After puncturing Lomax’s tires, Jake drove to Cow Hollow and parked his Honda in a driveway, diagonally across the street from Franklin & Sons. He saw Rachel approaching. She was wearing black clothing; her face and hands glowed in the semi-darkness. He moved to the passenger seat, and waited until she climbed in and closed the door. “How’s it look?” he asked.
“Quiet, like the other night. You?”
“Fine,” he said. “Ready?”
She nodded. He handed her the police scanner, set to the San Francisco P.D. frequency, and told her to use the earpiece, since the frequency would be active. He slipped on a pair of latex gloves. His backpack with all his tools was at his feet. He asked, “You have a good view of the street and the store from here. Keep me posted.”
She said, “I will.”
He saw how pale she was. He was about to try to calm her, but she said, “I’m okay. Go. Let’s do this.”
He left the car and walked to the jewelry store. He turned up his two-way radio, checking the street around him. At the pull-down security grilling, he knelt and inspected the padlock. Warded. It was easy, but he didn’t want to get lazy. He examined it closely. A warded padlock is held shut by a locking spring, and the key simply fit through the notched wards and turned to unhitch the locking spring. He pulled out a special double-headed “T” pick that enabled him to go past the wards and hit the locking spring. He didn’t even need more light. He could do this just by touch. He inserted the pick, pressing against the lock shackle, and felt the first set of retainers binding. He pushed the pick to the second set, spread them, and it clicked; he opened the lock. He unlatched the grilling, and raised it a few feet. He crawled under it, dragged in his backpack, then closed the grilling behind him. He glanced up at the windows across the street. Everything was quiet and dark.
He knew he looked suspicious, and hurried with the deadbolt first. He took out his snapping wire, inserted his tension wrench and then slid in the wire. He began snapping lightly, carefully, then increased the tension when he felt a pin aligning. After a few more snaps, he aligned all the pins, and opened the deadbolt.
Then he worked on the regular lock. He snapped it open on the second try, surprising himself. Before opening the door, he pulled out the alarm key.
Okay. He took a deep breath. After this point, everything was uncertain.
He looked up through the display window and saw the old alarm unit. He wasn’t sure about the delay, so as soon as he opened this door he had to disable the alarm. He quickly considered the worst-case scenario: the key didn’t fit. If there was a long enough delay, he’d try destroying the alarm. If it began ringing immediately, he’d get out of there.
He felt his heartbeat quickening. He took a slow breath. This was what it was all about. He opened the door, made it to the alarm control in three steps, and pushed in the key.
It didn’t fit.
He heard his eardrums pulsing as he counted off seconds, still trying to force the key in, ready to try to knock the whole console out of the wall, but when he turned the key one-eighty degrees and tried again, it fit. He shook his head, rattled, and quickly twisted the key in the lock as the bell began ringing. He switched it off in mid-ring. A loud, frustrated clang echoed down the street. He hurried to the door, pulled in his backpack, checked to see if the Honda was still there, then headed to the back room. He could hardly hear anything—his eardrums were pounding. He let out a small laugh and thought, Calm the fuck down.
He pulled the key out of the alarm console, and pressed the keyhole with his finger. Goddamn you little sucker.
His two-way radio squelched, and Rachel said, “What was that?”
“My fault,” he said into the radio. “Anyone notice?”
“I don’t think so. It scared the hell out of me.”
“Me too. Keep listening to the scanner.”
“I am.”
He clipped the radio to his belt and examined the door to the back room. Rachel said she had seen no evidence of another alarm. He knew that a second alarm here was impractical, but he had to be ready. He tested the door handle. Unlocked. He opened the door slowly, listening for the beeps of an armed alarm, but didn’t hear anything. He looked into the darkened room, and searched quickly for LED’s, any alarm indicator lights. Nothing. He closed the door behind him and turned on the lights.
The room was as Rachel had described it: a cold concrete room with metal shelving, a jewelry repair station, a desk, and a safe. Before checking the safe, he slipped out of the room, closed the door, and checked how noticeable the lights would be. A thin outline of the door glowed, but he didn’t think anyone on the street would see this. He went back in.
The Harding-Bower was four feet high, and three feet wide. Jake searched for the UL tag, and found it on the side: “The Harding-Bower Safe Co. Underwriters’ Laboratories Inspected Safe. Class A Fire. Class T-20 Burglary. No. TRTL-60.” There. TRTL-60.
So it had a “high degree” of protection. The lab people had done a sixty minute test on the door and body.
He checked the iron door to the back alley, and realized that in addition to picking this lock, he’d have to break the rusted padlock outside to open this. Too much time and trouble. He lost his emergency exit. He turned back to the safe.
He searched through the adjacent desk and looked among the books on the shelves. Dormer hadn’t mentioned this, but Jake knew that often someone would write the combination down nearby, just in case. He would be negligent if he didn’t at least do a cursory check. He flipped through the jewelry repair, design, and appraisal books on the lower shelf, and looked over the customer files and store receipts in the desk. Nothing.
Now, as he began unpacking his tools, he felt a tinge of apprehension. Dormer’s fee, the car, the extra equipment—Jake had already invested quite a bit in this, and he had no way of knowing exactly how much was in here. He hadn’t followed Lomax home tonight, so it was possible that Lomax had decided to take everything out of the safe. Or perhaps Lomax had a second, hidden safe.
Jake fit the drilling template over the dial and escutcheon plate. Perfect fit. He colored in the wheel-pack peephole with a magic marker, and removed the template. He’d find out soon enough. He strapped on the portable drill press, the flexible metal bands held together with mini-clamps, and positioned the press over the black dot. He locked in the first drill bit, masking tape marking the depth required on all the bits, though he’d probably go through many of these. He then set the angle, using the notches next to the joint, and tightened the swivel handle. Almost ready.
He unrolled the electrical cord and crawled to the outlet on the other side of the desk, and to his surprise he found that the cord didn’t reach.
He stopped. The cord to the drill was five feet long, and he hadn’t considered this hitch. He looked for another outlet closer to the safe, but there wasn’t one.
He thought, Shit. Why hadn’t he prepared for this possibility?
He tried to move the safe. It wouldn’t budge.
He sat down, thought about this for a moment, then began looking along the shelves for an extension cord. There weren’t any. He laughed. This was how you knew the difference between an experienced safecracker and an idiot.
Grabbing a small flashlight, Jake slipped out of the back room and searched in the display room for an extension cord. Finally, with some relief, he found one connecting a light in the wristwatch display case to an outlet further along the wall. He unplugged this and returned to the back room.
Once everything was plugged in, he doublechecked the clamps, tightened the drill bit in the jaw, and tested the trigger; the drill buzzed to life.
He radioed Rachel. “You read me?”
Static. “I do.”
“Let me know if I make too much noise.”
“Everything okay?”
“Fine.”
He got to work.