“I’m sorry, Hiram Saxon no longer resides at these apartments.”
So that was it, Hymie had done a runner, leaving me holding the baby. The baby I was holding was the Mona Lisa, or in this case forty-three original Mona Lisa’s. I suppose I had better start from the beginning.
I was in my final year at college, majoring in physics. For my project I had taken two simple, commonly understood principles, put them together and come up with a rather staggering result. I was happy to submit my thesis, take the accolades and retire into a glittering research career.
Unfortunately, as it turned out, my best friend was majoring in economics. When I explained what I could do, he immediately saw the commercial potential. His arguments were very powerful, what would I rather do for the rest of my life, sit around in dusty labs, or live the life of a millionaire. I was younger then and very easily persuaded.
We dropped out, Hymie’s dad, as sharp in business as his son, paid for the patent and setting up the operation, in return for ten per cent of the profits of Timesquared Inc.
I expected most of the customers to be academics, historians wanting to check facts, what else would time travel be useful for? Our first customer changed all my thoughts on what the timesquarer would be used for.
I explained the principle, what was possible, and what was not. How objects could be brought back the size and time constrained by the energy required. He listened intently and then came the bombshell.
“Okay, how much for the Mona Lisa for two weeks?” He asked.
My jaw dropped, but Hymie took it in his stride.
He looked the man straight in the eye neither blinking nor flinching. “Five hundred thousand dollars.”
The man smiled and pulled out his chequebook. “I thought it might be more,” he said. “You can do it?”
“As long as you can guarantee we will have it back in two weeks,” I heard Hymie say. I was in shock.
“I’ll have my security people pick it up tomorrow.” He said.
As soon as he left I exploded with anger.
“What the hell do you think you are doing,” I shouted. “We can’t steal the Mona Lisa.”
“Of course we can,” Hymie said casually. “We already have.”
“What do you mean by that,” I said? I could not believe we were even discussing this.
“Easy, the Mona Lisa is hanging in The Louvre in Paris, undamaged. It has a continuous ownership history from when Leonardo painted” He looked smug. “What they don’t know is that sometime in the past, sometime before security was so tight, we borrowed it.”
I could not fault his logic, what could possibly go wrong, had not gone wrong in fact, and for half a million…
Nothing did go wrong. I slipped back, ‘borrowed’ the lady with the gumpy smile for five minutes, their time and our client had his dream portrait hanging in his home for a fortnight, certified by an expert as the real thing apart from it being younger by fifty years. Once word got out the business took off, people wanted to ‘borrow’ all manners of masterpieces and other artifacts from the past. The favourite remained that painting, that woman and her Gumpy smile, and that was our downfall.
It was Thanksgiving, everybody who was anybody, around Hollywood anyway, wanted Mona for the weekend. We had forty-two out, about to close for the holiday, then he came in. Madman Vincent, enfant terible of the current rock scene. I pleaded with Hymie not to let him have it, he had destroyed guitars and trashed hotel rooms, what chance did poor Mona have?
Hymie was swayed though, Vincent put down four million greenbacks, and I mean four million greenbacks. Vincent carried the painting out, it should have been the start of a happy holiday, I placed my head in my hands and wept.
I had enjoyed the money, the prestige and the resources to perfect my timesquarer. That Monday, after the holiday, my world dissolved. Hymie was away with his fortune, I was left with forty-two perfect Monas and one scratched and damaged beyond repair, no-smile, broken frame, thing.
By Wednesday I had all but one returned, but all was not lost, The Louvre still had the original. I could lay low, hope that I finally replaced it. Time is a funny thing, what if one day I woke up to headlines ‘Mona Lisa vandalised!’. Hymie was gone, I was on my own. The plan I came up with was simple, in theory. I copy the Mona Lisa, go back in time commission Leonardo to paint Mona, replace his with mine after he finishes it. I end up with the original.
I practised copying it, and copying it, I had all the time in the world, while the painting hung in The Louvre, the plan could not fail. I had it almost right, only the gumpy smile was not quite, the same, but it would have to do.
The only problem was the age of the painting, on mine the paint was hardly dry, it would never pass for an old master.
I took up a new hobby, travelling back to early 1500 Florence to find out when Leonardo finished Mona. Replacing the original really spooked me, it took two of me. One to distract Leonardo, and one to replace the painting. As I switched the paintings the hairs on the back of my neck bristled as I heard myself talking in the next room.
Back in my own time, I looked at the two Monas, one new the other ruined. It was then I decided to get my revenge on Hymie, although I never did find out what his great-grandfather said when he found a ruined Mona Lisa hidden in his attic.
I have retired from the time travelling business, happily sitting on my millions, in my Beverley Hills mansion. Every night I look at Leonardo’s masterpiece, looking back at me with that smile and thank my lucky stars.
The funny thing is, nobody calls her smile gumpy anymore, they all say it is enigmatic.
NiC Roworth –