he crossed the threshold, he felt his worries lift.

  From outside, the house appeared ordinary. Modest in size and a little rough around the edges, with its peeling paint and weed-choked lawn, it wasn’t anything special to look at. And the interior was the same, with its worn furniture, books, and simple knickknacks. Normal people whose idea of an exciting time was to watch the late-night movie on television — that was what these furnishings said.

  The basement suggested a very different picture. It was cluttered with materials to the point of bursting. There were tools of every size, shape, and colour: drills, table saws, lathes, and metal presses. Blocks of steel were piled in one corner, and beside them was a selection of cogs of every conceivable size and design. And then there were the interesting gadgets — infrared sensors, high-grade lasers, and coils tipped with miniature cameras, ones you could steer inside the larger locking mechanisms.

  Lewis approached a table that ran the length of the basement and thought about the hours he had spent in this room. From an early age his parents had brought him into this space and patiently taught him every trick of the trade, every known way to construct a lock and get it open.

  Locks. They were scattered across the table. Some were very run-of-the-mill — the padlock, combination lock, surface auxiliary and pin tumbler cylinders. Then there were the others: the titanium “gridiron” for high-security prisons, the convex “strangulator” for an F-18 fighter plane, the phantom hyperlink that was said to be unbreakable …

  Unbreakable. Lewis recalled an exchange between his parents a month before the disaster had struck and two days after his eleventh birthday.

  “There’s no such thing as unbreakable,” his father had joked.

  “I disagree,” his mother had said. “One day I’ll build a lock that even you can’t open.”

  “Like the Blackhawk 33?” his father had teased.

  “The modulator was faulty! And the clamping system almost had you fooled!”

  “But I did pick it in the end.”

  “I’m telling you, I’ll build an unbreakable lock. You’ll see!”

  He closed his eyes. It would never happen. He remembered waiting for his mother to show. For days on end he had sat by the phone, hanging on her call. Then his father had walked into the kitchen one night — that was the very same day their tenants had moved in — and with a look of devastation had told him the bad news.

  His father. Where was he? Why hadn’t he phoned? Was history repeating itself?

  “Stop it!” he whispered. “Get a grip on yourself!”

  His composition was lying at the end of the table. He picked it up, crammed it in his knapsack, and turned toward the basement exit. As he climbed the stairs, the heavy door locked behind him and sensors dimmed the lights one by one.

  “What about your lunch?” Mrs. Gibson asked as he emerged on the ground floor and hurried to the door.

  “No time!” Lewis cried, scrambling outside. “I’ll see you later!”

  “But it’s your favourite!” Mrs. Gibson yelled, holding up a bologna sandwich with mould on its crusts.

  Quick as a flash, Mr. Todrey gulped the sandwich down. “No point letting it go to waste,” he said, beaming.

  Lewis heard the housekeeper scream from halfway down the block.

  CHAPTER 2

  With the early-morning sunlight on his shoulders, Lewis ran to 30 Grumpel Lane. It was a house that might have been confused with his except that its roof was freshly tiled, its walls were painted an elegant green, the lawn was trimmed, and there were flowers everywhere. From a window on the ground floor there came the smell of breakfast — waffles with blueberries and maple syrup. There was also the sound of angry voices. As usual they were arguing.

  “Don’t lie! You ate all the waffles you pig!”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “Don’t get smart! Just because you’re puny doesn’t mean —”

  “That’s not proof. You’re insulting me.”

  “Alfonse!” Lewis called out, hating to intrude when Alfonse was fighting with his sister. “We’ve got to go. We’re going to be late.”

  “Hi, Lewis. Sure. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  “Move those comics from the table first! You know why you read this junk? To make up for your skinny dimensions!”

  “Better that than playing the piano off-key.”

  “Alfonse!” Lewis insisted. “We have to hurry.”

  A moment later Alfonse came running out, a bundle in his right hand and a knapsack on his shoulders. As usual he looked eight and not his real age of eleven. He tried to exaggerate his size by dressing as an adult — he was wearing a tie and an old tweed jacket — but if anything this clothing made him seem even scrawnier.

  “Adelaide’s angry?” Lewis asked as they set off down the road.

  “She thinks I ate her waffles. Little does she know.”

  “You don’t have to feed me,” Lewis protested as Alfonse handed him a sticky bundle. Peeling back a napkin, he found four waffles inside.

  “What was it this time?” Alfonse asked, “Oatmeal with onion or pancakes with olives?”

  “Oatmeal. Still, you shouldn’t make Adelaide angry …”

  “I’m only acting in self-defence.”

  Lewis nodded and bit into his breakfast. For as long as he and Alfonse had been pals, he had never heard him exchange a kind word with his sister. Maybe they were too close in age — Adelaide was ten months older than her brother. Or perhaps they fought because they never saw their parents. The family bakery was an expensive business — their landlord Mr. Grumpel charged a fortune in rent — and the Pangettis had to work like slaves to pay their monthly bills.

  “Never mind her,” Alfonse said, shrugging as they crossed a vacant lot that led to Grumpel Corner. “You should read the latest issue of The Bombardier. Dr. Camphor invents a chemical that he slips into people’s food. With it he can hypnotize —”

  “My father’s still not home,” Lewis interjected.

  “Has he phoned?”

  “No. And it’s been five days.”

  “Should I tell my parents? We can stop off at the bakery.”

  “I’ll wait one more day. If he’s not home tomorrow, I’ll call the police.”

  “He must be busy with a lock or something.”

  “Maybe,” Lewis conceded. “But I wish he’d call.”

  Both of them gasped. They had turned from Grumpel Corner onto Grumpel Way and now saw a block ahead of them that a crowd had gathered in front of Grumpel’s Bank. Police and firemen had arrived on the scene and were trying to control the situation. Although the boys were late for school already, they were dying to know what this fuss was about.

  The spectators on the outer ring were talking among themselves — how time was running out and it was a horrible way to go. A little farther in five policemen held people back and muttered that the guy was as good as doomed. Sneaking past these guards, the boys overheard a knot of firemen say that their efforts were a waste of time. Finally, at the very heart of the crowd a television crew was i
dling about, and their leader, a bone-thin woman in black, kept shoving a microphone in people’s faces and asking stupid questions.

  The boys glanced at each other. What the heck was going on?

  A big man in a uniform drew near, his bull-like features drawn tight with concern. Behind him was the woman from the television station. He was about to issue orders, but she thrust herself in front of him, within hearing distance of Lewis and Alfonse.

  “Fire Marshal Stephens!” she cried. “Can you tell us how this crisis is unfolding?”

  “You know the facts,” the big fellow growled. “A man’s trapped inside the bank vault. The lock’s on a timer and can’t be opened for hours, but in the next ten minutes his air will run out.”

  “You can’t force the vault open?” the woman asked.

  “We’d have to use explosives, and the chances are the guy would get killed. But if we don’t act soon, his oxygen will —”

  “There’s the guy’s family!” a cameraman yelled. Immediately, the reporter abandoned the fire marshal and hurried to a woman whose face was twitching. Beside her was a three-year-old boy who was smiling because of people’s attention, too young to understand that his father was in danger. Even as the television crew swarmed this lady, Stephens glanced at his watch. With a sigh he told his men to unload three crates off a truck. Each crate bore the words DANGER: HIGH EXPLOSIVES.

  “Too bad The Bombardier isn’t here,” Alfonse whispered. “He’d melt the door with his gamma-ray vision.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Lewis said, approaching the fire marshal.

  “Pile ’em against the vault!” Stephens shouted. “We’ll blow the door and hope for the best.”

  “Please, Mr. Stephens,” Lewis persisted, plucking the officer’s gold-braided sleeve. “I was wondering —”

  “And move this crowd back!” the marshal ordered. “Just in case the blast’s too strong!”

  “Listen!” Lewis demanded, blocking the head fireman’s path. “I need some information about the vault. Can you tell me its model and serial number?”