Among Thieves

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Do you think he was telling the truth?”

Kozlowski asked the question once Baxter had left the room. He and Finn were left standing there, taking in their surroundings. The empty frames hung before them like skeletons-sad reminders of the beauty stolen from the world.

“About what?” Finn asked. “That he’s looking forward to hearing from us again? I don’t think so.”

“No, about whether or not he was involved in the theft. He seemed awfully defensive. Did you notice the accent? Sounded Irish to me.”

Finn chuckled. “Well, if an Irish accent is enough to convict someone of art theft, then half of Boston ’s population needs to be in jail.”

“Half of Boston ’s population isn’t in a position to know everything about the security of a museum that houses billions of dollars of art. Half of Boston ’s population doesn’t walk around in three-thousand-dollar suits.”

“It was a nice suit,” Finn admitted. “I’m not sure it’d be enough to get a conviction, though.” He walked over to one of the empty frames. The walls were covered in a jacquard silk in a lush forest-green pattern, and the fabric showed through the neatly hung frame. If you didn’t know that a painting had been stolen from the spot, you might think that the frame was hung there in jest, or as some great cosmic riddle. “I wish he hadn’t left,” Finn said. “I had a few questions about the theft.”

“Like what?”

“Like why haven’t they replaced these empty frames with pictures? They must have some extra artwork lying around here somewhere. If not, I’m sure they could buy some. Having these empty frames where the stolen art used to be seems macabre.”

Kozlowski shrugged. “Who knows why? When you’re dealing with art-and rich people-logic doesn’t have to apply.”

“They can’t replace the paintings,” someone behind them said. The voice came like an echo from the dead, crackling sharply from the back of the room and reverberating off the walls and high ceiling. Finn and Kozlowski turned.

The corpse was awake now. Sitting up in the hard wooden chair at the back of the room, with the head no longer slumped to the side, but held aloft by a slender twig of a neck. The eyes were open, though still hidden deep beneath the shadow of a prominent ocular ridge. The skin, while still gray and dark under the eyes, was no longer slack. The eyes traveled slowly from Finn to Kozlowski and back again. “They aren’t allowed to replace the frames,” the corpse said.

“Why not?” Finn asked, after a moment.

“It was in Mrs. Gardner’s will.” The accent was unusual. It was Bostonian in origin, but muddled. Finn could hear the hard consonants of Southie or Charlestown or Dorchester, but there was also a mix of the extended vowels of upper-class Boston. It was as though a former accent had been painted over, but remained underneath.

Finn looked at Kozlowski. “It was in Mrs. Gardner’s will,” he repeated. He looked back at the corpse. “Why?”

The man rose from the chair, and Finn felt as though he were witnessing a resurrection. “Do you not know the story of this place?” he asked.

“No,” Finn said. “I don’t.”

“Well, you should,” the corpse responded. “If you plan on finding the paintings, you really should.” He looked at them carefully. “That is why you’re here, no? To try to find the paintings?”

“You’re treasure hunters,” the man said. “I’ve seen hundreds like you in here in the past.”

“No,” Finn replied. “We’re not.”

“Well, you’re not the police, that much is clear. The police always show their badges the first time they meet someone. My name is Sam Bass,” he said. “As Mr. Baxter already told you.”

Finn looked carefully at him. “You were awake,” he said. “The whole time, you were eavesdropping.”

Bass dismissed the accusation with the wave of a hand. “At my age, it’s hard for me to tell for sure when I’m asleep and when I’m awake. You’ll learn that someday, if you’re lucky.” He looked around the great room. “I spend most of my time here, in the museum, and it all blends together-the time I’m awake, the time I’m asleep; the time I’m alone, the time I’m not. It’s like being trapped in an Impressionist painting, where all the lines are smudged and run into one another. Sometimes I can almost feel myself slipping into this place; becoming a part of it. It would be a nice way to go.”

“You like it that much here?” Finn asked.

Bass gave an amused smile, and for a moment his face took on a sparkle of life infused with charm. “‘Like’ is too weak a word, Mr. Finn. This place saved my life.” He shuffled toward them. “Come, I want to show you something.”

He led them toward the door and back out to the staircase. His pace was slow and his steps unsteady. Finn had to fight the urge to reach out to take hold of the strange old man’s elbow as he brought them down the long hallway. “I grew up poor,” Bass said. “In the 1930s and ’40s, a lot of us grew up poor. Not like today’s poor. Today, you’re poor if you don’t have a forty-inch flat-screen TV. Back then you weren’t poor until you were starving. It was a bad time. As a child, I watched people fight and claw for food. That was how people survived back then. It seemed the only way. Only I was no good at it. I was small and frail and hungry a lot.”

He walked through the arched doorway at the far end of the hall and turned right, into a smaller room. He paused for a moment, as though walking and talking at the same time was wearing him out. Then he continued, heading toward the far end of the room. “The only time I managed to work up the courage to take anything larger than a scrap from a rat was when I was nine. It was from a large town house not far from here. Some lazy housekeeper left the door open to the kitchen, and a whole loaf of bread just sitting out. I was so hungry, and it was right there.” An odd look of guilt was still evident on his face. “I took it,” he said. “I took it and I ran.” He shook his head at the memory.

“It was a loaf of bread,” Finn said.

Bass looked at him. “It was my honor. And I gave it up for a loaf of bread. It’s the sort of thing you don’t appreciate until you’re older.”

“Were you caught?” Kozlowski asked.

The old man shook his head. “Not by the police. I ran in fear. Fear of getting caught. Fear of stumbling on someone bigger and hungrier than me. I had no place to go that was safe. But as I passed this place, I saw there was a door open. It was dark and seemed empty, so I ducked inside. I only intended to stay here for a moment. Long enough to eat the bread, nothing more. I had no idea what this place was.” He was at the far end of the room, and he walked through the doorway into the next gallery.

“What happened?” Finn asked, following the strange old man into the next room.

“I saw her,” Bass said. He pointed up at a painting on the wall. Finn looked up. It was a portrait of a woman, looming over the gallery. Finn sensed she was beautiful, though it was hard to tell. She was painted from a distance, lingering in a darkened doorway, her white dress flowing about her like a loose shroud. She might have been smiling, but if so it was an enigmatic smile; like the Mona Lisa with a dose of sensuality. “Isabella Stewart Gardner. Mrs. Jack, as she was called. This one was painted by Zorn.”

Finn moved closer to inspect the painting. He could feel Kozlowski at his side.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Bass remarked.

“Maybe. I can’t tell,” Kozlowski replied.

“No, I suppose not,” Bass conceded. “I believe that was intentional. It’s said that Mrs. Jack wasn’t conventionally pretty. Her features were slightly out of proportion, and portraitists-even Sargent-fudged when it came to her face. But her figure was magnificent.”

Finn turned and looked at Bass, and the old man gave him a mischievous wink. “She was remarkable in many ways, they say,” he continued. “She died in the twenties, before I ever saw this place, before I was born. She built this place. Brick by brick, stone by stone, painting by painting. They say that it is the only museum of its kind in the world-a museum that represents the vision of a single person; a woman at that. Think of how remarkable that is given that the place was opened in 1903. Fifteen years before women could even vote. And yet she did this.” He waved his arm around, indicating the entire place. “The building was designed, according to her specifications, to resemble one of the great Italian palazzos of Venice, turned inside out. The beauty is on the inside. She scoured Europe for the greatest works she could find over the course of three decades. Then she arranged all of it in the galleries herself. That’s why they can’t replace the empty frames-her will is very specific; nothing is to be changed. It is her own personal vision that survives.”

“Seems a little crazy,” Finn said.

Bass smiled. “Maybe. That’s what a lot of people said about her back when she was alive. She didn’t completely fit in here in Boston. She had a more cosmopolitan view of the world, and she didn’t conform to the more proper Victorian mores. They say she used to take the lions from the zoo for a walk on a leash. She threw lavish parties for artists and philosophers and authors. She liked doing things her own way. She was a feminist in the truest sense of the word, before it became fashionable.”

“And she must have been rich,” Kozlowski pointed out.

“Yes, she was rich. Her parents had money; her husband had money. Still, money doesn’t make a person great. What she did here was great. She overcame the death of her son, the death of her husband, and a number of great sadnesses in her life. She never gave up, and she poured her soul into this place. That’s why the robbery was so much more than a mere crime.”

Finn looked at the old man. His eyes were focused on the painting of the woman, almost as if in a trance. “You know an awful lot about her,” Finn said.

He smiled and pulled his eyes from the painting to look at Finn. “I should. I’ve been here for over sixty years. The night watchman found me that night, curled up on the floor in this room, the bread still under my shirt. The curator was working late. The guard wanted to call the police. He probably should have, but the curator stopped him. He asked me what I was doing, and I told him. I told him everything-about the bread; about the street; about being alone. No one had ever asked me anything like that before. My entire childhood came pouring out. Then he asked me why I was still there-why I hadn’t eaten the bread and left. Without thinking about it, I looked up at this painting. ‘I’m here because of her,’ I told him.”

Bass looked back up at the painting. “I think he understood. I’m lucky; few others would have. He just nodded, and asked me if I was willing to work for her. I told him I was, and I’ve been here ever since. I’ve done just about every job there is to do here. I started out as a janitor, keeping the place clean. I learned a little about electrical work and plumbing and painting, and made myself useful in any way I could. I’ve always regarded her as my savior, and I’ve tried hard to repay her. When I got older, I learned about the paintings themselves-their history and how to care for them. My only hope was to always make sure they were safe. I failed at that, clearly.”

“It must have bothered you when the place was robbed,” Kozlowski said. It sounded to Finn like he was prodding the old man.

Bass looked at them both, tears of anger in his eyes. “That wasn’t a robbery, it was an abomination. It was a betrayal.”

“Baxter was the director at the time?” Kozlowski asked.

Bass looked at him and chuckled. “Baxter thought you were the police because you sound like the police.”

“I used to be on the force,” Kozlowski said. “He assumed. I didn’t correct the assumption. I never misrepresented myself.”

“Ah,” Bass said. “So you’re lawyers.”

“I am,” Finn said.

Bass looked at him, then pointed to Kozlowski. “He’s been around you for too long. Only a lawyer would draw his kind of distinction. Why are you here?”

“You already know-you said it earlier,” Finn said. “To find the paintings.”

“But why?” Bass asked. “Why are you looking for the paintings? You said you’re not treasure hunters; so what then? What’s your interest?”

Finn said, “We need to find the paintings because a little girl’s life depends on it. I can’t explain it any more than that, but I’m telling you the truth.”

The old man looked at him. “I believe you,” he said. “If you find the paintings, will you protect them? Will you return them to the museum?”

“If we can,” Finn said. “We’ll do everything we can.”

Bass seemed to consider this for a long time. “All right,” he said wearily. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything you can tell us that might help. Anything you know.”

“But I don’t know anything,” Bass said. “I’ve talked to the police a dozen times over the decades; given them every scrap of information I had; nothing’s done any good.”

“What do you know about Baxter?” Kozlowski asked. “Is there any chance that he was involved?”

Bass shrugged. “I don’t know him well enough to tell. He’s a bit of a tyrant at times. He and I have never really gotten along. He only tolerates me because I’ve been here so long the trustees view me as a part of the institution. But his betrayals are on a smaller scale. I’m not sure he even has the imagination to have conceived of something like the robbery. Besides, the police checked him out. They checked us all out.”

“He was wearing some very nice clothes,” Kozlowski noted. “Expensive clothes. Where does he get his money?”

Bass looked down at the fraying lapels of his own jacket, and Finn instantly wished Kozlowski had been more tactful. “As you might suspect, I don’t know much about fashion or the cost of nice clothing,” he said. “I never made much more than minimum wage, so from my perspective, I’ve always thought of Baxter as rich. I don’t know if he has money beyond what he makes here. I never thought to wonder.”

“Did that ever bother you?” Kozlowski asked. “Did you ever feel like you deserved more respect around here? More money, maybe?”

For a moment, Finn thought perhaps Bass would be offended or angry. But he just looked at Kozlowski with a contented smile. “You may not understand this, but no. Without this place, I would have been dead before I turned twenty. Because of this place, I spent my life surrounded by beauty and comfort. No matter who was in charge, nothing about this place has ever made me feel disrespected.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us that might be helpful?” Finn asked.

Bass looked pensive for a moment. “Nothing specific. My impression, though, was that the FBI was very concerned about the offer to sell the paintings that was apparently put out recently.”

“You heard the call?” Finn asked.

Bass shook his head. “Not exactly. But I saw Mr. Baxter’s reaction, and I heard his conversations with a number of others at the museum after the call. You may have noticed, I’m treated as if I’m invisible. It has its advantages at times.”

“What was his reaction?”

“He was excited. Or perhaps agitated would be a better word. He seemed to truly believe that something was happening that might bring the paintings back to this place.”

“Is that particularly unusual?” Kozlowski asked. “I would think a guy in his position would be thrilled at the prospect.”

“Of course,” Bass replied. “If there was really a chance. But we here at the museum have lived through dozens of false leads and rumors regarding these paintings. It has gotten so that we are skeptical about anything we hear. Baxter didn’t seem skeptical after talking to the FBI the day they called.”

“Why do you think that was?” Finn asked.

Bass shrugged. “I don’t know. As I said, I didn’t hear the conversation. Maybe they had more specific information this time.”

“Maybe,” Kozlowski said. He didn’t sound convinced. “Or maybe Mr. Baxter knew something himself this time.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Bass said. “I suppose that unless Baxter wants to talk with you, only the FBI can tell you more.”

Kozlowski nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”