The Mona Lisa Thief
Fiction - by David Hann
“Non, Monsieur, for the last time, non. The Mona Lisa has not been stolen. It is in its proper place in the museum, homme stupide. Because of your insane ideas I have had to wake up the head of security, the chief conservator, and our da Vinci expert. They all agree, the Mona Lisa is in the Louvre, where it should be. Now, please shut up so I can go back to sleep.”
With that the line went dead and I was left holding the phone and looking slightly embarrassed. The little dark-haired man watching me with a grin on his face didn't help.
“I said to you,” he said, “didn't I? The Mona Lisa is in the Louvre. You should believe me.”
“Then what is that?” I asked, pointing to a very familiar, though surprisingly small, painting on my desk, inside a clear plastic evidence bag.
“That, detective, is a problem, n'est-ce pas? Your own experts have said it is authentique, yes? Yet it cannot be the real Mona Lisa or else they would be missing it at the Louvre. You have a problem I feel. Not my problem, though. The Mona Lisa is not missing, so I did not steal it. Ergo, you must release me, oui?”
He was right. I knew he'd stolen the painting, yet the Louvre was convinced it was still there. I couldn't even have him up for forgery. My people had assured me that the painting was the real thing, not a fake. Technically, then, he wasn't a forger. He was a criminal. That I knew in my bones, but feelings in my bones would not put him behind bars.
I motioned to one of the uniforms standing around. “Get me this man's personal items.” He was right. I couldn't hold him without a crime.
The uniform came back and I went through the list, passing each item back to him. “One wallet, $235 in cash, assorted business cards, one American passport, one MP3 player, one European wristwatch.”
I looked up at the uniform. “Why does it specifically say 'European' wristwatch?”
“Ahh,” she said, “they told me that. It's all the extra dials and buttons on it. They'd never seen one like it before, so they assumed it's some European thing.”
I still had his watch in my hand, so I had a look at it. Yep, extra buttons down one side, some extra dials on the face. Very unusual.
“What's all this for?” I asked him, gesturing at the watch.
“It's European,” he said with a smile. “May I?” I shrugged and passed it over.
He gestured toward the painting. “That is also mine, I believe.”
I smiled. “It is, but at present it is evidence in an investigation. I will be keeping it here. You are welcome to make a request for its return in court.”
“Mmm, c'est la vie. Hold it for a while if you must. It is of no concern.”
Then he sauntered off, away from my desk, through the squad room, and out of the station. He left in a perfectly nonchalant manner. Not at all like a man who'd left a 700-million-dollar painting on my desk. Suddenly I felt nervous.
“Put this in evidence,” I told the uniform, “and make sure it stays there.”
I looked at the paperwork on my desk. Marc Sauvage didn't sound like a real name, more like a porn star, but it checked out. Born in France, naturalized American. We'd tracked him through an anonymous auction website. When he tried to sell the Mona Lisa the tech guys had been able to get a physical fix on him, and we jumped him. He put up no resistance, and I was beginning the forgery paperwork when my art experts started saying it might be the real Mona Lisa. Then things turned to a steaming pile of crap.
I looked at the time. Two PM. Time for a drink. I'd started this operation 12 hours ago and I was done for the day. I wanted to put things in perspective. Stopping for a beer, or several, seemed like a good way to do that.
***
I was on my third, sitting in my usual spot at the bar, when Sauvage himself walked in. I couldn't believe it. I was even more nonplussed, and thinking of violence, when he sat on the stool next to me and gave me a big grin.
“Surprised to see me, flic? Down at the station they told me I could find you here. Apparently you are a man of habit. Though how you can drink this pisse I do not know.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Ahh, that's the question, oui? You see, I know police like you. You are a rare breed. Not corrupt. You really believe in the job. Someone like you is, ah, resolute, oui?”
“Maybe.”
“You do not wish to appear too proud. Ca va. I understand. Nonetheless, you are a good flic and, I think, a good person. You are an unusual policeman here. You treat people with respect, and I think I owe you the same. If I do nothing, you will chase me to the end of my days, and that will not be good for you or me. So, mon flic, I will show you what I do, and how I do it, and then you will know there is nothing illegal in it. Then you will leave me alone. Is it a deal?”
“If you can show me that you are doing nothing illegal, if you can convince me, then yes, I'll stop investigating you. I'll close the case.”
He ordered a vodka. “Even you Americans can't make vodka worse. So, what is there valuable in this city, preferably located to the northwest, or west?”
I had to think about that. I was no connoisseur of the arts. Normally I only knew something was valuable when it was stolen. I was tempted to say “my wife and children,” but such a gesture would be wasted without her actually hearing it.
“The Fraser Gallery,” I said at last, “has a number of paintings by some famous artist.” I knew this because they'd asked us for some extra tips on security recently.
“Idiot! I said in the city. That's in Bethesda.”
“It's close,” I replied.
“Close? Close is unimportant. Somewhere in the city, please.”
I had been dragged out to a fancy gallery recently. My mother liked to visit places like that. What was the painting? Perfect. It was French. Sauvage would love it.
“Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party is in the Phillips Collection. It's in Dupont Circle.”
Sauvage seemed to think about that for a while before replying, “Parfait. The location is perfect, the painting is French, it has been there since the 1930s. We go now.”
“What?” was all I could say as Sauvage knocked back his vodka.
“We go now. We must go to the gallery to do this. You will see why.”
What did I have to lose? I finished my beer, paid the bartender and joined Sauvage on the curb hailing a taxi.
“You owe me for the vodka,” I said.
“Non, Monsieur, consider it a down payment for what I am about to show you. Ahh, a taxi. Let's go.”
For the whole ride Sauvage would not explain any more. For most of the brief time I had known him he had been talkative. Now, he was almost silent. I could see by the gleam in his eye that he was up to something. I knew I had to keep a close eye on this one, but I wanted to know what he was doing. He even made me pay for the taxi.
I followed him into the Phillips Collection and saw him getting directions to the Renoir. He gestured for me to follow and soon we found ourselves standing in front of the famous painting.
“It's bigger than I thought,” said Sauvage.
I sat on the bench in front of it. “Will that be a problem?”
He sat down beside me. “It might have been, but today I am only going to show you how, not actually do.”
He looked around the gallery. It was just after two on a weekday. I could see no one else in the room.
“We are alone?” he asked.
“I think so,” I said, my hand sliding toward my hold-out holster just in case he had anything funny planned.
“Very well. Please, hold me.”
“What?”
“I need two hands to do this, but you must be holding a part of me. Hold my elbow, something, I do not know.”
Sighing, I grabbed his elbow and watched as he pulled back his sleeve and started to touch the controls on his “European” wristwatch.
He pushed the third button and everything went very strange. A kaleidoscope of light suddenly burst into my eyes. My ears were assaulted by what seemed like a million screeching penguins. My body felt as if it were on fire, but at the same time, as if it were freezing.
I did the only thing possible. I passed out.
***
I woke, lying on the floor, to the sound of Sauvage cursing in French. He seemed to run out of French curses and started in on German before noticing I was awake.
“Schiss...ahh, mon flic, you are awake. It is quite douloureux, painful, I know. I am sorry. Let me show you how it is done.”
Quite gently he pulled me up into a sitting position on the bench. By now I'd recovered enough to notice that things had changed. There was no electric light. The only light came from a hole in the wall. It was enough light to see that the Renoir was still there, though covered in dust, and that the floor was littered with dust and debris.
I whipped my hold-out pistol out of its holster and pointed it, none too steadily, at him. “You set off a bomb. You tried to kill me.”
“Non, mon flic. Ahh, the American instant resort to violence. Please listen to me, and please point that gun somewhere else. I am a little concerned about your trigger finger. If I had set off a bomb large enough to blow a hole in that wall, you and I would be dead, and that painting would be destroyed. I would never destroy a Renoir.”
He was making some sense, so I slid the pistol back into its holster. If he hadn't set off a bomb, though, what could have happened?
“Mon flic, you look confused. Come with me, and I will show you.”
He took my hand and pulled me up, off the bench. Then he guided me to the hole in the wall.
“Look, mon flic.”
I looked out the hole. There was 21st Street NW. It had always been a nice leafy area. Now the trees had taken over. The road was broken by many plants and trees that had pushed their way through the asphalt. I could barely make out the four-story building across the road, so thick was the foliage. Then I finally registered the noise too. Instead of the usual traffic and human sounds, all I could hear were birds.
I gripped the sides of the hole tight, forcing myself to remain standing. “What happened?” I asked. “What have you done?”
“I did not do this. I did not make this city like this. What happened here can be explained, but first, a question. Do you understand the idea of multiple worlds, ahh, universes?”
“A bit. I know there are theories that suggest there might be several other universes, many like our own.”
“Several? Several! You understate so much. There are an infinity, or in some models, an infinity of an infinity. Several? Hah.”
“So, you have moved us to another universe?”
“Yes, mon flic, I have. I have slipped us between universes.”
“That can't be true. I'm no scientist, but I've heard that it would take an immense amount of energy to do that.”
“Only if you take the American approach and try to bulldoze your way between universes. With a more elegant, a more French, approach, you can slip between worlds with almost no energy use. C'est difficile but can be done.”
I staggered back to the bench in front of the Renoir. Sitting there I thought it through. Right now I had no other theory, so I just had to go with Sauvage's description of events, even if it meant accepting his annoying attitude.
“Okay,” I said, “I'll assume you're telling the truth for the time being. In that case, what happened out there? That still is Washington, yes?”
Sauvage sat beside me. “Oh, yes. We have not left the physical place we were in. What you see out there is Washington DC in the year 2019, just in another world.”
“So?”
“The lack of people? The amount of trees? That sort of thing?” he asked.
I nodded and he continued. “In this universe they were not so lucky as in ours. In the mid-1950s the Cold War became a hot war. Stalin died, the West reacted badly, the Soviets over-reacted. It all got out of hand. Nuclear weapons were thrown around.”
Sauvage noticed my worried look. “Don't worry,” he said, “they hit Andrews Air Force Base. Nothing this side of town. There is no radiation danger here.”
“That's why you insisted on the west side of town.”
“Yes. The main damage and residual radiation is on the east side of the city.”
“So, then, why are there no people out there?” I asked.
“When the war ended, all the cities that had been hit by nuclear weapons were empty: Paris, Washington, New York, London, Athens, Berlin, Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, Vladivostok, Kursk—”
“I get the picture,” I said, “though why so many Russian cities?”
“Nineteen-fifties, we had more nuclear weapons then they did. Anyway, as I was saying, the cities that had been attacked by nuclear weapons were abandoned. It was decided that they would remain empty, as memorials to the war dead. Everything that was in them was left. No one was to enter. So, it is easy for me to slip in and take back one or two treasures.”
“Wait,” I said, “you broke the law here by coming into the city. I do have something to charge you with.” Though I wasn't sure how I'd make it stick.
“Non, mon flic. I have looked at the law. It is illegal to 'enter' the cites. We never entered the cities in the way they meant. We were in Washington, we are still in Washington. It is a minor point, but one that I think would stand up in court.”
I thought about that. Technically he probably was right. In some ways that was a relief as I had no idea how I'd charge him with that anyway.
“So,” he continued, “you see, I can come to this world when I need to, remove material that, in good conscience, would fall under salvage rights by our laws, and take it back to sell in our reality. I have taken items from almost all of the cities that were attacked. I have brought back a Shakespeare folio, a Fabergé egg, and of course the Mona Lisa, to name just a few. These I sell to wealthy clients. There is no crime here, flic.”
He was right. I had to admit it, he was right. He had stolen nothing in our reality. He had forged nothing. His argument about “salvage rights” might have been a little weak, but I could charge him with no crime. Certainly the grand larceny charge I'd been considering would never stick.
“Sauvage,” I said, “I don't like what you are doing, and I'm seriously considering running you out of town, but you're right. There's nothing you're doing that is in any way illegal under American law. That doesn't mean I like it, or you, but you're no thief. That's clear. Now, can we leave this terrible place?”
“Of course, mon flic, but remember, there will be some pain.”
He started to adjust his watch, and I held his elbow. The same terrible feelings swept over me, and I passed out again.
***
I woke, once more on the floor, to the sound of Sauvage cursing in what I assume was Chinese. “... ni mama. I hate that feeling. Come on, mon flic, on your feet before we are interrupted.”
I looked around. There was still no one else in the room with us. I staggered to the bench and sat.
“So,” said Sauvage, looking down at me, “you will close the case.”
“I will,” I replied a little groggily. “The police investigation against you will be wrapped up. In fact, I'll go downstairs now and make a couple of phone calls. Meet me at the front door in, say, twenty minutes?”
“Certainly. I will have a look around this lovely collection and let you do your official calling in private.”
***
Twenty-two minutes later Sauvage walked out the front door of the Phillips Collection. I was standing there, waiting for him.
“Have you finished your phone calls?” he asked.
“I have,” I said, “and I'd like you to meet a couple of my friends.”
A man and a woman, both in business attire, moved away from the tree they'd been standing under and started towards us.
“My friend,” I said, holding Sauvage by his right wrist, the same wrist his “European” watch was on. “Let me introduce Emily Stoddard and Paul Shirer.”
“Delighted,” said Sauvage, who seemed a little nervous, almost as if he could sense trouble.
I slipped his watch off and slipped the cuffs on. “Emily is with the IRS and would like to talk to you about a large amount of unpaid tax on some recent sales. Paul is with US Customs and would like to discuss accusations that you have been importing luxury goods without paying any tariffs.”
“You...” It was impressive how many languages Sauvage could curse me in.