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part 2 of the story
The Road West

Mike Schneider

    This time, knowing each other better, trusting each other more, and none of the shine having worn off the newness of their precariously exciting relationship, they performed mattress aerobics for three hours. At first they ravaged each other, their mutual, day long, pent up desires incapable of seeking anything but relief. Later they partook of the whole smorgasbord, attaining a different type of fulfillment. When it was over they were exhausted.
    Around noon on Tuesday with Alexis driving, to make conversation she said, “Actually, Becky doesn’t live in Cheyenne anymore. She’s about 30 miles away but I’ll drive you into town to your apartment.”
    “Thanks. Where does she live?”
    “A little place called Burns.”
    “Goddam son-of-a-bitch!”
    “W-what’s the matter?” she stuttered, her muscles tightening as she jerked her foot from the accelerator and quickly looked ahead to see if something was in the road, then at the instrument panel to check for warning lights.
    “You’re after the fucking Memling!”
    Alexis sharply sucked in her breath, a small sound coming from her throat when she did.
    “Oh shit,” she said.
    After a couple minutes of silence, she said, “So what do we do now?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Several minutes later he said, “How’d you find out about it?”
    “Probably like you did. I saw it in the ad on the computer, where the pictures where displayed overlapping on a shelf. Only about a third of it was visible but I recognized it as the missing Memling right away.”
    “Yeah, same here,” he said. ‘“Portrait of a Young Man,’ painted by Hans Memling in the 1400s, stolen by the Nazis in Italy in 1944, never to be seen again. The auctioneer has no idea what it is or he would have stated it and shown the whole thing. Or more likely, sent it to New York or London. I doubt very many art dealers saw the ad as it’s just a run-of-the-mill estate auction, and not a particularly good one at that.
    “Alright,” he continued. “Let’s see what we can do. I think we have the makings of a profitable business partnership, and a dynamite personal relationship going on that I don’t want to lose if we can save it. Ok so far?”
    “Go on.”
    “What say we totally level with each other. If you promise to do that, I’ll go first.”
    “I’ll do that.”
    “Ok. I’m an art thief. I was planning to steal the Memling and sell it to an art forger whom I have sold to in the past. It’s quite small, only 12 x 9 inches, and far from Memling’s best work, but the added mystery surrounding the provenance, and the fact that two other paintings from the same robbery have already surfaced, adds to its value. My guy says he’ll pay $10,000.”
    He let out a long breath.
    “You’re turn.”
    “I’m an art forger. I was planning on buying it, selling two, maybe three, forgeries. I’m thinking about $20,000 apiece. I don’t think it will sell at the auction for more than $25 or $50, if that.”
    “You can forge a black-and-white painting like that?”
    “The hardest thing with a painting that old is to get the canvas right, or whatever it’s painted on such as wood, parchment, silk, or something else. I’ve taken three courses in restoration so while it will be new for me, I’m fairly well prepared.
    “Doing the painting won’t be a problem. I’ve successfully forged a pair of Lhasa Apsos by Walter A. Weber, the National Geographic artist of the 1940s. I gave the seller $350 for the original, sold my forgery to a Weber collector in Maine who had 18 other paintings by him, paid $2900 and never batted an eye.
    “No kidding.”
    “Yes, and I’ve done better than that.”
    “How so?”
    “With a Lynn Bogue Hunt picture of a fanning peacock that was used for a Murad cigarette ad—”
    “The wildlife artist from the 1920s.”
    “Yes, from the ‘20s through the ‘40s. I bought it at a flea market for $15, the buy of a lifetime, made two forgeries. Sold one online to a rich clothing manufacturer in Sri Lanka for $6500. The other went to a tobacco planter in Turkey for $5000.”
    “Damn, Alexis. I’m impressed.”
    She smiled and winked.
    Neither said anything for about 10 minutes, then they both tried to speak at the same time.
    “Maybe—”
    “How about—”
    “I yield to the lady.”
    “Maybe we could work together. Are you really good at stealing art?”
    “Haven’t failed yet.”
    “Anything I might be familiar with?”
    “The Stagler Museum two years ago? ‘Sisters,’ the Paul Klee watercolor?”
    “Holy shit!”
    “Yeah, that was my best but I’ve gotten a lot of other good ones. I’m on the skids now because I paid $490,000 cash for my dad’s cancer treatments. He lived but it used up all my savings and operating money. I don’t have a job, I just do what I’m good at. By the way, my parents think I’m a legitimate art wheeler dealerÉin case you ever meet them.”
    “I guess you would be a pretty decent guy if you could stop the kidnapping and car thieving,” she laughed.
    He smiled.
    “What I’m thinking is there’s a preview Thursday and Friday in advance of the Saturday auction,” he said. “I can case the place Thursday afternoon, get the painting Thursday night. We can take off for Ohio as soon as we have it.”
    “You don’t think it would be better to buy it?”
    “No. There’s no guarantee of getting it. For all we know two dealers may have seen it, they could bid it up into the thousands.”
    “You’re right. We’ll check it out Thursday.”
    “No. I will. We don’t want you being seen by anyone there who might remember you or think we’re connected. I’ll case the place by myself. Since we’re still building trust, you can finally get your nap in the back seat while I go inside. Then at night you’ll drop me off about a half mile from the auction. I’ll walk there, get it, and walk back. And starting now we turn our phones off and take the batteries out, don’t put the batteries back in until we’re at least 300 hundred miles out of Cheyenne heading to Ohio. We don’t want a hit on a cell tower putting either of us anywhere in the area.”
    “You really know how to do this, Jeff. You cover all the bases. Our skills complement each other nicely. I think we might be a winning team.”
    “If you get to call me Jeff, I get to call you Lexi.”
    “I like Lexi. It’s what I go by.”
    They arrived in Cheyenne about 10:30 Wednesday morning, checked into a motel, had an early lunch, picked up a few large shirt boxes from the post office to make a larger box for the painting, if necessary, then took in the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum, and the Nelson Museum of the West. Both had some great western art and bronzes, but they spent most of their time at the Nelson, checking the colors, techniques, and materials used by earlier western artists whose work they might run across someday. Afterward they browsed an hour or so at the Cheyenne Artists Guild perusing the current local talent. Then, following an early dinner at a mid-range steakhouse they picked up throwaway phones at a truck stop, and went back to their motel for the evening.
    Thursday they got up around noon, showered, went to lunch.
    The Thursday preview was from 4 to 8. They left their motel in Cheyenne right at 4. A couple miles from the auction house he had Lexi stop and get in the back seat.
    “You need to stay down now until I tell you it’s safe to get up, when we’re on the way back. No matter what happens do not get up. Don’t even try to peek out. And don’t worry if I take a good while. I have to look over many items to appear I’m more interested in other things than I am in art. Also, sometimes I happen into conversations and get leads on other promising pieces.”
    “Ok,” she said.
    Inside there were 15 or 20 people milling about, some going from table to table, picking things up, looking them over, and laying them back down. Others were more interested in furniture, mainly a mission oak desk, desk chair, and a couple rockers. A cut glass punch bowl drew attention. So did a set of Nippon Noritake china, handpainted service for eight from the early 1900s. Cheap, modern decorator items—Pier 1 Imports and T.J. Maxx type stuff—plus a few Longaberger baskets, garnered more attention than any of the other things. He concentrated on the decorator pieces, setting himself up as not having much of an eye for better quality items, should anyone be observing.
    The 10 framed pictures were sitting on the shelf, as shown in the ad. He picked up each one, held it at arm’s length for three or four seconds, looked at both the front and back, then set it neatly back in place. Sitting on the floor at the end of the shelf, and not shown in the ad, was an above-the-davenport size cheap cardboard print of Robert Wood’s “October Morn.” He looked at it longer than the others, again to show he didn’t have an eye for quality. As he was about to move on he heard a lady behind him with a very deep voice say, “I surely hope you are not thinking of bidding on that.”
    He turned around, the voice being that of a short, squat woman who appeared to be in her mid-50s, with unkempt white hair surrounding a square face with thin lips, and deep set brown eyes that pretty much got lost in her very dark eye sockets.
    “Actually, I was. I take it you are, too.”
    “Oh yes. It’s one of my favorite paintings.”
    “Well, I think you’re in luck. As much as I like the painting I haven’t seen enough here that makes it worth my while to come back.”
    She smiled and moved off in another direction while Jeff walked to a Coke machine, put a dollar in it, then stood next to it quenching his thirst and looking around.
    No security cameras inside or out. No inside lock on either the front or back door. The front one had a padlock outside in addition to the normal lock in the door handle. He could pick both and be inside in less than five minutes.
    The only thing that bothered him was a man standing by a 1950s chrome, Formica, and yellow vinyl kitchen set, wearing light blue denim trousers, an even lighter blue and white lined seersucker sport coat with a white turtle neck under it. About 50 years old, he guessed, probably 6 foot tall, couldn’t weigh more than 160, with true salt-and-pepper hair, and a thin but dark unibrow above brown eyes behind tortoise shell horn rimmed glasses. Having been in this line of work for ten years, he could readily spot other art dealers. They all seemed to have a certain look, a quiet and unassuming expression while at the same time exhibiting a slight but recognizable air of confidence that indicated they knew something most others didn’t. Jeff, himself, had to constantly guard against looking the same way. It was that so few people truly knew anything about art beyond a few names like Rembrandt, Picasso, and Thomas Kinkade, plus most wouldn’t know a reproduction from an original if it was written on it.
    He made a mental note the man was going to be disappointed on Saturday, went back to the van and told Lexi it was a go.
    “But don’t get up,” he said.
    “I won’t. This is exciting.”
    “Really? Are you sure it’s not that you’re thinking about last night?” he said jokingly.
    “It’s both. Let’s get to the motel. The sooner the better!”
    They checked out at 10:30, she stopped a half mile from the auction house.
    “I should be back in less than 45 minutes. If I’m not back in an hour, leave, go back toward Cheyenne, and when you get about 10 miles from here, call me. Don’t give your name, simply ask, ‘How are you doing?’ If I call you any other name than Lexi, hang up as it means we have a problem. Go back to Cheyenne, get a room at a different motel,” he said.
    “But what will you do?”
    “It’s not so much what I’ll do as what you’ll do. Tomorrow afternoon, say around 2, drive several miles from the motel, call the sheriff’s office and report me as a missing person. Say you’re looking for your boyfriend, Jeff Patchett, P-A-T-C-H-E-T-T, that we’re on vacation, you haven’t seen me since yesterday evening, and you’re afraid something has happened to me. If I’m there they will tell you. Ask what I did, and when they say what I’m charged with, inquire about bail. If it’s within reason, arrange with a bail bondsman to get me out. If it’s not, go back to Ohio and I’ll join you when and if I can. Where is your Bob Evans?”
    “But I don’t want to leave you.”
    “Well, I don’t think I’m going to have a problem but we have to be ready for the worst case scenario. If worse comes to worst, I’ll write you in care of the Bob Evans and mark it personal. Oh, and if a deputy sheriff comes here while I’m getting the painting, act embarrassed, tell him you’re meeting your boss, who is a married man. If he asks about the license plate, you just moved from Ohio. Now, where’s the Bob Evans?”
    “Willowick.”
    “I’m only going to need one box he said and grabbed one from the back. They shared a long, romantic kiss before he got out of the van and began walking.
    At the auction house there was a car in the parking lot. He checked it. Unoccupied. No problem. As he had guessed, he easily picked the locks, pocketed the padlock so no one could lock him in, and went inside. He left the lights off as there were a couple night lights that allowed him to find the picture. When he picked it up to slide it in the box, all the lights came on and an unmistakable fog horn voice bellowed, “Leave it there, it’s mine.”
    Jeff spun around, saw the short, frizzy haired “October Morn” woman standing about 50 feet away, toward the back of the building.
    “You were going to steal it?”
    “Yes, and I was here first.
    She didn’t have a weapon so he tucked both the painting and the box under his arm and bolted for the front door, opened it, sped through, slammed it shut and locked it with the padlock.
    “Whew,” he said, turned around and was face to face with the seersucker sport coat guy, who was holding a revolver.
    “Jesus Christ! You guys are coming out of the woodwork!”
    “Hand it over and we won’t have a problem. You can go on your way.”
    “Sure,” Jeff said, “Here you go,” and tossed the painting straight up about 10 feet in the air.
    “My God!” the man yelled and caught it coming down but in doing so dropped his gun. Quick as lightning Jeff grabbed the pistol before it even hit the ground, their roles now reversed.
    “Slide it into the box and hand it to me, any shenanigans and I’ll fucking shoot you.”
    The man did as he said.
    “You’re welcome to leave any time after I do,” Jeff said, then walked away and shot two tires on each of the two cars that were now in the parking lot.
    He never saw the man or the woman again and ran back to the van in six minutes, hopped in and said, “Drive.” Once past the auction house he pulled the painting from the box for her approval.
    “Look at that, fits like a glove,” he said.
    “So cool.”
    About five miles down the road he asked her to stop so he could get out, slip the painting under the rear seat, set the still flat extra boxes on top of it. He also wiped the gun clean of prints and once back in the van tossed it as far into a wheat field as he could.
    An hour later their hearts raced when the flashing lights of a highway patrol car came on behind them.
    “Oh God, Jeff, I’m scared!”
    “Just play it cool.”
    After checking Lexi’s driver’s license and registration, one of the two troopers asked, “Do you mind if we let our drug dog, Max, sniff around your vehicle?”
    Lexi looked at Jeff, questioningly.
    “Your van. You don’t mind, do you?”
    “Of course not, nothing to hide.”
    “Thank you, ma’am.”
    They finished in less than 10 minutes.
    “Ok. You’re good. Thanks for your cooperation, you can be on your way. We had a tip but it obviously wasn’t about you,” the cop said with a smile.
    “Thank you for keeping us safe, officer.”
    They drove another two hours east, destroyed their throwaway phones, stopped at a 24-hour grocery, to buy a couple bottles of wine, and a can of cream of chicken soup Jeff wanted for breakfast, found a motel, and began the celebration.
    They stayed up until 6 a.m., toasting, “To a long, prosperous, and exciting relationship,” between bouts of intense carnal adventures, after which they slept like hibernating bears.
    Jeff awoke at four o’clock that afternoon, lay very still in the bed so as not to wake Lexi while he mulled over everything that had happened in the past six days—the tense excitement of a heist nearly gone bad, the huge payoff they would get from Lexi’s talents, their extraordinary relationship that had gone from hostile to wonderfully intimate in the space of but a few hours. Life would be special from here on out and he couldn’t wait to get started on it.
    He reached over to gently wake his new love but his hand found only an empty bed. He looked around the room, no box, no suitcase, no sign of her ever having been there. He jumped up and rushed to the window, the van was gone, too. His heart sank. He had a notion this might happen but thought he was better prepared for it. He sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes collecting his thoughts. He had been so looking forward to a life with Lexi, sharing their special skills, loving each other into eternity. He put his face to the pillow and sheet on her side to breathe in her scent one last time, a tear running down his cheek when he sat up.
    He sat there a few more minutes. Then, in need of a shower to clear his mind, he padded to the bathroom where he was greeted by a lipstick rendering on the mirror of a van heading eastbound, whoosh lines alongside and behind it, and a caption below that read:
Jeff,
    I enjoyed everything but always work alone.
Sorry,
Lexi
    He sighed, pulled the shower curtain back, turned on the cold water.
    Having gotten some great sleep Friday morning, the kind you get only when totally exhausted, Lexi drove five hours before stopping at a motel. Once in her room she opened the box to admire her prized painting that would make her a pile of money, but all she found was a can of Campbell’s cream of chicken soup taped to the bottom, and a note:
Lexi:
    I was so sure we had a wonderful relationship that was going to last but like you said, I cover all bases.
Jeff

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