by Amanda Cross
“And your friend persuaded you to help him steal it,” Reed finished for him.
“Yes, that’s it, more or less. That’s the outline. There are more details.”
“Let’s hear a few of the details of the theft. I take it you succeeded.”
“Yes, we did. The third man—the one who now wants to kill me—thought we might as well take a few more pictures while we were at it, but my friend and I dissuaded him. We got away with my friend’s mother’s picture. He was able to return it to her, to her great delight.”
“I assume he didn’t tell her the details of where and how he had retrieved it.”
“I think he just said he had found it by a lucky accident. She didn’t press him for details; she simply cried for happiness. When she died some years later, my friend mailed it back to the museum we had stolen it from; anonymously, of course.”
“His mother was, I fear, a more trusting soul than we,” Reed said. “But we did not know your friend. Might we, unlike her, press for a few more details?” Kate listened to this exchange with a feeling of suspension, able neither to believe or disbelieve, to doubt or to refuse to doubt. She left it to Reed to move the story along as he saw fit, planning to return for more specificity here or there if she should want it.
“How did you bring it off? The theft of the picture, I mean. Are museums always so lacking in proper security?”
“In fact, as I learned then and since, most of them are. The most famous art theft in America is that of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.”
“I remember,” Kate said. “They stole paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer and others.”
“I followed that robbery with great interest, as you might imagine, having been in the racket myself,” Jay said, with what was probably meant as irony. “The lack of security was astonishing, but not atypical by any means. The guards were low-paid, and too easily persuaded to let in the crooks, posing as policemen. None of the art stolen had an alarm attached that would have sounded when the paintings, or whatever, were removed. The stolen art was not insured, which meant that there was no insurance company to undertake the retrieval or offer large rewards. And so on. That was in 1990, and the stolen paintings and other objects have never been recovered. The attempts to find the art have all ended in frustration.”
“But what can anybody do with art that famous once he’s got it?” Kate asked. “It can’t be sold, it can’t be exhibited. Is there always some eccentric millionaire who paid for the theft and who then keeps the stolen painting, or whatever it is, in a secret room where he gloats over it alone and unobserved?”
“Thefts are not necessarily for money,” Jay said. “The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 by a madman who worked as a cleaner in the museum. They did get it back in time, though.”
“I look forward, indeed I eagerly look forward, to the day when we can discuss the whole subject of art theft,” Reed said. “For the moment, however, before my legs cramp up and we all are afflicted with severe muscle spasms, might we get to the reason why you are hiding out here? We can fill the lacunae in later, if need be. Why, if possible in a sentence, is this man trying to kill you?”
“In a sentence?” Jay asked. “Hard to put in a sentence. Let me see. This man is trying to kill me because I testified against him and sent him to prison. When he got out, which he ought not to have done, he set about looking for me. Decades of rage have left him obsessed and with no other aim in life. I’ve opted out of the Witness Protection Program; you don’t get a second chance at that. So either he will kill me or—what? I won’t stay here long. Just long enough to think of something. Believe me, Reed, Kate. When I set about becoming reacquainted with my daughter I didn’t know that that man had got out of prison. I would never have approached you had I known. I’m sorrier about all this than I can say—but those must seem empty words to you.”
Reed stood up, and Kate stood once he had. “Go back to sleep,” Reed said. “We’ll look in on you in the morning.” He and Kate maneuvered themselves into a position to leave, having folded up the chair and recovered the tray; it was then that they noticed Banny lying next to the doorway to the maid’s room.
Kate laughed, Banny’s presence having provided relief from the tension. “Well,” Kate said, “if Banny didn’t even try to get in here with us, you’ve got to know how crowded it was.”
In their bedroom, Kate asked Reed if he felt any less animosity toward Jay after what they had heard.
“Perhaps,” Reed said. “The question is whether or not I believe him. The story is probably true, more or less, but his motives for helping to steal the picture remain a little cloudy.”
“He’s my father,” Kate said, “and I do foolish things. As Hamlet wisely put it for our purposes, ‘I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.’ You have to admit, that’s marvelously apposite.”
Reed decided to ignore the reference to Kate’s or Hamlet’s mother. “Because I believe you, Kate, and know you to be honest, am I to believe him? Lear had dishonest daughters.”
“Lear was a fool who chose not to believe the only honest daughter he had.”
“I do balk at the idea of you having a criminal for a father, a real criminal, even with the excuse of losing his only love. Still, the father of his friend had no right to take the picture.”
“I think you might chance trusting him, at least until he is proved altogether dishonest. ‘We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us.’ That, on the other hand, was Hamlet’s advice.”
“And yours.”
“And mine,” Kate said. “But, obviously, with reservations.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
What should I do but tend
Upon the hours and terms of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend
Nor services to do, till you require.
The next day, Friday, Kate and Reed, spelling each other, were able to be home so that Jay was never alone in the apartment. Neither of them, if asked, could have explained their powerful disinclination to leave Jay in the apartment unattended, but, explicable or not, they acknowledged their apprehensions and were guided by them.
Clara would not come to clean until the following Tuesday. Something, anything, had to be done about Jay before then. It was, indeed, true that Clara did not enter the maid’s room; it was impossible to clean, and the agreement that it would be ignored during her weekly visit was well-established. Nonetheless, Kate and Reed did not intend to leave her alone in the apartment with a strange man of whose presence she was ignorant.
At the same time, neither of them felt an immediate need to continue their conversation with him, or to listen to his recounting of his life. Kate pointed out to Reed that Desdemona had loved Othello “for the dangers [he] had passed, and he loved her that she did pity them.”
“I feel somewhat the same,” Kate said, “although he is my father. Do you find that odd, or distressing?”
“No. But I do think it interferes with an altogether objective view of the situation before us,” Reed said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I need to think, that’s all. And having thought, if what I think is even remotely productive, I need to act. It may turn out that I need to hear more of Jay’s adventures before I can act. At the moment, I need to put my feet up and cogitate.”
“Well,” Kate said, after a pause, “I had thought of going to Boston. Perhaps I could fly up early tomorrow, and be back that night, or early the following morning. Would that suit your needs and enhance your cogitations? You would have to take Banny for all her walks.”
“Why Boston?”
“It’s a long time since I’ve seen Selma Rodney. And she is an art historian; might not art historians, or at any rate assistant curators, know something about art theft? It’s a subject that has taken a remarkable hold on my imagination.”
“Surely there are art historians a
nd curators in New York.”
“No doubt. But Selma is an old student and an old friend. And somehow by consulting her in Boston I shan’t feel that she’s likely to want immediately to pursue further inquiries into my sudden new interest in the subject of art thieves.”
“Yes, I see. And you want to demonstrate that you trust me with this situation, at least for twenty-four hours, and you wish to grant me my need to think alone and uninterruptedly.”
“Let’s just say it’s a journey that seems nicely to serve us both. You will remember, however, that Jay needs to eat, at least occasionally. You might want to check on him from time to time in any case; there is always the danger of his succumbing to claustrophobia and despair.”
“Kate, you are either a very wise woman, or a frightened one. Perhaps both. I think a day away from here, from him, from me, would be an excellent idea. And who knows—Selma might just drop a useful hint of some sort, as well as providing information about art theft.”
And so Kate set off for Boston, having called Selma who declared herself delighted at the chance to spend a day with Kate, and happy to forego any other plans.
Kate took the shuttle to Boston, and found Selma waiting for her at the airport. “I wasn’t sure I could make it,” Selma said, “and then I found I could. You never change, you know,” she added, smiling at Kate and taking her bag.
“Gray hairs,” Kate said. “And all the other changes those gray hairs represent. You don’t exactly change much yourself,” she added.
But sitting in the car beside Selma, and later, settled across from her at Selma’s kitchen table, Kate realized that, in truth, she could hardly have described Selma, had she been asked. Why, she wondered, do I never really look at people? That’s not true, I do look. But I can’t seem to remember faces or even whole persons. I do register if someone is six feet six or five feet three, but not much in between; I’d be a total loss trying to describe someone to a police artist. Whenever you meet a character in books, Kate had noticed, he or she is always described from hair to boots. A detective in a mystery may be face-to-face with a suspect, but we are told how the man or woman is dressed and everything else about them before a question is asked. Is Selma wearing a skirt or trousers? Kate suddenly asked herself. She leaned over the table and peered at Selma’s legs; she was wearing a long skirt.
“Lost something?” Selma asked.
“I’ve suddenly realized that while I recognized you instantly, I couldn’t have described you to save my life.”
“Have you just become aware of that?” Selma asked.
“Do you mean it’s obvious?”
“Of course. Your students have always noticed it. Until we spoke, you sometimes couldn’t tell us apart if there was even a superficial resemblance.”
“How frightful. And I’ve been thinking myself an observant person. How deluded we all are, or I am.”
“But you are observant. You remember every conversation, every paper a student ever wrote, and, we all suspected, every word you ever read. You’re just not into seeing, and I’m not sure most people are, except maybe in books,” she added, unconsciously echoing Kate’s thoughts.
“I mentioned once to Reed,” Kate said, “that rooms are always described also in great detail. Do you think I could describe this room?”
“Since you’ve been in it for all of five minutes, I doubt it. Is this really worrying you?”
“No. It just occurred to me. As an art historian and a curator, you must notice people and paintings and the looks of things, surely?”
“Probably more than you do. That’s no doubt connected to why I left graduate school in literature for graduate school in art history, with your kind and active encouragement. Is this what you wanted to discuss?”
“No. That was just idle chatter,” Kate said. But she was in fact wondering if her failure ever to have taken note of her difference from the other Fanslers was connected to this odd disability, or if she had developed the disability so as not to notice the difference. Certainly none of the other Fanslers had noticed it; perhaps it was a Fansler gene. If I don’t watch out, I’m going to take up Freudian analysis, she warned herself.
“What I was hoping,” Kate said, “was that you could tell me something about art theft.”
Selma stared at Kate for a moment, and then laughed. “Whatever you wanted to ask about, I knew I’d never be able to guess it. On the other hand, I could now describe you from top to toe. Shall I?”
“Please, no. What about art theft?”
“Am I to know the reason for this particular inquiry?” Kate shrugged. “Very well, no questions asked,” Selma said. Kate had been a crucial figure in Selma’s life, as teacher, as supporter, ultimately as friend. “The problem is,” Selma continued, “I don’t know much about art theft. Nothing more than the most famous cases, and I haven’t thought of them in years. Do you want me to find you someone more knowledgeable?”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. By famous cases, you mean like the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911, or the Isabella Stewart Gardner robbery?”
“That’s the idea. There are a few more of that order, though not quite as dramatic or, as with the Gardner Museum, as disastrous. Everyone in Boston has followed that case; the pictures have never been recovered.”
“Tell me about the other cases.”
“Let me think. Art thefts in America became recognized as an important crime only in the 1970s, I think. If you’re writing a paper about this, you must check everything I say. I’m just rattling on, without much to rattle on about.”
“I’m not going to publish a word on the subject,” Kate assured her. “Probably, as you talk, more examples will come to mind. It always seems to work that way; surely you’ve noticed.”
“Let’s see.” Selma looked at the ceiling. They were drinking coffee; Selma got up to refill their cups, and then sat down and began to ponder. One of the things Kate liked best about Selma—and Kate liked much about Selma—was that she was not an obsessive questioner, nor one who felt compelled to relate every conversation to herself. She was, rather, able to pick up on a conversation or subject and treat it with seriousness and, if that mood suited the topic under discussion, with a kind of giddy pleasure.
“I think it was in the early 1970s that art theft became a federal crime,” Selma said. “You could be sent to prison or fined, or both, if stolen art was taken across state lines. The point, of course, was to get the FBI involved in pursuing stolen art. If the robbery was done for money, the robbers were likelier to be caught. Often they were common crooks without much knowledge of art, who thought this was an easy way to make some dough. It was when the criminals knew what they were doing that recovery became more difficult and sometimes impossible, particularly if they, or the people they steal for, have no intention of selling. Someone who steals a painting for the sheer joy of owning it in secret is almost impossible to catch.”
“Ah,” Kate said.
Selma waited for further comment, and then, when there was none, went on. “There are also the jokers; these are the stories about art theft that everyone knows; thefts for a joke or to show it could be done. In these cases, the paintings or whatever are usually recovered or returned. Sometimes art students have stolen paintings to copy them, more often in Europe, or to remove the effects of restoration and then return them with a nasty note.”
“They sound like the type who used to sit on flagpoles or swallow live goldfish; college pranks for the hell of it,” Kate said.
“That’s the idea, but art theft is usually serious; very serious, and for money. Here again the art work is usually recovered. You and I steal a Vermeer, let us say; never mind how. We know it’s worth millions of dollars. So we send off a note saying for ten percent of its worth, we’ll return the picture. There’s no way anyone could sell a Vermeer, and we, the thieves, know it. So we’re just speaking here of kidnapping and ransom. No one likes to admit it, but both the museums (or owners or galleries) and
the insurance companies would far rather get the picture back than help the police or the FBI to prosecute the thieves. Is any of this helping?”
“I’m hanging on every word. Surely what you’re describing isn’t only ransom, it’s also blackmail.”
“Right you are. The insurance companies are being blackmailed. But the sad truth is that many museums don’t carry insurance on particular paintings or objects; the Gardner didn’t. Kate, I do hope you aren’t thinking of taking up a life of crime; you don’t contemplate trying to steal a painting, do you?” Selma actually sounded a bit worried.
“Absolutely not. Do go on.”
“I don’t think I can dredge up much more.”
“It doesn’t sound as though security is very sophisticated in most of the museums that were robbed.”
“That’s improved. Some of the worst crimes were in Europe decades ago—that notorious theft of Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington, for instance, and a Rembrandt that was stolen from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam by an insane man and mostly destroyed; security has improved since then. Guards stand about, visitors have to check their belongings, and the press is not given much information about how thefts are carried out, information that might inspire others to similar acts. Technology has become very sophisticated, of course. My museum has circuit television, video cameras, electric beams that follow all movement, and so forth, but even these devices can be evaded by clever thieves. I recently saw a movie with Sean Connery about such cleverly planned thefts. And there have been security systems so sensitive that they respond to the most innocent circumstances, and thus are in danger of being ignored, like the boy who cried wolf. The Gardner, of course, didn’t even have separate alarms for each picture or object; I don’t know how many museums do. Worst of all, the police and the museum are after different aims: the police want to respond to the alarm and catch the thieves; the museum wants the alarm to scare the thieves away.”