The Looters

by Harold Robbins

  Whoa. The rat was abandoning the ship. I kept my cool and tried not to panic. “I need to talk to Milan.”

  “I don’t know how to reach him. I told you, I know nothing about the guy. Lipton hasn’t returned my calls.”

  “Lipton won’t answer my calls, either.”

  “He could be out of town. He travels constantly—”

  “He doesn’t check phone messages at his office? He doesn’t know the sky is falling? He’s avoiding me. And you. If I don’t get a response from him soon, I’m going to encourage that FBI agent who’s breathing down my neck to have Lipton investigated. You know, Nunes asked a good question. How did a number of fine museum pieces suddenly come on the market with great provenances after the Iraqi museum was looted?”

  As I asked the question, I realized how suspicious it sounded. And that I would never be able to say with a straight face that I haven’t looked the other way when buying antiques. Everyone in the business knew better than to examine provenances too carefully.

  “Maddy, I can’t talk now. I don’t know why I answered the phone. I have a meeting starting. Let’s get together later.”

  We set a time to meet at his office. I wanted to ask him the name of the lawyer he mentioned previously, but he hung up before I could.

  I pulled out the document report and went over it again, thinking about the characters involved. Sir Henri Lipton was big-time, the most prestigious dealer in the world of Mediterranean antiquities. He was a gay Englishman with a cute young boyfriend. The boyfriend was nice, but I found Lipton an insufferable snob and intellectual bully.

  Before my father passed away a couple of years ago, he gave me a golden piece of advice when I told him about an antiquities dealer who tried to screw me and how I planned to tell him off: “Antiquities are a cottage industry. Get out of the business if you plan to make enemies.”

  He was right. The antiquities business was a small world with a finite number of people involved. If I started alienating everyone who offended me, I might as well get another career, because I would soon be out of this one.

  So I smiled and tolerated Sir Henri and sent him cases of Louis Roederer Champagne when I would’ve rather kicked him in the tush. And I hadn’t found him any more unscrupulous than the rest of the people in this cutthroat business driven by ego and greed. It might be that he was relying on Milan, the man of mystery.

  For sure, Lipton had sold me several pieces that I was surprised had come on the market. Why had he offered them to me?

  I assumed at the time that I had an inside track because Neal handled the sales and I was so good at faking my orgasms with him. I was now beginning to wonder if my attraction might not have been that I was an eager new curator full of unrealized ambitions… a combination that old-timers in the trade would read as someone who would buy first and ask questions afterward.

  Dammit, it was true, but that was the nature of the trade. There were only a small number of good pieces. You had to—

  I shook off trying to alibi. Neal was right. I had to keep myself in a good mind frame. If I started thinking I was guilty, I would signal it to others.

  I did an Internet search on Viktor Milan. His Web site said that he specialized in antiquities… that was it. Not whether he bought or sold or appraised them. Nothing about eastern Mediterranean and Middle East antiquities or pieces from China, Angkor Wat, or other Far East venues… just antiquities.

  The guy’s a real storehouse of information.

  Besides the vagueness about what role he played in the antiquities market, he offered an address in Zurich, Switzerland… and no phone or fax number. That made it a bit hard to contact him.

  I knew he prepared provenances; he put the documentation together for the Semiramis and other pieces. But there was no mention of it. Nor was there any offer to buy, sell, or trade anything.

  The most interesting thing about the Web site was its lack of information.

  My intercom buzzed. Eric’s voice was brisk and businesslike: “See me in my office.”

  He looked grim when I walked in.

  “Hiram is very upset.”

  “I don’t blame him. I’m not exactly cheerful myself.”

  “He says you got us into a fine mess. It means we’ll be under a microscope. The authorities will be looking over everything we ever bought.”

  “Wait a minute. I went over every piece with both of you before making the buys. Why is it all my fault?”

  “I relied upon you to verify the provenances.”

  My blood boiled. I know I must have turned several shades of purple, because I could see all the blame being thrown my way.

  He lifted his hands in a gesture of frustration. “It comes down to this. Hiram made some phone calls to his political connections and got a picture of what we can expect. The U.S. Attorney has political ambitions. He’d like nothing better than to get an indictment and bring out evidence of U.S. troop involvement in the looting of the antiquities in Iraq. It would give him enormous publicity.”

  Another nail in my coffin. First there’s an FBI agent with a mentality of a robotic pit bull. Now it’s a U.S. Attorney who wants to run for president or something by trampling my life.

  “Naturally, the museum can’t be faulted if one of its employees fails to properly authenticate the origins of the item. It relies upon the honesty of its employees.”

  “What? Excuse me—what do you mean by ‘honesty’? We’re talking about whether a mistake was made. How did my integrity suddenly get questioned?”

  “Hiram has been told that there’ll be an investigation by the FBI of every Mesopotamian piece that we’ve acquired since the Iraqi museum was looted. Those are our finest… and most expensive pieces. Purchased by you.”

  “With the encouragement of you and Hiram.”

  “The FBI is focusing on the fact that your purchases all involved two foreigners, one in London and the other in Switzerland.”

  “What bullshit. Since when is Sir Henri Lipton considered a foreign enemy? He’s the biggest antiquities dealer in the world. You bought museum pieces through him before I even came on board. So have half the other museums in the country.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have to put you on a leave of absence. As of now.”

  It took a moment to get my voice. I spoke calmly because I was hurt. “I see. The museum plans on abandoning me. After all I’ve done for it.”

  “Piedmont’s orders. My hands are tied. I’m sorry.”

  He got up and walked out.

  He left me sitting in his office. I heard him whisper to Nurse Ratched to get my electronic card key before I left. Naturally, the electronic code would be changed. I wouldn’t be allowed to remove anything except for some personal items.

  I returned to my office. My whole world was unraveling. I picked up my few personal things and left after dropping my card key on Nurse Ratched’s desk. She smirked, but I didn’t say a word to her.

  UNESCO [UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION] INTERNATIONAL CODE OF ETHICS FOR DEALERS IN CULTURAL PROPERTIES

  ARTICLE 1 Professional traders in cultural property will not import, export or transfer the ownership of this property when they have reasonable cause to believe it has been stolen, illegally alienated, clandestinely excavated or illegally exported.

  The effect of the phrase “reasonable cause to believe”… is to be read as requiring traders to investigate the provenance of the material they handle.

  It is not sufficient to trade in material without questions and consider that the clause only comes into effect when somehow evidence of the illegality is fortuitously acquired.

  —UNESCO Web site

  Chapter 22

  I woke up in the middle of the night with my head feeling as if it were encased in a cobweb. Not a buzz on from booze, recreational drugs, or even a pleasure-producing prescription pill. I didn’t know how to describe it. It just wasn’t a pleasant feeling—as if my brain was dehydrated.

 
I had taken two over-the-counter sleeping aids that were in my medicine cabinet for eons, along with two glasses of wine. The combination put me into a deep sleep for about four hours, but my head was clogged and fuzzy when I woke up.

  The word “roadkill” kept popping into my head, as if my life had been stretched out on the Cross Bronx Expressway at commute time. I wouldn’t be surprised if my next opportunity assignment was giving blow jobs to prison guards for extra privileges. The thought scared the hell out of me. I imagined being in a prison cell, smelling smoke, seeing fire. I tend to be claustrophobic anyway. I started shaking in bed and couldn’t keep the tears from coming. Finally, I got my nerves calmed and lay awake thinking.

  Waking up during the night wasn’t unusual for me. I did some of my best thinking lying awake in bed at three or four in the morning. For some reason, it was at these times that answers to questions came to me and my revelations about mistakes and omissions occurred.

  Tonight the only clarity was that life had me on the run and the focus of my energies had to be to keep myself out of jail.

  In terms of continuing to live in my current lifestyle… well, the penthouse and the Jaguar in the underground garage were going to be part of my past history. I did enjoy having my very own private parking spot—in Manhattan that was as rare as having a private swimming pool. I knew I would never be able to keep the penthouse and the car without the salary that Hiram paid me. And my black American Express card…

  Welcome back to the real world.

  I picked up the phone and dialed Bensky’s number.

  Nunes would no doubt ask Eric or Hiram if the provenance had been examined by a document expert and a lightbulb would go off in the head of one of them as they remembered Bensky… and couldn’t find the report.

  After four rings, the answering machine came on.

  ***

  Charles Bensky watched his answering machine as Madison Dupre’s voice was broadcast in his home office: “Mr. Bensky, this is Madison Dupre. I need to speak to you. It’s urgent. Please call me when you get this message.” He was too preoccupied with his own fears to recognize the stress in her voice.

  His throat was dry. Earlier, he had been visibly trembling. Now he sat very still and held his knees with his hands as he stared at the man standing next to his bookcase. The man had his back to Bensky and was idly leafing through a book. When he returned from a fishing trip, Bensky entered his home and found the man waiting for him.

  At first he thought the man was an intruder he had the bad luck to interrupt burglarizing the house.

  When the man turned around, Bensky again noted the cap with a Navy SEAL emblem. He had served a hitch in the Navy out of high school forty years ago. In those days they referred to sailors in that branch of the Navy as frogmen.

  The gun was still in his hand, pointed at Bensky.

  “I was Navy, too,” Bensky said. “Did four years. Most of it on a carrier.”

  The man with the cap said nothing.

  Bensky earlier told him to take whatever he wanted, even offered him his credit cards and ATM card, but the man was not interested in money. He just wanted one document.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Bensky asked.

  Unfortunately for Bensky, the information was also in his head.

  Chapter 23

  I stayed in bed refusing to face the world until midmorning.

  Desperate, I tried to call Bensky again. This time instead of a recording I heard a strange garbled noise on the line. Through a telephonic miracle, I managed to actually get a real operator who told me it sounded like the line was out of order or the phone was off the hook. Or maybe Bensky just didn’t want to talk to me, a conclusion I came to all by myself.

  Whatever the reason, it meant I was going to have to confront him in person. I got dressed and grabbed my car keys.

  New York had two Pelhams. Bensky lived in the small upscale one in Westchester. I input the address into my GPS and followed the instructions, taking the FDR to the Triborough Bridge and onto the Bruckner Expressway. It felt good to get out of the city. Felt good driving a car more expensive than I could afford. Not that New York was an expensive-car town. Expensive clothes, apartment, jewelry, for sure, but owning a car that cost more than you could afford was more a West Coast thing, mostly L.A., where you never went to a restaurant unless it had valet service to make sure your car didn’t get parking lot rash—or stolen.

  I opened the windows to let in air. Maybe some of my trouble would blow away.

  Pelham was a small, quaint Americana town but with convenient train service that transported you back and forth to the big city. That made it pretty much a bedroom suburb for executive types.

  Watching my GPS screen when I made the turn onto Bensky’s street, I almost ran into a police car parked in the middle of the road. The street was blocked. Fire trucks and more police cars were ahead.

  I pulled alongside a woman who was pushing a baby stroller away from the scene and asked her out the window, “What’s going on?”

  “There’s been a fire.”

  “Do you know which house?”

  “My neighbor, Chuck Bensky.”

  I had already guessed it, but it still gave me a jolt.

  “Was he home?”

  “They didn’t find anybody inside.”

  Lucky for him, I thought. “Do you know if he’s been out of town?”

  “Probably. He does a lot of fishing.”

  I thanked her and pulled away. My scaredy-cat left knee shook.

  No chance in hell it was just a coincidence that Bensky’s house burned down. Coincidences like that, flukes, accidents, twists of fate, the luck of the draw, just didn’t happen when the FBI was investigating a case. As my father would have put it, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the fire wasn’t connected to the accusation of theft surrounding a museum piece worth over $50 million.

  I didn’t wish Bensky any ill will. I’d never actually met him. No reason for it. I remembered now, Lipton had recommended him, said he had used Bensky before. To me, he’d been a voice over the phone and someone on the other side of a fax machine. I had a mental image of a skinny middle-aged man with thick glasses.

  At least he wasn’t home and asleep in bed when his house burned. Now he’d return to find his place burned to the ground.

  My mind was working overtime. Bensky’s house was also his office. Maybe somebody wanted to destroy any evidence of the Semiramis report. Somebody dangerous or murderously desperate. If Bensky had been in the house when it burned, it would have been murder.

  I wasn’t willing to accept any other explanation.

  Somebody was ready to commit murder to protect the provenance.

  I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Lipton might know about the report, since he had a connection with the man. For certain, the only person I had told about the devastating report was Neal.

  Chapter 24

  I was supposed to get together with Neal later in the evening, but I deliberately cold-called him, catching him by surprise.

  I sat down in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk and told him about the fire at Bensky’s house.

  He shrugged it off. “So.”

  “It wasn’t a coincidence.”

  “You’re going overboard, Maddy. The pressure has gotten to you. Now you’re seeing murder. Houses do burn down by accident, you know.”

  “Not when they’re part of a criminal investigation.”

  “Great. Keep it up. Why don’t you call your FBI pal and tell him someone’s out burning down houses to destroy evidence.”

  “Neal—”

  “Wise up, Maddy. I don’t think I’d run around shouting that someone burned Bensky’s house because they wanted to destroy evidence of a report. As far as I know, you’re the only person who has a motive.”

  That thought kept coming back at me and I kept slapping it away. Other than knowing I wasn’t guilty, I didn’t know who was. Neal knew of my pr
edicament, but he wasn’t the one with the smoking gun.

  “Come on. Tell me,” he said.

  “What?” My mind was a million miles away.

  “Your mind is working overtime. And you’re staring at me like I just crawled out of an Egyptian tomb wrapped in rags.”

  “I told you about Bensky’s report.”

  “And?”

  “His house got burned down.”

  His eyebrows went up. “You think I burned down his house to protect you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He held out his hand. “Let me see that report.”

  I pulled Bensky’s report out of my pocket and gave it to him. I rubbed my forehead. I had a king-size headache. I got up to get some water out of his fountain and took three aspirin.

  Nothing made sense. I certainly didn’t sleepwalk to Bensky’s house last night and torch it. And I didn’t think I was the only person with a motive. If there was proof that the Semiramis was part of the looted pieces, the fallout would hit everyone in the chain. I was just the weakest link.

  Neal’s document shredder went on and I jerked around.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Assuming your theory is correct that Bensky’s house got torched to destroy the report, you had the last copy. Now there are no other copies.”

  “That’s illegal.”

  He gaped at me. “Illegal? For sure. Immoral and reprehensible, too, no doubt. But someone is obviously out to get rid of that report and I don’t think you want to be the last person waving it around.”

  “You’ve destroyed evidence.”

  “I did it for you. Besides, it’s only evidence if the police find it. Now they can’t.”

  “Neal… you shouldn’t have done it. What if there’s another copy?”

  “Where? Who else would have a copy?”

  “Bensky. I don’t know, maybe his house burned by accident; maybe he has a copy on his laptop or his fishing reel—”

  “The man can say what he likes. No one can prove you ever had a copy. And if that fire did destroy Bensky’s copy, you can bet he’ll keep his mouth shut, too. He was negligent in how he got the report to you. Besides, now you don’t have a motive.”