Read Online The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Edward Dolnick
Tags: Fiction, General, History, True Crime, Law, Murder, Modern, Art, Investigation, organized crime, Art Thefts, Individual Artists, Norway, Theft from museums, Art thefts - Investigation - Norway, Munch, Contemporary (1945-), Edvard, Art thefts - Investigation, Theft from museums - Norway
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someone he knew happened to call out to him on the street.
“Hi there,” he’d say aloud to himself, like a singer practicing scales, “I’m Chris Roberts.” There were key sounds and phrases and mannerisms that you had to get right. Do it wrong or overdo it, like Dick Van Dyke playing an Englishman, and you’d be caught the minute you opened your mouth.
The role of Chris Roberts, Getty sleazebag, would soon put Hill’s skills to the test. The grading, it is worth bearing in mind, would be done by professional criminals.
9
The General
H ill was the natural choice to star in the Scream story because he had just scored a giant triumph. In 1986, seven years before the theft of The Scream , a brutal Irish gangster named Martin Cahill had pulled off what was then the biggest art theft in history. Among the eighteen world-class paintings that Cahill grabbed from a mansion outside Dublin, Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid was the gem of gems. Its value on the open market can only be guessed at; $50 million would not be a surprise, and $100 million would not be out of the question. In 1993, Hill went undercover and brought it back, undamaged. The coup catapulted him to the top of his field and made him a star.
Six months later, The Scream vanished. For the Art Squad, the timing was ideal. If it could rack up a second huge success in a case sure to be splashed across the world’s front pages, the Art Squad would be safe (at least for a while) from the in-house attacks that always came its way. For Charley Hill, too, the timing was fortunate, and not only because he was at the top of his game. Hill had decided that his undercover work in the Cahill case could serve as a model he could apply to going after The Scream .
Short, bald, chubby, unkempt, Martin Cahill looked like a down-market bartender or the night clerk at a fleabag hotel. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was, in fact, the top man in Dublin’s underworld.
Decades ago, many art thefts were stylish, the province of smooth-talking villains with dubious morals and elegant manners. In recent years, the advent of big money has transformed a gentleman’s sport into a serious, and dangerous, business. Raffles, the “gentleman thief” of Victorian England, has been shoved aside by thugs and criminal gangs whose expertise is in drug peddling and money laundering. Cahill, an armed robber, a kidnapper, and a car bomber, was typical of the new breed. Thomas Crown would have run away screaming.
Before Cahill, crime in Dublin had been largely a helter-skelter affair. Martin Cahill, who had more organizational skills and fewer scruples than any of his predecessors, changed the rules. “The General,” as he was known, instituted weekly meetings to plan future robberies. He kept a sharp eye on the money that came in and how it was paid out. He took on giant jobs that had been deemed impossible; he headed, for instance, a 10-man team that pulled off what was then the biggest robbery in Irish history, a £2 million theft of gold and jewels from a closely guarded and fortress-like factory. In Dublin under Cahill, the term “organized crime” took on real meaning.
Just as important in consolidating his hold on power, Cahill took over terror tactics from the IRA and turned them on the police. This had nothing to do with politics—Cahill had no political views except that anyone in his way was a blood enemy—but it brought violence into territory that had always been off-limits. When prosecutors found evidence that placed Cahill at the scene of an armed robbery, for example, Cahill planted a homemade bomb under the car of James Donovan, the state’s chief forensic expert, who was slated to testify in court. For weeks before the attack, Donovan had been under siege. His phone rang at all hours with criminals mouthing threats or simply waiting, silently, on the line. As Donovan drove home from his forensics lab one night, with a policeman sitting in the car next
“Hi there,” he’d say aloud to himself, like a singer practicing scales, “I’m Chris Roberts.” There were key sounds and phrases and mannerisms that you had to get right. Do it wrong or overdo it, like Dick Van Dyke playing an Englishman, and you’d be caught the minute you opened your mouth.
The role of Chris Roberts, Getty sleazebag, would soon put Hill’s skills to the test. The grading, it is worth bearing in mind, would be done by professional criminals.
9
The General
H ill was the natural choice to star in the Scream story because he had just scored a giant triumph. In 1986, seven years before the theft of The Scream , a brutal Irish gangster named Martin Cahill had pulled off what was then the biggest art theft in history. Among the eighteen world-class paintings that Cahill grabbed from a mansion outside Dublin, Vermeer’s Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid was the gem of gems. Its value on the open market can only be guessed at; $50 million would not be a surprise, and $100 million would not be out of the question. In 1993, Hill went undercover and brought it back, undamaged. The coup catapulted him to the top of his field and made him a star.
Six months later, The Scream vanished. For the Art Squad, the timing was ideal. If it could rack up a second huge success in a case sure to be splashed across the world’s front pages, the Art Squad would be safe (at least for a while) from the in-house attacks that always came its way. For Charley Hill, too, the timing was fortunate, and not only because he was at the top of his game. Hill had decided that his undercover work in the Cahill case could serve as a model he could apply to going after The Scream .
Short, bald, chubby, unkempt, Martin Cahill looked like a down-market bartender or the night clerk at a fleabag hotel. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was, in fact, the top man in Dublin’s underworld.
Decades ago, many art thefts were stylish, the province of smooth-talking villains with dubious morals and elegant manners. In recent years, the advent of big money has transformed a gentleman’s sport into a serious, and dangerous, business. Raffles, the “gentleman thief” of Victorian England, has been shoved aside by thugs and criminal gangs whose expertise is in drug peddling and money laundering. Cahill, an armed robber, a kidnapper, and a car bomber, was typical of the new breed. Thomas Crown would have run away screaming.
Before Cahill, crime in Dublin had been largely a helter-skelter affair. Martin Cahill, who had more organizational skills and fewer scruples than any of his predecessors, changed the rules. “The General,” as he was known, instituted weekly meetings to plan future robberies. He kept a sharp eye on the money that came in and how it was paid out. He took on giant jobs that had been deemed impossible; he headed, for instance, a 10-man team that pulled off what was then the biggest robbery in Irish history, a £2 million theft of gold and jewels from a closely guarded and fortress-like factory. In Dublin under Cahill, the term “organized crime” took on real meaning.
Just as important in consolidating his hold on power, Cahill took over terror tactics from the IRA and turned them on the police. This had nothing to do with politics—Cahill had no political views except that anyone in his way was a blood enemy—but it brought violence into territory that had always been off-limits. When prosecutors found evidence that placed Cahill at the scene of an armed robbery, for example, Cahill planted a homemade bomb under the car of James Donovan, the state’s chief forensic expert, who was slated to testify in court. For weeks before the attack, Donovan had been under siege. His phone rang at all hours with criminals mouthing threats or simply waiting, silently, on the line. As Donovan drove home from his forensics lab one night, with a policeman sitting in the car next
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