Джеффри Дивер - The Midnight Lock

She added, “Now, we’re making headway in the NYPD crime scene lab in Queens.”

The improvised line was clever.

“We’re analyzing some solid evidence we’ve just discovered. We expect a breakthrough soon, but evidence is only part of the solution in finding this man. We need witnesses. We need you .” She nodded, and the little red eye on the camera went out.

She exhaled long.

“Good job.” The cameraman lifted an eyebrow. “Hey, Detective, you ever get tired of the cop thing you might want to think about acting.”

“I’ll stick to policing. It’s less stressful.”

I’m eating a Spartan meal in a modest coffee shop — a not unpleasant place filled with professionals bent over phones, tablets, computers; gabbing blue-collar workers; lovers who’ve passed the two- or three-month mark and no longer need fancy-night-out dates.

The lighting is green and cold, but not a soul cares.

A bowl of soup, Texas toast exuding butter. Soda. Caffeine free, of course.

I’m on a device too — my computer, reading the news about the death of my workshop. All gone, many of my beloved tools and locks and keys. I’m surprised they learned about it so soon. I have a feeling that it wasn’t Joanna who gave them the address; it would be Lincoln and Amelia who somehow figured it out. (Oh, and sorry, Joanna — looks like you lost that bargaining chip.)

It’s a shame that I had to booby-trap it (and a shame too that nobody was killed in the raid). But I had no choice. Time to take my money, my most important things and favorite lock-picking and other tools and flee.

But not quite yet.

I change screens and log on to Tammybird’s channel once more. Ah, the little thing is still with us. She’s at her grandmother’s house and is thanking everyone for their support. God too, which makes me smile, since He, of course, is me. She’s going to get help. The comments continue to scroll.

Yay. Glad ur doing better!! LOL!!!

Happy for U.

Loser.

U inspired me to go talk to somebody.

Take your shirt off!

Who gives a shit, your more boring than unboxing vids.

Goodbye, Tam, I think. And go to yet another site. Now I’m watching a girl doing gymnastic maneuvers, which ten thousand other girls and young women execute daily and post on ViewNow, YouTube and the others.

I think of Dr. Patricia’s happy assessment that I’m not beyond repair, since I have a girlfriend. Of course, the way she asked the question was: “Are you seeing anybody?” And I replied that I was. “Her name is Aleksandra.”

What she didn’t know was that, yes, I was indeed “seeing” somebody, but the verb “viewing” would be more accurate. I spent hours upon hours observing the young Russian woman’s ViewNow channel. Aleksandra lives in a small suburb of Moscow and has never been to the United States. I have an intimate relationship with her, though it is one that she does not participate in. She doesn’t even know I exist.

I remember that in the comments section of a makeup tutorial someone said that she looked like a gymnast, with her slim figure and bunned hair. She replied, “All Russian girls, when we are in youths, we are ballerinas or we are gymnasts. There are no exceptions to rule.”

The girl I’m watching now, doing stretches, is talented, to be sure, though I wonder if she knows that the majority of the 7,435 views are by teenage boys and men, many middle-aged, who don’t give a shit about the floor routines or her skill on the balance beam. I suspect she does not.

For myself, I’m not even watching Roonie Soames’s contortions. I’m looking past her, confirming what I’ve learned about the apartment she shares with her mother, Taylor — the woman who surely remains troubled nightly about the question of who Ben Nelson really is and what did he want.

In particular I’m checking to see if she was concerned enough about the disappearance to change her security. I see she was not.

Hargrove Deadbolt and a knob pin and tumbler I could pick with two paper clips.

A simple alarm, no door bar.

Still no weapons — nearly always the rule in Manhattan (though there are the occasional hunters, and you might see Granddad’s ancient WWII rifle, just as accurate and deadly as it was seventy-five years ago).

And since the last time I tuned in to the girl’s videos, they have not bought a rottweiler or pit bull.

Smooth sailing for tonight’s Visit.

Now, the girl is lecturing on hamstrings.

I wonder how devastated she’ll be when she finds out that by her thoughtless postings, revealing to the world the vulnerabilities of the apartment, she’ll be responsible for her mother’s death? Roonie had already spilled to Ben Nelson that she’ll be in Wilmington for gymnastics camp. I calculate this means she’ll be gone by now. Leaving Taylor home alone tonight.

And if not... Oh, well.

I now memorize the layout of the apartment and click the computer to sleep. I finish the last scoops of soup — it’s quite hearty and flavorful — and think about the fate of an innocent woman.

But then I correct myself.

Innocent?

Of course not. Oh, she did nothing to deserve what will happen, but neither does the gazelle who carelessly strays too far from the herd or doesn’t act on the molecules of predator musk because those last few leaves are hard to resist. The idea of justice is singularly human and not a neat fit for every situation where one starts the day alive and ends it dead.

Ah, Taylor...

I feel the weight of the brass knife in my back pocket. Picture it hovering over flesh.

Picture it within flesh.

The check comes and I pay, and step into the New York City night, filled with the scent of exhaust, garlic from an Italian restaurant, the perfume on the necks of the female halves of couples walking by in date euphoria.

In a few minutes I’m at my car — not Kitt Whittaker’s Audi, but my own more modest Toyota. In the backseat, I unzip a canvas bag and extract brown overalls. I tug them on and zip up. I walk around to the trunk and open it.

There’s a carton, which looks like something a UPS man would deliver, and I slip into it an RF alarm-disabling device.

Down goes the trunk and, after a scan of the area, I walk several blocks to the subway and board a train. I mount earbuds, as if listening to music, but I’m not. I’m studying fellow passengers. Wondering about where they live, what are their apartments like, what do they and their partners look like and sound like when making dinner or making love.

I’m opening up their lives. Their secrets are mine...

We arrive at the station, and I step from the car onto the platform, into the salty, hot-rubber-scented air of the New York City subway.

And then to the surface.

A few blocks from the exit, I walk past the front door I will soon break into, eyeing it casually, looking for threats.

None.

All I see are people jogging, eating snacks, walking arm in arm, trudging, focused and self-protective.

No one notices me.

I’m a parcel deliveryman.

One of thousands in New York.

I’m invisible.

I lean against a substantial tree, pretending to make a phone call, until I decide that the threat to me is minimal.

Clutching the box, I climb to the door. Reaching into the carton, I press the switch on the RF transmitter, sending out its stream of radio waves to confound the alarm on the other side of the wood.

I pat my back pocket to make sure the brass knife is accessible. I then remove the two keys I made earlier.

I’ve seasoned them with graphite and they work perfectly in the locks.