Edward

The pump-thing has a plan.

There exists a device protruding a nuanced meter out of the central mud puddle in the Louvre museum’s Parc d'Inadvertance, flecked with stately crimson paint where there was no rust and rust where there was no inexplicable grime, that looks to Vincent Penn striding towards his prescribed meeting place vaguely like a very antique hand pump one might expect to operate a waterwell in Mississippi. The handle is there, sure, as large as the thing itself and shaped like an integral sign attached at limit b to a dreadfully ornate plunger that quickly disappears into the tube, which would seem to extend deep underground after penetrating the mud puddle that encloses its base. But unlike a proper hand pump, he is keen to observe, there is no spout to be found for water, nor for any liquid really, to be pumped out of, no spigot to perhaps turn on or off the flow, and certainly no friendly hook to hang a bucket from while the lever preoccupies the hands. It is precisely as Marqués described it during those hasty outlines over scones after the acquittal in Boston for what then came across as nothing short of a heist no matter what language it’s pitched in, and to the culture of Parisian museum enthusiasts who likewise have no idea what the pump-thing does (or ever did) it is known as L'homme en Fer. Marqués was proud to translate: The Iron Man.

 Vincent peers down at it now, harsh bronze eyes from the slash of face visible between the rims of darkened hat and glasses, quite sure that his arrival was still a thread early and that a covert pull on the handle could be experimented before Marqués comes with talk and business and kills all the fun. A judicious three-hundred and sixty degree scan of the park reveals nobody around, exempting of course the disgruntled octogenarian lost in the gardens from searching for his nearsighted miniature poodle which was likely lost in the gardens as well. The situation is as ideal as it can ever get, Vincent suppressing the champion grin of the perfect crime, the mystery of the pump-thing’s function revealed for the price of two steps in the mud and a tug on the lever. The audacity of the contraption to taunt him, the man in the charcoal suit whose business cards read VINCENT PENN: GANGSTER, COURIER, AND RELUCTANT ART THIEF, barking the juvenile supplication, “Come one, come all, to pull my handle and learn the secret!” No one can blame him, he reasons, except perhaps Marqués who would not likely perceive the inexplicable menace in this obnoxiously ordinary thing, stuck up right out of the ground as though a mental prank from hell, sent upwards simply to confound the yet undamned. “This is ridiculous,” Vincent mutters, preparing to assault the puddle.

Over Paris the sky moves sideways, and a polite cloud stifles the sun in a brief stunt that never fails to make Vincent feel uneasy. It’s gone after a moment, but the tinge of malice remains hovering above, as though the sky’s been watching and waiting for as long as Vincent’s watched and waited for Marqués at the pump-thing. Supposing the sun blinked, and maybe even noticed him, pacing the rim of the central mud puddle in Parc d’Inadvertance ready to attack the lever, and gave a warning … I can see you, Vincent …

“You didn’t pull that, did you?” Marqués from nowhere, his greeting filtered through a French accent that had not accompanied the mystery man back in Boston, the man with the overcoat but no derby, the limp but no cane. The same man is here now, snuck up on Vincent during his moment of cosmic skepticism, and in the returning bright light of the French sun Vincent sees how similarly the accent-shifting Marqués resembles himself. The lengthy black hair seems to swoop to wherever it is most inconvenient for the both of them, and the rest of the features are likewise analogous, but the most striking parallel that occurs to Vincent even during his recoil at the man’s surprise appearance is the rawness betrayed in their eyes and … teeth, the face, the arms at always-ready, the tranquil posture that secretly isn’t. Vincent had clung, always, to a usually unsuccessful effort to conceal the coarseness behind a lifetime of civility, whenever he was not working. Trim charcoal suits, expensive drinks, the narrow mustache. Looking at the materialized Marqués now, Vincent feels more than sees a familiar failure staring back at him, something that can solely be communicated from behind darkened glasses and between well-dressed quasi-scoundrels in a country very far away from home.

Vincent swivels to shake the other’s hand, tells him no, that to pull the lever would rob the machine of its mystique, and silently hopes his meek sarcasm carries enough ambivalence. Deep down inside his subconscious, where he prefers to believe exists a miniature Vincent at a control panel of sorts, he considers for an iota of a moment raising the questions of what precisely the pump-thing might do or just how his companion acquired a stodgy French accent in so brief a time. “I have to admit my witless curiosity as to why we’re meeting here, at the Louvre,” he adds instead to a deliberate glance to the pump-thing, “or what quite that lever attends to.”

Marqués laughs an unpleasant guffaw, which is unsurprisingly akin to Vincent’s own awkward chortles, then lets his hands fall and clasp behind his back before (sans the accent) declaring, “My name is Edward Marcus Day, and while I’m in this unfriendly country I make use of the wonderfully gaudy alias Edvard Marqués. Forgive me,” Edward producing from an inside jacket pocket, access to which momentarily affords a slim view of a freshly minted Colt M1911A1 pistol set in an equally new holster, a paper folded in half to the sixth exponent and tightly snared into the clip of a badly worn Conklin Crescent self-filling fountain pen, introduced circa 1901 to a boisterous crowd bedazzled with the technological wonderment of the day and not heard of since. The paper, as it turns out, is a nondisclosure contract that, according to Edward, must be signed before this conversation be allowed to live a moment longer. This prolific kingpin of all human negotiation has, with colorfully illustrated examples, saved Edward’s a*s on a number of occasions, and so surely Vincent must understand its necessity. He doesn’t, but signs anyway, conducting the Conklin into the expressionist atrocity of scribbles that comprises the Vincent Seymour Penn signature, and returns the valid contract to a nonplussed Edward’s jacket pocket. “This will … suffice,” Edward rebuttoning.

“Now listen here,” he continues, “what we’re really here about, here at the Louvre, is wholly illegal and, don’t get me wrong, totally and one-hundred percent fueled by my unabashed love for money.” Edward’s front-door smile tightens up. “And somewhere along the line in my early planning process, I had this astonishing revelation, that I was working too hard, Vincent! A partnership, I’ve heard it called, is what might be necessary, and so I went about looking –”

“In the foyers of Massachusetts courthouses currently hearing art robbery cases? Good Lord, Edward, you think as sharp as you dress! There’s something to be said about that Colt, as well –”

Edward, undeterred, “Anywhere where valuable paintings seem to disappear cleanly out of their frames. Or in your case, almost cleanly.” Before Vincent can even begin to retaliate, “Yes, yes, yes, yes you’ve only ever been formally indicted based on raw hearsay, seeming like there’s never enough evidence to convict you, and that, Vincent, is why you are so talented at what it is you do, however it is you do it.” Taking a step forward, getting ready to seal it, like a hotshot New Hampshire lawyer would. “I know it was you at the BMA. And before that at Brown Gallery. And before that at the Walters in Baltimore. And maybe even the Rembrandt from the Whitney. You genius, Vincent, you’ve defeated the art world. You’ve managed a way to get in and out of some of the finest museums around and, I imagine, take a number of pretty paintings with you.” Pause, pause, pause, and then a chorus of the unpleasant laughter. “Where they go after that, I’m afraid, is still a mystery to me, Vincent. I don’t know how you manage it.”

“There’s usually a girl involved, somewhere.”

 

Edward shows his teeth, amused. “Well not this time.”

 

“Not ‘till after you’ve had your money.”

 

“Christ, you’re quick, Vincent! Have you done this before?” The astonished roar, with likewise amazed eyebrows cresting their sunglasses, catches even the attention of the flummoxed senior still combing the gardens before Edward calms down to a whisper-growl that at once seems like his default tone for any speech not addressed to infants and kittens. “One painting and one painting only. I don’t care how you do it, Penn, but the Wednesday from next is when you’re going in. I’ve got one buddy who’s got Homolle out of the building and thinking he’s courting a prodigious fundraiser threatening to back out, and another buddy who is actually photographing Denon wing Foquets.”

Vincent smirks a trademark glower, conqueror of so many state and federal judges in the past. “You know that …” trailing off but returning with vigor, “none of that’s going to be necessary at all. Really, I’m not used to working with any … distractions.”

“Precautions, Vincent, are what they are. Day jobs take no chances.”

 

“Cute pun there.”

 

“Total accident, I assure you.” Rummaging again in the same jacket pocket that held the contract, this time emerges coiled around a tarnished brass paracentric key, its two blades making several ornamental twirls before uniting at a bow embossed ‘Fraternité’ a dozen times in concentric circles. “While the two of us are in France at the same time, now until the job is done, our headquarters is 89 Rue de Bord. You’re on the second floor.” Throws the key to Vincent, more than slightly faster than necessitated by the urgency of the situation, then gruffs out, “I’m told there’s a view of the Tower.”

Vincent errs on the side of affability. “Shame it has to come down so soon. But by then, I imagine, France will be a tad short on cultural icons.”

 

This time Edward substitutes the wolf-laugh for the jackal-grin. “That’s the plan.”

Vincent wants to add the semi-important condition if they both don’t get caught and arrested or shot, but can’t for all his effort seem to justify screwing with Edward’s intellect this early in a job. Instead, settling the strange key into a large enough pocket, he pivots away from Edward, turning to regard the pump-thing at the center of its puddle. “What would happen, do you suppose, if we failed? Two Americans redhanded with a priceless painting belonging specifically to the French government.” Making his left hand into a gun and forcefully pressing against his temple. “Can they?”

Now Edward promptly, for the first time this afternoon, no … make that the entirety of the time Vincent has known him, appears genuinely happy. “Oh, yes, Penn. Yes, they’d be all too happy to. And on that note, I must leave.” And on that note, he turns and begins to leave, gravelly footsteps crunching away in lopsided rhythm.

Before het gets very far, the drollness that began as a smirk explodes to conquer Vincent’s face in whole. “Hey, Marqués,” he shouts the inquiry over the first few rows of lilies, “which painting should I steal? You never specified.”

Edward, undeterred, “Oh, shut up.”

 

Leaving Vincent once more face to face with the strange pump-thing, alone in a strange park in a strange country except for the strange old man still looking for his strange little dog. The sun of this hour seems to glaze over the parts of it worn smooth by what Vincent assumes was decades of use, trickling down the side and sparking into the puddle. L’homme en Fer. Vincent never signed up for temptation this unbearable, he recalls, but Edward made it very clear nobody knows what it does and that we’ll not take any chances. He cranes nevertheless to examine the finial atop the lever, noticing the eroded lettering for the first time: Pour Tourmenter le Lâche Italien. By Vincent’s passable understanding of the romantic languages: To torture the Italian coward. The miniature subconscious Vincent deep inside actually implodes with raw ire.  “Oh, shut up,” he growls, skating into the mud and ferociously pumping the lever fourteen times up and down to no discernable consequence apart from dirtying his shoes and sanity. “Oh, shut up,” he repeats, abandoning the puddle and pump-thing and stomping off in the direction of 89 Rue de Bord, where there is a heist to plan, leaving behind a wake of muddy footsteps to fade away in the distance.