The Art Thief: A Novel

by Noah Charney

  “That’s the title and catalogue number,” Delacloche indicated. “But we also found this.” She pointed to the dark all the way at the back of the room, between two tight rows of sliding wall.

  “I suppose you expect me to…” Bizot began.

  “I think you’ll want to, Inspector. There’s something down there.”

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Claudio.”

  In the heart of Rome, Coffin sat on the far side of the plain green metal desk, circa 1950, that rested alone in the middle of the undecorated office that had been occupied by Claudio Ariosto for over thirty years. Photographs of Ariosto in his official Carabinierie’s uniform, Armani-designed, dark blue with red stripes, along the walls. Shaking hands with Mitterrand, Pope John Paul II, Berlusconi, his hero and boss, Giovanni Pastore; unveiling a recovered Perugino altarpiece at a press conference…

  “Non è un problema, Gabriel. Come posso aiutarti?”

  “Allora, it’s about the Caravaggio.”

  “I thought it might be. You don’t come to visit.”

  “I’m not usually invited.”

  “Fair enough. Are you still living at Ninety-nine Via Venti Settembre? Above the Moses fountain?”

  “Yes, well remembered.”

  “Not an address easily forgotten. Now, Gabriel, what can I do for you?”

  “I think that we might be able to help one another. We’ve both the same agenda. The gentlemen I represent don’t want to pay for the missing Caravaggio, and you don’t want that altar to remain empty.”

  “This is all true. I’m surprised that the church could afford your insurers, or any at all, for that…”

  “How is it going, incidentally…”

  “I’ll be frank, Gabriel. I’ve got a lot to do. Do you know how many cases are open right now? A flying shitload, that’s how many. Just in the past week, we’ve had a marble hand from a second-century statue taken from a private collection in Umbria, and a sixteenth-century illuminated manuscript is missing from a rare books library in Calabria.

  “I was just giving a talk to new recruits, and I dug up some statistics. Here they are. I mean, you know this stuff better than I…but since the Carabinieri Unit for the Protection of Cultural Heritage was founded in 1969 we’ve recovered 455,771 artifacts looted from archaeological digs, and 185,295 stolen works of art, mostly from churches and private homes. In addition, investigators have unmasked 217,532 forgeries and brought charges against more than twelve thousand people. And that’s just in Italy. In the year 2000, in Italy alone, Interpol counted 27,795 art thefts. By comparison, in the same year Russia counted 3,257 thefts. More than half of all stolen art is recovered in the country of the theft. So yes, my hands are rather full.”

  Coffin smiled. “The inevitable fate of a country that insisted on producing so damn many fantastic artists. Do you put some magical chemical in the pasta?”

  “It’s the foam in the cappuccino.” Ariosto permitted a tiny grin, then resumed with bombast. “But that doesn’t entitle every swaggering trust-funded trophy-hunter from New York to Tokyo to use my country like it’s a supermarket. We’ve got a lot of agents now, over three hundred. That’s compared to just eight working for the FBI, and six for Scotland Yard. But all our agents are in operation. The last thing we need is another theft, particularly of the magnitude of this Caravaggio. Most of what we work on would stay out of the headlines, and it’s much better that way. It’s different from when you were working here. One of our problems is that we are aware of so many more thefts, thanks to the mixed blessing of technology. For instance, a church in Lombardia that can’t locate a Byzantine icon now has email to tell us about it. That’s all well and good, but we’re so vastly underfunded, the thieves are so vastly overfunded, and I don’t have to tell you about Italian bureaucracy…I am Italian bureaucracy, so…. To answer your question in the most roundabout fashion possible, non abbiamo trovato niente.”

  “Nothing, eh? Well, things can only improve.”

  “Very funny, Gabriel. What have you got for me?”

  “One of my contacts has informed me that there is a certain unscrupulous character…a convicted art thief halfway through a four-year prison sentence, near Turin. Vallombroso is the name. Caught, not on the job, mind you, but as an accessory. It’s pretty clear that Vallombroso is not the sort to have made a mistake, and was set up for that fall by the patron of the theft. Won’t admit to anything, of course, but there are a number of missing artworks of great value to which this thief’s name may be added as a primary suspect. Good, too. Smooth, intelligent, the right level of social standing to know too many of the right people…”

  “Vallombroso. Valle ombroso…valley of shadows. I’ve heard the name before. Tell me more.”

  “Allora,” Coffin consulted a file that he pulled from his briefcase, “the file is limited on empirical, and heavy on circumstantial, evidence, as with any good thief. We do know that Vallombroso could have been the primary operative for at least eight unsolved art thefts, but there’s never been any proof. The only possible perpetrator, but nothing to nail down an arrest, much less a conviction. Sign of a job well done. Age thirty-four, born in Amalfi, grew up in Naples, degree in engineering from University of Bologna, and then we lose track. Athletic, a gymnast and black belt in capoeira, strangely enough…speaks at least six languages. The family is believed to have a long tradition of art theft, perhaps going back hundreds of years, but that’s not been confirmed.”

  “Sounds like a real nightmare.” Ariosto leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

  “It’s true. The perfect thief. I thought you were quitting cigarettes?”

  “I will, as soon as you leave. Any prior convictions?” Ariosto now leaned forward and rubbed his temples with a hand clutching cigarette between fore and middle fingers, as the smoke nimbled up.

  “None. But, then, that’s the point, isn’t it?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “There is one thing.”

  Ariosto looked up. “What?”

  “In prison, there was a…”

  “…what?”

  “An incident. The warden records it as self-defense, but…Good behavior otherwise…”

  “…keep on going, Gabriel. I’m listening. But…”

  “You’ll like this, Claudio. Some inmates picked a fight…”

  “…some?”

  “There were five of them. Guess how many were still conscious by the end of it?”

  “Really?”

  “Five of them, Claudio, all knocked unconscious and plastered around the room. Broken bones, traction. And guess who walked away from it without a scratch?”

  “And the warden says that this was in self-defense?”

  “Officially, yes. Apparently, some inmates took umbrage, but that was all they took.”

  “Dangerous, too, Gabriel? You know what you’re doing?”

  “I know these people, Claudio. They are safe when treated well. They are distrustful, but that is because they work in an industry of double-cross. There’s a code among professional thieves, the ones who view their work as an art form. They will be fiercely loyal, if it is in their best interest. We must only ensure that we remain Vallombroso’s best interest.”

  “We?”

  “Trust me.”

  “You think Vallombroso has something to do with this case?”

  “Even better than that. My informant tells me that Vallombroso will take me to the Caravaggio. On one condition…”

  Through tremendous strength of character, Bizot considered, he inhaled as much girth as he could, and crab-walked along the space between the rows of sliding storage walls. With a rocking motion, Bizot propelled himself, a sidewinder in the valley, away from the light. At the back, the concrete wall bore an inky scrawl. It’s a good thing I’m neither claustrophobic nor scared of the dark, he thought, as perspiration tickled the back of his neck.

  “May I have a light back here?” he croaked.

  “Wait
a moment.” Delacloche’s footsteps echoed away and then returned. She handed a flashlight into Bizot’s right hand. He thought for a moment. He exhaled accidentally, and his back brushed against a painting that hung on the wall behind him.

  “Attention. Careful, please!” Bizot smiled awkwardly at Delacloche, and compensated by moving himself forward, bumping a different painting on the wall before him.

  Bizot considered another moment. Then revelation struck. He lifted his right arm over his head, and thereby passed the flashlight to his left. He smiled a little, then flicked on the light. It cast a yellow web onto the cold concrete of the back wall where, written in what looked like red crayon, was:

  CH347

  “Alors, what do you suppose that means?”

  “I’ve no idea, Inspector. I must tell you that I haven’t been thinking straight since this occurred, and this jumble of letters and numbers means nothing to me.”

  “Well, that’s no help.” Through magnificent effort, Bizot slipped his way out of the metal pinch. I should have had more butter with breakfast, he thought to himself, but exertion restrained him from smiling. “Let’s see what we can do.”

  “Let me guess. If we arrange for early release on probation. Right, Gabriel. I’ve heard it before, and it’s not washed. And,” continued Ariosto, as he paced in silver-buckled black leather shoes, inside his sunlit Roman office, “Turino is out of my jurisdiction. I don’t know the people up there. I’d have to ask Pastore. The big man upstairs is not apt to like the idea. A dangerous convict.”

  “It was self-defense, Claudio.”

  “And you’re impressed by it. What makes you think that Vallombroso can provide?”

  “I trust my informant and, as you know, art is a very small world. Art theft is even smaller. I’m told that this thief is truly excellent. There’s one year and a half left on the sentence, and…”

  “I’ve got one question.” Ariosto leaned forward in his chair. “Will you take responsibility for this? I mean, I don’t have the time or patience or men to spare on maybes. We’ll be investigating, but my confidence in success is not high. If I make a phone call for you, you are accepting complete responsibility for the actions of this thief, and if someone pulls a trick, there’s a run, or you’re the one knocked unconscious and plastered around the room…”

  “I understand. I have confidence in my informant, and good thieves are some of the most professionally honest people, when they stand to gain from that honesty…I know, Claudio. Give Vallombroso probation in my custody, and that altar will be filled again.”

  “You realize that, if I can do this, and I say if, you’ll have a time limit. They’re not going to let a known art thief wander around indefinitely without…”

  “I know. Trust in thieves, Claudio. Remember, one thief was saved.” Coffin clawed at his umbrella’s mahogany handle from behind the desk. “I think that it may take a thief to catch a thief. I think this will work, Claudio. I also think that, if it does not, we will never see this painting again. This is not a break-and-grab theft. This is not a car radio that’s been stolen. This is obviously a well-planned commissioned art theft. As you know too well, most of these art theft cases now are perpetrated by international organized crime syndicates, who use stolen art to trade on a closed black market. If some millionaire wanted this painting, hired professional thieves through some series of middlemen, and now has Caravaggio’s Annunciation sitting in his basement billiard room, that would be easier. We could reverse profile and narrow in on a suspect, get a search warrant, etc. But if the painting is just sitting in a warehouse, waiting to be swapped for x-amount of drugs or arms, only to be swapped again a few months later, never to surface…there is almost no chance of recovery. We recover most works when the criminals try to liquidate, sell the work and convert it to cash. If they never try…well, I’m afraid we may never see it again, once it is absorbed under the cloak of the syndicate.”

  “If they got it out of the country, Gabriel. With lockdown and the country on alert, you cannot put a Caravaggio in your carry-on luggage and get by unnoticed.”

  “Perhaps the thief lives in Italy?”

  “Not if our profiles from the past half-century are accurate.”

  “I think you’re probably right. I can’t imagine that an Italian would steal his own national heritage and keep it in his bedroom, next door to the scene of the crime. If this theft was as clean as it appears, then I’m sure they’ll have thought of some way to get it out of the country. Put yourself in the position of the thieves. What would you do?”

  Ariosto leaned back in his chair and swiveled side to side. “I’d box the painting up in some cargo shipment, a hidden panel in a case of wine or a false floor to a meat truck, some such thing. Why, what would you do?”

  “Me? I would move to Italy. The food’s better here, anyway.”

  Ariosto smiled.

  There was a pause, before Coffin continued.

  “So, Claudio. Che ne pensi?”

  One week later, Coffin stepped out of the taxi, at the entrance to the white-walled prison, on the outskirts of Turin. The sun was raw and dry, beating down without clouds to blunt it, and the grass that waved in the slow-moving breeze was like wheat. He checked in with the prison warden, who gave him the stern explanation on the maintenance of custody, and regulations for the return of the prisoner should the requisites not be met.

  Coffin had been in custody of a criminal in a similar situation once before, with a convicted drug trafficker who’d once tried his hand at art smuggling and been caught in the act. A Swiss, Bertholdt Dunderdorf. Fifteen years of successful trafficking, and one art job found him behind bars. He’d been released in order to set up the patron of the crime for which he’d been caught. A little revenge backed the desire to be sprung from prison one year early. A familiar tune.

  They’d almost succeeded, too. But Dunderdorf was still given his release, for cooperation and good behavior. Dunderdorf had been caught because he’d tried to rise beyond his means. Coffin had seen such things before. A criminal trying to raise his social status, who winds up unable to stay afloat in the deep end. Few were in the habit of failing with such panache as was Dunderdorf, but that was another matter.

  That was the real problem with art crime. It was considered high class. At the top level of the caste system, art crime was socially acceptable, even thought of as prestigious and intriguing. It was the only serious crime for which the public tended to root for the criminals. But then, the public was not aware of how art crime funded more sinister crimes, such as the drug and arms trades, and even terrorism. The average citizen felt somewhat detached, and sometimes threatened, by fine art. It was considered elite and elusive, beyond their mental capacities, and therefore frightening to many. It was with some satisfaction that the public read about gracefully orchestrated art thefts. It was a combination of voyeurism into a glamorous world apart, and a satisfying jab at an institution that felt exclusive.

  And the reward for the theft’s patron was vast: to own a tangible piece of beauty. The punishment was that no one could ever know about the reward. The trophy that must remain in a black box.

  Coffin stood outside the prison gate, looking up at the brilliant watery blue Turin sky. The warmth pressed down against his back, beneath his dark three-piece suit, and along his cleanly trimmed beard.

  He twirled the umbrella within his palm. There was that feather-breadth nick on the underside of the mahogany handle that always drew his index finger. He checked his watch.

  Through his tortoiseshell sunglasses, Coffin saw Vallombroso emerge from the prison, tall and slender, dressed all in black, squinting into the sunlight. She stood for a moment, bathing in the warmth.

  “Buongiorno, Daniela.” Coffin smiled. “Nice to see you. Where are we going today?”

  “To London,” she said. “For revenge.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The main auction room at Christie’s London was cacophonic. The maroon cloth walls wer
e hung with abstract works by obscure Eastern European artists from the turn of the twentieth century, obscured further by the porcupine of bidders and onlookers. By Christie’s standards, this was not a particularly important auction, although for the sake of promotion, all of their sales were labeled “Important.” The most expensive piece in the sale was the Malevich White on White, selling for four to six million pounds. It would certainly attract attention and, judging by the crowd, already had.

  The high rollers would bid through representatives: a gallery owner, perhaps a scholar or curator, professional buyers. Museums, too, sometimes hired professional buyers from among the intelligentsia of the art trade, rather than putting their own staff in the crossfire. Bidding was an art of its own. Sneeze at the wrong time, and you’ve spent another ten thousand pounds. It is all too easy to push the bid one or more steps higher than is comfortable for the budget. No one wants to show his cards too early.

  If you can drive up the price of one piece, spending the money of an opposing bidder for a lot farther down the line, then so much the better, decreasing the opponent’s pot. If you can distract, although considered foul play, that is done, too. There might be a team working for one buyer: one man bidding, one at the door, one observing from the front corner of the room, one on the street outside, all on mobile phones. Anything could happen, and had.

  Delacloche sat at a good vantage point. If she turned to look over her shoulder, she could see the faces of the bidders. The auctioneer’s podium rose up before her, with the screen behind it, painted in the Christie’s deep maroon. Out from this screen would emerge the army of porters, in their white shirts and gray aprons with maroon lettering, carrying the pieces for sale. Delacloche’s two favorite things mingled in the auction house: art and shopping.

  Delacloche scanned the room before her. She made eye contact briefly with a handsome man standing far to her right and then looked away quickly. She opened the catalogue in her manicured hands and let flicker a short smile.