by Sean Lewis
AIMEE HAYES
Artist
If a piano were playing it would seem like an austere romance.
An awkward girl and a museum on the other side of town. She goes and sits in the same room and looks at the same painting over and over. It’s modern but it looks like Botticelli. Vibrant color. Flowing lines. Classical images. In this case. It’s just a face of another beautiful girl.
And a guard. Her age. Tall and lanky with a soft smile. He notices her. She comes at the same time each week and stares at the same painting. And he imagines she likes art as much as him.
And she does. She loves art. She paints, herself. Her friends paint. One friend? Is one of the greatest painters in the world right now.
And as she leaves, the guard smiles and waves to her. And this time he gets brave and he says, “I’ll see you next Tuesday.”
It’s always Tuesday when she comes.
I know because the girl is me. And this? It would be MY austere romance. Except, I’m not admiring the painting.
*
MICHAEL USLUM
Literary Fan
Now, if this was an old storybook romance- not like for kids, but in the kinda smutty paperbacks my granddad used to get- they’d tell you the girl I notice at work is named Aimee. She dropped her wallet once. And her ID came out. She grabbed it really fast but I could see.
Aimee.
With the second e, like it’s French. Fuck, man. Those paperbacks would let you know, I am all about that. French means good taste. It means great food and better art. And respect.
A respect for beauty.
And Aimee is beautiful. Now, that pulp book would tell you my name is Michael. It’d say, Michael never held a job for much time. School was a bore. Not because he lacked the intellectual dexterity but because he felt the subject matter was ill-conceived. School was a holding station for jobs, and jobs were a holding station for death. And once you were on that road there was usually no stopping.
So… I decided to wait. Wait for a different train to hop. And that train, I felt was Aimee.
See, I like to think of my life as a book. And Tuesday is when the book comes alive. Because it’s when I’m at the museum. Which… is my favorite place. I want to be a writer. And I would always look at art when I wanted to put words to paper. School wasn’t inspiring but an art museum… absolutely. It was the best part about getting a job here.
Was.
And then came Aimee.
*
AIMEE HAYES
Artist
Tuesday is when I go because there are less people. The Draymont Museum has two floors and fifteen rooms. It has two guards. And they move between the rooms at a slow space. You usually have fifteen minutes between shifts.
It’s enough time to get a glass case unscrewed. Or to get a picture off the wall. Fifteen minutes is a long time. I dress nice, but with running shoes. I deaden the soles so they won’t squeak on the floor. I pack a few simple tools inside of my lipstick in my bag. I don’t put on a lot of make up or anything that is noticeable. These are all things I learned from googling “stealing art.” It seems to be going as planned except for this one thing…
The one thing is the guard.
“See you on Tuesday,” he said.
Is he onto me? Is he watching my schedule? Does he know what this is all about?
No.
Not possible.
No one knows what this is all about.
-
This is about Azrael Paart. Of the Azrael Paart Gallery. At 75 years old, he is the most powerful man in the modern art world. He owns five galleries internationally (Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, Brussels, Tokyo). He is a former hedge fund manager, who in his 30s found art.
What he means is he found another inflated market that could be influenced by people with enough power. Art is a haven for tax fraud. It’s a place to put money and watch it grow. Traditional investing, you say. But with no one in the government who understands what the fuck it is, and therefore no one to police it.
Azrael is also the biggest artist agents in the world. People he represents can become millionaires. They can become NY Times cover stories if they have that special je ne sais quoi. Or as we call them- tits. And I hate him.
He… is also dangerous. Or so the rumors go. One partner who disappeared. One wife that had a car crash. One rival who fell off a balcony.
But I hate Simone Kent more. His most recent protégée. His cover story.
Simone was my best friend. We came up in art school together. Cooper Union. We sold our paintings on the boardwalk of Coney Island together. We were roommates. We were…
Sorry, I’m not ready to go there. Not just yet. I will. But not yet. But… we were something.
And now she is represented by Azrael. She also lives with him. Fucks him. Shares her life with him. She’s 27. And funny, she’s now the biggest thing in the art world.
And this museum I go to each Tuesday? It has one of the first paintings she sold.
MATCHBOOKS.
Azrael does not own this one. This is a smaller affair. They lucked into this “find.”
The “find” is a small frame of matchbooks, the artist pieced together from dingy NY clubs and then painted a beautiful and ornate Botticelli inspired girl on its faces.
Fuck Azrael. And fuck Simone. And fuck me, I guess. Because what I am about to do is crazy.
Flash forward to next Tuesday.
I had already packed up my place. I was going to get the object and disappear. Go back to my mundane life. I work at a goddamn coffee shop. But I’d go back with the matchbooks in my possession.
I arrived. Pants, baseball hat. No over the shoulder bag. But a large coat with a pocket on the side large enough for the painting.
I go in and I am pleasant to the front desk. I remember the rules I read on Reddit (r/artheist). Be polite. No conversation, but nice and boringly pleasant. People forget nice. Double check all the emergency exits. Notice where they lead to: a courtyard? A parking lot? The fenced-in back? If you need to use one as an escape, do you have an idea where they lead?
Make sure there are no security cameras.
If there are, look closely at the wires. Are they plugged in or just decoys? Lots of museums don’t have enough funding to run constant surveillance. The cameras serve as a Foucault-ian deterrent. He was a French philosopher who said people behave better when they believe they might get caught. I’m paraphrasing. But that’s basically what everything is nowadays anyway. A paraphrase.
And watch the guards. Know their schedules.
Lastly, wait until the room is empty. And then break out your tools, a utility knife from my art studio.
I have fifteen minutes till the security guard comes back, I start to work on the glass case. And then I hear-
“It’s a beautiful piece.”
*
MICHAEL USLUM
Literary Fan
I want to live life like a book. My favorite book?
It’s THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak.
It’s a great book, this girl Liesel’s foster family is hiding a Jewish man during World War II. This man is named Max and he teaches the girl to read and write. And she starts to realize the power that has, right? And so, she starts going out and stealing banned books. And she goes in the basement and reads the books and she starts to write her own story. And there’s this one quote, I think about it all the time working in the museum-
‘The point is, it didn’t really matter what the book was about.
It was what it meant that was important.’
I am surrounded by paintings every day. And I don’t know a ton about art. But the pieces that grab my eye at work- I go home and look them up.
I find out what they are about. The story. The story intoxicates me. I would do anything for a story. So when I see her, Aimee, back again in a hat and non-descript outfit… I follow her from a distance. Every Tuesday? There is a story to that. And when she goes into the same room she always goes to, I know she will wait until it empties out and then she will go to the southeast corner of the room and look at the painting, the same one I noticed my first day of work… the matchbook painting.
And she will spend her whole time there.
Why?
What is the story? And… how can I be a part of it? At home, my parents think I’m a fool. I read all day. I dream. I want adventure. I work near art because at least it’s inspiring. They don’t think I’ll ever do anything extraordinary.
Maybe I won’t, but there is something about this girl. I come into the room early, ignoring my shift.
And there Aimee is, picking up the glass case that covers the matchbook. She puts it to the side. Pockets the painting and goes.
She doesn’t waste time putting the glass case back or switching something else into its place. She just moves and I call out to her-
“It’s a beautiful piece.”
She is off at that point. Walking fast and me following, she gets to a side entrance, it leads to the back courtyard- and the courtyard leads to woods and a hill.
She breaks through a mother holding hands with her young son, forcing them to collapse their grip, and she is out the door and she is running.
And so am I.
*
AIMEE HAYES
Artist
The guard.
This asshole.
He stumbles in a divot in the ground. I was out here a night ago. I took pics. I knew the landscape. The details. The details are everything.
It’s enough. I get to the woods. And the way the museum is set up, its back field leads to a steep hill. And once you’re into the hill… you’re gone.
And that’s me. I am gone. And I am not going back. Not to that place. I have plotted and planned another heist. This time in Europe. I took the last of the school loan money I had and plotted a trip. The matchbox painting, I immediately hid in the ceiling above my bed at home.
I needed some spending money. I had a week left at my barista gig. I wasn’t worried. It was on the other side of the Valley. Far. No one would just randomly make their way over here.
Even still, I wore hats every day. I chopped my hair down. I started wearing makeup again. Just become a different person for a week. And… I didn’t make eye contact with anyone.
“Triple Latte.”
“Here.”
“Espresso.”
“Here.”
Arm jutting out while I looked down, eyes focused on the cash register.
“Just a coffee. Black.”
“Here.”
“Thanks do you have any-“
“Napkins are to the right.”
“And matches?”
I stopped.
“What?”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. No. Not right now. I am so close. I say-
“No. But we have straws-“
“Take your break. Now. And go out back.”
It’s him. It’s the guard. The one who chased me.
“Look, I don’t know who you think I am-“
When Jarvis, a co-worker/moron, called from the back-
“Aimee, did you get this order?”
The guard looks at me.
“Go out back. Alone. No scene. Okay?”
I take off my apron. I put it on the counter. I’m going to fucking jail. I walk past Jarvis-
“So… did you or did you not get the order?”
That’s when I shoved him into the creamer.
“Fuck.”
I let my hair down. The back door was glowing. The most beautiful light, the sun was at that perfect angle where it doesn’t shine through, it just embodies. So the entire back wall of glass was illuminated. I couldn’t see what was on the other side.
I started to choke up a bit, but centered myself.
“Fuck’em,” I thought.
And I threw open the door. To face whatever cops or whatever else was out there.
*
MICHAEL USLUM
Literary Fan
Me.
It’s just me.
Michael.
I’m at the back of the building, it doesn’t face anything. Walled in by trees. No sightline to the road.
“So…” Aimee said. She looked around. Expecting someone to bust her.
“What did you do with it?” I say.
“Are you wired? Or this just some vigilante thing. You got me. Okay. Nice work.
How did you even find me-“
A piece of paper. She never used her real name in the eighteen months she had been visiting the Azrael Gallery. But I went through more of the logs until I found someone who signed Aimee.
Aimee Henry.
I then paid for a true background report. Got her address. Got her job.
“You have to be kidding me,” she said.
“Why did you do it?” I was sincere when I asked. I think she could feel that.
“The woman who made that painting...”
“Yes?”
“I know her.”
“What does that mean?”
“You won’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I was friends with her. Best friends. We were the closest you can be to a person.”
I knew the person she talked about. Everyone did. Simone Kent. She was in magazines. She also was assumed to be having copious amounts of sex with the octogenarian the gallery was named after.
“And?”
“She did things to me she shouldn’t have. She took from me. Deeply.”
“And so you were taking back,” I said.
She nodded. I loved the metaphor. I loved her. I loved the book I was seeing in my head. The adventure. Fuck it. You go for it sometimes.
“So what now?” She asked.
You dive. Even if you know you could crack your head. Because it’ll make you feel alive. So, I handed her a gift, wrapped up in a rag.
She opened it.
What NOW? This was my answer.
*
AIMEE HAYES
Artist
It was a single matchbook with a bird painted on it. I recognized it immediately.
“Where did you get this?” I asked him.
“It wasn’t on display,” he says. “It was in the private holdings in the back. I just
traded it with another matchbox with a bird on it. I had a guy down by the beach
do it for five dollars. Take it.”
I didn’t understand. Why was he helping me? Was this a plot to get me deeper in trouble.
“What are you doing? I mean, why did you do this?” I ask.
“Can I ask you something,” he said. “I read about things like this. Heists.”
“It wasn’t a heist.”
“Robberies. Things like this and they are never one-offs. There is always more.
So, for you. Is this it? Or will there be more?”
If I say no, does he assume I am changed and let me off with a slap on the wrists? I’m so discombobulated by his approach. It’s so awkward. He isn’t threatening. He just watches me. Close. But his face is open, like he is really listening. He has dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Nothing about him reads as cool. He is handsome. And clearly he seems very smart. But his interest, his questions, I’m so disarmed…
“Just tell me the truth,” he says. “Is this it?”
And I look at the matchbox and I look up at him and say- “no. It’s not. It’s not even the beginning.”
I extend the matchbook back to him.
“Any other questions?” I say.
And he nods.
“I won’t tell anyone. But if you’re going to do more of these, take me with you.”
*
MICHAEL USLUM
Literary Fan
The Artful Dodger.
Irene Adler.
Robin Hood.
I’d always loved to read about thieves. Biographies, too: Willie Sutton. Harry King. Frank Abagnale. Thieves were bored but smart. They usually saw their parents and loved ones robbed blind by legitimate businesses and legal governments. They saw the scam and they went for something bigger.
See, I got that part. The adventure of being a thief. I don’t want to be an accountant. I don’t want to analyze data. I don’t want to sit in the same room for six years, to apply for a new position at another place to sit in what could’ve been the same exact room, just in a different city.
I wanted to live. I wanted to love. I wanted to have a life that felt like a movie. And I’m not stupid. My assumption is you get caught. Everyone gets caught. But if you do it interestingly enough… that’s the key… if you’re interesting then it gets forgiven. You make a book or a movie. You make a legend.
And I had read on Azrael. He was a fucking con man. He worked in wealth management at Goldman Sachs. He didn’t love art. He had clients with so much money, they couldn’t hide it, they needed tax breaks and they were so greedy they thought their money should appreciate while they were hiding it!
He started with the fucking 1031 law. Buying art to avoid taxes. Many wealthy art collectors can, and do, save millions in taxes by essentially rolling over their profits from selling their collection pieces into buying more art. So as your collections earn you millions, you avoid taxes by just buying more art.
And Azrael, knowing money and not knowing art, realized it was just a market. If money flooded into it, it would artificially raise prices. If he had a client who owned minor works of Van Gogh, but then sold them to another client for a huge markup? The first client just raised the price of all minor Van Goghs, while the second client hid his tax money in a market he just created.
And now bankers hiding money were creating their own market! They made offshore companies for their clients and art became gold. They were using artworks to disguise the source and ownership of illegally acquired wealth. This is achieved by buying and selling artwork, inflating their prices, or hiding their true ownership through various means, such as offshore companies or anonymous trusts.
And that wasn’t enough! Now you had all these assholes knowing nothing about art, using them like pirate booty, who still wanted to pay even less tax. So, if the government did stumble onto who owned some of the art bought by these companies, the owner would then make a fractional donation.
They donate their Basquiat for part of the year to a museum and write the motherfucker off. And the government knows less about art then these fucking bankers, so they just let it slide.
But, Azrael…
He started to think he did know about art. And he already understood how to dictate the market of art. So… he made galleries. And he made careers. And he fucked a bunch of pretty painters.
And pre-internet, no one even noticed because regular people could give a shit about art. But… now. He was an octogenarian with a 27-year-old girlfriend. A girlfriend who was the biggest artist since Warhol. It didn’t even feel like stealing. It felt necessary. I mean just look at them-
Or look at just her…
I don’t care that she’s a woman or successful. She’s a great painter. I care that they flaunt it. And… I care that Aimee cares.
And Aimee cares a lot.
*
AIMEE HAYES
Artist
I could have run from Michael. That was an option. But part of me didn’t know how to do this on my own. And he researched. He analyzed. He had worked in a gallery and understood things we should look for.
And we could pool our money together. The newspaper wrote about the matchbook painting being stolen. But there were no leads. They interviewed Michael. He gave a description that wasn’t me. Another woman. Another look.
He quit saying that the job no longer felt comfortable. And the police, after questioning him and doing a search of his place dismissed him as a suspect. He told his parents he was going to school. Overseas.
And the two of us bought sunglasses and hoodies and Michael sent ahead plans for tools that he could print on a 3D printer when we got to Brussels. And we went.
The only thing I brought?
The matchbook painting.
With Simone Kent’s name on it.
*
SIMONE KENT
Phenom
Do you remember that movie SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION? It was a play first, my mom said. She did community theater in Minnesota. I’m from Minnesota. But now… well, now. I grew up in Duluth. And the movie it had this one scene, I saw it as a girl, and I remember. The guy from the tv show 24? Kiefer something… my dad watched that… well that actor’s dad he played an art dealer. And he had this painting.
A Kandinsky. And the thing about the Kandinsky?
Is it’s painted on both sides.
The same canvas with radically different perspectives. I remember seeing that on local cable as a girl. Stuck on a channel, bored, listening to these adults talk about boring shit like race and sex and gender and art.
But the painting.
I always remembered the painting. Both sides.
I want to paint. And I want to live a nice life. And I want to forget where I came from.
I want no past. Like a painting. I want it covered in color. And like a painting, what you hear is a matter of perspective.
I was with Aimee. And then I saw an opportunity to be bigger than her. Bigger than me. Bigger than life.
I believed it. I believed in the work I would see, more than Aimee ever did. So, I took it and left. In the middle of the night.
And this man found me. A small showing off the sidewalks from Art Basel. Just paintings on a beach blanket. And he was nice and he smiled and he liked me. And I sold him a painting. And he said-
“You could get so much more for these.”
And I said “how much more?”
And he said, “come with me.”
And I wrapped up that blanket of paintings and I followed. Not to a gallery or a show. But to a different life. So do I love him? Yes, man. I love him like you don’t believe. I mean ask yourself honestly… Who the fuck have you ever dated that changed your life?
Now, you get it.
But I love Aimee, too. But we do the things we have to do.
Both sides, remember.
Kandinsky. Or us.
Same story.
Both painted on both sides.
*
AIMEE HAYES
Artist
Cut to the next heist. Michael has planned it.
“Azrael has said his favorite painting in the Brussels museum is THE PENITENT.
It’s a large painting.”
“I just want Simone’s work.”
“THE PENITENT was painted by an inmate at a prison near Luxembourg. He
waited for the guy to die to buy it for pennies. The family said they were robbed
by Azrael.”
“Simone has a portrait. The Sad Girl.”
“We should take both.”
“I only care about The Sad Girl.”
“It’s fine. I have a plan.”
Michael had scanned the museum and its hours. The morning shift starts at 9am. There is one guard on duty. The museum assistant arrives at 8:45am. The guard lets them in and then there is 15 minutes before it opens.
“There’s never a line out front. It’s not like people are waiting for it to open. I
watched it for five days. People came in at 9:17, 9:17, 9:11, 9:23 and 9:53!!!! 9:53 is
like an hour.”
“So?”
“We go early. We step in when the assistant who works there arrives, assuming
that person is a guest. And we say we are leaving town at 9. Catching a train.”
“They let us in…”
“At 8:45am. We then have 15 minutes alone in the museum and on average
another 15 minutes before anyone from the outside world enters.”
I’d make conversation with the guard and Michael would go upstairs to The Penitent. At some point, I’d leave the guard and he instinctively would go upstairs, as well, wondering why we split up. I would then make a bee-line for the back hall. Small objects. There I would find the Simone Kent painting.
We’d leave through separate exits. We had rented electrical bikes. We’d then ride them a few miles of different back roads to the rental car.
And once at the car, we headed for the border.
Literally.
*
MICHAEL USLUM
Literary Fan
Except.
She pretended she didn’t know me! We rushed up. I was a second behind her. But as the assistant to the gallery went to the door and was let in, we both made it to the door.
“Oh, we- uh- we open in 15 minutes.”
“I have a train to catch. I just wanted to see the Small Object exhibit.”
“And you’re together?”
“No.”
What was I going to say?
“I’m here for school. I saw people come to the door.”
“Oh. Well. I guess. Yes. Come in.”
The guard scoped me immediately. But then Aimee asked him about the train.
“So, if I needed to get to Vienna? I get the train and it will just go there?”
I had no idea what she was doing but I headed upstairs. The curator called to me-
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Yup, my professor told me.”
“Okay.” The curator glanced at the guard but I was already halfway up the stairs.
The Penitent was bigger than I expected. It was the picture of a man, naked and curled into a ball in a high-ceilinged prison, a singular heavenly spotlight shining upon him. And when you looked VERY closely, the darkness had the impression of faces in it, watching him.
Inmates not chosen by God.
I had printed up art tools for us at a local shop, paid in cash. I start to cut the painting down. I didn’t bring a tube to store it, so I’d have to roll it and run.
*
AIMEE HAYES
Artist
The guard and I split up and he immediately went upstairs. Which was good, I had bought time for Michael. He should have the picture down and heading for the south fire exit.
I now made my way to the small objects room. And there I saw it. The Sad Girl.
It was a portrait of ME.
Surprise. I had dyed my hair and pulled it up.
I then pulled out the tools Michael made for me on the printer and started to take the picture off the wall. And then I looked up and realized- the curator’s office looked into the space. And he was looking right at me.
Fuck the tools. I tore it off and I RAN.
*
MICHAEL USLUM
Literary Fan
Now, the boy? I was upstairs.
I had taken the painting off the wall and dropped it from the second floor window. I thought I’d then exit and grab it on my way out-
But there was the guard.
“Which painting were you looking for, for your class?”
“The Penitent. It’s amazing.”
“Why don’t you show me?”
I was panicked.
“Uh… sure.”
We started to walk back. I eyed the guard up and down. He had no weapon on him.
We were passing the window I had dropped the painting out of. I could push him, hard and fast, send him through the window until he crashed on the ground possibly killing him.
But the thieves I had always read about in the pulps my grandmother collected, they did anything to get away. I wasn’t going to be any different.
I prepped to shove him when we heard a yell from downstairs-
“THIEF.”
Aimee.
The guard took off running. And I went out the window my damn self.
*
AIMEE HAYES
Artist
I ran past the stairs.
The guard was coming down at the same time. I dodged past him and out the front door. The guard was catching up to me when-
WOOSH.
Michael came by on his electric bike and grabbed me. And we were off. The curator had already called us in. We made it to the main street when police cars started to follow us.
Michael rode toward a semi truck and told me to duck. He sped up and then leaned to one side, so we just ducked under the truck and turned down the next open road.
How the fuck did he know how to do this? Seemed there was more to Michael, as well.
Either way, we needed to get to our car.
We were in an alley, and between us and the next alley was a street fair. We could see the cops chasing us down the next alley. So, between buildings as we got to the end of our road, Michael stopped the bike.
“Give me your hat and take off your shirt.”
“What?”
“Now.”
I did. I was now in a bra. He tore off his t-shirt to reveal a soccer jersey underneath.
“Walk with me.”
As I did, he took off the jersey and told me to go into the fair. He loosened my hat and put it on his own head. He was now bare chested. He went into the fair, saw a tank top, dropped a hundred dollars and threw it on without breaking his stride.
“What languages do you speak?”
He was moving fast. I was trying to keep up.
“French,” I said, confused.
He was leading us right toward the police.
“Talk to me in French. Something about how you’re annoyed I wasn’t nice to your
mom.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
I did a whole monologue about how my mom was important to me and he was being rude not inviting her out. He just kept shaking his head and saying “yeah yeah yeah.” Like he wasn’t listening.
The cop noticed us.
And then laughed.
I kept at it. And we kept walking.
We were free.
*
MICHAEL USLUM
Literary Fan
The boy was in his element. That’s how I’d tell the story. I was ready to kill the guard. Or at least hurt him. And when we were in the street fair, I felt confident. I felt brazen.
YOU WILL NOT CATCH ME.
Most my life I was not very noticed. My parents doubted me. Shook their heads at me. Teachers thought I was a joke. Smart but unmotivated. My grandma when she babysat me, she saw me look at grandpa’s pulp books, titles like THE UNEXPECTED THIEF, AN INDISCRETION, THE BIG SLEEP or THE ADVENTURERS. And she was like- “Oh you just want some adventure.”
“Yes. I do.”
I want the money. I want the danger. I want the passion. I want the sex.
I was so attracted to Aimee. And as we drove away in our getaway car, she put her hand on mine as I shifted gears.
And that night. She fucked me.
And that is the right wording. She was in control. I wanted danger. I wanted adventure. AND, I wasn’t her gateway to this. She already was it.
Aimee was wild. And she was teaching me to be wild too.
“What are we doing?” I said in the throes of passion. “Tell me, what do you
want?”
She shook her head.
“Not for you to know, yet,” she said.
And we finished.
We drove to Paris. And I didn’t know why until we got there. Azrael was opening a new gallery. We sat across the street and watched. I was nervous just doing that, which Aimee found funny-
“You walked right through a bunch of cops with a million dollar painting on us.”
That was cops. This was the man. This was Azrael. I’d read about him. I knew about him. And a part of me was sure that if he saw us. He’d instinctively know what we were up to. It wasn’t careful.
But then, Aimee got out of the car and walked right up to the window of the gallery.
I chased after her.
She didn’t go in but she watched, her face against the glass.
There was a massive painting. It took up the whole wall. It looked like lovers in bed, though you couldn’t see their face.
“How hard would it be to steal that?”
It was huge. It’d take major coordination.
“Incredibly,” I responded. “We can’t. I mean, it’s suicide-“
“It’s mine,” she said.
She then walked away. Before anyone could notice us.
*
SIMONE KENT
Phenom
The Paris Gallery is what Azrael had been dreaming of for so long. The moment I met him, he said he would open it and it would be a huge noise in the art world. And the first show he’d do there? It would be MASSIVE.
That artist would be set for life.
Me.
So, I needed a painting to draw attention to me. And I was running out of work. At least this kind of work. How? You might ask.
Well, good artists borrow, my friend.
*
AIMEE HAYES
Artist
Great artists steal.
I meant what I said.
The painting on the wall? It is my painting.
Oh, you didn’t know that?
They’re all my paintings.
Why the fuck did you think I would go to all this trouble?
Simone stole my heart. She broke it. But that’s not the worst thing she did. She stole my work. And that is unforgivable.
It’s also why I am getting it back.
You get it now?
*
SIMONE KENT
Phenom
… I did steal Aimee’s paintings. All of them. In the middle of the night. When I decided it was over. I went into our shared work space. And decided what was mine was hers and what was hers was mine.
And then… I left.
And I got the world in return.
But Azrael thinks someone has it out for us. Thieves. They are everywhere, he says. And Azrael is not a gentle man. He will hurt anyone who tries to take from him. I’ve seen it.
And the thing is… he’s not wrong. There are thieves out to get us.
Things will get crazy.
Brazen heists.
Endless Art World Gossip.
Foreign detectives on the case.
An apartment with a trove of riches.
A canal where paintings that set the art world on fire would be dumped.
Aimee.
Azrael.
Michael.
Me.
If you’re going to live, you might as well make it a life worth looking at, no?
Make it a gallery piece.
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SEAN LEWIS is a record-breaking comic book writer who has written major characters from SPAWN to SUPERMAN. He's an award-winning playwright whose work has played internationally and off broadway and he's a radio commentator who's been heard on THIS AMERICAN LIFE. His next project is the short story collection OPEN ENDED (some things go on forever) which includes the story in your hands and a novel.