Brushstrokes
Posted on December 25th, 2009 | No Comments »
“Brushstrokes” is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
New chapters will follow each of Community Affair’s 17 Florida shows during the 2009-2010 season. Comments are welcome.
CHAPTER 1
Chang Shiying studied the screen closely. His English was excellent — school and several years as a Beijing tour guide had honed it — but this letter had to be perfect. His instructions had been clear: Find an art show in the United States that would support his request for a visa, and go.
Shiying was nothing if not independent; otherwise, he’d have never requested his government job be transferred from Beijing back to his hometown of Shenyang. The move had enabled him to pursue his fascination with sculpture. More importantly, it had freed him from the headaches of being under the unwavering eye of the Central Park Committee’s cultural bureau.
Yet even in Shenyang, you never really knew who was listening or watching. That had been his watchword while posing as a tour guide. He had no reason to believe it would be any different anywhere else in China.
He sighed. Being an artist in China — even just trying to be an individual — ate one’s soul.
But when Beijing sent a directive, that was a different thing altogether.
He turned his attention back to the screen. The computer’s Chinese-to-English grammar translator was good. Too good. That was the problem. It made him sound like a professor. Instead, for each e-mail he’d been trading back and forth since August with the owners of a Florida fine arts and crafts show, he carefully constructed his replies as if he’d flunked out of a high school language class.
The series of conversations had progressed to where the owners had agreed to serve as Shiying’s sponsor for the trip. Beijing had been pleased. The visa had arrived as promised.
Through the walls of his studio apartment, he heard the neighbors squabbling again while their baby squalled. Another good reason for the government’s limit on children, he thought.
The cold was oppressive. He got up from his desk to stamp his feet, not only to warm himself but in hopes it might also quiet his neighbors. Straddling the tiny space heater that provided his only warmth, he glanced out the apartment’s sole window and caught sight of the full moon. He had never heard of Sarasota, Florida before this project, but it had to be better than this.
He gave the e-mail a final look:
Dear Ms. Stern,
I am in receoption of your kindly most recent letter about your offer to sponsor my arrival in US. I am very pleased. I would be happy when I can arrive in Sarasota Florida.
Do not worry hotel you can not provide. I make other sleeping times. I arrive Florida December 28.
I am most pleased you like my work. My dream is galleries will sell my work. Maybe you know some person will do for me?
I do not know Five Points Park. Could you send map? I also will pay show Saturday when I come.
With most grateful happiness,
Cheng Shiying
With the e-mail sent, he climbed into bed fully clothed, removing only his rubber-soled boots. He had read that Florida was warm in winter. He hoped it wouldn’t get too hot.
CHAPTER 2
“Are you ready yet?”
Bobby T. Stanko was definitely not … yet. He busied himself at the kitchen counter, clinking three ice cubes into his glasss, followed by three fingers of 21-year-old Glenlivet, which he stirred three times with a finger. “Three times’ the charm, you know,” he smiled.
Tony Stigliano did not smile back. He shifted his bulk on the couch and grimaced. “Why don’t you get some decent furniture in here, Bobby T.? The couch feels like 2 x 4s with a couple of bed sheets over them.”
“That was my mother-in-law’s couch. There’s no reason why it should be comfortable. Besides, it’s the best furniture I’ve got.”
It was hard to argue the point. Stanko’s single-wide was just 12 feet across. It was plenty long but the low ceiling compressed the interior. A desk and computer, his black Strat and several hundred albums and CDs took up most of one wall, and his widescreen TV took the rest. A ratty rug, the couch and a three floor lamps completed the decor. The half-kitchen was really only half of that, and the tiny bedroom had space only for Stanko’s king-size mattress.
“Living large, aren’t you?” Stiglian needled. “You take a buyout from the paper, chuck a 35-year career and end up living like a poor …”
“What?! What!?” Stanko knew this game, and he hated it. They both had taken buyout when the Pittsburgh Morning News offered them this spring. Why not? The paper was in its death throes; shrinking news holes, spotty coverage, disappearing ad revenues. It had been hemorrhaging money for years, and neither new editors, additional cost cutting nor money thrown at its Internet operation was helping. They were lucky to have gotten out when they did.
Between that and his pension, and still just a year since his divorce, Stanko figured he was lucky to have what he had.
He sipped his drink. “You think we made a mistake?”
“Nah. No choice in it. Besides, we’re both single, we’ve been fishing just about every day for six months, my golf game is getting better and,” he said, pointing to his watch “the game begins at 7. We’ve got a 30-minute drive to get there and …”
His friend cut him off. “Chill out, man.” Stanko slurped the scotch. “It’s only 6 now. There’s a full half hour built in there for us.” He gulped his drink anyway and followed Stigliano out the mobile home’s door. Stigliano turned sideways to ease out, his belly bulging beneath his Hawaiian print shirt thanks to his steady diet of kettlecorn, frozen lasagna and mojitos.
“Jesus, Tony. They’re going to have to use the Jaws of Life to get you out of this place if you keep growing.”
Stigliano just grunted and started his car, backing away from Stanko’s trailer and onto the narrow paved road that served as the only route around Harbor View Mobile Home Estates. There was neither a harbor nor views nor estates at their 55-and-older community in North Port. It promised “quiet, carefree living.” The two of them were the youngest residents and everyone else seemed either already dead or close to it. But it was cheap, and that’s what they’d both needed when they had moved to Sarasota County in July.
Stanko belched. “Did you ever think you’d be living in one of these places?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s like a ghetto, man.”
“Don’t talk to me about ghettos.” Stigliano said, reaching for the bag of kettlecorn he kept in his car. “I grew up in the Bronx. What? Like you had a better idea six months ago?”
They rode in silence in the Tamiami Trail traffic heading north to Clark Road, the only sound Stigliano’s crunching. Suddenly he cursed.
“I forgot my glove! I can’t bowl without my glove!”
“For chrissakes, Tony, it’s Wii bowling. There isn’t even a ball.”
Stigliano banged the steering wheel, accidentally hitting the horn and spilling the kettlecorn over the front seat. A teenager in the next lane looked over and smirked.
“I’ve worn it every match,” Tony said, grabbing handfuls and stuffing them back in the bag. “It’s our good luck charm. How else could we have made it to finals, huh?”
Bobby T. paused to think. The tournament had been billed as the county’s “1st Annual Wii Bowling Championship” and was open to all residents age 55 and up who were residents of retirement communities. They’d entered it as a joke — he hadn’t even known how to pronounce Wii, mistakenly saying it with a long “i” — but after winning their first two matches it had become a weekly ritual. Now they had won seven more head-to-head Wii bowling matches in the weeks leading up to tonight’s final at the Manchester Silverado, considered Sarasota’s premier retirement location.
After six months in Florida catching undersized fish and scoring 95-plus on the links, they could use the boost. Plus there was the $1,000 top prize.
He watched his friend deftly pick a large piece of kettlecorn from the floorboard and eat it.
“Look Tony, you’re right, OK. But I’ve also had three scotches before every match, so tonight, we’re in fine shape.
His friend fretted the rest of the drive, muttering about his forgotten glove, and eating kettlecorn.
CHAPTER 3
Danny Gold slouched deeper behind his terminal, hoping to avoid the city editor’s line of vision. He’d seen the next day’s news budget, and with the story lineup as weak as it was and him being the afternoon general assignment reporter, chances were good he’d be sent out on some kind of spot feature unless Marina Jack’s blew up or the mayor mooned a tour bus.
He didn’t mind the work — hell, he had a Sunday story still to finish and other stories to make calls on — but in late December you never knew what kind of crap assignments editors could come up with.
Gold scrolled through the various sports wires, the AP regional queue of stories and the national wire. He considered himself well informed. The Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Miami Herald, and, of course, his own Sarasota Gazette, were all part of his daily routine. As were the wires. He loved being paid to read news.
He ran his cursor across the international wire’s list of stories. A bombing in Rawalpindi. The nutcase Ahmandinejab claiming the U.S. was fonenting his country’s continuing protests. The oldest Tabac shop in Paris closing. Gold paused. A $27 million jewel heist in Antwerp. He clicked the cursor.
ANTWERP (AP) — A man who spent more than a year charming Antwerp Diamond Bank employees with chocolates and flowers is believed to have strolled out of the diamond district bank last week with more than $27 million in uncut diamonds.
According to Antwerp police, the suspect, a man bank employees knew as Pavel Carlos Riesenbaum, billed himself as a successful businessman and had frequented the bank for 18 months.
Police said the gray-haired man between the ages of 50 and 55, with an American-tinged British accent and an Argentinean passport, was beloved by bank workers because of the sweets and flowers he brought and his penchant for talking about non-diamond matters.
He ultimately won their trust and was given VIP access to the vault.
At the bank, located in the midst of the city’s famed Diamond District, preferred customers are given passcard keys so they can access their diamonds at odd hours. “Riesenbaum” was one of these customers.
Police said that sometime between Dec. 22 and 24, he let himself into the vault with his passcard, emptied seven deposit boxes of uncut diamonds and walked out the front door with 128,000 carats of diamonds.
A police spokesman said the passport was stolen.
Antwerp diamond merchants were stunned. It was unclear how a man with what turned out to be a stolen passport could have bypassed the bank’s famed background checks.
Robbe Peeters, a spokesman for the Belgium National Police Force, said investigators …
“Sirdar!” The city editor was yelling across the newsroom again. Wasn’t that why e-mail was created, and IM and any of the other ways to communicate with people besides yelling? Jesus, it was irritating. He pretended to ignore him.
“Sirdar!” He called Gold sirdar — Hindu for a guide or climbing Sherpa — because of the reporter’s repeated trips to the Himalayas and his mountain climbing past. “Sirdar! I’ve got a great story for you. Definite Page 1 potential. Step into my office!”
Gold shuffled over to Tom Mashburn’s desk in the middle of the newsroom. Mashburn grinned, his little mustache squirming like an upper lip worm. “Are you working hard today or hardly working?”
The reporter groaned. “I swear, Mashburn. If you ever say anything original I’ll buy you a bottle of good bourbon.”
“If you do anything besides scroll the wires, I’ll buy you a bottle of bourbon.”
Mashburn grinned again. “Did you see my Mountainqueers on TV last night? They made UCLA look sick. Champions of the Chaminade Classic! Number 5 in the country with a bullet!”
Gold yawned. He knew what was coming.
Mashburn yanked his keychain and the Mountaineer Marching Bank’s tinny version of “The Pride of West Virginia” played.
“Sirdar, we got zilch for tomorrow. Look at this.” Mashburn waved a press release in Gold’s face. “The Sarasota County finals of a Wii bowling tournament for over-55 folks. You’re just the man for the job.”
“Come on, Mashburn! That’s worse than the National School Lunch Week story you sent me on. Who the hell cares about old farts and a fake bowling tournament? I mean, come on!”
“You’ll do a great job. It starts at 7. Make sure and let photo know.”
Gold snatched the release and turned without a word. Mashburn called after him: “Don’t be trying to pick up any dates there, Sirdar!”
CHAPTER 4
The Manchester Silverado grounds were simply luxurious. Two four-story condominium towers nestled among Australian pine forests, more than a dozen small Italian villas overlooking Sarasota Bay, a nine-hole golf course, two outdoor pools, walking trails, topiaries, fountains, uniformed security.
It was one of the latter who turned his flashlight on Stigliano and Stanko as they drove slowly through the villa area called Positano. He suggested they park at the Trevi Inn and continue their tour there.
They parked near the front door in a space marked “Reserved for Wii Competitors.” A doorman waved them inside the tall beveled glass front doors and into the parlor, with its marble floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, tapestries and columns. Ornate chandeliers and muted scone lights made the main room seem even richer.
The pair followed a series of printed and framed signs leading past a small bank, a library, several private dining rooms and a lounge. Ahead they heard what sounded like a waterfall.
“I’d expect that here,” Stanko growled.
Instead, at the end of the hall they found themselves in a ballroom filled with 1,500 people seated stadium-style in bleachers, bathed in blinding kleig lights around a parquet dance floor empty save for a large screen TV, Wii equipment and four plush chairs.
Stigliano tried to speak but only managed a gurgled “huh?” He staggered into Stanko, who caught his arm and guided him toward a tall thin man wearing a tuxedo and holding a microphone.
“Stanko and Stigliano reporting for duty, sir,” Stanko said, smartly saluting.
Tux looked them both over with the unxious glance Stanko remembered from the few times he’d been inside the tony Duquesne Club in Pittsburgh, the look that said “How’d you get in here?”
“The match begins in four minutes. Here are your numbers. Please attach them to your…” Tux paused, taking in the breadth of Stigliano’s Hawaiian print shirt and Holmes’ Steeler sweats. He cleared his throat. “Clothing.”
They hadn’t even tried out the chairs before they were joined by their opponents.
“Hi, I’m Bunny,” said one tall blonde.
“And I’m Shelly,” said the other.
Both held out French manicured hands encased in bowling gloves.
“You boys are here to have fun, right?” Bunny asked coyly, her voice a soft purr. Her jeans looked painted on and her Reeboks were new. Holmes was still grappling with the concept of playing two women as he nodded his assent.
“Let’s make this a little more interesting with a side bet, shall we?” Shelly offered, swishing her plaid skirt and lithely stretching her back.
“What did you have in mind?” Stigliano spoke a bit too quickly.
“When we win, you have to do whatever we want,” she grinned, smoothing her platinum hair behind her ears and winking at Bunny.
“And?” Stanko finally said, prickled by the women’s cool confidence.
“And what?” Bunny cooed.
“If…I mean, when we win?”
“Well, if that were to happen — which it won’t — you boys can take us out on the town.” She eyed them both. “But, if there’s two moons out tonight, the bay freezes over and you win, dinner’s on us.”
Tux quieted the talk with a too loud welcome, as he explained the rules and wished “our esteemed competitors” good luck.
“Geez, I wish I had my glove,” Stigliano whispered, watching Bunny and Shelly loosen up.
“Just shut up and bowl your ass off. Let’s kick some blonde butt tonight.”
