The Hanged Man's Song

explaining to me that the USB data key simply held the software for any Windows-based laptop, and that he’d loaded it into his laptop when he was buying the device from his supplier. He brought the program up, and with a USB cable, plugged the black box into the laptop.
    “There’s a Yale lock on the storeroom door, if you want.”
    “Thanks.” LuEllen carried the laptop and the black box over to the door and slipped the fiber optic into the lock.
    The bristle, which was about the thickness of a broom straw, was a piece of fiber optic that acted like a tiny camera lens, and had been developed for heart and vascular surgery.
    When you pushed the fiber-optic probe into a normal lock, you could actually see, on the laptop screen, the pins and the key cuts inside the lock. If you knew your locks—LuEllen wasn’t a specialist, but she knew enough—you could cut yourself a key. The software made it unnecessary to actually see the interior of the lock, as it would specify a key blank and spacing for almost any lock in use in the U.S. or Europe, but, Drexel said, most people liked to see the inside, too. “Gives them confidence that the numbers are right.”
    We were watching as LuEllen probed the lock, and you could see the guts of the lock right on the laptop screen. She watched, grunted, and shut it all down. “I’ll get the cash,” she said. She handed Drexel the box and headed up the stairs.
    >>> AS SHE went, Drexel reached up to turn off the light over the workbench, but as he did it, I put a finger to my lips and he paused. When LuEllen was walking away from the top of the stairs, I asked, “Would you have a small gun? Something handy, not too noisy? But threatening-looking?”
    “It’s best not to threaten people with a gun,” Drexel said solemnly. “If you get to the point of taking it out, it’s best to pull the trigger. And at that point, you probably shouldn’t worry too much about the noise. The difference in noise between a .380 and a .357 isn’t that critical, if you’re shooting it off in a motel with people all around. It’ll be noticeable either way, so you might as well have something that’ll do the job.”
    “So what do you have?”
    He looked pleased: guns had always been his first love, and he enjoyed dealing them. “That really depends on what you’re going to use it for.”
    “Look, I really don’t want to get too deep into this, and I’d like to get it done before my friend gets back.”
    “You’re not . . .” His eyebrows went up.
    I didn’t understand the question for a second, then said, “Jesus Christ, no, I’m not gonna shoot her. We’re dealing with a guy who’s a little nuts, but if I take a gun, LuEllen might argue.”
    He nodded. “Good. I’m glad it’s not her. She’s always been a good customer and I would hate to lose her. Okay, you’re not an enthusiast, you need it for close-up protection, nothing fancy. I have just the thing. Seven hundred dollars.”
    >>> WE WERE climbing the stairs when LuEllen came back, the pistol pulling down my pants pocket. It was a Smith & Wesson hammerless revolver—hammerless so it wouldn’t snag on your clothes when you pulled it out in a hurry—loaded with six rounds of .38 special. Guns are for killing. People can make a sport out of shooting, a pastime, a hobby, but all of those things are a perversion of a gun’s intention. Guns are for killing and handguns are for killing people; I wasn’t comforted by its presence.
    And I told LuEllen about it as soon as we cleared Drexel’s.
    “Didn’t ask me about it,” she said.
    “I didn’t think about it until we were down there in the basement,” I said. I took the gun out of my pocket and pushed it under the seat. “I didn’t want you to veto it.”
    “At this point, I wouldn’t have,” she said. “Not after we saw the execution. But it bums me out . . . but why’d you tell me now?”
    “If we get caught inside, and we have a gun . . .”
    “Yeah.”
    In most states, armed illegal entry will get you a few additional years. Not that we’d get caught.

Chapter Twelve
    >>> MICHELLE STROM lived in an Arlington apartment, like half of the other DDC employees. The apartment was in a complex fifteen minutes from our hotel. From the street, it was a tidy, well-kept collection of six-story yellow-brick buildings, with a swimming pool deck and parking garage. There were a bunch of trendy chain stores—Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn,