The Looters (3 page)

I always wondered what happened to their children and pets.

Everyone has their own need for acquiring possessions. The rich want to increase their wealth; the passionate want to own beautiful things; the egotistical want to impress people; the greedy… well, they were just greedy.

Money had the power to make dreams come true—but as Humphrey Bogart said in
The Maltese Falcon
about the statue that spawned murder among those who desired it, the piece of art itself was the stuff that dreams were made of.

The stuff that dreams were made of… that’s how I felt about the works of antiquity, that golden era of the empires of Greece, Rome, Babylon, Persia, India, China, and many other regions before the Middle Ages. Marble statues, vases, carvings in stone… all of them excited me. When I touched a piece or held it in my hands, it wasn’t just an inanimate object to me but a magic talisman that caused my imagination to flow, to think about the artist or craftsman who had created it: A man or woman had taken shapeless marble or stone or clay and worked it into an image that caused oohs and aahs two or three millenniums later.

Maybe I’m a little far-out, but I believe that when we create an object some essence of our human spirit passes from our hands to our creation.

In college, while others went for jobs at McDonald’s and Starbucks, I applied at museums. The positions amounted to nothing more than standing around watching other visitors and answering their questions, but it brought me close to what I loved. To get experience by actually handling pieces, I volunteered to work for free with the curator staff at the Met who set up the displays. That pro bono time was my ticket to a job there after I graduated.

***

As I went past the salesroom registration desk, the last bidder was picking up her paddle. Serious bidders had to register at the desk to receive their three-digit-numbered bidding paddles, but the process of clearing them to make deep-pocket bids had begun days earlier by verifying ability to pay. Some were here just for the fun of it and to watch other people spend millions of dollars.

My paddle number was 120. I would follow the commands of Hiram when I bid on the piece I was there to buy. The purchase was anticipated to be a big one, the most ever paid for a Babylonian piece, and Hiram wanted to be in command of the amount he was willing to pay. I let him think he had control, but I had been working on him since the piece came on the market two weeks ago.

I scanned the room. Several buyers who I knew would be bidding on tonight’s lots, the auction term used for pieces being sold, were in the room.

As I sat in one of the back rows, I figured there were at least two hundred people in a room that could easily accommodate twice that many.

Rutgers was one of the premier auction houses in New York, perhaps
the
premier house. Christie’s and Sotheby’s had offerings in a wide range of genres and price ranges. Rutgers specialized in antiquities. The
CEO
liked to brag that if it wasn’t in existence before the barbarians raped Rome, it wouldn’t be auctioned off at Rutgers.

Their business plan fit me perfectly.

Hiram wanted to have the museum’s collection cover the whole Mediterranean art scene. That covered a lot of territory, including Greek, Roman, and Egyptian, the triumvirate of Western antiquities. Because the Piedmont Museum came into the acquisitions arena later in the game, though well-heeled, I convinced him to focus on pieces from the ancient Middle East—Babylonian, Chaldean, Assyrian, and the like. Those areas had more new pieces hitting the market than the triumvirate countries. Rutgers, a place that I had intimate connection with, was the auction house where many of these pieces were sold to the public.

I didn’t realize until after I sat down that one of my knees was shaking slightly. A nervous habit of mine. But I had a lot to be nervous about as I thought about the purchase I was about to make tonight.

Since the museum opened four years ago, a hunt had been on to find the perfect antiquity that would be the centerpiece of the Piedmont’s collection. Not only did it have to be unique, one of a kind, but it also had to be eye grabbing, a museum piece that would generate publicity from the media and covetous envy from the other museums and collectors.

The relic I threw down the gauntlet on was a piece connected to an Assyrian queen who had made an indelible mark on the history of war and lust.

Most people had probably never heard of Assyria or, if it sounded familiar, didn’t remember where it was located, though they’d heard of Babylon, its most famous city—the location of the Tower of Babel and one of the wonders of the ancient world, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. I wasn’t surprised about the ignorance of most people about geography—how many of us could have identified Iraq or Afghanistan on a world atlas before the War on Terrorism had begun?

Going back several thousand years, Assyria was truly one of the greatest Middle Eastern empires. It rose to power around the same epoch that Egypt of the mighty pharaohs was declining. Much of the empire was located in Mesopotamia, the region we now call Iraq. Babylon itself was in its day the art and cultural center of Western civilization.

The antiquity I was bidding on tonight was a golden death mask of history’s first great warrior-queen: Sammu-ramat. The Greeks called her Semiramis, and that was the name she went under in the worlds of art and literature.

The story of this ninth century
B.C.
Assyrian beauty was a fascinating tale of war, lust, and romance. My research revealed that her relationship with her kingly husband was the basis for a central theme of romantic fiction popular right up to our present time, the
roman d’aventure:
tales of faithful lovers who are forced apart and are reunited only after numerous adventures.

On the darker side of art was her notorious ability to incite more than the rape of empires: The mask carried a curse that passed to people who possessed it over the past three thousand years.
What nonsense
, I thought. But the legend of a curse made the value soar.

Chapter 3

As I waited impatiently for the bidding to start, people were still straggling into the room at the last minute, some with bidding paddles, some without.

The auctioneer, Neal Nathan, had just arrived, making his way to the rostrum. He carried his precious black book with him. Neal would be checking prices in the book as the auction went on because it showed the “reserves,” the minimum prices the sellers had set. The prices were written in code so only the auctioneer would know the secret amounts. It also spelled out bids made by people who were not able to, or preferred not to, attend the auction.

Two assistants sat next to the podium, ready to handle phone bids. On the back wall was the currency conversion board for those bids placed with foreign currency.

I knew that my lot would not be first on the block. Auctions were choreographed like Russian ballets, every moment rehearsed for weeks, sometimes months, in advance. While the order of offerings was customized for every sale, typically the star of the show was presented for bid about halfway through the event.

The catalog for tonight’s auction listed 150 lots. A bidder’s valuable tool, the catalog listed each numbered lot for sale, the description and ownership information, and the anticipated bid value.

I wore hands-free cell phone gear. A three-way conference call would take place between Hiram, who would make the final decision, Eric, who would offer his opinion, and myself, who would no doubt be blamed if anything went wrong. I would place my hand across my mouth to keep my lips from being read—it wouldn’t be the first time a bidder had a lip-reader at an auction to discover an opponent’s position.

I didn’t know exactly how high Hiram would go, but I had a pretty good idea because I had been nudging him closer and closer to the figure I guessed it would take to get the piece. He wouldn’t tell me, and I didn’t expect him to. It was his money, even if he never personally earned a cent of it. I would have to wait and listen, picking up clues from nuances in his words and tone. Obviously, there was a point where he would not go a penny higher.

So far, the most expensive piece for the museum had come in at $10 million. That wasn’t chump change, but it was a small fraction of what some works had gone for in the past. Somewhere beyond the initial authority he gave me was an amount above which he wouldn’t go. I doubted if he had the exact figure in mind himself. Even if he did, auctions were akin to horse races—in the heat of the moment, the horse can be whipped to go those extra lengths.

Hiram would also be influenced by what I reported about the mood of the room as the bids were made.

My current authority was to let someone else open and stay in the bidding to $30 million. Hiram was hoping to get the piece for that amount. I knew he wouldn’t. In a market where some paintings had brought in over a hundred million dollars, a masterpiece of antiquity could easily bring in more than $30 million. The Semiramis was certainly not the
Mona Lisa
or
Venus de Milo
, but it was unique… and it had a history. Buyers loved pieces with a history.

I figured the Semiramis would go for $45 to $50 million. Part of its attraction was its legacy of ill-fated love… and, of course, love’s close kin: jealousy and murder. What would romantic tragedy be if passions didn’t flare to the point of murder? Jealous rage had been fueling literature for eons and was the mainstay of Hollywood.

I had an inside source for coming up with the $45 to $50 million estimate—Neal Nathan was my lover.

I don’t want to leave the wrong impression about our relationship. It wasn’t just business. The international trade in art and antiquities was a tough business. While it wasn’t unusual to mix business with pleasure, I drew the line at sleeping with someone
just
to enhance my career.

I will admit that on a couple of occasions I had arranged “dates” for visiting out-of-town art dealers whom I wanted an inside track with, but I wasn’t alone at doing that. Nor was it unheard of even for auction houses and museums to pamper their potential clients and donors with sexual favors. The idea repulsed me at first. I felt like a pimp. But then I found out that I wouldn’t have to do the actual procuring. Eric told me to ask my apartment building doorman.

“They do that kind of stuff all the time. Just slip him a few bucks. He’ll take care of the whole thing,” Eric said.

He was right. When I mentioned to George, my doorman, that I had a couple of “visiting firemen” who needed a date, he acted like it was just a routine request that came up every day.

“No problem. Give me the name and hotel. I’ll take care of it.” The hundred bucks I slipped into his hand helped, too.

Okay, people could say I turned a blind eye to providing sex for a couple of out-of-towners, but there are worst things that happen than two people hooking up. A lot worse.

As for my intimate connection to Rutgers, I actually liked Neal. I wouldn’t have had sexual relations with him otherwise. I’d sooner go back to telling tourists that the Egyptian exhibit was on the first floor of the Met before I’d lie down on the couch to further my career.

Romantically, I was going through a quandary. After my fiancé left to further his career in the nation’s capital, I fell passionately in love with a man who I thought was Mr. Perfect and considered spending the rest of my life with but who turned out to be Jerk of the Century. I caught Mr. Jerk in bed fucking my best friend. The fact that my best friend was a guy added insult to injury. Pretty tough on a girl’s self-image when she can’t compete with another guy. I got rid of both of them.

After experiencing the heartbreak of true love of an undeserving bastard, I wasn’t ready to jump back into a relationship. The psychobabble guide to true love and happiness in which I invested $24.95 said that sex was just titillation and that true love was a state of the heart that didn’t require erections or orgasms. Sure. That was a nice thought, but I needed a little titillation once in a while to keep my soul—and my bones—oiled.

My friend Dillon, who married a rich oral surgeon, claimed that the best relationships were for love-and-money. I hadn’t found that combination yet. But right now I had the best of both worlds. I was dating a much younger stud, once my personal trainer, who was someone I could work up a sweat with when I wanted to, and dating Neal, who was rich, cultured, and whom I enjoyed spending an evening of dinner and conversation with, even though I had to fake my orgasms with him. Add a vibrator for nights alone and what more could a girl ask for?

Neal tapped his wood gavel to bring the crowd to order.

I half-listened to him as he auctioned off the early lots. When a second century
B.C.
Hellenistic vase that I had already turned thumbs down on came up for bid, Hiram’s voice came over my earpiece.

“Why aren’t we bidding on that piece?”

Eric and I had already discussed the piece and agreed we would not bid, but as usual, when the boss questioned anything, Eric remained silent and let me take the heat. Did I mention that Eric was a weasel?

I covered my mouth and whispered, “I heard it has dirt on it.”

“Dirt” meant there was a question in the chain of ownership. I started using the expression after Italian police put people on trial for buying antiquities that had been smuggled out of Italy. The police claimed that the items were not purchased from a legitimate collection but had been dug out of the ground by tomb robbers, a fairly common occurrence in antiquity-rich countries such as Italy.

The items excavated at night from antiquity sites and smuggled across borders would have a “provenance” by the time they were placed on sale or the auction block. A provenance was a certification of origin, literally the item’s chain of ownership or history. Dealers and owners who sold antiquities and other works of art had to provide that evidence to prove that the piece was legally on the market.

It wasn’t as hard as one might imagine to prove the chain of ownership of an antiquity, especially if it came through the typical route for the trade—illegally digging up an item that had been buried for thousands of years. Once the piece was in the hands of an unscrupulous dealer, usually in New York or London, the two main stages for selling stolen antiquities, a phony paper chain of ownership was created.