Read Online Hot Art by Joshua Knelman - Free Book Online Page A

love, and exploit.” In a lot of ways, his description of the trade matched Bonnie Czegledi’s, but he was more brutal about it.
    The real criminals weren’t just the thugs running into museums with guns. They were installed at all levels of the industry and were willing to turn a blind eye to the looting of global cultural heritage because of a need to make money or climb the social ladder. The corruption and moral degradation didn’t surprise him, though. It was the illusion of respectability that people associated with the art world that confounded Paul.
    He was especially intense in his cynicism for art dealers. “I’d go as far as to say that the term ‘honest antique dealer’ is an oxymoron,” he laughed. “No one cares about selling stolen art as long as you’re smart about it. It’s not even considered criminal. It’s more as if it’s naughty behaviour. You know... wink, wink. It’s the norm.”
    Paul was charming and eccentric, and he liked to joke around, but there was always an undercurrent of hyperawareness about him. He could lead you down a dozen different roads in a conversation, but he was always probing and listening intently for a reaction. He wanted to know what my situation was in life. “Are you married? Kids? Did you get a seven-figure advance for your book? I am probably going to be the most exciting character in your book, let’s face it.”
    Early on he mentioned a verbal altercation he’d had with someone, which ended with Paul saying, “If you fuck with me I will spend the rest of my life destroying yours. I will fucking destroy you.” I got his message. Sometimes talking to him felt like an interview with a vampire, because Paul had indeed been a vampire. He told me in detail how he spent years of his life stealing hard-earned material wealth from hundreds, perhaps thousands, of homes around him and selling those stolen items to art dealers and auction houses. But the more I talked to Paul, the more I came to think of him as the Cheshire Cat, always appearing out of the ether, posing absurd questions, offering paradoxes and philosophical arguments about the relationship between people and their possessions.
    And just like the Cheshire Cat, Paul was intelligent and mischievous, although there was always a darkness to his personality that would suddenly cut through his playful charm. Still, when the Cheshire Cat disappeared, the last thing you remembered was his grin. Our phone calls would usually end with Paul telling a joke or a riddle, and then he was gone.
    Paul wasn’t just a thief, he was steeped in the lore of thieves, and he drew a line through British history from Jonathan Wild to John McVicar. Paul was a huge fan of Wild, a criminal genius in early-eighteenth-century London, a man who played both sides of society. He passed himself off as a saviour to the public by taking back from thieves items that had been stolen but he was indeed the king of London thieves. He orchestrated everything, and was eventually unmasked, convicted, and executed.
    â€œBeing a thief is a terrific life. The trouble is they put you in jail for it,” Paul laughed. He was quoting McVicar, one of the most famous armed robbers in 1960s London, who was convicted and sent to prison for twenty-six years. After he was released he wrote a book about his life that was eventually turned into a film starring Roger Daltrey. “As a kid, I always rooted for the villains in the movies,” Paul said.
    We started to talk once, twice, sometimes three times a week. I would make an appointment and call, and he would always answer with that flat “Hah-loh.” (I sometimes heard the words as “Hell, Low.”) Over several months, Paul outlined his own creation myth of international art theft. He was Adam, in the garden, studying the apple on the Tree of Life.
    Paul had perfectly balanced himself high up on a branch that