Steve Hamilton - The Lock Artist

I tried out a few different ideas. What might happen between us if I broke into her house again. If I slipped into her bedroom in the middle of the night. I wadded up every piece of paper and threw them onto the floor. Every single one.

Eventually, I put my head down on my arms. I had to close my eyes for a minute. Just one minute. As I slipped into a dream, I could hear the water pouring into the room, running down the walls, coming through the window. Pooling on the floor and then rising. Slowly, inch by inch. Until I was submerged in it.

Like every night. Like every dream.

When I looked up again, it was after midnight.

I shook myself awake. You’re blowing this, I thought. You’re totally letting this whole thing slip away.

I knew I had to draw something. Anything. I had one hour left. Maybe an hour and a half. Then it would be time to go to her house.

What are you really feeling right now? That’s what I have to ask myself. Just think about that one simple idea and start drawing.

I took out a clean sheet of paper. In the bottom right corner, I drew myself, here at the desk, my head down, just like I had been a minute ago. A big dream bubble above me, taking up the rest of the page.

Yes. This is it. Not six panels. Just one. A big risk, maybe. Probably totally insane. But here it is. One single page showing her exactly how I see her, late at night, in my underwater dreams.

Los Angeles

January 2000

The back door to the club was locked, so we had to go around to the front. The bouncer did a little double take when he saw the condition of my face, but he clearly remembered us. He opened the velvet rope and let us through.

I found a bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I washed the dirt off my face. Then I tried to splash water on my hair and restore some kind of order again. When I had done all I could, I went back outside and found Lucy. As we worked our way across the dance floor, we could see Julian and Ramona sitting at that table high above us. Wesley was sitting there with them. Julian caught sight of us, and his cool might have slipped for half a second, but he recovered just as quickly.

Lucy and I went up the spiral staircase, got past the balcony bouncer, and made our way to the table. Wesley got up like a gentleman and gave Lucy back her chair.

“We were wondering where you ran off to,” he said.

“I told you,” Julian said. “The man had to go attend to his business. To make sure everything is ready.”

“What happened to you?” Wesley said. “You look like you got run over by something.”

You don’t understand English, I told myself. Don’t even look like you’re following what he’s saying.

“Oh, he did,” Lucy said, sliding her fingernails through her messed-up hair. “He got run over real good.”

Then to prove her point, she reached over and raked those same fingernails across my cheek. It hurt like hell, but it got Wesley smiling and nodding his head in appreciation.

“Okay, seriously,” Julian said. “I think it’s time to stop fucking around, don’t you?”

It was all part of his act, as I’d realize later. Get right in the guy’s face. Act a little too anxious. Push the deal like you can’t wait one more minute to make it happen.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Wesley said. “Let’s do some business.”

Julian turned to me and said something in Russian. Or if he was making it up, at least it sounded like Russian.

I waited a beat. Then I gave him a nod.

“So where do we do this?” Julian said.

“Let me go make a trip to the cash machine,” Wesley said. “You guys just hang here for a while, eh?”

“Works for me. Can you send another bottle over?”

Wesley gave him a big smile. “Coming right up, my friend.”

He took his leave and walked over to the upstairs bouncer. I kept watching him. As he turned, I could see a sudden flash of condescension on his face. We were all just kids, the look said. It was almost too easy to play us.

That’s when the whole setup started to become clear to me. The whole seemingly insane yet totally brilliant idea behind what Julian and his gang were doing. You don’t wait for the target to put the money in the safe. You make the target put the money in the safe. You get close to him. You get to know him. You find out what he wants. You tell him he can have it. You tell him that you know somebody who knows somebody else who knows exactly how to get it. You tell him you’ll arrange the deal so that everybody comes out ahead. You do all of this in such a way as to make him believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s smarter than you. That in the end, he’s the one who’s going to come out ahead.

It doesn’t even matter what it is. In this case, it was Ecstasy. Not the cheap, dirty pills you can find in every club. The real thing. One hundred percent. Does that make you a drug dealer all of a sudden? Of course not! It could be rocks from the moon for all you care, because you’re not actually going to deliver anything at all.

Of course, your man has every reason to be suspicious, because after all who the fuck are you to appear out of nowhere and to tell him that he can have exactly what he wants? So he knows going in… he knows that there’s a chance you’re totally full of shit. He wouldn’t be where he is today if he didn’t know this. But he plays along, because what the hell, maybe you can deliver. He’s got nothing to lose, he figures, because he’s a smart man and you’re a cheap, dumb punk, and he’ll make sure he sets it up the right way. So you let it happen. Everything he wants, you give him. You want to see a sample? Here it is. You want us to bring everything to a certain place at a certain time? whatever you say. We’ll be there.

You let him call the shots. You let him gather up his money and hold on to it. Keep it right in his back pocket until you’ve proven that you can deliver everything you said you could. Tere’s no way he can lose here, because he isn’t even touching his money until he knows it’s a safe play.

Absolutely no way to lose.

Unless… Oh, hell, let’s just imagine here… Let’s just say that while he’s got all that money sitting in his back pocket, someone else comes along and takes it before the deal can even happen. Yeah, that might be the one slight complication that could get in the way.

This is the way Julian set it up. It’s perfect. Your mark’s watching you fumble around trying to look cool and to set up the deal. While he’s doing that, somebody else sneaks around behind him and picks his pocket. Even if that “pocket” is an eight-hundred-pound iron box protected by two separate alarm systems.

The ladies excused themselves for a moment. Julian came around the table and sat in the chair next to me. He leaned in close and whispered in my ear.

“You’re doing great,” he said. “You’re a natural. You haven’t said one wrong word tonight.”

He gave me a little punch in the shoulder, grabbed Lucy’s champagne flute, and raised it. He waited until I got mine and did the same.

“ A la Mano de Dios .”

I understood it this time around. To the Hand of God. That’s what you call this kind of operation. When young con artists get together with young burglars and set up the perfect crime.

“Here’s the important part,” he said, leaning in close again. “When he goes home to get the money, and he sees that it’s gone… his head is going to go through the fucking roof, right? When that happens, it’s our job to put our heads through the fucking roof even higher than his. We tell him he’s a no-good fucking con man, what kind of bullshit move is this, et cetera, et cetera. You get what I’m saying?”