Gentile the short answer. “My brother and his father were friends. Hal and I grew up together.”
“That would be your brother, Samuel Diakos, and his father, Peter Vanderlin.”
“Right. Samuel was my half-brother, forty years older; more like a father, really.”
“Why is your last name different?”
“That’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
“Samuel and I had the same father, a World War II resistance fighter with ELAS, the Greek People’s Liberation Army. He and Samuel were caught by the Nazis and sent to a labor camp. When camp officials learned my father was a goldsmith, they sent him to the Deutsche Gold und Silberscheideanstalt, a re-smelting company. He was forced to sort through trays of jewelry stolen from prisoners and assess its quality.”
“Obviously your father survived.”
“He did. One day he found a ring in the tray, the one he’d made for Samuel. He believed his son was dead. With no family left, he fled to the safe haven of Turkey after the war ended because the Greek regime was persecuting leftists. He kept his real identity secret and changed his last name to a Turkish one—Madak. Years later he remarried and had a second son—me. Samuel had been searching for his father. When he finally learned that my parents had died in an earthquake that caused a mine accident, he went to Turkey right away to take me home with him.”
“Oh, that’s right. You were the poor Turkish orphan. Samuel Diakos treated you better than a natural son. You repaid his generosity by killing him.”
The room turned red. The huge reservoir of guilt I carried around with me over Samuel’s death funneled into a blind rage. I made a move to get up, but the uniformed cop sped around the table and clamped an arm around my neck.
I was on the verge of blacking out when I heard Gentile say, “Okay, Verne, leave him alone. Give him a couple of minutes to chill out.” The cop let go but remained behind me.
Gentile poured some water into his glass and took a sip. He seemed pleased with his latest salvo. “Did you remove anything from Vanderlin’s house before you left the party?”
“No.” I wondered where this came from.
“Colin Reed told us he heard you arguing with Vanderlin. What was that about?”
“Hal owed me for a loan I’d given him. He told me he didn’t have the money.”
“So you got what he owed you some other way, is that it? You took the rest of the heroin with you?”
“Of course not.”
Gentile slammed his file shut. “Mr. Madison, there’s clear evidence Vanderlin died of a drug-related accident, unassisted. That information has already been made public. What interests us is how he obtained his drugs.”
“Look, that’s just a red herring. The woman I told you about was after something Hal Vanderlin stole from my brother, a Neo-Assyrian engraving that may have come from Iraq. It’s worth a substantial amount of money.”
“Could you translate that please for us humble folks?”
“It’s a stone engraving made during the period when the Assyrian empire was at its height. About 800 to 612 B.C.”
“Thank you,
“Around that.”
“Lucrative business?”
“Up and down. Sometimes you do well. Other times it can be very lean. It all depends on your contacts, your networks.”
“And where do they come from, these contacts of yours?”
“Through Samuel originally. He was an archaeologist and had also studied Assyriology. He knew that world—the dealers, the academics, the museum bureaucrats. I’ve built my own roster of clients now. These last couple of years I didn’t have to rely on him as much.”
“Has your work focused on Middle Eastern objects?”
“At first it did because that was Samuel’s specialty. Since then I’ve branched out. Some Renaissance art and, of course, Peter Vanderlin’s collection.”
“So your talents are wide-ranging. You must have a remarkable knowledge of art to cover such broad territory.”
A false compliment, I thought, deliberately planted. “I know a lot about the Middle East because I grew up with an expert on those cultures. As far as the rest is concerned, I’m light on that. My skill’s in sales. I’m really a broker. The important thing is getting to know your clients well—their dreams. With the objects themselves, you can always buy the research.”
Gentile paused to check the file again. “Like you did with the Livorno Madonna?”
“That ended up settled out of court as I’m sure you know. The guy who owned it was selling a fake. I had nothing to do with it.”
Gentile’s chair creaked when he leaned back. “Guess your researcher slipped up too.”
“Even major auction houses get it wrong.”
The door opened. Louis Peres entered and sat down, then leaned over and whispered something to Gentile.
Gentile nodded and resumed his questions. “I’m assuming you’re acquainted with a number of prominent collectors. Some of them inclined to cross the line for an item they covet?”
“You mean art thieves who steal on order for the multimillionaire with a secret room on his estate full of stolen Chagalls and Picassos? That’s just a myth.”
Gentile raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“You don’t understand a collector’s psychology. The whole point is to show off acquisitions, not hide them. In 99 percent of cases art thieves are brainless. They steal the stuff and then discover it’s impossible to move because the work’s too accurately documented.”
I could see doubt written all over Gentile’s face. “Doesn’t seem to stop them from trying.”
“Most of it ends up being passed through criminal networks for collateral or money laundering. The big payoff comes from ransom. Insurance companies would rather look the other way and pay a ransom than ante up for the full value of the work. There’ve been four separate thefts of one Rembrandt painting alone. For looted antiquities, it’s different. Much harder to prove origin. Much easier to cook up a false provenance. Or they’ll do a reverse restoration.”
“What’s that?” Gentile said.
“Experts make real pieces look like fakes. Even if acquisition numbers exist, it’s not that difficult to clean them off. You’re looking at billions worldwide every year. That’s incredible money. Samuel would see items advertised for sale he knew were stolen but could do nothing about it because he had no proof. It used to drive him crazy. The truth is antiquities markets are dependent on theft. Outside of resales, looting’s the only source of new supply.”
“It’s really done that openly?” Gentile asked. His question seemed genuine. Maybe he’d given up baiting me.
“They usually go through smaller auction houses that aren’t so particular. The missing artifact I told you about is probably from the old city of Nineveh.” Gentile nodded, but I suspected he was about as familiar with Nineveh as he was with what to do with the fish fork at a royal banquet.
He pointed his index finger toward me like a courtroom prosecutor. “Mr. Vanderlin was what, a professor?”
“A part-time lecturer in philosophy.”
“So he had no expertise in dealing with museum pieces?”
“Right.”
“You mentioned you assisted him in selling off his father’s collection, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Vanderlin’s father is still alive. Did his son have legal authority to do this?”
