Loot

by Aaron Elkins

  "Well," I went on, "take the fact that the dealer is bringing the painting with him to Austria. That's pretty strange."

  "Why? You said Stetten doesn't like to travel."

  "But how does this guy expect to cross the border with a fantastic piece of art like that? The only way I know of to do it without a government-approved bill of sale—which he can't have, because, aside from everything else, he hasn't sold it yet—is to smuggle it. With the open borders these days, that isn't too difficult, but why would a 'reputable, established' dealer want to risk it at all?"

  "I see."

  "And then this vague understanding about some undetermined finder's fee." I shook my head. "That isn't the way you do these things."

  "So you do think he's some kind of phony, then?"

  "No, I wouldn't say that. He didn't come across as a con man to me. I liked him."

  "Well, of course you did. What kind of a con man would he be if he came across as a con man?"

  I laughed. "Hard to argue with that."

  She sipped her club soda, then put it down, frowning slightly. "Ben, this isn't . . . you're not going to be in any kind of danger, are you?"

  I couldn't have been more delighted with the question. Maybe I had failed to convince her that my mission was particularly exotic, but now, quite inadvertently, I had her believing that it was perilous. And perilous had it all over exotic.

  I toyed with my glass and smiled. "No, I don't think there's anything to worry about." Clearly implying: "Yes, of course there's danger involved, great danger, but it's nothing I can't handle, and anyway I don't want you worrying your pretty little head about it."

  She was still frowning. "Ben, tell me something, will you? Why are you doing this? Do you get paid a lot?"

  That made twice in two sentences, and only twice all told, that she'd called me "Ben." This, I thought happily, was palpable progress. At the same time, a tiny, cautionary voice somewhere deep in my brain wanted to know what I was doing counting the number of times she murmured my name. I was a divorced, case-hardened forty-year-old, not some addled teenager who had yet to be burned.

  "It's not the money," I said. "There isn’t that much money involved. I'll charge Stetten a thousand bucks a day, the same as I would anybody else."

  She stifled a laugh. "A thousand dollars a day isn’t much money? It doesn't sound bad to me."

  "If I consulted five days a week, fifty weeks a year, yes, you bet. But I don’t do it fifty days a year, or even half that." Or want to either. "Besides, half the time I do it for Customs, or for the cops, and mostly I do that for free, and as for Stetten, I'm not really positive he can afford it, and if he can't—"

  "Why, then?"

  "Alex, Simeon was killed because he was keeping a multi-million-dollar painting in his shop when he shouldn't have. I knew that was a lousy idea at the time, and if I'd tried a little harder I could have gotten him to let me put it someplace else. But I didn't try harder."

  She leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "Are you saying you knew somebody might—"

  "No, no!" I said, shocked. "Jesus, of course not, how could you think that? I was just generally concerned about the painting, that’s all. It never crossed my mind that—but what's the difference what I was concerned about? No matter how you cut it, I'm responsible for his death."

  "That's putting it a little strongly. You didn't kill him."

  "I could have saved him."

  She shook her head. "No, blaming yourself doesn't make sense. The safe was locked, right? The man who killed him never got it open. How could he have known for sure whether or not it was in there? Even if you'd taken it to the museum or wherever you wanted to, he'd still probably have thought it was there and Simeon would still be dead."

  "I don't think so. Simeon would have opened it for him; the guy would have seen it was empty."

  "Maybe not. My uncle could be stubborn."

  "Look, let me put it this way. Knowing your uncle helped me through a hard time in my life. He was a good friend; I just wish I realized it more while he was alive. And now he's dead on account of me—no, don't try to tell me that's not so—and I just feel I owe it to him, that's all. That's why I'm taking Stetten's offer. That's why I'm going to St. Petersburg too." All of which was true, wholly and sincerely true.

  She was studying me without saying anything, sizing me up, trying to figure out how straight I was being with her. She must have come down on my side, because after a moment she smiled and relaxed against the back of her chair. A Hare Krishna group was going by on the sidewalk in their saffron robes, chanting, and jingling, and looking happy as clams at high water. Sipping our drinks, aware that we'd crossed a barrier and were now something like friends, or at least not adversaries, we watched them snake and jiggle their way out of sight.

  "What do you do for a living anyway?" she asked. "Are you in museum work?"

  "No, I was a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts for a few years, but . . . well, I left there a couple of years ago."

  "Really? I would have thought that was about as good a job as you could get in that world."

  "It was, I suppose, but . . . I don't know, it wasn't for me. Not for the rest of my life."

  "And now . . . let me guess. You're a professor, am I right?"

  "No, not exactly. I did teach at Harvard last year—in art history—but . . . well, I quit there too."

  "Just like that? You walked away from a faculty position at Harvard?"

  This was starting to sound like a conversation with Trish. "Well, you know, it wasn't tenure-track anyway."

  "So what do you do? When you're not consulting at a thousand dollars a day."

  "I'm writing a book," I said, then headed her off before she could follow up. "What about you?"

  "Oh, I'm in educational administration."

  "Really? So is my ex-wife." A clever interjection to let her know that I was unattached, on the off-chance that Simeon had failed to mention it. "What do you do, specifically?"

  "I'm director of admissions at Boston University."

  "Really? You work at BU? So does my ex-w—"

  Oops, not so brilliant that time. Trish was the last person in the world I wanted Alex talking to; in particular, about me. I cleared my throat. "Anyway, getting back to—"

  But she wouldn't let me get away with it. "Your ex-wife works at BU? What's her name?"

  I fidgeted, but there was no way out of it. "Trish Calder," I mumbled. "She's associate dean of students."

  Alex's pretty eyes popped open wider. Her jaw didn't exactly drop, but if she'd been sipping her club soda at the time I'm sure she would have sprayed it over the table. For a good five seconds she just stared at me. "You're Trish Calder's husband?" she stammered at last. "You're. . . ?"

  "That's right," I admitted. "The Prototypical Dysfunctional Male."

  She dissolved into laughter, throwing her head back and hooting. "I'm sorry," she said when she'd calmed down. "I'm not laughing at you—"

  "Of course not. Why would I think that?"

  "No, really." A last little explosion of giggling made her put her hand to her mouth, but she stifled it and took a deep, restorative breath. Ordinarily, I don't much like giggling, but she was—well, cute. The funny thing is that ordinarily I don't like cute either.

  "Really," she said. "It's just that, from what Trish said, I had a—well, a completely different picture of you."

  "I'll bet. You and everybody else at BU. Are you and Trish pretty good friends, then? "

  "We chat from time to time, but, no, I wouldn't say we're good friends. Mm-mm, no, not at all."

  I took heart from that "no, not at all."

  "In fact, we see things pretty differently. Trish—I guess I don't have to tell you this—is into regression therapy, and transformative healing, and rebirthing, and—"

  "I know," I said curtly. "She wasn't always. And what about you? What are you into?"

  She shrugged. "Just getting on with your life and doing your thing, I supp
ose. Digging in your heels."

  "Me too."

  She couldn't resist a tiny flicker of the eyebrow at that, but what I'd said was the truth. It was just taking me a little time to get things sorted out.

  "Say," I said, looking at my watch as if I didn't already know what time it was, "it's six-thirty. The pasta's good here, and there's air-conditioning inside. Why don't we—"

  "I'm sorry, I can't, not tonight." She stood up to go, as fresh and unrumpled as when she'd come. "Perhaps we could do it when you get back." She hesitated. "Will you call me?"

  I nodded, getting up too. "Sure thing." And then, just to make sure she didn't get the impression that there was the least little bit of personal attraction involved: "I'll let you know how it goes in Vienna."

  "And St. Petersburg." She took my hand—my left in her right, which made it clumsy and impersonal. No tremors this time. "Ben . . . thanks very much for doing this. Even if nothing comes of it, you've made me feel a lot better."

  "Good. But I hope something comes of it."

  "And you will be careful, won't you?"

  "You can bet I'll be careful," I said. "That zwiebelrostbraten they serve over there can kill you."

  * * *

  When I got back to the apartment there was a message from Sergeant Cox on the machine, asking me to call him at his office, or at home if I got back after six.

  A child answered the telephone. "May I speak to Mr. Cox, please?" I asked.

  "Just a minute," he said politely, then bawled: "Daaa-ddyyy! Tewaphone!"

  In the background, I heard Cox's voice. "Back in a second, hon," he was saying, presumably to his wife. Then, closer to the telephone: "Thanks, Pooh-Bear." What do you know, the sergeant had a life too.

  "This is Ben Revere," I said when he picked up the receiver.

  "Oh, yeah, thanks for calling." He was still chewing. Wife, kid, dinner with the family . . . my barren condo suddenly looked awfully depressing. "Listen, I just wanted to touch base on a couple of things with you," he said. "This guy who pawned the painting with Pawlovsky in the first place—you want to tell me again what he looked like?"

  "The one who pawned it? I never saw him."

  "No, I know, but Pawlovsky told you, and you told us. But I want to check with you again. What do you remember about him?"

  I searched my mind. What had Simeon . . . "Oh, that's right. He said there was a scar on his cheek . . ."

  "Which cheek?"

  I took a moment to conjure up an image of Simeon gesturing at his own face. "Right, I think. And part of his ear was missing."

  "How tall?"

  "That I don't know."

  "What about his hair color?"

  "No, I don't know that either—wait a minute, yes I do. Like hay, Simeon said. That'd mean blond, wouldn't you think?"

  "Anything else?"

  I poked in my memory for tidbits of the conversation with Simeon. "No, I don't think so. What's this about, Sergeant? Have you found him?"

  "Yeah, you could say that." He lowered his voice to a rough whisper. "In a section of concrete sewer pipe west of Andover, with four nine-millimeter slugs in him. Dead about a week."

  "And you're sure it's him?"

  "You tell me. Listen to this." I heard him shuffling paper. "'Evidence of healed linear laceration,'" he read aloud, "'eleven-point-twenty-five centimeters in length, extending from the right nostril to the auditory meatus. Well-healed amputation of the right ear lobe, healed crushing fractures of both nasal bones—'"

  "Hey, that's right, I forgot. Simeon said he had a broken nose too."

  "Right, here's more. ' The body is that of a blond, well-nourished white male in his thirties, estimated living height and weight—"

  "He was small!" I exclaimed. "Right? A runt, Simeon called him. I forgot about that too."

  "There you go, then," he said with satisfaction. 'Five-feet-four and one-hundred-and-twenty pounds.' Fills the bill, doesn't he?"

  "He sure does. Do you know who he is?"

  "Not a clue. No identification on him. Has all the earmarks of a gangland thing, though. More like an execution than a murder. Well, thanks for your help, Mr. Revere, have a—"

  "Sergeant, are there any new developments on the case? On Simeon's murder, I mean?"

  "Nothing else, only this. We'll see where it takes us." He paused. I heard him sucking a shred of food out of his teeth. "I should tell you, Mr. Revere, I'm starting to think maybe you're right, maybe there's more to this than I thought."

  "You mean you think it might be about the painting after all?"

  "That's right. By the way, I appreciate the report you sent me. Sorry I didn't get around to saying thanks sooner. You let me know anything else you find out, all right? Well, gotta go. We'll be in touch."

  That raised my spirits. Cox seemed like a solid, workmanlike cop; it was a relief to think that he'd come around.

  Later, in the kitchen, searching among the ambiguous packages in the freezer, looking for something for dinner, I found a triple-wrapped, rock-hard brick of something that gave every indication of being meat sauce, so I put it in the microwave, started up a kettle of water for spaghetti, and went to the cupboard to make myself a gin and tonic while I waited, except there wasn't any tonic and there wasn't any gin, so I had a vodka with club soda. No lime anywhere in sight, needless to say. The time was getting close when I would have to go shopping again.

  I put in the spaghetti and leaned against the counter, sipping vodka, watching the water come slowly back to a rolling boil, and asking myself if I truly, honestly thought that the presumed reappearance of Stetten's Velazquez in Zurich was related to the appearance of the one that had shown up in Simeon's shop. If it was, that meant that, whatever was going on, two people had now been murdered over it. What was I getting myself into? It was starting to look as if Alex was right to be concerned; there might be more in Vienna to worry about than clogged arteries.

  The "meat sauce" turned out to be mincemeat—raisins, apples, spices, and whatever else people put in there. What it was doing in my freezer was a mystery. I don't even like the stuff in a pie. Still, waste not, want not. I dumped it over the spaghetti and sat down to eat it while re-studying the MFA&A’s report on the lost truck.

  I've had worse.

  Chapter 11

  In the middle-years of the nineteenth century, when the rich but time-frayed capitals of Europe embarked on their grand civic development projects, they were faced with an unprecedented difficulty. They had the resources, they had the backing of their governments, they had the public will. What they didn’t have was a "look." The nineteenth century, so innovative in the arts and sciences, had forgotten to come up with an architectural style that it could call its own.

  So what were the monumental new buildings going to look like? The happy answer was to turn to the styles of the past, so that today’s classic nineteenth-century boulevards—Paris’s Rue de Rivoli, Budapest’s Danube Promenade, and, most of all, Vienna’s Ringstrasse, created in 1857 when the city's encircling fortifications were pulled down, are glorious hodgepodges of everything that came before.

  From where I stood at the window of my room on the fifth floor of the Hotel Imperial early on a sparkling Friday morning, showered, shaved, and reasonably sprightly after an all-night flight, it was all splendidly laid out for me like an educational diorama: The History of Architecture at a Glance. Neo-Renaissance? There was the famous opera house, practically across the street, and the art museum and the natural history museum a few blocks to the west. Greek Revival? There was the Parliament building, straight out of ancient Athens. Neo-Gothic? Off to my left were the five needle-thin, newly cleaned spires of the city hall. To some, it added up to a grandiose, incoherent clutter, but, me, I loved it.

  The hotel fitted right in too, a stately, mustard-colored (Dijon, not Gulden's) building constructed in the 1870’s in the Neo-Classical style that had been popular a century earlier (which, come to think of it, made it Neo-Neo-Classical). I’d dine
d at this famous old dowager of a place once or twice on previous visits, and had had drinks in the bar, but had never stayed here. When I’d come to Vienna as a graduate student all I could afford was one of the seedy, anonymous pensions out in Josefstadt. Later, when I’d come on business for the museum, I’d been put up at the Sacher, which was one hell of a step up, but even that plush and venerable institution was no match for the Imperial, where my room, by no means one of the hotel's grandest, was fitted out in Dresden-blue and white, with flocked walls, matching carpets, ten-foot ceilings, good-quality Empire-style furniture, and a mounded basket of fresh fruit.

  So there I was, dopey from a night without sleep, dreaming away at the window and munching on some grapes. Physically I was feeling pretty good, but my mind seemed to be floating about four feet above my head, softly jogging against the ceiling. Partly it was the jet lag, of course, but, independent of that, I was suffering from an unsettling sense of unreality. After all those years of reading and writing about wartime loot and restoration, here I was, fifty years after the fact, caught up in the middle of the real thing for the very first time.

  And yet it somehow felt less real, not more, as if I were playing at a game I'd invented for myself. Even the possibility of a connection to Simeon's death seemed—to use Alex's word—tenuous. It just seemed impossible, now that I was here, that anything in this glittering world could have any relationship to a thuggish murder in a humble Boston pawnshop that catered to old ladies who came in to pawn the same $40 ring every month.

  The discreet little tap-tap at the door was a welcome distraction. I walked across the room, treading comfortably in my socks on the thick carpeting, opened the door, and smiled at the slight, gray-haired, faultlessly groomed man standing politely before it.

  The great international hotels of the Continent have a lot of things in common, regardless of the country, and one of them is a certain species of hotel manager—not the annoyingly supercilious managers of the more expensive chains, but a more genteel, more old-fashioned type, a distinct and dying breed that the intrepid and knowledgeable traveler recognizes in an instant: mature, refined, helpful, courteous, and self-effacing. Ten years ago they were still wearing gray-striped trousers, waistcoats, and cutaways with a carnation in the lapel. Today they are more likely to be in conservative business suits. But this one was a pleasant throwback; a midnight-blue blazer, almost black, replaced the cutaway, but everything else was the same: gray-striped trousers, dove-gray waistcoat, diagonally striped black tie perfectly knotted and held in place with a gray-pearl tie pin. And a fresh red carnation in his button hole. I glanced at his feet, hoping for spats, but there he let me down.