Chad had an office on Chapel Street. There was a bicycle shop downstairs. The bicycle shop was filled with parts, and kids from the area would sit on the steps leading up to it and basically liter. Sometimes Chad would find kids to perform various tasks fro him if he asked them to perhaps run a sandwich to a friend, or even break into buildings as he had with Duncan for the painting.
His office was full of computer parts and cluttered beyond belief. It was proposed to be a computer repair shop, but he never answered a certain phone and if he had any walk-ins, he'd patiently ask what the problem was and then equally as patiently say that there was nothing he could do to help, and often referred them to Mr. Whitlock's son's office on York Street (who actually did fix computers the same way his father still fixed typewriters in the office across the hall.
Chad didn't take life very seriously. His father was the CEO of Rite Aid, which meant absolutely nothing to him. He despised the mentality of the people in his family, but could not get away from them because there would be no other way to afford his lifestyle. So he put up with their nonsense and offered a few pieces of advice on his own.
His antics in college led him into a certain circle of troublemakers known as Skull and Bones. This was not a surprise, considering the connections he had in his family, but the things he would suggest as a member were out of the ordinary and pretty much completely illegal. Here's an example.
There was a day when Duncan, probably the best and fastest track bike rider, was visiting LaChance at his bike shop. Chad was coming up the stairs into his office with a coffee from the Daily, when Duncan said something wise-ass to him, and Chad said something wise-ass back. From that point on, the two were good friends, and make lots of clever jokes right there on the steps. It came to be that Duncan would visit the bike shop as often for a part or more air in his tires as it was to catch up with Chad and talk trash.
Chad obviously could tell that Duncan was atheletic, and so when his friends at Skull and Bones wanted a painting in the Yale Art Gallery, Chad sent Duncan rather than doing it himself. He lured the kid into the project by offering him a free membership at a climbing gym for 3 months, and then finally went to see how he was doing. It was clear from the climb that Duncan would be more than able to perform the task of scaling Vanderbilt Hall to get into the open hatchway.
But first this took time. And a lot of effort. It started when Chad began socializing with the guards from the museum as they were sitting outside before and after work, as well as on their breaks. At this time, he would get into small talk, and read into whoever seemed the least into their jobs. At this point, he was able to find what Chad would call a "mark." And he also called targets "marks" so in a sense, a turned worker was also considered a "mark." Could also have been that the guy's name was Mark.
Mark agreed, for a very low cost of a free sandwich at the Doodle, to keep a hatch open on the roof. You have to remember it's 1997 and there are no motion sensors on the roof, or video surveillance equipment in the building, so it was perfectly feasible for this to occur. The only problem would be whether the maintenance persons would notice that the hatch had not been closed.
So they experimented. One day Mark left the hatch open. And the next day, somebody closed it. The time between it being opened and it being closed meant that somebody noticed that it was being open in the middle of the night. That person's name was Dodd. And he was the night watch at the museum. He was unbreakable in his will to do his job. Letting a hatch open at night would be completely unallowable, because it would mean that his whole purpose in life would be in jeopardy. He had to protect the paintings in the building, and the lazy if not forgetful maintenance crews who left open the hatch would need to be reprimanded.
Mark saw Chad a few days later outside of YUAG. "Hey, you want a sandwich today?" And Mark said, "Hey, not today. By the way, they closed the hatch."
"Already?"
"Yeah, it's closed already. Happened overnight."
"Crap. They have night staff."
"Yeah, they do. I knew this already and I should have told you. But the guy's name is Dodd, and he is a serious dude."
"Is he ever around during the day?"
"Nah, not really. Dodd shows up just as they're locking the door."
"But it's 15 hours before the museum opens again at 9am after 5 O'clock at night."
"An 8 hour shift would put him roughly at about 4am or so."
"Maybe he leaves or goes home."
"I don't know, I"m not there in the morning."
So Chad set up a camera across the street on the rooftop of the building above Kaye's Art Supplies, on top of the office of Pelli Clarke Pelli. That camera was pointed at the front doors of the museum, which due to an arbitrary policy set up by the head of security, were specified only to use. Chad got to see Dodd walk in at 5pm, but noticed also that at 4am, he left. And from the video footage, on Saturdays and Sundays he wasn't even there.
Walking around the museum one day, CONTINUE
This all took place on the steps of the bike shop. Chad said to Duncan, "Yeah, one of the guys, he really can't stand the Basquiat. He thinks it doesn't belong in the museum."
"That's garbage. I mean, it's like the only thing that belongs in the museum."
"Well they dared me to see if I could steal it. What they don't know is that I form teams."
"What happens if I get caught?"
"You get in big trouble. But don't worry, you're not going to get caught."
"What makes you say that?"
"If you follow my instructions, you won't get caught."
"What kind of assurance is that, Chad? This is nonsense. Why don't you do it? You can climb, you got rope."
"I"m going. But I need help."
"What are you going to do with it once you get it?"
"Well at that point I've proven my point,
"What's your point, Chad? That you're a thief? That you want to be a criminal?"
"Nah, not really," said Chad as he leaned back and sipped from his coffee.
Ultimately, Duncan wouldn't do it. Chad ended up doing it himself. So it was funny when it made the news, in fact Duncan's stomach nearly came out of his mouth because he knew exactly who was responsible, and felt almost a little responsible himself. Here's what happened next.
He found his tire flat when he got out of his apartment one day. He thought it just was flat. So he walked it the three blocks over to the LaChance bike shop around the corner. There, he found out that it was actually slashed, and that it needed a new inner tube. The kid behind the counter working that day, randomly, was me- because Joel had went to lunch that day with Chad because of some inside scoop he thought he was going to get on the whereabouts of the Basquiat. I handed him a specific inner tube particular to his bicycle model.
Inside the box for the inner tube there was a note. It said "Check your backyard." It was typewritten on a dot matrix Apple IIe printer, spelled out as ASCII art. Duncan quickly replaced his tire and hustled back home, to find the
"You can't tell the police I took it."
"I sure as hell can! You took it."
"Yeah but it's in your backyard and they'll ask where's your proof."
"I'll show them this note."
"And they'll probably say you made it up."
"Why would they say I made up the note?"
"What, you found it in the box with your inner tube? Weird story, sure. But what would seem more likely to them is that you took it. And they're just cops. They're only in search of the easiest explanation because to them that seems the most logical."
"Well what are my options here?"
"You can sneak it back to the museum somehow, or you can keep it."
There came a moment where Duncan thought about what it would be like to have a Basquiat in his living room, but that the authorities would come chasing him if he had one wrong house guest who would alert the authorities. So he opted not to do this. Instead...
