Murder Below Montparnasse - By Cara Black Page 0,65
don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
“I don’t have the time.”
“In our field, it’s word of mouth, trust, relations built up over the years. The art dealers’ world is hermetically sealed, apart from small fissures from time to time.”
“When greed takes over?”
He nodded. “Usually. If our department recovers ten percent of the art stolen in a year, we consider that good. The number of thefts, private and national, is immense. But the profit’s enormous too.”
Only 10 percent? Her heart fell.
“But people don’t fence a Modigliani on the corner,” she said. “This painting warrants an elite type of buyer, non?”
“You want Interpol statistics? Three quarters of stolen art end up transited through a minimum of three countries, exchanged for goods including arms and gold. Recently, someone traded art for a restaurant chain in Slovakia.”
A means to an end. A kind of currency.
“Collectors comprise less than one percent of art theft. A focused hit is rare.” He paused. Angled his fingers toward hers. “A Modigliani—say one of the several he painted of Jeanne Hébuterne, his last lover—would go for seven or eight figures.”
Dombasle’s cell phone vibrated on the table. He glanced at the number.
“Museums shy away, since the authentication process would eat up a good portion of their funds. Modigliani is one of the world’s most forged artists. Not worth the connoisseur’s effort, to be blunt. Your Yuri Volodya might have had a fake.”
Luebet hadn’t thought so.
“Sounds like you’re chasing smoke.”
Little did he know. She hadn’t learned much from this conversation. Frustrated, she fingered the cardboard drink coaster.
“My office investigates robbery claims,” Dombasle said. “Where’s the robbery? There was no report made.”
“To investigate, you need a dead man to make a claim?”
“Why do I think you want my help, yet aren’t telling me the real story?”
Time to give him something. Figure out how to work an exchange. Use him.
She brushed back guilt. Less than twelve hours remained and so far she’d come up clueless. If he was smart—and there was no doubt on that score—he’d use her too.
“Say an old man found a forgotten Modigliani in his father’s cellar,” Aimée said, glancing around for listeners. Only at a far table, a woman talking into her phone, a bulldog at her feet. “He’s unsophisticated and runs his mouth. He contacts a renowned art dealer—you might know him, his name is Luebet—for an appraisal. But before the appointment, the painting’s stolen. The old man, Yuri, is found tortured and dead the next morning. Later, Luebet ‘falls’ on the Métro tracks. I can’t prove any of this except they are both dead.”
“Then it’s the Brigade Criminelle’s territory. Not mine.”
Didn’t the forces work together? Collaborate? “People don’t murder for fakes, do they?”
“You’d be surprised.” Dombasle shrugged. She noticed the gold flecks in his dark-brown eyes.
“Then time for show-and-tell. I show and you tell, d’accord?”
“Depends on if you’ll accompany me to a reception tonight. A vernissage.”
Was he flirting with her?
“An art opening, that’s your tell? Would I find it interesting?”
“You might learn something.”
“Meaning?”
“A respected world authority on Modigliani will attend,” he said.
“That’s all?” she said, disappointed.
“Then you’re afraid this supposed Modigliani will crumble under an expert’s scrutiny?”
Smart-ass, she almost said.
Instead she placed the Polaroid over the Stella Artois cardboard coaster.
Dombasle pulled out an eyepiece like a jeweler’s loop. Adjusted the magnification and added a small lens. Like an optician.
He read out loud. “ ‘For Piotr, a keepsake of your friend Vladimir. Modigliani.’ ”
“Still think it’s fake?”
“Where did you get this?” He leaned forward and covered her hand with his.
Aimée grinned. “With your hair poking out like that and your eyepiece, you remind me of a mad scientist.” She pointed to the Polaroid. “You know one of those men, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Luebet.” He stared closer. “Taken when?”
She took a guess. “Sunday.”
“How are you involved?”
She had her story—a version of the truth—ready. She showed him the message written on Luebet’s envelope.
“So Luebet wanted the Modigliani,” he said, glancing at his insistent vibrating phone. “He’d contacted some person or persons to steal the painting for him before he performed a professional appraisal.”
Her thoughts, too. Brought it back to the theory that there were two teams on the playing field. But the ball had already been stolen.
“But a respected art dealer.…”
“Seen it before. No surprise. He’d contact someone who’s ripped him off before—a thief who knows his métier—say ‘Let bygones be bygones, I’ve got a job for you.’ ” He lifted the photo to look at the painting again. “Any idea who stole it?”