Survival Is a Dying Art

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “I tended bar all through college, and had the chance to taste a lot of single-malt scotches. Glenmorangie is one of my favorites.”

  “You are clearly a young man of discerning taste.” He poured me a glass, and I inhaled the rich peaty scent before I sipped it.

  “I probably don’t have much to tell you that you don’t already know,” I said. “But I did some research on Fabre and the Macchiaioli. I couldn’t find any information about the current location of the painting.”

  “Let’s start with the movie I have,” Frank said. “And then I can show you how this man Venable got in touch with me.”

  Tom and I sat on the sofa and I told him about my counterfeiting case as Frank bustled around, getting out an old eight-millimeter projector and closing the vertical blinds. As he lowered the lights, I felt like I was in old-timey movie theater, waiting for the main attraction.

  The projector clicked and clacked as it displayed the movie against the closed verticals. A dapper man in his early forties waved at the camera. He wore a white double-breasted suit with a dark shirt and a white tie, and he had a light-colored beret perched jauntily on the side of his head.

  “That’s my Uncle Ugo,” Frank said.

  The eight-millimeter movie was jerky and in black and white, but Ugo Sena was handsome, and there was something engaging about his attitude. I leaned forward as he took us on a tour of his apartment. The centerpiece was a large painting on the wall above a chesterfield sofa with rolled arms.

  I recognized it as Ragazzi al Mare, and marveled at the ability to have such a large, famous painting in your apartment. Of course, back then, Fabre wasn’t well-known.

  Frank’s uncle panned the camera around the room, and I noted a couple of other smaller paintings on the wall. The film ended and the room was shrouded in darkness. Then Tom turned on the lights.

  “What do you think was the purpose of that movie?” I asked Frank.

  “From what I can make out, it was a way to show my father that Uncle Ugo was doing well in Venice and had no desire to leave.”

  “And the painting above the sofa, that’s Ragazzi al Mare?” I asked.

  “So the documentation I have states. I found several documents in my father’s apartment that my uncle sent him. He had the dealer who sold him the painting make a duplicate copy of the bill of sale, and he sent it to my father along with the movie. He was so proud.”

  He showed me the originals of the materials he had scanned and sent to me, starting with a piece of thin onion-skin paper titled Fattura di Vendita in a gothic-style script. “Here’s the bill of sale.” The whole document was in Italian, so I had to take Frank’s word for it, though I knew that if my brother Danny was there he’d be able to translate for me. He’d been studying the language in preparation for a summer study program in Italy.

  “There’s my uncle’s name,” Frank said, pointing to the name Ugo Sena after the word Acquirente. “And there’s the name of the painting.”

  Then he showed me a light blue aerogram, a flimsy piece of paper designed to be folded up and air mailed. It was written in an elegant cursive hand, again all in Italian. “This is where my uncle describes buying the painting,” Frank said. He showed me printed photos of the front and back of the painting that looked like the ones I’d found online and looked at with Lester.

  “Your father had no other siblings?”

  “Just the two of them. And I’m an only child So that means the painting is mine.”

  He sniffed the air, and I realized that there was a wonderful aroma coming from the kitchen. “I’ve made my grandmother’s eggplant parmigiana for dinner,” Frank said. “Over dinner I’d like to talk to you about how to approach this Venable, and make sure he has the painting.”

  The food tasted as good as it smelled – slices of eggplant layered with mozzarella and tomato sauce, accompanied by homemade garlic bread and a green salad. Though Frank had invited me over to hear what I had learned about the painting, had he prepared dinner not just to thank me, but to keep Tom there as well?

  Frank described how Venable had contacted him in response to a post Frank had made on an art search website, and the way they’d gone back and forth about the details of the artwork. I asked Frank to copy out any messages he’d received from Jesse Venable about the painting, and email them to me.

  “I want this painting back,” Frank said. “I don’t care if I have to pay for it. To me, it’s a way to give the finger to the Nazis, all these years later. They tried to wipe out the Jews, but I’m still here. They stole this painting because it belonged to a Jew, because the subject matter was decadent. Getting it back is like saying to the world that we survived—Jews and gay men.”

  “I get that,” I said. “They took away your uncle and they tried to take this painting, which obviously meant a lot to him.”

  “Angus and I have had several conversations about how different his experience has been from that of the men of our generation,” Tom said to Frank. “He never had to hide his sexuality from his family or his employer.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say never,” I protested. “It’s not like one day I realized, hey, I like boys better than girls and immediately jumped out of the closet. I had some angst along the way.”

  “Of course you did,” Tom said. “But all teenagers go through something like that. I speak to my straight nephew, who’s sixteen, and he’s desperate to get a girl to have sex with him, worried he’ll never lose his virginity. ‘What if I get to college and I’ve never gotten laid, Uncle Tom,’ he says. That is, right after making me swear not to tell my sister what he’s said.”

  “And what do you tell him?” Frank asked.

  “That his dick won’t fall off if he waits until he’s eighteen to have sex,” Tom said dryly. “That self-love can be the highest love of all.”

  I snorted with laughter. “Does it work?”

  “I doubt it. But it is fun to be the cool uncle that he can talk to about anything.”

  Frank stood and cleared the table. While he was gone, I leaned over to Tom. “I like him,” I whispered. “He’s good-looking and smart.”

  “You’re not going to be my rival, are you?” Tom asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

  “No, I’ll stick to Lester. And I think he’s interested in you, too. This dinner had to be as much for you as for me.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Frank returned with three small glasses of grappa, an Italian brandy. “What do you think you can do to help me?” he asked, as he settled down across from us.

  “This is my first look at art theft,” I said, “so I have a lot of work to do in order to get up to speed on how to proceed. I can’t tell you anything more than that Venable is a person of interest to the Bureau, so I’m going to have to move delicately.”

  We talked more over the grappa, and by the time I left Frank’s condo I was determined to do what I could to help him out.

  And who could resist the opportunity to give the finger to the Nazis, after all?

  4 – Good Intel

  Monday morning, I woke at seven and went for another run through my neighborhood. Then I drove to my office in Miramar, the western suburb of Miami where the FBI’s field office was located. I went down to the lab, where they had sophisticated photography equipment, and a tech I knew, a Chinese-American guy named Wagon, got me set up with a white background and a digital camera on a stand.

  I spent the morning photographing and categorizing everything I had bought.

  Starting with the Ray-Ban sunglasses, I looked for the details that had alerted me to the possibility of fraud. The clue in this case had been the Ray-Ban logo on the earpiece, just in from the hinge. The logo on the real glasses was metal, burned into the plastic, but the logo on the Aviators I’d bought was a stick-on decal. Sure, the font was right, and unless you were familiar with the manufacturing you might believe, as the vendor had told me, that you were getting a great deal on a discontinued style.

  I was able
to zoom in on the logo, getting an excellent image of it. I continued with each item, connecting it to the appropriate vendor, including the price and the details I found that indicated a fake.

  I had to ask Wagon for help with the Louis V belt, because the irregular stitching was so tiny it was hard to get a good shot of. I’d worked with him a couple of times in the past, and loved the description he used of himself, as a nerd with a gun.

  With all the photos complete, I returned to my office and began my report, which involved lots of typing and price searching. It wasn’t very exciting, but after getting shot in my first big case in Miami, and putting myself into grave danger a couple of times, I was glad to have the opportunity to stay at my desk for a while and use the training I’d gotten at Penn State.

  I paid special attention to the booth that Jesse Venable owned, describing it and recording as much as I could remember of my conversation with Larry—minus the flirting, of course.

  I saved everything to a folder for the Violent Crimes Task Force. Since all the agents assigned to that task force had access to the root folder, I added special permissions to allow only Vito to see the contents, then emailed the link to him.

  When I was finished, I read through the correspondence Frank had forwarded to me between him and Jesse Venable. Venable appeared to know several details about the painting, which made his claim more credible.

  When I finished, once again I navigated the narrow corridors of our headquarters to Vito’s office. “I uploaded my report on Trader Tom’s and sent the link to you,” I said, as I settled into the chair across from him. “I’m pretty certain that the belt I bought from Venable’s booth is a counterfeit, and I identified a couple of other booths we could investigate further.”

  “Good,” Vito said, without looking up at me.

  “One more thing,” I said hurriedly. “About that painting I was telling you about, that Venable has a lead on. I found it in a database of art confiscated by the Nazis during World War II. Then it got stolen, along with many other works, from the church in Venice where it had been stored. Since then, it’s been listed as missing.”

  Vito finally looked up. “You think maybe Venable is dealing in stolen paintings now? Or just scamming this guy?”

  “I don’t know. But I’d like to keep looking, as long as it’s all right with you.”

  “Remind me of what else you’re working on.”

  “Tracking the money for the Male Power pharmaceuticals case.” It was a locally-owned drug development company focused on generic equivalents to Viagra and similar products. The chief financial officer was accused of embezzling money from angel investors and parking it in his personal offshore accounts. “I’ve got subpoenas out for information, but I don’t have anything else to do at the present.”

  “Then I can spare you for a while. Tread carefully. And you’ll need to speak with Miriam Washington before you go much further.”

  “Who’s she?” There were over a thousand employees in our office, from special agents to support and administrative personnel, and I only knew a few dozen.

  “She’s on the Art Crimes Task Force. Not her full-time gig, you understand, but she’s the go-to person in this office with the specialized training to investigate art thefts. If there’s a case there, she’ll know it.”

  When I got back to my office, I looked up Agent Washington, and sent her an inter-office email and asked if I could meet with her to discuss a tip I’d received. While I waited to hear back from her, I read through a bunch of press releases on the Bureau’s Art Theft Program, based at headquarters in Washington and comprised of sixteen special agents assigned to specific regions.

  Was this a case for them? What would qualify this for their investigation? The theft had taken place in Italy, not in the United States. Did the FBI have jurisdiction because the potential buyer was a U.S. citizen? Or maybe she’d report the tip to someone in Italy who’d follow up on it.

  Late in the afternoon I got a response back from Agent Washington. She was about to leave for a presentation that evening at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art. If I could stop by the museum, she could meet with me after her talk finished.

  I wrote back and thanked her. Then I closed my computer and headed out. The rush-hour traffic was slow, and I was lucky to make it to downtown Fort Lauderdale in time. I parked at a garage and walked over to the art museum, where I followed the signs for the presentation on famous stolen paintings.

  A couple of dozen folding chairs had been set up in front of a podium that held a laptop computer, with a folding screen behind it. I slid into a chair and the room filled up, mostly older men and women. Some looked like they’d come straight from work, while others wore the kind of clothes I associated with retirement communities – brightly colored track suits matched with expensive rings, watches and necklaces on both men and women.

  When I was growing up in Scranton, women wore wedding rings and the occasional strand of pearls—usually fake, according to my mother. Back then, most men didn’t wear jewelry beyond wedding bands or class rings. When I admired a man’s heavy gold ring festooned with horse heads with tiny diamond eyes my mother told me that meant he was a gambler, and to watch out for men like him.

  My memory was interrupted when a young African-American woman with dark hair in complicated cornrows, topped with a puff of what looked like white fur, stepped up to the microphone. I wondered, for a moment, if the museum had a salon attached that created hair art.

  “Good evening, everyone, and thank you for coming out this evening,” she said, leaning awkwardly into the microphone. “I’m from the museum’s community outreach department and I’m delighted that we have an opportunity tonight to learn about some famous art crimes and how the FBI has solved them.”

  “Our special guest is...” She hesitated for a moment, and looked down at a card in her hand, and her complicated hairdo bobbed dangerously. “Special Agent Miriam Washington from the Miami Field Office, which covers nine counties in southern Florida. This office is also responsible for addressing extraterritorial violations of American citizens in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.”

  I could tell from the baffled look on her face that she was reading from a script that she didn’t quite understand. Welcome to the club, I thought. It had taken me a while to understand that meant we stepped in when Americans got in trouble in the tropical zones around us.

  The young woman cleared her throat and continued reading. “Special Agent Washington holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from Wellesley University, and master’s and doctoral degrees in art history from Boston College.” Her voice strengthened as she finally understood what she was reading. “She has also received specialized training in art and cultural property investigations and has assisted in art related investigations worldwide.”

  She looked up at us and with relief said, “Please join me in welcoming Special Agent Washington.”

  The audience applauded and a statuesque black woman in her mid-forties stepped up to the podium. She wore a stylish suit in blood-red and matching pumps. “How many of you here have heard of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston?” she asked.

  There was general agreement from the audience, and though the name was familiar to me because of the famous theft that had occurred there, I didn’t know any details of the crime or the investigation.

  Washington hit a couple of keys on the laptop, and the screen behind her came to life with a photo of the museum. Moorish arches looked out on a lavish garden and reminded me of pictures I’d seen of Venice – one of the many places I hoped someday to visit.

  “I was fortunate to visit the Gardner Museum many times when I was an undergraduate,” Washington said. “It was during that time, in 1990, when a theft from that museum rocked the art world.”

  She went on to describe the crime, and the FBI’s investigation into it. “Altogether, thirteen pieces were stolen at an estimated loss of $500 million, making the robbery the
largest private property theft in history. Despite our best efforts, most of the art work is still missing.”

  She went through a few screens of the missing pieces of art, and she was such a confident speaker, adding interesting details, that the audience was rapt, and so was I. She was clearly what Vito would call a smart cookie.

  She flipped to another screen. “We have had some great success in our program, though,” she said. She described the reasons why the FBI had been involved in the recovery of the golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior king, the Rodin sculpture that inspired the Impressionist movement, the headdress Geronimo wore at his final Pow-Wow and the rare Civil War battle flag carried by one of the nation’s first African-American regiments.

  The presentation took about twenty minutes, with another fifteen for questions and answers. Then the woman with the complicated cornrows returned to the podium and thanked her for a wonderful presentation, and the audience dispersed.

  I went up to Special Agent Washington and introduced myself.

  “My throat is parched,” she said. “Mind if we do this at the café?”

  “Not at all.” We walked over to the café, adjacent to the bookstore by the front entrance, where I bought her a large iced tea and got a cappuccino for myself, and we sat at a table in the corner.

  “You said in your email you got a tip about stolen art?” she asked.

  I explained about Frank Sena and the story he’d told me about his uncle’s ownership of Ragazzi al Mare before it was confiscated by the Nazis. “And the guy who says he knows the location of the painting is someone the Bureau’s been interested in for a while.”

  “I don’t know anything about that painting, but it certainly sounds worth looking into.” She finished her tea. “What are you working on now?”

  “I’m assigned to the Violent Crime Task Force,” I said. “Working with Vito Mastroianni on a case that’s on hold while I wait for documents to come in. But I feel a real connection to this situation, knowing the man whose uncle was murdered by the Nazis. And though I’m not Jewish, I am gay, and if I’d been in Italy then I would have been a target as much as Ugo Sena. It makes me want to see justice served.”