The Lock and the Key полностью

She had expected to walk back to her car. A girl like her doesn’t ride in a mechanic’s car.

But she got in. Tommy closed the door and, going around the car, got in behind the wheel. He started to set down the tool box between himself and the girl, but twisted around and deposited the box in the space behind the seat.

She said: “I’m sorry to get you out this late in the evening.”

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

The car was rolling past the Melrose Alleys. Andy was probably still inside. He had told Andy that he would soak the “dame” an extra five so that he could pay the four dollars he owed Andy.

Well, she could afford it. Mink coat, Cadillac. A rich father or... He shot a quick glance at her. No, it was a parent. Although, how could you tell?

“There it is!”

The car, as she had told him, was standing outside the drugstore. A newsie was selling papers on the corner and a half dozen people were waiting for the La Brea bus.

Tommy made a U-turn and parked just ahead of the Cadillac. He got his tool box and walked over to her car. He climbed in and switched on the dashboard light. Elizabeth Targ, Foothill Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California, said the identification card.

He opened his tool box and took out a ring of blank keys. He tried one in the lock; it wouldn’t go in so he tried a second. This one would do it, with a little work.

“Can I help you?”

She was standing on the sidewalk, leaning over the rolled down window. Tommy took a flashlight from the box and handed it to her. It wasn’t necessary, but she wanted to help. All right, let her do something. She flicked on the light and focused it on the lock.

Tommy got out some paper matches, struck one and held it under the blank key. It smoked up nicely and he inserted the blank into the lock. He wiggled it back and forth, then withdrew it carefully. The blacking was rubbed off in several spots.

He got out a sharp file and struck it swiftly over the key. It ate into the nickeled blank and in about two minutes he wiped the key clean and used another match on it.

He tried it once more in the lock, then brought it out and examined it. Just a touch more on the second bit. He ran a smaller file lightly into the cut and inserted the key in the lock. It turned

“Okay,” he said.

“You mean... it’s done?”

“Yes.”

A man with a Racing Form in his hand stood behind the girl. He whistled softly. “So that’s the way it’s done!”

Tommy put his things back into the tool box and closed it. He got out of the car and the girl climbed in to try the key for herself.

The man with the Racing Form stepped back so he could size up Tommy. “Ain’t I seen you around?” he asked.

“Probably,” said Tommy.

He had seen the other, at a cafe here and there, a drive-in, the bowling alley. He was one of the boys. You saw them all the time. They were always well-dressed and freshly shaved. They usually carried a Racing Form. They were faces you saw around the Boulevard.

The girl was satisfied, finally, that the key would work. She slid over to the curb side of the seat and opened her purse.

“How much do I owe you?”

He had told Andy ten bucks. He said to the girl, “Five dollars.”

She exposed a folded sheaf of clean, new bills and stripped off one of them. Then she fumbled around in the bottom of her purse and located a half dollar.

“Here you are.” She handed him the five-dollar bill, smiled beautifully and put the half dollar into his hand. “And that’s for yourself.”

Tommy’s palm burned where the half dollar touched. He looked down at the coin and said, “Thanks. Thanks.”

She stepped on the starter and the motor turned over at once. She flashed him a final, impersonal smile and the car shot away from the curb.

Tommy remained standing where he was, looking after the car.

At his shoulder the man with the Racing Form whistled suggestively. “Some babe!”

It wasn’t worth while ramming the half dollar down the man’s filthy throat. Tommy put the money into his pocket and walked to his own car.

He drove to the dingy apartment house on Las Palmas where he had a dingy apartment with a sagging bed and a squeaking rocking chair that should have been used for kindling wood twenty years ago.

Jerk isn’t quite the correct definition of lugan. There is a note of contempt in jerk that is missing in lugan. A lugan, if we must define the word, is a harmless not-so-bright character who is always around, but to whom nobody pays much attention. That was Herbie the Lugan.

He was seated on the stool, finishing his coffee and talking to Trent and Trent was eating his breakfast and paying no attention whatever to Herbie.

“You never saw anything like it,” Herbie the Lugan was saying. “The dame loses her car keys, so this guy from the key shop comes up. He uses a match and a file and in less time than you could run three furlongs he’s got a car key for the dame.”

“What?” Trent asked absent-mindedly.