Like a thief in the night

I was so close to the door. I was just twelve feet away. A couple more steps and I would be free. I would be out the door with the prize in my pocket. I could taste the chocolate on my lips. When no one was looking, I had placed two Hershey’s bars in my jacket pocket with the intent of walking out of the small corner grocery. This was well before video cameras or alarm systems, the coast was clear, but something inside me told me “no.”

I was 12 or 13 and tried to convince myself that it was just two candy bars, that they would hardly be missed, but my conscience wouldn’t let it go. I froze just enough that I knew the moment had passed, so I turned and made a beeline to the counter. It’s probably a good thing I did. After I had paid the cashier, I turned to see a friend of my mother’s who wanted to know how she was doing.

In my mind, I cursed my bad luck.

It starts with a plan

My life of crime and having my picture posted on the wall of every Post Office in the America ended as soon as it started. I suspect deep down I feared my parents. Oh, there would be hell to pay. If they found out, they would’ve made me walk back into the store and beg the manager or owner for forgiveness. Heck, if my parents found out I was merely thinking of stealing the candy bars, they would have sent me in to apologize. Forget about the look of disappointment and shame they would’ve had on their faces.

My guilty conscience managed to steer me on the straight and narrow, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love a good heist story. I’m enthralled by them. I’m fascinated in particular by a key milestone. Today marks the 34th anniversary of the largest art theft in American history.

In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, unidentified thieves stole thirteen works of art collectively valued at $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. Law enforcement officials rank the heist as one of the highest-value museum robberies in history.

Guards admitted two men posing as police officers responding to a disturbance call, and the thieves bound the guards and looted the museum over the next hour. The case has never solved. No arrests have been made, and none of the works have been recovered.

An open case

The stolen pieces include Remington’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee and A Lady and Gentleman in Black, Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer’s The Concert, French artist Édouard Manet’s Chez Tortoni, and five drawings by French impressionist Edgar Degas.

The museum offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the recovery, the largest bounty ever offered by a private institution. Law enforcement has had a number of strong leads, but the works have never shown up anywhere and the investigation remains open.

A good story

The FBI believes the thieves had mob ties. Now I know that that whoever stole the art pieces, probably look nothing like George Clooney as Danny Ocean in the Ocean’s Eleven series or Frank Sinatra from the original Ocean’s 11 or even Pierce Brosnan as bored billionaire Thomas Crown in the Thomas Crown Affair, but heist stories, real and fictional, draw me in.

Heist stories have a long history in Hollywood, including Heat, The Italian Job, Point Break, Sneakers, Dog Day Afternoon, Reservoir Dogs, A Fish Called Wanda, Ronin, The Usual Suspects, The Sting, Baby Driver, Money Heist, Logan Lucky, The Vault, and even The Red Notice. I haven’t even touched the surface. I’m sure I’m missing a great movie or two.

The more I think about these movies, the more I think the good ones start with the planning and preparation, turning characters that you might not find all that intriguing into people that you want to root for in the end. If a plot can do that, then it’s off to the mechanics of the heist and the getaway before the cops catch on.

Catch me if you can

In the end, though, a good heist movie has to deal with the getaway. The thieves in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft simply walked out the door a little before 3 a.m. and the next guard shift didn’t arrive until the next morning, giving them plenty of time to make their run.

Oh, the robbers of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum obviously didn’t have any second thoughts like me. They made a run for it and never looked back — they took the money and ran.