The survivor part 2

Chapter 4 The meeting at the planetarium

 

I,d been summoned to New York if I wanted to make it into the big leagues fast there would be no more meetings with  middlemen. 

I was told by an acquaintance that the man I am meeting always picks the strangest places to meet it was never at a diner or a restaurant but somewhere  the cops would never think to keep tabs on. 

So here I was sat on the second to back row of the Vanderbilt planetarium between shows waiting for the man to show up. I’d been waiting half an hour when I heard the door open followed by light footsteps. 

Through the darkness I could see he didn’t look like the typical movie gangster , more like someone’s kindly elderly uncle, the kind of man who does close up magic at your kids party. “ keep your eyes front” he whispered as he sat behind me it’s better we can nt identify one another, you ve seen me now but I do nt want you to get the Hollywood close up you understand me? “. I nodded in agreement.

 

“I am a stargazer “he said “it helps me keep things in prospective. 

Every evening when I am at home which is rare these days.  I go out to the garden and take a look though my telescope, I ve done it all my life it was my grandfather’s telescope he passed it on to me. 

 

I can find most of  the major constellations and the planets of the solar system with ease. Everyone knows of the 9 planets , but what they do nt  know about and I only learned after some reading on astronomy is the Ort cloud.  Its a cloud of icy debris left over from the formation of the solar system way out passed Neptune.

Its a light year from the sun at the very edge of the solar system. That means it takes a year for the light from the Sun to get their. The Earth is only eight light minutes away from the Sun so the distance further out the Ort cloud is immense.

Every so often these lumps of ice collide with one another and fall out of their distance orbits and head on at high speed towards the inner solar system that’s a comet and in ancient times they were seen as a portance of doom. 

Out in that vast orbit those big lumps of ice do no harm, but imagine if one hit this city it would flatten it more effectively than a nuclear bomb. 

If the giant asteroid had missed the Earth 65 million years ago the dinosaurs would still be here a strange thought is nt it ,cosmic events we have no control over shaped the world. Uncertainty rules our lives and none of us know the future.  The workings of the universe are much easier to understand than people , what people will do is the most uncertain thing of all. That’s why we struggle to make sense of things we are tiny in the great scheme of things , we try to make sense of things with politics and religion but no one really knows what’s going on , we ai nt really much more sophisticated than the people who drew the cave paintings 10 thousand years ago we just like to think we are. 

“My father he was an air gunner in WW2 he sat up in the turret at the back of the plane”. “Not long after the attack on pearl harbour his crew were flying over the  Pacific on a clear blue sunny day not a cloud in the sky he noticed his shoe lace was undone so he bent down to retie it at that exact moment a Japanese plane flew pass firing a volley of shots and he sat up right to find a bullet hole on either side of the turret were his head would have been if he’d not tied his laces”. 

 

“I understand you want to take one of your fighters into the big leagues and make some real money but you do nt have the cash to do this ?” If I help you you need to understand I ll own not just this fighter but 50% of the take of all your fighters in your stable and I ll have my guys come out to check the books every so often”. 

“Don’t ever think of hiding money from me not one dime”.

I knew if I ever did screw him financially it would mean a hit would be put out on me. I had heard the mob hire grey men to do these hits, men  who do nt stand out, who no one will notice in a crowd. They blend into the background, not men who look like handsome as a Brad Pitt or hideously ugly either,  they’d stand out a mile. These men you never see coming.  I am not that stupid to hide money but a business down turn I do worry about that could end in a hit to and nothing is more unpredictable than the fight business. 

These men are professionals they aren’t sickos or serial killers.I know enough to know how the mafia works. For a contract a professional will make it look an accident if they can. Shot  up a guy with to much  insulin if he’s a Diabetic or give him a shock if he’s got a weak heart they are experts at avoiding police attention. 

 

Serial killers and sickos are nt professionals are all beta males, beta males who want to be alpha males losers every last one of them .Who pray on the weak and vulnerable most of them want to be caught to gain some kind of notoriety they kill women and children and prostitutes. 

These are not the kind of men  that the family employs imagine growing up and then finding out one day your father is a monster a man who kills defenceless women and children, then comes home to his family like nothing has happened. Imagine finding all that out at ten years old ? What  would you think it would do to you ? It does bear thinking about 

 

For the professional killers used by the mafia for the most part their families never find out what they do for a living. They go through life blissfully ignorant and if your the target of one of them you just vanish and your body is never found. 

 

 

 

Chapter 5 The forgery business

 

Why does nt a Lobster climb out of a slowly boiling pot ? Is it because the water temperature is rising so slowly it can nt detect the change until it’s to late. Life’s a lot like that to a lot of people put up with miserable jobs and relationships because their job or marriage did nt start off that way they just slowly went sour overtime. 

 

An emergency is scary but it often becomes clear what to do and the survival instinct kicks in , if it does nt kick in your a goer. Some people are so dumb they ignore the don’t dive into the shallow end sign in the swimming pool or don’t put life jackets on so as  not to spoil their selfie photos on a boat  trip.  I am not one of them I am a survivor. 

 

I am definitely getting older I need to make my money and retire , enjoy the good life. I am getting   Philosophical in my old age, questioning a lot of things in life. 

Right now I need a plan b , what they call a multiple income stream not just the boxing business. 

The boxing business is to unpredictable, a golden goose like  a prospect or super star champion can lose at anytime. I do nt want to be back at square one financially at my age I need to hedge my bets. The boxing gym alone brings in a small amount of money and it’s not just fighters who train their ,there are some really interesting characters on the fringes of the fight business it attracts them. 

 

Some of the most interesting people you meet in the boxing are people who have nothing to do with the fight business at all. 

Carlo is in his mid 60s and had been coming to the gym for the last couple of months  just to get back  in shape he  preferred the atmosphere of the Boxing Gym to the up market gyms on the other side of town full of yuppies and yoga mums doing dance classes or sat on bikes which go no were listening to head phones , no one talks to anyone and everything is  computerised, mechanical and impersonal. He also had the impish sense of humour of a 13 year old schoolboy, his ringtone was “sexy over the phone” by the village people. He would let out a peel of laughter when ever his phone rang. 

 

He told me he loved its no-nonsense atmosphere of our gym .it was something he relished made him feel alive . Reminding him of his younger days as a professional footballer training with the team  back in Milan 40 years ago.

 

We sat and chatted some nights  in the diner  across the road which stayed open after the gym closed for the evening. I got to know him and his life story well,  though at beginning  I did nt believe parts of it .Carlo was a great story teller and in my life I ve met many tellers of tall tales. 

We discussed philosophy , art and culture all the things that generally weren’t hot topics at the gym. 

 

His  father and his grandfather before him both worked their whole lives in a shoe factory in a tiny village just outside Milan. He realised at an early age this was nt the type of life for him with It’s  limited horizons living off a small but liveable wage and never leaving that tiny  village except on brief holidays to the coast or to visit his auntie in the city. 

His great aunt lived to a ripe old age  made a very deep impression on him. She liked to watch the sunrise and the sunset saying “ you never know in life how many more times you get to see the sunset”. In life we get so caught up with making a living , chasing the cash or just surviving scraping by , that we sometimes forget the miracle of life and the  possibilities  it can offer. 

 

He played  football every night after school and dreamed of a better life as many school boys do coming home after practice to sleep 3 in a bed with his two brothers the family was so poor. Many school boys dream of a better life and nothing comes of it ,except for him it did happen. He was coached  at the local club starting out on the under 11,s team  which paid off and as  a teenager he played for the local football team before been scouted to play a larger club in the premier division he was nt an outstanding player but was good enough to make a very good living at it. 

He made more money in a month than his father and grandpa made  in their whole lifetime. He travelled around Europe enjoying the nightlife and the girls attention as a young player for a famous team . Then sudden ankle injury brought that life to an end just as he was starting to enjoy the perks and he had gotten use to the lifestyle. 

Luckily unlike some of his teammates He,d been smart with his money saving and investing but he wanted a new challenge and knew the money would nt last forever with his lifestyle .

He had grown into a handsome young man and did some modelling in Milan which after the excitement of football he soon tired of . As a model he still got invited to parties but now he was burning though his money fast .Never wanting to return to the small village he grew up in with its limited horizons but was unsure what to do next. So focused he had been on football it was the first time in his life he did nt know what to do next a new focus was needed.

 He got used to moving in the circles of the very rich. Those kind of people have to have everything and if they do nt have something they want , they find a way to get it. During those days of wondering aimlessly around Europe he meet a very interesting  older gentleman at a party at a Greek villa who needed someone to be a front for his unusual business, a handsome face who could soon convince people to part with large sums of money. 

 

While sat in the cafe one night he told me this story. 

In 1911 the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. It was later found and returned after the thief  tried to sell it to an art gallery in Florence or so the story goes. 

This isn’t quite the truth ,the truth is it was never found . What hangs in the Louvre is in fact a very convincing fake so convincing that for a century it’s fooled the worlds foremost art  experts and historians. 

In secret Officials high up in the  French government commissioned the best forger in Europe to create this replica in 1912 to save them from international embarrassment at the loss of this  emblem of national pride and identity. 

How do I know this? Because the man I met at the party was a second generation apprentice of the  man who created the fake. 

Fakes like this have been made for the very rich for centuries across Europe but it is a dying profession as the skills rarely get passed down these days. Some rich folks know they own a fake and do not care , they may even have commissioned it to impress their friends and visitors. Most however have to be fooled into a purchase . 

 

Over our  years together the old man taught  me the ins and outs of the forgery trade. The old man had started as a forger in his youth , originally starting in legitimate art trade selling his own pictures at  a small market on the streets of Athens after  graduating art school. 

One day  after he d only  been in trade for a few months just scratching a living ,a local  aristocrat offered to buy all his paintings on display at the market and invited him to join him for a drink in a local tavern. He told him he had a talent for art but he could see he was only making pennies selling his original art how would he like to make some real money? Then his education in selling art really began, poverty and  ambition often breeds ingenuity .  That day a partnership of mutual benefit was born. 

 

The thing about forgery is that not only must the painting authentically looked like the original artwork they must also look old , this is often over looked  by someone with no experience as a forger, but is a dead giveaway to the educated eye . 

To this end we would buy cheap old amateur paintings for pennies from local markets, always it was our intention to paint over them. This way the canvases on which he painted would be aged and the backing held together by  aged  wooden frames and rusty nails , this is the  first thing any authenticator will  check for . Turning the painting around  to see if it passed the eye test if it fails the test lit does nt matter how closely the art resembles the  original. We also had a number of  techniques for aging the canvas after it was painted on such as using a hair dryer to put cracks in the paint and rubbing on dirt and tea staining to age the surface being careful not to over do the process and ruin the picture. 

Authentication is a profession  well versed in spotting the basic errors in constructing a fake our job is to fool them using every trick in the book and even coming up with some new ones. 

Some tricks are more  psychological than technical in nature.

 

At auction houses the old man and me would pose as Father and son pretending to know nothing about art. Just blindly ignorant yokels who had happened on some art while clearing out a property for sale or similar tale of procurement.

 

We would bring a load of crappy paintings we called potboilers to sell to them. Trying to sell to more than fake at once raises suspicion, only one fake would be in the collection . We would flatter the people working there  when they spotted  good one our planted fake . The old man  turning to me saying “this man really knows about art listen to him son”. When the day of the auction arrived we would arrive early , coming in separately in disguise ,scouting out the room for potential bidders. Then we would bid against these men being careful to stop without getting too greedy or we would end up buying back the fake we were trying to sell off. I  learned this trick too he gleamed a lot of useful information from the old forger over the years. As we formed our own fake father son act. 

 

 

Creating and selling fakes is a risky business Carlo had to flee Europe a year  ago after an Italian film producer had decided to get his art collection assessed for their value. 

It turned out all of this collection were all fakes bought off of Carlo for millions of euros ,modern technology could spot the fakes were the expert eye had failed. 

When he had fled he had bought five pictures with out their frames . Luckily he was nt searched after paying of the security detail at both ends an expensive business but not worth the risk to leave to chance. 

 

I knew this was fact and not a tall tale,  because I d visited this apartment to see them. Now I know very little about art in fact you could write on the back of a cigarette packet what I know about the art world but to me these looked like five old Master paintings. 

This could be a quick money maker going into business with Carlo if I could make it work.