Keys Locked in the Car in the Jefferson or Marshall Garage After a Show at the Fox Theatre

The Fox Theatre lets out onto Broadway a little after half past ten, and within twenty minutes the Jefferson garage and the Marshall garage are lines of tail lights winding down to the exit. This is when the downtown car lockouts happen. The key went into a coat pocket and the coat went onto the passenger seat; the fob is in the bag that is now on the floor of the locked car; the door was locked by habit with the key still in the cupholder. None of it is unusual, and none of it is helped by the fact that every level of a garage looks like every other level at night.

Downtown is fourteen minutes from where the van tends to be, and that number holds most nights. The van comes in against the tail of the exit queue, which is short, and parks on Jefferson Ave or Marshall St rather than joining the line inside. The technician walks in with the case. The wait is the walk, not the traffic.

Five things find the car. The garage name, since Jefferson and Marshall are four blocks apart and both have entrances on more than one street. The level. The nearest stair core, which is lettered on the door, or the nearest column, which is numbered. The year, make and model. And whether you can see the key inside the car. That last one sets the job: a key you can see is a lockout, $99 to $169, with $50 added between 8pm and midnight and $85 after midnight, all inside the figure settled on the call. A key you cannot see anywhere is a different visit, and the next section is about it.

Proof that the car is yours is asked for before the door is opened: registration or an insurance card with a matching ID. If the paperwork is in the glove box, say so, and the check is done another way, by plate against a photo of the registration on your phone, for instance. It takes a minute and it is not skipped.

Sometimes the key is not on the seat. It fell out of a pocket in row M, or it went into the wrong coat at the coat check, or it is somewhere between the Fox and a restaurant on Broadway. Before calling for a replacement, call the theatre; the house staff sweep the seats after every show and keep what they find. Two minutes on the phone can save a visit. If the key is genuinely gone, a replacement is $145 to $399, cut and programmed to the car's immobilizer in the garage, with a stricter ownership check because the result is a key that starts the car.

A replacement takes longer than a lockout, and a garage at midnight is not the worst place for it, since the car is not going anywhere. What decides whether it can be done at the car is the make and the year, which is why they are asked first. A few makes need a manufacturer authorization step; a few need a dealer. Both are said on the call rather than discovered on level three.

The ordinary method is a small inflatable wedge at the top corner of the door frame, opening a gap of a finger's width, and a long reach tool through the gap to press the unlock button or lift the interior handle. Nothing goes past the window seal. Nothing bears on the glass. On most cars it takes a few minutes once the technician is beside the door. Cars with deadlocking, where the interior handle is disabled once the doors are locked from outside, need the button rather than the handle, and that is why the model is asked for.

What is not done is anything down the window slot. The regulator, the side airbag and its wiring live in the space a flat bar sweeps through, and a snagged loom costs more than a dozen openings. If a stranger in the next bay offers to try with a hanger, thank them and wait for the van whose description arrived by text.

Both downtown garages have hours, and a car that is still inside after the gates come down is not lost, only inconvenient. The pedestrian doors open from inside at any hour, so you can get out; the question is getting the technician in. Meet at the pedestrian door at the stair you named on the call. If you have already gone home, the visit is booked for the morning when the gates open, at the daytime figure, and the car sleeps where it is. Cell reception on the lower levels is poor, so a text with the level and the stair sent from the ramp arrives when a call does not.

Payment is by card or tap at the car and the itemized receipt reaches your email before the van leaves Jefferson Ave. If the car cannot be opened that night, which is rare, you are told so before you decide anything, and told what the garage does with a car left overnight, which is nothing.

Two habits end most of these evenings. Photograph the column number when you park. It survives two acts and an encore better than memory. And keep the key in the same pocket every time, the one that does not go onto the passenger seat with the coat. A third costs money once: a spare key cut in daylight, at $145 to $399 for a transponder key or $79 to $185 to program a second fob, living at home with someone who can bring it downtown.

Sequoia Lock & Key works to a promise called Settled Before the Key: one figure on the call covering the visit, the labor and the parts; the technician's name and a thirty-minute window by text; opened without damage first; card or tap at the car. It is the same after the last show as at noon on a Tuesday, with the evening supplement stated on the call rather than found on the receipt.