The Looters Read online

  But I wouldn’t have bought a piece that I definitely knew was contraband. I wasn’t that stupid. Not fifty-five million dollars stupid.

  I knew the provenance of the mask by heart, but I wanted the comfort level again of seeing the written history that spelled out that the private ownership of the Semiramis went back over a hundred years, into the late nineteenth century. A critical time period, because most of the national laws prohibiting the exporting of antiquities from their countries of origin dated from the twentieth century. Anything in private ownership before 1900 was generally open game.

  All vital documents concerning the collection were kept in the “Panic Room” in the executive office area. Officially, it was called the Document Storage Room. I gave it the nickname after seeing the Jodie Foster movie because it reminded me of the sealed, fireproof, vaultlike room she holed up in during a robbery.

  “Good evening, Ms. Dupre.” The greeting came from hidden speakers as I walked through an exhibit area.

  “Hi, Carlos,” I replied, waving my hand in the air.

  My presence, picked up by hidden cameras, had been displayed on a monitor in the security center—which was also hidden.

  “Hidden” was the key word for museum security. Prominent security measures didn’t seem to discourage people from stealing. Now everything from cameras to laser beams and radio transmission tags on individual items was being concealed.

  I retrieved the file folder from the Panic Room and took it back to my assistant’s desk to review and copy it. Besides a copy for Hiram, Eric, and the lawyers, I wanted my own copy of it… more security blanket mentality.

  The provenance report, made by a Swiss art appraiser named Viktor Milan, was the top document in the file.

  The provenance said that the Semiramis had been acquired by a man named Rashid Kalb in 1883 in a marketplace in Beirut, Lebanon. No paperwork accompanied the sale, which was typical of both the time and the place. In those days Lebanon was a region under the rule of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Istanbul, Turkey, was the capital. The empire collapsed after World War I.

  No one would expect a receipt from a “marketplace” purchase, either. But again, that wasn’t unusual for the time or place. Credible oral histories could support a chain of ownership.

  Various members of the Kalb family owned it until the last member died out in 1934. It was sold shortly before the death of Rana Kalb, the last surviving member of the family—who apparently was murdered for reasons that were not revealed—to a Panamanian company, which held it for fifty-five years. They sold it three years ago to Milan. He in turn sold it a few months ago to Henri Lipton, the London art dealer who had arranged the auction in New York.

  Although I had never met Viktor Milan, I recalled seeing his name on the provenances of other pieces I’d bought from Lipton. Lipton I knew reasonably well, having met with him several times in New York and at his London gallery.

  The fact that a priceless artifact had turned up in a Lebanese marketplace over 120 years ago was not unusual. Even today, antiquities were sold in third-world countries for a tiny fraction of their value. In the nineteenth century, the laws protecting antiquities in the region probably didn’t exist—and if they were on the books were easily avoided, as they were today.

  A solid history of personal ownership going back an eon would have been nice, but that was the exception, not the rule, with antiquities. Records of sales get lost or destroyed or never were prepared. In this case, the most important document was the bill of sale from Rana Kalb to the Panamanian company in 1934. Two versions were present: one written in Arabic scrawl, the other typed in English. The document included a sworn narration of the original marketplace purchase of the piece decades before.

  It wasn’t the most perfect provenance I had seen, but this was how art pieces were frequently sold back then—and even now. Little formality was involved in the transfer of pieces worth millions. Sometimes there was no formality at all, other than a thorough inspection of the piece by an expert—and often that was not even done.

  I sighed with relief. The provenance was “acceptable,” which was what I said in my memo to Eric and Hiram at the time.

  After reading my memo, I quickly skimmed through some correspondence from Neal at the auction house and appraisals by two experts I had hired to give me an opinion on the piece’s value and authenticity.

  I came across a report prepared by Charles Bensky, a professional document examiner, an expert whom I had retained to scrutinize the paperwork supporting the provenance. His job was to determine whether the documents were genuine. I recalled speaking to him over the phone when he had given me the all clear on the paperwork supporting the provenance, but I didn’t remember seeing his report before.

  I started to skim over the report and stopped dead when I got to the Summary of Conclusion in the middle of the first page:

  The purported bill of sale of the Semiramis from Rana Kalb to the Panamanian corporation is suspicious because the document was prepared later than the 1934 date it bears.

  I stared at the statement, but my brain refused to further process the information. I read it again—and again, staring at the words, trying to make them say something other than what I saw in black-and-white.

  Stripped of its verbosity, it said the bill of sale was a phony.

  The provenance was invalid.

  Chapter 17

  I jumped out of the chair and backed away from the report as if it were a snake.

  “It can’t be,” I said out loud. Not possible. No way in hell could the provenance be a fraud.

  Grabbing the report, I reread the statement: suspicious… prepared later than the 1934 date.

  How could he say that? My heart banged against the wall of my chest. I couldn’t get enough air.

  “This can’t be true.”

  I had hired Bensky to examine the documents supporting the provenance. Basically, that came down to the bills of sale from the last surviving member of the Lebanese family to the Panamanian corporation, the sale from the Panamanian corporation to Viktor Milan, and the sale from Milan to the London dealer. There were also birth and death certificates of the members of the Lebanese family to prove their existence.

  I didn’t order a document examination on every purchase, not even high-end ones. In buying art and antiquities, you rely more on who you are doing business with, since documents might be forged. In this case I ordered it because the Semiramis was such a huge investment and none of the people in the Lebanese and Panamanian connections were still alive. Even though I was dealing with Henri Lipton, an icon in the world of art whom I had dealt with many times in the past, the Semiramis was too big a purchase not to double-check the provenance documents.

  The report in the file was dated two days after I spoke to Bensky. How it got past me and into the file was baffling.

  Almost anyone from Eric and Hiram down to the clerical staff, even security guards, had access to the Panic Room. It wasn’t even locked, because it was intended to protect against fire, not thieves—only records were kept in it. And there was no security surveillance anywhere in the executive suite.

  I forced myself to continue reading the full report. In my frazzled state, I had to read it twice.

  Bensky stated the problem was with the font and spacing of individual letters of the alphabet:

  Two problems are noted with the Times New Roman font. The bill of sale dated January 1934 states it was prepared in Panama City, Panama, and transmitted to Lebanon for signature. The document is written in the English language. The typewriter font, Times New Roman, was first used by the Times newspaper of London in October 1932.

  Bensky claimed that a manual typewriter being used in Panama with the same font just fifteen months later was “highly improbable, though possible.”

  More suspicious was the second problem with the font:

  The individual letters of the alphabet typed on the bill of sale had proportional spacing rather than monospacing
. Proportional spacing for the font was not available at that time period for ordinary manual typewriters, but a forger might not have realized that.

  He gave an explanation about the two types of spacing:

  Prior to the 1960s, each letter, number, and punctuation mark in a typewriter occupied a “typing bar.” When a key was pressed, the typing bar for that letter flew forward, struck the inked ribbon, and made an impression on the paper. Most office typewriters had about forty typing bars to accommodate upper-/lowercase letters, numbers, and punctuation marks.

  To keep the bars from jamming, the bars had to be all the same width. Even though the letter I occupied less space on paper than the letter M, the widths of the bars were the same. So on paper an I had more space around it than an M.

  This was called monospacing.

  A more advanced form of spacing is proportional spacing, in which the space between letters is proportioned so that the letter I does not have more space before and after it than the letter M.

  Proportional spacing came into home and office typewriters in the early 1960s with IBM’s introduction of the typing ball in Selectric typewriters: A single golf ball—size typing head replaced the dozens of typing bars.

  Bensky’s report said that the introduction of computers also enhanced the profession of forgery because computers were so versatile. They could be used to create an “ancient document” with almost any type of font or other characteristic. But they could also lead to mistakes by the forger:

  This forger erred in not knowing the history of typesetting. He assumed that since the Times New Roman font dated back to 1932 and the document was dated in 1934, it was safe to use that font. I suspect the forger may have used a scanner and computer to duplicate the font from a 1934 newspaper. What the forger did not realize was that the newspaper font in that era was set with an electric typesetting machine that could do proportional spacing with the Times New Roman font. Ordinary home and office typewriters were not capable of proportional spacing at that time, which came with the widespread use of computers.

  If I had read this report, I never would have recommended going through with the purchase.

  I lost my breath again. Mother of God. Hiram would go berserk when he saw Bensky’s report.

  Questions flew through my head, ricocheting around my skull, banging against one another. How could this happen to me? Why would the examiner call and tell me nothing was wrong—and then send a report two days later saying the provenance was suspicious? It made no sense. Did he find something suspicious after he spoke to me?

  I found the answer to that question at the bottom of his report:

  Ms. Dupre, I told you during our telephone conversation that when I first observed the documents I found nothing suspicious. However, it wasn’t until I reexamined them that I caught the discrepancy. Sorry if I caused you any inconvenience.

  No, you bastard, you didn’t cause me any inconvenience. You just cost me my fucking job! My life.

  I closed my eyes and told myself this was just a nightmare, that I had wandered into a John Farris tale of horror.

  “Why didn’t you call me when you found something suspicious?” I asked Bensky. Rhetorically, of course, since he wasn’t present. But it was a very good question. A $55 million question.

  My survival financially and emotionally—and a big chunk of Hiram’s money—was riding on it. Of course, Bensky didn’t know that. Not as far as I knew. I never disclosed how valuable the piece was that we were planning to bid on. He probably did examinations for individuals who were more worried about $55,000 purchases than what we paid for the Semiramis.

  But even if he didn’t know the purchase price, no one with any business sense would have sent a written report that directly conflicted with his verbal report without picking up the phone and explaining it. It just didn’t make sense. Bensky was a professional; he couldn’t be that stupid. But as I thought about it, I realized with a growing sense of horror that he might have called.

  I had left for an art sale in London soon after talking on the phone to him. Went there at Lipton’s invitation, as a matter of fact. Bensky may have called, found out I was out of town, and simply sent over his report. I may have even mentioned to him that I would be leaving town shortly. Jesus. I did tell him that. I’m sure of it.

  I also realized now how the report could have gotten filed without my seeing it.

  Before I left for London, I had dictated a memo to Hiram and Eric telling them that the document examiner had validated the provenance. My secretary, Rita, would have typed and distributed it the day I flew out. Bensky’s report was faxed over late that same afternoon. Rita could have decided that I had already seen the report and filed it. She was no rocket scientist, which was why I was happy when she left suddenly a week ago to return to care for her sick mother in Puerto Rico.

  The Iraqi curator was right.

  The fuckin’ mask had been stolen when the museum was looted.

  Holy shit.

  I held my head in my hands.

  My penthouse. My Jag. My designer clothes. My bloody career.

  Hiram was not just going to fire me; he was going to have me burned at the stake.

  I squeezed my head, breathless, ready to vomit, when I realized that everything was even worse than I had imagined.

  Besides losing everything I had worked for and being hounded out of the trade, I would be facing an accusation of buying stolen property… and sitting on a report that proved my guilt.

  I didn’t know much about the law, but I knew that buying stolen artifacts was a serious crime.

  My brains were scrambled. Not knowing which way to turn, I made four copies of the provenance: a copy for Hiram, one for Eric, one to keep at my desk, and another to carry with me. I didn’t bother copying Bensky’s report. I stuck that in my pocket. I wasn’t sure yet how to deal with it.

  I returned to my office to make a phone call. I didn’t have Rita’s number in Puerto Rico. She might have given it to Nurse Ratched and I could get it in the morning, but the last thing I would do was ask that woman for it, out of fear she’d instinctively sense my panic and use it against me.

  Rita would never admit to filing a report without showing it to me, anyway. At the moment, I was reasonably certain that I was the only one who knew the contents of the report.

  I had to talk to Bensky to find out if there was any other interpretation than the one he had stated. I needed to get across to him that the report got filed without my seeing it. Get him behind me before the police or anyone else got to him.

  I looked at my watch. Two o’clock in the morning. Bensky lived in Pelham, about an hour north of the city. I knew he worked out of his house. I hoped I would wake him up from a deep sleep, when he was most susceptible to the power of suggestion.

  After six rings, his telephone recorder came on. “Out of town, leave a message; I check frequently.”

  Trying to keep the stress out of my voice, I said that I needed to talk to him immediately. I left my cell number.

  My next call went to Neal. He was cranky and groggy when he answered.

  “The provenance is a fraud.”

  “What provenance?” It took a minute for the statement to sink into his head.

  “The Semiramis.”

  “What? Are you kidding me?” He was wide awake now.

  I told him about the report.

  “Font? You mean the type style is wrong?”

  “That’s what Bensky said. The font and the space between letters.”

  “He told you on the phone that nothing looked suspicious and then sent you a report trashing it? Is he a fuckin’ idiot?”

  “No, I am the idiot—and fucked.”

  “I don’t believe this. You got an adverse document examination report and simply filed it?” he said accusingly.

  My grip tightened on the phone. “My secretary filed it without showing it to me.” I was getting irritated.

  “It doesn’t make any difference. Do you
think anyone will believe that?”

  “Don’t you think I already thought of that? The question is, What do we do now?”

  I knew the “we” would cause him to freeze.

  “Maddy…”

  “Neal… you convinced me to bid on the goddamned piece. And it wasn’t the only piece I bought because of you. You acted as the middleman in treaty sales between Lipton and me. Do I have to tell you who the provenance agent was on those sales?”

  No answer from his end.

  “The same Viktor Milan who prepared the provenances on everything you sold me. What do you think the chances are that some of those won’t pass muster when Hiram has everything he ever bought examined?”

  More silence.

  “Who is this Milan anyway?” I asked. “How long have you been dealing with him?”

  “I don’t deal with him. I’ve never even met him. Lipton knows him.”

  “Lipton, Lipton, Lipton. Jesus, his name’s been popping up tonight. I’m beginning to get an ugly suspicion that he dumped stuff on us when he knew better.”

  “Did you get provenances for other pieces examined by Bensky?”

  “No, the Semiramis was the only piece expensive enough to justify it. Besides, I know Lipton. I didn’t think there would be a problem.” I didn’t keep the anger out of my voice. Lipton’s reputation wasn’t that he was an angel, but that he had a corner on the lion’s share of Middle East antiquities. I’d never heard of him pushing a phony provenance.

  “Are you going to have those provenances checked?” Neal asked.

  I thought for a moment. “Should I?”

  “Only if you want to tighten the rope around your neck.”

  “Are you saying they’re frauds?”

  “I’m not saying anything. I know nothing about them. Like you, because I have a long history of dealing with Lipton, his word is gold with me. But if you start going through your collection looking for dirt, you’re liable to find some.”