Page 48 of Trailer Park Billionaire
“Well, I have to create not only a forgery, but a copy—two copies—identical ones. Which makes it significantly harder. What painting were you guys originally planning to steal?”
“We have a buyer lined up who is willing to pay 80k for ‘The Burden of Leadership’ by John D. Swift.”
“A Swift?” I ask incredulously. “If you were planning on stealing a Swift, why would you ask to see a Swift? I could’ve easily made the connection that you were the thief once we would have noticed it missing.”
Ben looks at his friend then quickly away. It would appear he didn’t know about that. “Because I needed to know where to find it. This was the easiest way. We were gonna ghost-town it eventually anyway, no?”
Alex just shakes his head.
I pull out my phone and look the painting up online. There are some pictures of it, none in good lighting or high definition. “I can get the paint and most everything else to look like this. A one-to-one recreation of the craquelure is impossible, of course, but I’m reasonably confident we’d get away with it for this one.”
“The what now?” Alex asks.
“The cracks,” Ben answers before I can. “Old paint and varnish cracks as it dries and ages. That’s not an issue when creating forgeries of previously unknown works—only when copying existing paintings.”
I nod. Sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. “It shouldn’t be too much of an issue with this one. It’ll be harder with the Artemisia.” A quick search pulls up better pictures, though none professionally taken, full-frontal, and in good lighting. “It could work. We might be able to get away with it. At least for a while.”
“So what do you need?”
“Swift was alive some 500-something years ago, so a canvas that’s about 500 years old. That will be the hardest to find. It’s necessary if someone were to carbon-date it, though. I’ll need historically accurate pigments—like lapis lazuli and lead-tin yellow—but I’m pretty sure my grandpa had those in his stash. Linseed oil, a blow dryer, tobacco, caffeine. Lots and lots of caffeine. Oh, and I want one third of the proceeds, of course. Twenty-five divided by three is…”
“Five million if it sells for twenty-five or above. Twenty percent if we have to flip it for less. Not a cent more,” Alex shoots back, while staring into my eyes. He throws another poffertjes into his mouth.
I shrug. “Fine. I guess five will do.”
Ben smirks and touches my hand again, making it a little harder to breathe.
Maybe I also need those hands wrapped around my neck to calm me down a bit.
“I’ll get you what you need,” he says in a voice that’s way too sultry. Then he inspects my wrists. “And I’m sorry about earlier. I might have overreacted a little bit.”
My wrists are fine. If the ties had been any looser, I could’ve slipped out without even needing a knife.
“That’s okay,” I answer absentmindedly, already thinking about the heist again. “There are worse things than getting tied up.” Like having to deal with those gangsters. But if we can pull this off, I’d be able to easily keep them from tying me up and throwing me into a river. With five million I could do a lot more. I could fund art classes indefinitely. I could probably even send one or two of my kids to college and use the remaining $10 to take myself to the movies.
“Alright,” Alex grunts and gets up from the bench. “That’s my cue. I’m out of here.” He grabs his notebook and sushi, and useshis foot to open the door. “I’ll find a buyer if you two can get the merchandise.” The door flies shut. “Don’t tie her up too tight,” it echoes from outside. “We need her delicate hands to do very delicate work.”
And just like that, I’m left with Ben Lyon—possibly the world’s poorest billionaire—in his trailer in the middle of a trailer park. It’s kind of cozy actually. Clean, but a little chaotic. There are clothes scattered about, books stuffed into random corners, the drawings from children glued to the ceiling.
“I didn’t mean getting tied up in a sexual way,” I try to explain, because I really didn’t. Of course now I’m definitely thinking about getting tied up by Ben Lyon in a sexual way. Which doesn’t sound half bad either. At firstglancesound, anyway. At second sound, it would blur already blurry lines between us and complicate our relationship unnecessarily. Which is probably the biggest reason why con men get caught. Or so I imagine. I’m not aware of any actual stats on the topic. I glance at his hands again, all veiny, and big, and?—
It would definitely be a bad decision. In fact, it would be a terrible decision. Hooking up with the guy who could potentially land me right back in my personal hell. Working with him might be unavoidable to solve my problems. But complicating this—bringing emotions into this whole mess, even if they’re sexy, horny emotions—needs to be avoided at all costs.
Ben clears his throat. “Just to make sure: this is a one-time thing. A one-time heist. People in my line of work rarely get caught because of their actual work—and I’m sure your work will be flawless in any case. They get caught because they get greedy. Because they go back for more. Because they start thinking they’re invincible. That’s not going to be us.”
Or maybe that’s the biggest reason. Greed not horniness.
“Well, yeah,” I agree and wonder what happened to Ben that sent him down this path in the first place. “If it were up to me we wouldn’t even have to pull off this one heist.”
“Good,” Ben says, then studies me for a long moment, his gaze flicking to my eye, where the bruising looks more purple today. “Doesthathave anything to do with why you want to be part of this?”
I think about what to tell him, whether to let him in even more than I already have. But that wouldn’t be a good idea, so instead I try to deflect: “Maybe we should talk about what turnedyouinto a criminal first.”
Ben doesn’t say anything, just nods, acknowledging that I don’t want to talk about it. The motion is barely visible. Then my stomach growls, loud and feral, breaking the silence, which makes Ben grin. “He must have gotten that from you.”
“What?” I ask, confused. “Who?”
“Reuben,” he answers as if I should know who he’s talking about. “Crime makes him hungry too. But I have a feeling I’ll need to feed you something more substantial than chips and cookies.”
