In 1980, I was part owner of an art gallery inside the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. A mysterious collector — a towering man with long black hair who went only by "Jim" — had handed me first-class tickets, a stack of cash, and casually told me he'd bought us a gallery inside one of the most famous hotels in America. Just like that.
The gallery was thriving. Every guest coming down the escalators passed right by it. Then on November 21, 1980, the MGM Grand caught fire in one of the deadliest hotel fires in American history.
The woman running our gallery — sharp, glamorous, completely unshakeable — was standing outside watching the building burn when she spotted a young man nearby. Athletic. Built like he was designed to move fast.
She offered him more money than he'd make in the next two years, right there on the spot, to go inside and bring the paintings out one at a time.
He looked at the fire.
Then he said yes.
He sprinted past the police line before anyone could stop him. Disappeared into the smoke. Came back out carrying a painting, covered in ash. Then went back in. Again and again. The police tried to stop him every time — but he was too fast. Every time they moved in, he was already gone.
Among the works he pulled out was Restrictions — a painting that had already been used in a national fundraising campaign for families of fallen police officers, and that Nelson Rockefeller had planned to place permanently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art before his sudden death ended those plans.
The painting survived the fire.
The runner vanished into the crowd and was never identified.
Years later, the original sold to a Wall Street hedge fund executive for over $1.25 million.