“What artist?”
“It’s at my warehouse,” Eisl said. “I received it quite recently. If you have a few minutes, I’ll send for it.”
“What artist?”
“I think you may recognize him when you see the picture.”
“All right, I’ll look around a bit more. Half an hour?”
“That would be fine.”
Stone took the wrapped painting, walked out, and put it into his trunk. He tapped on a window and it came down. “Fred, please lock the trunk,” he said. He heard it lock.
His cell phone rang. “Yes?”
“It’s Art. Was that the picture in your hand?”
“No, it’s something I bought. Eisl says he has something at his warehouse by a famous artist. He wouldn’t say who, but he’s sent for it. I’ll go back in half an hour.”
“Sounds like I should ask for some backup.”
“Not yet.” Stone walked up one side of Madison, then down the other, then he went into the gallery.
The woman was on the phone, so he waited, taking himself on a tour of Eisl’s pictures. Ten minutes passed, and she hung up. “Shall I call Mr. Eisl for you?”
“Yes, thank you.”
She picked up the phone, and a moment later Eisl appeared. “Ah, Mr. Barrington, the painting is on its way and should be here momentarily. May I offer you coffee or tea?” He waved Stone to a chair.
“Coffee, thanks, black.”
Stone took a seat. Eisl spoke to the young woman, who went to the rear and returned with a small tray. The phone rang, and she answered it. “For you,” she said to Eisl. “Rocco Maggio.”
Stone had heard that name somewhere.
Eisl picked up the phone. “Yes?” He listened for a moment.
Stone saw the color drain from his face.
“Say that again?” Eisl listened. “What are we to do?” He listened again, then hung up and went to where Stone sat.
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Barrington, but the painting is not available for viewing at this time.”
“Why not?” Stone asked, looking surprised.
“There has been a mix-up. Perhaps by this time tomorrow . . .”
“Where is your warehouse?” Stone asked.
“On Twelfth Avenue, but the public are not allowed on the premises for security reasons.”
“Has something happened to the painting?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that, I’m afraid.”
“Then perhaps you’ll tell me who the artist is?”
“Let us say, after van Gogh.”
“After van Gogh?”
“As I mentioned earlier, there are some difficulties about the provenance, so I am not in a position to guarantee its authenticity—not yet, anyway. I expect that to change when the painting is in my hands. I trust my own judgment above all others.”
“All right,” Stone said, getting up and giving the man his card.
“I’ll ring you the moment I have news,” Eisl said.
Stone thanked him, got into the car, and said to Fred, “Take a left, then stop.” He called Art Masi. “I’m around the corner. Join me.”
Masi got into the car. “Where are we going?”
“To Twelfth Avenue.”
46
STONE INSTRUCTED FRED to drive to Forty-second Street and turn right on Twelfth Avenue.
“What’s this little trip about?” Art Masi asked.
“Does the name Rocco Maggio ring a bell?”
Art’s brow wrinkled. “Yes, but I can’t place it.”
“Same here.”
“Sounds like a baseball player.”
“That’s DiMaggio.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Think mob,” Stone said.
Art thought. “Pietro Maggio,” he said.
“Not Pietro, Rocco.”
“Pietro was Rocco’s father—a rather elegant New Jersey don, died five or six years ago. Had a decent art collection—paintings, sculpture.”
“Any of it stolen?”
“Not that hung in his house. I got to have a close look at it once, with a warrant on a non-art case. He was rumored, though, to have moved the proceeds of a couple of big-time art heists—one in Boston, one in Philadelphia.”
“Were any of the pieces ever found?”
“Not a single one,” Art said. “Overall value, a hundred and fifty million, and that was ten, twelve years ago. Who knows what it would be now, with all the billionaires bidding.”
“How old is Rocco?”
“Maybe mid-forties.”
“Any record?”
Art got out his cell phone and tapped away at it for a couple of minutes. “Nothing but parking tickets.”
“How many?”
Art tapped some more. “More than a hundred grand’s worth. Apparently all of New York is a parking lot to Rocco.”
They reached Twelfth Avenue and turned uptown. All that Stone knew about the area was a big car wash and a number of taxi garages. Yellow cabs were parked on the side streets. A couple of more blocks, and Stone told Fred to pull over. He did. “Back up a few feet.” Fred did. “Now hand me the binoculars in the glove compartment.” Fred forked them over.
Stone trained the glasses on a spot halfway up the block from Twelfth Avenue. “Art, see that sign, maybe six doors up the street? The little one, near the top of the building?”
“Yes,” Art said.
Stone handed him the glasses. “See if your eyes are better than mine.”
Art gazed at the sign and fiddled with the focus. “Eisl,” he said.
“Take a right, Fred,” Stone said. “Stop halfway up the block on the right.” Fred did so.
“Now, Art,” Stone said, “before we cross the street and make nuisances of ourselves or get rousted, maybe shot, tell me more about Rocco Maggio.”
Art started Googling. “He’s on the board of a couple of lesser museums downtown. Goes to a lot of artsy cocktail parties with fashionable women a lot younger than himself. Used to be a member of the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League—remember that one?”
“Yes, I believe it sort of faded after its chairman got himself wasted at a clam house in Little Italy.”
“Right. That was twelve, fifteen years ago, when Rocco was a lot younger.”
“Weren’t we all?” Stone said. “I think this guy shapes up as a pretty good suspect.”
“So do I,” Art said. More tapping. “I thought that maybe there’d be a connection to the Eisl Gallery, that he was on the board or something, but he’s not.”
“And yet when Mr. Eisl calls his warehouse for the van Gogh to be brought over, he gets a call back from Rocco Maggio. Rocco doesn’t strike me as a guy who works part-time as a warehouseman.”
“Me, either,” Art said.
“Is there a lot of art theft in New York these days, Art?”
“More than you might think. It’s mostly burglaries—they take the jewelry and the silver, then maybe grab a picture or two. That’s how somebody like Sam Spain gets involved. There’s a museum robbery every few years, but surprisingly few big-time pieces are taken from private collections, like Tillman’s. The security arrangements are pretty tight in those cases—the insurance companies insist.”
“Still,” Stone said, “an important piece every year or two could make it a profitable business, what with the big-time artists pulling down multimillion-dollar sales at auction. That should create a market for bargain, under-the-counter sales to unscrupulous buyers.”
“You’re right, it does,” Masi agreed.
“Google Maggio’s business connections. Let’s see what his legitimate connections are.”
Art tapped away. “Ah,” he said, “shipping.”
“What kind of shipping?”
“He’s got a company that handles small-lot goods—you know, for companies that can’t fill a container on their own—and . . . oh, good, an air-freight company.”
“How could he compete with FedEx or DSL in that market?”
“You want to ship a grand piano, or maybe a horse or two, the big boys aren’t going to deliver those to your door—or your stable. They’re also not going to put multimillion-dollar artworks in their delivery trucks, or insure big-ticket items. There’s a market for specialty shippers. If you want to take your Bentley along on a European vacation, for instance. Some of them even have passenger compartments, so you can travel with your goods.”
“It sounds like the sort of service that could ship a stolen painting one way and bring back a suitcase or a hay bale full of cash,” Stone said.