Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

just wondering.” He said, “Shoot.” “Shoot?” “Shoot. Go ahead. Ask.” “Are you Frazer, or are you Son?” “I'm Grandson, actually. My grandfather started the shop.” “Cool.” “But I suppose I'm also Son, since my dad ran things when he was alive. I guess I'm Frazer, too, since my son works here during the summers.”
    I said, “I have another question.” “Shoot.” “Do you think I could find the company that made this key?” “Anyone could've made it.” “Well then, what I want to know is how can I find the lock that it opens?” “I'm afraid I can't help you with that, any more than telling you to try it in every lock you come across. I could always make you a copy, if you'd like.” “I could have a googolplex keys.” “Googolplex?” “A googol to the googol power.” “Googol?” “That's a one with one hundred zeroes after it.” He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You need the lock.” I reached up real high and put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Yeah.”
    As I was leaving he asked, “Shouldn't you be in school?” I thought fast and told him, “It's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.” Lie #4. “I thought that was in January.” “It used to be.” Lie #5.
    When I got back to the apartment, Stan said, “You've got mail!”
    Dear Osk,
    Hello, lad! Thanks for your glorious letter and the bulletproof drumsticks, which I hope I'll never have to use! I have to confess, I've never thought too much about giving lessons...
    I hope you like the enclosed T-shirt, which I took the liberty of signing for you.
    Your mate,
    Ringo
    I didn't like the enclosed T-shirt. I loved it! Although unfortunately it wasn't white, so I couldn't wear it.
    I laminated Ringo's letter and tacked it to my wall. Then I did some research on the Internet about the locks of New York, and I found out a lot of useful information. For example, there are 319 post offices and 207,352 post office boxes. Each box has a lock, obviously. I also found out that there are about 70,571 hotel rooms, and most rooms have a main lock, a bathroom lock, a closet lock, and a lock to the minibar. I didn't know what a mini-bar was, so I called the Plaza Hotel, which I knew was a famous one, and asked. Then I knew what a minibar was. There are more than 300,000 cars in New York, which doesn't even count the 12,187 cabs and 4,425 buses. Also, I remembered from when I used to take the subway that the conductors used keys to open and close the doors, so there were those, too. More than 9 million people live in New York (a baby is born in New York every 50 seconds), and everyone has to live somewhere, and most apartments have two locks on the front, and to at least some of the bathrooms, and maybe to some other rooms, and obviously to dressers and jewelry boxes. Also there are offices, and art studios, and storage facilities, and banks with safe-deposit boxes, and gates to yards, and parking lots. I figured that if you included everything—from bicycle locks to roof latches to places for cufflinks—there are probably about 18 locks for every person in New York City, which would mean about 162 million locks, which is a crevasse-load of locks.
    “Schell residence ... Hi, Mom ... A little bit, I guess, but still pretty sick ... No ... Uh-huh ... Uh-huh ... I guess ... I think I'll order Indian ... But still ... OK. Uh-huh. I will ... I know ... I know... Bye.”
    I timed myself and it took me 3 seconds to open a lock. Then I figured out that if a baby is born in New York every 50 seconds, and each person has 18 locks, a new lock is created in New York every seconds. So even if all I did was open locks, I'd still be falling behind by locks every second. And that's if I didn't have to travel from one lock to the next, and if I didn't eat, and didn't sleep, which is an OK if, because I didn't actually sleep, anyway. I needed a better plan.
    That night, I put on my white gloves, went to the garbage can in Dad's closet, and opened the bag that I'd thrown all of the pieces of the vase into. I was looking for clues that might lead me in a direction. I had to be extremely careful so that I wouldn't contaminate the evidence, or let Mom know what I was doing, or cut and infect myself, and I found the envelope that the key was in. It was then that I noticed something that a good detective would have noticed at the very beginning: the word “Black” was written on the back of the envelope. I was so mad at myself for not