“Am I supposed to be expecting you?”
I handed him the piece of paper Mr. Marsh had given me, with his address on it. He slipped his reading glasses on and gave it a look.
“Is that your bike I heard?”
I turned back to where it was parked, halfway down the block.
“So apparently you wish to have it stolen today? Is that your plan?”
I shook my head.
“Bring it over here, genius. You can pull it inside here.”
I went back and got the bike and pushed it down the sidewalk to where he stood, holding the door open. It was so dark inside the store, it was like rolling the motorcycle into a cave.
He closed the door behind us and kicked something aside. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust, but when they did I saw a huge collection of scrap metal, old furniture, cribs and high chairs, a couple of refrigerators standing side by side. Basically it looked like a good portion of the city dump had been transferred here.
“This way,” he said. I kickstanded the bike and followed him back through the store. He traced his way down a mazelike path through the junk to another door, through which I could see the flickering blue light of a television set. There was a faint haze of dust in the air that I could almost taste.
“I’m closed on Mondays,” he said. “Reason the lights are off. I’d offer you a beer, but I’m fresh out.” There was a better selection of junk in this second room. Besides the television, there were probably a few hundred items stacked on floor-to-ceiling shelves. A washboard, an iron, some old green bottles. Stuff like that. A few shelves on one wall were bulging with books. This whole place had so much more junk than the junk store back in Milford. I wondered why all the better items seemed to be hidden away here in the back room. But more than that, I wondered why I was sent here.
“They said you don’t talk much.” He was standing next to a desk that didn’t have one free square inch on it. There were a dozen lamps on it, along with cigar boxes and trophies and a three-foot-high Statue of Liberty. The man slid the statue in just far enough to give himself a surface to lean on.
“They call me the Ghost,” he said.
Yes, I thought. That makes sense. Just look at you.
“That’s the only thing you can ever call me. Are we understood? To you, I’m the Ghost. Or Mr. G. Nothing else.”
The dust and mildew were starting to get to me. That plus the fact I still had no idea what the hell was going on here, or what was expected of me.
“You really don’t talk. They weren’t kidding.”
I was thinking maybe it was time to ask the Ghost for some paper so I could write out a few questions, but he was ready to move on.
“This way. I’ve got something you might like to see.”
He pushed open another door. I followed him down a short hallway, squeezing my way past several bicycles until we came to yet another door.
When he opened it, we were outside. Or rather half outside. There was a makeshift awning above us, long strips of green plastic with gaps here and there that let the sun in. It ran all the way to the back fence, which was overrun with thick sumac and poison ivy.
“Here we go.” He pushed through a collection of old lawn mowers, past a rusted-out barbecue grill. He picked up an iron gate, something that looked like it came from a haunted mansion somewhere, and moved it aside. He was surprisingly strong for a pale old man who looked like a retired English professor.
He stepped aside and ushered me into this small clearing within the greater chaos. There, arranged in a perfect circle, were eight safes of various heights, their combination dials facing the center. It was like a Stonehenge of safes.
“Not bad, eh?” He walked the circle, touching each safe one by one. “Every major brand. American, Diebold, Chicago, Mosler, Schwab, Victor. This one here’s forty years old. That one over there is new, hardly ever been used. What do you think?”
I did a slow 360, looking at all of the safes.
“Take your pick,” he said.
What, he wanted me to pick out a safe? So I could take it home, strapped on my back while I rode my motorcycle?
He put his reading glasses on again. He tilted his head so he could peer over the lenses at me. “Come on, let’s see you do your thing.”
My thing, he says. He wants me to do my thing. This man actually wanted me to open one of these safes.
“Today would be good.” He stood there in the green-tinted shade, finally taking his glasses off and letting them dangle from his neck again. I stood there. I didn’t move.
“Are you going to open one of these safes,” he said, speaking very slowly, as if to a simpleton, “or aren’t you?”
I went to the safe closest to me, one of the tall boys. It was as big as a Coke machine. The combination dial was a finely engineered machine of polished metal, like something you’d see on a bank vault. I grabbed the handle next to the dial and gave it an experimental pull. Yet more finely engineered metal said fuck you and did not move the slightest fraction of an inch.
“All right, now you’re joking around, right? Now you’re being a comedian?”
I looked at him. What on earth could I possibly do here? How could I communicate that this was all a big mistake? How could I make this man believe that I was sent here because of two absolute morons and that I was simply wasting his time?
A few more seconds of us both standing there, and at least the bottom line became clear to him. “You can’t open any of these, can you?”
I shook my head.
“Then what the fuck are you doing here?”
Hands up. I don’t know.
“I cannot even believe this. You have got to be fucking kidding me. They’re gonna send this kid over. He’s a natural, they say. An absolute natural. He’s the Golden Boy.”
He turned away from me, walked away a few paces, and then came back at me.
“You’re the Golden Boy, all right. You fucking-”
He stopped and seemed to be working very hard to contain himself.
“Okay. Count to ten here, huh? The Golden Boy ain’t so golden. It’s not the end of the world.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, put two fingers from each hand on his temples, and started rubbing in little circles. He took a few deep breaths and then opened his eyes.
“You’re still standing here,” he said. “Why is that? Are you seriously trying to make me have an aneurism?”
I took a step toward the door, not sure I could even find my way back through the maze.
“There you go! Now you’ve got it. You can’t open a safe, but you know when to leave. Give you credit for that.”
He pushed by me and led me through the lawn mowers and barbecue grills. When he opened the back door, we were plunged into darkness again, and I almost killed myself on the gauntlet of bicycles in the hallway.
“Graceful, too! What a bonus. I’m so glad you came to visit today.”
He hurried me through the television room and through the main room to the front door.
“Get your bike, Golden Boy.”
He held the door open for me while I fumbled with my motorcycle and then finally wheeled it outside.
“That’s right,” he said when I was finally on the sidewalk. “Get the fuck out of here and don’t come back.”
He closed the door behind him and that was it. A rousing success! It was hard to see with all the confetti and streamers flying around.
What the hell, I thought. If that was a job interview, I was kinda glad I hadn’t passed. I rolled the bike to the street and started it. Then I was flying up Grand River, honestly believing that I’d never return.
I drove right back to the Marshes’ house. I went in through the front door, went up the stairs. I knocked on her door. She was either out somewhere, or else she just didn’t want to deal with anybody right now. Even me.