Robert Randisi - It Was a Very Bad Year

‘Well, let’s find out.’

‘How do we get up there?’ Jerry asked.

‘That’ll be the easy part,’ I said. ‘You and me, we’re lookin’ for a unit that isn’t on the first floor, but not too high up.’

‘Like somethin’ on the second floor?’ Jerry asked.

‘Exactly.’

We went inside.

Storage units were a new idea in the sixties. That meant they were built into existing buildings, not places specially designed for them. Those days were a long time coming.

This structure looked like it used to be an apartment building. The floors had been sectioned off into units of varying sizes and shapes. We went up the front stairs and through the double front doors.

The young man at the front desk gave us the whole sales pitch about how helpful it is to have a storage unit, how small businesses were able to increase their invoice, and not their overhead. We let him wind down and then told him we needed a unit off the main floor, but not too high up.

‘Worried about fire?’ he asked. ‘We got sprinkler units on each floor, and plenty of fire escapes.’

‘Still. .’ I said.

‘Well, all right, then. We’ve got some available on the second floor,’ he said. ‘What size do you think you’ll need?’

‘What’ve you got?’

‘Well, we’ve got some five by eights, some eight by tens, some ten by fifteens-’

‘Why don’t we start with an eight by ten?’ I suggested.

‘Fine. Do you need a lock? We have combination locks, or just key locks-’

‘A lock and key will be good.’

I had to sign a one year contract and then he handed me a lock and key and said, ‘If you’ll wait a few minutes I can take you up, or you can just go on up yourself and have a look.’

‘My partner and I will be OK on our own. We’ll come back later with some stuff to store.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Hi-Point. Your unit is number two fifty-one.’

‘Thanks.’

251 shouldn’t be too far from 220, I thought. This was going well.

We took the elevator up one floor, got off and found 251 first, then walked down to 220. Irwin’s unit was apparently one of the smaller five by eights. As we reached it we saw that things had suddenly stopped being easy.

‘Damn!’ I said.

We looked at each other, then at the door that had a combination lock.

‘Look on the bright side, Mr G.,’ Jerry said.

‘What’s that?’

‘The lock is still there,’ Jerry said. ‘Maybe that means his stuff is still in there. Maybe he’ll be back for it.’

‘Well, we’ve got — what, thirty-five hours?’ I said. ‘I guess we could wait for him here, but then he might not show.’

‘So? We can get in there.’

‘How do we do that?’

‘At night,’ Jerry said.

‘This place closes at five p.m.’

‘Maybe I can’t pick that lock,’ he said, indicating the combo lock on the door, ‘but did you notice the locks on this building? Easy.’

‘OK, so we get into the building,’ I said. ‘How do we get into this unit?’

‘The old-fashioned way,’ he said.

We went back to the Sands briefly, to check if I’d gotten any calls. There were none.

‘You put out so many feelers,’ Jerry said, ‘you’d think somebody woulda called by now.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘You’d think.’

We each changed into dark clothes, then drove to pick up some things Jerry said he’d need. After that we went back to the Hi-Point building and worked our way around to the back.

There was a collection of dumpsters, all full of garbage, lined up in the alley. The smell out there was something between rotten meat and piss.

Jerry whipped out his pen light and I held it for him while he worked the lock. He had also brought a small gym bag, which he laid near his feet.

‘They think puttin’ a metal door up is gonna keep people out,’ he said, while he worked, ‘but they forget that a lock is a lock.’

He continued to work while I looked up and down the alley, trying to hold the light still.

‘Got it,’ he finally said, and we were inside.

We found a back stairway and took it to the second floor. By the beam of his pen light we found the door of unit 220. He handed me the light again, put his bag down and took out a hammer.

‘Why not a hacksaw?’ I asked.

‘That would take longer. But if this doesn’t work I brought one.’

‘What if there’s a watchman downstairs?’ I whispered.

‘I’m gonna try and open it with one shot,’ he said. ‘If a watchman comes up I’ll take care of him.’

‘Don’t kill him,’ I said.

‘Naw, Mr G.,’ he said, ‘don’t worry. Just stand back.’

I backed away a few steps. Jerry brought the hammer back, then hit the lock with one solid whack. . and it snapped open.

We both froze, waited to see if anyone would come up the steps looking to see what the noise was.

‘I think we’re OK,’ I said.

He put the hammer away in the bag. The door was metal, on hinges. He removed the snapped lock, then slowly, quietly swung the door open.

There was a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. I grabbed the short chain and yanked it, and the light came on.

File cabinets along one wall, the back, and down the other.

‘Sonofabitch,’ I said. ‘I’ll bet I know what’s in these.’

He started at one end, me at the other, and all we found were nude photos of young girls.

‘Goddamn,’ I said, ‘I wish I had a can of gasoline.’

‘I know what ya mean.’

‘Wait,’ I said, closing the drawer of the cabinet I’d been looking through. I turned, went through another two cabinets until I found a drawer with ‘D’ names in them. Sure enough, I found what I was looking for.

‘Sonofabitch!’ I swore again. ‘If Irwin was here right now I’d strangle him.’ I was holding a whole sheaf of Abby Dalton photos.

‘I guess I didn’t scare him enough,’ Jerry said, and he seemed genuinely disappointed with himself. ‘I knew I shoulda broke somethin’.’

‘Well, next time I’ll hold him and you break his damn neck,’ I said.

‘So what do we do now?’ Jerry asked. ‘Wait for him to come back? Because he ain’t gonna leave town without these photos. I’ll bet he’s got some other ones in there he wants as bad as those of Miss Dalton.’

‘If we stake this place out it could take days, or weeks for him to show up,’ I said. ‘We don’t have that much time.’

‘What, then?’

I looked around.

‘I suggest we go through the rest of these cabinets and see what we find,’ I said. ‘Maybe there’s somethin’ here that’ll help us.’

‘OK, Mr G.,’ Jerry said. ‘But. .’

‘What?’ I said, detecting something in his tone.

‘I just hope we don’t find nothin’ else that might make you wanna burn the whole buildin’ down.’

I looked at the photos of Abby I was holding in my hands, and wondered what that would be.

As it turned out, the cabinets along the back wall — only three of them — held something quite different from the photos in all the others.

One cabinet had a drawer that was filled with financial reports, bills, tax records. The other two drawers were empty.

The second cabinet had one empty drawer, and two that seemed to be holding all sorts of personal records and papers that I really didn’t want to go through. I already felt like I had to steam my hands clean when we got out of there.

The third cabinet was the emptiest. The top drawer was completely bare, the second held only one folder.

‘What’s that?’ Jerry asked.

I took it out, opened it, knew exactly what it was right away.