The Deceivers (11 page)

“What a businessman would call diversification has happened,” Prince Ranar said. “With less exceptional pieces on the market, gangs of criminals have started pushing exceptional fakes.”

“Must be real money in it,” I said. I was dying to know how much.

Detective Anthony pulled a four-by-six picture from an inside pocket of his coat. “Art crimes rank third after drug trafficking and illegal arms sales in the financial impact of crime. This is why.”

He handed me the picture.

“A Siva,” I said.

Siva was one of the main gods of Hinduism, the paramount lord in the pantheon of gods in some sects. A very complicated deity, the Hindus considered him both a destroyer and a restorer, a wrathful avenger yet sensual and a herdsman of souls.

The sandstone statue in the photograph was typical of how Siva was portrayed in works of art: It had four arms and three eyes, one of them giving him inner vision but capable of fiery destruction when focused outward. His necklace was a serpent threaded through skulls. He sat in the lotus position, with legs intertwined, left foot over right thigh, the right foot over the left thigh.

One arm was broken off at the elbow and a hand was missing at the wrist. Limbs were the first to go on stone figures as war and mishandling occurred over the ages, which was why bronze was a more typical material for this type of complicated piece. But the price of a truly fine piece of art wasn't much affected by broken limbs. The
Venus de Milo
, with one arm broken off at the shoulder and the other above the elbow, was proof of that.

“An exquisite piece,” I said. “How large is it?”

“About a foot,” Detective Anthony said. “It was sold to a private party for twenty-two million.”

“It's fake?”

“How could you tell it's fake?”

“That was a question, not an opinion. I can't tell from a picture, but we were talking about fakes. It certainly looks real, but so did the Apsarases.”

“It's a fake,” Prince Ranar said. “Another excellent piece. Detective Anthony believes it's by the same artist who did the Apsaras piece.”

“The only reason why it got exposed as a fake is because the buyer, a woman who runs a home goods company and has a weekly TV show on decorating, decided to show it off when she did a segment on her new apartment here in Manhattan. Someone from the Cambodian embassy spotted the piece. A quick check with the National Museum in Cambodia confirmed that the original was still there.”

“Did the same people who smuggled in the Apsaras piece bring in this one?”

Detective Anthony shook his head. “Actually, this one came through Hong Kong. It was owned by a Russian, one of those ex-KGB thug types who got rich in the nineties after the Soviet Union collapsed. Oil, I think. Great system. Pay off politicians and suddenly you're an oil billionaire. He may have bought it legitimately, thinking it was authentic.”

“How did he get the piece?”

“I don't know and he's not talking.”

“Can't the police—”

“He's dead.”

“Oh … because of the Siva?”

“We don't think so. He was gunned down in a nightclub in Hong Kong, apparently by other ex-KGB types to whom he wasn't paying enough protection. His girlfriend, a model, is still in Hong Kong. She's the one who put the piece on the market. We think she's sitting on more, but she's not talking, either. And there's not much we can do about it. Hong Kong's the gateway for much of the contraband art coming out of Asia.”

Asian mafia. Ex-KGB billionaires. Murder. A Hong Kong model sitting on a hoard of fake art. Where did I fit into this? I asked the question and the detective answered.

“We're never going to stop the smuggling of contraband art, looted or faked, until we get to the source. The police in Thailand, Cambodia, and the Hong Kong territory of China are not always helpful.”

“We are a poor country,” Prince Ranar said, “the poorest of the three mentioned. We have more land mines left over from wars than people to step on them. We've had revolutions that crippled us and even today there is an uneasy truce among political factions. Our police are overwhelmed with struggles against drug trafficking and prostitution that destroy the lives of young girls. The looting of our antiquities is the third arm of this trinity of evils. Unfortunately, these evils are rampant because Westerners feed the corruption with money. They buy drugs, sex, and stolen art.

“Our cultural heritage is being vandalized, but we lack resources to deal with it. There are thousands of antiquity sites, many of them still covered by jungle, making it an impossible task to police with our limited resources. In our opinion, the best alternative is to increase the criminal sanctions against the wealthy Americans, Europeans, and Japanese who finance the crimes by paying enormous prices for unlawful goods.”

The detective shook his head. “That isn't practical. People have the right to buy art and rely on provenances.”

I suddenly realized the role they wanted me to play. “You want me to act as an antiquities buyer.”

“That is what Detective Anthony had in mind,” Ranar said.

“An undercover thing,” I said. “Pretend to be in the market for stolen art.”

“You've got it,” Detective Anthony said.

I thought about it. Probably dangerous because the criminals wouldn't be happy when they found out I set them up. I wasn't about to get myself killed for the love of art. But I could set up perimeters as to how far I was willing to go—like never meeting with the devils except in a safe place with a lot of police surrounding me. Of course, the most important thing after safety was my commission. So I asked and Detective Anthony gave me the answer.

“All expenses … and a big bonus if you get us a bona fide lead.”

“How big a bonus?”

He nodded at Ranar. “Get the name of the head of the operations and the Cambodian government will pay you a fee of fifty thousand.”

Almost chump change when I was a high roller in the art trade, but it sounded like a fortune to me now. But I shook my head. Never take the first offer was a rule of my chosen profession.

“I want a hundred thousand and all anticipated expenses up-front.”

Detective Anthony looked to Ranar and raised his eyebrows. “You said a hundred thousand. Still willing to pay it?”

Ranar nodded. “Yes.”

Damn. I should have asked for more. He had tricked me by lowballing the offer.

“Okay. When do I start?”

“Can you expedite getting her a visa?” Detective Anthony asked.

“A visa? What do I need a visa for?”

“You can't get into Cambodia without one.”

“
Cambodia?
Are you insane? I'm not going to Cambodia.”

11

Jungles. Temple looting. Revolutions. Drug trafficking and prostitution practiced openly. People stepping on land mines—when they weren't stepping on poisonous snakes or being eaten by crocodiles … That was how Ranar had described his country—and I had the impression that he was deliberately downplaying the country's problems.

In the best light that Ranar gave it, the country sounded like a disaster in the making for me. The sort of place that news stories report, “An American was reported missing today in…” before the story just falls off the radar until a couple years later when they find the decomposing body in the jungle.

Now that was a pleasant thought.

I lay in bed the next morning and considered the proposition. A cop called Michelangelo wanted me to go to Cambodia. Find out who was running the Thai-Cambodian mafia or whatever it was. Come back and collect a hundred thousand. If I was still alive.

Refusing to commit, I left the offer on the table, literally, and fled in a taxi to home and bed. I should have said no, but instead I said I had to think about it. It wasn't just money being offered, it was my salvation. If I helped break a big smuggling ring, I might even generate publicity that would cleanse my name in the art world. Of course, the same caveat kept coming back at me: It wasn't worth it unless I was alive to collect.

Leaving my apartment, I headed around the corner along Canal to Mulberry and down to Bayard Street in Chinatown. I needed two things to help me think—an ice cream cone from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory and a Chinese foot rub.

Both the ice cream and the rub were soul-soothing. At a time in my life when Thai takeout was my idea of splurging on dinner, little things like a foot rub took the place of jumping into a plane on impulse for a weekend at a five-star spa hotel in Bermuda.

I had to admit, living where Chinatown, Little Italy, and Soho bumped into each other was never dull because of the energy that constantly flowed on the streets: a babble of languages everywhere, ethnic restaurants, trendy and funky boutiques along places that sold used clothes, designer stores, art galleries, dozens of tourist shops, street vendors hawking their wares … It was all around me, alive and teeming with energy.

Chinatown was a city within a city, like a piece of old town Shanghai had been transported here. Locals crowded into the vendor shops each day to select their vegetables, fruit, spices, fresh fish, and meat. The freshest fish was still flapping when you bought it. I had found a dim sum restaurant that was cheap and good, right across the street from an ice cream factory that made the best homemade ice cream. My favorite flavor was Zen Butter made with peanut butter and toasted sesame seeds.

As I licked my cone and dodged people on the crowded sidewalk, I wondered why Detective Anthony had been more gung ho than Ranar to send me undercover to Cambodia. I could tell from Ranar's body language that he wasn't enthused about the idea. I didn't know whether it was because I was a foreigner who could get hurt … or he didn't want any more of the dirty underbelly of his country exposed. I had a feeling that my life rated rather less than national face.

One thing I was sure of … Detective Anthony wasn't going to force me to go undercover in some godforsaken place under threat of arrest. He had nothing on me or he would have pressed charges. I had deduced that all by myself. Figuring out cops was something I was getting good at … no doubt a talent linked to my experience narrowly escaping criminal charges.

I called Bolger before I stepped into the foot rub parlor. After giving him an overview of my adventures in the alley and under police interrogation—his cold silence signaling “I told you so”—I asked for a favor.

“Can you check the Internet and tell me anything about a Prince Ranar.”

“What kind of prince is he?”

“Cambodian. Deputy minister for cultural security, something like that.”

“You know, you really should get into the Internet yourself.”

“I know, I will, but then I wouldn't have the fun of bugging you.”

“What are you getting yourself into now? Do you plan to give your Thai mafia friends another chance to kill you?”

“I'll be careful.”

I hung up in the middle of his loud, unpleasant burst of laughter.

*   *   *

WITH MY HEAD
back and my eyes closed, I tried to shut down my mind and just listen to the petite Chinese woman's birdlike humming as she massaged my feet. I really missed the days when I got a full massage three times a week. And didn't have to worry about risking my life to earn a living.

My quiet moment was shattered by my cell phone ringing. I'd forgotten to turn it off. The Chinese lady didn't miss a beat in her song or the pressure points on the bottom of my feet. I thought it was going to be Bolger already, but I didn't recognize the number and hesitated answering, wondering if it could be a bill collector. I let it go into voice mail and checked it—Michelangelo the cop.

“Call me.” That was it. Charming bastard. But sexy.

He answered my call with a “Yeah?”

“You called me,” I said.

“Yeah. Have you told his highness yet that you're going to take his offer?”

“Detective Anthony, I am still considering all the national and international ramifications of—”

“Your bill collectors?”

Bastard. “When I finally come to a decision, I'll be sure and let you know … when and if I get around to it.”

“Listen, Dupre, I'm cutting you some slack here. There's a federal agent who called and said he'd love to kick the chair out from under your feet if I could put a rope around your neck.”

That was an understatement. I could guess who called him. The FBI agent had tried to lynch me over the Babylonian mask. “And why are you being so gracious?”

“Well, first of all, I'm a sucker for a good-looking woman.”

He paused to let that comment tickle my ego for a moment—which it did.

“And I don't like crooks messing around with art. Drugs, whores, gambling, that's where crooks should keep their noses. But art, that's culture. It's not a place for thugs and punks.”

“Your feelings about art endear you to me … almost. If we could just add some manners and a little grace to that ax murderer personality of yours, you would be almost likable. As it is you're…”

He stood in the doorway grinning at me, the phone still to his ear.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Taking you to lunch.”

I waited until I'd left the foot massage place before I made an accusation. “You've had me followed. Otherwise you wouldn't have known where I was.”

He shook his head. “You overrate your importance. In a world where terrorism takes number one priority, camel-jockey cabdrivers take precedent over mafia dons at being tailed. I was on my way to drop off a painting at a Soho art gallery when I saw you go into the foot rub joint.”

“Something you painted?”

“Yeah. Wanna see it? It's in my car.”

His unmarked car was parked in front of a fire hydrant. He opened the trunk and removed a bedsheet wrapped around the painting.