“Yeah. Sulfuryl fluoride. We have to wrap it up in tarps—the whole house. Takes three days. I’m the one does the alarm systems, so we can clear the house and secure it. Well, I always tell the owners to change their codes after we finish, but I’ve taken a course, you know? I can fix the box so I can still get in, even after they’ve changed it.
“I check out the house and see what there is to boost later on. We gas the termites, take off the tarps, and that’s that. Then a few weeks or months later, I get back in and help myself. I never get greedy or nothin’, just stuff that’s easy to get rid of.”
“That’s not risky?”
“Nah, that’s the easy part. On the way out I set the alarm, and then just break a window or door. Alarm goes off, police show up, bam. Burglar, they think.”
Max was amused. “And this is how you came across this painting? A … termite job?”
Lonnie nodded eagerly. “What a place, you know? Some kind of international businessman or something. I never met him. Always traveling, they said, real hotshot. I only met his man, this guy who said he was a curator. I didn’t know what that was until he told me; he took care of the stuff. Boy, did that place have stuff. Marble statues like in a museum, and bronze in the halls, paintings everywhere, and antique furniture. Fact is, I really didn’t like it much, you know? I figured the termites might actually improve things, but you don’t say that to a customer.
“We looked around and boy, there were termites. You can tell by their feces. They leave little piles, you know? You see those piles, that’s your house, coming down.
“He was all worried about the paintings. I told him it was probably one of the frames that brought the termites in in the first place, from Bora-Bora or somewhere, and that the gas would hurt them, wouldn’t hurt nothing except food and dogs and like that. He said he couldn’t take any chances, though, so he went to all the trouble to get the pictures out of their frames.
“He called an armored-car company to pick everything up, and that’s when I got lucky. My guys were setting up, you know, tarps everywhere, plastic and all, and these guys are crating up the pictures, very white-glove deal. Big waste of time, but it’s not my money, OK? Must have been a hundred crates, all over the place, but I didn’t care, I was just noticing they had a pretty good set of copper pots and pans in the kitchen.
“They finished up and signed their papers, and the armored cars left, and I had to see everyone out, see, it’s my job and I have to be very careful so nobody gets gassed. And that’s when I saw they missed a crate. It was half-covered by some of our plastic already and they just missed it, you know?
“I didn’t even know what was in it, but I knew I could take it and nobody would ever be the wiser, because they signed the papers and all, and if they ever noticed, they’d figure it was the armored-car guys, and some insurance company would pay. I don’t like insurance companies much, you know? So I took it.”
Lonnie shrugged. “Easy as that, but I have to say I was pretty disappointed when I got the crate open. A bejillion bucks’ worth of stuff in that house, and all I managed to get was an old painting. A pretty gross one at that. Kid holding up a guy’s head, blood everywhere. Definitely not something to hang next to your TV, you know?
“I thought about just throwing it out, or even taking it back and leaving it in the hallway, and no one would ever know. Hell, I couldn’t do nothin’ with a painting. The only painting I’d ever boosted was a velvet one. They said it was done for Elvis Presley, you know? Or was it by him, maybe? Anyway, I got eight hundred bucks for it, so I was pretty happy.
“So I didn’t know what else to do, I just nailed it up in the shed. Then one day Della—she’s my girlfriend, she works in a beauty salon, and like five years later, she brought home one of those magazines the customers look at, and there was a story about a lost painting. The picture was a lot like mine, only hanging in Italy or something. I knew mine was old, too, so … well? I just thought it might be the real deal. So I brought it home and showed Della, and we put it up over the dinette.”
“So that’s how you found me,” Max said. In thirty years there had been only one public blemish on the Wolff Gallery. The story had been sensational, involving famous clients and alleging that Wolff had sold a stolen painting on the black market. Max had done that very thing many times, but not in the instance alleged in the article. Nothing had come of it except for a libel suit, which Max won, and the publicity, which had not been altogether a bad thing. The story had run in the same issue as that about the lost Caravaggio.
“That’s right,” Lonnie nodded proudly. “I read the article. So, Mr. Max Wolff, do you think you can help me?”
Joe Cooley laughed out loud. “Imagine that,” he said. “A Caravaggio, hanging in a trailer. Next to the spaghetti sauce.”
Max smiled. “I actually think Caravaggio himself might have approved.”
He closed the file and patted it. “So there you have it. Quite a simple provenance, really. A curse heaped upon a damnation, one of the scholars said. A mirror of its maker, perhaps.” He gave a little shrug. “Or just a beautiful painting. So, tell me. You are satisfied?”
“I was satisfied, my friend Max, the moment you told me I might buy this at all,” he said. “But I am curious. Why did you come to me? Why not give the painting back to Maslov?”
“Simple economics. I know Victor Maslov quite well. He would pay me a finder’s fee. Generous, no doubt, but a mere reward. You, on the other hand, will pay me more—still only a fraction of its true worth, but a great deal more—and of course you will never display the painting in public, any more than Victor himself could. If you did, you would face an embarrassing and endless succession of lawsuits as the painting’s former owners tried to recover what at one time belonged to them. No publicity, no trouble. The painting will satisfy your vanity—forgive me, but is it not true? And you will treat it well and leave the question of its ownership to your heirs. As for Victor, he is a realist. I have always treated him fairly. I value him as a client, but I owe him nothing. He lost a painting, I found one. I am neither the thief nor Victor’s police. I am just a simple art dealer.”
Joe Cooley Barber laughed at that. “Simple indeed,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s good enough for me.”
“I think I’ll have a glass of wine now,” Max said. Joe Cooley poured him one, and a double whisky for himself. He picked up the phone and reached his business manager, who called their banker. New York, the Bahamas, the Caymans; the money moved at light speed as Max nursed his wine, lost in thought. When he received confirmation from his own banker he stood and Joe Cooley helped him with his things.
“Done, then,” Max said.
“As quickly as that,” Joe Cooley Barber said. “The good Lord is smiling, that this troubled painting has found a home in a blessed place at last. A golden new entry in the provenance.”
The private jet lifted off, giving Max a glorious view of the sun setting over Pikes Peak. He felt a great calmness, and slept peacefully on the flight. Once back in his Manhattan study he telephoned Lonnie Mack, who ecstatically received the news that he would receive half a million dollars for a painting he had nearly tossed out. “You’ll have the money tomorrow,” Max said. “But I must remind you that you must not say anything about this to anyone.”
“Are you kidding?” Lonnie said, hurt, his euphoria briefly tempered by Max’s caution. “I never talk about my jobs.”
“Of course not,” Max said. “Just being cautious. Tell me where you’d like to meet. Somewhere safe. You choose.”
Lonnie thought for a moment, then gave him an address. Max heard him whooping for joy as they hung up.
Max made another call. “Victor? Max. Quite well, thank you. I have wonderful news. I’ve recovered your painting. Yes, the Caravaggio.”