Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

We trudged up the road. Side by side. Chapman said, “We don’t have the key.”

I said, “We won’t use a key.”

The place was up the hill on the north side of town.

We came around the corner. The building took up a whole block and was painted in cream with turquoise window trim. Nothing moved in the street. Nobody walking, nobody in windows looking out. Everybody was home, maybe watching TV, or eating delivery pizza. A sign above the arched front door had ‘Edna Bay Apartments’ in gold curly letters. The front door was locked. There was a panel of buzzers to the right.

I was going to say something, but stopped myself. A man was walking down the sidewalk in our direction. A big guy, wearing a long coat and carrying a bag, like he’d just come from a convenience store. I couldn’t see his face, but I saw the silhouette. He had a shaved head and pointy ears. When he got closer I saw the face, he was looking at me and smiling, then he looked away and kept on walking. I smelled tobacco. The bag bulged with the outline of a six pack and a bag of chips.

I got back to the task at hand. “You know which apartment?”

Chapman said, “Forty-six.”

I figured forty-six would correspond to the fourth floor. I counted five stories. The buzzer panel was laid out in a grid. Each row corresponded to a floor, which made it easier to simultaneously depress buttons for the third, and fifth floors at once. I got some static through the intercom, and a couple of garbled words from various people all at the same time. Then there was a buzz and we were in.

The lobby was a spacious area with speckled cream tiles on the floor and a wall grid of mailboxes on one side. We took the stairs. Fourth floor was carpeted, a long colorless tongue laid out in the dark.

A black plastic square was glued to the door, with forty-six in white letters. I didn’t have any kind of plan for picking the lock, just planned on getting into the apartment one way or another. I took a look at the door. But it wasn’t any kind of Fort Knox lock either. The wood was old and cracked. The keyhole was embedded directly into the round brass handle. Which meant that the latch was inside.

I unclipped my knife and slid it through the gap between door and door jamb. There was enough play, but the knife came up against a security plate on the other side. The plate is supposed to prevent someone jimmying the lock, exactly what I was doing. But it was only as secure as the support was strong.

I was going to have to use force to push the screws out of the support surface. The plate was probably something decent, like steel, but it might be screwed into something softer, like sheet rock or soft wood. I was hoping it would work on the first try, so the neighbors don’t get curious. In my experience, people generally want to stay on the sofa, or in bed, rather than go back out into the cold world investigating a noise. The rule of threes is usually correct. First time, it’s a statistical accident. Second time, a coincidence. Third time, maybe something is going on.

I held the knife point inside the gap between door and jamb, tip pushed against the security plate. I gave it a good hammer with the heel of my hand. The plate moved slightly, but it wasn’t enough.

I waited and listened. Nothing special was happening. Just me and Chapman breathing, and the regular noises from the hallway. A little buzzing sound from the exit light. Some TV sounds from individual units. That was it. I repeated the strike, trying to be accurate and focused. It took two more hits to get the plate screws loose enough for me to work on the lock. Three bangs.

One too many.

A door opened down the hall. Light spilled instantaneously onto the carpet, which was revealed to be blood-red. A woman in a housecoat stepped out and looked down the hall in our direction. I slipped behind Chapman. The lady down the hall was squinting. Her hand over her eyes like she was seeing far into the distance. I poked Chapman in the back. She took a couple of steps toward the lady and said, “Hi. Sorry for the noise. He had a few too many, know what I mean?”

The neighbor was standing stock-still in the light. She said, “What?”

Chapman got closer, she said, “We’re sorry for the noise.”

The woman said, “No problem with any noise, honey, I’m taking out the trash.” The neighbor held up a garbage bag that had been hidden by her body. “You have a great night.”

Chapman said, “You too,” and came loping back. The neighbor walked away.

I returned to the task at hand. The knife blade went in at a diagonal angle and I slipped it behind the bolt. The blade compressed the bolt away from the jamb. I pushed, the door opened and I walked in.

The apartment was a corner unit, with windows looking out to sea. Even at night, the channel was all there, laid out with two islands offshore and the whole Pacific Ocean on the other side. The moon was coming up. We were standing in the entrance, which gave out on a living room to our right. I flipped the light switch. A corner sofa unit with coffee table. Nothing on it. Above the sofa was a large Japanese print of an ocean wave with a little wood boat caught in it. No television. A couple of paces away, a dining area nestled into the window corner. Off to the right was an open plan kitchen. Between the kitchen and the dining area was a counter. A pair of high stools were tucked beneath it.

There