The Looters (20 page)

I tried to keep the image of Abdullah out of my mind, but his blood and anguished features kept creeping into my thoughts. His daughter right now must be going through pure hell. First her grandfather had died to protect the museum piece, and now it had taken her father’s life. Not to mention she’d lost a country sometime in between.

The reputation of the Semiramis as a harbinger of bad luck was well deserved. I wished I had never heard of the piece. Better yet… I wished I could rewind my life for the past week and do it all over again, this time not pitching the mask as the centerpiece of the museum. I wished… what do they say? Wish in one hand and… oh well, I had to move forward.

***

Lipton had converted a brick warehouse into an art gallery. The building was in London’s Lambeth Borough not far from one of Europe’s great cultural centers, the South Bank Centre arts complex, twenty-seven acres along the Thames with theaters, halls, and museums. Waterloo Station, an enormous train facility, was nearby. Across the river was Big Ben and Parliament.

Sir Henri got the august title before his name by making a major contribution to the British art world—back in the days when his name was spelled “Henry.” Some considered him the world’s biggest art pirate. He wasn’t always particular about how art made its way to his gallery. He came to prominence in an era when third-world countries were more tolerant—and corrupt—about the theft of their national heritage.

I was aware of Lipton’s reputation in the art world. But I was also aware that there were limited works of antiquity on the market. If you wanted to build a collection, you bought what was available from whoever was offering it. You grabbed the opportunity when it presented itself.

I rang the doorbell and waited a minute. I rang it again. Lipton’s assistant, Mrs. Drumball, answered the door. I called her the Gate Keeper. She was a stern-faced woman who seemed to hate everything and everyone and always had a chip on her shoulder. No doubt the only thing that made her smile was shutting the door in the faces of people who dared to enter the world’s most prestigious and private art gallery without an appointment. Her spiritual twin was Nurse Ratched.

Mrs. Drumball recognized me but gave no sign of it. I felt like reminding her that I—and my checkbook—had been welcomed many times before.

“Can I help you?”

“You know who I am, Mrs. Drumball,” I said through the outer iron-gated door.

The Gate Keeper kept her hair and personality in a tight bun. She must have smelled the desperation in my body language.

“Of course. Wait here a moment.” She closed the door before I could say anything else.

A minute later the door opened again. But not the iron grating.

“Sir Henri is unavailable. You need to make an appointment.”

She shut the door in my face.

She was lying, of course. Normally Lipton would have rushed down to greet me if he knew I had turned up at his door, even without an appointment. The Piedmont Museum was one of his substantial clients.

A chauffeur-driven vintage Rolls-Royce Phantom pulled up to the curb just as I turned around to leave.

Lipton’s “significant other” was seated in the back. His timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

Albert was very handsome and had the delicacy of a refined young woman, slender in size. He wore Ninja black pajamas, making him look like he had just stepped off of a Hong Kong martial arts movie set. Most women would have killed for the pearl choker and the large ruby ring on his finger. Two bags from Harrods were next to him.

I had met Albert a dozen times here at the gallery and at parties in New York and London.

“It’s good to see you again, Albert.”

“Maddy, darling, what a nice surprise.” He smiled, greeting me with a kiss on each cheek. “Are you here to see Henri?”

“Of course. Here, let me help you with your bags.”

“Oh, thank you. You’re an angel. I’m absolutely drained from all this shopping.”

I was sure Albert didn’t know I was persona non grata, so I grabbed his bags so he could use his key to open the door. I went inside with him, chattering about the shopping at Harrods.

When Lipton had remodeled the warehouse, he gutted the entire interior. There were three levels. When you stepped inside you entered a large, round reception room that had four doors leading into showrooms. A brass cage elevator was in the center. The second level was used for storage of the pieces not on display. Lipton’s office and personal quarters were on the third level. Each level had twenty-foot ceilings, making the tall glass dome on the roof as high as a six-story building. Teak paneling covered much of the interior, and each of the upper levels had a brass railing from which you could look down on the first-floor reception area.

As we stepped into the cage elevator, the Gate Keeper entered the reception room. Her jaw dropped when she saw me in the elevator with Albert. She frowned at Albert as the doors closed.

“That woman is simply dreadful.” He spoke in a stage whisper and shivered theatrically. “I don’t know why Henri has her around. She gives me the chills.” He raised his eyebrows. “Bedding her would be fucking a cold fish, one that’s dead and packed in ice.”

I started laughing. I couldn’t have agreed with him more. It felt good to laugh for a change.

He started laughing, too. Then his face turned serious. “I hear there’s a bit of trouble with one of the pieces Henri sold.”

“That’s an understatement.”

It came out of me in a gush as the cage moved up. “There’s a dead man who claimed the piece was stolen, the provenance examiner is missing, probably dead, there’s been arson, I’ve been in jail, and I have the FBI after me.”

He gaped. “My goodness, you have been having fun, haven’t you?”

“Oh, it’s been a blast.”

“It’s that damn Swiss man. Henri’s been cursing him for days. I told Henri we should go see him and straighten it out. It’s the place to be this time of year, you know. Sun, sea, and the beach.”

Viktor Milan obviously wasn’t in Switzerland. I started to ask where he was when the elevator shuddered to a stop and I saw Lipton waiting for us.

Lipton’s face was red and he was not in a happy mood.

“Go to your room,” he snapped at Albert.

“
Well!
” Albert’s handsome Chinese features twisted in an expression of mock resignation. “
Excuse me!
”

He muttered, “Bastard,” under his breath loud enough for both of us to hear as he grabbed the bags from me and paraded off.

Lipton turned around and went to his office.

I followed.

He got behind his desk and glared at me. His goatee, thin mustache, silver hair that came to a point above his rounded features, and significant belly reminded me of a well-fed, pudgy Satan.

“You don’t have an appointment,” he said tersely.

“An appointment? I came here to talk about murder. You can talk to me or to the police.”

He scoffed. “The police are outside. They’re taking a picture of everyone coming and going.”

Shit.
If that was true, it wouldn’t be long before the FBI knew I was in London.

“They’re trying to scare me. I’ve dealt with police agencies on three continents that make London art theft bobbies look like country parsons in comparison.”

“You may be experienced, but it just so happens
my
dealings with the police started with you.”

“What do you want me to do about it? It’s not my fault.”

“Then whose fault is it?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “We were all fooled.”

“Who prepared the phony provenance?”

“Viktor Milan. You know that. His name is on it.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“His office is in Zurich. The address is on the provenance.”

“Do you have a phone number?”

“No. You can’t contact him. I hear he went south to get some sunshine.”

“Does he check his messages?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do know. You have too many deals going with Milan not to know how to contact him.”

“Look, I don’t know where he is. If you have any sense, you don’t want to know, either. I suspect that Iraqi curator in New York isn’t the first man that Milan has murdered—and probably won’t be the last.”

“Jesus. You’ve really got us into a fine mess.”

His eyebrows shot up. “And you’re completely innocent? An incredibly valuable antiquity suddenly is on the market with a very questionable history. Did you properly investigate it? Or just close your eyes and thank heaven for the opportunity to acquire it.”

“I didn’t know it was looted from another museum. Or that a poor man trying to get it back would be murdered. How did it get from the Iraqi museum to the auction house?”

“You saw the provenance; it was—”

“Fabricated.”

“Tell that to the police. It should get you no more than a dozen years in prison, if you’re not also held responsible for a murder.”

“You crooked bastard,” I yelled. “You knew all the time that the provenance was phony. You set me up!”

“I must tell you that getting hysterical is not going to help you in this situation. You seem intent on proving the provenance is a fraud. That’s a foolish position.”

“And you need to know that the police won’t have a problem proving it’s a fraud. The typing font is wrong for that period of time, or did you forget that little minor detail?”

His eyebrows shot up again. “What? Good God! It certainly fooled me. I acted in good faith, without knowing that. I know nothing about typewriters and their markings. But I’m getting the impression that you were not duped by the fraud.”

A laugh erupted from me that came out as a choke. “That’s your line—that I duped you into auctioning off a stolen piece? Duped you into getting fifty-five million dollars for it? Very clever of me.”

He shook his head, disgusted. “I got nothing for it. Piedmont managed to stop payment. Right now he’s sitting on the piece and the money. Rather convenient for the two of you, I would say. I imagine he gave you quite a bonus for taking advantage of an old man. And murdering another.”

I closed my eyes. This wasn’t going well at all.

I came to drag the truth out of him and he was getting target practice burying me with lies and innuendos. I wanted to take the Roman statue on his desk that he used as a paperweight and pound him with it.

“Go home,” he said.

“I can’t. I’ll get arrested.”

“Better than being dead. Your coming here puts both of us in danger. Not just with the police. He’s running crazy.”

“You mean Milan?”

“Yes. He’s out the money and he wants blood. He’ll be here soon. If he sees you, he’ll think we’re conspiring against him.”

“I need answers.”

A buzzer sounded at his desk.

“He’s here,” the Gate Keeper said.

“I’ll be down in a moment.” Lipton took my arm. “There’s a stairway that leads downstairs.” He threw a switch under a wood panel. “The fire door is unarmed. Go out the back way.”

If the man downstairs was Milan, there was no way I was going without confronting him.

Lipton led me out of his office and whispered, “Hurry. There’s a door on the other side.”

I had quietly walked to the other side when I heard Lipton’s startled shout, “No! For God’s sake!”

I looked over the banister. A man stood in the round reception room, holding a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, similar to what I’d seen terrorists and soldiers on television use. He pulled the trigger. There was a flash and then a fiery explosion as the rocket hit the level I was on.

The explosion knocked me off my feet. The world went dim. I couldn’t hear. My eardrums hurt. Smoke and fire roared. I managed to crawl toward the door. It was blown open. I used the railing for support as I made my way down the staircase that was filled with smoke.

At the bottom landing the steel security door was already ajar. I pushed through it and gasped for air. People in the alley ran to me.

I think I heard a man ask, “Are you all right?”

I coughed and gasped for air.

“What happened?” the man asked.

I could only shake my head. It sounded like the man was talking at me through a tunnel.

More people had gathered around. I heard voices talking all at once and then everyone was moving farther away. I was swept away with them. Another explosion sounded. I looked back at the building. It was fully engulfed.

“No one could survive that,” someone yelled.

My God.
It suddenly hit me. Everyone was dead inside. I just barely escaped getting killed.

I heard the words “gas explosion” and “terrorist attack.”

Sirens blared on the main street.

I had to get away. As I walked down the street, cold chills racked me. My ears still rang. My mind was amazingly clear, so I knew I wasn’t in shock. A near-death experience had made me more lucid than I had been in days.

Someone, I wasn’t sure it was Viktor Milan, had just committed mass murder. I didn’t know how many people were in the building, but I knew of at least three: Lipton, Albert, and the Gate Keeper. Three more people dead now, in addition to the Iraqi curator in New York. And where was Bensky? Probably dead, too.

Nothing made sense.

How does someone enter a building with a rocket launcher and open fire in the middle of London? Where were the police Lipton said were watching the building?

It dawned on me that the shooter probably escaped out the back way and into the alley as I had done.

I looked around, wondering if I was followed.

Chapter 31

I kept on walking until I found myself in front of a tube station that sold English Channel tunnel train tickets to Calais. I stared stupidly at the sign. I could be in France in less than two hours. My carry-on was back at the hotel. But I had my money, credit cards, and passport with me. I was certain I’d be arrested, if not killed, if I didn’t leave London. I bought a ticket and boarded the train.

They say that severe trauma can cause your emotions to retreat. Mine had curled up into a tight ball. I couldn’t face what had happened at Lipton’s. So I didn’t. I simply sat on the train that would take me under the Channel to France and stared straight ahead.