Steve Hamilton - The Lock Artist

So the next few days were all about preparation. Putting the goods together, first of all. The wine, the cigars. Everything. Julian had done this once before, of course. He had delivered it all as part of his repayment to the man from Detroit, in exchange for being allowed to walk off that boat without a bullet in his head. Now he just had to come through again, with a little help from the rest of us.

It wasn’t expected, mind you. No official promise had been made. Still, it was a reasonable cover story. It was a way to walk right onto that boat like it was the most natural thing in the world. It was also a card to play if everything fell apart and we were asked what the hell we were doing there.

We cased out the marina itself. Even though Julian already knew the place, he wanted nothing left to chance. He wanted to know the exact slip where the boat would be moored. The exact schedule. Who would disembark and when, where they’d go, how long they’d be there. So we could put together our plan, choreograph every last movement, down to the second.

We went over it again and again. Until everybody knew exactly what they had to do.

Now all we had to do was wait for the boat to arrive.

Lucy was acting strange. After what had happened between us… that one single afternoon… she was distant to me. She wouldn’t come over in the afternoons to hang out anymore. At dinner, she barely looked at me. I started to worry about her. Is she really ready for this? Will she be able to carry off her part of the operation?

The night before the big day, Julian was walking back and forth from one end of the house to the other, muttering to himself. Ramona didn’t want to be alone, but she didn’t want to talk, either. She spent the last hours putting together the gift baskets, with all of the expensive goodies spread out on the table. The wine, the single malt whisky, the Cuban cigars, the Dunhill cigarettes. She wouldn’t let anyone help her. God help you if you came within three feet of that table.

Gunnar was doing a light workout in the yard. Alone in the darkness. Lucy sat in a chair with earphones on, listening to music.

Me? I spent the time drawing, of course. I was trying to capture everything about that one last empty evening. The way we all looked as we were getting ready. For better or worse, nothing would ever be the same again.

Midnight came. We tried to sleep.

Then the next morning… Gunnar got the call from his contact. The ship had changed its plans. It wasn’t docking at Marina del Rey, after all. It was heading directly to Mexico.

“Four million dollars,” Gunnar said. “Four million dollars on that fucking boat and it’s not coming to shore? Can you fucking believe this?”

“Maybe they got tipped off,” Julian said. “They know something is up.”

“Don’t be an idiot. These guys are smart, but they’re not psychic .”

“Maybe the card game’s getting serious,” Julian said. “Maybe they just want to skip all that other shit. Coming ashore and golfing, or going to Vegas…”

“We should just get our own boat,” Gunnar said. “Something fast . Ride out there and take them down, right on the ocean.”

“Yeah, that would work. That’s a great idea.”

“I’m serious, Julian. I’m not fucking around.”

“You go ahead, give that a try. They’ll cut you in half and feed you to the sharks.”

“I’m glad we’re not doing this,” Lucy said. She had taken her earphones off. It was the first time she had spoken in two days. “I had a bad feeling about it.”

Gunnar stared her down for a long moment. Then he picked up one of Ramona’s carefully wrapped gift baskets and threw it across the room. It exploded against the wall, filling the room with cigars and crinkly green tissue paper and the warm scent of whisky.

After that, everyone drifted off in their own direction. Nobody ate dinner together.

Just before he went to bed, Gunnar got the second call. The boat would be stopping in San Diego in the morning, his contact said. At one of the marinas in Coronado, at the north end of San Diego Bay. If we were there bright and early, we just might catch it.

Julian drove. Ramona sat beside him in the front seat. Gunnar and I were in the back. Lucy was between us. The sun was just starting to come up.

“This will work,” Gunnar said. “They’ll never see it coming. It’s just like you always say. Hit ’em where they ain’t looking, right? Eight heavy hitters with a half million each? What will they be worrying about? Pirates at sea? The banditos in Mexico? What’s the one time they’ll have their guard down? On a spur-of-the-moment stop! Their last stop in America!”

“We’ve never even been down here,” Julian said. “We have no idea what we’re getting into.”

“For once in your life,” Gunnar said, “you have to improvise a little. You move fast, you’re in, you’re out. Then you’re gone. We can do this.”

“What do you think?” Julian said to Ramona.

“Now you’re asking my opinion? While we’re already on our way down there?”

“Yeah. Now I’m asking.”

“My opinion is we go make our deliveries. If it doesn’t feel right, we can bail out. Nothing lost.”

“Four million dollars,” Gunnar said. “That sounds like a hell of a loss to me.”

“How about your life?” Ramona said. “How’s that for a loss?”

“It won’t happen.”

“You’ve never met this guy,” she said, turning to face him. “You’ve never looked him in the eye like I have.”

“Everybody stop talking,” Lucy said. “Just stop right now.”

They did. They all stopped talking and joined me in the tense silence. Julian kept driving. For all of his doubts, he was the one taking us there at a mile a minute.

The sun broke over the San Marcos Mountains just as we got close to the northern end of San Diego Bay. From one moment to the next, the ocean was suddenly glittering in the sunlight. We took the bridge to North Island. As we pulled up near the marina, we could see the yachts all lined up in a row. We parked at the service entrance. Julian popped the trunk, and we started carrying our load down onto the dock. The crates of wine. The gift baskets.

We were all in our game day outfits, of course. Julian, Gunnar, and I in identical black pants and white golf shirts. Looking as nondescript and interchangeable as possible. Like every other faceless man who spends his working day waiting on people.

Ramona and Lucy, on the other hand, stripped down to their short shorts and bikini tops. For maximum distraction.

We walked out onto the long dock, each of us with our arms full. As we walked by each ship, we saw crew members hosing off the decks. We saw rich people with tanned ankles and docksiders, sitting high above us, enjoying their breakfasts while the seagulls screamed for handouts. We kept walking.

“I don’t see it,” Julian said. “Where’s the fucking boat?”

Down toward the end, there was a long gangway leading up to the biggest boat of all. It had to be two hundred feet long. It was parked facing out, with a gangway leading up to the stern’s second deck. There were two men standing there at the foot of the gangway. Both large, both dressed in black. Both doing a professional job of looking unfriendly.

“This isn’t it,” Julian said. “This isn’t the boat.”

“It has to be,” Gunnar said. “Let’s check it out.”

Gunnar went up to the two men, slipping into his role. A not so bright delivery man, just trying to get rid of his packages.

“Hey, guys, what’s up? Is this the boat we’re looking for, I wonder?”

One of the men raised an eyebrow.

“We might be looking for another vessel,” Julian said, stepping into his role. “These guys were on the Skylla .”