Paint. The art of scam. Read online

  Paint

  The Art of Scam

  by

  Oscar Turner

  Text copyright © 2012 Oscar Turner

  All Rights Reserved

  Published by ColinMichael.com

  ISBN number 978-0-9574498-0-0

  Oscar Turner’s YouTube Channel

  Table of Contents.

  Chapter one Bruno Costaldi.

  Chapter two Seymour Capital, artist.

  Chapter three The meeting.

  Chapter four Love hurts.

  Chapter five Reality.

  Chapter six A change of heart.

  Chapter seven Bad day at the office.

  Chapter eight Stealing the stolen.

  Chapter nine The lies begin.

  Chapter ten Back to normal.

  Chapter eleven A price to pay.

  Chapter twelve The limit.

  Chapter thirteen Three months later.

  Chapter fourteen Carva’s Gallery.

  Chapter fifteen Lunch.

  Chapter sixteen Bruno’s new beginning.

  Chapter seventeen Getting ready.

  Chapter eighteen The opening night

  Chapter nineteen The Barrington Estate

  Chapter twenty The last straw.

  Chapter twenty one The New Easel.

  Chapter twenty two The New Carva Gallery.

  Chapter twenty three Discovered.

  Chapter twenty four Pop goes the weasel.

  Chapter twenty five Pay day.

  Chapter twenty six The party.

  Chapter twenty seven The final deal.

  Chapter twenty eight The beginning of the end.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bruno Costaldi

  Bruno Costaldi battled with the loose Yale lock in his front door: he had yet to figure out its idiosyncrasies. When the rickety barrel finally clicked the latch across, it was always owing to luck rather than skill and it infuriated him every time. His father, Paulo, had taught him how to crack virtually any safe, steal any make of car and disarm most burglar alarms. These were skills that had rewarded him with several spells in jail: his talent for getting back out of places was well below par. Even when the lock did open, the door required a precisely placed kick in the bottom left hand corner to free it from the twisted frame. It then needed a precise kick to close it again.

  Bruno lay down on the filthy single bed in the corner of his bedsitter and closed his eyes. His head buzzed in the silence of the room, and even the 5.32 to Paddington thundering past his window couldn't disperse his thoughts. He'd had a big day. The plan was set. His father, Paulo, had spent the last three months working on what he called ‘The Biga Wunna,’ which in fact was the ‘Firsta Wunna,’ he had ever masterminded. Paulo had only recently, reluctantly, agreed to include Bruno in on it. It was Bruno's last chance to prove to his father that he was a worthy son. Everything had been discussed over and over again, every possible problem had been dissected and resolved. Nothing could go wrong.

  If it did? Bruno's face contorted at the very thought of it.

  Bruno had a history of failure. Thus far in his thirty nine years there was little upon which he could feel comfortable reflecting. His dreams were full of abrupt awakenings, his everyday thoughts scatty, confused and poisoned by self-doubt. His future, it seemed, was doomed by his past.

  Happiness to Bruno was like a car accident: it always happened to someone else.

  In his miserable, grimy Sixties bedsit, nothing worked, even if he could find it, except for the cheap little black and white TV on the fridge, which was his eye to the world outside. Like everything static in the room, it was covered in a coat of greasy dust. Everything that moved in that flat was underneath something else that moved. The air stank of a mixture of gas, railway diesel, over cooked cabbage from the flat downstairs and general decomposition. It was a dump, a reflection of Bruno's spirit.

  Despite Bruno's dire existence, he still had the one thing that drives the human spirit. Hope.

  This hope was inspired by images of human success, which adorned the advertising billboard across the railway tracks, clearly visible from his festering bed during sleepless nights and empty days.

  Up until a week ago, the board had been used to advertise a slick, but tacky, Japanese car that was trying so hard to be a Lotus, for the man who's going places. It was a sexy, cloned, two-seater model, certain to look stupid in three years. Before that, there was a big Tarzan-like man, shaving next to a mountain stream. But now, through the grime of Bruno's window, appeared a fabulous bikini-clad woman, lying on a Caribbean beach. She liked him. She wanted him, and if he were to use that toothpaste, he could have her. Bruno stared at her for some time, doing his best to ignore the grim scenario of the room in his peripheral vision. His attraction to the woman wasn't particularly sexual, although he thought it should be. He'd had as much luck with women as he'd had with anything else in his life: but that seemed to bother his father far more than him. In fact, his only sexual experience so far was being buggered in the Wormwood Scrubs gym by a warder in 1979.

  But, after tomorrow, he could shag, or at least try to shag, who he wanted, where he wanted, and he would take them there in that spunky Japanese car, after he’d shaved and brushed his teeth. Such is hope.

  Ambition to Bruno Costaldi meant experiencing at least a glimpse of success, and success would be, just once, not to bugger something up, so he could be just like everyone else. Tomorrow was to be his big test and his last chance. His father had made that clear.

  That afternoon his father had affectionately said to him. ‘You are my son, Bruno,’ whilst pinning him against the wall.

  ‘Si Papa, I know.’

  ‘You wanna be like your Papa, huh?’

  ‘Si Papa. Of course.’

  ‘Then you do as I say. OK?’

  ‘Si Papa.’

  It had been drummed into Bruno from an early age that he should look up to his father. Paolo had arrived in England lire-less from Trieste in 1947, and had worked hard all his life to become the bitter, penniless, sixty-nine year old fascist he was. His only recorded conquest in life was the securing of a council flat in Brixton, a formidable achievement for a struggling immigrant. This conquest, according to Paulo, was the fruit of his consistent fight against injustice. Paulo's viewpoint on everything was fired by an anger and resentment at his station in life: that attitude had tripped him up on several occasions. To overcome his talent for failure, he had conjured up several prophetic, yet meaningless, catch-phrases to camouflage his ineptitude, which he duly pumped into his only son, Bruno.

  ‘A bitter man hath many blows to bear, but all in life doth bounce,’ a well-meaning priest had told him back in Italy before he set off to make his fortune in England. He often thought of the priest's advice and knew it parrot-fashion. The meaning of it was of no relevance to him, he couldn't make head or tail of it in his mother tongue and its translation into English meant even less. But he was sure it was sound Catholic advice, nonetheless, and would it stand him in good stead.

  ‘You remember, my son: 'Ees better a man hath many blows to bear, but all in life bounces. You understand?’

  ‘Si Papa.’

  ‘I am old man now. I no more time for prison. I ama not so strong these days.’

  ‘Si papa.’

  ‘Si papa, si papa...That's all you fuckina say. Get outa here. You fuck up tomorrow, you bounce. Capito?’

  ‘Si Papa.’

  Paulo had affectionately whacked Bruno across the face with his meaty little hand as a parting gesture. He could still feel the stinging glow on his cheek as he lay there on his bed, staring across at the billboard.

  His mind spun around as he recounted his father's instructions. He was hungry an
d tired, and all the information that had been pummelled into him in the previous week had become a confusing blob.

  It wasn't just the job that worried Bruno. There were another two members of the gang, Roger Booth and Paul Daherty. They were the worry.

  Paulo was well connected in the low budget, B. grade criminal underworld, but these connections were formed mainly in jail.

  The Bigga Wunna was different. He had pulled together a fresh team, using a dubious pub network of drunken deadbeat losers that nobody else would trust. Roger and Bruno had a mutual dislike for each other that dated back some five years to when they first met.

  Bruno, driving a stolen car, had accidentally collided with another stolen car driven by Roger at a set of traffic lights. The car behind Bruno was an unmarked Police car, and both of them ended up serving six months in the same jail.

  Roger, a six-foot-three brute of a man, had objected to Bruno's inclusion in The Biga Wunna on the grounds that Bruno was, quote, ‘a fucking dick head.’ But Paulo, although with reservations, had insisted his son be involved and given that it was after all Paulo's job, there was little Roger could do besides pull out himself. He had threatened to do just that, but Paulo had dissuaded him and upped his share of the booty by five percent. Roger was an important part of the gang. He had no fear, was an excellent safe-cracker and scared the shit out of anyone in his path. Also, by the time Bruno was included in the job, Roger knew every part of the plan, which could be dangerous. Roger wasn't known for his scruples.

  Bruno lay there shivering in the now dark bedsit, wondering where he would be this time tomorrow. He was going to have to spend a considerable amount of time with Roger in the next few days, with a considerable amount of money.

  Bruno held up his hand and stared at the neat scar in the centre of his palm. In jail, Roger had told him he'd read a book on the ancient art of palmistry, offered Bruno a free reading, then promptly pinned his hand to the table with a carving knife. That, Roger calmly told him, was for driving without due care and attention.

  Bruno didn't know Paul Daherty until they met at Paulo's place to plan the job, but he did know that Roger Booth and Paul Doherty had a problem with each other and they made no secret of it. It was something about Roger's estranged wife, something about a baby. Whatever, it was clear they were not the best of friends.

  Bruno, in a brief moment of bravery, had pointed this out to his father and the possible problems that could arise from so much animosity amongst the gang.

  His left eye was still slightly bloodshot from his reply.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Seymour Capital, artist.

  Seymour Capital lay on his back on the bed, eyes open, wrists crossed on his chest like a laid-out corpse. It seemed appropriate.

  He had been faking sleep whilst Polly had readied herself for work. It had been a loud thumping performance, unsuccessfully designed to instill guilt. He was now waiting for Polly to slam the front door of their flat.

  She did, harder than usual. She really meant it.

  Seymour's eyes flipped open in order to roll them, his head slightly nodding in time with the twenty-three pounding steps on the creaky wooden staircase it took for Polly to reach the main entrance door onto the street. She hadn't slammed that door for over a week now. Its fine old handmade lead-light panels threatened to give way at any moment, rattling in their now supple lead cradles with the slightest nudge, caused by years of punishment, especially since they had moved in.

  Polly loved that door and it was possibly the only thing she did love at the moment.

  Seymour sighed in defeat and stared at the ceiling that had become a familiar friend, his mind groping around to make some sort of sense of what was happening and, once more, what on earth he could do about it.

  The screaming words of insult tennis they'd had the night before, flew around his head like lotto balls. They had been delivered in frustrated anger; their content, although initially firmly diplomatic, led to one thing: he had to get a job and stop lazing around like some pointless waste of space pretending to be an artist. That hurt.

  They had always fought a lot, but somehow before it had seemed like some sort of weird foreplay to the amazing, almost violent, sex that would ultimately follow.

  Raising their hatchets so they could bury them.

  But not lately. Things had changed. She was showing signs, in Seymour's eyes anyway, of playing the dreaded feminist card. She wasn't, Polly was not a feminist: she was a woman living with a man who had no regard for her, women in general or indeed anybody. But Seymour, of course, never saw things that way.

  Things were turning sour in his life: a tedious pattern was once again emerging.

  They were broke. That was what it was all about, money. Money was something that just happened to Seymour, always had. He had never chased it nor ran from it, it had always magically turned up like a reliable friend when it was needed. Not necessarily his money, mind, but that didn't matter.

  Seymour had developed a near hatred for money and its consequences and he knew what he was talking about. He'd experienced wealth first-hand, having inherited the substantial, hard-earned fruits of his parent’s lifelong labour after they had died. It nearly killed him: he was lucky to be alive. He had blown the lot on drugs, alcohol and anything he could consume.

  That, according to Seymour Capital is what money does for you.

  He had met a few wealthy people in his time, all of whom hadn't impressed him beyond an initial, momentary mild envy. This soon dispersed when they showed the symptoms of stifled instincts, instincts trained to navigate humans through a creative life, fired by the spirit of survival. Instincts that had become lost and disorientated through boredom caused by the illusive security that money was supposed to provide.

  Take Graham Taylor, for example. Graham had won the football pools. Money had transformed him from being a miserable, machine oil-soaked lathe operator in Manchester to a miserable booze-soaked drunk in Spain living in a fly-blown fortress. He had had money at last, and no bastard was going to take it from him. Nobody did. He drank himself into a horrible lonely death.

  Then there was Crispin Bartholomew. He had inherited a fortune from various relatives and was last seen, drunk, stumbling around glitzy bars in London looking for a friend. Anyone would do.

  Then there was Shirley, a successful hairdresser who ended up with a chain of franchised salons. Seymour liked Shirley a lot and had a brief fling with her until she met Richard Bingham, who had a string of boutiques. Shirley promptly dumped Seymour and went on holiday to Majorca with Richard where they were killed in a boating accident.

  Nope, money was the most evil thing humans had ever come up with and Seymour despised it for the pain it inflicted.

  And here he was again, the dreaded money monster's hands around his neck, attempting to strangle him.

  Seymour's eyes squeezed shut as he tried to halt the spiral of doom he was in.

  Then he remembered The Vase Lady.

  He sat bolt upright, rubbed his eyes and looked across at his easel. There she was in all her glory, finished at last – well, nearly. He wasn't happy with those toes, were they too dumpy, too cherub-like for her lithe ceramic-skinned body? Maybe: but he had tried changing them before, and it didn't work, too real, made her somehow so perfect you couldn't believe her. Still, she was alive now. He had spent weeks on her. At first she was just a bog standard vase, but now that vase had become a woman that sent a shiver down his spine. He closed one eye, zoomed in on her and bit his lip. Was she too perfect? Too much like a photograph? He smiled at her. She winked at him.

  ‘That's it Seymour, I've had it! I'm quitting! You get a fucking job for a change!’

  Polly's words leapt into his brain and punched Seymour's head back down onto the pillow. Seymour closed his eyes.

  The Vase Lady watched him for a few moments, rolled her eyes and went about her business.

  Seymour's work, love it or hate it, was the only constant in his life, a
nd had been since the moment his rubbery infantile hands had smeared nail varnish on his mother's new, fit-inducing, maroon paisley wallpaper in 1958. The wallpaper had intrigued him. Staring at it close-up, unwittingly ripped on an overdose of high octane chocolate and sherbet, the strange paisley pattern seemed to move. A squirming mass of strange alien organisms writhed around as if they were trying to find a way of escaping. He had tried pencil to help them out, but the new washable wax-like surface, which had been held up as another momentous leap of mankind's ingenuity, proved impenetrable. The nail varnish was perfect: it even had its own brush.

  His mother's violent reaction had been painful yet inspiring. It flicked a switch, which ignited a fire, which engulfed his entire being. He had discovered the power of disruption through creation, a power he wanted more of and he would nurture it for its true pleasure for the rest of his days, no matter how much it hurt.

  Many a child would have thought twice about repeating that destructive act of expression, perhaps developing an allergy to nail varnish years later, maybe becoming impotent with women who wore it, or winding up wearing it with a matching dress. But to young Seymour, it was an introduction to a whole new world which was huge and safe, where he could isolate himself and feast on a diet of self-indulgence.

  Throughout his forty years, his work had driven him into deep depressions as well as exhausting, uncontrollable highs. It had kept his broken heart pumping when the several women he had pretended to love had left him, usually for other men with less selfish obsessions, and who actually produced hard cash.

  Painting occupied his dreams by day and night, gave him erections and made his rare viewers laugh, cry, hate and love him His art was his window, from which he could observe everything that was of little concern to him; where he could be smugly amused by everything out there which made everything in this strange world happen.

  He had never actually got to own the window, however, and now, again, it was becoming as fragile as Polly's buggered front door.