“You don’t recognize me?”
“No,” Val said, although those jowls and hooded eyes seemed vaguely familiar. He had a feeling he’d seen the face in the newspaper once or twice, but he couldn’t put a name to it.
“We met when you were a child. I was a friend of your uncle’s.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Probably for the best. Can I offer you something? Marco has brought us an excellent bottle of French wine.”
Val looked at him then, the suit from the car, standing in shadow by the room’s open pocket doors, hands clasped in front and a telltale bulge under his left arm. Val felt the urge to rush him, snap his wrist, and take the gun away, just to show that he could; but he figured it was best if they underestimated him.
“Fine wine would be wasted on me,” Val said. “I’m a Bud-from-the-can kind of guy.”
“Budweiser? I don’t have any of that camel piss. How about a Wychwood?”
Val had never heard of it, but he nodded.
“Marco?” the fat man said.
The suit disappeared into the hallway and returned moments later with an uncorked bottle of wine in one hand and an open bottle of beer in the other. With his hands full, Val mused, snatching his piece would be even easier.
A crystal goblet, already holding a quarter-inch of white wine, stood on a piecrust table beside the fat man. The suit refilled it and set the bottle down. Then he went to the glass-front bookcase, bent to open the bottom shelf, and removed an odd-looking vessel. It was shaped like a distended hourglass and looked to be about ten inches tall. The suit handed it to Val and tipped the beer bottle as if to fill it.
“Hold it,” Val said, covering the top of the vessel with his left hand. He twisted in his chair to turn on a lamp on the table beside him and examined the object under the light. He glanced up and saw a sly smile cross his host’s face.
“It’s bronze,” the fat man said. “Beer won’t do it any harm. Let Marco fill it for you, professor.”
Val did as he’d been told, then raised the vessel to his lips and felt a thrill that had nothing to do with the contents.
“Tell me what you know about this object,” the fat man said.
“It’s a Chinese ku.”
“And?”
“I’m not an expert on Chinese antiques, but it resembles ritual vessels that have been excavated from ancient tombs in the Yellow River Valley. If it’s genuine, it could be Qin, or perhaps even Shang Dynasty, which would make it exceedingly rare and valuable.”
“It’s Shang,” the fat man said. “You’re probably the first person to drink from it in three thousand years.”
Val shook his head in amazement. He took another sip and asked, “How did you come to own it?”
“I don’t. I’m holding it for some associates. I understand the FBI has been searching for a ku just like this one for quite some time.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Val said.
“For twenty-three years, to be precise.”
“The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery,” Val said.
“What do you know about that?”
“I only know what’s been in the newspapers.”
“Even so.”
Val took a moment to gather his thoughts. “In 1990, the museum’s security was a joke. Two poorly trained, unarmed guards. An alarm system that was not connected to the Boston PD. Even back then, a lot of home owners had better security for their Beanie Babies collections. Late one night, two men dressed in Boston Police uniforms knocked on the front door and said they were there to investigate a report of an intruder. The guards let them in and ended up spending the rest of the night handcuffed to pipes in the basement. The thieves spent nearly an hour and a half traipsing about the building, taking what they wanted. They got away with more than half a billion dollars in rare art. It was the largest art heist in history.”
“Exactly what did they steal, professor?”
“That was a puzzler,” Val said. “Most of the value was in two large oils, Vermeer’s The Concert and Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, but they also took several lesser pieces including the ku, five drawings by Degas, and a finial that once stood atop a flag carried by Napoleon’s army.”
“Why a puzzler?”
“Because they passed up dozens of priceless paintings—masterpieces by Raphael, Rubens, Michelangelo, Botticelli—many of them small and easily portable.”
“What does that tell you?”
“Either the thieves were rank amateurs or they were working from a shopping list supplied by an interested buyer.”
“Your best guess?”
“Amateurs.”
“Why?”
“Because they cut several paintings from their frames, damaging the edges. A professional art thief would have known better.”
“Let’s say they were amateurs,” the fat man said. “Let’s suppose that until they read about the robbery in the newspapers, they had only a vague idea of what they had. Only then did these two jerkoffs figure out the loot was so famous that it would be next to impossible to find anyone crazy enough to buy it.”