The Lock Artist (31 page)

She turned to look at me.

“Don’t believe it. Not for a second.”

I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. I’d never thought of them as nice, normal, or happy. I wouldn’t even know what that looks like in the first place.

“If I asked you to, would you take me away from here? As far as we could get?”

I squeezed her hand.

“You’re a criminal, after all. You can kidnap me, right?”

I took another sip of beer, feeling that same little lightheaded feeling I had the night we broke into this very house. It was another night that felt like it was opening up right in front of me. Like anything could happen again, good or bad.

The night got darker. The moon was shining. The smoke from the grill hung in the air. Mr. Marsh played the Beach Boys on his boom box. His favorite group, apparently. At least on a warm summer night. His partner Mr. Slade showed up just in time to get the last hamburger. I realized as soon as I saw him that I had seen him before. Then I remembered. He was the man who had come out to watch me dig for a few minutes, before going inside to meet with Mr. Marsh. Today he was once again dressed in a suit, with the tie knotted tight against his neck. His hair looked slightly wet, like he had just come from the gym.

When Amelia went inside for a moment, Mr. Marsh cornered me and officially introduced the man.

“Michael, meet Jerry Slade. My partner.”

“I believe we’ve met,” he said, shaking my hand. “Good to see you again.”

“I don’t think Jerry believes you can do what you can do,” Mr. Marsh said. “You still think you could show him?”

Amelia came back outside and saved me.

Mr. Marsh grabbed me and whispered in my ear. “We’ll show him later.”

Then he slapped me on the back and went back to his grill.

A couple of hours later, Adam and his friends rolled off to hit another party. It was just the four of us now.

“Gotta get this boy home to bed,” Mr. Marsh said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “We might just have him out digging again tomorrow.”

“I thought he was done with that,” Amelia said.

“I’m just kidding, honey. I’ll let you two kids say good night. Actually, can you stop in to my office on your way out, Michael? I wanted to ask you one more thing, you know, about our new work arrangement.”

He turned off the music. Then he and Jerry went inside. It was quiet and dark now in the backyard. The big white tent seemed to glow in the moonlight.

“What is he having you do now?” Amelia said, wrapping her arms around my waist. “And why is Mr. Slade here? That guy gives me the creeps.”

I shook my head. Hell if I know what’s going on.

“Just be careful, okay? Those two guys get together, God knows what they’ll come up with.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that, but I figured I’d find out soon enough.

She kissed me good night. I didn’t want her to leave. I wanted to stay right there in the backyard with her for the rest of the night. But I knew the men were waiting for me.

She went up to her room. I went to the office. They were both standing underneath the giant fish. As soon as I came in, Mr. Marsh took out a leather case and gave it to me.

“Do you remember these?”

I opened it and saw the same lock-picking tools I had used in our little exhibitions with the locksmith.

“Can you show Mr. Slade what you can do with them now?”

I looked back and forth between them. They were dead serious. This wasn’t just a bar bet.

“Now, I know we’ve got those fancy unpickable locks on the doors now, but there’s gotta be something around here . . .”

As he rummaged around in his desk, I stood there sorting through the picks and tension bars. Such a perfect set of tools. I couldn’t help it. I had to try them again. So I gave them a little wave and had them follow me out the back door. When all three of us were outside, I locked the door and closed it.

“What are you doing?” Mr. Marsh said. “You can’t open this lock, remember?”

I bent down, took out the tension bar and a diamond pick, and got to work. Using the same idea for these serrated pins . . . oversetting all of them, and then letting them fall back down just enough, one by one . . . with the good tools, it was a snap.

Two minutes later, I turned the handle and pushed the door open.

“Holy Christ,” Mr. Marsh said. “How the fuck did you do that?”

“I’m impressed,” Mr. Slade said. “I mean, I know what you told me, but seeing it in person? God damn.”

“What else can you open?” Mr. Marsh said. “Can you open
any
kind of lock?”

He pushed in past me, into the kitchen. He started rummaging through a junk drawer. Then he pulled out an old padlock.

“I don’t even know the combination to this thing anymore. Can you open it?”

I took it from him. A cheap padlock off of one of his kids’ gym lockers, probably. Thrown into the junk drawer forever.

“This I gotta see,” Mr. Slade said.

He didn’t realize that this would be easier. A
lot
easier. But what the hell. I spun through the sticking points, found the obvious last number. Cleared it and started through the super sets, using the good old number families. I got lucky, because the first number was a three. So it didn’t take me more than a minute to snap it open.

They both stood there with their jaws open, like I had just levitated or something. I mean, it really was no big deal to me.

“Did I tell you or what?” Mr. Marsh said. “Is he or is he not amazing?”

“He is amazing.”

I gestured for something to write on, so I could give them the combination and they’d have this padlock back in service. They obviously had much bigger things in mind.

“What do you think?” Mr. Marsh said. “Can he use him?”

I didn’t know who they were talking about. I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of it, but Jerry Slade was already smiling and nodding his head.

“Damned straight. How could he
not
use him?”

“This could be it,” Mr. Marsh said. “This could be our ticket out of hell.”

It was just after midnight when I got back to Milford, but the liquor store was still open. Uncle Lito was behind the register, the phone to his ear. He slammed it down when I stuck my head in the door.

“Where in blazes have you been all night?”

I made a digging motion.

“Since noon? You worked for what, twelve hours?”

I gave him the thumbs-up and backed out the doorway. I heard him calling to me, but I kept walking. Back to the house. To my room. I sat down at my desk. I didn’t feel like sleeping. I didn’t feel like drawing. I just sat there and wondered what I’d gotten myself into.

I took out the leather case from my back pocket. I opened it and sorted through the tools. At least I’ve got these now, I thought. I’ll take care of these like fine jewels.

I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know that once you’ve proven yourself useful to the wrong people, you’ll never be free again.

The next day, my uncle was still pissed at me for leaving him hanging all night. Sitting at the kitchen table, eating his cereal. “That guy you work for,” he said, “you know he’s crazy. He could have killed you and buried you in his backyard for all I knew.”

I made a fist and rubbed it in a circle against my heart. He’d never been great with the sign language, but he knew that one.
I’m sorry
.

“You’re growing up. I know that. You’re at that age, you think you know everything.”

I nodded at him, wondering who he was even talking about. Certainly not me.

“I was seventeen myself once. I know that’s hard to imagine. Of course, I hadn’t dealt with half of what you’ve had to deal with.”

I couldn’t help wondering where he was going with this.

“You know, when I was seventeen, there was only one thing I wanted to do.”

Oh, please. Don’t go there.

“Okay, two things, but there’s one in particular I’m talking about here. Can you guess?”

I shook my head.

“Come on out to the store with me. I was going to give this to you yesterday.”

I followed him out of the house and around to the liquor store. He put a key in the back door and disappeared inside. When he came back out, he was pushing a motorcycle.

“It’s a Yahama 850 Special,” he said. “It’s used, but it’s in great shape.”

I stood there looking at it. The seat was black with a bronze trim. The chrome exhausts shone in the bright sunlight. If he had rolled out a spaceship, I wouldn’t have been any less surprised.

“One of my regulars couldn’t cover his tab. He offered me this bike if I would call it all square.”

That must have been one hell of a tab, I thought.

“Come on, saddle up. Hold on, I got you a helmet here.”

I took the handlebars from him while he went back inside. He came back out with a helmet and a black leather jacket.

“You need this, too,” he said. “I hope it’s the right size.”

I would have been speechless even if I could speak. I put the jacket on. Then he helped me put on the helmet. I sat on the bike and felt the whole thing bounce up and down under my weight.

“New shocks, he told me. New brakes. Tires are okay, not great. We’ll get you some new ones soon.”

I still couldn’t believe it was happening. I was actually supposed to ride this thing?

“Take it nice and easy at first, eh? Go ahead, give it a try.”

After he showed me how to start it, I tried putting it in gear and giving it a little gas. It just about took off from right underneath me. I tried again and made sure I was ready for it. After a couple of circles in the parking lot, I was on my way down the street. I took it slow at first, afraid I’d end up on the hood of somebody’s car. Then I started to get the hang of it. It was much easier to stay balanced than I would have imagined. And I had to say, the whole experience felt pretty damned good.

I took the bike back, but my uncle was already stationed behind his cash register, ringing up his first customer of the day. He gave me a wave, told me
to go back out and get to know the bike. He gave me a few bucks to fill up the tank. Then I was off.

I spent the rest of the morning riding. You don’t realize just how much pickup one of those babies has. From an absolute dead stop, if you really crank it, it feels like you’re on a rocket. I headed west on the back roads, out into what was then still farmland. I found a new hatred for dirt roads that have been freshly oiled, nearly killing myself the first time I hit one. After that I stuck to pavement and didn’t have any other close calls. It was just me and the sound of the machine between my legs and the wind whipping against my helmet. I wanted to share this feeling with Amelia. To take her by the hand and sit her down on the back of the bike. I could already feel her hands wrapped around my waist.

I made one more stop to buy a pair of sunglasses. And another helmet for Amelia. Now I had everything I needed in life. I got back on that bike and headed straight for her house.

So I rode out to that big white castle of a house gleaming in the sun, feeling like I owned the whole world. Feeling like this could be the day that I start talking. I mean, why not? Maybe this is what it would take.

Today, though, I was going to get something a little bit different.

I saw Mr. Marsh’s car in the driveway, but when I knocked on the door, nobody answered. I knocked again. Nothing.

I wandered around the house to the backyard and looked under the tent. The plants Mr. Marsh had dragged back there were all starting to wilt, so I went looking for a watering can and spent the next few minutes walking back and forth between the tent and the faucet.

Then I knocked on the back door. When nobody answered, I pushed the door open and went inside. I walked through and peeked into Mr. Marsh’s office. Nobody there. I looked up the stairs and saw that Amelia’s door was closed. I went up and knocked.

“Who is it?” she said from inside.

I knocked again. What else could I do?

“Come on in.”

When I opened the door, I saw her sitting at her desk. Her back was to me. She didn’t say a word. I hesitated, finally came into the room and went over to where she was working. I wanted to touch her shoulders, but I didn’t.

She was drawing something. Buildings, an alleyway. Lots of shadows. There was a long figure in the foreground, but it was hard for me to see exactly what she was doing with it. I stood there for a long time, watching her work.

“If I don’t talk,” she said, “it’s going to be pretty quiet in here, huh?”

She turned around, finally, and looked me in the eyes for the first time that day.

“My mother killed herself. Did you know that?”

I nodded. I remembered Mr. Marsh telling me that, on that very first day, before I had even seen Amelia.

“Today’s the anniversary. Five years ago.”