{"id":2893,"date":"2020-11-21T12:23:24","date_gmt":"2020-11-21T17:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/?page_id=2893"},"modified":"2020-11-21T12:23:28","modified_gmt":"2020-11-21T17:23:28","slug":"swindler-son-2-excerpt","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/my-books\/swindler-son-2-100-genuine-forgeries\/swindler-son-2-excerpt\/","title":{"rendered":"Swindler & Son 2 Excerpt!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As in Darwin, things evolve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harry long ago found a restorer named Ejder Simonen, a Kurd who escaped Iraq fifteen years ago. Ejder\u2019s a wizard at fixing up paintings of almost any style. Whenever we\u2019ve needed restorations, Ejder was the man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week after my conversation with Harry, I bring Ejder a couple paintings we\u2019d bought, including a landscape I paid \u20ac50 for, simply out of pity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not much good,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not bad either.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, that\u2019s true. Not much either way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut the frame is good\u2014\u201d Just as there are always people trying to sell paintings they can\u2019t prove are Old Masters, there are always people seeking an Old Master lurking unnoticed in someone\u2019s garage or attic. And one of the reliable indicators of age, when you\u2019re trying to quickly\u2014and surreptitiously\u2014judge an undervalued find is the style and condition of the frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe frame? No, not bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe wood and the canvas look mid-1600\u2019s. There\u2019s an auction sticker on the back from 1813.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He turns it over to check. \u201cOkay. So?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo this could legitimately be a canvas from the Golden Age of Dutch painting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His eyes narrow. \u201cYes?\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, you wouldn\u2019t confuse it with a Rembrandt or Vermeer\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOr a Hals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut maybe a Van Ruisdael?\u201d I offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His face prunes. \u201cNot really.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, not a top-notch Van Ruisdael\u2014a Monday Van Ruisdael, a day he had a hangover, maybe?\u201d Ejder goes a little cross-eyed. \u201cMaybe the artist tossed it out because he wasn\u2019t satisfied but the maid put it in her room because, hey, he\u2019s Van Ruisdael, right?\u201d I catch a glimmer in his eye, where maybe he\u2019s catching my drift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis sky is not convincing,\u201d he says flatly, in that scholarly tone he used when we first met him, before he realized that, most of time, we really didn\u2019t care. \u201cThere\u2019s a lack of variation in the cloud cover, light and shadow, here\u2014and here in the trees. And darker here.\u201d Ejder gets worked up about these things, he\u2019s an artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbsolutely, you\u2019re absolutely right,\u201d I tell him. \u201cBut it wouldn\u2019t take a lot of paint to fix that, would it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now his body language shifts. Ejder the restorer is a technician, flat-footed, unsentimentally regarding the task in front of him. Ejder the artist, on the other hand, shuffles back and forth on the balls of his feet, precariously balanced between what is and what could be. He crosses before the canvas several times before returning his attention to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just how much paint,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s the right kind of paint. You can\u2019t buy from the art supply store; any expert would detect that immediately. They mixed their own paints in those days. The blue sky\u2014blue from that era, that\u2019s lapis lazuli, it\u2019s as expensive as gold by the ounce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd the varnish?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shrugs. \u201cYou need a couple paintings of that era, dilute the varnish, let it run off and collect it. Then you add it back over the repainting so the varnish is all the same yellow.\u201d His knowing this answer\u2014and my knowing to ask the question\u2014makes clear we\u2019re discussing the same subject, which neither of us has so far raised openly. And, from what I can tell, he\u2019s not sold on the idea yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow many paintings would you need,\u201d I ask, \u201cto get enough varnish?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThree or four, probably.\u201d He anticipates my next question. \u201cI\u2019ve got one or two hanging around\u2014I\u2019d need more.\u201d He wags his hands back and forth. \u201cIt\u2019s a sliding scale. If you want a high price, you have to be more convincing. If you take less, it might not even pay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight,\u201d I muse. \u201cA Van Ruisdael this size probably wouldn\u2019t net more than \u20ac6-7,000.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cProbably.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo it wouldn\u2019t make sense for just one painting. But if I could find three or four really cheap paintings a month, a couple hundred or less, not much good but that could be improved\u2014\u201d Now he\u2019s listening. He\u2019s even leaning in my direction. \u201cEnough to keep a steady flow\u2014and if I split the profits 70\/30\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c60\/40,\u201d Ejder says immediately. \u201c60 for you.\u201d I don\u2019t argue, so he continues. \u201cAnd Van Ruisdael is about right, don\u2019t ask for Rembrandt\u2019s and Picasso\u2019s, there are too many experts out there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He takes another glance at my \u20ac50 landscape. \u201cWe might not need a lot of blue, really. I could extend the yellowish-white section of the sky, yellow is cheaper.\u201d The gap between us has vanished. He\u2019s on the team. \u201cIf you\u2019re selling two or three from the same era, you can say you picked them up in someone\u2019s garage. The frame from the first painting would give credibility to the others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI\u2019ll start looking around for old canvases and frames at estate sales\u2014and paintings that might be fixable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have to be good,\u201d Ejder boasts. \u201cI leave the business to you. I like painting and paying my bills. You do the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, we begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I buy, in person and online, mediocre paintings, from people glad to be rid of them. Either they\u2019re a source of varnish or Ejder fixes them \u2018in the style of,\u2019 and we hang them in the hall where collectors sit while waiting to sell us their dodgy art or in a stall we run twice a week in the Marais.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do not hawk these paintings to anyone. They carry no false signatures. If any of our visitors takes a look and sees a Van Ruisdael or Hals or Courbet, they didn\u2019t get that from me. Which means, every buyer walks away thinking they\u2019ve fleeced us, so no complaints later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is better,\u201d Harry agrees, a month or so after our first conversation. \u201cIt\u2019s more us.\u201d I shush him\u2014we are attending the funeral of Martin Boudreaux, one of his buddies, a noted \u2018restorer\u2019 of Louis XIV furniture and creator of the once-famous Boudreaux Scale for Antiques\u2014genuine, mostly-genuine, nearly-genuine, could-be-genuine and we-pray-every-day-that-it-might-be-genuine. We are two of a total of six mourners. The priest ministers over the grave, the rest of us take turns shoveling a bit of dirt on the casket and exchanging mournful glances with the widow. \u201cOf course,\u201d Harry says as we walk away, \u201cif we had better protection, like Dead Martin here, we could take bigger chances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBetter protection?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike the big players have,\u201d he growls. \u201cOne or two members of the Legislature. The Chief of Police or his assistant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not our game,\u201d I say, as convincingly as I can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt could be,\u201d Harry presses. \u201cWe could do much bigger jobs\u2014some of the people coming through our doors these days have real money. And some of them are just asking to be taken.\u201d This is an old refrain. \u201cThink about Dead Martin here. He was a big man for years, with nothing like your charm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSara likes my charm, thank you very much. And Dead Martin died in prison, a broken man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe stopped paying the right people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe right people stopped being the right people. They were pushed out by even-more-ruthless scumbags who were determined to become the right people. He got old, Harry, like we all do. The game changes but the risks don\u2019t. Getting locked up, being at the mercy of other prisoners\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2014and guards, don\u2019t forget,\u201d he chimes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd the guards, exactly. It all gets infinitely harder to take with age. Be practical, Harry\u2014we\u2019ve survived this long because we\u2019re small potatoes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harry looks genuinely surprised by this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s big money to us is petty cash for our targets. In the rare case they catch on to the game\u2014and thankfully, few do\u2014they write it off. So we don\u2019t have to pay the price.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t matter if we were really protected,\u201d Harry repeats himself. I pull him to a halt and we watch the procession of Very Important Men at someone else\u2019s funeral, someone who\u2019s clearly been paying today\u2019s right people. This widow bows her head and hopes for favors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are your Protectors,\u201d I say. \u201cProtection comes with a pricetag\u2014and we wouldn\u2019t like it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are all sorts of ways to satisfy\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, there\u2019s one way,\u201d I say. \u201cWhatever way they choose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harry shakes his head and I know this subject will come up again. In my wildest dreams, though, I couldn\u2019t have anticipated how.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As in Darwin, things evolve. Harry long ago found a restorer named Ejder Simonen, a Kurd who escaped Iraq fifteen years ago. Ejder\u2019s a wizard at fixing up paintings of almost any style. Whenever we\u2019ve needed restorations, Ejder was the …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2886,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2893","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2896,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2893\/revisions\/2896"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tedkrever.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}