Steve Hamilton - The Lock Artist

THE LOCK ARTIST

Also by Steve Hamilton

Night Work

A Stolen Season

Ice Run

Blood Is the Sky

North of Nowhere

The Hunting Wind

Winter of the Wolf Moon

A Cold Day in Paradise

Steve Hamilton

Minotaur Books

______________
A Thomas Dunne Book
New York

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS .
An imprint of St. Martins Publishing Group.

THE LOCK ARTIST . Copyright 2009 by Steve Hamilton. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.minotaurbooks.com

Book Design by Rich Arnold

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hamilton, Steve, 1961

The lock artist/Steve Hamilton.1st ed.

p.cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-38042-7

1. Lock pickingFiction. 2. CriminalsFiction. I. Title.

PS3558.A44363L63 2010

813'.54dc22

2009034523

First Edition: January 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the Allens

I am indebted to Dave McOmie, real-life safecracker extraordinaire, for all the assistance with the safecracking materialwe got it right enough to be convincing, but wrong enough to make sure this book isnt a training manual. Thanks also to the aptly named Jim Locke for getting me started with locks in the first place, to Debbie Noll for the help with the American Sign Language, and to George Griffin for the help with the motorcycles.

Thanks to Bill Massey and Peter Joseph for working extra hard with me on this one. I cant tell you how much I appreciate it.

Thanks as always to Bill Keller and Frank Hayes, to Jane Chelius, to everyone at St. Martins Press and Orion UK, Maggie Griffin, Nick Childs, Elizabeth Cosin, Bob Randisi and the Private Eye Writers of America, Bob Kozak and everyone else at IBM, Jeff Allen, and Rob Brenner.

To the good people of both Milford and River Rouge, Michigan, Id like to say that the portrayal of both places in this book is based on memories so imperfect they might as well be from a fever dream. I know this is worlds away from real life.

For some great insight into how traumatic events affect the human mind, I recommend The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit, by Donald Kalsched (Brunner-Routledge, 1996).

Finally, more than ever, I owe everything to Julia, who really had to help me get through this one, to Nicholas, who will be driving away in a car soon, and to Antonia, who is very glad I took out the octopus.

THE LOCK ARTIST

You may remember me. Think back. The summer of 1990. I know thats a while ago, but the wire services picked up the story and I was in every newspaper in the country. Even if you didnt read the story, you probably heard about me. From one of your neighbors, somebody you worked with, or if youre younger, from somebody at school. They called me the Miracle Boy. A few other names, too, names thought up by copy editors or newscasters trying to outdo one another. I saw Boy Wonder in one of the old clippings. Terror Tyke, that was another one, even though I was eight years old at the time. But it was the Miracle Boy that stuck.

I stayed in the news for two or three days, but even when the cameras and the reporters moved on to something else, mine was the kind of story that stuck with you. You felt bad for me. How could you not? If you had young kids of your own back then, you held them a little tighter. If you were a kid yourself, you didnt sleep right for a week.

In the end, all you could do was wish me well. You hoped that I had found a new life somewhere. You hoped that because I was so young, somehow this would have protected me, made it not so horrible. That Id be able to get over it, maybe even put the whole thing behind me. Children being so adaptable and flexible and durable, in ways that adults could never be. That whole business. Its what you hoped, anyway, if you even took the time to think about me the real person and not just the young face in the news story.

People sent me cards and letters back then. A few of them had drawings made by children. Wishing me well. Wishing me a happy future. Some people even tried to visit me at my new home. Apparently, theyd come looking for me in Milford, Michigan, thinking they could just stop anybody on the street and ask where to find me. For what reason, exactly? I guess they thought I must have some kind of special powers to have lived through that day in June. What those powers might be, or what these people thought I could do for them, I couldnt even imagine.

In the years since then, what happened? I grew up. I came to believe in love at first sight. I tried my hand at a few things, and if I was any good at it, that meant it had to be either totally useless or else totally against the law. That goes a long way toward explaining why Im wearing this stylish orange jumpsuit right now, and why Ive been wearing it every single day for the past nine years.

I dont think its doing me any good to be here. Me or anybody else. Its kind of ironic, though, that the worst thing I ever did, on paper at least, was the one thing I dont regret. Not at all.

In the meantime, as long as Im here, I figure what the hell, Ill take a look back at everything. Ill write it all down. Which, if Im going to do it, is really the only way I can tell the story. I have no other choice, because as you may or may not know, in all the things Ive done in the past years, theres one particular thing I havent done. I havent spoken one single word out loud.

Thats a whole story in itself, of course. This thing that has kept me silent for all of these years. Locked up here inside me, ever since that day. I cannot let go of it. So I cannot speak. I cannot make a sound.

Here, though, on the page... it can be like were sitting together at a bar somewhere, just you and me, having a long talk. Yeah, I like that. You and me sitting at a bar, just talking. Or rather me talking and you listening. What a switch that would be. I mean, youd really be listening. Because Ive noticed how most people dont know how to listen. Believe me. Most of the time theyre just waiting for the other person to shut up so they can start talking again. But you... hell, youre just as good a listener as I am. Youre sitting there, hanging on every word I say. When I get to the bad parts, you hang in there with me and you let me get it out. You dont judge me right off the bat. Im not saying youre going to forgive everything. I sure as hell dont forgive it all myself. But at least youll be willing to hear me out, and in the end to try to understand me. Thats all I can ask, right?

Problem is, where do I begin? If I go right to the sob story, itll feel like Im already trying to excuse everything I did. If I go to the hardcore stuff first, youll think Im some sort of born criminal. Youll write me off before I get the chance to make my case.