THE GREAT ART CAPER

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And then came the stinging public criticism of Tom Mashberg and the Herald. A criticism that until then had been only privately grumbled by both law enforcement and museum officials. "In helping these crooks get a ransom, they have been a facilitator of criminal conduct," says attorney Alan Dershowitz, who mercilessly flogged his targets in Boston Magazine. But he didn't stop with Mashberg and the Herald. The Federal Government and the Gardner took some lashes too, for negotiating with scoundrels. "We're not talking about kidnap victims or terrorists holding hostages. It's art. It's great art, but if you help art thieves, you help create that market. It would be outrageous if a ransom were paid for this, because it will create more incentive for people to go and steal art."

There was, in fact, another way to handle the phone call Mashberg took that day in August. What if he had immediately called the feds and said, "Guess what, I may be looking at a stolen Rembrandt later tonight. Here's where I'll be, so follow at a safe distance." WE'VE CAPTURED IT! certainly makes a better headline than WE'VE SEEN IT!

Out of the question, says Mashberg, who's grown so leery himself that he shunned a TIME photographer last week. For starters, no reporter can afford to burn his sources. Secondly, as per his sources, he didn't even inform his editors of his little adventure until it was over, and their only question was, "When can we get it into the paper?"

Responding to Dershowitz's slam, Mashberg says, "I'm a journalist. I'm not an agent of the government. The Federal Government makes deals with criminals all the time. They turn drug dealer A loose to get drug dealer B; they free mob killer A to get mob killer B. And Alan Dershowitz represents wife abusers and murderers. I don't see how he isn't guilty of the same thing he accuses me of. This case basically was nowhere after 7 1/2 years, and in the last 7 1/2 weeks, look at it."

If there is anyone who loses sleep over the Gardner heist, it is Dan Falzon. The kid who followed his father into the San Francisco police department, then took a pay cut to join the FBI. Boston, in 1988, was his first permanent assignment. He was 26, made $30,000 and walked to the FBI office from "a cockroach apartment" in Beacon Hill. In his first big case, he laid the groundwork that led to the arrest of a man on charges related to drugs, an attempted jailbreak and the theft of the Mead paintings. Falzon had bagged Myles Connor.

Four months later came the Gardner heist, and Falzon got the case. "At the time, everybody thought this was something maybe Myles had orchestrated" from prison. "He was one of the first people we looked at, and that's been going on ever since."

Even though Falzon transferred to San Francisco two years ago, he calls Boston almost daily, and he pursues West Coast leads on the case. "At the start, I would walk home, grab a bite and some sleep and then go right back. I literally worked day and night. It wasn't a task; it was a passion, and it still is. You get involved in something like this. It's part of your life. It's part of you."