The Rescue Artist

end, then nothing would.

That left one obstacle, but it was a daunting one. The first editor I ever met had explained to me years before that for every writer considering a new book one question was key. The magic question: “Who do we root for?”

Every story needs a character at its core, and the richer and more complicated, the better. When I met with Charley, my mission was to sort out whether he had enough meat on his bones to carry a book. We sized each other up warily. We weren’t much alike, but that wasn’t a problem. I didn’t need a new friend, and Charley took for granted from long experience that almost no one was much like him. He told war stories about old cases and I asked rude questions—Who doesn’t like you? Whom can I call who’ll tell me you’re a bag of wind?

Challenged, Charley relaxed a bit. “Who can’t stand me?” He pondered the question and rattled off a list of names. The war stories hadn’t really engaged him; he’d told them clearly but without animation. (I would learn to recognize these rote performances. In Charley’s grumpy view, the world is full of ignoramuses and he has better things to do than explain the ABCs to them.)

But thinking about old friends and enemies, or friends turned enemies and vice versa, cheered Charley up. I liked that orneriness. I began to think that maybe this gruff, scholarly cop would prove a satisfactorily complex character. I cheered up too.

Travails with Charley: Edward Dolnick on Frequently Asked Questions

THE FUN IN WORKING on The Rescue Artist was that art crime brought such different worlds into collision. Those collisions didn’t stop after the book had been published. I gave a talk about the book at Harvard’s Sackler Museum. As I made my way out afterward, weaving past the professors and art curators in their academic tweeds, someone whispered— or growled—at me, “Give my best to Chollie.”

“A hulking figure grinned down at me like an Easter Island statue come to life. ‘Who are you?’ I asked.”

I looked around. A hulking figure grinned down at me like an Easter Island statue come to life. “Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Rocky.”

Rocky was one of Charley Hill’s Art Squad colleagues, a legendary wild man and a much admired, much feared undercover cop. He tended to play crooks, convincingly. We’d never met. Rocky’s fellow cops loved telling stories about him, but even in mid-anecdote they’d hesitate and peer around the room as if making sure that the man himself would not appear and grab them in a headlock. The odds that anyone at the Sackler mistook Rocky for an art historian were pretty low.

When I give talks about The Rescue Artist, surprises like Rocky’s visit are rare. I do know I can count on being asked several questions.

What was it like working with Charley Hill?

It wasn’t dull. “Your other books,” Charley said at our first meeting, “are about dead people. I guess it’s harder when you write about people who are still alive.” Good point. To write a book about someone you don’t know is to take a long journey with a stranger in a small and overheated car.

By and large Charley was a good traveling companion. But I got on his nerves when I kept circling back to material we’d already covered a dozen times in search of ever more detail. “Was it your car or a rented car? What were you wearing? But was the suit old or one you’d bought for that role? I thought you said you were wearing a bow tie?”

Charley has a terrific memory. But the incessant questioning, like a mosquito’s whine, drove him wild. He wanted to make sure I saw the big picture—it’s not like Hollywood—and I kept nattering on about bow ties.

If we were together and I’d kept after him too long, Charley would retreat into glowering silence. This wasn’t good. We were based on opposite sides of the Atlantic, and when one of us had crossed the ocean, we had no time to waste. During the long stretches between visits we communicated almost exclusively by e-mail. I never knew what to expect. Charley might vanish for weeks at a time, or he might respond with half a sentence to a question I had hoped would keep us busy for a month.

“To write a book about someone you don’t know is to take a long journey with a stranger in a small and overheated car.”

Q: Tell me about your first art case.

A: A complete and utter cock-up.

On the other hand, he was more than capable of delivering long, detailed, out-of-the-blue answers to questions I’d given up on months before. The unpredictability of the whole process could drive you mad. Charley and I were slumped in his living room one evening, worn out and half-watching the news, when a story about problems in the London underground came on. The reporter did her stand-up near a station entrance. “That’s around the corner from where Grant-McVicar did the Picasso job,” Charley muttered.

The name of the crook, the very fact that there had been a Picasso stolen in downtown London, and Charley’s intimate knowledge of all the players in the case were all news to me. “Charley, when there are stories like this lying around, feig stories, you’ve got to let me know!” “Right. Yeah. Do you see where the damned remote has got to?”

“‘Charley, when there are stories like this lying around, big stories, you’ve got to let me know!’ ‘Right. Yeah. Do you see where the damned remote has got to?’”

Did Charley edit what you wrote?

No. Almost the first thing I did in my initial conversation with Charley was lay out ground rules. We were not coauthors; I’d write the book and give it to him to read before it was published as a courtesy. At that point he’d be free to make all the comments he wanted— factual, stylistic, grammatical. I promised I’d listen carefully to his suggestions, especially if he thought I’d made a factual error, but I didn’t promise to do more than listen. I emphasized there was always the risk that as I got deeply into the reporting I’d decide he was bad news, in which case I’d go ahead and write that. Finally, we agreed in that first conversation that Charley would have no share in money made from the book.

We never quarreled over any of those rules. When the time came, Charley read the book and marked it up. He resisted the impulse to suggest changes in things he found merely irritating; the few revisions he fought for had mostly to do with keeping secret identities secret or with softening criticisms he had directed at various rivals.

What did Charley think of the book?

He liked it, generally, although he didn’t like the way I’d characterized him—he felt I’d exaggerated the risks he ran and underplayed his love of art. His mother thought there was too much swearing. Despite his complaints about the book, its mere existence was a kick—not everyone has a book written about him. Charley handed out copies to the postman and the babysitter and the woman who cuts his hair. Characteristically, and to the utter dismay of business-minded friends who fret over his financial stability, he neglected to pass along copies to the art collecting lords and ladies of his acquaintance or to anyone else in a position to hire him.

I admired tremendously the way Charley responded to reading about himself. It’s seldom fun to see oneself through someone else’s eyes, but beyond a snarl or two Charley barely lobbied for changes in how he was portrayed. On the contrary. We got together late one night after I’d spent the day talking with some of his nonadmirers at Scotland Yard. Charley asked what I’d been up to. I told him where I’d been. He laughed.

“Well, Ed,” he said, “as Cromwell said to Peter Lely, ‘Paint it warts and all.’ “Both the thought itself and the footnote to the little-remembered Lely were pure Charley Hill.

“[Charley’s] mother thought there was too much swearing in the book.”

What’s next?