The Curse by Harold Robbins Page B

before she was to go to the airport.”
    I nodded, finally realizing where I fit into the grand scheme of things. “Now they want a ransom.”
    It was an educated guess. With world-class art, there was a thin line between “priceless” and “valueless.” When a well-known art object was stolen, there was no market for it—except back to the original owner or their insurance company. It was an accepted practice to negotiate a price and exchange with an “innocent” go-between for return of the item.
    The go-between who brokers the deal is, of course, usually a member of the gang of thieves, but one who didn’t actually participate in the theft.
    The sword of Damocles that hung over the stolen item was that the thieves threatened to destroy it if the ransom wasn’t paid.
    â€œThey have demanded a great deal of money,” he said.
    â€œHow much?”
    â€œFive million American dollars.”
    I shrugged. “There are pieces that go for dozens of times that. The Egyptian government should pay it.”
    â€œThe government is not involved. I am a poor man but I have raised the money among some wealthy patriots.”
    I almost scoffed out loud at his “poor man” statement. I deliberately looked at his ring.
    He fingered it with his other hand. “I see you are admiring my ring,” he said. “The ring is a fake. The vanity of a poor man imitating a rich one.”
    Was this a test?
    â€œIt’s not a fake,” I said. “It was once worn by a king and is probably worth a down payment on a 747.”
    The ring had a cobra with wings on it, a design that King Farouk was famous for wearing in his jewelry. No one else had worn that symbol, which was a takeoff of the cobra crowns the pharaohs wore.
    Farouk was Egypt’s last king and went into exile in the 1950s on the heels of a revolution.
    â€œIt was part of King Farouk’s crown jewels,” I said.
    â€œHow do you know it’s not an imitation? What do you Americans call it, a knockoff?”
    â€œIt’s hard to define. Some art appraisers refer to it as a ping going off in their head when something is real. I don’t hear pings, but I do get a feeling that tells me when something is real. But when the fake is really good, it takes a while to see it.”
    In art terms, a “fake” made to fool buyers usually doesn’t mean the object is a reproduction of an original piece, like making a copy of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, which everyone knows is hanging in the Louvre. Instead, the fake would often be a painting done by the counterfeiter in the style of da Vinci—the fraud is in passing it off as an original da Vinci.
    That made many fakes extremely hard to sort out because a good counterfeiter can mimic the style of great works of art right down to the chemical compounds of the paint and the age of the canvas.
    I told him about Howard Carter’s theory in determining whether an artifact was a fake.
    â€œCarter sat it aside in a spot where he would pass by or be able to glance at it once in a while as he went about his work. He paused to look at it several times a day. If the piece got better the more he looked at it, he knew it was genuine; if it got worse, he decided it was a fake.”
    â€œVery clever,” he said. Then he gave me a sly smile. “You’re right. The ring was a gift from the late king’s family for services I provided.”
    â€œYou should have asked them for the nickel.”
    â€œThe nickel?” He gave me a puzzled look.
    â€œKing Farouk owned a 1913 Liberty Head nickel, one of only five of its kind known to still exist. One of the nickels recently sold for nearly four million dollars.”
    Four million dollars for a nickel. Paintings selling for hundreds of millions. Chinese vases going for tens of millions. Collecting had become the sport of billionaires.
    And I was counting pennies to keep my cat in