The Dali Deception

by Adam Maxwell

  “We all make mistakes,” said Barry and then, breaking into a smile, he added, “but not all of us mope around like a miserable bitch for days afterwards.”

  Zoe slowly put her cards back down on the table, staring at Barry slightly wide-eyed, waiting for a reaction from Violet.

  Violet glared at Barry and then burst out laughing. “Miserable bitch?”

  Barry sat back in his chair nonchalantly and shrugged his shoulder. “Seemed appropriate. Seemed it would get a rise out of you at least.”

  “The plan…” began Violet.

  “The plan that you haven’t told any of us?” interrupted Lucas.

  Violet nodded, still smiling. “That’s the one.”

  “So…” began Zoe, tentatively. “What exactly went wrong?”

  “It’s complicated,” replied Violet. “I’ll tell you, I promise. It’s just that, right now, there are a lot of balls in the air.”

  The others stared at Violet, waiting for her to go on.

  “One of the balls… It fell.”

  “Plenty more balls where that one came from,” said Lucas, sensing it would do them more harm than good to push Violet to tell them any more yet. She wasn’t pretending to be infallible and he liked that. There was nothing more scary than someone out of control who didn’t realise it. “I haven’t got any chips, I’m afraid. But I’ve got these washers. Small ones are worth five quid, medium ones ten and the large ones a whopping twenty pounds. Shall we start with, say, a thousand apiece?”

  There were murmurs and grumbling around the table but everyone seemed happy enough with the arrangement. Lucas picked up the remainder of the deck and began shuffling the cards and Barry began dishing out the washers.

  Putting the deck back down, Lucas slid a large pile of washers into the centre of the table and everyone else began arranging their own washers into neat piles in front of them.

  “Now, how about we cheer everybody up a little bit. That was the whole point of this game after all,” said Lucas. He looked over to Zoe. “So…tell us a story.”

  Zoe frowned.

  “What was your worst job?” asked Lucas. “Or your first job? Whichever is funnier.” He grinned at her.

  Zoe shook her head. “No no no no no. You first.”

  He scratched his chin, the stubble there a couple of days old. “Okay then. Suppose I could go first.”

  As the game began Lucas started to tell a tale. The story, not of his first job, but the first time he was in charge. By the time Barry had lost his first hundred pounds Lucas had described all of the other players involved in the job.

  “We were a bit further down the line than we are on this job,” he said, winning another hand and scraping the chips towards him. “But we were no less planned.”

  “What the fuck were you actually stealing?” asked Barry, a hint of irritation creeping into his voice. Lucas smiled. Irritation was good. Barry was already proving easy to read but that made it even easier.

  “A Fabergé egg,” said Lucas as he dealt another hand.

  With that statement Violet burst out laughing. “Starting small then, were we?”

  Lucas put down the pack of cards. “I’m ambitious, that’s all.”

  Zoe tapped the table in appreciation, shooting a wide grin in Lucas’ direction.

  “She knows,” Lucas pointed at Zoe.

  “So, what exactly went wrong?” asked Barry.

  “I was getting to that,” said Lucas. “I’d done a ton of research. And, like you, I knew exactly what a Fabergé egg looked like. What does a Fabergé egg look like, Barry?”

  Barry threw a couple of ten pound washers into the centre of the table. “About the size of a fist, pretty bloody gaudy.”

  Lucas nodded. “Precisely. So in all likelihood, you would have made exactly the same mistake I made. It was the night of the robbery, the egg was being held in this big house on the outskirts of Kilchester. We’d been posing as carpet cleaners, so we had access to the house. I walked into the room where the egg was supposed to be. You expect the alarms to go off, don’t you?”

  “They usually bloody do,” laughed Barry.

  “Except they didn’t. I just waltzed into the room and it was almost empty. The most prominent thing I remember was a pedestal right in the middle. On top of the pedestal should have been the egg, but instead of the big, gaudy, expensive thing we were supposed to be stealing was a smaller, plain, white egg.”

  Zoe’s hand went to cover her mouth and she started laughing behind it.

  Lucas nodded. “I told you - she knows.”

  Zoe nodded.

  “Anyway, I searched the room. Then I searched the adjoining room. Then I searched all the other rooms on that floor and I still didn’t find anything. An hour and a half of searching later and I had all of the rest of the team screaming in my ear to get out. Eventually, even I gave up. I locked the place up and left.”

  Lucas instinctively noted the different expressions on everyone’s faces. There was a good chance they would have the same expression on their faces if they had a good hand later.

  “Did it ever turn up?” asked Barry.

  “It was there the whole time,” said Lucas with a sigh. “Unfortunately, I hadn’t quite done enough research. Turns out that the very first Fabergé eggs were white.”

  Zoe placed her cards on the table, laughing. “I fold. So it was there the whole time?”

  Lucas nodded and, anticipating a win for Violet, said, “I fold too.”

  He looked over to Violet and was relieved to see that she seemed to relax a little as she took the chips and won the hand. She caught his eye and he gave her a smile as he gathered in the cards. It wasn’t that he was trying to reassure her, it was more to do with fact that he was stacking the deck and he didn’t want her to glance at what he was doing with his hands. Once he was happy that he knew which cards were where he began to shuffle, the practised shuffle of a man who had been taking money from card players since his early teens.

  “So…” He began tossing cards across the table to each of the players. “Zoe, you going to regale us with your story?”

  “Well…” Zoe’s eyes darted around the room, looking for someone else to go next.

  “Or maybe Violet?” Lucas was treated to the full beam of her dead-eyed stare. She reached down to the pile of washers in front of her, selected a few and threw them into the centre of the table.

  “I’ll tell you a story,” she said and Lucas felt compelled to look away.

  “Okay, yeah,” he said.

  “I was six years old.” Violet carefully placed her cards face down on the table. “And I went to that big shopping centre on the outskirts of Kilchester with my mum and dad. It was new at the time and it felt like a treat, but something wasn’t quite right. When you’re that age I think you believe every trip is about you. Somehow, though, I knew this one wasn’t.”

  Zoe fidgeted with her washers, obviously uncomfortable with where this was going. She raised by a couple of hundred, confident in her hand, perhaps, but showing no signs outside of the stakes.

  “I remember at school that week all the children had to draw pictures of their mummy and daddy at work and I got into trouble because I wouldn’t draw anything. I told the teacher I wasn’t allowed to talk about their jobs.”

  Barry had been staring conspicuously at his own cards, refusing to make eye contact, for some time but he finally gave in, placed his cards in front of him and stared at Violet, rapt.

  “I wasn’t allowed to talk about their jobs because they were like us. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, not really. No matter how you grow up, you think that’s how it is for everyone. Except you can’t really understand, at six you’re just too young, you’ve got no moral compass. And on that day I’d been pestering them incessantly, demanding to go to work with one of them. This story is about that day.”

  Everyone’s cards were on the table now. Everyone stared. Nobody spoke.

  “So we parked the car,
walked into the shopping centre. The next part I only really know from what I read in newspapers afterwards, when I was a teenager. The pair of them were pulling some sort of confidence trick on the jewellers that had just opened. They used me as bait, sent me into the store pretending to be lost, told me after ten minutes to tell the people in the shop that I had seen my mummy and daddy outside. So I did. Only, when I got outside they weren’t there. They’d been arrested and I didn’t see them again for two years.

  “The part I do remember, the part that doesn’t go away, is standing just down the mall, just far enough that the jewellers couldn’t see me, waiting for my mother and father to turn up. And of course they didn’t.”

  The room was silent save for the hum of the computer equipment that surrounded them.

  “Well, aren’t you a barrel of fucking laughs?” Barry clapped his hands, breaking the mood Violet had created.

  Lucas reached instinctively for his cards. “Is that even true?” he asked. “Half the time I’m not even sure if you’re just spinning us some line of bullshit.” He laughed nervously, but to his relief Violet seemed to have relaxed and a smile crept onto her face.

  “Well, I could have told you about the time me and Katie got deliberately arrested and then broke out of prison, but you would have to buy me a hell of a lot more drinks to get me to tell you that story.”

  “No? Who’s Katie?” Zoe asked.

  A smile broke over Violet’s face, she raised her eyebrows and nodded.

  “Police cars?” Barry interrupted. “I’ve got a good one for you. Some prick I was working for… not you Violet…”

  Violet rolled her eyes.

  “Well, some bright spark came up with the idea that, after we nicked whatever it was we were nicking… I forget what it was now… But anyway, the idea was that the getaway car would be a police car.”

  Violet nodded in appreciation.

  “That’s a pretty bloody good idea, actually,” said Lucas.

  Barry shook his head. “It’s a shit idea. I spent two days taking photographs of police cars. Once I had those I went out and stole a car. Same make. Same model. Resprayed it white, got decals cut, made a passable lighting rig for the roof. Is there any beer in this place?”

  “No!” Zoe shouted. “There isn’t any beer. Finish the damn story.”

  Barry pretended to look incredulous. “Fine. I’ll skip to the good bit. To try and be as authentic as possible, I had some number plates made. The same number plates from one of the police cars in the photos.”

  Lucas groaned. “I know where this story is going.”

  Barry laughed. “I even had a uniform. And a hat. So I was sitting outside, in the car, just like always and I see a police car go past. The adrenaline is pumping and I’m watching like a hawk but it gets to the end of the street and turns left so I just, kind of, mentally cross my fingers. But then I clock him in the rearview mirror, he’s gone around the block, so I take the handbrake off, foot hovering over the accelerator. Are you sure we don’t have anything to drink in this place?”

  “FINISH THE DAMN STORY!” Zoe barked.

  Barry sighed. “I thought you could fill in the rest yourself… My mates poured out of the place they were knocking off and piled in to the car just as the police car drew level. The driver wound his window down and waggled his hand, you know, to tell me to do the same thing. So I did. Wound my window down and he says ‘Do you know your car has the same number plate as mine?’”

  Everyone was laughing, no one interested in the game.

  “That’s one awkward situation,” said Lucas through the laughter. “What the hell did you do?”

  “What could I do?” replied Barry. “I started to answer, then accelerated away. Of course, he lit up his lights, turned on the siren, all that flashy shit. I waited until we hit sixty, he was riding our bumper, I slammed on the brakes.”

  “Were you not hurt?” asked Zoe.

  Barry shrugged. “A bit, but the main thing was that it totally fucked up the front of their car. Set the airbags off, stopped them in their tracks.”

  “Why didn’t it set your airbags off?” asked Lucas after another round of laughter had died down.

  “I’d been arsing around with the car. Accidentally turned them off. Just as well really.”

  The cards lay on the table and every single one of the chips lay in front of Lucas.

  “I’m glad we’re not playing for real money,” said Zoe, glancing at the washers.

  “What the fuck?” Lucas wore a wounded look upon his face.

  “You didn’t actually believe that we would play a real cardsharp for actual money, did you?” asked Violet.

  “Well, yes, I did actually.” Lucas gathered up the remainder of the cards and shuffled them irritatedly. “Come on then, Zoe. You might as well tell us your story before we all call it a day.”

  “My most embarrassing job? The one that went the most wrong? That’s easy. Not that long ago, I was sitting in the library dressed as a schoolgirl, minding my own business.”

  Barry and Lucas both leaned forward.

  “Not like that, you perverts,” said Zoe. “I was in disguise. It was… when was it Violet?”

  “End of August, I guess,” came the reply.

  “End of August. I was running a scam at the bank, surveillance thing where I use the…” Zoe trailed off, realising that no-one apart from her was interested in the details of how she did it. “That part’s not important. The point is, I was using all this stuff,” she waved her hand above her shoulder, indicating the computer equipment behind her, “to steal money from people. Only, as I was watching the people in the bank, something unexpected popped up on my screen. My own bankcard was being used by someone else. Some cheeky cow had stolen my purse with my card inside.”

  Everyone stared at Zoe, waiting for her to finish the story. Everyone except Violet.

  “What?” Violet affected a faux-innocent voice. “I had to get your attention somehow.”

  “I realise that now,” Zoe began laughing.

  As the others drifted out of the room and about their business, Lucas reflected on what he had learned. Violet had realised what he was up to, that much was true, but none of the rest of them had any idea until she told them.

  And that was very interesting indeed.

  19th September

  19th September

  * * *

  3 weeks to go…

  Chapter 20

  “I really don’t understand why you are so desperate for my hair to be blonde.” Zoe almost stamped her foot in annoyance at Lucas, who had been fussing around her at the crew’s warehouse for longer than she felt comfortable.

  Lucas sighed and stood back. “I thought I told you,” he said, distractedly going back to the pile of women’s clothes that were lumped on a nearby desk.

  “No,” said Zoe, her hand going to her hip petulantly. “You didn’t. And quite frankly this whole thing is getting a bit creepy. I’m perfectly capable of dressing myself to go and see the painting.”

  Lucas stopped what he was doing and stared at her, his brows knotting in confusion.

  “What?” he said after too long a pause. “No! Did you think? Hang on...”

  Now it was Zoe’s turn to look confused. She had had men perv on her in the past, of course, but when you confronted them they rarely had the look of stunned disbelief that Lucas was currently sporting.

  Lucas caught himself and regrouped. “When you pull jobs,” he said, trying to adopt a slightly more avuncular style by leaning back on the desk, “how often do you come face to face with the mark?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” asked Zoe defensively.

  “With all the computer stuff, I’m sure it’s important and all but–”

  “Important? Of course it’s important,” Zoe snapped. “We’re hardly going to be able to walk in and take out a painting simply because we persuaded them with the sheer force of our personalities. Well, you certainly won’t.”<
br />
  “For the sake of making my point and the fact that I was trying to pay you a compliment I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that last bit,” said Lucas. He folded his hands together and placed them in his lap and then, realising he might look like he was stroking his cock, placed them instead on his knees. “The point is that’s where I am on every job I pull and you need to look a certain way. To act a certain way.”

  Zoe stared at Lucas. Leaning back on the desk behind him, hands on his knees, creating a kind of hunched-back frame that drew all attention to his crotch.

  “You really aren’t comfortable around women, are you?” she said eventually, relaxing slightly.

  Lucas unknotted himself and stood upright once more. “It’s not that. It’s just that... this stuff is important. I’m not perving on you or whatever, I don’t think of you that way, it’s just...”

  “So you’re saying I’m unattractive then?” Zoe looked wounded.

  “What-uh-well, that’s erm, no... But...” Lucas babbled.

  Zoe grinned at him. “Only teasing,” she said. “So it’s important is it?”

  The tension dropped from Lucas’ frame and a smile crept into the corners of his mouth. “Yes. It’s really important.”

  Zoe had noticed a change in Lucas since a few days after the poker game, like he had relaxed into his role and was beginning to enjoy it. Either that or he was getting ready to stab them all in the back.

  “I understand undercover… I can blend,” she said.

  “Perhaps you have a certain…natural talent… but this isn’t blending in with a crowd. This is one-on-one, real-face-to-real-face.

  “Okay then,” said Zoe, relaxing a little. “But why blonde?”

  “Well, when people meet you for the first time,” said Lucas, becoming animated, “and you aren’t, you know, like their wife’s best friend or something like that. When you’re more transient in their lives then their memory of you is less accurate. People tend to use more broad brush-strokes to define who you are.”

  “Like a placeholder?” said Zoe, looking through the clothes on the table and choosing a pair of baggy jeans and a purple hoodie that bore the logo of some American sports team. She proffered them to Lucas, who nodded at the jeans but removed the hoodie and replaced it with a dark, purple checked shirt.