In my business, you meet all kinds of people; some, let’s call them civilians, are ordinary, what the politicians call “folks;” then there are the characters, the peculiar sorts, people with strange peccadilloes: what an old friend of mine might call, “people who scare the horses.” Some, let's call them “the desperate:” come to me because they find themselves in a situation, sometimes of their own making and other times… well… let’s just say, imposed upon them. In each case, they have secrets: something they’d like to hide from the authorities and me, things like felonies, misdemeanours, mishaps, or misunderstandings. These cases are always about one of two things: money or women, but sometimes neither money nor women come in the form you'd expect, which brings me to the case of "Finding Lunia."
It all started one day when Jacob Lerner, a young Aussie artist nicknamed Garbo, walked into my office carrying a painting. Not just any canvas, but a masterpiece he claimed he’d found in the trash in a Montmartre back alley. If the artwork was the original, it was one of five masterpieces stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris on a warm Spring night in 2010 by the renowned second-story burglar, L’Araignée, The Spider.
The painting is a Modigliani portrait of Lunia Czechowska, one of five expressionist masterpieces stolen by L’Araignée and supposedly dumped in the trash by a nervous associate who was supposed to hold onto the canvases for safekeeping, not that anyone in their right mind actually believed someone would throw one hundred million dollars worth of art into the trash. Usually, I am hired to find some lost, stolen or misappropriated object, but in this case, the item found me, or so my Aussie client claimed. If you believe the story that played out in a Paris courtroom in 2017, then it would make sense to believe the story told to me by Jacob Lerner. All I had to do was prove the painting wasn’t a forgery. The trouble is twenty percent of the canvases in the world’s most prestigious museums are fakes, and Modigliani is one of the most frequently forged artists. Money and women: this case involves both, but not necessarily in the ways you’d expect.
Axel Webb, Private Investigator
Genre: FICTION / CrimeJacob Lerner leans against the graffiti-covered wall, waiting for his fellow artists to dump their failed masterpieces into the trash bins that line the back alley. Tomorrow is garbage day, making tonight the perfect time to find unsuccessful canvases destroyed and trashed out of frustration. The artist lights a cigarette and takes a drag. Aussie painter Jacob Lerner understood the impulse. A failed piece of work is an albatross that hangs around your neck, reminding you of how bad you are at your craft. It is better to remove the evidence from your sight and start fresh on a virgin piece of linen. But Lerner could not afford such an extravagant gesture. He needed to pick through other people’s garbage to find a canvas to work on. It’s easy to paint over someone else’s work. The masters did it; why not him? When he lived in Melbourne, his friends called him Garbo, Australian slang for the trash-man. What could he do? He barely made enough to put food on the table and buy paints.
His work on paper didn’t fetch the prices he could get for the same painting on canvas. The tourists that frequented the local flea market wanted canvas… something to match their living room couch back in Peoria.
Canvas meant better prices. Someone will throw out something he could use. It’s inevitable. Painting is naturally frustrating, and artists are a moody lot. He watches and waits. It’s only a matter of time. Failure and depression define the painter’s existence.
Someone is coming. The stranger is carrying several craft paper packages. They’re the size and shape of rolled canvases. Lerner drops his cigarette and grinds it into the cobblestone with the toe of his paint-splattered boot. He moves out of the light so the man can’t see him.
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Portuguese
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Translation in progress.
Translated by ANDRE DIOGO WEBER 2
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Antonio de Torre
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Author review: Antonio is excellent. He always does thorough and professional work. I would highly recommend him. Jerry Bader, Author and Screenwriter |
