The Lock Artist Read Online Free PDF Page B

up that pager the next time they call.
    They’ll also take care of sending the ten percent “usage fee” to the man in Detroit. Because they want to keep living.
    That’s for the first four pagers. The last pager, the one with the red tape . . . that’s the man himself. The man in Detroit. You call the number right away. You do what the man says. You show up exactly where and when the man says to show up.
    “This is the one man you do not fuck with.” The Ghost’s exact words. “You fuck with this man, you might as well go ahead and kill yourself. Save everybody the trouble.”
    I knew the Ghost had been telling the truth. I had seen enough myself to know that this was the one piece of advice I should never forget. But what was I supposed to do while I was waiting for the next job? How long would I have to stay here, hiding out in this abandoned room above the Chinese restaurant on 128th Street, before somebody paged me and I got to make some money again?
    Would I starve first? Would I freeze to death?
    The Ghost never covered that part.
     
    ______
     
    By the time Christmas rolled around, I was finally leaving the building once in a while. I’d go to a park a few blocks to the south and sit on one of the benches. I finally had to buy some new clothes. I wasn’t broke yet, mind you. I had been well paid for the job in Pennsylvania. Still, I could do the math and see where it was all headed.
    To make matters a little worse, one of the men who worked in the restaurant told me I needed to help him if I wanted him to keep giving me food. He gave me a big stack of menus and told me to go to all of the buildings in the neighborhood, to get inside somehow, and to put one menu under each door. I knew that some of the buildings had a doorman at the entrance, and that at the other buildings you had to have somebody who lived there buzz you in. So I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to deliver the menus. I mean, I could have found the back doors on most of these buildings and picked the lock, but was that really worth it?
    “You have nice fine face,” the man said. His English wasn’t quite up to speed yet. “People let you in.”
    So I took my nice fine face and my stack of menus and I went to the buildings, one by one. I figured instead of hiding it, I’d come right out and let everybody know exactly what I was doing. Show them the menus, make like I was slipping one under a door. I’d throw in a little sign language once in a while, too. That seemed to help. I got into more buildings than not.
    One day, when I was working my way down a long hallway, a door opened just as I was about to slide a menu under it. Before I could even stand up, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I was pushed backward against the far wall, so hard I lost my breath.
    I looked up and saw the man’s face. It took me all the way back to that man who held up my uncle’s liquor store when I was nine years old. It was that same animal fear in his eyes. A horrible smell of unwashed clothes, urine, maybe that fear itself, it all washed over me. I kicked at his knees and he fell back away from me. Then he ran down the hallway. He slammed open the door and disappeared down the stairs.
    I got up, rubbing my shoulders. When I looked through the open doorway, I saw the wreckage inside. The man had trashed the place, looking for anything of value. So he could buy more drugs. Or whatever it was he needed in his life so bad. I could see the refrigerator still open, even the food inside ransacked and ruined now. I closed the door to the apartment and left.
    When I got back down to the street, I wrote the apartment number on the back of a menu and gave it to the doorman. Then I went back to the restaurant.
    I went up to my room. I counted what was left of my money. I’m living on borrowed time here, I thought. How long until you turn into that man breaking into apartments?
    It got colder and colder. The snow came down that night. White at first, but dirty by