Loot

by Aaron Elkins

  Simeon gestured at the Velazquez. "See?"

  "Mm," I said and stared at the faded tag of paper for a long time. "You know, this painting's had a bit of history, Simeon."

  "History, what do you mean, history?"

  "The label's in German. You didn't mention that."

  He leaned over it, bringing his glasses down from his brow. "Who cares what language? All I could see was that 'Velazquez.' What difference—" He looked at me. "Ah, I see what you mean. The Nazis."

  "Yes, the Nazis."

  In December 1942 Paris had been an occupied city for two years, and for all of that time the Germans had been busy plundering, confiscating, or coercing works of art from Jewish families, from the homes of Frenchmen who had fled the city, and from other "enemies of the Reich." It was a subject I knew something about. The doctoral dissertation I'd written for my Ph. D. in art history not so many years before had been called The Ethics of Plunder: Theft and Restitution of Cultural Property in Time of War. Naturally enough, a big part of it had dealt with Germany's looting of art during World War II and the Allies' remarkable postwar program to restore it to its owners. It was a subject in which I continued to be interested, delivering an occasional paper and serving on panels from time to time.

  And so I knew all too well that the tag on the back of the Velazquez was part of their inventory control system, and that the ERR stamped not far from it, also in the black Gothic letters still in use in Germany in the 1940's, was their proprietary imprint; it stood for Einsatzstab-Reichsleiter Rosenberg, Adolf Hitler's personal art-looting machine. Its director, Alfred Rosenberg, had operated with a simple mandate from the Führer: he was to see to "the transportation to Germany of cultural goods that are deemed by him to be valuable." In other words, the wholesale plunder of Europe's art. From museums, from individuals, from governments. Rosenberg's disciplined thugs had applied themselves mightily, amassing the greatest collection of art in the history of the world. In Eastern Europe, the methods had been brutal and direct. With Poles and Czechs officially classified as untermensch, subhuman, their property was technically—and conveniently—"ownerless." The jackboots simply walked in and tore it off the walls. France, being officially inhabited by fellow human beings (Jews, Communists, Gaullists, and others naturally excepted), was a more delicate matter, calling for methods that were less direct, but no less brutal. Here, "purchase" was the method of choice, which resulted in a mountain of legalisms but amounted in the end to the same thing: victims had nothing to say in the matter. Those who protested were "persuaded." Those who refused to be "persuaded" died or disappeared. The ERR made off with what they wanted, and usually "paid" (when they paid at all) in Occupation francs, the funny money of the day.

  And they had wanted El Conde de Torrijos.

  "These things the Germans stole," Simeon said, frowning, "they had to give them back after the war, didn’t they?"

  "Most of them, yes. That is, the Americans and the British ran a huge program getting them back to the rightful owners. But . . . Simeon, you said this guy, the one who brought it in, was Russian, didn't you?"

  "That's right, Russian. So?"

  "Well, I was just thinking. You know, the Russians saw things differently, and almost all the Nazi loot they got their hands on disappeared behind the Iron Curtain after the war and never showed up again. Until lately, that is. Now, with an active mafia in Russia, and wide-open borders, pieces are starting to turn up on the black market. Could be, this is one of them. Of course, there are a lot of other possibilities—"

  But Simeon had seized on this one. He nodded, his dark eyes alight. "Ah, I knew he was a gangster, a desperado. A little runt he was, but a real tough guy, a brawler, you know?" He made a growling sound and put a hand up to his right cheek. "A big scar here, half an ear missing, a busted nose—"

  "This was someone you never saw before?"

  "Never," Simeon said, staring again at the painting. "You know, I get a lot of greenhorns in here. They ask around and people tell them Pawlovsky is the one to go to. And it's true, I like to help people from the old country. But this one I didn't trust from the minute he walked in. In the first place, he tries to tell me he's a Jew—to get on my good side, you know—but, Benjamin, if that man was a Jew, then I'm a Seminole Indian. A Jew that gets into brawls? A Jew with hair like it came off a haystack? Brodsky, he said his name was, but he had no papers, no identification, nothing."

  "An illegal, you think?"

  Simeon shrugged. "He had a story, they all have stories. Technically, I'm not supposed to accept anything from someone with no identification—you can understand why—but in this case, once I saw . . ." He gestured at the picture.

  "Of course. You did the right thing."

  "What now?" He hesitated. "Should I call the police?"

  "Would you like me to do that for you?"

  "Please," he said with visible relief. He was like most expatriate Russians in that regard. Dealing with the police didn't come naturally to him.

  "Simeon, how did he get it here? Was it rolled up?"

  "No, he had it in a valise."

  I looked at the picture again. "Must have been a pretty big one."

  "It was. One of those old canvas ones with flowers on it, all beat up, with leather straps around it, you know the kind? And he just walks right in with it and starts in with this long story about his uncle, and his sister-in-law, and how he needs the money to settle an accident claim—"

  I was only half-listening. "Look, I need to do a few more things before we contact the police. I want to make sure we know what we're talking about. Do you have a tape measure?"

  "A yardstick."

  "Good enough. And how about a camera? Do you have a camera?"

  "Do I have a camera," he said, taking his cane and heading for a corner of the shop. "What a question." In a moment he brought back a Polaroid with a tag attached and handed it to me.

  "Does it have film in it?"

  Simeon made a face. "What, do I look that dumb?"

  The bell on the front door jingled, and a man in a suit peeked in.

  "Can I help you with something?" Simeon called.

  "Hallo. Ey vwawn buy vwiolyin," he said in the slow, forceful, but barely understandable accent of a newcomer determined to show his command of his newly learned language even if no one can understand what he's talking about. Another of Simeon's greenhorns, apparently. "For nyephew."

  "Fine, come in," Simeon said. "I'll come out there and show you what I have. A looker, not a buyer," he murmured to me, unhooking his cane from the counter. "He won't buy anything, never in a million years."

  I took half a dozen photographs of the painting, front and back, and then used the wooden yardstick to measure it while they developed: thirty-seven inches by twenty-five inches. On the small side for Velazquez but within his normal range. One of the photos came out fuzzy and I retook it.

  In the meantime the man had left without his violin, promising to return later with his nephew.

  "What did I tell you," Simeon said. He turned once more to the painting. "So what now?"

  "Now I want go on over to the staff library at the museum and check a few things. But first I need to make a phone call."

  Simeon pointed to the cordless telephone on the counter. "Help yourself. You want something cold to drink?"

  "Coke?"

  "Iced tea?"

  "Sounds good. Not too sweet, though."

  "Too late, it's already made."

  Simeon went back to his kitchen. I used my calling card to telephone CIAT, the Center for the Investigation of Art Theft in New York, with which I'd worked a few times. CIAT maintained a data base of all the current known stolen art in the world—at any one time a staggering 80,000 items, give or take a couple of thousand.

  I described the picture to Christine Valle de Leon, CIAT's director and an old friend, and promised to fax her the photos as soon as I could. Christie, brisk and businesslike, told me she'd get back to me within a day or
two.

  I hung up as Simeon came in with the iced tea. We stood looking silently at the painting and sipping the super-sweetened liquid. When Simeon drank hot tea, which he always had from a glass, he sucked it through a sugar cube held between his teeth and replaced with another, and then another, as each one dissolved. When he had iced tea he simply dumped in about half-a-pound of sugar to start, tempering it with squeezed lemon. Actually, as long as it didn't come as a complete surprise, I didn't find it all that bad.

  "I guess I’ll head over to the library now," I said, putting down my drained glass. "I’ll swing by when I’m done and let you know what I find out."

  "Good," he said absently. "Five o’clock is when I close up, so if you come back after that, rattle the gate and I’ll let you in. Or maybe I should just leave it open for you."

  "Close it," I said. "In fact, maybe you ought to lock things up right now."

  "And my customers, what about them? Ah, Benjamin, you’ll never be a businessman. Listen, what about the police? I thought you were going to call them."

  "I will, but I'd rather have just a little more information before we bring them in. Look, I really think this is a remarkable piece of art you have here, Simeon. Wouldn't it be better to put it someplace more secure? I could drop it off at the museum for you. I know the people there. They'll hold it for us."

  "No, I don’t think so. How long you going to be gone?"

  "An hour. Two at most."

  "For two hours, I think we can take a chance. Here’s a painting that Hitler himself wanted and couldn’t get, and now, all this time later, here it is right in front of me, in my own shop, for me to look at for my own pleasure. I want to take it in the kitchen, pour myself a glass of beer, and sit down with it at the table and think about what a funny world it is. I’m entitled to that much, don’t you think so?"

  I smiled. "I suppose you are at that, Simeon."

  "Give me half-an-hour to enjoy the experience. Then I’ll put it in the safe until you get here, I promise."

  "But what if this Brodsky comes back in the meantime to take it out of hock? You'd have to give it to him."

  "Him, he's not coming back."

  I didn't think so, either.

  "Well, there's the conservation angle to think about. At the museum they regulate the temperature and humidity, they—"

  "What are you telling me, that two hours here is going to hurt it? You think people have been regulating the temperature and humidity every day for the last three hundred years?"

  I capitulated. "Okay, but tonight, later, it goes into the museum, right? You really can't keep something like this in the shop, Simeon. You can’t treat it like—"

  "I heard you, I heard you. Don't nag. That's a bad habit you're developing."

  "If it is by Velazquez, we're talking about millions of dollars here, Simeon."

  "No, you're talking about millions of dollars. Me, I got exactly one hundred bucks out on it. What's the big deal?"

  "I'll talk to you later," I said, laughing, "as soon as I have something to tell you."

  "Sure, sure. Listen, Ben . . ." he said tentatively, which was hardly his usual manner, ". . . I'm going for dinner with my niece tomorrow night. There's a new Russian restaurant in Brighton that's pretty good, they say. I think . . . I've been thinking for a while that you and Alex would get along. So I thought maybe, you know, if you weren’t doing anything anyway . . ."

  It surprised me on two counts. First, unless you counted that awkward tea in his kitchen, Simeon, despite his warmth whenever I was there, had never before made a social overture that went beyond "Drop in next time you're around." And second, not once had he ever referred to relatives. It was startling to suddenly think of him as not just an independent old man who lived in three rooms behind a pawnshop, but as someone with a family. Did his niece call him Uncle Simeon? Did he have nephews too? Brothers, sisters? Even children, perhaps, that he had once dandled on his knee?

  It was almost like the feeling I'd had when I looked at the Count of Torrijos: well, what do you know, the guy had an actual past, an actual life. For a moment it embarrassed me that I'd never once taken the trouble to learn anything about Simeon's world, but then what did he know about mine? Not much. Nothing.

  "Gee, I'm sorry, Simeon, I'm afraid I'm tied up," I said, not knowing why I did, because of course I wasn't tied up. "Maybe another time."

  "Sure," Simeon said good-humoredly. "Maybe."

  Chapter 3

  The William Morris Hunt Memorial Library is one of the handsomer rooms in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, though seldom seen by visitors. There are gleaming chandeliers, tall ceilings, great paintings. From high on the two-story walls, rearing horses and enraged gods and goddesses look down from vast canvases by Luca Giordano and Benjamin West. Below, however, all is restful, even cozy: handsome, oak-paneled wainscoting, green-shaded bankers' lamps, musty volumes, and drowsy, occasionally snoring researchers.

  The worn, broken-spined volume I had open on the table in front of me was suitably musty, but I was anything but drowsy. What I was reading was almost too good to be true, so exciting I could hardly sit still. The book was Velazquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of His Oeuvre, José Lopez-Rey's classic 1963 compendium of all known works by the great Spanish artist, and I had it opened to page 216, entry 245.

  Don Juan Carlos de Mendoza, Sixth Conde de Torrijos

  Half-length. 1630-31.

  Height 0.941 m. Width 0.633 m.

  Minor puncture damage in upper left quadrangle (repaired).

  Unsigned. Inscribed at bottom: El Conde de Torrijos.

  Almost certainly painted as one of a pair with No. 257, Dona Leonor Maria de Mendoza, Condesa de Torrijos.

  Paris: Aguado Sale, No. 77.

  Madrid: Osuna Sale, March 1843, No. 127/6

  Madrid: Marquis de Casa Torres.

  London: Lord Rhys-Burton

  London: Gordon-Radcliffe-Attley Collection

  London: Private collection.

  Paris: Christiane Lisle—Pierre Severac.

  Paris: Vallon sale, 1902, No. 3.

  So it was actually true; Simeon had been right. The size matched, the inscription matched, the absence of a signature, the damaged area, the art dealer's name—"Severac"—everything. And while the catalogue didn't mention the back of the painting, the entry paralleled much of what I'd seen on it: Osuna 127/6 was a clear reference to the Osuna sale of 1843, right down to the lot number; the CT monogram stood for Casa Torres; the R-B was Rhys-Burton, and so on. In the illustrated section of the catalogue there was a photograph of the painting, and that matched too. It was the real thing, a fabulous once-in-a-decade happening. I had a wild urge to yell out the news, right there: A stolen Velazquez masterpiece, lost to the world for more than fifty years, was sitting right that minute in a tacky pawnshop not more than a mile from the museum, what did they think of that?

  I didn’t, of course. I restrained myself to a gently jubilant rap on the table with my fingertips as I got up. And even that mild display earned poisonous stares and angry murmurs from fellow-scholars who felt they had every right (and did) to the Hunt’s long tradition of sound and healthful repose.

  * * *

  When a man is sitting in his kitchen with a glass of beer and a lost Velazquez and contemplating what a funny world it is, you can hardly expect him to keep a religious eye on the clock.

  So I thought with a smile when I saw that Simeon hadn’t come back out front to pull the metal shutters closed, although five o’clock had come and gone. I walked through the empty shop and banged on the door to the back rooms.

  "Simeon, it’s Ben!"

  No answer, but then hearing wasn’t his long suit. I hesitated for a moment, because under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t have invaded the old man’s private sanctum. But what I had to tell him, I felt, was sufficiently exciting to allow for an exception. I climbed the two wooden steps, rapped on the door again, and turned the knob. "S—"

  A shower of stars ex
ploded behind my eyeballs. I went hurtling backwards off the steps, struck my hip hard on the edge of the counter, and kept going, tumbling over the glass surface to sprawl heavily onto the floor on my side. That is, it seems reasonable to assume that that was the order of events. At the time it all seemed to be happening at once, but not so quickly or confusedly that I couldn’t grasp, however dimly, what had occurred. Someone had been behind the door, waiting for me to turn the knob. The instant I did he’d hurled himself against the door, flinging it wide open and smack into my face, and launching me on a parabola that took me over the counter and onto the floor of the shop.

  Only hazily conscious of what I was doing I rolled over onto my hands and knees, my head down. I was dizzy and nauseated, and blurry pinpoints of light were still shifting sickly in and out of focus at the edge of my vision. The top of my right hipbone hurt so much there were tears in my eyes, and when I touched my numbed left cheek, just below the eye, it felt like an over-inflated basketball.

  At first I thought that I’d been knocked out for seconds or minutes, but when I realized that the rattling sound in my ears wasn’t from inside my head but from the door, which was still shuddering on its hinges, I knew that couldn’t be true. I managed to shove myself into a sitting position, but my motor skills weren't all there yet, and I fell clumsily back against an open case of kitchen implements. That dropped a lobster pot into my lap, startling the hell out of me and making me realize abruptly that my mind wasn’t working right yet. Was hardly working at all, in fact.

  Because if I’d never lost consciousness, then whoever had slammed the door open on me had yet to come out. With the bars on the windows of Simeon’s apartment making it impossible to leave through the back, the only way out was through the front door of the shop, which meant stepping directly over my body. And even with my mental processes not at their keenest, I was pretty sure I would have noticed anyone doing that.