Will you act for 30mins in a Rolls Royce?
PREFACE
When the time came in 2024, Edgar had to write down what he wanted for his last meal on his last day on the planet. His final wishes.
What happened from there was utter magic.
Peter Lunardi, who never went by Pete, was an auto insurance adjuster in Ithaca, NY. A seemingly odd title however given the winter climate, an adjuster was doing just fine.
The typical day was mostly waiting for emails listing locations to go to take pictures of cars with dents or glass damage.
Peter had a normal, 9-5 job. The fateful day when Tammy came into his office changed Peter’s life to forever - twice.
2024
When the Corrections Officer (CO) approached Edgar’s cell with a piece of paper and a pen which had no outside casing because it possibly could have been filed down into a knife.
The guard couldn’t help but shake his head.
One of the best, most honest inmates - not to mention the resident barber for the guards - was going to be executed in seven days.
As it goes, those on death row get to put their own order in for their last meal. Even John Wayne Gacy got everything he wanted.
He ordered a dozen fried shrimp, a bucket of KFC, fries, and a pound of strawberries. The man killed at least 33 men and had the balls to order a pound of strawberries.
Peter grabbed the paper and flaccid pen from the CO and took all but 15 seconds to write out his demands for his last day.
“A bottle of 1982 Lafite Rothschild Bordeaux, and one hour with The Kiss by Klimpt, mounted to the eastern wall of my cell so I can have sunshine with it in the morning of my last day.”
The Kiss was worth at least $80M and was once owned by Oprah. This was a new challenge for a prison in the midwest usually trying to source various ice creams or lobster.
Edgar wanted to have a bottle of fine wine and stare at a picture on the east wall. It was doable. Prisons have a way of making things happen when they say, “a life is on the line.”
Only the people on the other end of the phone didn’t really know.
Tammy caught Peter’s attention immediately after she entered. She was wearing what looked like work clothes - a blouse and a skirt with sunglasses but she was sweaty.
She approached Peter’s meager desk, “The car I am driving has an AC problem.”
Peter didn’t quite know how to respond but stood up, also meagerly, and said it wasn’t a place to get a car fixed.
He was at a company called United Automobile Insurance in a strip mall. A company whose domain name: “UnitedAI.com” likely carried more value than their entire company’s profits from claims.
They simply paid collision shops for approved repairs. Nothing more or less. Definitely no AI. They were in the same strip as Hobby Lobby.
Tammy had a questioning and stern look because someone actually told her no. Maybe she didn’t know how to respond because that didn’t happen often to her.
“You need to go to an actual collision shop or a dealer to get the work done. We basically do verification, payment, and subsequent paperwork,” Peter said as best he could even though he was frowning.
Tammy, still curiously looking at Peter, asked if she could leave her car in the parking lot for a few hours as she figured out details.
“No problem,” Peter said.
Soon he found out there was a problem. Not because Tammy left her car there, but because it was a Rolls Royce Phantom.
Without her phone number or any way to contact her, Peter was perplexed as he stared at his reflection from the mirrored windows of the Phantom. The car was so nice he didn’t even think to take a picture. He just stared.
Peter was pretty sure it was bullet proof, too.
Peter had no idea how to move or otherwise stand guard around the car or where Tammy went. He was basically babysitting a half of a million dollar car unexpectedly.
He decided to stay in the meager office behind his meager desk until Tammy came back to reclaim her car and he could go home to a bowl of instant Ramen noodles.
At the age of 28 he still lived like a college kid.
Little did he know he would be famous soon.
When Tammy returned to the meager insurance shop, Peter was almost exactly as she left him behind his desk. He did the same half stand-up which looked respectful-if-not-awkward.
Tammy stunned him: “Would you be open to making two million dollars in less than a week for a total of thirty minutes of acting?”
“What?” Peter said.
“I think you heard me,” Tammy said as if out of her shell.
“What do I need to do?” Peter was fishing but his interest was palpable.
“You are going to drive that Rolls Royce and we are going to pick up a painting from a prison. That’s it. You just need to be you. An insurance guy getting an asset back.”
Mayberry Prison. The worst of the worst.
The men who get only one hour per day outside of solitary confinement.
Twenty three hours per day alone with no contact with humans.
One hour per day out of a cell makes men create a fantasy land between their own ears so they can stay some sort of sane.
Edgar was no different.
He was a confessed notorious murderer but was, as he put it on an ABC 20/20 interview in 2023, an art snob.
While other men on death row think about food and the senses of sight, smell, and taste, Edgar was about the same things just with art and wine.
The same senses but in different capacities.
Twenty three hours per day to think. Twenty three hours per day to do nothing but think.
Peter didn’t know what to do. He was thinking it was a joke but the look on Tammy’s face made him think twice.
This offer was real.
“OK, so I just need to drive a car, like a butler or something?” Peter asked.
“Yes, very similar. We just need to go to Mayberry prison and pick up a painting and drive you back home,” she said.
“It is best if you don’t ask anything more. There isn't any danger involved but it isn’t entirely lawful in terms of what my team is going to do. If you are thinking of saying no, just don’t,” she continued.
Das heist
Gustav Klimpt died at 55 in 1918. The Austrian painted murals, canvases, and glass while wearing a one-piece toga-looking burlap sack for much of his time making art.
Klimpt had a way of making something abstract look exactly like, for example, an apple tree.
Some see the tree, others see stars. Remarkable art.
The Kiss on the other hand was a piece painted with real leafs of gold and featured a man kissing a female seemingly on the cheek.
Her hand was clenched and has led to much speculation if the woman was a willing recipient of the kiss.
Klimpt painted The Kiss with gold. Lots of gold.
The masterpiece was going to be at Mayberry.
It was perfect for the steal.
For the midwest, it was like the Stanley Cup at a local restaurant. Almost defenseless from theft.
Yet this one would be theft after being in prison.
The deputies transporting The Kiss from the airport to the facility wouldn’t know it from a hole in the wall. They were basically doordash but had an $80M fare and didn’t know.
Edgar tipped Tammy off years in advance. Twelve to be exact.
He wanted his family to have generational wealth and yet was going to die by lethal injection. He knew the least protected item would be a painting going into and out of a prison.
He just needed a crew.
Going in takes minutes, getting out takes hours.
Tammy’s team was ready for the challenge.
CLEAN
No one knew if Tammy’s name was Tammy or not. Regardless, her middle name may have well been CLEAN. There was no detail too small.
Tammy could plan a wedding or a killing with the same level of amazing. Hell, if you wanted both on the same day, she could accommodate.