Page 38 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

This is the reason most burglars are caught: because they can’t breach their target before being spotted or heard. If you hear aclink-tinkin 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.Seeingthem 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.

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