He’d let me go. He might be curious about — and troubled by — my locking-blade brass knife but, then again, I follow the law and keep it concealed, a must in New York. And its length of 
inches is permissible in the city (it’s also a length that’s not a problem for me, as I know full well what kind of damage that much razor-sharp metal can do).
You don’t need a Los Zetas serrated hunting knife to get blood to spray.
On the other hand, if, at the moment, a cop were to find me as I am now, in stocking cap and clear latex gloves, with those selfsame tools, and a page from the Daily Herald, he would deduce intent to forcibly enter into premises to commit a felony.
Which is why I’m crouching once again in the abandoned, unstable Bechtel Building, across from Carrie Noelle’s apartment and not making a move until the street is deserted, until there is no one to note my presence.
I scan the surroundings. Present are some cars, some late-night revelers, a homeless man pushing a cart.
I grow impatient until finally, an opportunity. I’m across the street and, in a matter of seconds, through the service door. Some locks don’t even deserve the name.
Soon I’ve climbed to Carrie’s floor and am waiting in the fire stairwell, listening carefully.
I hear some clicks, some thuds. I’ll wait for silence.
I unzip my backpack and open my tool case. I feel the brass knife in my pocket.
I’m breathing slowly. Concentrating, all too aware of the greatest challenge I — and all trespassing lockpickers — face: time.
Historians can’t say for certain when and where the first lock was made, but they can say when the earliest lock was discovered. It was in the palace of Dur-Sharrukin, now called Khorsabad in Iraq — the site destroyed by ISIL a few years back. The lock dates to about 4000 B.C. It secured a massive door, which probably weighed hundreds of pounds.
The key was equally imposing and had to be carried on a guard’s shoulder. It wasn’t particularly sophisticated. In fact, it was so easy to duplicate by thieves and intruders that the royals took to installing multiple keyways in the door — only one of which worked. The purpose of this was to keep the intruder on the premises trying keyway after keyway for so long that the guards would find and then gut him after the briefest of trials, or no trial at all.
This is the reason most burglars are caught: because they can’t breach their target before being spotted or heard. If you hear a clink-tink in your hallway and you rise from your TV-viewing spot to peek out and see nothing — because the picker is already inside your neighbor’s apartment — you put it down to a cat, a rat, a settling building.
If you see someone in a ski mask and gloves, irritated because he can’t defeat the lock, well, the results are obvious.
Speed...
Hence my agonizing practice with the SecurPoint 85.
Time is one enemy of the lockpicker; noise is another.
I have no idea what the wooden locks of ancient eras sounded like (wood was phased out in Roman days), but metal on metal undeniably makes noise, when inserting, when turning, when unseating.
Clink-tink...
So I need to make the process as silent as possible.
If I don’t, it could be the disaster of 2019 all over again.
And I cannot let that happen.
In the stairwell of Carrie Noelle’s building, I listen closely.
Silence.
Now. Go.
Fast, I’m into the hallway and at her door.
First, the knob lock. Three seconds, it’s open.
And the SecurPoint 85?
Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
People are lazy and often don’t bother to lock the deadbolt. Or they’re forgetful.
I twist the knob and push.
Ah, but Carrie Noelle has been diligent, turning the latch before it was jammy time. The SecurPoint 85 is snug.
Go...
In goes the tension wrench, and I turn it, putting torsion on the plug with my left hand.
My right inserts the sharpened rake. Feeling the pins as I move the rake up and down, back and forth. Seeing them in my mind’s eye — I’ve dismantled a hundred locks, touched the pins, smelled the metal, felt all the parts heavy in my hand.
I lose myself in the process of becoming the key.
A dark side of zen...
I’m not religious but I consider lock-picking mystical, akin to the transfiguration of Jesus from man to spirit. Buddha from ignorance to enlightenment. Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White.
Click, click.
There are ten pins in this lock — two in each hole. Manipulating them.
I have not been breathing since I started.
Little finger, left hand, keeps taut the tension wrench, while the rake probes.
Fifteen seconds...
Push, push... But gently. Don’t anger those pins that have yet to be tricked up into their tunnels. You can’t bully them. They have to be seduced.
Click, click...
Then the wrench swivels, and the one-inch-throw deadbolt leaves the strike panel.
I’ve done it!
The SecurPoint is a disgrace to its name.
In twenty seconds, no less.
I stand, shoot graphite on the hinges. Then I’m closing the door with outer-space silence.
Carrie is not an alarm kind of girl, so there is no need to flood the house with RF waves, or to spend the first five seconds of the Visit cutting wires.
A few steps inside. I listen.
I hear the hum of the refrigerator. The bubbling from the aquarium.
It’s dark but not black. One thing I’ve learned is that unless you mount thick shades on all the windows, New York — Manhattan particularly — is filled with illumination. Light from a million sources bleeds inside through dozens of tiny fissures. This is true every minute of every day.
When my eyes acclimate I walk, cautiously, farther into the apartment itself.
I’m moving through a long hallway. I pass a door, closed presently. It leads to a small bedroom. Beside the door sit a half-dozen children’s toys, among them an eerie-faced doll, a wooden locomotive, a puzzle, also wood, in which play involves rearranging letters to spell words.
I continue past the bedroom down the corridor. The kitchen is to the left, living room to the right. Comfortable couches and chairs, fake leather. A pommeled coffee table, covered with magazines and makeup and socks and more toys. The aquarium is impressive. I know nothing about fish but the colors are quite appealing.
In the back is the larger bedroom.
I take my brass knife from my pocket and open it, giving the faintest of clicks (I have graphited it too). Gripping the handle hard, the blade side up.
If I had been heard and was about to be attacked, now is the moment when it would happen.
I step inside.
But here she dozes. Pretty Carrie Noelle. She’s sprawled on the bed in a tangle of purple floral sheets and a bedspread that seems too thick for the temperature in the apartment, which is not that cool. But this is what she’s chosen for swaddling. People wage a war against insomnia and will use whatever weapon or tactic gives them advantage.
I fold the knife and replace it in my pocket.
Then look over Carrie once more.
Most women I’ve observed in the Visits sleep on their sides, a pillow or bunch of blankets between their legs. This is not a sexual thing, I’m convinced. Also, no one wears pajamas, much less nightgowns, unless it’s a sexy garment and there’s a man on the sinister side of the bed (as happened once — a surprise discovery that resulted in my fast retreat). No, the de rigueur outfit for bed among the female persuasion is sweatpants or boxer shorts and a T-shirt. And you’d be surprised at how many single women, of all ages, are accompanied to slumber with a stuffed animal or two.