Survival Is a Dying Art

by Neil S. Plakcy

  I could add in that I’d taken a bunch of art history courses in college, which was why Frank Sena had asked for my advice. I was sure I could get Frank to say that he hired me for some accounting work.

  I had no undercover experience – but I knew someone who did. I’d worked with Special Agent Katya Gordieva on a previous case and she and I had become friends. With her experience digging into the Russian mafia while pretending to be a real estate agent, she’d be the perfect person to help me understand what I had to do.

  I texted her and asked if she was available for drinks or dinner over the weekend, and while I waited to hear back from her, I looked up the Central Database of Holocaust Victims run by the Yad Vashem organization. There were over fifty pages of people with similar names, and it took a while until I found Ugo Sena’s name on page forty.

  Ugo Sena was born in Venice, Italy to Leone and Elena nee Richetti. He was a bachelor. During the war he was in Auschwitz, Poland. He was murdered in the Shoah. This information is based on a Page of Testimony submitted by his brother, Carlo Sena.

  The simplicity of the report was horrifying. A person’s life and death reduced to a few lines. And there were fifty pages of people with similar names.

  It took me a couple of minutes to take all that in. I’d studied World War II, knew that millions had died, but it became more real to me seeing those names. Which I guessed was the purpose of the list.

  I assumed that Carlo Sena was Frank’s father, but wanted to verify it anyway. I found his name in a list of donations Frank had made to a gay synagogue in Fort Lauderdale, “In memory of Leone, Elena, Carlo, Rebecca and Ugo Sena.” The only unfamiliar name was Rebecca, and I assumed that was Frank’s mother.

  I went back to the collection of text messages between Frank and Venable that Frank had sent me. Venable was very cagey—he never indicated that he had the painting or knew anything about his history. Just that he had an online contact who had listed the painting for sale along with a number of others. The vendor was cagey about dealing with people he didn’t know, so for a fee, Venable could be Frank’s intermediary, arranging to purchase the painting and have it shipped to the United States.

  That was where Frank had left things. Venable never mentioned his pawn shop, his gold buyer business or his booth at Trader Tom’s, never offered to throw in a very good fake Rolex made in Turkey.

  Clues were falling into place. Everything that Frank Sena had told me so far was true. The painting was an important and valuable one, and Venable was connected to it. Could I leverage all of that to get Frank his painting back and put Venable in a position where he’d be willing to trade information about the smugglers for a lesser sentence, or his own freedom?

  8 – A Little Excitement

  It was the end of the day before I got a text from Katya saying she was free that evening. Instead of sending texts ping-ponging back and forth, I called her. I can be old-school like that sometimes.

  She was still living in Sunny Isles Beach, where her case had been centered, so we agreed to meet at a bar at the race track in Hallandale, halfway between her place and mine. An hour later, I drove in to the complex past a giant statue of Pegasus slaying a dragon. Working for the Bureau I felt like that big horse sometimes, my wings outstretched and a villain under my hoof.

  Not that often, though.

  Stores and restaurants had been built on either side of the grandstand, all of it in the faux Mediterranean style that was everywhere in South Florida. I parked in the garage and kept to the shady side of the street as I walked over to the bar. Though it was early evening, the sun was sharp, the temperature in the eighties and the humidity high.

  I took a seat as far from the big TV screens as I could get, ordered a draft of raspberry wheat beer, and turned to the door to wait for Katya Gordieva.

  She was a beautiful woman with fair skin, honey blonde hair and a luscious figure, and several men at the bar looked up when she walked in. She had been a special agent not much longer than I had, first in an undercover operation among the Russian Mafia in New York, then a similar one in Sunny Isles Beach.

  We hugged and kissed, and she settled onto a bar stool beside me. After she’d ordered a vodka tonic, she turned to me. “I hope you have something entertaining to talk about, because I’m bored. Working in the office isn’t as interesting or challenging as being out in the field.”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask about,” I said. “I may have an opportunity to go undercover and I need your advice.”

  “Dish,” she said, as she lifted the highball glass to her lips.

  I told her about Jesse Venable, the pawn shops and the flea market booth, and the painting confiscated by the Nazis. “I want to be Frank Sena’s intermediary with Venable and see if I can get him arrested for dealing in stolen art. Then Vito can leverage him for information about the counterfeit watches and the immigrant smuggling.”

  “Your goal in an undercover operation is to gain the trust of the people you’re investigating,” Katya said. “And then betray that trust by using what you’ve learned from them to arrest and incarcerate them.”

  “You make it sound so attractive,” I said. “But it’s not really that personal, is it?”

  “Of course it is. Imagine one of your friends—your roommate, for example. Suppose you discover that he’s doing something illegal. Do you report him?”

  “That depends, doesn’t it? If he killed somebody, then I don’t have much choice. But if I find out he’s selling some coke on the side for extra money? I talk to him, convince him to stop before he gets in too deep.”

  “Sadly, it’s not that easy,” she said. “What if you end up liking this Venable guy? Say he’s had a hard life, he’s got a sob story. You understand why he’s doing what he does. You have to remember your job isn’t to be his friend—your job is to collect enough evidence to arrest him.”

  I didn’t like the idea, but I knew what I had to say. “My first loyalty has to be to the Bureau. Even if what I do hurts someone I like.”

  I remembered a previous case, where I’d had to arrest two men whose motivation I understood, even sympathized with. It had been a difficult situation, and I still felt bad for both of them, and the way their desperation had driven them to commit dangerous acts.

  She finished her drink. “Another round?”

  “How about dinner with that?” I asked, and we moved to a booth in the back.

  After we’d ordered, she said, “You’re going to need some basics before you get started. A cover story, business cards, a website. You want him to be able to find you online if he looks you up to check you out.”

  “I can put all that together,” I said. “I’m thinking that I could say that Frank Sena is one of my accounting clients and he’s asked me to help him out with this.”

  “Why? It’s not an accounting problem.”

  “I thought about combining my background with a bit of my brother’s. I can say I’m an art lover, maybe even minored in art history in college. I can get Danny to help me out with any details I need.”

  “That’s good, but again, it’s only a start. You must have learned some basic undercover techniques at Quantico – I know I did.”

  I nodded. “And I used them last week.” I told her about Trader Tom’s Market. “But this is a longer game.”

  “It is. You’re going to need to know your story inside and out. Let’s start with the basics. How long have you been an accountant?”

  I thought for a moment. Before I came out, I’d grown accustomed to providing only what my mother and stepfather needed to know, and I’d learned to stick as close to the truth as I could.

  “I got my master’s in accounting from Penn State four years ago. Worked for an accounting firm in Philly, where I got my CPA. But I didn’t like the corporate world so I decided to strike out on my own. I met a guy online who lived in Wilton Manors, and he offered me the chance to share his house and introduce me to some clients. So I made the move about a year a
go.”

  She nodded. “Good. That’s close enough to your real story.” She asked me a bunch more questions, including some I hadn’t thought about, like how my sexuality had worked into my decisions. “This guy you met online, are you going to say you dated him?”

  I shook my head. “But I knew that Wilton Manors would be a comfortable place for an openly gay accountant.”

  Then our food arrived, and as we ate, she told me how she’d gotten started undercover. “I had to get my real estate license in New York and actually work for a broker in order to make my cover stick,” she said. “I stuck as close as possible to my real story – the bachelor’s in Russian, then law school. I said that I was struggling to pass the bar and needed to make some money while I studied.”

  “But you had already passed the bar under your real name, right?”

  She nodded. “The Bureau arranged for my mother’s maiden name on my license, and gave me all the backup documentation I needed. You’re going to need some of that too—a driver’s license, a couple of credit cards. Your cover has to be deep enough. Talk to Wagon – he put together some great stuff for me.”

  I hadn’t been aware that in addition to all his other skills, Wagon also manufactured fake IDs, but it made sense that agents would need those in undercover cases.

  Katya and I walked through a couple of scenarios. What if Venable offered me marijuana or cocaine? Just say no. If he asked me to do anything illegal? I’d fall back on the need to maintain my CPA. A single client, no matter how lucrative, wasn’t worth risking the loss of my professional credentials.

  We split a massive ice cream sundae, and I paid the bill. “Thanks so much for meeting me,” I said. “I feel a lot more comfortable about this gig now.”

  “No problem. It was fun. And if you need a beard for any reason, feel free to call on me. I could use a little excitement in my life.”

  Yeah, that was why I’d joined the Bureau. I’d learned, however, that there was a fine line between a little excitement and way too much.

  As I drove home, I thought about how I could put together an identity for Jesse Venable that wouldn’t connect me to the Bureau. After dinner, I did a search for myself online. I Googled “Angus Green” and “FBI” and came up with nothing. That was good, not even on a friend’s social media account. Then I uploaded a photo of my head to Google’s image search feature and looked for matches.

  There were a lot of good-looking redheaded guys out there online, but my photo only matched a couple of group shots at Lazy Dick’s, the gay bar where I usually hung out. I’d take the chance that Venable wouldn’t go so far as to check me out there. I’d had to come out as an FBI agent during a case the year before, but staff and clientele changed pretty quickly, and I’d have to take that risk.

  A crook like Venable probably had access to less legitimate means of searching. I often used the first name Andrew because it was close enough to my own for casual use. If I wanted to be thorough I should probably stick to Angus. But my last name could go. Angus Black? Gray? Grant?

  I decided to use Angus Gray. It was close enough to my real name that if I fumbled I could recover, and if anyone connected me to Green I could make an excuse and a joke.

  9 – Wipeout

  Saturday morning I used a simple website builder to put together a quick site for Angus Gray, CPA. I built a resume for myself that resembled my own in all but last name, starting with my degrees from Penn State. I expanded my public accounting work to cover the years I had spent in Philadelphia, and began my practice in Florida the same time I’d moved to town.

  I listed my clients without reference to their names, and embellished a bit of what I had done for them. For the “about me” page I used a photo my brother had taken, and added that I was an art lover who had minored in art history and loved to frequent area museums. With a little fiddling, I was able to make it look like the site had been set up a year ago, which matched my cover story.

  I set up a free email account under the name of Angus Gray and then sat back to consider what I’d created. It took me most of the day, and it wasn’t perfect, but along with whatever Wagon could create for me, it was something I could sell.

  Lester came back from California that night, and I met him at his apartment. We slept in Sunday morning, then went to the gym for a long workout. Over a lazy lunch, I added to what I’d already told him about the stolen painting and he nodded along. I realized I’d never asked him how he knew so much about art, so I did.

  “The guy who owned the stables where my father worked commissioned paintings of all the horses who won for him and he showed them off to everyone,” Lester said. “I even saw one of the paintings being created at the stable. And then when I was teaching phys ed in Kentucky I dated the art teacher, and we used to go to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville.”

  I noticed the way he pronounced the name of the city, Lou-a-ville, and it was the first time I ever hear him sound like he was from the south.

  “How come you don't have a southern accent?” I asked.

  “Because my parents weren't ignorant hillbillies,” he said, with what sounded like a bit of resentment. “They were both educated people and they taught me to speak properly. And besides they were both from Ohio and only moved to Kentucky for my father's job.”

  I held up my hand. “Hey, sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that all people with southern accents were ignorant.”

  “I know you didn’t mean that. But it’s just like having muscles, you know? People stereotype you a certain way. He has big biceps—he must be stupid.”

  “I don’t see it that way. I figure a guy with big biceps has to be really determined and focused.”

  “Well, no offense, sweetheart, but you don’t have them, so you don’t get the attitude I do.”

  “There is some attitude I’d like to demonstrate to you,” I said, smiling, and I snaked my arm around his neck and pulled him close for a kiss.

  Lester stayed the night, and we both gave each other as much attitude as we got. In the morning I left him sleeping in my bed and drove to Miramar, where I wound my way through the serpentine hallways to the lab.

  Wagon was working at a lab table in a warehouse bay. The floor-to-ceiling shelves were stocked with the tools of his trade, everything from fingerprint powder and brushes to ultraviolet lights.

  Wagon was a pretty cool guy, if a bit nerdy, only a few years older than I was. “Katya Gordieva says you can help me with some ID documents,” I said, when he was finished with what he was doing.

  “What do you need?”

  I explained what I was trying to do. “What can you give me?”

  “We have the capacity to give you almost anything on paper – birth certificate, diploma, that kind of thing. I can get you a passport under this name as well, but that’s going to take some extra time.”

  When I graduated from Penn State with my master’s, I’d been given a laminated wallet-sized copy of my diploma, so I gave that to Wagon to make a copy. He took a couple of head shots to use for a license and other photo ID. “You’ll need business cards, too,” he said. He handed me a form. “Fill out what you want and I’ll have them printed.”

  I got to choose from a couple of different basic designs, and picked one that I thought looked professional. Wagon gave me a post office box number I could use as my address, and I filled in the name of my website and my personal cell number.

  Wagon said he’d have the materials for me the next day and I walked to Vito’s office. “I’m putting together an alternate ID as a self-employed accountant,” I said. “Angus Gray, CPA. Wagon’s helping me with the documentation, and I got a primer on how to act undercover from Agent Gordieva. I want to get Frank Sena, the guy who Venable approached about the painting, to put me in touch.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “My new background includes a minor in art history in college. In the course of helping Frank with his taxes, he mentions the painting and I agree to help him get it bac
k.”

  “And how about this painting?” Vito asked. “You up to speed with it yet?”

  “Working on it. I feel pretty comfortable with the artist, the period and the painting itself. Nowhere near an expert but I can bluff.”

  “Yeah, I learned that the other day,” Vito said. “When are you going to put this in motion?”

  “As soon as I get the documentation from Wagon. He says tomorrow.”

  When I got back to my office I called Tom Laughlin and explained what I planned to do. “You know Frank a lot better than I do,” I said. “Do you think he can lie convincingly to Venable about me?”

  Tom laughed. “You don’t get to be as successful in business as Frank was without some ability to spin a line of bullshit and carry it through,” he said. “And he’s determined to get this painting back, so I think he’ll do whatever he needs.”

  I worried about the ‘line of bullshit’ comment. “You think he’s being honest with me? Venable lives here in Fort Lauderdale, so I need to be sure that Frank doesn’t have some other grudge against him.”

  “I’ve spent some quality time with Frank lately—thanks in part to your willingness to help him, which I appreciate, by the way.”

  I figured ‘quality time’ was Tom’s euphemism for the horizontal mambo, or whatever else two older guys with years of experience behind them could get up to in bed.

  “And?”

  “And he seems honest and open. So to answer both your questions, I believe he can do what you want him to do, and I also believe his motives are right out there in the open.”

  “Thanks, Tom. I’m glad things are working out for you with Frank.”

  “It’s early days. One intimate encounter does not make a relationship. But I’m just as determined as Frank is when I see something I want.”

  I smiled, thanked Tom again, and called Frank. “You have to give him my name as Angus Gray, though, and you can’t tell him that I work for the FBI. Just that I’ve done some accounting work for you, and because I know something about art, you want me to be involved in the transaction.”