Someone wasn’t quite as innocent as when we last met. She’d been new, and I’d taken advantage of her wanting to fulfill my every request. I’d asked her to get a sippy cup for Kendal because she’d spilled coffee in my new Jeep.
I let my amusement touch my eyes as I remembered the look on Kendal’s face when she’d been given said cup. If I remembered correctly, Mr. Hill had a hand in pulling off the prank.
“I’ll be good,” I promised. Who knows, I thought, she might even believe me.
We walked into the studio, and two things caught my eye. The first was an Asian woman in her twenties. She was rocking a hip urban vibe with oversized fresh frames, a graphic t-shirt with butterflies, and hip-hugger jeans that showed off her tiny waist. She gave me the impression of a college student you’d see at a New York university.
The second was a table behind her with cutout door displays with several different locks.
“David, good to meet you,” she said and shook my hand. “I’m JD Ma. The studio sent me to teach you skills you’ll be using in the movie. Who’s your friend?”
“Cassidy Hope. When she heard you were going to teach me to be a spy, she had to come.”
JD gave us some background on her experience. She was a third-generation Chinese-American, and both her mother and father had worked for ‘the agency.’ I assumed she meant the CIA, but she wouldn’t confirm that. JD had grown up with them teaching her the family trade.
When JD was in high school, she’d been caught stealing a car. Her parents decided they didn’t want her to follow in their footsteps, so they’d introduced her to a friend who worked as a technical advisor for movie studios. He taught actors how to look realistic doing various activities you wouldn’t learn in school.
“Today, I’m going to teach you how to pick a lock. In the movie, your character breaks in a couple of times. I’ve found that if you understand how to really do it, it looks right when it comes time to film the scene. And believe me when I say that if it doesn’t, fans will let you know,” she explained.
We spent the morning learning about different kinds of locks and the ways to defeat each type. It was eye-opening when JD showed us how easy it was.
The first technique she taught us was to use a lock bump key. You inserted the key into the lock, began to turn it, and struck the back of the key with a blunt object until the lock opened. That made me realize why Fritz had installed keyless locks on the house and my apartment.
For the next lesson, we used a lock set in a plexiglass door so we could see how the mechanism worked. JD introduced us to a lock-pick set and showed us how to manipulate the lock to open it.
When you were able to see the lock mechanism as you work on it, it was child’s play to figure out what had to be done. When she had me try a lock on a wooden door, the result wasn’t nearly the same. I would have to practice.
Towards the end of the day, she stopped her lesson.
“Part of being a spy is becoming someone else. There are times you want to blend in or even disappear, and other times you’ll need to draw people’s attention to yourself. Mr. Feldman asked me to help you get into character. Ian Bond is supposed to be a posh lad with the attitude of a lady’s man,” JD said.
“I can’t see it,” Cassidy said with a straight face.
My expression must have been damned funny, given the girls’ reaction.
“You’ll have to learn to walk like
The first was from a classic oldie,
I laughed at what a douche he came across as. If a guy approached women with his aggressive style today, he would get kicked in the nuts. So, of course, I loved it. It takes a certain brazen confidence to pull that off.
The second clip was more current, from a movie I hadn’t seen before called
Baby had an old-school music player with earbuds. JD explained it was like your phone, but only played music. She called it a ‘Walkman.’ Getting back to the clip, he put his earbuds in and basically danced his way to the coffee shop.
“Mr. Feldman suggested that we do the walk to
