Death Benefits

by Michael A. Kahn

  The strange tale had me enthralled. “What happened next?”

  “Father Gongora died in 1719,” Panzer said, “the year the first volume of Careri’s work appeared.”

  The Jesuits in Mexico City salvaged most of Gongora’s Aztec manuscripts, paintings, and treasures, including, according to church records, a gold object described as a “bejeweled dagger handle of obscene design, used in ritual executions.” However, when the Jesuit order was thrown out of Mexico a few decades later, Father Gongora’s Aztec artifacts and treasures were not on the bills of lading of the items shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.

  “It would appear, however, that El Verdugo had left Mexico years before the Jesuits did, for it made its next appearance in the journal of Fra Carlo Lodali of Venice.”

  “Who was that?”

  “A wealthy and eccentric cleric,” Panzer answered. “One of the most fascinating art collectors of all time. He was a pack rat, a man who spent the last two decades of his life acquiring art the way junk collectors acquire junk.”

  By now, Panzer had an entire file of papers in front of him, which he had removed from a locked file drawer. He leafed through them as he spoke. “Fra Carlo Lodali frequented pawn shops, he cultivated rag collectors, he wined and dined ship captains on shore leave. He viewed them all as potential sources of objects to add to his extraordinary collection. During his final years the man purchased an absolutely phenomenal quantity of objects—some of it outright junk, some priceless works of art.”

  Panzer removed a set of photocopied materials from the file. “Fra Lodali kept a journal of his collecting years. His journal entry for August 17, 1754, mentions the acquisition”—he paused to read the photocopied text—“of a ‘gold sculpture encrusted with jewels in the shape of the male genitalia.’ He doesn’t identify the sculpture by name, but he meticulously records its measurements. ‘Twenty-two centimeters long, ten centimeters wide.’” Panzer looked at me over the text and lowered his dark glasses. “Those measurements are as unmistakable as fingerprints.”

  “I flunked metrics back in seventh grade,” I said with a shake of my head.

  “Nine inches long, four inches wide.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Yes,” Panzer said, with what looked close to a leer. “Montezuma was lavishly endowed.”

  “Only his sculptor knows for sure. What happened next?”

  “Where were we?” He put his glasses back on and perused his papers. “Fra Carlo Lodali. He died in…1761,” he said, checking his notes. “His vast collection was dispersed, almost helter skelter, to friends, art collectors, and scavengers. There is no evidence of who walked off with El Verdugo.”

  The next record of El Verdugo was 1791. In that year, one Michael Kazimierz Oginski of Lithuania offered it for sale, along with a painting, to his cousin by marriage, who was the King of Poland.

  “That sale is most renowned for the main acquisition,” Panzer said, “Rembrandt’s celebrated painting ‘The Polish Rider.’ But in addition to the Rembrandt, King Stanislaus Augustus acquired El Verdugo. The records are undisputed on that point. When Stanislaus died eight years later, the last king of Poland, the Rembrandt and the Executor passed into other hands, first together, then separated. Scholars have confirmed that they both belonged to Countess Therese Tyszkiewicz. But she is the last confirmed owner of the Executor. By the time the Rembrandt reached the hands of Count Jan Tarnowski, the Executor had disappeared.”

  “How do you keep all this straight?” I asked.

  “How do you keep all the rules of evidence straight? How does the American historian keep all the Civil War battles straight? Because it’s your job. The Executor is part of my job, Rachel. Indeed, it’s my life. I’ve been in pursuit for more than twenty years.”

  I nodded. “Go on with the story.”

  “Edward Solly is next. Perhaps. He was an English lumber dealer based in Berlin. He amassed a large and extraordinary art collection with the same tenacity that had earned him vast sums in the lumber business. He made frequent trips to Poland. His acquaintances claimed that Mr. Solly bragged of purchasing a solid gold Aztec phallus on one such trip.”

  “Did he?”

  “We don’t know. When he went bankrupt in 1821, he was forced to sell his entire art collection to King Frederick Wilhelm the Second of Prussia. There was a fifty-seven-page bill of sale. I’ve seen the original in the German archives. There is no listing for El Verdugo, or for anything remotely resembling it. Of course, that hardly proves that Edward Solly never owned the Executor. It could simply mean that he disposed of it before his bankruptcy. Or perhaps he never sold it.”

  Panzer paused to put out his cigarette. “After Edward Solly,” he said, “there is a century of silence. Until James Hooper. Are you familiar with the Hooper Collection?”

  “No.”

  “It is one of the most comprehensive and important collections of primitive art in the world. In 1923, according to the as-yet-unpublished memoirs of Bjorn Olson, who served as one of his assistants during and after World War One, Hooper attempted to purchase the Executor from a Mexican art dealer named Arturo Sierra-Cordova. A South African attorney named Morgan Proost allegedly acted as the go-between. Proost’s letter to Hooper is the first reference to the Executor in more than a century.”

  “What happened?”

  “The parties agreed on a price of one thousand British pounds. Alas, Sierra-Cordova was robbed and killed before he could make delivery.”

  Panzer leaned back in his chair, his hands steepled beneath his chin, fingertips lightly touching. “Silence again,” he said, “until after the Second World War. Enter several important collectors of pre-Columbian art, including Morton D. May of this city.”

  “Of the May Company?”

  “The same. An avid collector.”

  “How does he fit in?”

  “In 1964, one of May’s emissaries was contacted in Chile by Mose de la Lenga. De la Lenga was an Argentine attorney. He claimed to have come into possession of Montezuma’s Executor, and said he was willing to sell it for the right price.”

  May was one of perhaps ten such collectors contacted by de la Lenga, Panzer explained. De la Lenga’s goal was to induce a bidding war among the collectors.

  “You must understand,” Panzer explained, “that by 1964 the Executor was an object that, to avid collectors of pre-Columbian art, had become the Aztec equivalent of the Holy Grail.”

  May, however, along with at least two other collectors, insisted that an art expert be permitted to examine the Executor and certify to its authenticity before they would make a bid. De la Lenga agreed, since he understood that a certification of its authenticity would guarantee a lucrative bidding war. Once the authentication procedures were set, de la Lenga smuggled the Executor into Mexico so that it could be examined by one of the pre-Columbian art experts who lived in Mexico City.

  “Quite by accident,” Panzer continued, “Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology learned of the existence of the Executor and, even more important, its presence on native soil.”

  The Museum ran into court in an effort to halt the sale of the Executor. It took a full day in court, however, before the judge issued an injunction halting the sale and ordering de la Lenga to surrender the Executor to the Museum pending resolution of the merits of the case.

  Because of the court delay, by the time the authorities arrived at de la Lenga’s hotel room, the element of surprise was long gone. So was the Executor. “And so was de la Lenga,” Panzer said.

  “Where did he go?”

  “He surfaced three days later. Literally. Floating on his stomach in a small lake on the outskirts of Mexico City. His throat was slashed from ear to ear.”

  “No Executor?”

  Panzer shook his head.

  “I joined the quest a few years later, Rachel. Off and on over
the years I have traveled to Poland, to South Africa, to Lithuania, and to Thailand in pursuit of leads and tips. All for naught. Until ten months ago, that is. Quite unexpectedly, the Executor came on the market again. The black market, that is. Down in Argentina. Acquiring it, however, was only the first hurdle.”

  “It’s against the law to bring it into America,” I said.

  “That is a most controversial legal question upon which reasonable minds can differ. For you see, after the Mexican authorities bungled their attempt to grab the Executor from de la Lenga, they pursued court process. In 1968, they purported to perfect their claim to the Executor as—quote—stolen cultural property—closed quote—under a United Nations convention on cultural property.”

  “What effect does that have?”

  “Under a treaty between Mexico and the United States, any designated article of so-called stolen cultural property that is imported into the United States is subject to seizure by Customs and forfeiture to the government.”

  “So it’s against the law to bring it here.”

  “Is it? Come, come, Rachel. Your mind is more subtle than that. I am not a lawyer, but even I can see that there may be at least a question of law as to whether Mexico has in fact perfected its claim to the Executor. After all, the object had left Mexico hundreds of years before that statute was enacted. Just because some Mexican justice of the peace issues an ex parte judgment hardly means that an American court will afford such a decree full faith and credit. That is precisely why I retained Stoddard Anderson. As I said, acquiring the Executor was just the first hurdle. Safely delivering it inside this country was the true challenge.”

  “And Stoddard agreed to do that?” I asked, amazed.

  “He did indeed. Stoddard’s assignment was to deliver the Executor into the country and, in the process, evade or defeat the efforts of the Mexican government to lay claim to it. For those services I agreed to pay him the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Don’t look so incredulous, Rachel.”

  “I have a hard time believing that Stoddard Anderson would agree to do that for any amount of money. How would he even know the first thing about smuggling something into the country? And why would he be willing to do it?”

  “The how part is not as incredible as it may first seem. Stoddard Anderson was not without influence within the Republican Party, which, as the political party in power, controlled the patronage appointments at the U.S. Customs Service. Stoddard also had powerful friends within corporate America. As you surely must know, many major American corporations have substantial international operations, and equally substantial influence within the governments of the countries where they do business.” Panzer leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “As for the why, it was quite simple: Stoddard Anderson needed money. For what, I have no idea. Perhaps as seed money for the senatorial campaign his friends in the GOP kept urging him to wage. Perhaps for the purchase of a summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. His political ambitions were no concern of mine, Rachel. Nor was his private life. We struck a deal. The price was right. For both of us.”

  I thought it over. “So where is it?”

  He shifted his gaze to me. “That, my dear woman, is the one hundred thousand-dollar question. If you can answer it, the money is yours. I have reason to believe Stoddard Anderson succeeded in bringing the Executor into the country before he died. Indeed, he told me so himself. I even have reason to believe the Executor was somewhere here in St. Louis at the time of his death.”

  “Then why didn’t he turn it over to you?”

  “The U.S. Customs officers—the law enforcement types—began snooping around about a month before Stoddard’s death. We both decided it was best to wait until Customs lost interest. As recently as three days before he disappeared, Stoddard told me that he still didn’t believe it was safe.”

  I sat back in the chair and mulled it over.

  Panzer lit another cigarette. “Really, Rachel,” he said as the smoke trickled out of his mouth and nose, as if he were on fire, “even if we assume that there has been a technical violation of the law, and I most sincerely doubt it, then the guilty party is already dead. Moreover, the technical violation, if any, was in bringing the Executor into the country. I am merely asking you to retrieve it from wherever Stoddard Anderson placed it before he died. Let me worry about the consequences.”

  “I have no idea where, or even if, he hid that thing.”

  “Ah, but you have one thing I do not. You have access. To his papers. To the people he dealt with before his death. My sources tell me you are a woman of uncommon tenacity and imagination. Use those qualities. Find the Executor, Rachel.”

  As incredible as it seemed, other facts—ranging from the suicide note to the hotel register—seemed to confirm Panzer’s remarkable claim. It appeared that Stoddard Anderson had actually been involved in the quest for Montezuma’s Executor. At the very least, I might have to revise my views about Republicans.

  “If I agree to help you,” I finally said, “and that is still a giant if, the fee is the same one you negotiated with Stoddard Anderson. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  His bushy eyebrows arched. “I should think that one could fairly call that overreaching. After all, Stoddard had completed the most challenging phase of the work before his death. You surely must concede that he earned a substantial portion of that fee.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. He earned it. You never paid it. You agreed to pay him a quarter of a million dollars, Remy. That money belongs to his estate. If Stoddard Anderson really brought that thing into the country, then you owe his estate the entire amount, assuming I can deliver the Executor. I will work out my own fee arrangement with his widow.”

  After a long stare, Panzer nodded his head in appreciation. “You are a good attorney, Rachel. Your argument is persuasive. We have a deal.”

  “Not yet,” I said as I stood up to leave. “But at least we have a price.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m dead,” she explained. “I used to be living, but I’ve been dead for six months. You’d have to ask Portia. She used to be the dead one, but we switched.”

  I had to smile. The ghoulish jargon of the trusts and estates department of Abbott & Windsor had not changed since my days as an associate in the firm’s Chicago office. There were two paralegals in the St. Louis office’s trusts and estates department. Accordingly, one was “dead” and the other was “living.” The “dead” one handled the administration of the estates of dead clients, while the “living” one organized and updated the estate plans of the living ones. (In the A & W jargon, living trusts-and-estates clients are “undeads.”)

  And thus, Linda Salem was the “dead” paralegal. Portia McKenzie was the “living” one.

  By the time I returned to Abbott & Windsor from the Panzer Gallery, it was close to four-thirty. Although I now had a fairly good idea of the identity of the first “Executor” mentioned in Stoddard Anderson’s suicide note—“The Executor is safe underground”—I still wanted to follow the executor trail I had started down before my meeting with Panzer. Perhaps it would help me identify the second “Executor” reference in the suicide note. And if not, it might lead somewhere anyway. There were too many loose ends in this investigation. I wanted to tie down any that I could.

  Linda Salem—the “dead” paralegal—told me that at the time of his death, Stoddard Anderson had not been the executor of any estate then in probate. According to her search of the computerized records, Reed St. Germain was usually named executor of any of Anderson’s clients who, in the A & W phrase, were “no longer undead.” In addition, Reed St. Germain was serving as the executor of Stoddard Anderson’s estate.

  But Linda couldn’t help me with the “undeads.” Portia McKenzie would have the records on whether Stoddard Anderson was designated as executor in any of their wills. Unfortunately, Portia was al
ready gone for the day. I left a short note on her desk asking her to call me in the morning.

  ***

  The message light on my telephone was flashing when I got back to my office. I called the message center. There was a package up front from the St. Louis Club. There were also two phone messages from Bridgeton Police Detective Mario Aloni, two from Benny Goldberg, an ASAP message from Reed St. Germain, and a call from the secretary of Salvatore Donalli (aka the Missing Link). Donalli’s secretary had left a message: Mr. Donalli could meet me tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. at his office. I called her back, received a recorded message that the offices of Donalli Construction were closed, and left a confirming message at the sound of the beep.

  I dialed Mouse Aloni’s number next.

  “I called earlier to tell you the news about Mrs. Anderson,” he said. “I suppose you’ve heard by now.”

  I clenched the telephone. “No. Tell me.”

  “Oh.” There was a pause. “I’m afraid your client was attacked last night, Miss Gold.”

  “Oh, no. Is she—?”

  “She’s alive, ma’am. But in critical condition. Head injury.”

  “Oh, my God. What happened?”

  “We’re not exactly sure, Miss Gold. The Clayton police are handling it, but they’ve been keeping me apprised. A neighbor found her this afternoon. She had come over to visit Mrs. Anderson. Door was open. Mrs. Anderson was on the floor in the front hall. She was unconscious. As near as we can tell, she came home last night from a board meeting of one of her charities, probably shortly after nine-thirty. That’s when her meeting ended. It was only a five-minute drive from her house. Apparently, there was an intruder in the house. Her entrance must have surprised him.”

  “What did he do?” I could feel my heart beating.

  “He struck her on the back of the head. With a hard object. We found a fireplace poker near the body. The indentation in her skull appears to match the bore of the poker.”