The Con Artist

by Fred Van Lente

  Buddy of Buddy’s Art didn’t look up from my portfolio. “I know, isn’t it? Such a shame. And before he could resolve the lawsuit. Sad. I almost regret marking up the prices.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Buddy spread his hands. “Dead artist, higher price. I hate doing it, but that’s the market. If I show respect for the dead, I’m at the mercy of those who won’t. It’s disgusting but it’s the world we live in.”

  I did my best to nod slowly, even as my guts boiled. “Mind if I ask you where you got it?”

  “Where I got what?”

  “The page. The Ben K page.”

  Buddy looked at me. “You don’t know?”

  “Why would I know?”

  “Well, for one thing, the two of you were tight I heard.”

  “We are—were. But I don’t know every detail of his business life.”

  Buddy grinned. “You interested in buying it? I can give you a slight discount if we do business together, but I can only knock 5 percent, 10 percent off. I told you about the college tuition, right?”

  “I might be interested if I knew the provenance.”

  “Look at you, the artiste with the big fancy words.”

  “It seems like a simple question, am I wrong?” My smile never wavered.

  Neither did Buddy’s. “You’re not wrong. But I don’t lug all my records to every con.”

  I arched an eyebrow, remaining coy. “You don’t remember where you got a five-figure piece of art?”

  “It’s only been five figures since Wednesday,” Buddy said.

  I was somehow able to grit my teeth and maintain my grin at the same time, but I didn’t say anything. Buddy of Buddy’s Art closed my portfolio with a loud thwap and leaned over the longboxes. “I get a flat fifteen percent commission for anything I sell, in person, online, or over the phone. Let me give you a business card. You think about it and give me a ring after the show is over…that is, if you think this relationship is for you.”

  His breath smelled like Tic Tacs and cigarettes.

  * * *

  – – – –

  There were only a half dozen original art dealers on the con floor, and only half of those had a Ben K piece, including one spectacular cover I went ahead and sketched. None of the dealers were all that forthcoming about where they’d gotten the art. I couldn’t tell whether it was because they were worried I’d figure out it was stolen or that I was planning on cutting them out and going to their source to sell my own art. Clearly I had some kind of gland in my body, previously unknown to science, that secreted a narc pheromone.

  Fortunately, I knew someone who could play art dealers like a harpsichord; unfortunately, I had stood up this person at the Bayfront Space Bar the night before. I’d dreaded pulling the trigger on this particular option since thinking of it not long after waking up this morning, but now I saw no way to avoid it.

  I reopened the text chain with Christine and typed:

  “Again, really sorry about last night.”

  Then added:

  “I really need Hyper-Competent Spouse help.”

  As soon as I sent it I winced, realizing I should have thought the phrasing through a little bit better, so I quickly followed up:

  “Not the Spouse part, the Hyper-Competent part.”

  No response for a bit, so I added:

  “It’s helping me with art dealers, and I can pay you $$$, no worries. Text me back.”

  I been wandering across the crammed con floor while concentrating on my thumb; when I looked up, I was across from the Shire set of the upcoming Lord of the Rings sequel, Sauron’s Revenge (the first of seven films).

  Then the crowd of hobbits and orcs parted, and the MEH bikers in the orthopedic boots were clomping straight at me, and I had nowhere to run.

  * * *

  – – – –

  I turned to escape and found the door to an exact replica of Doctor Who’s TARDIS behind me. Instinctively imagining the cavernous console room inside, I threw it open and ran in, immediately banging my nose on the wall on the opposite side. Impossibly, the empty booth was smaller inside than it looked on the outside, proving that whoever built it had screwed up the single most important aspect of TARDIS design.

  I managed to flip myself around like a rotisserie chicken but it was too late: the bikers in their giant plastic boots tried to squeeze inside with me. They got stuck in the tiny doorway shoulder to shoulder, so I had no way out either.

  “What’s your problem, man?” MEH One asked.

  “Yeah, what’s your problem?” seconded MEH Two.

  “My problem?” I cried. “Why the hell are you guys after me?”

  “We wouldn’t have to track you down if you were ever at your Artists’ Alley table,” MEH One frowned.

  “Yeah, why the hell don’t you spend any time at your table?” MEH Two scowled.

  “I spend plenty of time at my table. Maybe your timing is terrible.”

  “The flier for that charity party said you would be there, so we went there,” MEH One said.

  “The program said you’d be speaking on that movie panel, so we went there too,” MEH Two said.

  I threw up my hands. “Okay, but why?”

  “Disco Money,” said MEH One.

  “Yeah, Disco Money,” said MEH Two.

  “Disco Money? Wha—huh?”

  MEH One reached inside his leather jacket and I flinched, but he brought out not a weapon but a thin white envelope. He handed it to me.

  “Our client commissioned a drawing from you but forgot to give you the money up front.”

  “Yeah, and he was really worried you wouldn’t do it, so he asked us to give it to you.”

  Inside the envelope were five crisp one hundred dollar bills, so new they static-clung to each other.

  “Oh,” I said. “Disco Mummy.”

  I stuck the money inside my jeans. “I didn’t realize I didn’t charge him, so that’s on me. Tell him not to worry, I’ve been working on the sketch on and off. He’ll have it by Sunday.”

  MEH One breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God that’s over with.”

  “Can I ask you a question, though?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s, uh…” I smiled nervously. “What’s with the MEH tattoo? I don’t get it. Is that a reference to something or…?”

  The two bikers looked at each other and when they looked back, I saw four blue eyes brimming with tears. “You look like you had a nice upbringing,” MEH One said. “Strong family life. Am I right?”

  “Well…yeah, it’s true, I did.”

  “Well I didn’t. Did some dumb things. Went away for a while for armed robbery. You can’t do your time alone. The Aryan Brand, they looked out for me.”

  “Me too,” MEH Two said. “This ink, it’s like armor. Means other cons can’t mess with you. But you think I actually believe in any of that racist shit? My baby mama’s Mexican, bro.”

  “We got jobs now, we’re trying to earn enough money for laser surgery to get these tats taken off,” MEH One said, pointing to his neck. “But it’s expensive, and painful, so we can only zap a little off at a time.” So close up I could vaguely see less tan and pinker skin in the form of a “T.” So “MEH” was actually supposed to be “MEHT.”

  “Yeah, you never done anything in your life you regret before, bro?” MEHT Two said, wiping his eyes.

  My mouth just gaped in stupefaction. Did I just hurt a Nazi’s feelings?

  “But we gotta fix these ankles before we pay for more tattoo removal.”

  “Were you guys, uh, in the same car crash or what?” I said once they stepped out of the mini-TARDIS so I could too.

  “No, we were chasing your dumb ass through that zombie prison thing.” MEHT One poked me in the chest with a finger that would definite
ly leave a mark.

  “Some idiot moved this laundry bin thing where we were supposed land out of a tube,” MEHT Two said, shaking his head.

  “Fractured an ankle when we landed.”

  “And we are so totally gonna sue their asses.”

  “Oh my God, that’s awful,” I said in what I hoped would be a convincing way.

  “Not gonna lie,” MEHT One said, “we wanted to sue your ass, but Terry talked us out of it, said it would be bad for business.”

  “Who’s Terry?” I said.

  MEHT Two produced a business card. “In all seriousness, you should check out our website. We help actors, artists, too. Porn stars. Fans. Any of the big whales at these things.”

  “Though, no offense bro, I hope I never see your face again,” MEHT One said.

  As they limped away, I looked down at the card. One side was a close-up image of bloody ground beef. The other side had the same MEATWALL copy, and the same contact info for Terrence Lawson, that Armond Delaine had given me at the Kirbys the night before.

  I did a quick internet search for “MEHT” and was just delighted to discover that it was an acronym for Meine Ehre Heisst Treue, “My Honor Is Called Loyalty,” the motto of the S.S. It became the signature of the largest white supremacist gang in the federal prison system when a particularly strict warden in Colorado banned overt Nazi symbolism like swastikas in body art in the 1990s, so the Aryan Brand adopted something (very, very) slightly more subtle as its official tat.

  So Meatwall, the pop-culture con security and management firm cofounded by the star of Cell Block Z, America’s favorite TV show about prison, had been co-opted by America’s most feared real-life prison gang.

  Lovely.

  * * *

  – – – –

  The con crowds even this early on Saturday made my fight to Artists’ Alley slow going. “If you are not on the red carpet please keep it moving!” roared security guards to no avail. By the time I got to my table I had five people in line. Katie’s line stretched halfway to the cubical Funko fortress.

  “Yo,” she said, drawing Elsa from Frozen in some kind of badass superhero pose. “You seen your little helper around?”

  “Who?”

  “Your—you know. Your volunteer. Your groupie. Whoever she is. The one with, uh, you know. The one thing. That most everyone else has two of.”

  “Pilar?”

  Katie frowned. “I thought you said her name was Violet.” Clearly the police put as much urgency into warning the artist and writer of Mister Mystery about Pilar’s Facebook video as they did running down my pedicab alibi.

  “Violet, right. What about her?”

  “I was hoping she could sit at my table while I go to the ladies’ room. Every time I lean forward to draw, I feel like I have to pee. It’s one of the great miracles of human pregnancy.”

  “You haven’t seen her yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Me, neither. Maybe…” Maybe she’s not coming. I hoped she’d stay far away from the convention center. I imagined the security guards and cops I saw patrolling everywhere were looking for her.

  Assuming, of course, they hadn’t caught her already.

  * * *

  – – – –

  I did my best to escape the utter insanity my life had devolved into inside the Zone, knocking out as many commissions as I could, even starting on Disco Mummy Guy’s. I found the Disco Mummy episode of the 1979 Filmation Plastic Man cartoon online. Watching it on my phone, I could sort of see how someone would be fascinated by this figure. She was an Aztec mummy with an outrageously bad Mexican accent whose primary fixations in life were “stealing all the world’s treasures” (her words), disco dancing to a jukebox in her jungle ziggurat headquarters, and making Plastic Man fall in love with her. The whole thing was lovingly gonzo the way the best kids’ entertainment is, with just enough insanity to bring a smile to adults’ faces too. Also, the sight of Disco Mummy gyrating to disco music in her subterranean Mayan temple headquarters was enough to inflame the nascent hormones of many an impressionable youth.

  It was a pleasant enough distraction, and I made Katie re-watch it with me and we shared a laugh, particularly when Disco Mummy attacked the Mexican army in a giant gold sarcophagus. But the fact that Christine continued to not text me back made me increasingly nervous. By the time I showed up for my prearranged meet with Dirtbag outside Petco Park at the end of his Dead Men Running shift, I had formulated a plan involving him using his pull with Atlas to get me into the company soiree that night.

  The ritualized nature of comic-con parties had remained largely unchanged for the last decade, a Nōh play with three distinct acts: the charity party was on Thursday night, the awards ceremony was on Friday night, and the big industry parties were on Saturday night. All the big entertainment corporations, and the media organizations that reported on them, tried to out-cool one another with ever-more-spectacular bashes.

  But here’s the thing: if seventh grade taught us anything, it’s that trying to be cool is in fact the exact opposite of being cool. In fact, the very act of trying anything at all is the epitome of lameness. So all these parties, no matter how high the rooftop or how expensive the cash bar, all universally suck. They’re filled with wannabe social climbers and pros trying to suck up to creators and low-level Hollywood talent just hoping to be seen by anyone at all. If anything, it was cooler these days to skip a company party than to be caught dead attending one.

  That said, Atlas had significantly upped its game. Or more accurately, Xi’an Industrial Enterprise Co., Ltd., seeking to curry favor with the boss, had sponsored the Atlas Entertainment party this year and rented out the Cold War–era aircraft carrier USS Midway as its locale. The ship was lit up like a militant Christmas tree in a thousand twinkling lights, and the innumerable fighter jets and helicopters on its several-stories-high deck were underlit by flood spots. The Xi’an elephant-turtle-dingo spokes-thing fluttered on a flag beside the modern (whole-word) Atlas logo and the Stars and Stripes. As Dirtbag and I rolled up to valet parking in his SUV, we felt like we had arrived for the glitzy opening night premiere of War: The Concept.

  Dirtbag’s status as Atlas bullpen royalty got us past security and across the gangplank to the ship. Soon we were on the flight deck, dazzled by spotlights and a laser show dancing across the side of the control tower and bridge superstructure, rising above them, the words BEWARE OF JET BLAST PROPS AND MOTORS big on its side, surrounded by the brutal geometry of warcraft. A DJ with glowing paint outlining his fingers and facial features manned what appeared to be the bridge, busting out mad tracks of remixed superhero theme songs. (“In your satin tight-tight-tights, fighting for your right-right-rights, and the old red white-white-white and blue,” etc.)

  Everyone at the party was dressed better than the usual con-goers, and Grey Goose vodka had sponsored the creation of several Mister Mystery–themed cocktails, which were handed out by models in Spandex goose costumes. But every member of every conversational cluster, even the ones in midsentence, had one eye turned away from their current clutch, looking to see if someone more famous or better connected might be found. Nobody wanted to be with the people they were with; there was always the tantalizing possibility of leveling up.

  “My work as sidekick is done here,” Dirtbag said, breathing in the cool night air. From up here you could see pretty much every locale in the city—the Bayfront, with its Mister Mystery facade, the convention center, and so on.

  “What’s your party plan?”

  “I got my ex to take the spawn off my hands until tomorrow afternoon, so I am going to get my drank on, yeeeeeeeeah boyeeeeeee! If I have to, I’ll take an Uber home and come back for the Dadmobile in the morning.”

  “You don’t want come say hi to Christine? I’m sure she’d be thrilled to see you.”

  Dirtbag threw his hands up and laug
hed. “I know she’ll be thrilled to see me. You, however, are a very different story. Awkward! I do not want to be caught in the crossfire when she starts laying into you for your many selfish acts of dumbassery over the weekend, no thanks.”

  “Probably wise. Thanks for getting me this far, brother.”

  “No problemo, brah. Good luck.” We shared a manly one-armed bro-hug and then he went to chase down the nearest cocktail-carrying goose lady.

  I turned to look for Sebastian Mod and his girlfriend, strongly suspecting they’d show up at some point, and found myself face-to-face with a large poster on an easel depicting a smiling Daniel Lieber. Flowers were heaped at the base, and multichromatic markers rested on the easel’s tray so people could write some expression of remembrance or condolence right on the poster. Adding my own inscription would have been the nadir of bad taste. Nobody was congratulating me for murder at this party, filled with Lieber’s coworkers and allies at Atlas Comics. Many recognized me and were giving me the eat-shit side-eye while wondering how the hell I got in here in the first place.

  Fortunately, I soon spotted my reason for being here. Christine stood in a white dress, see-through from the knees down, underlit next to a skinny, blunt-nose Sikorsky H-5 copter, surrounding her fluttering hair in a nimbus of gold. She had one hand on the chain-link fence surrounding the edge of the deck; she was looking over the ship at something I couldn’t see. Not unless I got closer, that is.

  Girding my proverbial loins and clearing my throat, I did just that.

  * * *

  – – – –

  I wasn’t quite at the edge of the Midway’s deck before I could see over the fence and realized she was looking at Embracing Peace, the giant statue of the sailor kissing the nurse. It looked much smaller from up here, but still huge compared to the tiny specks posing for selfies on the embarcadero below. It was odd to see the landmark from so high up, at such a radically removed perspective, as if to remind me of how distant I was from the person who began this quote-unquote “adventure” down there, from that point, not even four days ago.