The Safe Man by Michael Connelly Page A

reached down and pulled the door up. He then used both hands to lift the plywood inset out.
    The opening revealed another door, a few inches below—the black steel facing of a safe with dusty gold filigree at the edges, a brass combination dial, and a hammered-steel handle. Robinette crouched next to the opening and reached down and gave the steel handle a solid tug, as if to show Brian it was locked.
    “This is it,” he said. “Can you open it?”
    Brian crouched down across the opening from Robinette and looked at the box. He could see writing in gold script beneath the combo dial. He braced his hands on the floor and leaned down closer to read it. It looked like it said Le Seuil but he wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that he didn’t recognize the safe or its manufacturer, let alone know how to pronounce its name. He gave the dial a turn just to see whether it was frozen, and it turned smoothly. That wouldn’t be a problem. He straightened up until he was kneeling on the floor next to the opening.
    “I don’t recognize the make offhand,” Brian said. “In a perfect world I’d have a design schematic. It always helps to know what you’re getting into. But don’t worry. I can open it. I can open anything.”
    “How much will it cost?”
    “Unless I find it in one of my books, it’s probably going to be a double drill. I charge one-fifty for the first and a hundred for the second.”
    “Jesus. You’re killing me.”
    “I might get lucky with the first drill. You never know.”
    “Just do it. I want that thing open. Too many people have seen it.”
    Brian wasn’t sure what he meant by that.
    “Do you have any idea how old this thing is?” he asked.
    “The house was built in ’twenty-nine. I assume that it came with it.”
    Brian nodded.
    “You said on the phone you just bought this place?”
    “That’s right.”
    “The former owner didn’t give you the combo?”
    “Do you think you’d be here if he did?”
    Brian didn’t answer. He was embarrassed by his stupid question.
    Robinette continued as if he had not asked a question. “It was an estate sale. The old man who lived here died and he took the combination with him. Nobody even knew there was a safe until I had the floors redone before moving in. Now all the painters, the electricians—everybody who was working on this place to get it ready—knows I have a safe in here. You ever read In Cold Blood ?”
    “I think I saw the movie. That’s the one with Robert Blake playing a killer before he supposedly became a real killer, right?”
    “That’s right. It’s the one where they kill a whole family to get to the fortune in the safe. Only there isn’t any fortune. Every one of those workers who was in here went out and told who knows who about the safe I’ve got in here. I started having dreams. Me with a gun to my head, being told to open up a safe I don’t know how to open. I know these guys. I write about them. I know what they’re capable of. I’ve got a daughter. I want that safe open. I don’t even want a safe. I don’t have anything to put in it.”
    Brian had never read one of Paul Robinette’s novels, but he knew before he ever saw the house that he was successful. He’d seen stories about him in the local papers and national magazines. He’d seen a couple of the bad movies based on the books. Robinette wrote crime novels that were bestsellers, though Brian didn’t think there had been a new book in the stores in a long while. Brian was willing to accept him as an amateur expert on the criminal mind. But he didn’t think that qualified Robinette as an expert on the character of painters and electricians and floor refinishers.
    “Well, Mr. Robinette, whatever the reason, I will get it open for you.”
    “Good. Then after you get it open, can you get it out of here?”
    “The whole safe?”
    “That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?”
    Brian looked down at the edges of the safe. The steel framing went