The Safe Man

This is past on stories. The box man he make mistake to open it.

    Brian stared at the message a long time, trying to decipher its meanings. He felt a coldness begin in his center. He knew it was the beginning of fear and the confirmation of something he had felt deep inside.
    The message had Pepin’s business number and address at the bottom. Brian picked up the workshop phone and punched in the long-distance number. After three rings it was answered by a machine. The outgoing message was in French and Brian didn’t understand a word of it. But then the speaker switched to English with a heavy French accent. He identified the line as belonging to Fochet Lock and Safe and asked the caller to leave a message. But then he gave another number in case of an emergency. Brian wrote it down, hung up, and then called the emergency number.
    The second call was answered after four rings and Brian heard a drill wind down before a man spoke rapidly in French. It was obviously a cell phone and Brian had interrupted a job. He wondered how the phone had even been heard over the sound of the drill.
    “I’m sorry,” Brian said. “Do you speak English? Is Robert Pepin there?”
    “This is Robert. Who is this, please?”
    Brian identified himself and told Pepin he had received his message. He needed to ask him questions. Pepin tried to beg off, saying that he was in the middle of drilling a safe and that people were waiting for him to complete the job. Brian insisted and promised to be quick. Pepin relented and lowered his voice to a whisper when he spoke further.
    “What did you mean by a ‘threshold safe’ in your message?” Brian asked first.
    “It is the safe you showed. Uh, it is Threshold, the name. Le Seuil.”
    He pronounced it like Le Soy. Brian tried to say it that way.
    “‘Le Seuil’ means threshold ?”
    “The Threshold, yes. Like the doorway you have.”
    “I understand. And the story you heard—who told you?”
    “Uh, the man who I bought from him my business. Fochet. He told me. He told me, ‘If I get the job, NO, do not open.’ And so I tell you.”
    “He told you he opened one?”
    “A very long time ago, yes. He said big mistake opening that one, yes.”
    “Why?”
    “Well, he is not saying everything. He is just warning against it, you know? He is saying bad things come out. Like a dream. I didn’t ask. He sound, you know, a little crazy.”
    “Is he still around? Is he retired?”
    Pepin chuckled.
    “He is retired to the cemetery. Mr. Fochet was very old when I bought his business.”
    Frustration was welling up in Brian. Everything was like the smoke in his dreams. It formed the whispery outlines of a picture, but there was not enough there to identify it.
    “In your message you said the man who opened the safe saw his brother who was killed. What do you mean?”
    “Fochet, he had a brother who was killed in the train. An accident, you see. But before that, Fochet open the Threshold safe. On a job. He is saying to me that he saw a man. It was his brother but…afterward. Like he was an old man now. He tell Fochet to watch out on the train. He give the warning. But Fochet don’t know this. He didn’t tell nobody about this. Then a year later his brother he got killed. On the train. You understand? It was a crazy story. I didn’t pay too much attention because I never heard of these safes, and Fochet, he was, you know, a little crazy. His wife make him sell me the business. But then I see you on the website and think, Aha, I better give a warning for this. Just in case, you know.”
    Pepin’s English made it difficult for Brian to fully grasp the story.
    “Do you remember anything else about the story?”
    “No, that is what I know. I tell you what I know.”
    “Did he say who made these safes? Anything about the manufacturer?”
    “I did ask him this and he say he could not find out. He said it was a big mystery, yes. He tried to learn. The safe came on a boat from France—this is long time ago—and there are no records anymore. In the war the Germans came and destroyed these records. He found nothing, because he was like you, with questions.”
    Pepin made a spitting noise in the phone as if to signal the finality and the fruitlessness of searching for the origin of the Le Seuil safe.
    “I have my work now,” he said.
    “Yeah, okay,” Brian said. “Thank you for your help.”
    “You show a picture of the door of the safe on the website,” Pepin suddenly said.
    “Yes,