The Safe Man (2 page)

“You’re sure you’re not just taking advantage of me here?”

“What?”

“How do I know this isn’t some kind of scam designed to get the double dip? Or the double drill, as the case may be.”

Brian was thinking that he ought to pick up his tools and just walk out, leaving the arrogant writer with his unopened safe.
You open it, asshole.
But he needed the money—Laura was planning to take the option of extending her maternity leave by four unpaid weeks. Besides, he was curious about the safe. He’d have something to post on the website after he got it open.

“Look,” he said to Robinette. “If you want to go out to the van and look in the manuals and try to find this, be my guest.”

Robinette waved off the suggestion.

“No, never mind. Just get it done. Come to the bottom of the stairs and call for me when you are about to open it. I want to be here to see what that old fool Blankenship put in there.”

“Arthur Blankenship? This was his house?”

“Yes, that’s right. Did you do work for him?”

“No, I just knew of him. He owned the plant. His father dug the channel.”

“Yes, that’s right. The Blankenships made this city what it is today. I’ll be upstairs.”

He left the room, carrying his files with him. Brian shook his head. He hated working for assholes but it was part of the job. He turned and looked down at the safe. Every job was a little mystery. He wondered when the black steel door was last opened. He wondered what Arthur Blankenship had put in there.

The first thing Brian did was strap on his kneepads. He then got down on the floor and contemplated the spacing between the combo dial and the handle. He took a piece of white chalk out of his toolbox and marked an X on the door about three inches to the right of the dial on a direct line to the handle. He knew he’d at least be close.

He set the tripod up over the X and hooked the lock-down chain to the safe’s handle. He fitted a half-inch bit into the drill, mounted it on the tripod, and plugged it into a nearby wall socket. He was ready to go. From the toolbox he took out the gloves, safety glasses, and breathing mask, and put them on. Last, he pressed foam plugs into his ears.

The first drill bit lasted twenty-five minutes before shattering. He guessed he had gone in only a quarter inch at that point. He let the drill cool for a few minutes while he drank a bottle of water he got out of the toolbox. He then locked a new bit into place.

The second bit completed the penetration. Brian pulled the drill out and checked the hole. It appeared that the front plate was three-quarters of an inch thick. He unlocked the tripod and moved it out of the way. The drill hole was still smoking and hot. Brian leaned down and blew away the steel shavings that had accumulated around it.

He got the camera scope out of the toolbox, plugged it in, and turned it on. He manipulated the snakelike camera extension, bending it into a curving L shape. He then fed it into the drill hole, keeping his eyes on the small black-and-white video display screen.

Almost immediately Brian saw movement inside the safe. A whitish gray blur moved across the three-inch-wide screen. He froze for a moment.
What was that?

He moved the camera in an exaggerated sweep but saw nothing else.
Was it smoke? Had he really seen something?
He wondered if the camera movement had simply blurred a reflection of the camera’s light off one of the gears or the underside of the faceplate.

The video display had no playback function. It did not record. Brian could not go back to check the movement again. He felt a small tremble go up his spine and neck. He stared at the display for a few more moments and then started moving the scope again. He knew there couldn’t have been movement. It had to have been a reflection or a concentration of smoke left over from the drill-through.

He saw no further movement in the display. But he did see that the safe’s door had no back plate. This, he guessed, had been removed to make the door lighter, since it opened up rather than out. It probably saved fifteen or twenty pounds in the lifting.

Since the back plate was missing, Brian knew he could use the scope to see into the cavity of the safe and check its contents ahead of Robinette. He pulled the tool out of the drill hole, straightened it, and then snaked it back in. The camera’s light reached all corners of the safe. Brian saw that it was empty, save for the layer of dust that had gathered over time at the bottom.

“No treasure today,” Brian said to himself.

He once more removed the scope, reconfigured it, and then fed it back into the hole. By moving the scope, he was able to view the internal workings of the safe’s locking mechanism. He was surprised. He counted nine gears. Most safes had three or four at the most. Never nine. He knew that when he posted a report on this job on the site, other box men would not believe him. He decided he would go out to the van and get his digital camera after he got the safe open. His plan would be to post a report on the site and then once the doubters posted their negatives, he would upload a few photos—count ’em, nine gears—and put them all in their place.

He refocused on the work and quickly identified the free wheel—the gear that would release the locking mechanism when popped loose. He measured its location on the front plate. Once more he marked the surface with chalk and pulled the tripod into place.

The second drill-through cost him three bits, and by the end his drill smelled like it was burning up inside. This door was—in box man’s parlance—a
Dutch Treat,
meaning the costs of broken or damaged equipment made the job a barely break-even proposition. Brian knew there was no way he’d be able to ding Robinette for the burned-out drill and the bits. He’d be lucky if the writer even paid him the extra hundred for the second drill-through.

He got the spike and the mallet out of the toolbox. He slid the spike into the second drill hole and felt it click against the free wheel. He raised the mallet to strike it but then stopped. He remembered that Robinette wanted to witness the opening of the safe.

Brian stood up. His shirt was sticking to his back and perspiration had popped across his forehead. He took off the safety glasses and the mask and blew out his breath. He walked out of the study and found the main hallway and the stairs. It was a grand staircase that swept upward in a curve.

“Mr. Robinette?” he called out.

“What?” came the reply.

“I’m ready to open the safe now.”

Brian headed back to the study. He heard Robinette coming down the steps behind him. He got back into position next to the safe and picked up the mallet. Robinette came into the room.

“Is it open?”

“Not yet. I thought you wanted to be here. Do you want a set of earplugs? This metal on metal gets pretty loud.”

“Can’t be louder than that drill. I don’t want earplugs.”

“Suit yourself.”

Brian started hammering the spike with the mallet, taking short strokes at first and then lengthening his arc when the gear refused to give. Each strike on the spike sent a sharp jolt through his body. Finally, after three full swings, he felt the gear start to give. He went back to the shorter, more controlled swing and hit the spike five more times before the gear broke loose and he heard it clatter to the bottom of the safe.

“Sounds like it’s empty,” he said to Robinette.

“Just open it.”

Brian reached down and gripped the handle and sharply pulled it down. It came easily. The safe was unlocked. He pulled it up and open, struggling with the weight of the steel door, and was immediately hit with the dead air that had been trapped inside for who knows how long. It was cold and heavy. It smelled like someone’s chilled breath.

Robinette stepped forward and looked down. He saw that the safe was empty. Brian wasn’t looking at the contents or lack thereof. He was looking at the workmanship of the gears and the slide bolts on the inside of the door. It was a beautiful job, and Brian found himself admiring the craftsmanship behind it.

“Empty,” Robinette said. “Figures.”

Brian reached down into the safe to retrieve the free-wheel gear from the bottom. He withdrew it quickly. It had felt strange. It had felt like he was reaching into a refrigerator for a can of beer.

“That thing must be insulated. It actually feels cold down there. Feel this.”

He held up the gear. It was ice-cold. But Robinette waved away the idea of touching it.

“So much for the treasure of Sierra Madre,” he said. “All right. Get the door off it, and if you don’t mind and it won’t cost me too much more, do you have something you can clean that out with?”

“I have a Shop-Vac in my van. It’s part of the service.”

“Good. Do it. That dust is already affecting my sinuses. I can’t breathe. I’ll be upstairs when you’re finished.”

After Robinette was gone, Brian went to work on the door’s single hinge. In five minutes he lifted the heavy door out of its spot and carefully leaned it against one of the bookcases. He thought that it weighed more than forty pounds, even without a back plate.

For a moment he studied the workmanship of the locking mechanism again. The nine—now eight—gears were clustered in an interlocking pattern that had to have been of original design. He thought it was beautiful, like a painting that should be on display. Almost like a living organism. He was hoping that Robinette would let him take the door, since he no longer wanted it.

He gathered his tools and took them out to the van. He came back in with his camera and the vacuum, and as he reentered the study, his eyes met those of a young girl who was standing by the opening in the floor. Brian had not replaced the plywood door yet.

“Careful, honey, you don’t want to fall down in there. You might get hurt.”

“Okay,” she said.

She was dark-haired and had a sweet face. Her eyes were dark and serious for such a young girl. She was wearing a dress that looked like it might be a little warm for the summer weather. Something about her was familiar to him—the eyes maybe. He couldn’t place it. He knew there was no reason he would have ever seen her before.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Lucy.”

Brian’s eyes lit in surprise.

“Really? That’s my favorite name for a girl. My wife and I are about to have a baby and if it’s a girl, we’re going to call her Lucy, just like you. Do you believe that? How old are you, sweetheart?”

She smiled, revealing that she was missing a front tooth.

“Six.”

“Wow, I would have guessed at least seven. You’re a big girl.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, listen, I have to do some cleaning up in here and it might get dusty. You should run along now, okay?”

“Okay.”

“See you, Lucy.”

“Bye-bye, Box Man.”

He watched her leave the room, wondering how she knew to call him that. Had her father used the term? He couldn’t remember but assumed Robinette had told her who he was and what he was doing in the house. He listened to her footsteps padding away and then he went back to work, vacuuming out the safe and then taking photos of the safe’s door, front and back.

After loading his equipment into the van, he sat in the driver’s seat while writing out a billing statement on his clipboard. He didn’t charge Robinette anything other than the two-fifty already agreed to. He took the bill inside with him and called up the stairs to Robinette.

Robinette studied the bill as they walked back to the library.

“I ought to retire and learn how to legally break into safes. What’s this come out to, like eighty bucks an hour for using a drill?”

“Hardly. I’m lucky if I get one job a day. There aren’t that many safes that need opening. Most of my work is just plain old locksmithing.”

“Well, I’d say you did pretty damn good today.”

Robinette dropped the bill onto the desk in the library as if he were dismissing it.

Brian said, “I usually get paid upon completion of the job.”

Robinette said, “Well, you didn’t say that before.”

“It is custom in the service industry. Usually I don’t have to say it.”

Brian could tell that Robinette didn’t like that service thing thrown back at him.

“All right,” he said curtly. “I’ll go up and get you a check.”

“Thank you.”

Just before Robinette left the study, Brian spoke up again.

“What do you want me to do with the door? It’s heavy. I could take it and get rid of it, if you want.”

“No, no,” Robinette answered quickly. “I want you to carry it out to the curb and prop it up so it can be seen.”

Brian was confused.

“Sure, but why?”

“Three words:
In Cold Blood.
Trash pickup doesn’t come until Thursday. That means it will be out there a couple days, and maybe the word will get out that there is no longer a safe in here.”

Brian nodded though he didn’t really follow the logic.

“What’s that old song say?
Paranoia will destroy ya.
”

Robinette turned fully around to confront him.

“Look, I don’t expect you to understand me or my life. Do you have children?”

“Got one on the way. I’m not trying to—”

“I don’t care what you are trying or not trying to say. Just do your job and don’t worry about my paranoia. My paranoia got me this place and this life. I think in some ways it’s like drilling through steel plates for a living, but I like it better. It’s not as noisy. Now if you don’t mind, I will go up and get you a check while you take that damn thing out to the curb. Okay?”

“You got it.”

At dinner Brian told Laura all about his encounter with the arrogant writer and she told him that Robinette hadn’t had a book out in at least three years. She suggested that maybe that had something to do with his paranoia and arrogance.

“I was reading in one of the baby books about how when babies get constipated, they can be really miserable,” she said. “Maybe Robinette is creatively constipated.”

Brian laughed but said some people are just mean, plain and simple. He thought about the girl he had briefly met in the house. Growing up in that place with that father, how would she turn out? How would she make it through? He wondered where the mother was.