Carson leans forward, peers at the TV, then shrugs. “Five old paintings. So what?”
My laptop’s on the desk, plugged into the flatscreen through its HDMI port. If it keeps Carson in her chair and away from me, it’s all good.
“So they were all stolen from private European collections in the past seven years. And they’ve all turned up in the past eighteen months, these four in China, this one in Dubai.”
“Huh. So?”
“So I think maybe the same guy sold all of them. All five sales worked the same way. Check it out. Each one was a private sale through a gallery, set up over the phone with what turned out to be Luxembourgeois companies. The proceeds got wired to Singaporean bank accounts. Each company had a different name, but they’re all registered to the same street address.”
I check to see if Carson’s bored yet. Surprisingly, she’s not only awake but leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. “Any line on the phones?”
“All different numbers. A1 Telekom Austria prepaid chips.”
“Burners, then. Seller’s in Austria?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Carson squints at the images again, which wrinkles her little snip nose. “What’s special about these things? Famous or something?”
“No, not even. These aren’t the kind of artists you’d know unless you follow art. All these pieces date from 1820 to 1910. None of them are Impressionists, which is kinda weird given what was going on in that period.”
“Expensive?”
“Compared to one of the big names, like Monet or van Gogh? No, they’re cheap. Compared to the average car? Yeah. This Palmer here—” I run the mouse pointer around a Samuel Palmer watercolor-on-board landscape “—is probably the most valuable. Its auction estimate is two-fifty to three-fifty U.S. That’s thousands. This one—” a Wilhelm Leibl oil portrait of a farmer with a serious beard “—is probably the cheapest, seventy to a hundred K. These five add up to a bit over a million U.S., low auction value. No idea what the insurance value is.”
“Chickenshit.” She lunges out of the chair and starts pacing back and forth at the foot of the bed. After a couple laps, she unzips her jacket and throws it on the bed. That exposes a skin-tight, long-sleeved white top with a medium-gray back. Holy shit. Carson’s a big girl. Not fat, but built, like fit. Broad shoulders, powerful arms, and a pretty impressive rack. I can’t tell if I should be turned on or terrified, so I try a little of each.
By now, her face is darker than it was when she was scolding me earlier. “Someone’s fencing stolen paintings. Why’s that worth paying you?”
I note that she said you, not us. “The client thinks there’s more of these out there waiting to be sold. A lot more. He says the whole thing could be worth millions. So we’re supposed to find them.”
She mutters something about a “fucking snipe hunt,” then says, “Then what?”
A question I’ve been trying to figure out. “Tell Allyson, I guess.”
Carson throws up her hands. “Why bother stealing paintings if they’re not worth a lot?”
I point to the TV. “Pieces like these get swiped every day. Some burglar’s raiding a rich guy’s house and finds a horse picture on the wall, so he takes it. Maybe it’s a print from Z Gallerie, or maybe it’s a second-tier Stubbs and it’s worth a hundred fifty, two hundred K, whatever. The burglar doesn’t know. He fences it for ten percent of whatever the fence thinks the market value is. If the fence’s a dealer—like my gallery was—he sells it on to a client who doesn’t care about provenance, like in China or Russia. If the fence is connected, the piece maybe turns into collateral for a drug deal, or a way to move money across borders. And it’s not on refrigerator magnets, so nobody notices.”
It’s kind of strange but kind of nice, talking about something I know. I’ve been away from this world for four years, but it’s all coming back like I’d walked out the gallery door last week. I don’t know what I’m doing yet—I was never a detective—but so far it’s better than slinging coffee.
Carson’s up-and-back pacing has turned into an ellipse between the bed and the opposite wall. She’ll wear a track in the carpet pretty soon. “But… I get ripping off museums. Those paintings are always worth a zillion bucks. Don’t get this shit. Not worth the risk.”
“Those museum paintings aren’t worth the risk. Only an idiot steals big-name art. Think about it. Somebody swipes the Mona Lisa or The Scream. It’s a world treasure, everybody’s looking for it. Then some dude shows up at the back of your gallery and tries to sell it to you. Even the crookedest dealer’ll tell the guy to get lost. Gar—my old boss—used to call it ‘headache art.’ Could you sit down? You’re making me nuts.”
She glares at me. “Sat on my ass for ten fucking hours to get here. No.” She changes directions, just to rub it in. “Got anything on the seller?”
I lean back in the desk chair and rub my eyes. I woke up at two body time this morning. Jet lag’s the best. “It’s not random crooks selling these pieces. This guy’s really careful. He probably buys from the thieves or a middleman and stays in his niche to keep from getting screwed too bad. He marks up the prices to make a profit, but also to sell fast. All the pieces went for around three-quarters the low auction estimate. That means the buyers totally knew there was something sketchy, but bought anyway.” Which brings up a question that hadn’t crossed my mind until now: out of all the crooked art deals in the world, why’d the client pick up on these five? I’ll have to think on that.
Carson turns a couple laps before she says anything. “What’s your play?”
This is the part I’m a little fuzzy about. “I’d love to find out what the client knows—”
“Forget it.”
“Yeah, I got that. We need to find out who’s behind these shelf companies.”
“You mean shell companies.”
“No, shelf. The names are totally generic and random. I think these are the kinds of shell companies you buy pre-made, off the shelf. You can get them for less than a grand if you don’t want a credit history with them. A custom product costs up to five grand in Luxembourg depending on what you want done.”
For a moment, Carson stops charging around and stares at me. “You just know that?”
“I looked it up. Besides, I used to see these things all the time in my gallery. Anyway, if we can find the beneficial owner, we find the seller, and maybe the rest of the art, if there is any.”
She shakes her head and starts off again. “No fucking way you can do that.”
“Not legally.”
That slows her down. She stops at the top of her racetrack and peers at me. I can see the wheels going behind her face. “Gotta hear this.”