Ghost Hero - Страница 2

Доступ к книге ограничен фрагменом по требованию правообладателя.

A creek, a limb, and a hole in the ground. Maybe these were nature metaphors with hidden political meaning.

“So what do you think, Ms. Chin? Can you find them?”

“Mr. Dunbar, you’re not even sure these paintings exist. Why not wait until they either surface, or it all turns out to be smoke? I guess what I’m asking is, Why is paying for an investigation worth it?” It’s not that I wanted to talk myself out of work, but something wasn’t adding up here.

Jeff Dunbar regarded me. “Do you collect anything, Ms. Chin? Stamps, coins, Barbie dolls?” He added, “Guns?” Racial profiling, but carefully politically correct about gender.

“No.”

He leaned forward. “For a collector, the hunt’s as much of a thrill as the find. I want these Chaus, if they’re real. But I also want to be the one who finds them, and finds out if they’re real. Especially since I’m the new kid on the block. Does that make sense?”

“I guess so,” I said, though the collector’s passion, to me, is like gravity: I admit it has a pull but I don’t understand it.

“Also,” he said, “there’s a time issue.”

Ah. Time is money. And money does talk.

“Asian Art Week starts Sunday. All over town: The auction houses, the museums and galleries, two big Armory shows, and a show the Chinese government’s sending over called Beijing/NYC. Mostly classical art and antiquities, but a lot of contemporary, too. The big collectors, the critics, the curators all come. From everywhere—Asia and Europe, as well as here. If these Chaus exist, whoever has them might be planning to unveil them then.”

“To make a splash.”

“That’s right.”

“And you want them so you can make the splash.”

“I told you the collecting world’s small? It’s also closed and clannish. Some things I’m interested in I never get a shot at, because when they show up, I’m not the one who gets the call. I want that to change. If I had the new Chaus, trust me, that would change.”

“All right. But there’s something else. I don’t know much about this, but wouldn’t an artist, or a dealer or somebody, whoever has these paintings, either just put them on the market, or not? I mean, one or the other. Rumors, mystery, paintings no one’s seen that may or not be real—is this how the art world works?”

“Normally, no. But as I said, Ghost Hero Chau is a special case. The possibility of new paintings by him would be bound to stir up all kinds of mystery and rumors.”

“And why is that?”

Dunbar sat back. “Are you familiar with the uprising at Tiananmen Square in 1989?”

I thought for a moment. “A democracy movement that never got off the ground, crushed by the Party. That’s about all I know.”

“Correct. They sent the army in against the protestors. Hundreds of people were killed. Including Ghost Hero Chau. Ms. Chin, he’s been dead for twenty years.”

Back in my office an hour later, I watched Bill Smith take an evaluative sip of coffee. He used to bring his own, but last week I’d bought a coffee press and a grinder and a pound of beans to store in the tiny freezer in my tiny fridge. Bill and I have had our ups and downs over the years; buying all this coffee-producing stuff was, for me, a big commitment.

“Excellent,” he pronounced.

“What a relief. So…” I leaned back in my creaky chair, cradling my jasmine tea, which was also excellent. “… what are we going to do about the late great Ghost Hero Chau and his new paintings?”

“Well, my first thought, you won’t be surprised to hear, is that they’re fakes.” He sipped his coffee and gave a happy sigh.

“I suggested that to the client. He agreed they could be.”

“If Chau’s dead, and the paintings are new, they sort of have to be,” Bill pointed out. “If they’re real and they’re new, Chau’s unlikely to be dead. Unless he painted them twenty years ago and they’re just turning up now, so they’re not really new. Or he’s dead and he just painted them, so he really is a ghost.”

“Dunbar says no.”

“No real ghost?”

“You sound disappointed.”

“It would be something different.”

“Sorry. No old paintings. Dunbar says the content refers to the problems of modern China. Internal migration, freedom of expression, corruption.”

“The content,” Bill said thoughtfully. “But it’s coded, isn’t it? He’s sure he’s reading it right?”

“Well, he’s not reading it at all, because he hasn’t seen them. Those are the rumors.”

“Rumors. Which the whole collecting world’s heard, but the dealers haven’t.”

“Dunbar thinks the dealers almost certainly have but won’t admit it until one of them’s got the paintings in his hot little hands.”

“Okay, so tell me this: Why is Dunbar coming to an investigator instead of an art expert?”

“And an investigator with no clue about art. There, I just had to say it before you did. But it’s not about whether the paintings are real or fake. It’s about finding them. Which he thinks I can do because I’m Chinese. He thinks I can boldly go where no muscle-bound barbarian has gone before.”

“Undercover in the teahouses and rice paddies of your people. Eavesdropping behind crimson columns. Parting the stalks in a bamboo grove.”

“I actually think that’s what he means.”

“Well, good for him. How much does he say these paintings are worth?”

“Chaus from the eighties sell for three to six hundred thousand. And if these are real and new, meaning Chau’s still alive, they could set off a feeding frenzy.”

“Ah. Now chasing something that may not exist starts to make sense. Though I think your client’s being a little cute about his motivation.”

“By which you mean?…”

“The thrill of the hunt, being the new kid in town, wanting the big boys to take him seriously. All that.”

“You think it’s baloney?”

“I think it’s worse than that, but if I use those words I might not get more coffee.” He held out his mug. “You said there was something off about him.”

“Well, there was. I remember the art majors from college. The studio majors were on their own planet, of course, but even the dorkiest history-and-crit major was hipper than this guy.”

“People change. Maybe he swerved to the right after he graduated.”

“Then why is he collecting cutting-edge art?”

“Now he has a little money and he’s loosening up again?”

“What are you saying? You think I’m wrong about something being off?”

“You’re never wrong about that. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

“Oh, good, in case I might forget who you are. So what do we think he’s up to?”

Bill considered briefly. “Well, one possibility: it’s exactly what he said. He’s looking to make an end run around everyone else and snap these paintings up. But—”

“But you think it’s about money, not the pure love of art.”

“That didn’t cross your mind?”

“Actually, it more than crossed it. It lodged there.” I drank some more of my excellent tea. “In our entire conversation, he didn’t once say anything about wanting to see the paintings. Wondering what they were like. How they might be different from the older ones, better or worse. What a thrill it would be if Ghost Hero Chau really were alive, and still painting.”

“So. He may be a collector, but he’s not a lover. He’s gambling they’re real and he wants to corner the market. You’re shaking your head. Why?”

“I don’t think he’s a collector, either. I ran a background. No Jeff Dunbars his age in any of the databases. He gave me a business card with no business on it, only his name and phone number. Not even an e-mail. Now, that could mean he’s rich enough not to work, rich enough he doesn’t want anyone to know who he really is. Collecting art would go along with that, and I guess so would paying my retainer in cash—”

“How much, by the way? Unless it’s none of my business.”

“Since I’m paying you out of it, it can be your business. A grand against two days plus expenses. More after that, or we settle up if I find them sooner.”

“A trustful sort of fellow, handing over cash like that.”

I shrugged. It was a lot, but clients paying in cash are not all that rare. Many people like to avoid a paper trail leading to a PI.

“But the phone,” I said, “is a prepaid cell.”

“Ah. Now that’s damn dubious, I’d say.”

“And the suit didn’t scream ‘too rich to work’ either.”

“Shiny and threadbare?”

“No, no. Perfectly fine, but strictly off the rack. A good rack, but not super high-end. Remember, I’m a seamstress’s daughter.”

“You do your mother proud.”

“Leave my mother out of it. And frankly, if he were a Getty or something—not to display my lack of self-esteem but why is he coming to me? All the big guys have Asians on staff.”

“Because you’re better?”

“But how would he know that? Seriously, I’m thinking he’s just a working stiff, and his work has to do with China. He said he learned Chinese because he thought it would be useful. I bet he’s in import-export, or he’s American legal counsel for a Chinese firm, something like that. That’s probably where he heard about the paintings—at work. He’s using a phony name because he doesn’t want his bosses to know he’s on the hunt, and he came to me, not one of the big boys, out of the same instinct. He’s not the new collector on the block. He’s not on the block at all. He just wants to cash in on the Chaus.” I finished my tea and looked at Bill. It was a sensible theory and he nodded.