The Night Café. Taylor Smith
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system hadn’t yet arrived. Overhead bubble covers should have concealed brand-new, 360-degree observation lenses, but the digital cameras and recording equipment were still on a dock in the port of Long Beach the night of the theft. There was an older existing closed-circuit camera system in use, connected via the Internet to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department robbery unit, but that link proved to be a major vulnerability. The thieves had hacked the feed weeks earlier, downloading and recording the video. While the theft was going on, both the internal recording equipment and the external feed were being fed recycled footage. When it was analyzed later, it would be obvious that three of the four security guards seen patrolling on the tape were nowhere near the place on January first. Equally frustrating was that the thieves had managed to erase at least two other sections of the surveillance video, periods that would no doubt have shown them inside the museum, casing the security arrangements.
What a cock-up, Teagarden thought disgustedly, rinsing the razor under hot water and patting his face dry. He took up a small comb and smoothed down his dark mustache, then passed the comb over his thinning steel-gray hair. His eyes, coal-black under heavy eyebrows, flashed annoyance and energy; the former for the botched security that had allowed the painting to be taken, the latter for the thrill of the hunt.
He had little doubt that the theft was a professional operation carried out for strategic purposes that had little to do with art and everything to do with an illegal transaction that required collateral of the magnitude of a stolen van Gogh. There were only so many people involved in deals of this sort, and an even smaller number of subcontractors to whom they could turn to nail down the collateral. Teagarden, in fact, deemed only two or three people capable of the Arlen Hunter job.
Of those, one could be eliminated at once, since he was currently residing in Buckinghamshire, a guest of Her Majesty’s Woodhill Prison, thanks to Teagarden’s own efforts. Another was reported to be in Thailand, but when Teagarden tracked him down there, he learned he’d been knifed in a brothel two weeks before the heist in Los Angeles. Teagarden had visited the man in Phuket, where he was still recuperating. One look at his haggard appearance and the colostomy bag hanging from his belt convinced Teagarden that this fellow’s thieving days were probably over.
It was on his way back to Bangkok airport that Teagarden had decided on a side trip to Prague to look in on another old nemesis.
Teagarden and Shawn Britten eyed each other over a round, zinc-topped café table as they waited for the espressos they’d ordered to be delivered. Britten’s black hair was buzzed short as it had been in his time in the Royal Marines, but the look blended well among the close-cropped heads in the sidewalk cafés of Prague’s Old Town. His three-day stubble was likewise par for the course in a coffee bar frequented by young Western tourists and the edgy shop and gallery crowd.
Britten was in his mid-thirties. He’d seen action in the first Gulf War, and that was where he’d developed his taste for art. Beautiful artifacts often fell into one’s lap in the confusion of war and a smart man learned quickly what was valuable and what was dreck. There was little profit in fencing the latter, but for Britten, the arts became more than a means to earn some ready cash over and above his military stipend. It was, by now, something of a passion.
In addition to his on-the-job training in Middle Eastern artifacts, he soon became a self-taught expert on the Impressionist and Art Nouveau periods. After being demobbed from the Royal Marines, he’d gone independent, working his way up the food chain from estate silver robberies to consignment thefts of high-end art and jewelry. One day, Teagarden suspected, when Britten had built his personal fortune, he might become a collector in his own right—if he lived that long. The kinds of clients who employed contractors with his skills tended to be a difficult lot.
In the meantime, he was one of a very small group of operatives to whom they could turn when rare and valuable objects needed liberating. Jobs like this took finesse. Hire a Philistine and your objet d’art could end up irreparably damaged or destroyed. Then where would you be? Neither history nor the gods smiled on those who despoiled priceless works of art. For that, at least, Teagarden appreciated the man’s professionalism.
The two had crossed paths numerous times, but Britten was both clever and conservative in his style of operation, outwardly maintaining the fiction of working as a freelance appraiser and restorer of minor works. Although suspected of several heists, he had been able to dodge prosecution so far. That said, it was a couple of years since he’d dared set foot back in the United Kingdom. With Teagarden, at least, he no longer bothered with much pretense about the real craft that financed his relatively comfortable lifestyle.
A waiter deposited two demitasses on the table. “Can I get you something else, gentlemen?”
His English was accented but impeccable, Teagarden noted. Like most young Czechs, he would have no memory of his country’s dreary days of membership in the old Soviet bloc. English was the language of commerce in the republic now, and the place was already flooded with young backpackers from western Europe, Australia and America. Group excursions were beginning to show up, too, more timid travelers who preferred to follow backward-walking guides holding neon flags aloft.
“I’d take one of those croissants I spotted in the case, mate, thanks much,” Britten said, adding to Teagarden, “long as you’re picking up the tab.”
“Nothing for me,” Teagarden told the waiter.
“So,” Britten said, leaning back in his chair, “still working freelance, are you, Detective Superintendent?”
Teagarden nodded. He took a tentative sip of the steaming coffee, winced and set the demitasse down to cool.
“What can I do for you?” Britten asked.
“I’m looking for a missing van Gogh,” Teagarden told him. “Naturally, I thought of you.”
“I’m flattered, mate, but I prefer not to mess with the Yanks.”
“So you know which van Gogh I’m talking about?”
“Oh, it sounds like your kind of case, Superintendent. Don’t know what those sods were thinking, mind. They’ve got The Terminator for guv’nor over there in California. Old Arnold’ll stick a needle in your arm soon as look at you.”
“So you know about the murders at the Arlen Hunter, too.”
“I heard something about it, yeah.” Britten glanced up at the waiter, who’d returned with his croissant. “Cheers.”
“What did you hear?” Teagarden pressed.
Britten watched the waiter walk away, then shrugged as he bit into the pastry. “Heard about a security equipment fiasco—some of the equipment not installed, video feeds compromised. Bloody cock-up.”
“That information about the video, that wasn’t reported in the press. So how do you know about it?”
Britten shrugged. “Just because it’s not my work doesn’t mean I don’t take a professional interest. Really makes you think, you know?”
“How so?”
“Well, it’s harder to nick a shirt worth ten quid from Marks & Spencer than a painting worth millions. I mean, even Marks & Sparks have got their merchandise sensors, their plainclothes floorwalkers, their CCTV cameras. When it comes to shoplifting, they mean business—pardon the pun. But your average museum? Pitiful. Minimum wage rent-a-dicks, elderly docents. Scarcely a bit of high-tech equipment to be found.”
Teagarden nodded. “That’s true. But it’s the high-profile exhibits that generate ticket sales, so that’s where most of the money goes.” Even world-class establishments like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Louvre were more vulnerable than they liked to admit.
“That’s what I’m saying. Security’s always the poor cousin to your revenue-generating bling.” Britten shook his head ruefully, like he wasn’t one of those very thieves who took advantage of those security weaknesses. “Mind you, doing the job on New Year’s Day, that wasn’t too daft. Always a good chance half the staff will have