“I think I’m managing reasonably well,” she said. “The government gave me some time off. They don’t want me to turn into a nut case a few years down the road and sue them for abusive employment practices.”
“Ah, America,” Rizzo said with a laugh. “I wish I were American. I wish my ancestors had gotten their tails onto a freighter out of Calabria and done me the favor of a lifetime.”
It was her turn to laugh. “Anyway,” she concluded, “I’ve been vacationing in Switzerland, Portugal, and Spain. Just collecting my thoughts, hanging out on beaches, doing a lot of reading, getting back into shape, listening to my iPod in six different languages, seven if you count English and American separately.”
“I do. And my congratulations on a wise use of your time,” Rizzo said. “So you didn’t return to America at all?”
“I did actually, yes,” she said, “for two weeks in June. Too many memories there for now. So I picked up some different clothes and came back over here.”
“I understand,” he said. “Are you carrying a gun these days?” he asked.
“Not in Spain. Are you?”
“If I reached to my right ankle I might find something,” he said.
Via the waitress, a pitch-black espresso arrived for Rizzo, a double poured over ice, and a small pitcher of iced tea with mint for her.
“So you’ve been hanging out by yourself mostly?” he asked. “Not missing the warmth of human contact?”
She smiled. “If you’re snooping around to see if I’m romantically linked again, already,” she answered, “shame on you.”
“My apologies. I’m only curious after your welfare,” he said.
“It’s too soon for me to be involved with anyone new,” she said.
“There was an American gentleman whom I met briefly in Paris,” he said. “I believe he was a wounded veteran from Iraq.”
“Ben,” she said.
Rizzo answered yes with a nod.
“Ben’s been a wonderful friend. Like a brother to me at this time,” she said. “He’s planning to get his law degree now. We keep in contact by phone and he worries about me.”
“As do I,” Rizzo said.
“What’s new in your world? Last time I checked, for example, you had two employers.”
“I’ve retired from the Metropolitan police in Rome,” he said, almost proudly. “As long as the government stays out of bankruptcy I have an ample pension.”
“And the ‘other’ job?” she asked.
“That’s why I’m here,” he said. He cleared his throat. “As a special advisor to the Holy See, which would hope that a religious relic would find its way back to its rightful owner.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Or, stated more directly,” Rizzo said, “this has drawn the attention of the pope because it’s the earliest known pietà, and the Old German Man hopes that it gets returned soon.” Alex smiled. “Which leads me to a few questions,” Rizzo said.
“Go ahead,” Alex answered.
“Why are we in Madrid, aside from the fact that some underworld pozzo made off with a paperweight that the museum should have locked up better?”
“I was going to ask you the same question,” Alex said.
“Art treasures often disappear into thin air once they leave the museum,” he mused. “Why the big commotion over this one?”
“I was hoping you’d tell me.”
“I don’t have answers today,” Rizzo said, “aside from what I just said about the Vatican and its interest.” As he spoke, he was eyeing the young waitress, who managed a smile as she was pouring tea at the next table.
Rizzo looked back to Alex.
“They asked me to come to that meeting and told me you’d be there,” Rizzo said to Alex. “That was enough of an enticement.”
They paused for a moment and the waitress departed. “But you do have some experience in art theft,” Alex said.
He rolled his eyes. “Troppa esperienza,” he said. “Too much. Before I moved to homicide in Rome I did furto del arte. Sounds like commedia del arte, but much more serious. Here’s something to remember, though. Art crime represents the third highest-grossing criminal enterprise worldwide, behind only drugs and arms trafficking. Billions of dollars and euros per year, most of them stolen to fund international organized crime syndicates or terrorists or guerilla movements in Asia, South America, or Africa. Should I go on?”
“Feel free.”
“Most art crime is perpetrated by international organized crime,” he said. “They either use stolen art for resale, or to barter on a closed black market for an equivalent value of goods or services.”
“What about individually instigated art theft?” she asked. “Crimes perpetrated for private collectors?”
“More unusual than you’d think,” Rizzo said. “People like that are so wealthy they don’t care about the money. Plus they want the prestige of being able to show a valuable piece.”
“So whoever the gang was who robbed the Museo…?” she asked, shifting gears in the middle of her own sentence. “They were-”
“An organized gang of some sort. But look, as soon as you get into this field, you’re getting into a very dirty business with very dangerous people.” He paused. “You want to look at something pretty, go look at the sunset or the mountains. You show me a Van Gogh or a Picasso and sooner or later I’ll show you some sleazy ownership, a thief, and eventually a murderer, a tax cheat, or a swindler. How’s that? Art is like that: always something beneath the surface. Art theft is like that too. Only more so.”
“What about the big galleries?” she asked. “The people who do the big auctions in New York, London, Paris? Rome? Here, Madrid?”
Rizzo scoffed. “Some of the most disreputable people I’ve met in my life have lived in mansions with ten cars in their garage and a Rodin sculpture in their backyard. Some of the most honorable lived under the bridges of Rome or Paris. The art dealers have no monopoly on duplicity and amorality,” Rizzo said, “but they practice both better than anyone else. All over the art world, they turn a blind eye to cash transactions. Things move around from country to country; people change their ownership more often than their owners change their underwear. Smuggling is a dirty word, but ‘import-export’ isn’t, even though it means the same thing. There’s no market for a painting or a sculpture that can’t fit in a suitcase. That pietà that was stolen here? That would fit into a suitcase.”
She laughed. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“They’re worse than politicians,” he said.
Rizzo glanced around the café and sipped his espresso.
“Look,” he continued, musing further, “art crime is easy and it pays. There are many valuable pieces that are worth millions and weigh only a few kilograms. Transportation is easy and many high-profile museums hosting multimillion dollar works have disproportionately poor security measures. That makes them susceptible to thefts that are slightly more complicated than a typical smash-and-grab, but with huge payoff.”
“Such as this one?”
“The curious thing is that what was stolen was an antiquity,” he mused further. “It dates almost from the time of Christ, give or take a couple of centuries. That’s a strange thing to target. The robbers were in that museum and had access to anything. So what do they do? They take a remote piece with a comparatively low market value. That’s the part I don’t get.”
“So someone wanted that piece specifically,” she theorized.
“Sure. You could go with that thesis. But why? And then again, the market in antiquities is perhaps the most corrupt and problematic aspect of the international art trade,” Rizzo said. “Antiquities are often regarded by the country of origin as national treasures. There are numerous cases where artworks displayed in the acquiring country for decades have become the subject of controversy. One example, the Elgin Marbles, moved from Greece to the British Museum in 1816 by Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin. Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History is engaged in talks with the government of Peru about possible repatriation of artifacts taken during the excavation of Machu Picchu by Yale’s Hiram Bingham.”