The Lock Artist (49 page)

“Get the fuck down here!” he said to me. “Hurry up!”

I didn’t move. I kept looking down at the water.

“Mike! Just jump already! It’s not that high!”

The height’s not the problem, I thought. I have no problem with heights.

“God damn you! Jump!”

I could hear the men coming up the gangway. Another few seconds and I’d be caught dead.

“Don’t think about it! Just jump!”

One more look behind me. Then a step up onto the gunwale. Then I did it.

I jumped.

I hit feet first and went straight down, all the way to the bottom. When I opened my eyes I saw rocks and green shadows all around me and nothing else. Everything else in the world was obliterated now. It was just me and the water, all around me and over me. The thing I had feared for so long, reclaiming me at last. Like the water itself had waited with such great patience for all of this time and now this time it would never let me go.

I looked up at the surface. So high above me it was like outer space. My lungs were burning. A few more seconds and I’d have to give up. I’d have to draw in one final mouthful of water and swallow it and then lie down right here on these green-lined rocks.

Then I saw a fish.

It was a tiny thing, no bigger than my finger. It swam toward me and stopped like it was looking me up and down and trying to figure out what the hell I was doing there. It was so close to me I could have reached out and taken it in my hand.

Instead I pushed myself off the bottom, letting go of the crate. The fish darted away as I rose toward the surface. When I broke free I was choking and gulping down the cold air like I couldn’t breathe enough of it.

“Michael, quiet.”

I looked over and saw Gunnar a few yards away. He was against the hull of the ship, watching me.

“Get over here. Hurry.”

I dipped back under the water, trying to propel myself. I came up one more time, went down again. Then I felt a hand grabbing my shirtsleeve as he pulled me up next to him.

“What the hell’s the matter with you? Just stay right here, until we can make a break for it.”

I tried to keep kicking my legs to keep my head above the water. I grabbed at the boat’s hull, but it was as smooth as an ice floe.

“As soon as they’re ready to push off, we have to go over there.” He
pointed to the much smaller boat parked parallel to us, a good thirty yards away. “We should stay underwater, and not come up until we’re on the other side. Can you do that?”

I shook my head.

“Yes, you can. You have to.”

We waited for a long time. It was hard to even tell anymore. What a minute felt like, or an hour. Then we heard the engine starting, and it was time to move. Gunnar pushed off from the boat, and as I watched him swim it occurred to me that he was still holding on to his crate of money. He used it as dead weight to help keep himself underwater, as he kicked and swam with his free arm and made his way over toward the other boat.

I took one last deep breath and followed him. I couldn’t go as deep, but I imitated his motions and somehow I willed myself through the water. I taught myself to swim, right there on the spot, because it was either that or die. Either that or never see Amelia again, after everything I had done that day to help make it possible again.

That day in her backyard, the very first time I saw her. Standing there on the edge of that hole, looking down at me. That’s what I thought about. The sunlight on her face.

Gunnar was waiting for me on the other side of the boat. “I wasn’t sure if you were gonna make it,” he said.

We stayed there in the water until the big boat finally motored its way out of the marina. Then it was finally time to get out. But Gunnar had one more thing to do first.

“Where did you drop the money?” he said. “That was a fucking million dollars.”

I shook my head. No idea.

He shook his head and handed me his crate.

“I gotta do everything around here,” he said. Then he dove back down under the water.

I had a big beach towel wrapped around my shoulders. I stared out the window as we drove back north along the coastline. Nobody said anything. Nobody was celebrating. Because even though we had all gotten out of there alive, our plan was still only half done.

Two hours later, we were back at the house. Ramona and Lucy brought
out their hair dryers and started in on the wet bills. Julian was back to his pacing. Gunnar sat on the couch, staring at his phone.

“I hate this,” Julian finally said. “This is the part we have no control over.”

But it’s the part I really care about, I thought to myself. It’s the only part that matters to me. I don’t care about the money.

“My man is on it,” Gunnar said.

“These guys know each other. They’re not going to believe that one of them would rip off the others.”

“They
hate
each other, okay? They take this trip every year just so they can show each other up. You think they trust each other?”

“I don’t know. It’s just—”

“Why the hell do you think they bring their bodyguards with them? Eight mobsters, eight bodyguards, all armed to the teeth. Does that sound like a pleasure cruise to you? One little spark, my guy says. One little spark and
boom
.”

“And he knows exactly what to do?”

“Piece of cake,” Gunnar said. “Talk to all the other bodyguards, like hey, something’s funny here. I saw these guys carrying all of these boxes, throwing them overboard. There was this other boat I could see coming up in the distance. You don’t suppose they found out the combination to the safe, do you? He’ll sell the whole thing, don’t worry. Just like I told you. He’ll come by in a few weeks, by the way. He’ll be happy to find out his share got doubled.”

“I still don’t think we should be sitting here. We should be moving, just to make sure.”

“It’s as good as done,” Gunnar said. “Just relax.”

So we kept waiting. When the money was dry, we put it all in the safe. That very same safe in the secret room, which Julian had bought for me to practice on before that first job in the Hollywood Hills. It was just big enough to hold eight million dollars in hundred-dollar bills.

Then more waiting.

Then more waiting.

Then just after ten o’clock that night, Gunnar’s cell phone rang. He hit the button and listened. He didn’t say a word.

When he finally hung up, he just looked at us, one by one.

“It wasn’t pretty,” he said, “but it worked. The two men we wanted fed to the sharks got fed to the sharks.”

Nobody said anything. We all knew exactly what we were doing, every
step of the way. But now it was real. Two men were dead. Two men who wouldn’t be missed, of course. Two men that the world would keep revolving quite nicely without. Nevertheless they were both dead because we made it happen.

Julian and Ramona hugged each other. Gunnar kept looking at his phone. Lucy came over to me and put a hand to my cheek. I turned away from her and walked out of the room.

I went back to my little apartment next to the garage. This one little room, my home for the past year. I couldn’t help thinking back on all of the things that had happened here. All those times I had checked those pagers . . . Kept the batteries charged . . . my ritual, every single day. See if a call has come in. See if you’re needed somewhere. Call back immediately. Especially if it’s that red pager.

No more.

I was no longer owned by the man from Detroit. I would never again have to answer one of these pagers. My days as a safecracker for hire were over.

I was free.

The next day, I wrote a letter to Amelia. I actually had an address for her now, after all. Care of that dormitory in Ann Arbor. I didn’t fill up the letter with drawings this time. I didn’t try to capture everything that had happened the day before, with the boat and the money and me in the water. There’d be time for that later. For now, all I wanted her to know was that I was on my way back home.

I figured we could work out the details when I got there. I mean, she was in art school, and I’d never take her away from that. Hell, maybe I could buy myself another new identity and start life over. Maybe even register for classes there. Buy a house not far from the school and have her live there with me. Anything was possible, right? I had money now, and there was no reason I couldn’t go back and make it all happen.

I went out to mail the letter. When I had done that, I kept riding around on the motorcycle, amazed at how different it felt already. Not having to think about the pagers or the next big job. Or anything at all.

Eventually, I rode down to the Santa Monica Pier and walked right out to the very edge. I leaned over the railing and looked down at the ocean.

You can’t have me, either, I thought. Not even you.

______

It was late afternoon when I rode back to the house. Already wondering how long it would take me to pack and say good-bye to them. Wondering what it would feel like to leave, knowing I’d probably never see them again.

Until I went inside.

I knew right away that something had happened. There were newspapers and magazines on the floor, like somebody had knocked them off the table. From somewhere upstairs, I could hear water running.

The sound got louder as I went up the steps.

I looked in Gunnar and Lucy’s bedroom first. There was nobody there. Nothing looked out of place.

I went into Julian and Ramona’s bedroom. The mattress was slightly askew, like someone had pushed their way past the bed and not bothered to fix it. The sound of the water was louder now. It was coming from their bathroom. I didn’t want to open that door. But then I did. I had to.

I stood there and let the whole scene wash over me. Julian. Ramona. Every little detail. The water running in the tub, mixing with their blood. I took it all in and then I closed the bathroom door.

I bent over, feeling the blood rush to my head. I thought I would pass out right there. Then the feeling passed.

How did this happen? Who did this?

And who got it first?

They brought them upstairs. They bent them over the edge of the bathtub. One by one. They blew the top of Ramona’s head off. Then Julian’s.

Or did they do Julian first?

That’s all I could think of. For some reason, it mattered to me.

I wanted to know who went first.

Then the very next thought . . . Where are Gunnar and Lucy? Are they dead, too?

I went back across the hall to their room and pushed open their bathroom door, getting myself ready for another horrible sight. But no, it was empty.

I went downstairs and back out the front door. I looked up and down the street. Then I went back around to my apartment. It was empty, too.

You knew this had to happen, I told myself. In the back of your mind, you knew. Sure, you killed the man from Detroit and Sleepy Eyes. You killed
them just as surely as if you had thrown them in the water yourself. But it’s not that easy. It’s
never
that easy. How could you ever think it would be?

Somebody else figured out where the money went. That somebody else is hunting you down now. You don’t even know who he is. He, they, whoever. You have no idea in the world. All you know is that you’re dead. You’re as dead as Julian and Ramona. As dead as Gunnar and Lucy will be, wherever they are right now.

You can’t even call them. You can’t warn them. You can’t do anything.

There is one thing, I thought. There is one thing you can do.

I took out the box of pagers, pushing them aside until I found the cell phone I had brought back with me from Michigan. The cell phone I had taken from my uncle’s kitchen counter. It was the first time I had even turned it on since coming back here. As I did, I saw that there were a dozen voice mail messages. Which didn’t surprise me. If Banks found out I had been back in Michigan, and had taken this phone, he’d keep calling until he finally got through to me.

I didn’t need to hear any of his messages right now. I knew what the general idea would be. Turn yourself in before it’s too late, I’m only trying to help you, same old story. I never believed it. But now, well . . . everything had just changed. The way Julian and Ramona had been killed—that would be me someday. If not today, someday soon.

And if I really went back to Michigan, then it might be both of us. That same scene. Amelia and I together.

I looked up the one single number stored on the cell phone and hit the
TALK
button. It rang twice. Then Banks answered.

“Michael, is this you?”

I kept the phone to my ear as I went back, stepping over Gunnar’s barbells on the way.

“I’m glad you called. Here’s what I want you to do. Are you near a police station?”

I went inside the house and sat down at the table.

“Hello, Michael? Are you there? Just stay on the phone, okay?”