“Did you believe him?”
“Would you? This big philistine with garlic and slivovitz on his breath? Not for a moment. Not a word of it. If someone had been interested in protection it would have come through official channels, and there would have been visits to the museum, not to my home. There would have been forms to sign in triplicate, memos to circulate and meetings to hold. It would have been more red tape than you’d care to imagine, and it all would have been bungled very nicely, by all the proper channels, so that the art would have been in exactly the most vulnerable location possible at the time the shooting started.
“The general, on the other hand, was interested only in speed, efficiency, and, if you ask me, stealth. Does that sound like an official government operation to you? No, he was a mercenary, a silk-lined old Bolshevik who only wanted to know more about value and marketability. A capitalist in training looking for his big opportunity, the sort of accident that has been waiting to happen to this country since Tito died.”
“Then what did you tell him?”
Glavas sat up straight in his chair, pulling the blanket around his shoulders.
“Everything I knew. Places, values, estimates on how much he might be able to round up and in what period of time. Whatever he asked tor, really.”
Vlado was momentarily taken aback. He frowned slightly, prompting an impatient sigh from Glavas.
“Why did you help him?” Vlado asked.
“Why not? Why risk this man’s wrath. If I could have a friend in Grbavica with a war coming and the Serbs crouching to spring on the city like a cat, why not. And I am a Serb, Mr. Petric.” He leaned forward again, the blanket slipping. “Not a Serb patriot, or an Orthodox zealot or someone who still laments our glorious losses God knows how many hundreds of years ago on the plains of Kosovo. But still, a Serb, with an identity that I may need someday. That I needed then. And I will not squander the possible value of that identity, Mr. Petric, not for you and not for all the goddamned painted canvas in this city. Tell me, Mr. Petric, under these circumstances, would you? Toss away your security, I mean, by standing up for principle against some philistine in hopes of keeping a few hundred pieces of art from leaving the country?”
“Is that what you think has happened? That this art has left the country.”
“Has left or is leaving, take your pick. How else would you be able to profit from it. By selling it at the Markale Market, next to the potatoes and the plumbing joints? Prop it up on a card table with the insurance appraisal tacked to the frame? Use your head, Mr. Petric. Art may survive in a war zone, but the art ‘community’ that is supposed to protect it usually scampers away on the cowardly feet of foxes. A few diehards always stay to try to hold the old order together, or to try to ‘protect our heritage,’ as they put it. But the others get out while they can, using every connection available to them, leaving the rest of us to get ourselves killed. Like your friend Mr. Vitas.”
“Is this what Vitas thought as well, that art was leaving the country?”
“He suspected it strongly even before he arrived here, I believe, and once I told him of my chat with the good General Markovic he seemed quite sure of it. Or so I gathered from his questions.”
“What sort of questions?”
“He wanted to know about the current supply, about what might still be in the city from the transfer file. About what might have been moved since the beginning of the war, who had been in charge of moving it, who had been in charge of protecting it, if anyone. And who had been in charge of the records, or had access to them, besides myself. He asked if anyone had been in touch with the insurers, or if anyone from the U.N. had shown an interest. And he wanted to know what sort of market there might be for these items, assuming one could indeed get them out of the city, out of the country. In fact, he wanted to know very many of the same things as General Markovic, except he was obviously a few years behind.”
“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.