Steve Hamilton - The Lock Artist

He didn’t tell me how they ended up working together on high-end robberies. Or how they had met the man in Detroit. Or the Ghost. That part of the story would come later.

“We should talk a little business at some point, eh? But first things first.”

He took me to a bookshelf on the back wall of the house.

“Okay, I swear to God,” he said. “This was here when I bought the place.”

He pushed on the shelf, and the whole thing turned like a revolving door. There was another room behind it. When I stepped through, I saw maps and photographs pinned to the wall. File cabinets. A computer and printer. And in the corner, solid, metallic… downright heartwarming… a safe, about four feet high.

“Welcome to the Bat Cave,” Julian said.

“You’re not being very careful,” Gunnar said. “I mean, with somebody we just met.”

“Ramona says he can keep a secret. So I trust him. Besides, you want him to prove he can open the safe, don’t you?”

“Just drag it out and have him open it in the living room.”

“I’d like to see you drag it out.”

“Boys,” Ramona said. “Behave.”

They didn’t have to tell me what to do next. I was already on my knees in front of the safe. As I did this, Lucy, who hadn’t said one word since we rode back to the house, got down on her knees right beside me. When I reached out my hand to touch the safe, she looked like she wanted to stop me.

“It’s all right, Lucy.” Julian came over behind her and started to rub her shoulders. “It’s okay. Just watch.”

Gunnar pushed Julian away from her. I realized that the whole dynamic between these four people was wound tighter than piano wire, and something I’d probably never quite understand.

“Did you really work with the Ghost?” Lucy said to me.

I nodded.

“At that place in Detroit? With the eight safes?”

Yes.

“I was there, you know. He tried to show me how to do it. I worked so hard at it…”

Yes. I know how hard it is.

“This is the safe we’ll be breaking into,” she said, touching the handle. “The exact model. We don’t leave anything to chance.”

It made perfect sense. My first indication that these seemingly insane people really knew what the hell they were doing.

“So can you do it? Can you really open this safe without breaking her?”

Her, she said. She really did study under the Ghost. Or at least she tried.

“Show me.”

I took a deep breath and started. I turned the dial, clearing the wheels so I could count them. She watched me carefully. I knew she knew everything I was doing. It was a strange feeling for me, and yet comforting. She knew.

Four wheels. Park at 0. Go to the contact area. My familiar rhythm now. She watched intently, but as I closed my eyes and felt for the slightest tiny difference, I knew I was leaving her behind. There was no way she could see this part.

I kept working my way up the dial, finding the short contacts. All the way to 100, then back again to verify them and to narrow them down to the exact numbers.

I made a writing motion. She gave me a piece of paper and pen.

There were tears in her eyes as I wrote down each number. I was sure she knew the combination. She had probably set it herself. She also knew that, at this point, finding the numbers was all that really mattered. Getting the right order was the easy part.

She grabbed the paper from me and crumpled it into a ball.

“Does he have it right?” Gunnar said.

“Yes.”

He nodded, didn’t say anything else.

“You can’t show me how you did that,” she said to me. “It’s just something you can do. Or can’t do.”

I just kept looking at her. At that moment, I honestly wished that I could show her.

“Okay,” Julian said, his voice quiet now. “That’s why Michael is here. Lucy, you know you’re here for a reason, too. You know that, right?”

She didn’t respond. She got up and left the room.

He shook his head slowly. Then he looked at his watch.

“If we’re going to do it this week,” he said, “then now’s the time. We all need to get into character.”

He reached out a hand to me and pulled me up from the floor.

“I’m glad we called you,” he said to me, taking me over to one of the maps on the wall. The whole city of Los Angeles, laid out before us.

“Welcome to the City of Angels,” he said. “Let me show you which piece of it we’re going to own tonight.”

Michigan

June and July 1999

So there I was. Sitting in the back of a police car. I had a shiny pair of handcuffs on. For the first time ever. They didn’t lock them behind my back, so I could sit there and study them, wondering how hard it would be to get them open.

Once the two cops had given up on me telling them anything, they had put me in the back of the car and had tried to recite me my Miranda rights. You have the right to remain silent, et cetera. When they got to the part where I had to acknowledge that I understood them, things got interesting. I nodded my head, but one of the cops told me that wasn’t good enough. I had to give them a verbal acknowledgment. Instead, I just gave them a long string of sign language, even with the cuffs already on my wrists, hoping they’d get the idea.

“He’s deaf,” one of the cops said to the other. “What do we do now?”

“He has to read his rights and then sign a statement that he understands them. I think.”

“So give him your Miranda card. Let him read that.”

“I don’t have it. Give him yours.”

“What? I don’t have one. How could you not have one if you just read it to him?”

“I didn’t read it. I have it memorized.”

“Oh shit, now what are we going to do?”

“Just take him down to the station. They’ll know what to do with him.”

I was going to try to convince them I wasn’t deaf, but then I thought, what the hell. Maybe they’ll stop talking to me. By then, another two police cars had already pulled up. Everyone from the party across the street was gathered around now, watching us.

They took me to the Milford station on Atlantic Street, just around the corner from the liquor store, in fact. It was after midnight now. They stuck me in an interview room for what seemed like another hour, until finally the two cops who had arrested me came into the room, along with two other men. One was a detective, and as soon as he saw me, he looked very confused. The other man was a professional sign language interpreter, who looked like he had just gotten dragged out of bed. One of the arresting officers started talking while the interpreter did his thing, signing to me that I was in the Milford police station, which I had obviously already figured out myself, and that they had to make sure I understood my rights before we went any further.

When it was my turn, I dusted off just enough sign language to convey the one important message they all had to finally understand. Point to self, put hands in front and draw them apart like an umpire signaling safe, one finger to right ear, then both hands, palm out, coming together.

“I am not deaf,” said the interpreter. He was speaking for me, automatically, before he even realized what I was saying.

“You’re Mike,” the detective said. “Lito’s nephew, right? Over at the liquor store?”

I nodded yes.

“He can hear just fine, you clowns,” the detective said to the cops. “He just can’t talk.”

That led to some general embarrassment and a dismissal of the now pissed-off interpreter. The detective read me my rights and had me sign a statement that I understood them, while the two cops kept looking at me like I had made a special point of tricking them and making them look bad. Then the detective gave me a blank legal pad and asked me if I wanted to say anything. I wrote a big NO and slid the pad back to him.