The Safe Man

break every one of them. He knew there were other people with the same skills. He could never feel totally secure.
    He sat in the kitchen in the dark and drank a beer. He wondered if he was paranoid like Robinette. He wondered if he would become like the writer once his own child was born. He started humming the Kinks song. “Paranoia will destroy ya…”
    He took the beer into the nursery and looked around in the dark. The room was completely outfitted and ready, save for the things that Laura wanted to be gender specific. They’d had a disagreement. Laura wanted to know early on whether a boy or girl was coming. Brian wanted to be surprised. So she knew and he didn’t. She had done a good job of keeping the secret.
    Brian’s secret was that he wanted a girl. He didn’t want to find out beforehand because he feared if he learned he was the father of a boy, he would lose his edge of excitement, that he might actually become depressed before the baby was even born. The reason he wanted a girl was that he considered his own life and thought that it was too easy for boys to get messed up, to go down the wrong path. With girls there seemed to be more two-way streets. They could turn around and come back if they wanted to. With boys it was all one-way streets. No turning back.

    Brian picked up a complete-change-of-hardware job the next day. The house was an old Victorian in the Heights. Eight doors, including the garage. All Medeco locks and Baldwin brass. It was a six-hour job. That and the markup on the materials made it a good day. He came home relaxed, a big check in his wallet. He and Laura went out to eat at the Bonefish Grill. They figured that once the baby came, they wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. Might as well do it while they could.
    But that night wasn’t perfect. The dream came back. He saw the face form in the darkness again. A face made of cigarette smoke. In the dream it smelled like his burning drill. He awoke and sat on the side of the bed. He felt Laura’s hand caress his back. Being pregnant had made her a light sleeper.
    “Was it the same dream?” she asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Do you remember any more of it?”
    “Not really. It’s just this bad feeling. It’s dread. It’s like I let something loose in the world. Like it was all my fault.”
    “What was? What did you do?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You think it’s about the baby?”
    Brian laughed.
    “No, it’s not that.”
    He checked the house again. Making sure it was secure even though he did not feel secure. When he went back to the bedroom he started getting dressed.
    “What are you doing?” Laura asked. “It’s the middle of the night.”
    “I don’t know. I’m going to take a drive.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “I’m fine. I just want to take a drive, put the windows down.”
    “Be careful.”
    “I will be.”

    The phone didn’t ring the next day. No jobs came in. Brian called a foundry in Michigan and ordered drill bits to replace those he’d broken on the Robinette job. He then spent the rest of the morning in the garage workshop, trying to research the Le Seuil safe. He wrote a letter to his father about it. He went on the computer and Googled the name Le Seuil but only came up with a book publisher in France using the name. He checked the Box Man website, but no one had responded to his earlier post other than to say they had never encountered a safe of that brand.
    When it was lunchtime he opened the side door to go into the house. Two men were standing there. They wore suits and dour expressions. It had been twenty years since he’d had to deal with cops, but he still knew the type.
    “Officers, what can I do for you?”
    “Actually, I’m Detective Stephens with the police department, and this is Agent Rowan with the FBI. Are you Brian Holloway?”
    “Yes. Is it Laura? The baby? What happened?”
    “Who is Laura?” Stephens asked.
    “My wife. She’s at work. She—”
    “This is not about her. Can we come in?”
    Brian stepped back. Despite the relief of knowing this was not about Laura, he felt the same sense of dread that he had awoken from the dream with building in his chest.
    “Then, what is it?”
    “Have a seat,” Rowan said.
    Brian sat on the stool next to the workbench.
    The two lawmen remained standing, their eyes moving around the shop as they spoke. The detective looked like he was deferring to the agent in this matter, whatever it was.
    “This is how I would like to