The Looters

by Harold Robbins

  “A motive for what?”

  “For burning Bensky’s house. As long as you had the report, it gave you a motive for destroying other copies.”

  I sat back down. Drained. I was way out of my league when it came to chicanery. Working with cutthroat gallery owners and fanatical collectors was a piece of cake compared to engaging in this kind of deception.

  Neal sat on the arm of the chair and ran his hand through my hair. “You have to understand, this thing is big. Fifty-five million to Piedmont is chump change, but to Viktor Milan it’s everything. He can’t afford to lose. And people like you and me can’t afford to be in his way.”

  “Who is this man?”

  “He’s been around for years, but Lipton’s the only one I know who’s met him.”

  “What does Lipton say about him?”

  “He’s scared of him; that much I know.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He calls him ‘the Swiss’ and I remember he said the guy’s a loose cannon. Milan also has a vault collection.”

  That meant he kept his pieces out of the public eye, not showing them to other collectors or loaning them to museums. Some collections were kept secret because they were contraband.

  “Milan seems to be the one behind this whole thing,” I told Neal. “He passes illegal antiquities with forged provenances. I don’t understand how someone like Lipton could get involved.”

  “I know nothing. And neither do you. And keep it that way. The enemies in this matter aren’t in the art world but on the political side.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What’s this Iraqi cabdriver claiming? That the museum in Baghdad was looted. And that American troops were involved. Maybe they burned Bensky’s house. Maybe they even snatched him.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The FBI, NSA, CIA, hell, any one of those spook agencies with initials that get us into wars and are constantly screwing up and blaming it on everyone else.”

  My head felt like it was going to explode. The aspirin hadn’t kicked in yet. “Neal—that’s crazy.”

  “Maybe. But it wouldn’t be the first time those spy agencies covered up their messes.”

  “God, I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared.”

  “You’re panicking for nothing.”

  “Nothing? What planet have you been on? I’ve already been fired from my job. I’m probably going to be arrested any minute.”

  “Not true. First, you’re on a leave; you haven’t been fired. Second, you’ve only been interviewed by the FBI. They haven’t indicted you. And won’t. You know what it would take for them to really check out the provenance? The agent told you it made it hell for them. He’s right. They’d never put it together. You should lay low, keep your head down.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. My life is spinning out of control. I’ve tried to call Lipton, but I can’t get him on the phone. I can’t get Bensky. When the FBI agent comes knocking at my door again, I need to emphasize they need to check out Milan. He’s the devil behind this mess.”

  Another worrisome thought hit me. “What if the FBI has its own document examiner look at the provenance?”

  “So what? If it takes an expert to tell it’s a fraud, you’re clear. Now.” He jerked his head at the shredder.

  My life had come down to shredding evidence.

  I felt like Joan of Arc being burned at the stake.

  Chapter 25

  Pelham, New York

  Nunes drove to the small Westchester village of Pelham after he got the call from a fire investigator that the house of Charles Bensky had burned down. Bensky had been on the FBI’s watch list distributed to local, state, and federal agencies in the region.

  Bob Rees, the head of the county’s arson investigations, met Nunes in front of the charred remains of the three-bedroom suburban house.

  “I saw the name Charles Bensky on your heads-up alert,” Rees told him. “But he didn’t come up in the computer on a wanted status.”

  “He’s not. Bensky’s a document examiner, a potential witness in a case where there’s suspicious chain of ownership on an expensive item.”

  They entered the backyard through a side gate as they talked.

  “No sign of a body,” Rees said. “The next-door neighbor says he’s been away on a fishing trip. Bensky’s a widower, lives alone; it’s not unusual for him to take off for a week at a time, not letting anyone know where he’s at. Only close relative is a daughter stationed in Germany, a career U.S. Air Force officer. I called her and she hasn’t heard from her father in a month but says that’s normal. One neighbor thinks Bensky went to a Maine lake to camp out and fish but doesn’t know which one. He’s got a cell phone, but the phone company says it’s not turned on and doesn’t have a GPS chip.”

  “I’ll need that cell number, the contact numbers for the daughter and neighbors, and anything else before I leave. What have you got on the fire?”

  “Still preliminary, but my gut reaction is that it was done by someone who knew what he was doing.”

  “A pro?”

  Rees shrugged. “There’s so much information available on the Internet, anyone can be a pro at burning down houses or building an atomic bomb.”

  The fire investigator led Nunes to the back of the house.

  “This was Bensky’s home office.” He glanced at Nunes. “You do any fire investigations for the Bureau?”

  “Nope. You have to hold my hand.”

  “From the damage pattern to this room and the way the fire spread, it makes this wall a good candidate for the point of origin. A normal burn pattern is for a fire to spread upward and outward in a V shape. We have heaviest damage to the wall and ceiling here.”

  “You look to see where the wood is the most charred?”

  “That helps, but it can also lead to a false conclusion because burn patterns can be created more than one way. A few years ago a guy got executed in Texas for killing his three kids in a home fire. He claimed he was innocent right up to the lethal injection. I worked with a team of arson investigators who reviewed the evidence. We concluded that the burn patterns weren’t necessarily created by gasoline. Since we did the review postmortem for the poor bastard, I’m real cautious now about conclusions.”

  “But you think this one’s arson?”

  “That’s my preliminary conclusion, yes. The bottom line to any fire is that you need a fuel supply to burn—wood, cloth, gas, whatever. And a heat source to start the fire—an electrical short, a match, or even lightning. I’ve eliminated natural causes like lightning and I haven’t seen any evidence of an accidental cause, but we’re still examining the electrical.”

  Rees pointed at a fire-damaged object by the wall. “That was an electric heater. Funny thing about it, the heater was turned against the wall.”

  “Causing it to catch on fire?”

  Rees shook his head. “It was the heat source, but it didn’t ignite the wood and drywall. About halfway up that burned wall I found a thumbtack. My bet is that thumbtack held up a coffee filter.”

  “A coffee filter?”

  “A large paper one, cone type probably, the ones that look like pastry bags.”

  “Filled with a combustible.”

  “Right. Tack it on the wall near a flame, fill it with gas or a highly flammable solvent, and let it drip down slowly. While it’s dripping, the arsonist puts miles between him and the house. The dripping combustible builds up a gas vapor near the heater. If that heater wasn’t turned toward the wall, I probably wouldn’t have found the tack.

  “Looks like the arsonist also piled crumbled paperwork under curtains in the office just to give the fire extra kick. The office is at the back of the house. As you can see, there’s a tall fence, so the fire wouldn’t become noticeable until it had a good head on it.”

  “Have you recovered any paperwork from the house?”

  “Found some in a couple drawers of a metal filing cabinet that was pretty well fried
, but the files are still intact in layers.” Rees grinned. “I suppose if we had an FBI forensic lab, an unlimited budget, and it was a matter of great national concern, the burned sheets could be read.”

  Nunes gave the sarcasm a headshake. “Probably not worth the investment. Yet. If the arsonist was after paperwork, he would have either taken it with him or used it as the ignition source. But we need to keep that cabinet as evidence until we find out what’s happened to Bensky. How about a computer?”

  “No computer. Not now, at least. We found accessories for both a desktop and a laptop but haven’t seen either in the debris. The fact that there should have been computers in the room and they were removed before the fire began also tends to back an arson theory. But they might be out for repair.”

  “Not likely both computers would be out for repair at the same time.”

  “True, but the desktop could be in a repair shop and he could have the laptop with him. Anyway, we’re checking every company in town that does computer repairs.”

  “Any backup computer equipment he saved files to? Disks, removable drives—”

  “Nothing. If he had any, they’re gone now.”

  “Did he have a fax machine?”

  Rees checked his crime scene inventory. “Yes, there’s one in the debris.”

  “I’ll need the number.” Nunes made a note about the fax and to check for an Internet provider. He couldn’t get Bensky’s phone records yet because there wasn’t enough evidence that he was missing and a victim of a violent crime for a judge to issue a search warrant. Bensky probably had Internet service. It seemed unlikely the man would be in the business of researching artworks with international connections without using history’s greatest research tool. Some people did almost all of their communicating over the Internet. But Nunes would need a search warrant for detailed information from that source, too.

  “Exactly what kind of case are you investigating?” Rees asked.

  The fire investigator was not on a need-to-know basis for the whole case, but Nunes figured he needed to give the man enough information to recognize significant evidence… and ensure his cooperation. Not all local agencies made a serious effort to cooperate with the feds. And Nunes knew that the Bureau had a reputation for not letting the locals in on investigative results.

  “Bensky’s a document examiner. He has a background also in art history. He’s used by some art dealers to examine the provenance of art items.”

  “Provenance?”

  They walked the perimeter as they talked.

  “The ownership history of a piece of art. Bills of sale, letters, wills, probate documents, old catalogs of dealers and museums, pictures, news stories, anything on paper that establishes the chain of ownership.”

  “So he did a report on a case you’re investigating?”

  “Exactly. So far it appears he did only a verbal call to the client, a museum curator. I’ve discovered the curator sent an inner office memo saying that Bensky found nothing suspicious about the provenance he examined.”

  “You don’t buy that?”

  “If all she got was a phone call, it would be the first time in history that an expert didn’t back up an opinion in writing.”

  “That’s not quite true. It’s done all the time.”

  Nunes stopped and stared at the arson investigator. “What’d you mean?”

  “We see it all the time in the courts. Lawyers hire an expert and tell the expert not to issue a written report but to do it verbally. That way the expert’s opinion isn’t engraved in stone. When everything’s nailed down, they tell the expert to write a report.”

  “I don’t think that’s the case here. If the report was positive, the curator would want it in writing in order to document her file. It was a big transaction.”

  “And if the report was negative?”

  “If she knew the museum piece being purchased had been stolen, she could have destroyed the negative report, claimed she was told it was a go, and let the sale happen.”

  “And then she or her co-conspirators burn down the house and destroy any remaining copies of the report?”

  Nunes nodded. “But they still have one copy to get rid of.”

  Rees tapped his head. “The one Bensky carries around.”

  “Which means I need to get agents out scouring that lake for Bensky. And we’ll have to stake the house out, too. In case he comes back.”

  Fat chance of getting agents out, Nunes thought. In the Age of Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction, contraband art investigations were low on the totem pole.

  Nunes gave the arson investigator his fax number and went back to his car. He had a meeting set up for that afternoon with his partner and the Assistant U.S. Attorney he worked with. The discussion would center around the art-for-arms connection and how the Semiramis might fit into the scenario.

  He decided he needed to talk in person to the Iraqi curator before the meeting.

  Chapter 26

  Jamaica Plains

  I decided to pay a visit to Abdullah, again. I had questions to ask him. No longer did I think of my troubles as having started when I waved the paddle to buy the mask. Abdullah made a connection that went straight back to the looting of the museum. I wanted to know more about what he saw that day when Baghdad fell to the allied forces. And more about the evidence he said he was getting to prove the mask had been a museum piece.

  After a restless night tossing and turning and thinking about my conversation with Neal, I had come to the conclusion that I had to take care of my own interests. Two things drove this home: Neal was shallow enough to throw a woman he slept with to the wolves, and I couldn’t play innocent with Agent Nunes because he knew I was lying. I had to give him someone else to chew on.

  The one name that kept dominating my thoughts was Viktor Milan. He had come to signify an evil force in my mind, a Svengali who stayed behind the scenes and manipulated others to do his bidding. Even his name sounded sinister.

  More than anything, I needed someone to fill in the blanks about Milan. Neal claimed ignorance, and Lipton was ducking my calls.

  It occurred to me that Abdullah might recognize Milan’s name or know something about him. Or perhaps he had come across other items that Milan had been behind besides the ones I had bought.

  If Abdullah knew of other pieces that exchanged hands in the city, I could track down the gallery owner or auctioneer who had handled the sale and find out what they knew about Milan.

  ***

  The man wearing the SEAL cap sat in the car and stared up at the fifth floor across the street. He watched as Abdullah opened the window and peered down to the street. A package delivery truck driver had rung the apartment and Abdullah had stuck his head out the window to see who it was.

  The Iraqi didn’t notice the man in the car observing him. Nor would Abdullah have recognized the muscular individual whose features were half-concealed under a cap and aviator-style sunglasses. Had Abdullah seen the cap, he would have immediately recognized it. And been terrified because the last time he saw the man wearing it was in the Baghdad museum when the man was about to shoot him.

  The man knew the approximate time the global delivery truck had been expected to arrive. He had called the company before he began his stakeout.

  He checked his watch. The delivery truck was on time. He had smiled when he saw the truck make its way up the street and double-park in front of Abdullah’s building.

  He waited until the driver made the delivery and had driven away before he got out of the car.

  ***

  Back in his apartment, Abdullah opened the package and unwrapped the commendation. He swelled with pride, and tears ran down his cheeks as he held the elaborate scroll. His father would have been proud of the award from the king of Iraq.

  A handsome document, not just a sheet of paper but a scroll written on parchment made from worked goat’s skin and emblazoned with the flag of Iraq and the signature of King Faisal II. The monarchy fell
in 1958 and Abdullah wondered if this had been the last commendation signed by the young king. The twenty-three-year-old king and other members of the royal family were murdered by revolting military officers in July of 1958. A year later, Army officers, a young Saddam Hussein among them, attempted to assassinate the officer who had organized the overthrow of the king and assumed a virtual dictatorship. That attempt failed, but the man was murdered four years later. Blood continued to flow in Iraq for decades afterward.

  The commendation stated that Abdullah’s father had given his life to safeguard the Mask of Sammu-ramat, a national treasure. Beneath a drawing of the mask that the Americans called Semiramis, the artist had sketched the imprint of the cylinder. Like the brand on a farm animal or the license on a car, the inscription identified the owner of the piece of antiquity.

  Abdullah kissed the commendation.

  Now no one would be able to deny the origin of the mask purchased by the Piedmont Museum.

  He got up to answer a knock on his door, believing it to be the deliveryman again returning for some reason.

  He opened the door to a man who had on a baseball-type cap and dark glasses.

  “Yes—” Abdul caught his breath as he stared at the cap and recognized the letters on it. “You!”

  The man stepped forward and with one swift thrust stabbed Abdullah in the stomach with a long-bladed knife.

  Abdullah stared at him wide-eyed.

  The man twisted the blade deeper inside as Abdullah collapsed against him.

  Chapter 27

  A taxi let me off in front of Abdullah’s building. The little girl with the large almond eyes who had stared at me on my last visit wasn’t in sight.

  I sighed as I began the climb, remembering the days when I had a fifth-floor studio walk-up on the Lower East Side. The entire studio was no larger than my bath and dressing room in my penthouse. I didn’t miss those days when it felt as if I were hiking up the Empire State Building every night when I came home.