Steve Hamilton - The Lock Artist

He pulled the shackle out and tossed the now open lock back to me.

“Sit down here and work on it. When you can open it like a real boxman, let me know. In the meantime, I’m going to lunch.”

Boxman. That was the first time I heard the term. It rang in my ears as he left me there alone in that green-shaded back lot, in the middle of those great iron safes.

A real boxman.

The sun was going down when I finally left that place. I had the lock in my pocket. My first piece of homework was to keep spinning the dials until I could feel the cams lining up the right way. Until I could open the damned thing purely by touch, without cheating.

I should have gone straight home to practice, but instead I rode back to the Marshes’ house. Every window was dark when I pulled into the driveway, but I could hear music coming from somewhere inside. I opened the front door and peeked inside. The stereo was blasting “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the Beach Boys. Mr. Marsh’s favorite band, I remembered. It was loud enough for a party, but the lights were all off, and I didn’t see anybody.

I went into the living room. The big aquarium cast an eerie glow. Then I saw a thin line of light under the door to Mr. Marsh’s office. I went upstairs first. I opened Amelia’s door and flipped on the light. She still wasn’t there.

I turned her light off and left. I went downstairs. There were a few seconds of silence as the song ended. Then another Beach Boys song came on. “You Still Believe in Me.” I went to the office door and pushed it open. The music got louder.

The first thing I noticed was that the giant stuffed fish was gone. The second thing I noticed was that it wasn’t so much gone as just taken down from the wall and rammed through the window. The back half was still inside, the front half outside.

The third thing I noticed was the desk chair, facing away from me. I saw an arm hanging down one side. I stood there for a few seconds, waiting for some sign of life.

Then the chair turned. Mr. Marsh was slumped down with a drink in his other hand. He looked up at me without the slightest hint of surprise.

“Good to see you,” he said. “Make yourself a drink.”

I saw a legal pad on his desk. I grabbed it, along with a pen, and started writing. Where is Amelia?

When I gave it to him, he held the pad out in front of him and then started tromboning it back and forth to make it come into focus.

“She’s gone.”

I took the pad back one more time. Where did she go?

That one seemed to deflate him. He closed his eyes for a while. So long I thought he might have drifted off on me. Then he cleared his throat.

“I sent her away. Somewhere safe. I think she wanted to call you, but… well, it’s kind of hard to do that, you know?”

He drained the rest of his drink and then put his glass down on the desk. He did it carefully, like it was something that took every ounce of his strength and skill. I couldn’t help but remember the very first time I saw him sitting in that chair. The overtanned man in his tank top and shorts, with the perfect teeth, the flashy wristwatch, the fifty-dollar haircut. Lots of attitude and big words then, but today he was so scared he could barely keep his hands from shaking.

“If I talk to her, I’ll send her your, you know… I mean, I’ll put in a good word for you. I’ll tell her you’re helping me. And that she’ll be able to come home soon.”

I walked over to the great tail fin of the fish. The way it was stuck there in the shattered window, it looked like it was trying to escape this place. A completely understandable feeling.

“Besides, you need to focus right now,” Mr. Marsh said. “I need your absolute best effort here. Are you with me?”

I didn’t even look at him. I turned away and walked to the door.

“They will kill me.”

I stopped.

“I need you to believe that, Michael. They will kill me for sure. Or if they think I’m more useful to them alive… they may hurt Adam. End his football career.”

His voice was flat, devoid of all emotion.

“Or Amelia…”

No. Don’t even say it.

“I don’t even want to think about what they might do to her.”

This is not happening, I thought. This is worse than a bad dream.

“It’s a terrible thing to put on you,” he said, “but I don’t have a choice.”

He didn’t say anything else to me.

He didn’t have to.

Ohio

September 2000

The Ghost had made it clear to me. I knew the rule. When the red pager goes off, you call the number as quickly as a human being can pick up a phone and call a number.

“That was fast,” the voice said. A rough voice that I knew I’d heard before. “Good boy. Now write this down because I’m only gonna say it once. We need you to get yourself to Cleveland. We’ll be down there on Friday morning, bright and early, like around eight o’clock. So you’ve got what, two and a half days from now to get there. Here’s the address…”

I wrote down the number and the street name.

“It’s a bar. Restaurant, whatever. Just go on inside and hang out until we get there. Oh, and one more little detail. Things are kinda hot right now, so do not fly there. You got that? Do not get on a fucking airplane. Are we crystal clear?”

He actually seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

“Can you press a goddamned button or something to let me know you’re there? Once for yes, twice for no, how’s that?”

I pressed one of the buttons. One time.

“There you go. We figured out how to communicate. So I’ll see you in Ohio. Getting there won’t be any more fun for me than you, believe me. So don’t bitch at me about it.”

He hung up. I looked at the address on the pad. I tore it off, put it in my pocket, and started writing on the next page.

I need to go. Back in a few days.

I put the pad on the table. As soon as somebody came back here looking for me, I knew they’d find it.

I did a quick packing job. Then I hit the road.

____________________

Ohio was over two thousand miles away. A hell of a trip, but I didn’t figure I had much choice. I hit Las Vegas by the time the sun was going down. I was just past St. George, Utah, when I stopped for the night. I checked into a little motel, paid cash for a room, and fell asleep on the bed with my clothes still on.

The sun was hot on my face when I finally woke up. Galaxies of dust floating in that one ray of light that shone through the gap in the curtains. I got up, grabbed some breakfast, and hit the road again.

I made it through Utah that day, then through Colorado. I could feel my hands going numb. The road was dead straight by the time I hit Nebraska. I kept the bike between the lines and just rode and rode. This is a test, I thought. It’s impossible to do this, but they want me to do it anyway.

I stopped at another motel outside of Grand Island. It was hard to walk when I got off the bike that night. I paid for the room, took a shower, and tried to sleep. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t close my eyes. I sat up, turned on the light, and started drawing. I had all of my stuff with me, of course. I couldn’t imagine going anywhere without it. So I drew myself sitting there in the bed, in that little motel room so close to the road I could feel the walls shake every time a truck went by. Another chapter in my ongoing story for Amelia. Michael on his way to Ohio to do God knows what.

In the morning, as I was packing up again, I heard the blue pager go off. The guys from New York? Did they somehow know I was already halfway there? Thinking maybe I could swing by and do a second job on the same trip?