Hot Art

HOT ART

Copyright © 2011 by Joshua Knelman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit
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Douglas & McIntyre
An imprint of D&M Publishers Inc.
2323 Quebec Street, Suite 201
Vancouver
BC
Canada
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5
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www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN
978-1-55365-891-7 (cloth)
ISBN
978-1-55365-892-4 (ebook)

Editing by Trena White
Jacket design by Jessica Sullivan

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Bernadette Sulgit
and Martin Knelman

“The best way of keeping a secret is to
pretend there isn't one.”

MARGARET ATWOOD

 

“The greatest crimes in the world are not
committed by people breaking the rules
but by people following the rules.”

BANKSY

CONTENTS

1.
_ _ _ _ _
Hollywood

2.
_ _ _ _ _
Law and Disorder

3.
_ _ _ _ _
Egypt

4.
_ _ _ _ _
The Art Thief

5.
_ _ _ _ _
Training Days

6.
_ _ _ _ _
Brighton Knockers

7.
_ _ _ _ _
Headache Art

8.
_ _ _ _ _
Scotland Yard

9.
_ _ _ _ _
Business in London

10.
_ _ _ _ _
Caveat Emptor

11.
_ _ _ _ _
LAPD
Confidential

12.
_ _ _ _ _
9/11

13.
_ _ _ _ _
Intelligence

14.
_ _ _ _ _
Montreal

15.
_ _ _ _ _
Art Hostage

16.
_ _ _ _ _
Missing Pieces

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

1.

HOLLYWOOD

“This happened fast, and in the dark.”
DONALD HRYCYK

L
APD DETECTIVE
Donald Hrycyk knew his way around a homicide investigation. He knew about the Bloods and the Crips, how the colour of your shoelaces could indicate which gang you belonged to, and whom you had to kill to get ahead in life. He knew about semi-automatics and shotguns and butcher knives, and about streets that felt a universe away from the pristine white walls of the art scene, or the jet set who ruled it. By the time I met him, though, the detective had visited almost every gallery and auction house in the Greater Los Angeles area and had contacts all over the world. He didn't gloat about it. Mostly, he just got up early every day and worked his cases.

One afternoon in L.A., in 2008, Detective Hrycyk and his partner, Detective Stephanie Lazarus, were cruising through the city in their unmarked silver Chevrolet Impala. Hrycyk was at the wheel, and drove down Sunset Boulevard toward a crime scene. It was a hot, bright day, and the sunlight burned a little. On Sunset the car passed the Chateau Marmont and the Comedy Store—the marquee read “George Carlin,
RIP
.”

At a red light, the Impala idled between two gleaming white
SUVS
. A driver looking down into the lowly Chevy would have seen that the detectives wore similar uniforms: checkered shirts, slacks, and black running shoes. On their wrists, both sported big digital watches. Their style was so uncool it was almost cool. Beneath their loose shirts, hardly noticeable, they kept a few of their work tools:
LAPD
badge, cellphone, handcuffs, tape recorder, extra ammo, and gun. They looked like gym coaches on their way to practice.

Just before crossing into Beverly Hills, Hrycyk hung a left on La Cienega Boulevard. He was heading to a strip of antique and design stores. A few minutes earlier, when the detectives picked me up, they had both turned from the front seat and inspected my shoes (black Adidas with white stripes). Lazarus exchanged a glance with Hrycyk—the original wireless connection.

Lazarus said, “No. The soles don't look right.”

Hrycyk's eyes smiled quietly in the rear-view mirror. “The antique store that was burglarized has a few clues,” he said. “Apparently there are some shoeprints on an antique dining-room table. From the description, they don't match yours.”

So I was a suspect?

“You never know,” Lazarus said. “A journalist is here from Toronto writing about art theft, and an antique store happens to be hit. It's good news for you, right? Because you get to ride along for the investigation. We just wanted to rule you out.” Later Hrycyk and Lazarus told me about a journalist in the Midwest who had murdered people and then written about the murders for the local paper. Their point: don't rule out anyone too early—it's all about motivation. Everyone's a suspect. I felt guilty just sitting there in the back seat.

Hrycyk parked on La Cienega near the crime scene. The antique store was at street level, one of two in the same unit, with a large bay window facing the sidewalk and traffic. The window, which was intact, featured a few choice pieces of Italian Renaissance furniture.

The attached store was under construction; a large piece of plywood covered the empty hole where its front window should have been. A shade tree stood near the sidewalk in front of the store. A small group of construction workers huddled in the pool of its shadow, their workday frozen by the burglary next door. The construction site was now part of the crime scene. There was almost no breeze that afternoon, and the heat was stifling. The group of men, roughly in their twenties, looked slightly nervous at the sight of the detectives, but it was one of them who had discovered the break-in and called 911. For now the workers waited for their foreman and watched the police from the shadows.

Hrycyk and Lazarus stood on the sidewalk in the open sunlight as a black and white cruiser with the gold insignia “to protect and to serve” pulled into the asphalt driveway leading to the antique store's back parking lot. A tall white-painted iron gate, there to protect the back lot from intruders, stood ajar.

In the patrol car were two officers from Hollywood Division. Officer Ramirez occupied the driver's seat. He was a sleek-looking man in his early thirties, in perfect athletic shape, with shorn black hair. His aviator shades reflected back the intense afternoon light. Ramirez was relaxed and smiled often. His movie-star white teeth matched the aesthetic of the neighbourhood—upscale fashion and design, expensive. On the road, a cherry-red
BMW
with tinted windows slowed down, the driver staring at the small crowd and the police cruiser.

Hrycyk and Lazarus strolled over to the window of the patrol car. On the way, Hrycyk explained to me that Ramirez and his partner had already done a preliminary inspection of the crime scene. The detectives now taking over relied on the officers' notes and first impressions. “We completely depend on them,” said Hrycyk.

According to Ramirez, this is what the officers had uncovered: The lock on the gate to the back parking lot had been opened. A large white pickup truck had been seen driving into the lot. The thieves had entered the building through the plywood on the store next door then unlocked that store's back door for the crew in the truck. Once inside the empty store, the thieves had knocked a hole straight through the shared wall into the antique store. The thieves had then entered the store and carried a number of antiques through the hole, through the empty store, out the back door, and into the truck in the parking lot.

Ramirez got out of the patrol car and strolled with Hrycyk and Lazarus down the driveway and into the parking lot. The lot was enclosed at the back by a high fence, behind which the balconies of a large, low-slung apartment complex had a perfect view of the lot. Ramirez and his partner had already canvassed the apartment building. They got lucky. A witness had seen the events unfold from a balcony—and had noticed a tattoo on one of the men's legs.

“Yeah,” said Ramirez. “It was a cobra or a snake.”

“Maybe a Marine tattoo? Something like that?” asked Hrycyk.

“No, I know Marines, and it's nothing like that.”

“So more like a creature?” asked Hrycyk.

The problem was that the witness spoke only Russian.

“We'll have to find a translator,” Hrycyk nodded. “We have a number for someone, right?”

“Lost in translation for now,” answered Ramirez.

“Lost in translation,” echoed Hrycyk.

Hrycyk walked into the darkness of the back door of the building under construction. The room was long and narrow. In the process of being gutted, it was empty save for some bundles of plywood. Along the wall shared by the two stores two holes had been smashed through the drywall. One was very small, the other large.

Hrycyk peered through the smaller hole. “Come have a look,” he said. Through the small hole was the antique store, where a crime-scene photographer roamed around the furniture, snapping pictures. “This is what's called a peephole,” Hrycyk explained. The thieves had created the smaller hole to look into the store and figure out the best place to smash a larger hole.

Hrycyk walked up to the larger hole. It was big, brutal, the kind the Incredible Hulk would make. It didn't just provide a perfect view of the antique store—it was a door: the antique store was right there. Lower down, a thick electrical wire stretched across the jagged opening.