Steve Hamilton - The Lock Artist

“I understand that you went to see Mr. G yesterday, and that the results, at least from this preliminary meeting, were not so good.”

I sat there, looking at him.

“Would you agree with that assessment?”

I nodded my head.

He leaned forward in his chair, pinching the cigarette between two fingers and being careful not to spill ashes on his pants. I could smell the cigarette and maybe the cologne he was wearing. It was an expensive and exotic smell that I’d never forget.

“You don’t speak,” he said.

I shook my head.

“You don’t speak ever .”

I shook my head again.

He leaned back in his chair. “Okay then. That is something I can appreciate. In fact, that’s a gift that I wish you could pass on to others.”

He didn’t look over at Mr. Marsh. He didn’t have to.

“Norman here tells me that you broke into this house. Is that true?”

I nodded.

“He tells me that you refused to give up any of your accomplices.”

I nodded again.

“You’re two for two here, Michael. You sound like the kind of man I could trust.”

I looked over at Mr. Marsh. He was smiling and nodding his head. He had his hands clasped together tight.

“But then we get to the business with the locks,” the man said. “Because here I was led to believe that you can open up anything . Hence my disappointment when I heard back from Mr. G.”

I didn’t know how to react to that. I sat there wondering if Amelia was up there in her room, if she was scared out of her mind or pissed off or what.

“Now, I know that Mr. G can be a little abrupt sometimes. So I’m wondering if maybe the two of you just got off on the wrong foot. Is that possible?”

I didn’t move.

“Michael? Is that possible?”

I shrugged. The man kept watching me.

“Here’s the thing. Mr. Marsh and his partner, Mr. Slade, both have certain obligations right now, and I’m afraid that neither one of them have been meeting those obligations. In Mr. Slade’s case, well, he seems to have disappeared completely, so I’m not sure how we’re going to deal with him when he does eventually show his face again.”

He finally looked over at Mr. Marsh. Mr. Marsh was staring at his own hands now. The giant fish loomed over everything.

“Give Mr. Marsh credit for one thing,” the man said. “At least he’s facing up to the situation. He wants to make good on those obligations, which I appreciate. So I’m willing to work with him. The problem is, he’s sort of overextended himself right now. With the one health club and the plans for another, and these plans for a new housing development… well, I’m afraid he’s already leveraged all of those assets about as far as he can go. Do you understand what I’m saying? The poor man doesn’t have anything else of value that he can use in place of actual cash. But what he does have…”

He leaned forward in his chair again.

“Is you.”

I looked over at Mr. Marsh again. He wouldn’t meet my eye.

“Don’t get me wrong. I know you’re not his property, but as I understand it, you were sentenced by the court to perform certain services for him, for the rest of the summer. Whatever he sees fit for you to do. Within reason, of course. Which means that while he doesn’t own you , he does, in fact, own a certain amount of your time. A set number of hours, every day. Every week. And that, Michael, is the closest thing to a real commodity that he’s got right now. So in the grand scheme of things, what else can he offer me to help make things right?”

I watched the smoke from his cigarette curl toward the ceiling.

“So both of us would like you to think about giving it another shot with Mr. G. I’ve already spoken to him. I’ve explained that you sound like a young man with a lot of promise-which now that I’ve met you I can see is most definitely true-and that you deserve another chance.”

“It would really help us out,” Mr. Marsh said, finally finding the courage to speak again.

“It would,” the man said. “It would help me out, because I’m very interested to see just how good you really are. And it would certainly help out Mr. Marsh. And his family, don’t forget. The son, he’s already off to college? Getting an early start on his football career?”

“Yes,” Mr. Marsh said.

“Excellent. And your daughter?”

Mr. Marsh closed his eyes.

“Is there a problem?”

“No, not at all. She’ll be a senior in high school.”

“Very good. What was her name again?”

“Amelia.”

“Amelia. That’s a beautiful name. Don’t you agree, Michael?”

He saw me holding on tight to the sides of my chair. He didn’t say a word about it, but I could tell he was registering my reaction.

“I think we’re all on the same page now,” he said. “Michael, if you’ll excuse us. We have a few more things to talk about. I know Mr. G is waiting, so you might want to go ahead and make your way down there. I’m sure the two of you will have a much more productive time of it today, huh?”

He sat there and waited for me. I stood up.

“It was a pleasure, Michael,” he said to me. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.”

I opened the door and left. I walked past the three men, who were all sitting together in the living room now. They had apparently found their way into the refrigerator, because they were all holding beer bottles.

“How’d it go, lover boy?”

I didn’t know who said it and I didn’t care. I went right up the stairs and knocked on Amelia’s door. She wasn’t there.

“She’s gone,” Sleepy Eyes said. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me. “Daddy sent her away.”

I went back down the stairs and tried to go around him. He grabbed my arm.

“You were already on my list, remember? When I say something to you in the future, you’d better not walk away from me.”

He stared me down for a few seconds, his fingers digging into my arm.

“Go on, get going. You’ve got business to take care of.”

I went outside. I stood there for a while with the hot sun in my face, thinking about what to do next. I played the whole scene back in my head, right up to the part where the man with the cigarette said Amelia’s name. Just the sound of her name on that man’s thin lips…

I got on my bike and headed for Detroit.

I’ve had more than one moment like this in my life. These moments when I could have taken myself right out of the game. Cut my losses. Taken the whole thing to my probation officer, maybe. I can’t help wondering how differently my life might have turned out if I had played it that way. Even once.

That’s not how I played it. Not that day. I rode down that same road to that same place. All the way back to West Side Recovery on Grand River Avenue. The clouds gathered in the rising heat, and then the rain came down hard for a few minutes. Then it stopped and the steam rose from the hot pavement.

I rolled my bike right up to the door this time. I knocked on the door and waited. The Ghost, or Mr. G or whatever the hell I was supposed to call him, opened the door and peeked out at me. He was wearing the same worn-out sweater vest. The same glasses hung from the chain around his neck. He didn’t say anything to me, just shook his head and let out this theatrical sigh like I was a huge inconvenience to him. Then he held the door open for me so I could roll in my motorcycle again.

“You’re back,” he said. “I’m so delighted.”

I parked the bike and stood there waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

“They tell me you’re probably the best I’m going to get. God help us all.”

He turned and headed toward the back of the store, tracing his way in the near darkness, around the piles of junk. I followed him. To the back room, the television on again, through the narrow hallway crowded with bicycles. Out the back door to the green-lit shade of the yard. The air even heavier today, with the wet heat and the smell from the rain on the sumac and the poison ivy. The Ghost looked a little older to me today. Somehow older and even more pale to the point of being translucent. His hair was like thin straw, with a dozen age spots showing through and scattered across the top of his head. Yet he was so light of foot, like an old athlete or even a dancer. He walked quickly and never looked back to see if I was behind him. He went right to the safes and stopped in the dead center. He put his glasses on, and only then did he finally look at me.