Art of Theft - Chapter Three

Art of Theft

Chapter Three

by Murray K.

Step.

I love open plan living. It's makes it easy to navigate in the dark
when your only source of light is a red glow-stick bracelet. The
floors are wonderfully bereft of tripping hazards and there are nice
wide spaces between all the furniture. At the speed I'm moving,
detouring around a couch would add another ten minutes to this
business.

And step.

After sitting at the bottom of the pool for 6 hours, getting into the
apartment was a relative breeze. Getting down from the roof was
pretty easily achieved, even in the wetsuit. The only reason I
bothered with a rope was to make getting back up easier.

And step.

As for why I went down to the balcony, one word: Deadlocks. The
front door and the door down from the roof both had them, but the
balcony door didn't. I've played around with picking locks a bit but
I'm no expert. A good deadlock with some trap pins could take me a
lot of time. But a few seconds with a pick gun on the balcony lock
and I was in. That was the easy part.

And step.

When I was a kid I was into birdwatching for a while. I always liked
animals, but one of the challenges with birds was how close I could
get to them. Now, you can't really sneak up on a squirrel, the moment
he notices you move towards him, he's onto you. But birds don't seem
to differentiate much between people and trees. As long as they don't
see you moving when they’re looking at you, they don't care that
you're suddenly a foot closer than you were. So the key was to move
at a snails pace, slowly lift a foot, inch it forward and put it back
down again. Shift weight onto the forward foot...

And step.

And that is pretty much what I'm doing right now. In the corners of
all the rooms and the hallways, the Welshes have security sensors
which I discreetly checked out at the party. The sensors are
infra-red motion detectors, so they detect anything that's a different
temperature to ambient and moving. Basically, I'm treating them like
a flock of birds. I figure if I don't move too quickly, they won't
get startled.

And step.

I’m hoping the wetsuit helps as well, the sensors should really only
see my face and hands, but it’s best not to take any chances. One of
the hardest things is not knocking the plastic bag I’ve got hanging
from my left hand. The plastic shouldn’t set off the sensors, but as
I say, no chances. Each of the sensors has a small red light at the
top of it, and if just one of those goes off, I’m toast.

And step.

It’s slow progress, and it’s taken twenty minutes to get through the
living room, down the hall to the bedroom. Thankfully the Welshes
leave their doors open when they go on holidays. The moment I get
inside the bedroom I shuffle to the right so I’m no longer visible
from the hallway, and then I raise my right arm very slowly and turn
on my laser pointer. It takes a few moments to adjust my wrist but
then I have it pointed directly at the IR sensor.

And relax.

While ever the laser pointer hits the sensor, it’s basically snow
blind. The transition doesn’t set off the sensor, and then it can’t
see a thing. There’s only one sensor in the room so as long as I stay
out of the view of the hallway sensors I can actually move for a bit.
Vigorous stretching is still a bit difficult to do while keeping the
laser pointer focused, but I feel a lot less tense as I walk over to
the Matisse. I have to lower the bag I’m holding to the floor first,
but then I gently ease the Matisse up off the hook and...

I’ve got it!

The laser pointer trembles a little as I struggle to keep it focused
on the motion sensor. Very, very gently I lower it down to the carpet
and reach into the plastic bag. Out comes a square the same size and
shape as the Matisse. The faint light of the glow stick makes it hard
to tell but the frame looks like a perfect replica. Lord knows I
studied the real one for long enough at the party. Inside that frame
is a canvas printed copy of the Matisse, carefully touched up with
varnish to match the brushstrokes. Talk to anyone at Sotherby’s or
Christie’s and they’ll have a dozen stories that all come down to the
same thing, a tale of someone bringing in a painting that they thought
was a minor masterpiece, only to find that it’s a print covered in
varnish. A couple of coats and a hairdryer to crack the surface and
it looks just like oil paint. It’s an old trick, but it works. I
figure, as I carefully place the replica on the wall, the easiest way
to get away with a crime is if no-one knows it’s been committed.

It is tortuous creeping back to the balcony when all I want to do is
jump and run and whoop. As soon as I’m out I relock the door and
climb back onto the roof. Then it’s time for a quick change, back
into jeans and a fresh designer shirt from the toolbox. Also from the
toolbox, a Louis Vuitton roll bag. Now before you roll your eyes,
there’s a reason I’ve chosen LV. That pattern on the side is
unmistakable. After all, what’s the point of a status symbol if
no-one knows it’s a status symbol? But that means that when someone
sees a well dressed young man with an LV bag, the last things they’re
going to expect to be in that bag are diving gear, rope and a stolen
painting.

It’s a struggle to get everything in there, especially since I have to
take care of the painting. The large salt tub is staying but I figure
no-one is going to notice a tub of pool salt in a pool shed. The dive
weights also end up underneath a planter box, I’m afraid they’re a few
pounds of weight I just don’t want to carry down. But after a bit of
fighting everything else is put away and I’m ready to go.

The fire escape locks aren’t any harder than the balcony door, but
that’s expected. They make them easy just in case emergency crews
need to get past but aren’t in enough of a hurry to bust the door
down. I pick one to get in and then another a few floors down to get
out, then it’s express lift all the way to the ground. I stare at
myself in the lift mirror and thank god the wet look is in. I look
rumpled, but the kind of rumpled one might expect from someone leaving
an apartment block at 2am.

The doorman, presumably Charlie, gets up from his desk when he sees me.

“Cab, sir?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

I hoist the bag on my shoulder and follow him to the curb. I’m trying
to think of small talk but before I get the chance the cab’s there, I
had the guy a $5 bill and I’m away. Almost too easy. I keep looking
to see if anyone’s following, and when I get dropped off a block from
my apartment I spend the whole walk home with half an eye over my
shoulder. But there’s no-one. It seems I may have gotten away with
it.

So now the painting is hanging in my bedroom, directly opposite the
bed, sitting comfortably between the Monet and the Boudin. The first
touches of sun are hitting the buildings nearby and the slight glow is
giving the painting a morning feel as well. The adrenaline has worn
off but for the last 4 hours I haven’t been able to stop looking at
it. It’s beautiful, wonderful, I love it. It leaves me with only one
question.

What next?