Chapter 8: The Second Lock

I moved into the room over the hardware store on Monday.

It had a bed, a two-burner stove and a window that looked down on the Pennington house.

I paid Clyde the first fifty out of my wages from Roz's counter, in small bills.

He took them and wrote a receipt, because I had told him to.

On Thursday I came down to buy a second lock for my door.

Clyde was behind the register with a pencil behind his ear.

"What kind?" he asked.

"The kind that opens from the inside, but not from the street."

"That's most of them."

"Then I want the best of most of them."

He laid three boxes on the counter and walked me through them.

I listened to about half of it.

His voice was steady and low, and he had a way of tapping the box with one finger when he said something he meant.

"This one," he said, and slid it toward me.

I reached for it, and my hand landed over his.

I pulled mine back.

He did not move his for a moment.

"Sorry," I said.

"It's fine."

He cleared his throat and began, very carefully, to bag the lock.

He dropped it twice.

It was a small thing, and I noticed it anyway.

I told myself the man had a long week.

"I can put it in for you," he said.

"I can use a screwdriver."

"I know you can." He took the bag. "My hands are better with doors. Humor me."

He followed me upstairs with a toolbox.

The door frame had been painted over so many times that the old lock plate had gone soft.

Clyde knelt on the floor of my hallway and worked a chisel along the edge with small, patient taps.

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