The Lock Artist

Mike is in handcuffs at the police station. They have cuffed his hands in front of him, and while he is waiting, he studies the lock on the cuffs. Assuming Mike is deaf, the officers procure a sign language interpreter. Mike signs, “I am not deaf” (94). The detective recognizes him as Lito’s nephew and calls the uncle to the station. Lito arrives with a lawyer. The lawyer tells Mike, “They want to know who else was involved with this” (95). Mike will not give up names. He goes home with Lito for the night, but they return the next day. Mike’s lawyer explains her strategy of going after the police for “the way [they] handled Michael’s arrest, and how long it took for [Lito] to be contacted […] it doesn’t look good. Not with a juvenile involved” (97). She further notes the police’s “other problem” (98): Brian Hauser, whom they suspect was involved in the break-in, is the son of a Michigan State trooper, and his father has assured the police that his son was at a party at his own home that entire night. The lawyer explains that “nobody is particularly anxious to see this case go any further,” and that if Mike does not give up the names of his cronies and “goes it alone, he makes life a lot easier for everyone else” (98). She is convinced that given “the special circumstances surrounding Michael’s personal history,” the local justice system will show him mercy (98).

In sum, Mike faces “[o]ne year probation. Then disposition of the charges. Meaning the charges are completely stricken from the record” (98), but he must also participate in “a little restorative justice” (99)—some community service to be determined by the man whose home he burglarized, Mr. Marsh. Mike reflects with cynicism, “The whole legal system—If you think it’s just a big set of rules, you’re dead wrong. It’s really a bunch of people sitting around and talking to each other, deciding what they want to do with you” (99). The night before Mike must begin his work for Mr. Marsh, Griffin visits him and apologizes. He offers to turn himself in, but Mike stops him, signing, “Ridiculous” (101). Mike laments, “He’ll never be comfortable around me again. The only real friend I ever had. He’s going to leave town now [for college], and I’ll never see him again” (101).

The next day, Mike arrives at the Marsh’s. Mr. Marsh leads him into his study, where Mike notices a huge stuffed fish mounted ostentatiously on the wall. Mr. Marsh tries to intimidate Mike into giving up the names of his fellow burglars. Mike is unmoved. Mr. Marsh appeals to Mike’s guilty conscience, telling him he has “a daughter who’s the same age as you” (103) and who has apparently been traumatized by the break-in, in addition to the more profound shock of the recent suicide of her mother. Mr. Marsh shows Mike a picture of his daughter. It is the first time Mike hears her name, Amelia, aloud. Learning that she has endured trauma comparable to his own, Mike feels even more drawn to her than he was before (when he found her self-portrait during the break-in). Mr. Marsh asks how Mike got into the house. Mike signs that he picked the lock. Mr. Marsh finally accepts Mike’s refusal to give up names, saying, “I guess we’ve got to do this the hard way” (106).

Mike and the crew from the white pager pile into Julian’s car. Gunnar and Lucy are evidently a couple, as are Julian and Ramona. Gunnar seems threatened by Lucy’s interest in Mike, so he seats himself between the two of them. They drive through the Hollywood Hills past extravagant homes. They pull off on the shoulder and pretend to be fixing a flat tire. Gunnar descends a steep, overgrown hill to the target’s house. Julian communicates with Gunnar to let him know when the security guard is out of the way so he can break into the house. Julian says they now have “a few hours to kill” (109), so they go shopping for clothing for disguises, which they will need for the next part of their crime. Mike admires how attractive Lucy and Ramona look in the fancy, sexy clothes and makeup they have put on for their disguises.

They drive to a nightclub on Sunset Boulevard and the bouncer admits them without question. Inside the club there is a balcony where it seems only VIPs may sit. Julian leads them to a special table within this VIP section. They raise a glass of champagne with the toast, “A la Mano de Dios”—meaning “to the hand of God” (113). A tall, thin man with “cold eyes” emerges and greets them. His name is Wesley. Julian introduces Mike as “Mikhail. All the way from Moscow,” explaining that “He doesn’t speak any English […]. He refuses to learn even a single word” (113). Wesley seems impressed—even intimidated. When Wesley leaves, Julian explains, “That’s the man we’re taking down tonight,” and they only came to the club to ensure he was there—away from home (114).

Mr. Marsh leads Mike out to the backyard, preparing to show him what “do[ing] this the hard way” means (106). He hands Mike a shovel and shows him a large rectangle marked out in the lawn with stakes and twine. Mike realizes, “This was going to be a swimming pool. The man actually expected me to dig him a swimming pool in his backyard” (116). Mr. Marsh tells Mike he is not allowed in the house or to interact with his daughter, Amelia, ever. As Mike begins to work, he muses that this assignment is at least as bad as working on a chain gang and that if he were in an actual prison, “[this] kind of cruel and unusual punishment would get a modern warden fired by the end of the first day” (117). To cope, he tells himself, “Just turn off your brain” (117)—an echo of his mental state when he is picking locks.

Mr. Marsh emerges from the house and taunts Mike, still trying to convince him to give up the names of the other boys who broke into the house with him. Mike is unmoved, and Mr. Marsh gives up, returning to the house. Mike starts to feel sick from the long hours of work in the sun. Amelia appears suddenly; this is the first time Mike has seen her in person. The first words she says to him are, “You are so full of shit. Do you know that?” (119). She thinks his post-traumatic silence is an act because she has also survived trauma but has never displayed such dramatic symptoms. Mr. Marsh emerges from the house, furious that Amelia and Mike are interacting. Mike signs a swear word at him. When Mike finally returns home, he tries to draw Amelia’s face from memory, but he fails again and again.

The next morning, he is sore and blistered but returns to the job, thinking to himself, “I had to see her again, no matter what” (122). Upon arrival at the Marshes’, he meets Mr. Marsh and Mr. Randolph, a locksmith. Mr. Randolph says he’s “calling bullshit” (122) on Mike’s claim that he picked the lock on the house door because he left no scratches. Mr. Marsh tells Mike that if he demonstrates then and there that he can open that lock, “I’ll give you the day off” (123). Mr. Randolph offers Mike his tools—professional tools, which Mike has never seen or used before. Just as Mr. Randolph starts to get smug, Mike pops the lock open.

Despite Mr. Marsh’s promise, Mike works in the yard that day. He overhears Mr. Marsh inside the house yelling into the phone. He reflects, “Do not trust anyone, ever, if you hear them yelling into a telephone” (124). Amelia shows up in the backyard, taking Mike by surprise again. She says, “I’m calling your bluff. Okay? I know you can talk if you want to” (125), so Mike takes a pad of paper from his pocket and writes, “I really cannot talk. I promise you. Really” (125). A young man comes out of the house—Amelia’s boyfriend, Zeke. Zeke belittles Mike and brings Amelia back inside. When Mike returns home for the evening, he tries to draw Amelia again, this time trying to forget how strong his feelings for her are. He succeeds in drawing the portrait. He puts it in an envelope, planning to give it to her the next day. When he arrives at work the next day, Mr. Marsh and Mr. Randolph greet him again. Mr. Randolph presents him with a new challenge: a lock with “serrated pins” (128). Mike attempts it several times but fails. It is the first time he has failed to open a lock.

Julian, Ramona, Lucy, and Mike return to the spot by the side of the road near Wesley’s house where they left Gunnar. Lucy tells Mike to change out of his fancy clothes into a pair of black coveralls. She sends Mike off to meet Gunnar in the house and kisses him goodbye, saying, “I really do hate you, […] but […] you are beautiful” (132). When Mike has traversed the steep hillside and reached the house, Gunnar greets him. Gunnar has turned up the thermostat in the house very high so that they can evade the house’s secondary security system, which uses infrared technology to detect the heat of moving bodies in the room. With the heat up high, the system will not be able to detect the moving bodies, as long as they move very slowly.

Gunnar leads Mike to a safe—the same model Julian had in his house, on which Mike demonstrated his skill. He unlocks it, and Gunnar shovels bundles of cash into a garbage bag. “That’s what three-quarters of a million dollars looks like,” he says (134). They realize that the furnace has somehow turned off—perhaps overheated—and the house is getting cooler, endangering them. They make their way out of the house, even more slowly than before. They reset the thermostat to leave as little trace of themselves as possible. They escape safely. Lucy drives them back to the nightclub. “It’s time for Phase Two,” she says (137).

After failing to open the lock with the serrated pins, Mike resumes his work in the yard and must endure watching Amelia with Zeke and two of their friends, who sit nearby and canoodle lazily while staring at Mike digging. Mike decides not to give Amelia the portrait he drew, and he buries it behind a tree. His failure to open the complex lock burdens him. In the middle of the night that night, Mike jumps out of bed, grabs his handmade lock picks, and drives to the Marshes’ house. He retrieves the envelope with the portrait of Amelia from its hiding place in the backyard. He methodically works to open the newly installed lock with serrated pins, failing several times, but finally discovering, “[i]t was like picking a lock in reverse” (141). He opens it. Having broken into the house, he feels “in complete control” (142).

He finds Amelia’s bedroom door, which is locked. The lock is “just a single round hole” and he opens it easily, thinking, “In my whole life, I’d never crack an easier lock” (142). He watches her sleeping for a moment, then places the unsigned drawing on her dresser and leaves. When Mike arrives back for work the next morning, Zeke confronts him and tells him to stay away from Amelia, threatening him vaguely. Amelia gives Mike a meaningful look. That afternoon, his work does not feel as burdensome. A middle-aged man emerges from the house and talks to Mike. He admires Mike’s silence, saying, “World needs more people who know enough to keep their mouth shut” (144), hinting that he wishes Mr. Marsh would follow Mike’s taciturn example.

That evening, Mike begins drawing again. His drawings turn into a comic strip that narrates his first encounter with Amelia, showing his own true reactions with thought bubbles. He reveals that he thinks she is beautiful, that he wishes “she knew how much we have in common,” and that, “If she asked me to, I would dig this hole to the center of the earth” (146). At two in the morning, he goes to the Marshes’ house again, breaks in, and leaves the drawing in her bedroom. When Mike returns to his car after work that day, he finds an envelope on the driver’s seat containing Amelia’s response: “Amelia had drawn page two” (148). In the comic strip, she expresses her deep desire for Mike to talk to her. She also indicates her waning affection for Zeke. Mike draws another comic strip in which he expresses, “I can talk to you, Amelia. To you and nobody else” (149). He decides not to take the risk of breaking in again: He can just leave the envelope in his car, where she will find it the next morning. But he will miss the thrill of breaking and entering.

The next day, Amelia, Zeke, and their two friends are in the backyard again while Mike digs. Zeke goes into the house and presumably finds the comic strips Mike has been leaving for Amelia. He comes back out prepared to attack Mike and Mike defends himself by holding up the blade of his shovel. Zeke curses and threatens Mike but leaves without hurting him. Mr. Marsh comes to talk to Mike. He says he admires Mike’s unusual work ethic and promises he won’t have to dig anymore—he even apologizes and asks for friendship. He dismisses Mike early. As Mike leaves, Amelia drops an envelope to him from her bedroom window. Her comic strip depicts her breaking up with Zeke and defending Mike to her friends as talented and “beautiful” (153). She expresses her longing for Mike. Mike returns home and begins drawing a single panel to show her “exactly how I see her, late at night, in my underwater dreams” (155). He draws her as a mermaid.

Back at the nightclub, Lucy passes off Mike’s haggard appearance (from scrambling down and up the steep hillside by Wesley’s house) as evidence of a secret tryst they’ve just enjoyed. She is very physically affectionate with him. Mike gradually realizes how the con they are running works: Julian has led Wesley to believe that the gang will sell him Ecstasy, and they have played dumb so Wesley will feel confident he is smarter. They wait until he’s confident enough to get his money together and then they have their burglar friends, Gunnar and Mike, steal that money. Finally, to sell the con, they must act even more furious than he is when he discovers the money is gone—cursing him and claiming he is the one who cheated them. Mike feels particularly intoxicated by Lucy pretending to throw herself at him, even though he knows she is “just playing her part” (159). The gang drives to another club. Mike dances with Lucy, noting that the connection he feels to her is one he “hadn’t felt since Amelia” (160). He feels a sense of membership in this crew now. Lucy whispers to him, “You’re one of us now […]. You belong to us” (160).

Mike sneaks out in the middle of the night to deliver this single drawing to Amelia. The door of the Marshes’ house is unlocked. When he reaches her bedroom, she is awake, sitting in the darkness. She invites him onto her bed. She wants him to speak to her, but he shakes his head. She accepts this, saying, “I think that just makes you more amazing” (163). They hold each other and, presumably, they eventually make love (though this is left out of the narrative). Mike muses that he wishes his story could end with this joyous episode.

The next day when Mike arrives for work, his probation officer is there with Mr. Marsh. Mr. Marsh has set up a tent over the excavation site to make the working conditions appear more humane. The two men congratulate themselves on this “success story” (167) of restorative justice. When the PO leaves, Mr. Marsh invites Mike into his study. He tells Mike that Amelia has come to Mike’s defense; he feels guilty for having abused Mike. He gives Mike a new assignment: Mike must keep Amelia company, “spend time with her, while she’s drawing, or whatever you guys want to do” (169). Mike feels impossibly lucky. Mr. Marsh then introduces Mr. Slade, his business partner at their health club—the man who once talked to Mike in the backyard. Mr. Marsh says, “[M]aybe… I don’t know. Maybe if we have a problem that you could help us solve sometime? You think maybe that would be a possibility? You helping us out, I mean?” (170). Mike senses that this bodes ill, but he is too happy for the opportunity to spend time with Amelia to question the consequences.

These four chapters chronicle Mike’s arrival in California, his introduction to the white pager gang, and their first crime together. The members of the white pager gang—Julian, Ramona, Gunnar, and Lucy—become central figures in the novel, and they are the only people with whom Mike ever feels a sense of kinship or belonging. Mike’s apparent preoccupation with physical attractiveness is on display in his first encounter with the gang. He describes the appearance of each one of them in detail and calls the group “bizarrely attractive” (86). He is also intrigued by their youthful appearance, and he seems excited to meet other people who are as criminally precocious as he is. Mike’s view of women begins to reveal itself in the way he discusses Ramona and Lucy: He dedicates comparatively little of his narrative to their activities but describes at length their physical attributes and their flirtatious interest in him.

The complexity and finesse of the gang’s first hit—which involves infrared-detecting alarms, fake drug deals, disguises, and seduction—is in strong contrast to the jobs Mike has heretofore performed, both with the blue pager crew and the yellow pager crew. Mike’s interest in working with the white pager crew seems to stem not only from his respect for their competence and intelligence, but also from his excitement at the sexiness of their crimes. Lucy’s flirtation with Mike is significant because it is the only other love intrigue in the novel apart from his relationship with Amelia.

Gunnar and Julian both serve as contrasts to Mike’s character, each on opposite sides of the spectrum between roughness and refinement. Mike is neither as rough and brash as Gunnar nor as polished and suave as Julian. He never explicitly compares himself to either of them, but the reader does so implicitly. Chapter 16 closes with Lucy whispering to Mike, “You’re one of us now […]. You belong to us” (160), cementing Mike’s membership in their group. Mike will find comfort, purpose, and a sense of belonging during his time with the white pager crew, and these chapters lay the foundation of his bond to them.