The Collector

by Anne-Laure Thiblemont

  She wanted to evaluate the museum’s collection and find out if Magni had left his mark, as Bruno had implied. So much for that idea—a huge crowd was packed into this part of the museum, even though it was one o’clock on a weekday afternoon. No doubt it was the novelty factor: some new pieces had been taken out of storage and put on display.

  Lulled by the quiet hum of surrounding conversations, Marion started to loosen up and enjoy the streamlined space with its filtered light. But for a few seconds only. As the crowd swarmed around her, the image of the masked swimmers loomed in her head. She straightened up and scanned the museum-goers as they stepped toward each object, backed away, stroked their chins, and tilted their heads. She looked for a face that wasn’t focused on the artworks, eyes that lingered on her too long, a hand that slipped suspiciously into a bag or a pocket. Nothing. She shook her head. Would she always be afraid?

  She had spent so much of her childhood in this place. Her mother could sit on a bench for hours, focused on a sculpture, a piece of furniture, or a painting. To fight off her boredom, Marion had toyed with each creation in her imagination. Mother-of-pearl marquetry would become a puzzle. She’d transform gemstone inlays into Arabian gardens. Elephant clocks and lion-head mirrors would become fierce jungle creatures. This was how Marion had ended up working with eighteenth-century objects—they had always been a part of her life. But she had only paid attention to multi-dimensional objects that she could walk around and size up. Two-dimensional paintings left her cold.

  Her mother had never cared for primitive artworks. In fact, she hated them.

  “At the Citadel de Gran Pajatén, they were great admirers of the moon…”

  Marion’s ears perked up. She looked for the speaker. Some tourists were gathered around a female tour guide who was addressing them in an animated voice.

  “Look at the man’s back. It’s stooped, as if he were carrying the world. Here, you can see engraved motifs on his ribs. The sun, the moon, stars, planets, the sea, the earth…”

  Marion put her pumps back on and walked over to the group. Standing at the back, she looked over the shoulders of the people in front of her to get a glimpse of the piece.

  “The nose has two smooth emeralds. This is a major piece, perhaps the most important in the entire pre-Columbian collection at the Louvre.”

  A few oohs and ahhs came from the crowd, which made Marion even hungrier to see the object. It felt like an eternity before the tribe of art-history lovers moved on to its next stopping point. At last, Marion leaned in toward the crouched figure. None of Magni’s sculptures measured up to its beauty. The man’s back was rounded like a seashell. His knees were up, and his head was cupped in his hands. His eyes were full of both energy and kindness.

  A plaque was affixed to its black velvet base: “Crouched Figure Carrying the World, Gran Pajatén. Donated by Edmond Magni.”

  The inscription was small and unpretentious.

  So here it was: one of the four crossed-off figures on the list she had found in Magni’s mansion. What a sneak, she thought. His moves were so perfectly calculated. Making this very special donation to the Louvre had added considerable value to his own collection.

  But Marion still couldn’t fathom why Magni was so intent on getting rid of those select pieces at the same time and so quickly. And why had he donated one? He stood to make a lot more money by selling them all, and each at a different time. Something else had to be in play. Was Magni planning to chuck it all? Was Gaudin withholding this tidbit from her? Maybe the personal assistant had even thwarted Magni.

  A strange feeling made her look up, and through the glass case she saw two piercing eyes. A diminutive man with a shaved head and an eagle’s beak nose was staring. He gave her a friendly smile before turning around and walking away. She followed him with her eyes, troubled by a feeling of déjà-vu. Marion barely felt Chris tugging her sleeve.

  “I’ve been looking for you for ten minutes. It’s a madhouse in here.” He took her arm. “Come on. Let’s go. I don’t like being in a crowd this big.”

  “Wait,” she said, pulling away to inspect the other end of the room. But it was too late. The man had already disappeared.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Something weird—”

  “You feel it too?”

  “Feel what?”

  “I think someone is following me. I felt it ever since I left the lab. Maybe you’ve just got me spooked with all your paranoia.” His mouth was twitching.

  Marion gave him a skeptical look. Should she tell him about the man she just saw?

  “This whole situation is beginning to freak me out,” Chris said. “It’s not just what happened at the pool. It’s everything since then too.”

  “I don’t want you to get even more spooked, Chris, but I just saw this man. He was staring at me.”

  “Is he still here?” The color was draining from Chris’s face.

  “No, he’s gone.”

  “We definitely need to get out of here. I need a drink.”

  Marion hesitated and glanced around.

  “Let me have a couple of minutes, please. I want to see if any other Magni sculptures are here. Then we’ll go. Two minutes, max.”

  Without giving him time to protest, she elbowed her way from one case to another. She discovered that her father had donated much more to the Louvre. She counted eight pieces from his collection. He appeared to be the only donor, and there were no other pieces from the Gran Pajatén. Nothing from Chorrera, Veracruz, or Huari. Bruno was right. The collection had Magni’s stamp all over it.

  Marion pointed this out to Chris when she rejoined him. But he wasn’t listening. He was scanning the gallery for people who were more interested in him than the artwork.

  “Okay, let’s get out of here,” he said, taking her arm again. “You’re going to make me go completely insane.”

  Once they were safely outside the museum, he stopped and looked at her. “Heels and a suit, huh? Nice. And is that an Ozenberg effect I see sparkling in your eyes?”

  As they walked along, Marion gave Chris a full account of her meeting with the art dealer, including his offer to show her the warrior figure. Chris paused as they were about to enter a brasserie, his hand on the door handle.

  “What if it’s the warrior that Combes is after?”

  “I was wondering the same thing. It would be an odd coincidence.”

  “You’re not going to go alone.”

  “I’m posing as a buyer. I have nothing to fear.”

  “It could be a trap.”

  “Well, maybe I wouldn’t mind being Ozenberg’s victim,” she let out, smiling devilishly.

  “Marion…”

  She inspected the room. It was too bright. Odd for a restaurant that was going for a jungle look, with artificial liana vines all over the place. “Let’s find another spot,” she said.

  “Just one beer. We won’t be long.”

  Chris nudged her toward a table. He pulled out a chair for Marion, took off his coat, and sat down across from her.

  “I get it that your meeting with Ozenberg’s got you all hyped up—you’re a real jumping bean. Still, it’s no reason to get reckless.”

  “Maybe I’ve just let it take my mind off things,” she said. “Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten that two thugs tried to drown me.” She grinned at him. “So you can stop being a killjoy.”

  Chris was about to respond when a man and a woman brushed the back of his chair and sat down at the table next to theirs. He glared at the man for a good minute, sending him a message to find another table. He finally gave up and waved over a server.

  “A Heineken for me and an espresso for my friend here.”

  After the server had walked away, Chris leaned toward Marion and whispered, “Something really messed up is going on, Marion.”

  “Okay, Chris, we’re going in circles now. What have you found out? Do you have something new on Chartier?”

  “Forge
t about that guy. He’s a waste of time. We’ll never get anywhere with him, believe me.”

  “I’m meeting with Combes tomorrow. There might be progress at his end.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “So what’s gotten you all worked up then?”

  “After talking with you yesterday, I checked the International Council of Museums.”

  “Why?”

  “The ICOM has red lists of archeological objects that are looted and end up on the black market. I also looked up catalogs from official excavation sites that are available to curators and researchers. These are great tools to determine if an artifact is stolen, but it’s funny how few people use them. Ignorance is bliss, I guess, and most people don’t want to know if something they own has been stolen. Even at our lab, people turn a blind eye.”

  “Did you find anything on my sculptures?”

  “Not a trace. But—”

  Chris stopped the waiter before he could pour the beer into his glass. Marion had seen him do this before. Topping off a glass with a perfectly thin layer of foam was a tricky maneuver that he insisted on handling himself.

  “Do you know exactly where your dad died?”

  “No, not yet. But I was planning on finding out. Everything I’ve read about him is so vague. Heart attack somewhere in the Andes—I don’t know. No reporter bothered to dig into it.”

  “Find out. It’s important.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s a problem,” Chris said after taking a gulp of his beer. “There was a dig in the Piura region—Las Lomas, to be precise. A necropolis. It was the very first one to be tied to the folks at Gran Pajatén. That’s crazy, by the way, because you’d think someone would have stumbled across it much earlier. Anyway, it was a gold mine: pumas, human heads, gold shamans with teeth made of pearls and lapis-lazuli, and emerald jewelry. These artifacts were as fine as yours. That’s the problem.”

  Marion observed Chris carefully. She thought she knew what he was about to tell her, but she refused to imagine the worst.

  “You understand how things work in Peru. Archeologists depend on tomb raiders. Most of the time, the huaqueros get a jump on everyone else. But once they’re caught with a big steal, the ground they’ve riddled with holes becomes the center of attention.”

  “Is that how the necropolis of Las Lomas was discovered by the rest of the world?”

  “Yes. Six royal tombs had already been emptied. Your sculptures were probably part of the looted treasure. It all adds up, Marion: the nature of the pieces, the jewels, the patterns. No way could they have come from anywhere else.”

  “That’s just a theory.”

  “Marion, even if I’m wrong, and some doubt remains, you have to consider this a possibility. And you know very well why.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I could get slammed by the law. Is that it?”

  Chris nodded. He turned toward the people next to them. Were they listening in? No worry there. The pair was locked in a heavy make-out session.

  “France has ratified the UNESCO Convention, and Peru can ask for restitution,” he said in a low voice. “As far as France is concerned, the agreement covers only those works stolen after ratification in the mid-nineties. But that doesn’t make much difference, because the UNIDROIT Convention exempts all objects looted from an archaeological site, regardless of when they were taken.”

  “But think about it, Chris. Peru would have already gone after those sculptures if they came from Las Lomas. What third-world country wouldn’t go after the Louvre to get its treasures back? We read about this kind of thing all the time. Renowned museums in Europe and the United States have been forced to return artwork looted from Jewish families during World War II. But when Magni’s pieces went to auction, no one batted an eye.”

  “You still don’t get it. When your father sold them, no one but the looters knew about the necropolis. It only made the headlines two years later. By that time the pieces were long gone. Who could say where they came from? But once your sculptures begin to attract media attention—if you put them on the market, for example—Peru might decide to launch an investigation.”

  “Do you think Peru could demand their return?”

  “Yes, given that they’re part of a unique and exceptional ensemble. And they’re part of a civilization that dominated much of South America for nearly three centuries.”

  Marion nervously clinked her spoon against the side of her espresso cup. She refused to believe this was true. Prepared to question the most blatant pieces of evidence to make herself feel better, she pursued her defensive strategy.

  “But why would Magni have taken even the smallest risk of being found out? He apparently didn’t need the money, and nobody was holding a gun to his head and making him turn over any pieces to the Louvre.”

  “Are you kidding? What risk? Seriously. Your dad was untouchable. He was a major name. He had the freedom to do whatever he wanted.”

  “They could have questioned him. No one had ever seen Pajatén pieces of that quality before!”

  “The industry wasn’t going to bother. Magni was counting on that. And besides, he would have protected himself. It’s easy to erase the history of an artwork by giving it a fake past. You know the drill. You take it to a small-town auction house without any advertising or catalog and have it sold. You arrange to have it change hands several times and travel from some obscure gallery to an international sale, and that’s it. Now you can prove your innocence, just in case.”

  Chris wasn’t drinking his beer anymore. “With you, it might be very different. Face it, Marion, you don’t have your father’s clout, and you certainly aren’t as shady as he was. You’re probably going to draw too much attention that you don’t want.”

  Marion swallowed the rest of her espresso. It left a metallic aftertaste. She needed something stronger.

  “Can I have a sip of your beer?” she asked, grabbing Chris’s glass.

  After downing half of it, she leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and thought.

  “For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right,” Marion said. “We’ll assume, for the moment, that Magni’s death has made the Peruvian government sit up and take notice. In order for them to lay claim to my pieces, do they have to know that I’m the one who’s in possession of them? As long as I don’t show them…”

  “You don’t have them yet. You’ll have to pray none of them end up in auction or are shown somewhere else. In other words…”

  “Get them back as soon as possible…” she said softly, wondering if anyone else—Ozenberg, maybe?—was facilitating the task.

  Chris paused, then launched in again.

  “You’re going to say that I’m being cynical, but whatever…Yes, you have to do it quickly. For another reason. The art world is full of vipers who love to spread rumors to make a buck. Even if no investigation is launched, people could start talking. A lot of them would be all too happy to see Magni’s reputation destroyed and your collection discredited. It’s the perfect way to buy his works on the cheap. Appraisers are always prepared to devalue an object to obtain it more easily. That’s for sure.”

  Marion considered Laurent Duverger’s tactics for a moment and dismissed the idea just as quickly.

  “This may come as a shock, but I’m not buying your scenario.”

  Chris threw up his hands and almost spilled his beer. Marion took one of them and smiled.

  “I admit you may be right about the tomb raiding. But the rest of it doesn’t hold up. You want to know why? You said it yourself: Magni is untouchable. He may be dead, but he’s still warm in the grave, and he’s still the biggest man in the art world. No one’s going after him, because if his reputation’s destroyed, everyone else will go down with him. Do you realize the shit storm that would be unleashed if the most important pre-Columbian collection in the world were questioned?”

  “The domino theory.”

  “Well, yeah. It’s something that a lot of
people with big investments in art would not want to happen. It would be far less costly to eliminate whoever talked too much than to reassess years of acquisitions, confront the scandal, and end up broke. The stakes are too high to let some wild card…”

  Chris suddenly gave her a panicked look, and Marion immediately understood. What if she was the wild card? What if the attack in the pool was meant to warn her against making even the slightest attempt to tell the truth? She could be very dangerous if she investigated the issue of her father’s stolen goods and misadventures—the looting, the theft. She appeared to have no particular involvement in any underhanded business. Maybe they figured she couldn’t be bought. She might even bring the goings-on to light. She had the perfect profile of someone likely to stir up trouble.

  10

  “Good morning, it’s Alain Ozenberg. Sorry to be calling so early. You have a meeting with Helen D at ten thirty this morning at the Ritz-Carlton. Room 207. I hope you’ll be able to make it. Otherwise, let me know.”

  Marion sat up, startled. Was it morning already? The recorded voice was still ringing in her ears. She had forgotten to lower the volume on her machine. She struggled to get out of bed and listen to the message again. No, it wasn’t a dream.

  “I was supposed to be the one to call him,” she muttered as she headed toward the kitchenette to start the coffee. How had he found her? She hadn’t given him her card. “Don’t freak out,” she told herself as she feverishly filled the coffeemaker with water.

  This was surrealistic—a meeting with some code-named woman in a fancy hotel. She picked up her cell phone and entered Chris’s number. The call went straight to voicemail.

  “Chris, it’s me. Call me back ASAP, would you? Really.”

  Marion kept looking at her phone as she got dressed and gulped down her much-too-strong coffee. She felt sick.

  “It’s the coffee,” she said. “Now, let’s go, Chris or no Chris.”