The Lock Artist

Fourteen

Los Angeles

January 2000

There was another staircase leading down to a back door of the club, apparently for use by VIPs only. Lucy opened the door, and we were back out in the parking lot. The night was cooler now, a light wind coming in off the ocean.

We got in the car. I sat up front next to her. She pulled out onto Vine Street.

“You’re doing okay,” she said. “Just keep it up. Stay cool.”

She drove back down Sunset Boulevard, then took a hard right and headed up into the hills. We retraced our route from earlier that day, up Laurel Canyon Boulevard. We took the same turn and stopped in the exact same spot. Now that it was dark, the whole city was lit up and spread out below us as far as the eye could see.

“Get out,” she said to me.

She waited for me to come around the car, to where she was standing.

“Take your clothes off.”

Excuse me?

“You don’t want to mess up the new outfit, do you?” She popped the trunk and took out a pair of jet black coveralls. Then she waited while I took off the suit jacket, the shirt, the pants.

“Shoes, too. I’ve got a couple pairs here you can try on.”

She took my clothes and put them in the backseat. I was standing there on the side of the road in nothing but my underwear. She looked me up and down before handing me the coveralls and a pair of black running shoes. When I was all dressed up in my new simple black, she took my sunglasses right off my face.

“Gunnar will have the phone,” she said. “He’ll call me when you guys are finished. If he can’t for some reason, take the phone from him and press the number nine. That’ll ring me and I’ll know to come get you. If I don’t hear anybody talking, I’ll know it’s an emergency, in which case I’ll find some way to come directly to the house. No matter what I have to do to get there. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“What button?”

I put up nine fingers.

“Good boy.” She grabbed me and kissed me hard on the mouth.

“I really do hate you,” she said, “but Wesley was right. You are beautiful.”

Then she turned me toward the darkness of the sage bushes and the long slope leading down to the house below.

“He’ll be waiting for you at the back door,” she said. “Now get your ass down there.”

Then she pushed me over the edge.

It didn’t take me long to get to the bottom. Funny how gravity can speed things along when you’re sliding down a fifty-degree slope. When I got to the bottom, I felt like I’d been whipped over and over with a length of barbed wire.

I caught my breath for a moment, looked both ways down the street, and then crossed over to the house. I went around to the back. There was a pool with a dozen underwater lights around the perimeter. The view over the railings would have been spectacular if I had been in any mood to appreciate it. There was so much more light coming from the house itself. So many windows open and no curtains. It was like looking into a giant aquarium. I went to the back door. Before I could knock, Gunnar opened the door and held it with only twelve inches or so for me to squeeze through.

“Move very slowly,” he whispered to me.

I slid in and saw that there was a wire running from the top of the door to the frame. It was a magnetic switch that would have activated the alarm if the contact had been broken. It looked like Gunnar had made a small notch in the wires leading to either side of the switch and then had run a jumper wire between them. With the circuit still complete, the alarm wouldn’t go off when he opened the door.

The second thing I noticed was that the house was hotter than hell.

“Listen very carefully,” he said. “Do you see that unit on the wall over there?”

I looked over at the far wall and saw the rectangle, about four inches by three inches. It had a small screen set into the top half. On the bottom half there was a small black circle.

“The secondary security in this house is passive infrared. Meaning that it picks up the heat in your body as you move across its field. I’ve cranked the heat up as far as it can go, which will help neutralize the difference between your body and the air temperature. But you still have to be very careful.”

He must have used the alarm delay to sneak out of his hiding place and adjust the thermostat, I thought. Then after that, it had just been a waiting game.

“The safe’s in the other room,” he said. “Follow me and don’t go any faster than I do.”

He took a slow step across the floor. I followed behind him. Without the superheated air, we wouldn’t have had a chance. There’s no way we could have moved slow enough, no matter how hard we tried. Even with the heat advantage, we both kept our eyes on that sensor. All it had to do was turn red one time and we’d have to think about pulling the plug on the whole operation.

“There’s another sensor in the next room,” he said. “So there’s no letup. You have to stay slow.”

We kept inching our way out of that room, around the corner where I could see into the main part of the house. I saw a huge fireplace, lots of modern art paintings on the wall that looked exactly like the work my old friend Griffin used to do. The big windows and the glowing swimming pool outside. I could even see the lights from the city, and for one second I couldn’t help but wonder which one of those lights was reaching up to us from that nightclub where Julian and Ramona were waiting.

We turned another corner finally. There was a big black desk with two space-age lamps suspended above it. Bookshelves. More paintings. Right there, on the wall, just a few feet from us, another infrared sensor.

And a safe.

It was, as Julian had promised, the exact same model he had shown me in his back room. Leaving nothing to chance, he had said. At the time I had wondered if he was taking his preparation to ridiculous lengths. Now I was happy that I’d gotten the chance to practice.

“Very slow now,” he said. We were passing just a few feet from the sensor. I kept waiting for that light to go on. I felt so hot now. How could this thing not sense that we were in the room? Gunnar put one foot in front of him, slowly shifted his weight. Put another foot forward, shifted again. It took us another five minutes just to make our way past it.

When we got to the safe, I sank down onto my knees. That finally gave me a moment to catch my breath and to wipe the sweat from my eyes. Funny how exhausting it is to move so damned slowly.

“It’s the same safe,” he said. “You should be able to open it.”

No kidding, I thought. I put my hand on the dial and started spinning.

“Because if you can’t, we’re all pretty much fucked here.”

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Now just leave me the hell alone.

As I turned back to the safe, I could feel the sweat running down my back. It felt like the good old days in Mr. Marsh’s backyard. The dial was slippery in my hand, but I knew I’d be able to open it. From my practice session, I already knew that there were four wheels. I already knew what the contact area would feel like. All I had to do was work through the dial, then once I had found the numbers, to crank through the combinations. We wouldn’t have any problems here.

Not yet.

When I had the right combination, I turned the handle and started to swing open the door. Gunnar put his hand out and stopped it. I had forgotten to be careful.

We both looked over at the sensor. The light was still off.

“Here,” he said, slowly pulling a black garbage bag from his back pocket. “Do your thing.”

When the door was fully open, I could see that my thing would consist of taking many bundles of cash and putting them into the bag.

“That’s what three-quarters of a million dollars looks like, in case you’re wondering.”

Looks just fine to me, I thought. A hundred twenty-dollar bills in each bundle, that meant 375 bundles. I started shoveling them into the bag, a handful at a time.

“Take it easy,” he said. I think he was about to bend down and start helping me when he stopped himself short. “Did you hear that?”

I stopped and listened. I shook my head. I didn’t hear anything.

“That’s what I mean. It’s quieter now.”

We both stayed where we were for a moment. It came to him first.

“The furnace. It’s off now.”

He was right. That constant humming in the background. It was silent now.

“Hurry up and fill up that bag,” he said, “but do it carefully.”

Impossible to do it both ways at once, but I did what I could. I slid the bag up close to the safe and grabbed bundle after bundle, shoving them all inside.

“Maybe it overheated,” Gunnar said. “Or hell, maybe it ran out of fuel. Is it my imagination, or does it not even feel as hot in here anymore?”

I was hoping it was his imagination, but I was afraid it wasn’t. I had stopped sweating, even though I was working so hard putting the money in the bag. How long would it take for the room temperature to sink back close to normal?

“We’re going to have to be even more careful,” Gunnar said. “Are you ready?”

I nodded to him. He reached down and picked up the bag. I closed the safe and got to my feet. He started moving and I followed.

One step, shift. One step, shift.

When we were close to the sensor again, I held my breath. The air was definitely cooler now. There was no doubt about that. Gunnar took a step. Then another step.

The light flashed red.

“Stop,” he said.

We both froze.

The light went back off. It stayed off. Now it was decision time. Depending on how the alarm system was set, either it made allowances for the occasional trip, or it didn’t and the system was calling the central control board that very second. If the alarm was silent, we’d have no idea. Until the vehicles came roaring down the street.

“Even slower.” Gunnar leaned forward, watching the sensor. This time he slid his foot across the floor. One inch. Another inch. We were moving impossibly slow now. It would take hours to get back to the door. It would take days.

Patience, I told myself. If you have nothing else in this world, you have patience.

We were right in front of the sensor now. A tilt of the head would set it off. A blink would set it off. You are a statue. The rotation of the earth is the only thing moving you. Your hair is growing faster than you’re moving.

Slowly. Slowly.

It felt like forever, but finally we were past the sensor. Not that we were out of the woods yet. There was another twenty-five, thirty feet of floor to cover. Back around the corner, into the kitchen. Watching the far sensor now. Not assuming anything. Not pushing it. If it went off one more time, we’d probably have to make a break for it.

Step by tiny step. Through the kitchen. To the door. The thermostat was there on that wall, so Gunnar reached out and reset it to normal. Just another way to cover our tracks. He paused for a moment, catching his breath. I could see his legs shaking. Then he started moving again, kept going until he got to the back door. He reached for it, pulled it slowly open. When the door was open far enough, he turned his body sideways. Inch by inch, out the door. I could feel the cool air rushing into the room.

“Really slow now,” he said. I’d already figured that part out. The good news is that all that cool air would help bring the temperature inside back to normal, so that it wouldn’t even feel like somebody had cranked the heat up. The bad news is that we were more vulnerable now than ever.

A minute later, his entire body was out the door. I did my own slow-motion turn and slide. As I finally worked my way out, he reached above me and gently pulled his jumper wire through the doorway. Then he started slowly closing the door. When it was almost there, he gave the wire a quick pull as he closed the door in the same motion. Either the contact on the magnetic switch would be preserved, or else once again we’d have to hope that the system would have a little bit of tolerance built in for occasional random trips.

Either way, it was time for us to get moving.

We went around the side of the house, stopping before we got to the front, looking up and down the street. Everything was still quiet.

We both crossed the street. The cool air felt good in my lungs, but we had no time to savor it yet. We both ducked in under the thick brush and started making our way back up the canyon slope. As we did, I saw him take out his cell phone and hit a speed dial key.

“We’re on our way.” He hung up and got back to work climbing. It was a hell of a lot harder going up the slope than it had been coming down, but I knew we didn’t want to risk having Lucy come down the lower street. Not if we didn’t have to.

We grabbed onto branches and vines and rocks, pulling ourselves up, yard by yard, but eventually we both emerged onto the upper road. Lucy was there by the car.

“What took you guys so long?” she said.

Gunnar gave her a quick kiss and told her to get behind the wheel. He went around and got in the passenger’s side. I got in back. When we were finally rolling, he picked up the bag and threw it over the seat to me.

“I’m serious,” Lucy said. “What the fuck took you so long?”

Gunnar started laughing. If I could have, I would have joined him.

Lucy drove us back down the canyon road, back to Sunset Boulevard, while I took off the coveralls and then twisted myself back into my fancy suit. It was almost midnight now, but the street was still full of traffic. All of the clubgoers were just hitting their stride now, and the lines still snaked down the sidewalk.

We pulled back into the same parking spot. Lucy turned off the car, and only then did she turn around and really get a good look at me.

“You look like shit, you know that?”

She wetted a napkin with her tongue and tried to clean me up.

“Just go inside,” Gunnar said. “Go in the bathroom first.”

“He looks like he just rolled down a mountain.”

“Just go,” he said. “I’ll take the car back home. You guys’ll get a cab, right?”

“No problem, babe.” She kissed him again. A long one this time.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” she said.

“It was worth it.”

“I don’t care. You made it out. That’s all that matters.”

A little more slobbering over each other and then he finally kicked us out of the car.

“Hold on,” she said as the car rolled away from us. “If you’re gonna look like that, I need to match.”

She bent over and ran both hands through her hair. When she stood back up straight, her hair was an unruly mess.

“Let’s go, Michael. Excuse me, Mikhail. It’s time for Phase Two.”