Stealing Picasso (16 page)

Mireille calls him a soldier and strips him off and puts him in her bath with grapefruit bath salts. She feeds him a brandy and washes him and kisses his head and tells him, ‘It is irreligious and ghastly to boing a fellow's head with another head that is dead.' She kisses his face, his chest, his nipples.

‘Why did he buy a forgery?' Harry asks her.

She swishes her hand in his bathwater, brushing her fingertips across his stomach. ‘Flat belly, but stupid kid. Why would you buy a forgery for a million dollars?'

‘I wouldn't. And I wouldn't even sell one again.'

‘To sell it for two million. He has already sold the
Weeping Woman
. If you deliver to him the real one, all right. If you deliver the immaculate forgery, all right, too. No difference.' She nestles a fingertip into Harry's belly button. ‘He has done what we have done.'

‘We're buggered, aren't we?' I ask her.

‘Is buggered fucked?'

Harry thinks about it momentarily before nodding.

‘Then, yes,' she says. ‘How can we give it back now that he knows who we are? And if we do not give it back, the police will find us. In Spain or Timbuktu. Our only way to stop them was to remain hidden as the Cultural Terrorists and to give the real painting back.'

Without knowing anything of the shape or metre of poems, or what ironic groove they work in, or what cast of metaphor they should cite, Marcel writes a poem for Turton. He doesn't think he can say any more about Turton than he puts in his poem. Somehow a poem can say it all, he thinks.

Marcel doesn't want anyone to get hurt. But he was twenty-six when Michael was accused – a young age. Before then he was happy playing a role, like a lead guy in a smash-hit play on Broadway. He was almost certain he felt the same as a star. But from the day Michael was accused, the play closed down and he was chained to a monster. A creature made up of all the suspicion, mistrust, envy and hatred in people's minds and hearts. The public's desire to destroy angels is strong.

Now he's burdened with the hatred of anyone who ever bought a magazine with Michael's face on the cover, or mimed
along to one of his tunes. Which is everyone, with
Thriller
easily the best-selling album of all time. They feel cheated, hoodwinked, betrayed. He can't get any work. No job. No gig. Not even a waiting position. Who wants a monster laying porterhouse before their clientele? He can't spell paedophile, but sometimes, having watched a mother drag her kids away from him, looking back over her shoulder with that wide-eyed awe at having just survived a near thing, he can understand why people like her hate him.

All Marcel can do to make ends meet after Michael's fall is to sell him at night to men who want to have sex with him. And every time he does it it breaks his heart. He is desperate to make money some other way. Then this big opportunity comes along, out of the blue. Just presents itself, like a gold-plated portent. Like God saying, ‘I hear your heartbreak. Here's a suitcase full of money so you don't have to sell Michael to those men anymore.'

What Turton and his gang were doing seemed so cool: steal the painting, sell the forgery, give back the painting. No victim, apart from the guy who bought the forgery, and he was buying stolen art anyway, so he can't exactly go to Consumer Affairs. He's a dodgy guy.

Well, Marcel knows some dodgy guys, too. Outlaws awash with amphetamine money. His pimps, the Stinking Pariahs. And he knows where a second copy of the
Weeping Women
is. It isn't as good as the copy Turton is selling, but his pimps aren't polished connoisseurs of paintings. And, anyway, the beauty of Turton's scheme is that if you present someone with a forgery of a famous painting in a time of clamour just after the real thing has been stolen, it naturally appears to them as the real thing. Because, who's got a forgery ready to sell? Suspicion doesn't even arise. And furthermore, it's a law of nature that
no sixty-four-kilo, pop-star-impersonating poof is going to try and rip off the Stinking Pariahs. Like gravity, or … some other law of nature. It couldn't happen.

Larry Skunk picks Marcel up at his flat to take him to an assignation with a famous TV garden-show host – and if the tabloids ever got pictures of this host and Michael J. scrutinising each other's bikini lines it would be a nasty shock to middle-aged mums everywhere. Larry revs his hog to call Marcel down from his flat and Marcel gets on the back. Larry Skunk hands him a little aubergine-coloured pill with SP stamped on it and says, ‘Nice evenin' for it, Marcel. Full moon. Good night for a moonwalk and whatever. Faggotry.'

Marcel swallows the pill and answers him, ‘Good moon for werewolves, too, Larry Skunk. But if you see one, don't swerve and run into a tree. Ride right over it. It'll be imaginary.'

With his arms around Larry Skunk, Marcel feels him chuckle. Larry Skunk and he have a working relationship now. They can say stuff to each other without one being offended. Which, Marcel supposes, means they're nearly friends. Considering their different callings, they are about as close to friends as they could be, anyway.

‘Okay,' Larry Skunk says. ‘But if I run up the arse of a lost malamute, it's down to you.'

After Marcel has completed the assignation with Mr Green Thumb from TV, Larry Skunk and he take a drink in the George Hotel in St Kilda, where Larry Skunk enjoys defending the indefensible by staring hard stares at anyone who looks sideways at Marcel. The room is a cast of creeping monsters to
him: crocodiles sipping pots of beer and yeti downing shots of bourbon.

‘Larry Skunk, I have a business proposition for the Stinking Pariahs. I need to speak to the president about a matter of stolen goods,' Marcel tells him.

Larry Skunk flings his eyes open wide. ‘You have stolen goods?'

Marcel nods.

‘What are they?

‘A painting. The
Weeping Woman
.'

Larry Skunk watches Marcel, his lips puckering with thought. ‘Is that that painting? Are you bullshitting me?'

‘No.'

‘You got that painting? Who with? With Turton?'

Crime is how these guys lived. Mostly just drug manufacturing and distribution – it's where the money is. The quiet, industrious concoction of amphetamines. Any publicity, any ruckus, well, that just hurts the bottom line and costs everyone. The Pariahs are part of an assembly line and they have to keep their heads down and toe the line like Greek migrants at Ford. And they hate it. They want to be pirates. They cover themselves in tattoos, dress in a uniform of leather and stud, grow their hair long and hang chains about themselves. They have sworn oaths like pirates swear oaths. They are ready to board ships, do battle, cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. Making drugs is drudgery: test tubes and Bunsen burners and a milligram of this and a milligram of that. So any crime with a little dash and flair about it excites them. They especially can't keep their noses out of something that has a hint of infamy. To be involved in a crime that's all over the papers and TV is a tantalising adventure to the Stinking Pariahs.

Larry Skunk's face begins to twitch with keeping cool. ‘Turts?' he asks. Marcel nods.

‘And you? Partners?' Marcel nods again. He doesn't really want to involve Turton, but he can't explain how he could've got the painting without him. After he's gone, safe in São Paulo, they'll soon find Turton wasn't involved.

‘Why isn't he here?'

‘The police are watching him.'

‘They would be. He looks like a ferret. His looks look just like what an artwork thief should look like. How much does the greedy little bastard want?'

Marcel hasn't even thought of a price. He knows nothing about the painting's black-market value. ‘Half a mill,' he says.

‘Let me make a call.' Larry Skunk three-sixties a dark look around the bar to keep monsters away from Marcel while he is gone. It makes Marcel feel ashamed, Larry Skunk doing that. Making Marcel safe before leaving him alone.

When Larry Skunk comes back, his handlebar moustache is spread-eagled with grin. ‘The president says, “Yes”.' By the look of Larry Skunk's grin he has performed a coup for the club, has brought in some business that will be a credit to them all.

They ride out to Pakenham. Turton is too forgetful to carry a key, so he has hidden one under half a brick outside the warehouse. When they get inside Marcel takes Turton's practice copy of the
Weeping Woman
out from under the sofa where he has it stowed. Larry Skunk looks pretty disgusted and says, ‘Under a couch?', as though it isn't a recognised place to stow treasure.

Marcel unrolls it and looks at it. It is unknowable. It doesn't make sense and is hard to recall. He is sure a coffin-cheater couldn't hold a memory of it in his head for more than three seconds.

Larry Skunk, standing behind him, goes cross-eyed and clamps his teeth together and stares at the canvas, then whispers, ‘Yeah. Come on … come on.' He nods slightly and moves his head in close, then backs off again, ‘Come on, baby.' He moves in close, backs off. ‘Is it s'posed to make sense if you stare at it long enough? Like an optic illusion? Because the best I can get is a nun with her funbags out. But the bitch turns into a speedboat every time I blink.'

Marcel is reassured by this. More relaxed about what he is going to do. He doesn't believe the Stinking Pariahs are likely to discover this is a forgery while crossing their eyes and trying to conjure up semi-naked nuns.

The Stinking Pariahs' headquarters is a tin and fibro building that may have done time as a garage before they surrounded it with a razor-wire fence and slathered it with so much armour plate it looks as if a battleship has dropped onto it from the sky. It is surrounded by a bare earth yard, into which are dug tank traps with concrete teeth in them. Rusting Harleys lie in rows, making the place look like a battlefield. Four dogs, so hairless and muscular they appear to have been skinned alive, run the length of the property on a running lead, barking hoarsely, without discrimination. One of them has intestines hanging from a wound.

Marcel and Larry Skunk get off his bike and Larry Skunk touches knuckles with three Stinking Pariahs in the antechamber of the clubhouse. They look Marcel over with no regard for his feelings and say, ‘Whoa …' and ‘Shee-yat.' And one of them calls him a fair dinkum twenty-four-carat cash cow. Marcel says thank you, and the Stinking Pariah laughs and says not at all.

There are many Stinking Pariahs inside, some playing pool, others playing cards, some just sitting around drinking. Loud ravings of guitar music can be heard. A skinny guy lies unconscious on the concrete floor in a bombed-out pose with his arms and legs flung out and his jeans pulled down to his ankles, while another guy bends over him giggling, rubbing a lamb chop all over his exposed parts, and yet another guy, also giggling, holds back a muscular bald dog as it whines and strains at the leash. The scene makes Marcel nauseous. He likes French cinema, pop music.

Marcel has never met Bam Hecker, the president. He looks like the kind of blue-eyed Aryan that might run a gang in an American prison – a deep thinker who'd spend his days plotting how to get his blade into uppity representatives of other races. He is built big under a haystack of dirty blond hair and his neck is speckled with tattoos of small stars and crosses. The word UHLAN runs down his throat. Out of nervousness Marcel points under his arm at the rolled-up painting and says, ‘This is it.'

Bam ignores this and shakes his hand, staring at him. ‘You've had surgery to look like Michael Jackson.' Marcel nods.

‘I like Michael Jackson. His shame at being a nigger is righteous and his attempt to escape from that predicament has filled me with admiration. He's a pioneer nigger who's beaten a path for any nigger brave enough to travel it. If Reagan is a president with nutsack he'd get the National Health Service to subsidise the surgery needed to become white, so even dirt-poor niggers in Alabama shit-holes who never worked a day in their lives could get it done. After that, anyone who remains a nigger, in this age of science and progress, may as well have “I choose to be a nigger” tattooed across their face, and stand up and take the consequences.'

No. Marcel can't hear this. Even in this frightening hell-hole full of racial zealots he must speak out to defend Michael. ‘Michael is still friends with all the black folk he started out friends with. His brothers and sisters and parents and cousins are regular visitors to Neverland, where he throws vegetarian barbecues using mostly a sweet potato from Africa. Africa! He still loves his people. He didn't change his face as a statement of racial preference. He simply enhanced his natural beauty. A plain and simple amplification of his gorgeousness … to a level that should have all humanity thanking him for … for his impossible loveliness. Michael has no racist bone. He hasn't travelled away from blackness … just towards perfection. He made a sculpture of himself, for the joy it might bring the world. There is a considerable sacrifice in that. Speaking from experience, I know, even with anaesthetic, the scalpel is months of pain and leaves permanent areas of deadness in the face. And he did it for us all …'