Jack had trouble hiding his disappointment. “Then why do you keep it around?”
“Because often—too often, if you ask me, and even though you didn’t, I’m tel ing you anyway—I get locked trunks and furniture and the owners have lost
the key. Now, if the piece is old enough to have a warded lock, no problem—I have a set of skeleton keys that wil take care of those.”
Skeleton key … Jack liked the sound of that.
“But,” Mr. Rosen went on, “if it has a pin-tumbler lock—like that curved-glass china cabinet I’ve got sitting back there—I have to cal a locksmith.” He
frowned. “After a while, that runs into money, so I decided I’d learn how to pick locks myself.”
Jack’s spirits leaped. “You know how?”
Mr. Rosen shrugged. “It took a while, but I learned. Lot of good it does me now.” He raised his hand and held it palm side down. Jack noticed how the
fingers trembled. “A steady hand, you need, and I haven’t got that any longer.”
Jack’s mind shifted into high gear.
“Can you teach me?”
“Why should I do that?”
“So I can open locks for you.”
Mr. Rosen stared at him. “Am I detecting possibly another reason for wanting to be so helpful?”
Jack wasn’t about to admit to that.
“I just think it would be cool to be able to say I know how to pick a lock.”
True—every word.
“I don’t know.” Mr. Rosen put his hand on Jack’s shoulder as he continued to stare. It made him a little uncomfortable, as if the old guy was trying to do a
Vulcan mind meld. “Teaching a teenager to pick locks … that doesn’t strike me as the wisest thing.”
Jack didn’t have to fake feeling offended.
“If you think I’m going to rob somebody, then forget it. You can cal a locksmith instead.”
Jack gathered up the kit and started back toward the rear of the store.
“Wait-wait-wait. You shouldn’t get yourself in a dither already. I didn’t mean that. I meant …” He paused, obviously searching for something to say. “I’m
not sure what I meant. I know you’re a good boy.”
Jack wasn’t so sure he liked the “good boy” bit. He tended to think of himself as kind of cool and detached. He didn’t know if he real y was, but that was
how he wanted to be. At times he feared he was a nerd and didn’t know it. Nerds never knew they were nerdy. Not knowing was a major component of
nerdiness.
Mr. Rosen added, “And I know you’re honest too.”
That puzzled Jack. “How? I could be a master thief.”
He smiled. “I doubt that.”
And then Jack knew, or at least thought he did.
“The money I found!”
Mr. Rosen was nodding. “I may be many things, but careless with my cash I’m not.”
On three separate occasions since he’d started working here, Jack had found bil s lying around. First a single, then a five, and just last week a tenner.
“You were testing me?”
“Of course. Who knows when I might have to leave you in charge? When I return I’d like to find at least the same amount in the til as when I left.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I do now. I didn’t know you when I hired you. This is your first real job, so it’s not like I could ask for references. So I tested you and you passed. Others
before you have failed.”
“Didn’t Teddy Bishop work here a few years ago?”
Mr. Rosen’s expression never changed. “Not for long. And don’t ask me any more because that’s al I’l say.”
Jack had found the bil s, known they weren’t his, and given them to Mr. Rosen. That was a test? He hadn’t given it a second thought: They didn’t belong
to him.
