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stared out the front window, listening to the former suspect in the back seat.

2.
    LAW AND DISORDER
    â€œArt is one of the most corrupt, dirtiest industries on the planet.”
BONNIE CZEGLEDI
    I T WAS just after midnight when the phone rang.
    A stranger’s voice said, “It’s ———. You’ve been looking for me.”
    The name he’d given me clicked. Yes, I’d been looking for him.
    â€œI thought you were in jail,” I said.
    â€œI was,” he replied. “Now I’m out.”
    Then the art thief listed off a few details about my education and my professional life. He told me he knew where I lived, and proved it by reciting my address.
    â€œI’ve done my research,” he said.
    He agreed to a meeting.
    I was twenty-six in 2003 and working as a researcher for The Walrus, a Canadian magazine, earning enough to save some money while living with my parents. I was comfortable doing research, not being researched. I was also working on an article about a burglary at a small art gallery. It was supposed to be fun. Now the story was taking a turn I hadn’t expected. After the conversation I was apprehensive, but I still wanted to meet the midnight caller.
    A few weeks later, on a crisp afternoon, we sat down at a small table on an outdoor patio in Toronto. The patio was unoccupied save for us. The man across from me was in his late forties, of medium height and medium build, and wore a yellow windbreaker. He was good-looking, but not movie-star handsome. In fact, he looked like a middle-aged father, except there was an almost invisible edge to him, some heightened sense of awareness in his eyes that vibrated with tension. I didn’t want to feel nervous, but I did.
    â€œHello,” he said. And we shook hands.
    He opened our conversation by threatening me. He told me that if I wrote anything about his involvement in the art gallery theft I would be physically hurt. Specifically, one of his business associates would be sure to cross paths with me. At best his associate would break my legs. No names, he said. Then he reached down beside his chair. I hadn’t noticed the long white papers rolled up in a red elastic band. He handed them to me across the table. The roll practically glowed in the afternoon sun. Not thinking, I reached out and accepted it. When my hand closed around the roll I knew I had made a mistake—fingerprints, possession of stolen property. His eyes flickered playfully.
    â€œWhat’s this?” I asked.
    â€œThey’re for you. I can’t use them. They’re from the gallery,” he said.
    I knew what I was holding, and I knew I shouldn’t be holding it.
    ON THE MORNING of September 11, 2001, Chad Wolfond had woken up, skipped breakfast, and left on his usual ten-minute walk to his Lonsdale Gallery, a two-storey semi-detached house on a picturesque street in Toronto’s upscale Forest Hill Village. At his desk on the second floor Wolfond tapped the keyboard of his computer, expecting it to power up. When the screen didn’t glow, he glanced down to see that his computer tower was gone. Then he noticed a paper trail across the gallery floor leading to the filing cabinets where he stored his vintage pinhole photography collection. As Wolfond looked through the drawers his heart sank. The best works he owned, including those by leading French photographer Ilan Wolff, were missing.
    Wolfond was shaken. He phoned the police. Then he phoned his wife. She sounded panicked.
    â€œDo you have any idea what just happened in New York?” she asked. It was after 9 AM , and the World Trade Center had been struck by hijacked passenger planes.
    By noon officers were at the gallery, glued to their radios for the latest updates from New York and Washington. They dusted for fingerprints and inspected the hole that had been smashed through the drywall, from an attached store that was under construction. Before leaving, one of