Trueman Bradley - Aspie Detective (13 page)

“Mrs. Levi,” I said, “this is not a good time for talking.”

“Oh, are you busy, dear?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I have a problem.”

“Oh, you don’t say?” she asked. “Well, I won’t take too much of your time. You know, I was just wondering, Trueman… me and Nora were talking a little while ago…”

“Mrs. Levi,” I said, “I really need to talk to Nora.”

Mrs. Levi continued talking.

“…and Nora told me all about how you put that equation of yours on these wrist TVs… so, I was just wondering. Does it mean any one of us could solve crimes like you now? We can all use your equations and solve crimes now?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, then, dear,” she said, “in that case, there’s all kinds of crimes in New York City. There’s murders and robberies that could be solved by any one of us, right? I think we should be using this thing to saved kidnapped children, recover the purses of poor old ladies… you know, that kind of thing. Isn’t it kind of… immoral, if we have the secret to solve these crimes and make people happy, and we don’t use it?”

“Immoral?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” she said, “we’re really no better than the criminals if we have the key to rescuing kids or to finding some poor old lady’s stolen money and we decide not to use it.”

“Key?” I asked. “What key? I only have the key to the office and the key to my granddad’s house in Heartville.”

“No, Trueman,” said Nora. “That’s just an expression. What Mrs. Levi means is… if we have the power to help save kidnapped children, for instance, and we decide not to help them, that’s kind of immoral. Because we’re not helping the children when we are able to. That’s bad, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, we have the power to help them with your equations!” said Nora. “So I think we have an obligation to do things like save kidnapped kids. If we don’t, we’re just deciding to let them suffer! Then, we’re really just as bad as the criminals, right? Mrs. Levi and I decided we’d use our wrist TVs to rescue all the kidnapped children in New York City. I think we could do it. I’ve seen how well your equation works. Mrs. Levi and I just need you to show us how to enter data into our wrist TVs and use your equation. So, what do you think? Will you help?”

I had never really thought of this before. My equations had always been a fascinating hobby for me and a means of succeeding as a detective. I hadn’t realized they could also do a lot of good. Just by inputting data into the computer of my wrist TV, I could end the miseries of a kidnapped child. The innocent victim’s horrible ordeal could be stopped by me, in just a few minutes. I suddenly felt as if I were responsible for all the unsolved crimes in the world, because I had a tool on my wrist that could solve every one of them. All the criminals were free because I was so selfish that I didn’t choose to spend a few minutes to solve their crimes.

“You’re right, Nora,” I said. “I didn’t realize that.”

“Great!” said Nora. “Then when we’re done this mission, you can show me and Mrs. Levi how to use your equation.”

“Wait!” I said. “No! I can’t help you!”

“What?” asked Nora. “Why not?”

I had remembered that my equations seemed to be flawed. I didn’t want Nora or Mrs. Levi or anyone to use my equations until I was sure they were working perfectly. I couldn’t endure the embarrassment if they discovered my equations didn’t work.

“I can’t show you how to use them,” I said. “Sorry.”

“But what about saving kids?” asked Nora. “Trueman, you can’t be saying you refuse to help us. Don’t you know there are innocent victims of crime out there suffering all kind of awful things? And you don’t want to help them! Why not?”

“I don’t want to talk about this!” I said. “I have some trouble here. A man is leaning on the fence and he doesn’t move. I think I might need to cancel the mission.”

“What?” asked Nora. “Why? Trueman, is something wrong? You’re acting very strange. If there’s something you’re not telling us or if something’s bothering you, please tell me.”

“There’s nothing I’m not telling you,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it! Items on my checklist plan are going wrong. Maybe I’ll go back to the office and make a new plan.”

“We can’t start over, Trueman!” said Nora. “I’m already on the roof of the apartment block. What exactly is going wrong?”

“There’s a man here in the park,” I said.

“Well, just hide!” said Nora. “Wait for him to go away.”

“But he doesn’t move!” I said. “He hasn’t moved at all for the last five minutes. He’s scaring me. I need to cancel.”

“I don’t understand!” said Nora. “You said you’re using your jerk magic equation to avoid people. So, how come you couldn’t avoid this guy? Just use your equation!”

I didn’t answer. I had accidently let her know my jerk magic equation seemed not to be working. I felt a terrible fear that all my equations had stopped working. I would fail at this mission; fail at being a detective and Nora, Sal and Mrs. Levi would no longer admire my mind. I felt paralyzed by anxiety.

“Wait a minute, Mr. Bradley!” said Sal.

“Sal?” I asked. “You’re using the wrist TV too?”

Three faces now appeared on the screen of my wrist TV. Sal was inside the driver’s seat of the Lincoln car.

“Yes, Mr. Bradley,” he said. “I was listening to your conversation. You said there is a man leaning on a fence? And he is standing very still? Is that correct, Mr. Bradley?”

I looked around the tree and saw the mysterious man leaning on the fence. He hadn’t moved from his original position.

“That’s correct, Sal,” I said.

“Okay, I thought so,” he said. “Tell me, is there a bear standing nearby?”

“A bear?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Sal. “Have a look around. See a bear?”

I looked around the grassy lawn where the man was leaning on the fence and I saw the outline of a bear, in the distance.

“A bear!” I said. “Now I know I need to cancel the mission. Sal! Please drive here and get me. Fast!”

“No, no, Mr. Bradley!” he said. “I do not need to get you, although I know exactly where you are! You are close to the street called River Terrace. That is correct?”

“Yes,” I said. “But how do you know that?”

Sal laughed.

“Because, Mr. Bradley,” he said, “there are many statues in the parkland beside River Terrace. That man is a cast-iron statue! The bear is also a statue. If you walk further, you will see a statue of a giant fist. That man is not a real man!”

I looked at the mysterious man, but couldn’t determine if he was real or a statue. I removed my sunglasses and could instantly see that he was, indeed, a statue. I could see the moonlight reflecting on his metal body. I felt incredibly relieved and sighed deeply.

“Oh,” I said. “Then the cancellation is cancelled.”

“Okay,” said Nora. “But we still have to talk about why you won’t help me and Mrs. Levi to help rescue kidnapped kids!”

I felt suddenly embarrassed that I had mistaken a statue for a man and defensive about my equations, which I still suspected were not working. I didn’t want to have this conversation right now. It caused me stress and I didn’t want any more stress. All these mistakes already stressed me so much, I was shaking.

“I can’t talk now,” I said. “Please write ‘receive call from Trueman at 9:52 pm’ on your checklist. Thanks. Bye.”

I switched off my wrist TV to avoid hearing her reaction.

“Only three minutes until someone comes!” I said.

I ran across the grassy lawn, towards the warehouse.

“Oh, I wasted so much time because of that statue!” I said.

As I ran past the statue of the man leaning on the fence, I hit him on the head, as his punishment for making me late. I ran past the statue of the bear and was soon at the back door of Hickson warehouse. The moon was beautiful, reflected on the waves of the Hudson River, but I had no time to admire it. I had only a few minutes to execute the next item on my plan.

I crossed off “go to Hickson warehouse without meeting anyone” from my checklist. The next item read “pick lock of the back door of Hickson warehouse.” I had only a few minutes to open the lock of the warehouse’s back door before someone came to disturb me. But it shouldn’t be a problem for me, because I have been picking locks since I was a small child.

“Picking locks” is an expression used to describe a method of opening locks without using a key. Instead of using a key, I use long metal rods called “picks.” When I was seven years old, I had an obsession with keys and locks. One day, I had found an old dead-bolt lock in my granddad’s garage and, after examining it, I became fascinated with locks and keys. I didn’t play with toy cars or teddy bears; I played with locks and keys. I would study lock and key catalogs and memorize every detail. I could recognize the brand, model number and style of any lock. When I was nine, I found a book about picking locks, which my granddad had hidden between the “S” and “T” encyclopedias in his library. In a few days, I was able to pick locks and had practiced on every lock in the house.

My granddad became suspicious of my activities after finding all of his doors, filing cabinets and briefcases unlocked. But instead of getting angry when he learned about my lock-picking, he was proud of me for becoming such a good lock-picker at such a young age. He explained to me that picking locks was a useful skill for a police detective, but it should never be used to break into private property illegally.

Over the years, my granddad had trained me to be an expert at lock-picking.
I was proficient at opening all types of locks and could usually open them within two minutes. I knelt before the back door of Hickson warehouse. The door was solid and made of blue metal. I recognized its lock as an Iver brand lock, model number 1A-114. I knew from my memories of the lock and key catalogs that Iver locks were simple “pin and tumbler” locks. These were the easiest types of locks to pick, so I felt optimistic that I could open the door before I was disturbed.

I took a leather case out of my trench coat pocket. This case contained my granddad’s collection of lock-picking tools, which I’d inherited from him. I unrolled the leather case and looked over the 38 long, metal picks. I took out a thin piece of curved metal, called a “tension wrench,” and used it to apply pressure to the lock. I took out a pick with a squiggly tip, called a “snake pick,” and began to pick the lock. Most lock-pickers need to use a variety of picks, but I had developed a method of picking pin and tumbler locks with only a snake pick.

Picking a lock isn’t hard if you know what to do. I had to use my snake pick to poke inside the lock and push seven pins into the correct position, then the lock would open. I rubbed the snake pick against the pins and heard two of them move into the proper position. I needed to move five more pins into the proper place and then I could get inside Hickson warehouse.

I could hear a noise nearby. It made me nervous. The mysterious man had been a statue, but it had made me doubt myself and the accuracy of my equations. What if I had been wrong and someone was coming to disturb me, two minutes early? I couldn’t stop looking behind me. I didn’t see anything, but the noises were making me shake with anxiety and I kept looking nervously over my shoulder. The area around the back of Hickson warehouse was dark and smelly, with a lot of garbage on the ground. The only light came from a dirty, yellow lamp.

I heard the two pins in the lock move out of the correct place. I had not been concentrating on my lock-picking and now I needed to start again. Frustration was building up inside me, and it made my hands shake even more. Now, I had even less time to pick the lock. I looked at the clock on my wrist TV.

“One minute and twenty seconds left!” I said.

A loud noise made me drop my snake pick. The metal pick made a loud clatter as it hit the ground and I saw something moving behind me. I was seized by panic and screamed. I turned around and saw a black and white cat run from out of the garbage. I watched its white tail as it disappeared into the shadows. I was now so thoroughly nervous, I felt nauseous.

I picked up my snake pick and tried to resume picking the lock. My fingers kept shaking and it was hard for me to handle the pick. I kept missing the lock and hitting the metal beside it. Soon the lock was covered in small, shiny scratches.

“No!” I said. “Scratches! Now someone might realize I was picking the lock. A lock-picker should never leave scratches!”

I tried to wipe the scratches away with my fingers, but it didn’t work. I tried to wipe the scratches away with my coat’s sleeve, but it only left black stains on my sleeve. I looked at my dirtied sleeve and felt my heart pounding. It was easy to pick a lock in my granddad’s garage, but it was harder to pick a lock in stressful situations. I hadn’t expected to be so tense.

“I wish I would stop shaking!” I said.

I pushed the snake pick into the lock, but I must have pushed it in too hard, because it made a loud scraping sound and got stuck in the lock. I couldn’t remove it. This had never happened to me before and I panicked. My stomach was tight from tension and I felt like I’d be sick. I crawled over to the garbage and hid behind a garbage can, not sure if I would vomit.

“2, 3, 5, 7…” I said, remembering how much prime numbers helped me to relax.

I could smell sour milk and discarded coffee among the garbage and my knees were resting in something wet. But soon I had forgotten my uncomfortable surroundings. The crisp, indivisible images of the prime numbers formed in my mind, and I felt my stomach loosen and my hands stop shaking.

“11, 13, 17, 19…” I said.

I heard a sound and stopped counting. Someone was walking towards me. I looked at the clock on my wrist TV.

“My time’s done,” I said to myself. “Someone’s coming!”

I hid my face behind my hands and peeked between my fingers. A man in a gray trench coat was approaching from out of the shadows. He wore black sunglasses and a wide hat. But I was too terrified to notice any more details. He walked towards me with loud, confident steps and I was sure he’d push the garbage cans aside, find me cowering in the corner and do something horrible to me. He walked briskly, as if he had a purpose. In my horrified state, I was certain that purpose was to pull me out of my hiding place and punish me severely.