Midnight in Madrid by Noel Hynd

disreputable people I’ve met in my life have lived in mansions with ten cars in their garage and a Rodin sculpture in their backyard. Some of the most honorable lived under the bridges of Rome or Paris. The art dealers have no monopoly on duplicity and amorality,” Rizzo said, “but they practice both better than anyone else. All over the art world, they turn a blind eye to cash transactions. Things move around from country to country; people change their ownership more often than their owners change their underwear. Smuggling is a dirty word, but ‘import-export’ isn’t, even though it means the same thing. There’s no market for a painting or a sculpture that can’t fit in a suitcase. That pietà that was stolen here? That would fit into a suitcase.”
    She laughed. “Tell me how you really feel.”
    “They’re worse than politicians,” he said.
    Rizzo glanced around the café and sipped his espresso.
    “Look,” he continued, musing further, “art crime is easy and it pays. There are many valuable pieces that are worth millions and weigh only a few kilograms. Transportation is easy and many high-profile museums hosting multimillion dollar works have disproportionately poor security measures. That makes them susceptible to thefts that are slightly more complicated than a typical smash-and-grab, but with huge payoff.”
    “Such as this one?”
    “The curious thing is that what was stolen was an antiquity,” he mused further. “It dates almost from the time of Christ, give or take a couple of centuries. That’s a strange thing to target. The robbers were in that museum and had access to anything. So what do they do? They take a remote piece with a comparatively low market value. That’s the part I don’t get.”
    “So someone wanted that piece specifically,” she theorized.
    “Sure. You could go with that thesis. But why? And then again, the market in antiquities is perhaps the most corrupt and problematic aspect of the international art trade,” Rizzo said. “Antiquities are often regarded by the country of origin as national treasures. There are numerous cases where artworks displayed in the acquiring country for decades have become the subject of controversy. One example, the Elgin Marbles, moved from Greece to the British Museum in 1816 by Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin. Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History is engaged in talks with the government of Peru about possible repatriation of artifacts taken during the excavation of Machu Picchu by Yale’s Hiram Bingham.”
    He paused long enough to wink at the waitress and indicate that he could use more espresso.
    “The question arises frequently,” he continued. “What’s theft? What’s excavation? If a piece of art was stolen from one country two hundred years ago, how is it any different to steal it back from a museum today?”
    “But we’re not talking about a country stealing something back,” she said. “Are we?”
    “Not yet,” Rizzo said. “But who knows where this leads? Maybe the Maltese want their pietà back. I understand,” added with a wink, “they never got their falcon.”
    He shrugged. More espresso arrived.
    In thought, Alex fell very quiet. Rizzo picked up on it quickly.
    “What?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”
    “I was the least experienced person in that room today in the field of art theft. But I do know a few things about criminal motivation. A theft on such a grand scale with a high but secret cash purchase price is exactly the type of transaction that funds various organized crime enterprises around the world. Would that be the case here?”
    “No reason why it couldn’t be.”
    “And that could include terrorism,” she said.
    “That is a considerable fear here. No one wants to jump there without evidence. But what’s the expression in English? The ‘elephant in the room’?”
    Rizzo put out cash for the waitress and waved away any change. The young woman gave him a low