Catfish Retires 9 By Bald Hairy Man
This is a story for adult men. It depicts gay sex. If this offends or bothers you, DO NOT READ IT. It is a fantasy and is not a sex manual, or a discussion of safe sex. If you have, comments send them to bldhrymn@yahoo.com or bldhrymn@aol.com.
I called my old pal Gerald in the Miami Police and Ali Baba, a retired wrestler who knew people. They didn't know of Anders de Grasse, but they knew quite a bit about him three days later. Apparently seducing the art collecting trophy wife of a wealthy man was the standard operating procedure of the de Grasse art gallery. There was no art gallery, art embellished the walls of de Grasse's expensive home in Fort Lauderdale.
Anders miscalculated and bedded the wife of a financier of a Colombian drug dealer and the drug dealer was nice enough to remove Anders from the scene. No one knew what happened to de Grasse but what ever happened, no one ever found the body. His house was now owned by Magda de Grasse, who purported to be Anders' sister. The de Grasse Gallery was still in business.
The Richmond Art Museum sent Tristan off to Miami to investigate. Tristan connected with Magda. Magna realized she wasn't his type so she turned him over to her nephew. The nephew was a twenty-five-year-old guy named Kelly. Kelly knew nothing about art, but had a great tan, beautiful smile and wore an all but unbuttoned shirt and had what Tristan described as spray on pants.
Tristan guessed Kelly was eye candy for older customers. Tristan appeared to be interested and looked at both the paintings and Kelly's crotch. Magda went off to do other things to let Kelly's good looks and obvious interest in Tristan work its magic. Tristan told him the paintings were nice, but asked if he could see the good stuff. That was supposed to be the storerooms of the gallery, but Kelly's cock was getting firm.
Tristan said Kelly had a seven plus cock with a big uncut knob. I had seen some tight pants, but never pants that were do tight you could tell a guy was uncut. Tristan bought one painting for cash, but he mentioned he might be interested in some rare and special paintings. He also asked if Magda was always around. Tristan said she visited her mother every Monday for the full day.
Tristan told me that he expected the special painting to be either stolen or pornographic. He guessed that Kelly was a semi-retired rent boy, and that he might be planning to give himself a little bonus in addition to his commission. Kelly gave Tristan his card that had his most recent testing record on the back. Tristan told him he would be back on the next Monday at one.
When the met the painting was a competent late 19th Century landscape. To the rear was a label of a major auction house. Of course, that was fake. There was a second label under the fake one. It was for a Swiss gallery in Geneva. It had no date, but with a little research in a European database. Tristan later found the label was in use from 1937 to 1950 when the gallery went out of business.
I gave Gerald Kelly's name. He said Kelly was also known as Sean, and Bryn. Gerald had mentioned my interest in the de Grasse gallery to Ali Baba, my retired wrestler friend. He knew one of the men who had been involved with the gallery. The friend had almost bought something there, but didn't because of Ander's murder.
Ali visited the gallery and said he was looking for a painting to give as a birthday present to a close friend. His friend was real arty. Magda noticed Ali looking over Kelly and found other things she needed to do and left them alone. Apparently, the sexual come-on was a basic sales technique. A buzzer rang. There was a shipment of new works so Kelly had to sign it in. Ali tagged along. While he was there, he got the name of the shipping company and the name of the group that sent the paintings. It was a gallery in Argentina.
Ali arranged to see the new art works at the gallery on Monday morning. He had felt out Kelly and he was sure Kelly would make sure that Magda would be away. I gave the names to my art detective friends. They were excited.
Jean, the Gendarme on Corsica contacted me. They had discovered the deed to Sanssouci was more complex than it first seemed. It looked as if it was owned by the de Grasse family. It had originally been the property of a Theodore Roselle. He had been an art dealer and had been executed for collaboration by the French Resistance in 1944. Jean told me that some collaborators were executed, but that required major crimes. It seems the Theodore fingered art collectors and their families for execution. Theodore got the collections for nothing.
Theodore's family said they knew nothing of the scheme, but they continued running Theodore's art gallery after the execution. The new director of the gallery was a man named Eustache Grasse. Jean suspected that Eustache later became Anton de Grasse.
Jean and I thought that execution for stealing at was extreme even for newly liberated France. I asked if he could find more about that. It told him I could check my sources. My source was the Richmond Museum and its recent investigation into the Hirsch Collection. I called Tristan and he was with Temple.
I didn't exactly hear a brass band playing, and fireworks going off, but a new clue about the Hirsch Collection and Nazi loot was a big deal for them. Of course, the Museum had interests, but a discovery of the fate and possible survival of Nazi loot would turn them into major figures in the art historical world. I also gave them Jean, our Gendarmes name and number.
Months or a year of tedious searching of databases and old catalogs was high excitement for Temple. Theodore Roselle, Eustache Grasse and the assorted de Grasse names would provide entertainment for him for months. I asked if the museum would give them time off.
"Catfish, you gave them a painting worth a hundred million. Doing a little chore for you is not a problem," Tristan said.
The official announcement of my gift was two days later. The anonymous doner was described as a local collector with distinctive tastes.
"I didn't know you any taste in art at all," Templeton said.
"Well at least I know enough not to collect paintings of erect, naked men on black velvet," I replied.
Templeton laughed. "Well, I admit than since your collecting history consist of one painting by Hieronymus Bosch and one drawing by Albrecht Dürer, describing your tastes as distinctive understates the case." It would have been more impressive if I had heard Hieronymus or Albrecht before I found them. I hoped I was considered to be falsely modest rather than lucky as hell.
In Florida, Gerald had some connections to Argentina and Ali Baba has made several successful wrestling tours there. He knew people. Ali and Mandelbaum were ultra-masculine men and that seemed to be popular in Brazil and Argentina. They also did "special exhibitions" for gay wealthy men. I knew from personal experience that an interlude with the two wrestlers could be the high point of your sexual life.
Gerald made a good connection to Argentinian police that worked art thefts. Argentina had a problem dating for when it was friendly to ex-Nazis. Uncovering a major art theft ring would be good for their international reputation.
Back in Miami, Tristan met with Kelly to look at newly arrived paintings. They didn't quite get naked and fuck each other on the floor, but they were close. Tristan discovered that Kelly knew nothing about art or paintings. He didn't take any notice of the works which interested Tristan. Tristan told me Kelly was like a car salesman who couldn't tell the difference between a Ford Minivan and a Range Rover.
He also thought Kelly had no idea what he was involved in. Tristan told him of the painters he was interested in, and told him he was be back to see him the next Monday. The list included several names of missing Hirsch paintings.
Ali visited that afternoon. Kelly showed him some paint-by-numbers versions of old masters. Ali was miffed that Kelly would not even try to sell him a genuine painting. Apparently, Kelly thought that a potential for sex with a young guy would be enough to sweeten the deal. Kelly thought he was a top. Ali was a well-known professional wrestler. Even though he was retired, he had standards.
Kelly discovered he was a bottom and he liked it or else. Ali told him he was going to fuck him so hard he would remember it for the rest of his life, and he didn't care if he remembered it as a dream or a nightmare. After he shot off three or four times until Kelly's ass overflowed with Ali' sperm, Kelly remembered a storage place he had forgotten. He said he would get the key and take him there on his day off.
Ali told Gerald about the storage place and he put some undercover police to keep an eye on it. Tristan was still in Miami, and Gerald contacted him. Tristan knew all there was to know about the missing paintings in the Hirsch collection and was up to date on thefts in Europe. Tristan gave the impression of an otherworldly space cadet, but he had impressive visual memory. If he saw a picture of a painting, sculpture, or drawing, he remembered it along with the name of the artist and date.
Kelly made a nighttime visit to an abandoned warehouse two days later. Gerald's undercover agent, Fran, followed and saw Kelly opening some crates to make a display of paintings for Ali to view. Kelly was not the sort of man to remember a bag lady hanging around his neighborhood.
She reported to Tristan, and he visited the warehouse with Gerald. I think Tristan and Gerald were the least likely to get along of any two people I know. There were about twenty paintings on display. Tristan recognized seven of them. Two had been in the Hirsch collection. Tristan knew the paintings, the artist, the date it was painted, the date it was stolen, and the museum of collection it was stolen form. Gerald was dazzled.
They retuned to the station, Tristan pulled up the necessary information from a data base and then compare his cell phone photo with period photos. It was an open and shut case.
When I got the story, it seemed to me that everyone involved has a pseudonym. The de Grasse family did not existed nor did the De Monte family. It seemed to me that it was odd that so many paintings were in Corsica. I looked at a man and saw you could easily sail from Corsica you could sail to Franco's Spain in 1944-1945. From Spain you could easily get to Argentina. That was a safe place for plundered art.
Because the major part of the Hirsh collection was found in Germany, no one looked further. A connection between it and Argentina was not explored.
Jean called. He told me Theodore Roselle was not executed. He was killed and there was no official involvement in his execution. Roselle befriended refugees who had escaped from mainland France to Corsica, murdering them and taking their possessions. When the daughter of a local leader discovered the body of a murdered infant, it was too much. When the gendarmes found Roselle's body, it was hard to recognize it as a human body. Roselle had a glass eye. It was found with a small part of his skull. Apparently, the locals knew of his scheme, but hadn't known about the murders. They thought the refugees had escaped. No one went looked for the loot. The Corsicans thought it was tainted by the blood of innocents and thus would bring death to anyone who possessed it. It seemed to me that seventy years later it was still working its curse.
By this time, the police had tapped the phones and were intercepting all the electronic communications of the Miami gallery. Magda de Grasse was the focus of attention, but they soon realized she was a foot soldier not a major player. Kelly was a former rent boy trying to make a go of life. He knew nothing about the business and was useful providing blackmail material. That seemed to be a theme for the operation.
The big boys in the museum and art collectors' market were worried about provenance, the history of ownership of the artwork. It was a major embarrassment to be exposed as owning a stolen work. it was much worse to own a work stolen by a Nazi. To sell those items you were relegated to minor collectors, or those who had secret collections.
In some ways I felt like a juggler who was trying to keep balls in the air. There were so many leads and possibilities. England, Germany France and even Argentina were in the mix.