Crooked Little Vein

Chapter 54

I invented five new swearwords in six seconds.

Dashing to the door, I jabbed the jimmy into the lock, immobilizing it. A chair went under the door handle. I ran back to the safe. It was electronic. Brom had told me it was an old-style dial-tumbler design. I went down and peered at the numeric keypad at an angle. The most-used keys pick up more dirt than the others. But this damn thing was new. In my pocket, I had some talc lifted from Brom’s kitchen that I’d wrapped in a square of kitchen paper. I unwrapped it and blew a little over the keypad, and then blew lightly at the keypad itself. One, five, six, and eight looked like they’d attracted more powder than the others, which meant they were slightly stickier, which meant they’d been used more. I hoped.

Someone banged on the door.

I started tapping in variations on 1568. It took me five or six goes before I noticed the little LED display on the face of the safe.

ALARM-LOCK.

The damn thing immobilized when the alarm went off.

With the alarm still beeping away, the element of surprise had kind of faded away a while back.

So I took out the Ruger and shot the safe.

The pow was deafening in the enclosed space. The windows wobbled in their frames. The safe spat out a shower of sparks, the LED going dead. I’d put the big bullet right where I assumed the locking mechanism to be, and the door resentfully eased open by about an inch. I put Brom’s kitchen knife in the gap and started levering with all the strength I had left.

There was a crunching, the blade snapped off, and the door came away. I pulled the door back as far as I could, and looked inside, heart in my mouth.

The book was in there.

It had to be the book. It was ancient. Big, with gray leather covers, mold greening the corners.

The banging on the door turned to thumping. Someone was throwing their body against it.

I took the book out gingerly, and laid it on the desk. The second it touched the surface, my head started swimming, like I’d taken a heavy toke off a strong joint. I shook it off and opened the book. The front cover touched the desk surface and it happened again. I felt my eyes widen and my head kind of lurch to attention, going light.

I took out my phone, found the number I wanted, and hit redial.

“It’s McGill,” I said. “I’m sure you know where I am. I have what you want. Send in the cavalry. And that’s now, not in five minutes’ time.”

“We’re outside,” rasped the voice I’d learned to hate. “Three minutes, Mr. McGill.”

Three minutes. Probably not enough time. But I had to try it.

I took out the handheld computer.