Among Thieves

“I used to be on the force,” Kozlowski said. “He assumed. I didn’t correct the assumption. I never misrepresented myself.”

“Ah,” Bass said. “So you’re lawyers.”

“I am,” Fi

Bass looked at him, then pointed to Kozlowski. “He’s been around you for too long. Only a lawyer would draw his kind of distinction. Why are you here?”

“You already know-you said it earlier,” Fi

“But why?” Bass asked. “Why are you looking for the paintings? You said you’re not treasure hunters; so what then? What’s your interest?”

Fi

The old man looked at him. “I believe you,” he said. “If you find the paintings, will you protect them? Will you return them to the museum?”

“If we can,” Fi

Bass seemed to consider this for a long time. “All right,” he said wearily. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything you can tell us that might help. Anything you know.”

“But I don’t know anything,” Bass said. “I’ve talked to the police a dozen times over the decades; given them every scrap of information I had; nothing’s done any good.”

“What do you know about Baxter?” Kozlowski asked. “Is there any chance that he was involved?”

Bass shrugged. “I don’t know him well enough to tell. He’s a bit of a tyrant at times. He and I have never really gotten along. He only tolerates me because I’ve been here so long the trustees view me as a part of the institution. But his betrayals are on a smaller scale. I’m not sure he even has the imagination to have conceived of something like the robbery. Besides, the police checked him out. They checked us all out.”

“He was wearing some very nice clothes,” Kozlowski noted. “Expensive clothes. Where does he get his money?”

Bass looked down at the fraying lapels of his own jacket, and Fi

“Did that ever bother you?” Kozlowski asked. “Did you ever feel like you deserved more respect around here? More money, maybe?”

For a moment, Fi

“Is there anything else you can tell us that might be helpful?” Fi

Bass looked pensive for a moment. “Nothing specific. My impression, though, was that the FBI was very concerned about the offer to sell the paintings that was apparently put out recently.”

“You heard the call?” Fi

Bass shook his head. “Not exactly. But I saw Mr. Baxter’s reaction, and I heard his conversations with a number of others at the museum after the call. You may have noticed, I’m treated as if I’m invisible. It has its advantages at times.”

“What was his reaction?”

“He was excited. Or perhaps agitated would be a better word. He seemed to truly believe that something was happening that might bring the paintings back to this place.”

“Is that particularly unusual?” Kozlowski asked. “I would think a guy in his position would be thrilled at the prospect.”

“Of course,” Bass replied. “If there was really a chance. But we here at the museum have lived through dozens of false leads and rumors regarding these paintings. It has gotten so that we are skeptical about anything we hear. Baxter didn’t seem skeptical after talking to the FBI the day they called.”

“Why do you think that was?” Fi

Bass shrugged. “I don’t know. As I said, I didn’t hear the conversation. Maybe they had more specific information this time.”

“Maybe,” Kozlowski said. He didn’t sound convinced. “Or maybe Mr. Baxter knew something himself this time.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Bass said. “I suppose that unless Baxter wants to talk with you, only the FBI can tell you more.”

Kozlowski nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Fi

They headed to the elevator and crowded in with a dozen others, many of them wearing bright plastic badges identifying them as federal employees. Most wore the long, bored expressions of civil servants enduring their own version of purgatory, forced to deal with forms filled out in triplicate by an angry, impatient citizenry all too eager to roll eyeballs and issue heavy sighs at the government’s inefficiencies. The only solace they found was in the occasional opportunity to really screw with the most obnoxious. It was cold comfort to them, Fi

The trip to the Gardner Museum had been helpful in orienting them, but it wasn’t enough. It gave them no leads. If they were going to have any hope of finding the paintings, they needed some inside information from the authorities, and there was only one way to get that.

“You’re sure your guy’s here?” Fi

“He said he would be,” Kozlowski said. “If he said he would be, he will be.”

Fi

Kozlowski had reached out to an FBI agent he had worked with in the late nineties trying to clean up the fallout from John Co

The sting of the Co

Unfortunately for the FBI, Co