David Hosp - Among Thieves

“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.”