Dan Fesperman - Lie in the Dark

“You don’t think he was involved with the general? Trying to find out if he’d been dealing straight with him, for instance?”

“He could have been, I suppose. When I thought about it later I realized Vitas could have been simply following in the general’s footsteps to see if his story rang true. Wondering if he was being cheated by his partner in crime, so to speak. Yes, that occurred to me. It also seemed unusual that the chief of the Interior Ministry police would be doing his own investigation. I’m not in your line of work, of course, but I gather that the chief usually has someone lower down, like yourself, to actually go out in the field and get his feet muddy. Especially if they have to come some place like this. What do you think?”

“I’m not sure what to think. Vitas must have had a reason to handle the investigation himself, if that’s what he was doing. Or maybe, like you said, he was trying to check out his partners.”

“No, I decided I didn’t really believe that. But he could have been trying to cut himself in on the whole scheme, I suppose, a latecomer who’d gotten wind of the scheme and wanted to make his own killing before the supply was all gone. That could explain his interest, too. Because he also seemed interested in learning how to pick up the trail, how to identify the traces of the items that had already moved, the sort of signs that might be left behind by this kind of activity”

“And what kind of signs would it leave?”

“Empty spaces mostly. Empty spaces on walls where paintings used to hang.” Glavas broke into a laugh, cackling and wheezing, motioning with his hands for another cigarette. He inhaled deeply, stifling another wheeze, then paused to catch his breath.

“Empty spaces? That’s all?”

“No. That’s only the most obvious sign. If you wanted to keep the appearance of propriety and cover your tracks, there would have to be new notations on the cards in the transfer files for every item taken. It would be simple enough in a war. ‘Destroyed, claim applied for,’ or, ‘Looted, claim applied for.’ All with dates since the beginning of the war, in buildings known to have been hit or attacked or seized by the wrong sort of people. That sort of thing. Or if you were simply too lazy and maybe a bit too greedy as well, there was an easier way altogether. You could just destroy the transfer files, then there wouldn’t even be any records to doctor. And eleven months ago that’s exactly what happened.”

“Destroyed? All of them?”

“Every last card. One freak shell through a window and then a fire. Or so they said at the museum. The fire was miraculously contained in one room.”

“You sound like you think it was deliberate.”

“Look at who was guarding the place. The same thugs who’d saved it. All of a sudden one morning everything in the file is gone, or rather, burned to cinders, yet not a single painting in the museum is damaged. tried raising a stink, and would still be raising one, but two days later I was sacked.”

“Why?”

“That bastard Murovic, the empty-headed young fool who took over the National Museum three weeks after the war began, right after the director was killed by a mortar shell. He hated all the old hands, and he hated worst of all the ones who knew more than he did, which was two strikes against me right away. Being a Serb didn’t exactly mark me for advancement, either. And with the transfer files gone, Murovic had the excuse he needed. I was obsolete without my collection.”

“What’s his role been in all this?”

“Murovic? Not much until lately. The museum had been in total confusion anyway since the war began. For two months everyone was more or less in their cellars during the worst of the fighting. Then as they started climbing out, rubbing their eyes and shaking off the dust, that’s when people started to think they just might survive this. And then, too late, everyone began to worry about the art.

“But by then Murovic and his young bureaucrats had the jump on me. He’d gotten back in there as soon as he could, staking his claim as acting director and bending the ears of whoever was left at the local offices of the Ministry of Culture. Meanwhile I was still out here in Dobrinja, unable to move. It was another six weeks before I could get into the city, and even then only by riding in a U.N. armored personnel carrier. In those days I stayed in the city a week or so at a time to work, then came back here in those awful rolling coffins. But by the time I’d first made it back into the city Murovic had convinced the ministry that I was a closet Serb zealot who couldn’t be trusted, and that furthermore I’d gone senile, wasn’t up to the job anymore, especially, as he put it, ‘in the chaos of wartime.’

“I couldn’t deny I’d let things slide the last few years, either. I’d gotten lax, lazy. But my recordkeeping was still clear, and I still had the best institutional memory of the entire ministry. The last person Murovic wanted around was somebody who’d continually be correcting him and second guessing as he took over. But by my way of thinking, I could write down a quarter of the transfer file from memory right now, getting it down to the penny on appraised and insured value, and plenty of the locations, too. All I’d need would be a full week in a clean, quiet room, with good food and an unlimited supply of Marlboros.

“Of course I told this to Murovic, but he just laughed. He found it quaint, wished me well in retirement, told me to stay out of harm’s way. He told me the U.N. would sort it all out eventually, and in a far more scientific way. Then he packed me straight off to Dobrinja, and there went my authorization for U.N. escorts into town. He’d exiled me as effectively as if he’d sent me to Elba. So here I am in my confinement, where, I regret to say, I have lost all touch with that insular little world called the art community”

He paused, sinking back in the chair.

“Another cigarette please,” he said weakly.

Vlado tried to digest all he’d heard as he held out his lighter. Then a puzzle occurred to him. He flipped back through his notes a moment, then asked: “If the files were destroyed eleven months ago, what was Vitas doing with a card last Tuesday?”

“Ah. That is exactly what I wanted to know. Because it was an original he had, not a copy. My very own handwriting right there on the back. He was very coy about it. Very foxy, yet still the courtly gentleman. He told me it would be better for both of us if I didn’t know. He sort of smiled when he said it. I asked if the rest of the files were still around, and he told me something very odd. He said they were in sate hands in unsafe surroundings. Whatever that means.”

“You said he also asked you if anyone besides General Markovic had ever expressed an interest in the file. Other government people, or even U.N. people. Had they?”

“No one to my knowledge. Perhaps you should ask Murovic that.”

“Did either Vitas or Markovic mention other names, other possible contacts?”

“Not one. As I said, Vitas was very careful. His questions told me little, and mostly he just sat and listened, nodding as if he’d known everything all along. And if he’d ever heard General Markovic’s name come up before, then you wouldn’t have known it from his reaction. He was as blank as a stone. Not someone I’d want to play cards with.”

Vlado mulled this over for a moment, then offered another cigarette to Glavas.

“So, then,” Vlado said. “Perhaps you can help me figure out where I might begin. Where I might go from here. If the files are gone, or hidden, then I guess another possibility is in tracking down art that might be leaving. Assuming that pieces were still being taken, or that any have been taken at all, how would one go about getting a painting out of the city without arousing suspicions.”