The Lock Artist

Twenty-five

Michigan

August, September 1999

I passed the fresh scrape in the bridge embankment, edged with cherry red paint, as I rode out to her house that morning. She was there when I arrived. A duffel bag over her shoulder. Moving back into her own house after her little “vacation” with relatives up north. When she saw me, she dropped the duffel bag, came over to me as I was getting off my bike, and held me tight for a few long minutes straight. She kissed me and told me how much she had missed me and otherwise made me feel absolutely numb with such sudden happiness.

It was my first lesson in how everything in your life can change if you just do one small, specific thing perfectly well.

I helped her bring her stuff inside. Another small measure of pure joy for me when I saw all of Zeke’s love notes in her garbage pail, along with the dried-out roses. She wanted me to take her out on the bike, right then and there, but it was getting close to noon. My first taste of the conflict I’d have to live with every day for the rest of August. Mr. Marsh covered for me today, at least, telling Amelia that I had to go to work at his health club, and that he was sure I’d be able to see her again later. When she was distracted by something, he gave me a little wink and a thumbs-up.

In the end, that’s how it had to work. I still had my court-ordered obligations to Mr. Marsh, after all. Beyond that, I still knew that working with the Ghost was the one thing that was keeping everybody safe and happy. Even though Amelia didn’t know it yet, I was busy keeping the wolves from her door.

I wasn’t naive about what I was doing. I really wasn’t. I mean, when I let myself think about it, I knew I wasn’t learning all this stuff so I could open up my own little locksmith shop on Main Street. I knew these men would want me to actually open a safe for real at some point. I mean, open a safe that belonged to someone else. I figured I could live with that. Open one safe, let them do what they had to do. Then walk away.

I thought it could be that simple. I really did.

By the end of that week, I could do all eight safes in one sitting. Rolling that chair from one to the next. It took all afternoon, and by the time I opened the last safe my back would be wet and my head would be pounding, but I could do it. The next day, the Ghost would have all of the combinations reset and I’d do the whole thing again.

By the end of the next week, I could do them all without killing myself, in about half the time. I still had the portable lock set at home, too. I’d go see Amelia in the evenings, of course, but then I’d spin every night when I got home, just to keep my touch.

One day, another of the pagers went off. I could tell it was a different pager, just from the sound. The Ghost left the room to make a phone call, but this time when he came back he wasn’t shaking like a little kid called down to the principal’s office.

“Buncha fucking amateurs,” he said. Saying it to himself and not really to me. “Aren’t there any real pros around anymore? Guys who know what the fuck they’re doing?”

I listened to him say stuff like that, but I still didn’t really know what he was talking about. Who these people were on the other end of these pagers. I just kept doing my thing. Getting better and faster. I’d go down to Detroit every day, spend my time with the Ghost, then go have dinner with Amelia. Sit in her room, draw, go out on the bike. Come back. End up in her bed sometimes. More and more often, actually, as it occurred to me that nobody was stopping us. Her father would leave the house for hours at a time. Even when he was there, he’d make a big point of staying in his office, like there was no way he’d ever come upstairs and bother us. It’s kind of sick looking back at it now, just how much liberty he must have felt he owed me. Even in his own house.

Then, finally… the day came. It was the middle of August. I went down to West Side Recovery, and from the moment I walked in the place, I could tell that something was up. The Ghost sat me down and rolled up his chair in front of me. Then he started talking.

“First rule,” he said. “You work with people you trust. Nobody else. Ever. You got me?”

I sat there looking at him. Why was I getting this today?

“I need you to let me know that you’re hearing what I’m saying,” he said. “I don’t think that’s fucking too much to ask, is it? So give me some kind of indication here. Are you with me on the trust issue or not?”

I nodded.

“Okay. Thank you.”

He took a moment to settle himself down. Then he continued.

“I know you don’t know shit about anybody yet. So you’re gonna have to use your gut. You get a call, you hook up with somebody, you ask yourself one simple question. You ask yourself, do I trust this person with my life? With my life? Because that’s really what you’re doing. You look them in the eye and you ask yourself that, and your gut will tell you. If there’s anything wrong… I mean anything, you walk away. You turn right around, and you walk. You got me?”

I nodded.

“Being a little nervous is okay. But if they look too nervous? Jumping all over the place? You turn and walk. They’re loaded? They’re high on fucking speed or something? You turn and walk.”

He fiddled with the chain that held his glasses as he thought about it. This man who dressed like a homeless ex-librarian, telling me these things.

“Too many people. You turn and walk. What’s too many, you ask? Depends on the situation. Simple in and out, deal with an alarm maybe, somebody looking out, somebody driving. You got what, four people? Five, maybe? So what happens if you show up and you see ten fucking guys standing around? It’s like bring-a-friend-to-work-day or something? You turn and walk. Because that’s the last thing you need, right? A few more idiots to get in the way? Or run their mouths about it afterwards? Let alone the fact that your share gets smaller with each extra guy on board. Who needs it, right? You turn and walk.”

I kept sitting there in front of him, with my hands locked on my knees. I felt a little numb.

“You know what else? Here’s another thing. You don’t carry a gun. You do not so much as touch a gun unless it’s an emergency. You got that?”

I nodded. That one I could agree to without a problem.

“It’s not your job to carry a gun. It’s not your job to do anything except open a box. That’s the only reason you’re in the fucking room, and that’s the only thing you do. You’re like the doctor in a maternity ward, right? They’ve got nurses to do all the other shit, run around like crazy while the baby’s getting ready to come out. Then when it’s time, and only when it’s time… call the doctor! He comes in, boom. Baby’s out, everybody’s happy. Doctor goes back to the wherever, the doctors’ lounge. He acts like he’s too good for everyone else, and his time is way more valuable than anybody else’s time. Because, yes, you’re damned right! It’s the truth! He knows it and everybody else knows it. He’s the doctor and everybody else ain’t worth shit.”

I was too hot under the big green plastic shade. It was one of those late August days that didn’t get the memo about summer being almost over.

“Bottom line, kid. Bottom line. You are an artist. So you get to act like a fucking prima donna. They expect you to. If you didn’t, they’d think something was wrong. Hell, they’d pull the plug on the whole thing. We were expecting an artist, and instead we got this schmuck. So what the fuck, eh? Let’s all go home.”

He inched his chair a little closer to me.

“There aren’t many of us left,” he said. “That’s the simple truth of the matter. Without you, they gotta go in, they gotta carry that safe out, they gotta do God knows what. You’ve seen what they have to do, ripping that box apart. Without you, it turns into a fucking demolition project. So you get to call your shots. You hear me? Never be afraid to do that.”

He looked especially tired today. Especially pale and old and used up. I couldn’t help but wonder if this had done that to him, this work he was telling me about.

“Let me show you what I’ve got here,” he said, picking up the shoebox from the floor and putting it in his lap. “This is very important, so listen carefully.”

He opened the shoebox and picked up one of the pagers.

“You know what these are, right? Pagers, beepers, whatever you want to call them. Somebody wants to reach you, they just dial a certain number and the pager will go off. Their number will get stored right here in this little readout. You see this screen? There’s a memory, so you can go back and find the number if you don’t happen to see it.”

He pushed a little button and showed me.

“It’ll usually be a secure number they leave, in case you’re wondering. A pay phone, maybe. Or some kind of temporary situation. As long as it’s clean. Anyway, you get a number on one of these, you call it.”

I waited for him to see through to the obvious problem. He gave me one of his rare little half-smiles and shook his head.

“Yeah, I got it, hotshot. I know you don’t call people all that often. Don’t worry. The people who need to know about you will know that you’re just calling to listen. If they don’t, then hell, that’s just one more way to know who not to work with. You don’t even have to leave the house.”

He put the pager down, picked up another.

“As you can see, I’ve got these all marked with different colors. Make sure you keep them straight. The green one here… hell, I don’t think this one’s gone off in two years. I don’t even know why I have it anymore.”

He put it back in the box and picked up another.

“The blue one… they don’t call that often. Once a year, maybe? Twice a year? From the East Coast, mostly. They’re pros, so you can feel good about it if these guys call. Okay? You got that part?”

That one went back in the box. Another came out.

“Okay, yellow. You’ll get beeped on this one. Problem is, you’ll never know exactly who you’re dealing with. Or where the call is coming from. Hell, it could be from fucking Mexico or something. That’s why I’ve got it yellow, you see. Yellow, as in yellow pages, meaning that just about anybody can get this number and call you. Also, yellow as in proceed with caution. You got it?”

Back in the box, one more out. He shook this a few times.

“The white pager,” he said. “Never a problem here. These guys are money. Okay? They’re fucking money in the bank. They stay out west mostly, and I gotta admit, they’re a little unorthodox. Whatever they set up, it’s usually some kind of slow play. They set up a situation and they know they won’t see you for a few days, but they know you’re the guy they need and they’ll be willing to wait for you. If it rings, you go, because like I said, these guys are as good as it gets.”

He put that one back, picked up the last one. He held it carefully, as if even the pager itself would be more dangerous than the others. He moved his chair another inch toward mine.

“Okay, here it is,” he said. “The red one. I’ll put this in simple terms so there’s no chance of misunderstanding. If this pager goes off, you fucking call the number as soon as you can. You listen to what the man says. If he wants to meet somewhere, you go and you meet him. Are you hearing me?”

I nodded.

“The man on the other side of the red pager is the man who allows you to do what you do. Everything else that happens, happens because he lets it happen. In fact, if any one of these other people ever uses your services, this man gets a cut right off the top. You got that? He’s the boss, and if you ever get on the wrong side of that, you might as well just go kill yourself and save everybody else the trouble. Because this man will fuck you and everyone else around you in ways that you have never even imagined. Are we totally clear on this point?”

I nodded again. I had a fairly good idea I knew who this man was. The man I had met in Mr. Marsh’s office. The man in the suit, with the strange cologne and the foreign cigarettes.

“The red pager goes off,” he said. “What do you do?”

I made a telephone with my thumb and little finger, and held it to my ear.

“How soon do you do it?”

I pointed to the floor. Now.

“I know that seems to contradict everything else I was telling you about being a prima donna and walking away from things. But trust me. When he needs you, you better come through.”

He put the red pager back in the box and closed the lid.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “He won’t call that often. It’s not like he needs a lot of help in life.”

He held out the box to me. He waited for me to take it.

“You’re ready. Take them.”

No, I thought. I am most definitely not ready.

“You realize, this isn’t something for you to choose at this point,” he said. “You already chose. Not to get too heavy or anything, but that next call on the red pager will be for you, whether you like it or not.”

I took the box. The Ghost got up from his chair.

“Make sure you keep spinning, every single day. You know if you stop, you’ll lose your touch.”

He reached into his pocket and took out a ring of keys. He tossed them to me.

“That big one’s the front door. The silver one’s the office. Some of those others are for the cabinets in there, I think. That last one’s for the back gate. Probably doesn’t even open anymore.”

I looked up at him. What the hell did I need these for?

“I don’t suppose you feel like running this place. So you’d better keep it locked up. Make up a sign, say we’re closed for renovations or something. You can still come in and practice.”

I pointed at him. Where are you going?

“I told you,” he said. “My daughter needs me. In Florida. Dream come true, right? She lives in one of those ‘manufactured homes,’ which is just a fancy way of saying a double-wide trailer. A swamp out back with alligators that come out and eat all the little dogs.”

I gestured to everything around us.

“Yeah, how could I ever leave this? Don’t worry, I’m not that sentimental about most of it. None of it’s mine, anyway.”

I put my hands out.

“Who owns it, you’re asking? Who do you think?”

He pointed to the red pager.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to say good-bye to the ladies.”

I knew who he meant, of course. I left him there in the back lot of West Side Recovery, so he could spend his last few minutes in the Garden of Safes. I rolled my bike out onto the sidewalk, the shoebox tucked under my arm. There was an overflowing garbage can just a few yards away, in front of the dry cleaners. I could just leave this box right on top, I thought. Ride away and never come back.

Instead, I opened up the little storage compartment behind the seat and put the box in. It just barely fit.

As I was standing there on the sidewalk, I saw the car parked across the street. I got one look at the driver’s face, before he picked up a newspaper and hid behind it. It was the man who had come to visit the store that one day, the man who had walked all the way back to the safes. The name came back to me. Harrington Banks. Who his friends call Harry.

Gotta be a cop, I thought. I mean, who else would be doing this? I could go knock on his window, get a pad of paper and write down everything I know, before it goes any further.

I put my helmet on and took off for Amelia’s house.

Amelia’s father was gone. She was upstairs in her room. As soon as I saw her, I knew something was up.

“How was work today?” she said.

I gave her a shrug. It was okay.

“It’s funny, I went by the health club and you weren’t there.”

Uh-oh.

“Nobody had ever even heard of you there.”

I sat down on the bed. She turned around in the chair to face me.

“What are you doing for my father every day?”

This is not good, I thought. What the hell am I supposed to tell her?

“Tell me the truth.”

She picked up a pad of paper and a pen. She brought them over to me and then sat on the bed next to me. She waited for me to start writing.

I’m sorry I lied to you, I wrote.

Then I crossed that out and wrote something different.

I’m sorry I let your father lie to you.

“Just tell me,” she said. “I want to know what he’s making you do.”

He’s not making me do anything.

“Michael… Tell me what you’re doing.”

I thought about it for a few seconds. Finally, I wrote the only words I could think to write.

I can’t tell you.

“Why not?”

I’m trying to protect you.

“Bullshit. Is it illegal?”

I had to think about that one.

Not so far.

“Not so far? What does that mean?”

I’ll tell you someday. As soon as I can. I promise.

“Whatever you’re doing, it’s the reason those men aren’t coming to see my father anymore. Is that true?”

I nodded.

“It’s the reason he let me come back home.”

I nodded again.

She took the pad from me.

“How do I even figure this out? I am so mad at him for what he’s gotten all of us into. I am so mad at you for going along with whatever stupid idea he came up with.”

She got up and put the pad on her desk. Then she stood there, looking down at me.

“And I am so mad at myself for wanting to be with you every single second. No matter what.”

She put her right hand against my left cheek.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?”

One idea came to me. I pulled her down onto the bed with me and showed her.

____________________

My trips down to West Side Recovery… they remained the one secret I kept from her. Even though it felt strange to be there without the Ghost. Just me and the safes. Me and the ladies. Almost like I was cheating on Amelia with these eight mistresses.

I didn’t see Banks again. Either he was no longer watching the store, or else he was getting better at hiding it. I’d look around for him, and then I’d open the door with the key the Ghost had given me, stumble over the junk in the darkness, and spend a couple of hours spinning in the back. All the while I’d keep imagining that I was hearing footsteps.

The last few days of summer went by. Then it was time to go back to school. I was a senior at Milford High now, remember, and Amelia was a senior at Lakeland. Along with good old Zeke. So that first day back at school was tough. Griffin was long gone to Wisconsin, and even my old art teacher was nowhere to be seen. He was out with some sort of chronic fatigue syndrome and wouldn’t be back on the job until God knows when. So we had a long-term substitute art teacher, some sixty-year-old ex-hippie with gray hair down his back. Who was way more into three-dimensional art than “flatlander art,” as he called it.

So it was already looking like a long year.

When I got back home that afternoon, I took my helmet off and put it on the seat. The engine and the wind were both still roaring in my ears. So I almost walked away from the bike without hearing the beeping noise.

I opened the back compartment, took the box out, and lifted the lid. I sorted through them until I found the pager that was going off. It was the red one.

Go to the park, I thought. Go down to the river and throw the whole box in. Watch it float away. That’s the first thing that came into my mind.

I went inside and dialed the number. Someone picked up on the other end. A voice I’d heard before. He didn’t say hello or who is this or how may I help you. Instead, he simply gave me an address on Beaubien Steet, in downtown Detroit, and a time, eleven o’clock sharp. Tonight. Knock on the back door, he said. Then he hung up.

I was with Amelia that evening. We had dinner to mark our first days back at school. For better or worse. She told me she hated being back at Lakeland. Especially now, knowing that I was across town at Milford. I kept checking my watch, because I knew I had somewhere to be at eleven. When I left her house a little after ten… well, she knew something was going on. I could never hide that from her. Not then, not ever. But she let me go.

I road down Grand River, passing the darkened windows of West Side Recovery. All the way down into the heart of Detroit. I swung around the bottom of the big circle where all of the streets come together in Grand Circus Park like the spokes of a wheel. I hit Beaubien Street around ten fifty.

The address turned out to be a steak house in Greektown. This was the first year for the big casinos in Detroit, and the place looked like it was doing a good business. I rolled into the lot and parked the bike. I went around to the back door, past the garbage cans and the empty produce crates. It was a heavy metal door, just like at the liquor store. I knocked on it.

A few seconds passed before the door opened. The bright light from the kitchen spilled out into the night, casting two shadows. Mine and the man who stood there looking at me. He was a big man, and he was wearing a big white apron with the belt tied tight around his waist.

“Come on in.” He led me through the kitchen, where another man in an identical apron was hard at work at the grill. The first man opened the door to the pantry and stood aside for me to enter. I saw three men standing inside the room, which was otherwise filled floor to ceiling with canned tomatoes and olives and peppers, jugs of vinegar and cooking oil, and every other nonperishable thing you’d ever need to run a restaurant. When I stepped into the room, I recognized the three men immediately, and my first impulse was to turn and run out the back door.

“You’re early,” Fishing Hat said. He was cutting slices from a big stick of pepperoni and passing them to the other two men.

“I didn’t realize you were the second coming of the Ghost,” Tall Mustache said.

That left Sleepy Eyes to be heard from. He came over to me, moving slowly. “Why do we keep running into you, kid?”

“Relax,” Fishing Hat said. “This is him. This is the Ghost Junior.”

Sleepy Eyes kept staring me down for another long moment, until he finally backed away.

“You want some?” Fishing Hat extended the big stick of pepperoni to me.

I put my hands up. No thanks.

He looked over at Tall Mustache, and the two exchanged smiles with each other.

“We heard you don’t talk much,” Fishing Hat said. “He wasn’t kidding.”

“We heard you don’t talk at all,” Tall Mustache said. “Like ever! Is that really true?”

I nodded once, then looked back out into the kitchen. I could feel Sleepy Eyes drilling a hole in my back.

For the next few minutes, nobody bothered to make small talk. They just stood there and ate their pepperoni and looked at me.

“What do you say?” Fishing Hat finally said, looking at his watch. “Is it time to go to work?”

“Blow that whistle,” Tall Mustache said.

“Consider it blown.”

They led me back out through the kitchen, back into the parking lot. We all piled into the same black car that had rolled into Mr. Marsh’s driveway that day. Fishing Hat at the wheel, Tall Mustache riding shotgun. That left me and Sleepy Eyes in the back.

“Okay, let’s have some fun,” Fishing Hat said. He put the car in gear and pulled out onto the street. He went down to Jefferson Avenue, took a left, and started heading east along the Detroit River. He kept it slow, and he stopped at every yellow light.

Sleepy Eyes was still looking at me. “How old are you?” he finally said.

I flashed him ten fingers, then seven more, but he didn’t look at my hands.

“You’re the boxman now? Is that what you’re telling me?”

I’m not telling you anything, sir. You can go back to being quiet and that’ll be just fine with me.

“He must have extra-good hearing,” Tall Mustache said. He turned around to look at me. “Is that true? Do you have extra-good hearing? I mean, on account of not being able to talk?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sleepy Eyes said.

“When you lose one of your senses, the other senses get better. Haven’t you heard of that?”

“Talking is not a sense, you idiot.”

“Yes it is. You know, seeing, hearing, touching, speaking… What’s the other one? Smelling, right? Is that five?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Will you guys shut the hell up!” Fishing Hat kept both hands on the wheel, his eyes locked on the road.

“I don’t work with kids, is all I’m saying. I got enough problems.”

“If he can do it, he can do it,” Tall Mustache said. “That’s all that matters.”

“I said enough,” Fishing Hat said. “Can we have a few minutes of peace here so we can prepare ourselves?”

Everybody was quiet for a while. Sleepy Eyes finally stopped staring at me. I put my head back against the seat and closed my eyes.

We kept going east on Jefferson. We passed the Waterworks Park. We took a left on Cadillac and started heading north. Then Fishing Hat slowed the car. Everyone seemed to be focused on a little check-cashing joint on the left side of the road. It was closed, but the neon letters still advertised its services. CHECKS CASHED! MONEY ORDERS! GET YOUR INCOME TAX REBATE NOW!

It was just past eleven thirty. The street was fairly quiet but not deserted. It made sense to me, to be doing this now. Any later and sure, it might be even more quiet, but then you’d really get noticed by the one guy who happened to be awake, or the cop driving by on the night shift. Fishing Hat hung a left down the street, looped around a residential block and came back out toward Cadillac, then hung a right into the parking lot behind the store.

There was a fence back there, maybe six feet high. A security light above the back door, but it was a simple round bulb, so the light wasn’t directed anywhere specifically. A few of the houses had line of sight, but nobody was outside. We all sat in the car and waited for a few minutes. One man came by, walking his dog. Cars kept driving by on Cadillac, one every few seconds, but none came down the side street.

It was quiet in the car, the only sound the breathing of four men. Another minute passed. Then Fishing Hat raised one hand. “Okay,” he whispered. “The alarm system should be off.”

“Should be?” Sleepy Eyes didn’t sound too happy.

“Yes. That’s what my man tells me.”

I didn’t know anything about alarm systems yet. Hell, I didn’t know anything period, beyond how to open a lock or a safe.

Sleepy Eyes opened his door. I assumed I should do the same. The other two men sat tight.

That made sense when we got to the back door. There was no reason for all four of us standing around while I worked on the lock. I took out my picks and set the tension bar. A place like this would have a great lock on it, I thought. Nothing easy about it. With all the time I’d spent working on the safes, I hadn’t been doing this for a while. The tension bar felt strange and foreign in my hand. God damn it all, what if I couldn’t get this open?

I could feel Sleepy Eyes getting restless already. He was standing too close to me. I stopped and gave him a quick look. He took a step backward.

“Make this quick, will ya?”

I cast him out of my mind and focused on the lock. You’ve done this so many times. It’s so easy. Set the tension, start working your way through the pins. One at a time. Yes, that’s it. Yes.

A car turned down the side street. It passed by us, maybe twenty-five feet away. It didn’t stop. It didn’t slow down.

I kept the tension exactly where it was. I told myself to relax. I kept going.

The seconds ticked by. One pin. Two. Three. Four. Five. Nothing yet. I’m sure these are mushroom pins, at the very least.

Sleepy Eyes breathing hard now. Shut him out. Just shut him right out. Nothing exists in the whole world but these little pieces of metal.

Nothing else. Not even Amelia.

I paused for a moment.

“What’s the matter?”

I went back to it. Second set. One. Two. Three. Four…

I touched the last pin, felt the whole thing give. The knob turned, and I pushed open the door.

Sleepy Eyes went in first, taking a flashlight out of his back pocket. I followed, and heard someone else come in behind me. It was Tall Mustache, who would apparently serve as the second lookout. Fishing Hat stayed in the car. That’s how they were going to play this.

The safe was right there in the back room, not ten feet from the door. It was a six-foot behemoth, a Victor brand with a beautiful black finish. I couldn’t even imagine how much this thing would have weighed. No wonder the man who owned this place made no effort to hide the thing. Hell, he could have put it on the sidewalk and it would have been just as secure.

I went to the dial. First things first, make sure it’s actually locked up. It was. I tried out the couple of Victor presets I knew, but neither of them hit.

Okay, then. I grabbed a chair from a nearby desk, made myself comfortable, and started doing my thing.

“How long is this going to take?” Sleepy Eyes said.

“Just leave him alone,” Tall Mustache said.

Sleepy Eyes stepped through to the front room. I could see him hunched down behind the counter. Once again, I forced the clown out of my head and concentrated on my work.

Find the contact area. Spin a few times. Park the wheels. Go back the other way. Pick up one… two… three… four. And that’s it. Four wheels, like I was afraid of. An extra-tough safe for my first time out, but we’ll give it a shot. Spin a few more times. Park at 0. Go back to the contact area. Feel for it. Feel that exact size. Let the safe tell you what’s going on inside it.

Yes, like that. Park at 3, back to the contact area.

I kept the side of my face against the metal. Time slowed down. Everything else disappeared. I kept working. I found the areas shortening up around 15, 39, 54, 72. I went back, worked those down to 16, 39, 55, 71.

I shook out my hands. Tall Mustache had the door open just wide enough for him to see out with one eye. Sleepy Eyes was sitting on the floor now, watching me.

One last step here. Four numbers means twenty-four possible combinations. I started spinning them all out, starting with 16, 39, 55, 71. Then switching the last two numbers. Then switching the second and the third, and so on.

I did twelve combinations. I did thirteen. On my fourteenth try, the handle moved.

That brought Sleepy Eyes off the floor. He came over and hovered behind me as I turned the handle all the way and opened the safe door.

It was empty.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Sleepy Eyes turned around and went back out toward the front counter.

“What is it?” Tall Mustache said. He was still standing at the back door. He had no idea how unhappy he was about to become.

Me? I had a strange mix of feelings, standing there looking into that empty space. There’s nothing quite as empty as an empty safe, for one thing. It’s always given me an oddly elated hollow feeling in my chest, swinging that door open and seeing absolutely nothing. Like the emptiness of outer space.

So that feeling mixed with the triumph of knowing that yes, I really could open up a safe in this kind of environment, using only my ears and my fingers and my mind. I could really do this.

Mixed with oh shit, this safe is fucking empty and these three guys are about to go insane. It may not be my fault exactly, but I’ll still have to deal with it.

That’s as far as I got. Two or three seconds of that before it all fell apart. The next sound we all heard was the distinctive sound of four tires leaving four black marks on the pavement just outside the door. Followed by Tall Mustache swinging open the back door and running out into the night like he had been shot out of a cannon. The last part of that chain reaction was Sleepy Eyes climbing over the front counter, slamming his whole body into the front door, fumbling with the latch and getting it open remarkably quickly, and then falling out onto the sidewalk.

That left me, an empty safe, and a long shadow in the back doorway.

I made a break for the other door, thinking it would be a real good idea to follow in Sleepy Eyes’s footsteps.

“Stop right there or I’ll shoot you right in the fucking back.”

I stopped.

“Turn around.”

I turned. The man was in his sixties maybe. With a rough face. The kind of man who clearly hadn’t taken a lot of shit from anybody in the past and wasn’t about to start now. He was wearing a black leather jacket that might have been a little too young for him, but that wasn’t the biggest problem. The biggest problem was the very real gun in his right hand.

It was a semiautomatic. It looked like the gun my uncle had under his cash register. It was pointed right at my chest.

“Your friends are all gone.”

His voice was perfectly calm. He took a step closer to me, right into a thin beam of light that came into the room, filtered through the front window. I saw his face more clearly. He had a big nose. He had red cheeks. He was badly in need of a shave.

“I think you need new friends,” he said, taking another step closer. “Don’t you agree?”

No arguments there.

“You’re just a kid, eh? So how about this, I’ll make you a deal. You tell me who those other guys were and I won’t put a bullet in your head.”

I didn’t move. He came closer.

“Come on, kid. Don’t be dumb. You think any of those guys wouldn’t have given you up in two seconds? Just tell me who they are.”

That’s going to be a problem, I thought. I don’t think I’m going to be able to help you here.

The man shook his head and smiled. It looked like he was going to step away, but in the next instant he was right on top of me. He grabbed me by the front of the shirt with one hand. With the other he pressed the gun right into my neck. I smelled the cigar smoke on him. It took me right back to my bedroom in Uncle Lito’s house. A million miles away.

“It’s a little rude not to answer my question, don’t you think? Are you going to tell me or what?”

This is it, I thought. This is it right here.

“Who are they?”

The gun barrel pressed harder into my neck. He had it angled upward. The bullet would go right up through my brain.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Maybe you don’t know their names. Is that it? Huh?”

He’s going to kill me.

“Just tell me where you know them from. Can you do that? Who set you up with these guys?”

My last minute on earth. It’s right here.

“Say something, kid. Tell me something right now or I swear to God, I will pull this trigger.”

Worse things could happen.

“Three seconds. Talk or die.”

Worse things than having to live like this.

“Three.”

Maybe it’s the only way out.

“Two.”

Even if it means never seeing Amelia again.

“One.”

I wished I could have said good-bye to her, at least.

“Zero.”

A few seconds passed, the gun still pressed into my neck. I kept breathing. From outside, I could hear a car pulling into the lot. The headlights came through the open door and swung across the room.

The man lowered the gun. He wrapped one arm around my head and pulled it against his shoulder. For one second I thought he was going to break my neck.

But no. He was hugging me.

“Okay, kid,” he said. “Okay.”

Fishing Hat came in through the back door. Followed by Tall Mustache. Followed by Sleepy Eyes.

Followed by the Ghost.

“I told you guys,” the Ghost said. As pale as ever, and he seemed agitated and totally out of place here. “Did you think I was making a fucking joke? The kid doesn’t talk. And he wouldn’t rat you out, even if he could.”

“You were right,” the man with the gun said. He must have been the owner of this place. Doing somebody a favor by letting these guys use it for a theater, and getting into the act himself.

“I told you he’d be able to open the safe, too. Did I not?”

“Correct again.”

Looking back on it, the whole thing did seem a little too choreographed. But at least I had passed the test, right? Local kid makes good, proves himself to criminals.

They took me back to the restaurant in Greektown. The Ghost didn’t come inside with us. He stood in the parking lot and said good-bye to me again. For real this time.

“It’s official,” he said to me. “You own the franchise.”

He got in his car and drove off. The other men took me inside and got me a drink from a bottle I recognized from my uncle’s shelves. I choked down a swallowful.

“Sorry if we were riding you a little hard,” Fishing Hat said, grabbing me by the back of the neck. “We had to see how you handled it, you know? Make sure you could handle your business. See how big a pair you had if it all went to shit on you.”

Big enough, apparently. For what that was worth. The closing act was when I got taken over to a private table, separated from the rest of the restaurant by a folding partition. There were three couples sitting at the table, but there was no mistaking who was in charge of the evening. It was the man I’d met exactly one time before. The dark eyes, the thick eyebrows, the long cigarette hanging from his lips. That same aroma in the air, the smoke mixing with his cologne and whatever else, the combination vaguely foreign and powerful and different from anything I’d ever smelled before.

That smell, by itself, would have told me everything I needed to know. Like the Ghost said, this was the man you do not fuck with.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said to me. “I knew I had a good feeling about you.”

I didn’t move.

“A man who doesn’t talk. What a beautiful thing, eh?”

Everyone else at the table nodded at this. Two other men in suits. Three women in diamonds and dressed out to here.

“If you see Mr. Marsh, tell him I’m sorry to hear that his partner Mr. Slade is still missing. He should be more careful who he does business with.”

That brought some laughter from around the table. Then I was dismissed. Sleepy Eyes ushered me away and pressed a wad of bills into my right hand. When I got outside, I opened my fist and saw five crumpled hundred-dollar bills.

I still had the pagers in the motorcycle’s back compartment. I was wondering what would happen if I were to take them back into the restaurant. If I were to place them on that table and then walk away. I was trying to picture exactly what might happen, when I heard Sleepy Eyes calling to me.

“Over here,” he said. He gestured me over to the long black car, the same car I’d seen parked in Mr. Marsh’s driveway.

“The boss wanted me to show you something,” he said. “He thought it might be… what’s the word? Beneficial?”

Sleepy Eyes took a quick look around, then opened the trunk. As the light popped on, I saw the lifeless face of Jerry Slade, Mr. Marsh’s partner. The trunk lid got slammed back down before I could register anything else. How he might have died, or if the rest of his body was even intact.

“I don’t make a point of parking in the middle of a city with something like that in the trunk,” Sleepy Eyes said, “but we finally caught up to him today, and well… it seemed like good timing. Do your little test tonight and make a lasting impression, all at the same time.”

I kept standing there. My mind couldn’t make my muscles do anything yet.

“Welcome to real life, kid.”

He smacked me once on the cheek and went inside, leaving me there alone in the dark.

I went to school for two more days. That was it for my entire senior year of high school. On Thursday night, the blue pager went off. I called the number. The man on the other end had a thick New York accent. He gave me an address in Pennsylvania. Just outside of Philadelphia. He told me I’d be expected in two days’ time. I sat there for a long time, looking at the address.

I’m going to need a note, I thought to myself. I’m going to need a note, excusing me from school tomorrow so I can go to Pennsylvania and help some men rob a safe.

The next morning, I bought a pair of luggage bags. They hung over the backseat of my motorcycle, one on each side. I came back and put as many clothes as I could fit inside them. Toothbrush, toothpaste, the usual things you need every day. I packed my safe lock. I packed the pages that Amelia had drawn for me that summer. I packed the pagers.

I had about a hundred dollars of my own saved up, plus the five hundred the men had given me after the fake robbery. Minus the thirty bucks for the motorcycle luggage. So about $570 in total.

I went to the liquor store, going in through the back door in case Uncle Lito was taking one of his morning naps. When I went through to the front, there he was slumped over the counter, his head resting on his forearms. If someone walked through the front door, he’d snap awake in a half second and try to act like he hadn’t been sleeping.

I slipped around him and stood in front of the cash register. I pushed the magic button on the register and the drawer popped open. I did a quick count. There wasn’t much, and what there was, I put right back. I couldn’t take it. When I closed the drawer, Uncle Lito came to.

“What? What’s going on?”

I put my hand on his back. Not my usual thing to do.

“Michael! Are you okay?”

I gave him the thumbs-up. Never better.

“What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be at school?”

He looked old today. My father’s brother, this man who felt responsible for what had happened to me, who had taken me in despite having no aptitude whatsoever for taking care of another human being.

But he tried. Right? He tried.

And he gave me one damned fine motorcycle.

I hugged him for the first and last time. Then I went out the door.

Here is the part that kills me. I had one more stop to make. The antique store down the street. I went inside and waved to the old man, the very same old man who had sold me my first locks, way back when.

I wasn’t buying a lock today. I went to the glass counter and pointed to a ring. I didn’t know if the diamond was real. All I knew was that I had seen it before, and that I had liked it. And that I had enough money to buy it. It was only a hundred dollars.

When I had the ring in its little box, tucked inside my jacket, I rode over to Amelia’s house. The place was empty. Mr. Marsh was off at the health club or wherever else he went during the day, now that I’d earned his life back for him.

Amelia was at school, of course. Like any normal seventeen-year-old.

The front door was locked. I went around to the back. That was locked, too. One more time, for old times’ sake, I took out the tools and opened that door. It made me remember that first time, when I had broken into the house with the football players. Then the time after that, when I had broken in just to leave a picture in Amelia’s room.

I didn’t regret any of it. I still don’t, to this day.

When I was inside, I went upstairs and sat on her bed for a while. Amelia’s bed, officially the greatest square footage on the planet Earth. I sat there remembering everything, and then for the last time that day, I tried to talk myself out of it.

You can go get her right now, I thought. Go get her out of school, give her the ring in person. Take her with you. You love her, you can’t live without her, you’ll find a way to make it work. Why else would you feel this way? Why do you even have a heart inside you if it tells you that this is the person you want to be with for the rest of your life and you can’t make that happen?

And so on. Until the truth finally came back to me. As clear as sunlight. As clear as that look on her face when those men came to the house, with her father in the backseat.

I can’t take you with me, I thought. I can’t let this touch you. Any of it. I can’t even tell you where I’m going.

I stood up. I took the ring box out of my jacket. I put it on her pillow.

I did all of this for you, Amelia. And now I have to do one more thing.