Paint. The art of scam.

Text copyright © 2012 Oscar Turner

All Rights Reserved

Published by
ColinMichael.com

ISBN number 978-0-9574498-0-0

Oscar Turner’s YouTube Channel

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.

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 hop
e.

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 and 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.