Among Thieves

by David Hosp

  “You like it that much here?” Finn asked.

  Bass gave an amused smile, and for a moment his face took on a sparkle of life infused with charm. “‘Like’ is too weak a word, Mr. Finn. This place saved my life.” He shuffled toward them. “Come, I want to show you something.”

  He led them toward the door and back out to the staircase. His pace was slow and his steps unsteady. Finn had to fight the urge to reach out to take hold of the strange old man’s elbow as he brought them down the long hallway. “I grew up poor,” Bass said. “In the 1930s and ’40s, a lot of us grew up poor. Not like today’s poor. Today, you’re poor if you don’t have a forty-inch flat-screen TV. Back then you weren’t poor until you were starving. It was a bad time. As a child, I watched people fight and claw for food. That was how people survived back then. It seemed the only way. Only I was no good at it. I was small and frail and hungry a lot.”

  He walked through the arched doorway at the far end of the hall and turned right, into a smaller room. He paused for a moment, as though walking and talking at the same time was wearing him out. Then he continued, heading toward the far end of the room. “The only time I managed to work up the courage to take anything larger than a scrap from a rat was when I was nine. It was from a large town house not far from here. Some lazy housekeeper left the door open to the kitchen, and a whole loaf of bread just sitting out. I was so hungry, and it was right there.” An odd look of guilt was still evident on his face. “I took it,” he said. “I took it and I ran.” He shook his head at the memory.

  “It was a loaf of bread,” Finn said.

  Bass looked at him. “It was my honor. And I gave it up for a loaf of bread. It’s the sort of thing you don’t appreciate until you’re older.”

  “Were you caught?” Kozlowski asked.

  The old man shook his head. “Not by the police. I ran in fear. Fear of getting caught. Fear of stumbling on someone bigger and hungrier than me. I had no place to go that was safe. But as I passed this place, I saw there was a door open. It was dark and seemed empty, so I ducked inside. I only intended to stay here for a moment. Long enough to eat the bread, nothing more. I had no idea what this place was.” He was at the far end of the room, and he walked through the doorway into the next gallery.

  “What happened?” Finn asked, following the strange old man into the next room.

  “I saw her,” Bass said. He pointed up at a painting on the wall. Finn looked up. It was a portrait of a woman, looming over the gallery. Finn sensed she was beautiful, though it was hard to tell. She was painted from a distance, lingering in a darkened doorway, her white dress flowing about her like a loose shroud. She might have been smiling, but if so it was an enigmatic smile; like the Mona Lisa with a dose of sensuality. “Isabella Stewart Gardner. Mrs. Jack, as she was called. This one was painted by Zorn.”

  Finn moved closer to inspect the painting. He could feel Kozlowski at his side.

  “Beautiful, isn’t she?” Bass remarked.

  “Maybe. I can’t tell,” Kozlowski replied.

  “No, I suppose not,” Bass conceded. “I believe that was intentional. It’s said that Mrs. Jack wasn’t conventionally pretty. Her features were slightly out of proportion, and portraitists—even Sargent—fudged when it came to her face. But her figure was magnificent.”

  Finn turned and looked at Bass, and the old man gave him a mischievous wink. “She was remarkable in many ways, they say,” he continued. “She died in the twenties, before I ever saw this place, before I was born. She built this place. Brick by brick, stone by stone, painting by painting. They say that it is the only museum of its kind in the world—a museum that represents the vision of a single person; a woman at that. Think of how remarkable that is given that the place was opened in 1903. Fifteen years before women could even vote. And yet she did this.” He waved his arm around, indicating the entire place. “The building was designed, according to her specifications, to resemble one of the great Italian palazzos of Venice, turned inside out. The beauty is on the inside. She scoured Europe for the greatest works she could find over the course of three decades. Then she arranged all of it in the galleries herself. That’s why they can’t replace the empty frames—her will is very specific; nothing is to be changed. It is her own personal vision that survives.”

  “Seems a little crazy,” Finn said.

  Bass smiled. “Maybe. That’s what a lot of people said about her back when she was alive. She didn’t completely fit in here in Boston. She had a more cosmopolitan view of the world, and she didn’t conform to the more proper Victorian mores. They say she used to take the lions from the zoo for a walk on a leash. She threw lavish parties for artists and philosophers and authors. She liked doing things her own way. She was a feminist in the truest sense of the word, before it became fashionable.”

  “And she must have been rich,” Kozlowski pointed out.

  “Yes, she was rich. Her parents had money; her husband had money. Still, money doesn’t make a person great. What she did here was great. She overcame the death of her son, the death of her husband, and a number of great sadnesses in her life. She never gave up, and she poured her soul into this place. That’s why the robbery was so much more than a mere crime.”

  Finn looked at the old man. His eyes were focused on the painting of the woman, almost as if in a trance. “You know an awful lot about her,” Finn said.

  He smiled and pulled his eyes from the painting to look at Finn. “I should. I’ve been here for over sixty years. The night watchman found me that night, curled up on the floor in this room, the bread still under my shirt. The curator was working late. The guard wanted to call the police. He probably should have, but the curator stopped him. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him. I told him everything—about the bread; about the street; about being alone. No one had ever asked me anything like that before. My entire childhood came pouring out. Then he asked me why I was still there—why I hadn’t eaten the bread and left. Without thinking about it, I looked up at this painting. ‘I’m here because of her,’ I told him.”

  Bass looked back up at the painting. “I think he understood. I’m lucky; few others would have. He just nodded, and asked me if I was willing to work for her. I told him I was, and I’ve been here ever since. I’ve done just about every job there is to do here. I started out as a janitor, keeping the place clean. I learned a little about electrical work and plumbing and painting, and made myself useful in any way I could. I’ve always regarded her as my savior, and I’ve tried hard to repay her. When I got older, I learned about the paintings themselves—their history and how to care for them. My only hope was to always make sure they were safe. I failed at that, clearly.”

  “It must have bothered you when the place was robbed,” Kozlowski said. It sounded to Finn like he was prodding the old man.

  Bass looked at them both, tears of anger in his eyes. “That wasn’t a robbery, it was an abomination. It was a betrayal.”

  “Baxter was the director at the time?” Kozlowski asked.

  Bass looked at him and chuckled. “Baxter thought you were the police because you sound like the police.”

  “I used to be on the force,” Kozlowski said. “He assumed. I didn’t correct the assumption. I never misrepresented myself.”

  “Ah,” Bass said. “So you’re lawyers.”

  “I am,” Finn said.

  Bass looked at him, then pointed to Kozlowski. “He’s been around you for too long. Only a lawyer would draw his kind of distinction. Why are you here?”

  “You already know—you said it earlier,” Finn said. “To find the paintings.”

  “But why?” Bass asked. “Why are you looking for the paintings? You said you’re not treasure hunters; so what then? What’s your interest?”

  Finn said, “We need to find the paintings because a little girl’s life depends on it. I can’t explain it any more than that, but I’m telling you the truth.”

  The old man looked at him. “I bel
ieve you,” he said. “If you find the paintings, will you protect them? Will you return them to the museum?”

  “If we can,” Finn said. “We’ll do everything we can.”

  Bass seemed to consider this for a long time. “All right,” he said wearily. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything you can tell us that might help. Anything you know.”

  “But I don’t know anything,” Bass said. “I’ve talked to the police a dozen times over the decades; given them every scrap of information I had; nothing’s done any good.”

  “What do you know about Baxter?” Kozlowski asked. “Is there any chance that he was involved?”

  Bass shrugged. “I don’t know him well enough to tell. He’s a bit of a tyrant at times. He and I have never really gotten along. He only tolerates me because I’ve been here so long the trustees view me as a part of the institution. But his betrayals are on a smaller scale. I’m not sure he even has the imagination to have conceived of something like the robbery. Besides, the police checked him out. They checked us all out.”

  “He was wearing some very nice clothes,” Kozlowski noted. “Expensive clothes. Where does he get his money?”

  Bass looked down at the fraying lapels of his own jacket, and Finn instantly wished Kozlowski had been more tactful. “As you might suspect, I don’t know much about fashion or the cost of nice clothing,” he said. “I never made much more than minimum wage, so from my perspective, I’ve always thought of Baxter as rich. I don’t know if he has money beyond what he makes here. I never thought to wonder.”

  “Did that ever bother you?” Kozlowski asked. “Did you ever feel like you deserved more respect around here? More money, maybe?”

  For a moment, Finn thought perhaps Bass would be offended or angry. But he just looked at Kozlowski with a contented smile. “You may not understand this, but no. Without this place, I would have been dead before I turned twenty. Because of this place, I spent my life surrounded by beauty and comfort. No matter who was in charge, nothing about this place has ever made me feel disrespected.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us that might be helpful?” Finn asked.

  Bass looked pensive for a moment. “Nothing specific. My impression, though, was that the FBI was very concerned about the offer to sell the paintings that was apparently put out recently.”

  “You heard the call?” Finn asked.

  Bass shook his head. “Not exactly. But I saw Mr. Baxter’s reaction, and I heard his conversations with a number of others at the museum after the call. You may have noticed, I’m treated as if I’m invisible. It has its advantages at times.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “He was excited. Or perhaps agitated would be a better word. He seemed to truly believe that something was happening that might bring the paintings back to this place.”

  “Is that particularly unusual?” Kozlowski asked. “I would think a guy in his position would be thrilled at the prospect.”

  “Of course,” Bass replied. “If there was really a chance. But we here at the museum have lived through dozens of false leads and rumors regarding these paintings. It has gotten so that we are skeptical about anything we hear. Baxter didn’t seem skeptical after talking to the FBI the day they called.”

  “Why do you think that was?” Finn asked.

  Bass shrugged. “I don’t know. As I said, I didn’t hear the conversation. Maybe they had more specific information this time.”

  “Maybe,” Kozlowski said. He didn’t sound convinced. “Or maybe Mr. Baxter knew something himself this time.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Bass said. “I suppose that unless Baxter wants to talk with you, only the FBI can tell you more.”

  Kozlowski nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Finn and Kozlowski emptied their pockets into bins as they passed through the entrance to the Kennedy Federal Building and walked through the metal detector. It occurred to Finn as he gathered his belongings on the far side of the X-ray machine that, should the trends continue, he could soon expect to be frisked vigorously walking into the neighborhood grocery store.

  They headed to the elevator and crowded in with a dozen others, many of them wearing bright plastic badges identifying them as federal employees. Most wore the long, bored expressions of civil servants enduring their own version of purgatory, forced to deal with forms filled out in triplicate by an angry, impatient citizenry all too eager to roll eyeballs and issue heavy sighs at the government’s inefficiencies. The only solace they found was in the occasional opportunity to really screw with the most obnoxious. It was cold comfort to them, Finn was sure, but he supposed it beat none at all.

  The trip to the Gardner Museum had been helpful in orienting them, but it wasn’t enough. It gave them no leads. If they were going to have any hope of finding the paintings, they needed some inside information from the authorities, and there was only one way to get that.

  “You’re sure your guy’s here?” Finn asked Kozlowski as the elevator door opened on the seventh floor and they stepped off into a fluorescent elevator lobby with stained, battleship-gray industrial carpeting.

  “He said he would be,” Kozlowski said. “If he said he would be, he will be.”

  Finn accepted it with a nod. Kozlowski had burned his share of bridges in his law-enforcement career, Finn knew. That was just a part of who he was—he didn’t suffer fools, and he had no political savvy. The pencil pushers and ass-coverers who often seemed to thrive in the world of bureaucratic law enforcement had hated him and ultimately succeeded in ending his career. But many of the others—the real cops—never lost respect for the man, and the respect of people like that was priceless. It provided contacts that made Kozlowski one of the most valuable assets to Finn’s practice.

  Kozlowski had reached out to an FBI agent he had worked with in the late nineties trying to clean up the fallout from John Connolly’s relationship with Whitey Bulger. He and his contact had forged a friendship over long hours and heavy stress, and the friendship had stuck even after it was all over.

  The sting of the Connolly affair was still felt by the Bureau, even down in Washington. But in Boston it was defining, and many speculated that the damage was enough to neutralize any effectiveness the feds could have in the city. John Connolly was an agent from South Boston who had risen through the ranks in the eighties and nineties, winning commendations and promotions from his campaign to shut down the Angiulo branch of La Cosa Nostra, which operated out of Boston’s Italian North End, and ran the mob for the Patriarca family in Providence. With bust after bust over a ten-year period, Connolly brought the Italian-American mob to its knees with amazing proficiency, culminating with the 1986 RICO indictment of crime underboss Gennaro Angiulo and others.

  Unfortunately for the FBI, Connolly had obtained much of his information from Whitey Bulger, who was acting as a high-level snitch, turning over information in dribs and drabs as suited his purpose. In exchange for the information, Connolly provided Bulger with protection, warning him of any ongoing investigations and tipping him off whenever the local or state authorities were closing in on him. He also provided information about state informants that allowed Bulger to protect himself by murdering those helping the cops to build a case. When the whole scam was revealed in 1994, it went nuclear. Connolly was arrested, tried, and convicted. In 2000 he was sentenced to twelve years in prison for his role in several of Bulger’s murder sprees. Before he was arrested, though, Connolly managed to get word to Bulger that everything was collapsing, and Bulger skipped town, one step ahead of the law, as always. Since then, Bulger had remained one of the most wanted men in America—second only to Osama bin Laden after 2001. Reports had circulated through the years that he had been spotted in London and Ireland, as well as in other parts of Europe, but he remained at large.

  The Connolly affair did enormous damage to the FBI’s reputation in the Boston law-enforcement commu
nity. The state and local cops had been trying to make a case against Bulger for years, with various wiretaps and investigations. They had come close so many times, only to have Bulger seemingly outsmart them at the last instant. When it was revealed that the FBI was responsible for Bulger’s elusiveness, the normal festering interagency rivalries that are inevitable in law enforcement broke into open warfare.

  In the wake of the scandal, Kozlowski had been assigned to work with the feds to wrap up certain aspects of the Bulger case, rounding up some of those within Bulger’s gang against whom cases could be made. The brass and politicians figured that if the local cops and the FBI could work together in closing those cases, it might help to repair some of the damage. They were partially right. Kozlowski had worked well with his FBI counterpart, and they had earned each other’s respect. Any additional benefit to the relationship between the enforcement organizations themselves had been minimal and short-lived. At an organizational level, there was no trust between the cops and the feds in Boston. Many suspected that there never would be again.

  Finn and Kozlowski walked to the end of the elevator lobby and opened the door into a long hallway. The walls were white with long scuffmarks along them; it had been some time since they had last been painted. Kozlowski motioned to the right and headed down the hallway to a glass door at one end with the FBI seal stenciled on the window. He walked into a small waiting area; Finn followed. There was a desk with a receptionist in front of a door at the far end. She was young and pretty and wholesome, with a telephone headset perched smartly on perfectly combed light brown hair. She looked to Finn like Judy-the-Time-Life-Operator from late-night infomercials. Kozlowski walked over to her. “Tom Kozlowski,” he said. “I’m expected.”