Page 54 of Trailer Park Billionaire
So we both quickly finish our breakfast. When I stand up to clear the plates, Ben immediately moves to take them from me. “Nope. You go get ready. I’ll do the dishes,” he insists, and when I don’t move right away, he adds, “No time for talking back. Come on.”
So I do as I’m told, take a quick shower while brushing my teeth, and dress in the most Indiana Jones-looking outfit I own.
We make it to our destination, a flea market, at around 8:30 AM. It’s already sprawling with people. There’s a vast maze of stands, tables, racks, and boxes filled with trash, trinkets, and forgotten treasures, interspersed with food stalls and the oddstreet performer. The air is crisp this morning, the smell of old books, coffee, and fried food wafting through now and then.
Protectively, Ben puts his hand on the small of my back to guide me through the stream of people. His first touch takes my breath away and calms me instantly. His second touch, ever so slightly further south, makes me hot. He leads me from one stand with antiquities to the next. I probably shouldn’t let him put his hand there. But he knows this place, and we’re looking for a canvas for the heist, so technically, this is all for the heist.
When we don’t find what we’re looking for at the fourth or fifth stand, I let out a heavy sigh.
“No need to worry,” Ben assures me. “There’s like thirty or forty more stalls we can check out.”
And he’s right. Finding a 500-year-old canvas might be a long shot, but this place is so massive and filled with so many antiquities, we might actually stand a chance.
“And if we can’t find the canvas, at least we can find matching balaclavas.” Ben holds up two ski masks, one in each hand, framing his gigantic smile. One is neon pink, the other neon yellow. “This is perfect. How much are they?” he asks the guy behind the stand.
“Good choice,” the guy answers. “Going for a ski trip?”
“Robbing a bank, actually. But after that, we might have the necessary funds for that vacation.”
The guy laughs and asks for five bucks for both.
Ben pulls a bill from his pocket and hands it over. Then he turns to me. “It’s not lead-tin yellow, but I do think this is your color.” He pulls the yellow balaclava over my head, the pink one over his own, and turns me to face a mirror leaning against a tree.
I look ridiculous. Ben looks… like not even a clothing item designed to hide half his face can hide any of his beauty. It’s unfair.
“You just want the pink one for yourself.”
He wraps his arm around my shoulder and nods. “We look like two proper robbers in cahoots. Plus, if we wear these we won’t have to get face tattoos after the job is done so no one will recognize us.”
“Right,” I say, nodding along. “Probably best to take them off for now. We wouldn’t want the nice people around here thinking we’re robbing them too.” I pull the mask off again. “Now, where do we find that freaking canvas? Preferably one that isn’t cursed.”
We weave through the crowd, stopping at stalls that seem promising. Ben keeps getting distracted—first by a truly horrific porcelain penguin he insists would‘add character’to my apartment, then by a collection of old keys that he claims‘might come in handy sometime’.
“Hey,” Ben exclaims eventually when we’ve made it through almost all the stalls of the flea market. “This could be it.” He lifts an old canvas in the air for both of us to see. “The religious theme could match the time, the artist seems to have used lead-based whites that have darkened over time, and the frame has a nice patina.”
It does look promising. “How come you know so much about this? Is that part of the Con Artist 101 course?”
Ben chuckles. “You really wanna know?”
I nod. Maybe I should learn a little about him—about my robber in cahoots. It doesn’t have to be anything compromising. Just enough to make sure I’m not working alongside a lunatic.
“All right. Tell me one of your secrets, and I’ll tell you one of mine,” he teases.
When I don’t answer, he holds the painting up for me to take a closer look.
“I’m afraid you’re wrong. All good signs, but not proof. The proof is in the bottom right corner.”
Ben’s eyes shift to the right and land on the date the artist added: 1808. About two hundred and some years too late for our purposes. The weave is a little too thin as well.
He lets out a dramatic sigh and puts the canvas back where he found it. “So close, yet so many centuries off.”
My stomach twists with the growing realization that Plan A is looking more and more like a bust. “I’m thinking about going to Laos,” I say, without offering context as Ben steers me along.
“Interesting,” he comments.
“Not really,” I disagree quickly. “Anyway, your turn.”
“My turn?”
