Chapter 1

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of {ci}wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..." - Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870)

'A Tale of Two Cities'

I knew something was out of place somehow the moment I entered the house. Everything just felt wrong somehow; out of synch, as if the house, walls, floors and ceilings were just collectively holding their breath ... waiting. Houses do have a feel to them; they live and breathe, inhale and exhale, and putter along with a life all their own. Think of them as part of our shadow, our lives, for good or bad, touching them and influencing them in a myriad of subtle ways. Much like an old favorite raincoat or hat that just feels right when you put it on.

You can always tell the feel of a happy house the moment you walk in the door. It feels bright and cheerful; the air seems sweeter and the walls purr back at you, smiling, happy to greet you and add the glow of your cheer to their radiant feedback. This house didn't. It didn't quite radiate doom and gloom either, with the floorboards glumly exuding malice or the reproduction 19th century crystal chandeliers gently pulsating a baleful chimed chorus of woeful despair. This house, a relatively new and modern one, was still fairly 'neutral', but with its collective baited breath held, as if expecting some imminent unpleasantness. Like a bad coat of spiritual paint.

This is an important reason why one should always buy proper antiques for your house, rather than the modern fiberboard plywood crap that comes from the discount furniture stores, or worse, IKEA. Antiques have character, and properly displayed and loved they help ground a house, and keep the more modern features of your home in-line and better behaved. Think of them as a voltage regulator, or circuit breaker for the psychic health of your household.

Certainly, antiques can go 'bad'. I've seen it dozens of times, and under extreme circumstances it is possible for your house to become a conduit for nasty unpleasant energies more properly belonging in some demonic under-hell. Still, this is rare, and like woodworm eating the legs of your colonial chairs, easily fixed by a good antiques man who knows what they're doing. Unfortunately, there are far too few of us — even the ones without that special sort of knack.

As a rule, in at least ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a few fine well-loved antiques will keep your house in proper order, much like a stern British Sergeant Major, or Marine Corps Gunny, keeping the rest of the rank and file in line.

This house had none, the furnishings and decorations having an average circa date of last June. The décor was expensively modern and showed there are no limits to what one can spend with a fat wallet, and no sense of taste. Their decorator should be taken out and horse-whipped. The furniture wasn't quite IKEA, but it was equally soulless. The construction of the house, if anything, was worse; modern crappy Chinese made drywall, with insufficient insulation, indifferent electrical wiring installed by the lowest bidding sub-sub contractor, and unfortunate plumbing fung shui that was certain to lead to major problems in the not too distant future. Black mold was already starting to spread from a small water leak behind a wall in the kitchen.

The door locks were plain ordinary ones found in any hardware store and child's play for me to coax open. The electronic security system was so basic that it hadn't even slowed my entry longer than a few seconds. $940,000, according to the most recent county property tax appraisal, just doesn't build the kind of house it used to. It's disappointing, because sometimes I do appreciate a reasonable challenge.

It didn't take me long to find just exactly what I had come for. The painting was hanging right in the dining room, overlooking a monstrosity of modern cast iron and glass that pretended to be the formal dining table. I couldn't have missed it blindfolded. The painting, an early Jackson Pollock, beckoned to me like an absent lover. The only thing in the room that had any soul and it was pathetically eager, like a lost puppy, to be rescued. I gently caressed it and muttered a few soothing thoughts to it while I unfastened it from the wall and set it by the front door, ready for a hasty retreat, if necessary.

My mission was done, completed in just moments from my entry into the house, but I still had a very strong sense of uneasiness and wanted to take an extra careful look around before I left. Since this was technically a burglary, I also had to make quite certain that I'd neutralized any other significant security defenses. I'd easily disabled the house alarm outside before I'd entered the house, but there was always the chance of an internal video camera or a secondary Internet controlled wireless anti-intrusion system. I didn't sense any, but I'd take an extra close look around to be sure. I'm very big on taking my time to do a job right and I tend to move slowly when working.

I've got a very bad habit of touching nearly everything as I pass through; trying to find the rare misplaced pearls lost in an ocean of oyster shells, winnowing the few grains of wheat from an ocean of chaff. I try to wear the thinnest possible surgical gloves, but sometimes just the feel of a bare finger or two on an object will do. I've tried different tricks, such as putting fingernail polish over my tips, to leave my hands bare but avoid leaving prints, but it just doesn't feel right to me. I much prefer the touch of a bare hand. Every item, either ancient or brand new, has a story to tell. With gloves or any other covering, my senses are muted and I can only hear the louder voices, and sometimes it's the quiet whispered tales that are the important ones.

Sadly, I'm one of the very rare people that can hear their muted secret voices. It's my knack, my secret gift— and also my curse.

Technically, I'm what you would call a psychometric. When I touch or hold an object, I learn of its history; where it has been, who made it, who bought or sold it, and if they loved and treasured it or else threw it into some box in a garage, basement or attic, unwanted for generations. British antique folks would call me a 'divvie', because I can divine out the secrets of an item, especially if the item is a fake reproduction of an antique or an outright forgery. One touch and I would know the truth.

You would think that this would be an excellent means to a fortune, and perhaps so, but it hasn't quite happened that way so far for me. My knack has been quite useful in making an adequate living for me, but I'm by no means rich. I have a sterling reputation at most of the major auction houses and antique galleries, and I do get occasionally brought in to consult on some questioned item of dubious provenance, to offer an opinion on a possibly forged painting or reproduction piece of rare porcelain, but the fees are not generous. It doesn't help that my own tastes and interests will not let me pass by important or interesting items from the stock of my employers. Invariably, I spend my consultation fee in trade nearly immediately. My personal nest egg collection of antiques grows, it's true, but some months I spend more than I earn.

My bread and butter occupation is burglary, and has been since I discovered my gift as a teenager. I used to burgle houses for a living, taking whatever I wished or considered valuable, and I was extremely good, maybe one of the very best. No one ever saw me and I was never once caught, although I had a few close calls in my early inexperienced days. Now that I am older, but not particularly wiser, I've turned my talents to a slightly more socially useful purpose.

As the saying goes, "It takes a thief to catch a thief". I now steal from other thieves, or rather stolen art collectors.

Via my endless list of professional contacts, I accept contracts to 'recover' missing, borrowed or flat out stolen works of art. A dealer or a private collector will contact me to recover an item — quietly, without confrontation or involvement of law enforcement or insurance companies. Often these 'misplaced' objects are of controversial provenance for their owners and legal methods of recovery are complicated at best. Ok, replace 'often' with 'usually' ... I'm a thief, stealing from thieves, on behalf of bigger, nastier thieves. Or, as I usually call the lot of them 'collectors'.

Frankly, most of my clients are swine, little better than thieves and brigands themselves. You would be astonished to know of the hundreds of otherwise solid and respectable families of wealth and position, leaders of their civic communities that possess secret 'black galleries' of looted or stolen art. They maintain these illicit collections at great expense privately hidden away out of sight for their private enjoyment. Those thieves prey upon their criminal brethren and there is a constant flow as the stronger seize treasures from the weaker, or more easily blackmailed.

I try to never, ever deal directly with a client. Usually I'm contacted by one of their agents, usually from one of innumerable shady law firms that handle the darker affairs of their vastly rich and unprincipled clients. They make the arrangements for the payment of my fees and delivery of the item or items to be recovered, and generally providing me with the "mark's" name and residence to be searched for the desired object. The client and the mark are both 'collectors', as far as I'm concerned and with little if any moral superiority between them.

Usually the process works, like in this particular recovery case, a 'client' contracted an intermediary at a dodgy law firm with superb connections to the illegal art underground offering a 'recovery fee' for a certain art object, in this case the Jackson Pollock painting. Since they wanted the best, they contacted me directly through my own dodgy lawyer who has his ears on the collector grapevine, and they promptly paid half of my established fee upfront.

I don't know my client's name that is paying me — I never do. Often I don't even get a real name for my mark, the collector that I will be stealing (recovering) from. Sometimes, I would only receive an address where the item to be recovered is allegedly being kept. The less information I receive the more dangerous I assume the recovery will be and my fees increase accordingly.

It's a hard way to make a living, even with my gifts, and the outrageous fees that I charge. I'm considered the best and charge accordingly; twenty percent of my estimated value of the object, half payment upfront, non-refundable. All contacts between the client and myself via phone or Internet instructions only. No meetings. Non-negotiable, take it leave it. This allows me be very selective of the contracts I will accept. I'm no longer a poor starving teenager living on the streets, but I plan very carefully and take an unusual level of precautions executing a contract. Plus, my expenses (and tastes) are high.

Although I no longer break into the houses of complete strangers and steal their treasures, my job is still very morally dubious. Lately it has been gnawing at me with each new commission I accept. Sometimes I think I'd like to quit the recovery business entirely and just open an honest antique shop of my own, but I'm shy in public and ill-suited to a daily life of bantering with strangers, even potential customers. Plus, even though I have several storage places filled with antiques I've acquired - some legally purchased but most were not - I would find it hard to part with my treasures.

Alternatively, I could move out of the shadows and curtail my efforts to only working for slightly more savory employers, but I admit that the darker side of my business still enthralls me too much at present to think about quitting the game just yet.

I still enjoy the thrill of burglary too much to quit. My fingers still love to rove about and caress the treasures of others, divvying their secrets. They sometimes linger too long over especially rare, desirable or fascinating objects that then tend to stick to my fingers. Often they're added to an available pocket or into a loot bag, to join my own personal collection at home, to be enjoyed and savored later in private. Just a little act of personal revenge and justice, to steal from someone that I consider a worse thief than myself. At least now I only victimize other criminals from an elite collector society that I am coming to utterly despise instead of innocent families.

Touching ones bare hands to household objects does have the unfortunate side effect of leaving potentially useable fingerprints. It's not likely that the police would ever be called in to investigate my 'crime', the owner being unable to admit to possessing illegally the item(s) I have taken. However, the more powerful and influential collectors often have crooked cops or PI's on their payroll that could perform an adequate private investigation that could then determine my identity.

Accordingly, I keep a package of disinfectant wipes in my pocket and have instilled in myself the firm habit of wiping down every object I touch immediately afterwards. One bare hand fondling objects, the other hand, gloved, with a sanitizing cloth removing away my prints and any trace of DNA.

My appearance is equally protected with a generic pair of bulky work coveralls bearing a common moving company name on the back. Discretely altering my facial features and hair is a superb custom made Hollywood grade latex mask that is good enough to pass casual close scrutiny. Even if an Internet security camera were running inside the house, few real clues about my true appearance would be discernable. Even my height and general build would be misleading. Cheap boots a few sizes too big with heel lifts giving me the appearance of being several inches taller. Shoulder pad inserts and other padding add to my body frame adding significantly to the estimation of my weight and build. My natural build is slight, nearly of scarecrow proportions, but my altered image is that of a larger and robust individual, giving me little to fear from having my picture taken, at least indirectly or from a distance. No one seeing me in my 'work' outfit would ever pick out of any police lineup.

As I've admitted earlier, my morals are rather flexible and I see no dishonor or difficulty in stealing from another thief. Sometimes I think of this as my own personal chastisement to the millionaire plunderers of the art world. Criminals in the pay of these innumerable unscrupulous collectors took many of these rescued items of trophy art originally from museums, public collections, or even looted directly from ancient archeological sites. These looted art treasures are then sold to collectors via the stolen art network, and I 'liberate' these items whenever I can. For now, it is my turn to appreciate them. And I do, but I know in my heart that these treasures need, and want, to be returned to their true legal homes. Someday I'd find a way to do this without exposing myself to legal complications or retaliation from the collector community.

My treasures are patient with me and don't overly sulk at my caressing touches, but I hear their quiet discomfort, their yearning to return 'home'. Someday they shall. One day maybe we will all be free and where we belong.

Today the pickings for personal pilfering were slim to near none. The china and crystal was all modern and virtually soulless. The lamps, vases and the few bronze and iron figurines were also equally recent and of trivial esthetic value. Even the remainder of the hanging wall art was of little importance or interest. Either this collector, my mark, kept his real treasures well-hidden elsewhere, in another location or in an unusually well concealed secret room, or else he was a new player in this game.

Either option signified danger. An experienced and extremely cautious collector would have numerous, and subtle defenses against thieves like me, and would be unlikely to be overconfident. Similarly, the new starting trophy art collector would be much more likely to be suspicious, even paranoid about protecting his new illegal treasures. He would greatly fear discovery and would react in an uncertain way upon finding his most prized possession missing.

My unease with the household grew and I decided to forego my usual comprehensive search for this collector's private museum or secret storage room. The walls and floors would tell me quickly enough where such a hidden cache existed, but it would still take time. I decided that I would take only a quick cursory look around upstairs and make a hasty departure well ahead of schedule. My total fee for this recovery, nearly $450,000, would more than adequately compensate me for my other, more incidental, losses of being unable to add to my own private collection. This was the highest fee I had ever earned, and I didn't want anything to interfere.

I liked the atmosphere of the upstairs even less, and my feeling of apprehension grew. The house should be empty, the owner gone for the day in accordance with his routine daily schedule. Still, something was not quite right and I didn't feel alone.

My knack allows me significant powers over inanimate objects, but I cannot sense people or other things that are alive, nor have I any abilities that affect living objects in any way. This reinforces my general tendency to distrust people, especially strangers. As I also admitted earlier, my skills with people are very limited. I'd much rather talk to my furniture and other treasures than to a visitor.