The Lock Artist

Amelia is Mike’s romantic interest. Mike falls in love with her before even seeing her in person: When he and his high school cronies break into the Marshes’ house, he finds Amelia’s drawing portfolio containing a self-portrait that enthralls him. When Mike finally meets her in person, she is direct, confident, and unapologetic. In her first utterance to Mike, she says, “You are so full of shit. Do you know that?” (119). She is instantly skeptical of the mythology surrounding Mike. Having herself lived through the trauma of her mother’s suicide, she initially suspects that Mike has overdramatized the effects of his childhood trauma in order to draw attention to himself. As she gets to know him, this view softens, and she comes to admire and love him. When their comic strip correspondence begins, Mike concedes, “She was a better artist than I was” (148), although—in his characteristically misogynistic manner—he claims her talent derives from “natural ability” (148) rather than technical skill.

Even in moments of tenderness, Amelia displays a hard edge: When Mike finally tracks her down at the University of Michigan after a long separation, she greets him saying, “What the hell did you do to your hair?” (247). Despite this intimidating exterior, Amelia is an emotionally and intellectually intelligent character with a strong sense of her values: She breaks up with Zeke when she witnesses him being cruel to Mike; she confronts her father about his careless and illegal financial dealings and his mistreatment of Mike; and she rightly tells Mike that he does not have to pursue a criminal lifestyle. Mike’s assertion that he is “trying to protect” Amelia (268) proves in some ways to be false, as Amelia ultimately helps Mike begin to recover from his trauma.

Mr. Marsh is a caricature of a blustery, tough-talking, dim-witted, wealthy suburban egomaniac. He gains power over Mike when Mike is sentenced to “restorative justice” community service after breaking into the Marshes’ home with his high school cronies: Mr. Marsh, the victim of Mike’s crime, is permitted to saddle Mike with whatever work he wants to assign for a given number of hours per week over the summer. His utter lack of integrity is evident in the way he conceals the reality of Mike’s punishment from his probation officer, and later, when it turns criminal, from Amelia as well. Numerous characters note his relentless volubility and inability to be discreet. Despite business failures, criminal involvement, and reckless endangerment of himself and his daughter, he perpetually congratulates himself on imagined successes or accidental good fortune. His lack of intelligence prevents him from being a true villain, although he causes nearly all of Mike’s tribulations in the novel.

The Ghost is first referenced early in the novel, in Chapter 2, and because of his mysterious epithet he casts a long and intimidating shadow. He is also a professional lock picker and safecracker and has trained and mentored Mike to take over his trade. When the Ghost finally appears in Chapter 19, his comically frail appearance comes as a surprise and is almost endearing. His manner of speaking, however, is still tough and intimidating.

Uncle Lito is Mike’s unprepared yet warmhearted caretaker during the years between Mike’s childhood trauma and his departure in high school for a life of crime. Lito is the proprietor of a seedy liquor store in Milford, Michigan. He is boisterous and uncouth, evidently plagued by gambling debts and prone to other light illegal behaviors, such as deputizing Mike, an elementary-school student, to look after the liquor store unattended. He seems genuinely to love and care for Mike, but the two struggle to connect because of Mike’s muteness and Lito’s own guilt as the brother of Mike’s father, who perpetrated such a horrendous crime against Mike and his mother. Mike seems to look down on Lito for his apparent lack of intelligence and his irresponsibility. Nonetheless, Mike holds Lito dear, secretly leaving him a sum of money when he returns to Milford late in the novel.

Julian is the leader of the criminal crew associated with Mike’s white pager. Mike spends much of his yearlong criminal career with that group in Los Angeles, and they welcome him as an integral member of their crew. Like the other three members of the group, Julian is young—likely in his early twenties. Unlike his coconspirators, he comes from a wealthy and privileged background: He was on track to attend an elite private university before being arrested for drunk driving and committed to a rehabilitation program, where he met the other gang members, all of whom come from underprivileged backgrounds. Julian is confident and calculating. He operates a boutique wine store, which he uses as a money laundering operation and a means of making connections with wealthy targets for robbery. Mike seems largely to respect Julian but occasionally casts judgment on him for being overly confident, privileged, and self-important.

Ramona is the least developed character in the white pager crew. She is of unspecified Hispanic heritage. In Mike’s lengthiest portrait of her, he recalls:

Ramona spent most of her time at the store, too, along with members of her extended family, especially her three sisters. Like her, they were ridiculously attractive Hispanic women who could charm you right out of your undershorts. The few times I was around the store I’d hear them talking Spanish to each other at a million miles an hour, and it would often disintegrate into shouting matches. By the end of the day, they’d make up. It was a tight family. They loved each other like crazy and would kill for each other, I could tell (172).

Ramona’s personality is otherwise not very clearly outlined. Ramona speaks comparatively little but seems to be confident in her body, as well as cautious about her safety and that of her comrades.

Gunnar, who performs most of the leg work in the white pager crew’s robberies, is a disgruntled and jealous young man. Sinewy, gruff, and unrefined, Gunnar stands in contrast to Julian, who is suave, polished, and sophisticated. Gunnar is immediately threatened by Mike because Lucy, Gunnar’s girlfriend, flirts with Mike. Gunnar is highly territorial of Lucy and enraged when she receives attention from any other man, even as part of a con. On the job, Gunnar and Mike work together, performing the actual burglaries while the other three are out seducing the targets. Gunnar resents Julian for his position of power within the group, and he acts out by planning a haphazardly designed hit on the man from Detroit’s yacht—the culminating crime of the novel. In this bold and careless action, Gunnar reveals himself to be arrogant and reckless.

As with the other female characters, Amelia and Ramona, the bulk of Mike’s description of Lucy is dedicated to her physical appearance. His first impression of her is that she looks “tired and strung out” yet with “a raw animal beauty” (86). She met the other members of the gang in a rehabilitation program in which she was enrolled to treat a serious drug addiction. She expresses to Mike that her addiction lingers with her: “it’s still out there, all the time, just waiting for [her] to come back to it” (203). Unlike her comrades, she has apparently been unable to maintain a day job, so she paints, and she and Mike bond over their artistic inclinations. She seems sexually self-assured: Her role in the crew’s hits typically involves seducing a man, and she is aggressive in her seduction of Mike. Lucy previously trained with the Ghost, but she lacked the natural talent for cracking safes, and since that failure she seems burdened with a sense of insecurity and inadequacy. Mike triggers that insecurity in her, which may be part of the reason she feels the urge to seduce him.

Mike calls Griffin “The only real friend I ever had” (101). Griffin is Mike’s high school compatriot, whom he meets in their advanced art class. Griffin is a year older than Mike and is enthralled by Mike’s mysterious muteness and prodigious artistic talent. When Mike shows off his ability to crack padlocks to Griffin, Griffin is so delighted that he advertises this skill to their classmates, drawing some allegedly unwanted attention to Mike. Although Griffin occasionally displays poor judgment—such as a willingness to drink and drive, or a willingness to break-and-enter into the Marshes’ house with his classmates—he also demonstrates a strong moral compass: He visits Mike after Mike has been sentenced to work for Mr. Marsh, and he offers to turn himself in if it will help lighten Mike’s punishment. When Mike declines, Griffin says, “I owe you one” (101).

“The man in Detroit” (or “the man from Detroit”) is an unnamed crime boss who effectively owns Mike. His criminal operation is never fully explained. In addition to leasing Mike’s services to criminal gangs in exchange for a cut of Mike’s fee, he also runs a high-rollers-only poker game aboard a yacht on the West Coast and is somehow involved in lending money to Mr. Marsh for his health club business. Mike often refers to him as his “master” and likens himself to a dog who must return whenever he is called. The man from Detroit contacts Mike on the red pager. Julian describes him as “the scariest fucking human being you’ve ever seen” (87). When the man appears in person in the novel, Mike observes the distinctive scent of his cologne, saying, “It was an expensive and exotic smell that I’d never forget” (206). When Mike finds himself in the man’s bedroom aboard the yacht at the end of the novel, he recognizes this scent again. The man says little in the novel, and his speech mostly consists of vague threats. He seems to enjoy wielding this kind of tyrannical, violent power over others.