The Safe Man

charge Robinette anything other than the two-fifty already agreed to. He took the bill inside with him and called up the stairs to Robinette.
    Robinette studied the bill as they walked back to the library.
    “I ought to retire and learn how to legally break into safes. What’s this come out to, like eighty bucks an hour for using a drill?”
    “Hardly. I’m lucky if I get one job a day. There aren’t that many safes that need opening. Most of my work is just plain old locksmithing.”
    “Well, I’d say you did pretty damn good today.”
    Robinette dropped the bill onto the desk in the library as if he were dismissing it.
    Brian said, “I usually get paid upon completion of the job.”
    Robinette said, “Well, you didn’t say that before.”
    “It is custom in the service industry. Usually I don’t have to say it.”
    Brian could tell that Robinette didn’t like that service thing thrown back at him.
    “All right,” he said curtly. “I’ll go up and get you a check.”
    “Thank you.”
    Just before Robinette left the study, Brian spoke up again.
    “What do you want me to do with the door? It’s heavy. I could take it and get rid of it, if you want.”
    “No, no,” Robinette answered quickly. “I want you to carry it out to the curb and prop it up so it can be seen.”
    Brian was confused.
    “Sure, but why?”
    “Three words: In Cold Blood. Trash pickup doesn’t come until Thursday. That means it will be out there a couple days, and maybe the word will get out that there is no longer a safe in here.”
    Brian nodded though he didn’t really follow the logic.
    “What’s that old song say? Paranoia will destroy ya. ”
    Robinette turned fully around to confront him.
    “Look, I don’t expect you to understand me or my life. Do you have children?”
    “Got one on the way. I’m not trying to—”
    “I don’t care what you are trying or not trying to say. Just do your job and don’t worry about my paranoia. My paranoia got me this place and this life. I think in some ways it’s like drilling through steel plates for a living, but I like it better. It’s not as noisy. Now if you don’t mind, I will go up and get you a check while you take that damn thing out to the curb. Okay?”
    “You got it.”

    At dinner Brian told Laura all about his encounter with the arrogant writer and she told him that Robinette hadn’t had a book out in at least three years. She suggested that maybe that had something to do with his paranoia and arrogance.
    “I was reading in one of the baby books about how when babies get constipated, they can be really miserable,” she said. “Maybe Robinette is creatively constipated.”
    Brian laughed but said some people are just mean, plain and simple. He thought about the girl he had briefly met in the house. Growing up in that place with that father, how would she turn out? How would she make it through? He wondered where the mother was.
    When he got up to clear the plates, Brian first touched his wife’s swollen belly. They were less than a month away. He was excited and scared. Scared about the money mostly.
    “Hey, Robinette’s daughter’s name is Lucy,” he called from the sink.
    “Does that change your mind about it?”
    “Not if it’s a girl. I still like it. And that house? It was the Blankenship place.”
    “Really? What was it like inside? I’ve seen it from the outside.”
    “It was big. In the kitchen I saw two of everything, even dishwashers. I guess Arthur Blankenship’s old man was the guy who put the safe in. When he built that place with money from the plant.”
    After dinner Brian spent time in the workshop in the garage and posted a report on the Le Seuil safe on the Box Man website. On the chat list, he posted a note asking if anyone else out there had ever encountered such a safe and then signed off to go to bed.
    Brian dreamed of darkness with swirling motion. Movements like wisps of smoke that then, for just a moment, came together to form a face he did not recognize as man or woman, adult or child. Then it was gone and he woke up.
    “What is it?” his wife whispered.
    “A dream. Just a bad dream.”
    “What was it about?”
    Laura always asked about dreams. She thought they were important.
    “I don’t know. It was more like a feeling. A bad feeling.”
    He got up and walked the house, checking every lock. This was his routine but it wasn’t comforting. He had the best locks money could buy but he knew how to pick and