Ghost Hero - Страница 3

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“Or,” I said.

“Or.” Bill didn’t stop nodding, but he waited for me to say it.

“Or he’s not looking for the paintings at all. He’s looking for the painter.”

Bill lit a cigarette and dropped the match in the ashtray I keep around for him. “So. Why?” He streamed out smoke. “Chau owes him money? Stole his girl?”

“Twenty years ago, when Chau was thirty-five and Dunbar was ten?”

“Maybe it wasn’t Dunbar. It was his daddy. A multigenerational family feud. Your people go in for that, don’t they? God knows mine do. Maybe this is the Hatfields and the McChaus.”

“Okay. But still. Chau’s well-known to be dead.”

“An obstacle, but not insurmountable. Maybe he’s been reincarnated. Another thing your people go in for.”

“You’re mocking my people.”

“In case you might forget who I am.”

“Fat chance.” We sat in silence for a few moments. Then I said, “Here’s what I propose: we take the case. But, whatever we find, we don’t tell the client until we know what’s really going on.”

“Or, you could tell the client to go climb a tree and branch off.”

“Are you kidding? May I remind you I haven’t worked in nearly a month? There was that fistful of cash, you remember.”

Bill didn’t respond to that. He and I have both sent clients packing, retainer or not, when they were up to something we wanted no part of.

I sighed and looked into my empty cup. “I realized something. While Dunbar was talking.”

“Which is?”

“The collecting thing … I don’t get it. I never have.”

“Okay.”

“But the hunting thing? Being the one to chase something down? Find it first, discover a secret? That I do get. I think,” I admitted slowly, “that’s why I’m in this business.”

Bill cocked his head and grinned. “That’s your big insight?”

“What do you mean?”

“If that’s news to you, you’re the last to hear it.”

I felt myself redden.

“No, come on,” Bill said. “You keep telling me I do this so I can be Sir Galahad, riding in and saving the town. Why can’t you have a less-than-pure motive, too?”

“I never said Sir Galahad. I said the Lone Ranger.”

“The effect is the same, and Sir Galahad doesn’t have to wear a mask.”

“No, just a tin suit. Anyway, my motives are pure and we’re taking the case.”

“So I can be Sir Galahad and you can be Indiana Jones?”

“The Lone Ranger! And Indiana Jones, in case you missed it, is a guy. Why can’t I be Lara Croft?”

“Okay, but she doesn’t have a whip.”

“I’m so not going there. And for your information, we’re taking the case because at the end, when I’ve found the secret and you’ve saved the town, I can keep Jeff Dunbar’s retainer and maybe even send him another big bill. Coffee-making machinery doesn’t come cheap, you know. And a constant supply of beans? Please.”

“Well, if that’s what’s at stake.” Bill finished his coffee. “So okay, boss. What’s our first move?”

I sat back and gazed at the ceiling. “I wish I knew more about Chau. Or Chinese art. I Googled, but Chau’s story is pretty much what Dunbar said it was, and I didn’t find anything else helpful. The only lead I have is this gallery assistant who backpedaled.”

“Well, let’s go lean on him.”

“Sure, but what if he doesn’t give? I don’t have a clue where to go next.”

“Art, according to Dunbar, is not why he hired you. Chineseness is.”

“Yes, but he’s wrong. Seriously, whatever’s going on, who says anyone involved is Chinese except me and Ghost Hero Chau? It’s art I need.”

Bill looked at me for a few moments with something in his eyes I couldn’t read. Then he shifted his gaze to his coffee cup, and the press, and the grinder. “Well, okay,” he said, and took out his cell phone. The coversation was friendly and brief: he ascertained the callee was in and would remain so, and that was that. He put the phone away and stood. “Come on.”

* * *

We subwayed up to a neighborhood I don’t usually have much business in, the part of the Upper East Side that’s waist-deep in old money. Bill, though, negotiated the sidewalks like he was right at home. That’s because he was. He lives as far downtown as I do—and was born in Kentucky, for Pete’s sake—but a lot of New York’s museums and galleries are up here. Bill is one of those rare New Yorkers who actually spends time in museums and galleries, looking at art.

We weren’t going to a gallery or a museum, though. At a brownstone on Madison near Seventy-fifth Bill pressed a buzzer. A man’s voice popped from the speaker: “Hey! Come on up!” and, buzzed in, we climbed a curving staircase from the days when this was someone’s grand home. On the second floor, in the open doorway of an elegantly spare office—gleaming wood floor, sunlight pouring through wide street-side windows—stood a tall and grinning Asian man.

“Bill Smith!” he said. “Way cool! Come on in.” He shook Bill’s hand, then turned to me. “Hi. I’m Jack Lee.” His words held no trace of any Asian accent, but not a New York one, either.

“Lydia Chin.”

“Bill’s partner, I know.” Jack Lee’s hand was big, his grip solid. “Come on, sit down, you guys.”

Jack Lee was around my age, nearly as tall as Bill, and in weight somewhere between us, which made him a string bean. Loose-limbed and lanky, he wore a beautiful multicolored silk tie and ironed black jeans, but no jacket. His white shirtsleeves were neatly rolled back, revealing muscled forearms. Closing the door, he pointed us to wood chairs set around a low table piled with art books. Most of what was in the waist-high bookcase behind the desk were art books, too, though some had the staid leather bindings and stamped lettering of law manuals.

Bill and I sat, and Jack Lee started to do the same, but stopped halfway. “Uh-oh. F for hospitality! I don’t have coffee or anything for you guys. Drank it up, haven’t replenished. You want something? There’s a good place a block up.” He rattled off words like a drum solo.

“Not me, I’m fine,” I said. The minimalist chair was surprisingly comfortable.

“Me, too,” said Bill. “I just had a really good cup of coffee.”

“Cool. I’m second-generation ABC from Madison, Wisconsin,” Jack Lee said to me as he sprawled onto a chair. ABC, that’s American-born Chinese. I’m first generation, myself. “I may look Chinese, but think of me as an All-American midwestern college-town boy. That way you won’t be too disappointed.”

I had to smile. “I’m already not disappointed.”

“But she wasn’t expecting anything,” Bill put in.

“Baseline zero, try not to make it worse, Jack, I get it. So, what can I do for you?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “What do you do?”

Jack Lee raised his eyebrows at Bill. “You didn’t tell her?”

“I never tell her anything. Keeps the relationship fresh.”

“‘Fresh’ isn’t the word I’d have used,” I said.

“Got you. Well, the big secret he wants me to spill is, I’m a private eye.”

“Oh.” I blinked. “No kidding?”

“Yeah, how about that? And Bill’s been promising to bring you up here for months now. You know, so we can share mysterious Chinese trade secrets. I was starting to think you didn’t exist. That he’d invented a kick-ass Chinese partner to string me along, keep the top-shelf bourbon flowing.”

“Kick-ass?”

“He was lying?”

“Not about that, no,” I said.

“I was just waiting for the moment of maximum impact,” Bill said. “I thought it would be most efficient for you to share those mysterious secrets while you worked on a case.”

“Hey,” said Jack, “you mean this isn’t just a social call? You come bearing work?”

“We might.” Bill turned to me. “Jack, as he says, may look Chinese, but that’s actually beside the point. He’s an art expert.”

“‘Expert’ is too strong a word,” Jack corrected, with Chinese modesty but an American grin. “But it’s my field. Art history, Asian art concentration.” I’d already taken note of the framed University of Chicago Ph.D. on the bookcase—which included the words “summa cum laude”—so that wasn’t news. “Life plan was to be a big-deal dealer. Came to New York to go the gallery route. But I couldn’t take it.”

“It involves sitting still,” Bill said, in explanation.

“Sad but true. So now instead of selling art, I corral it. Chase down the lost, stolen, or strayed. Bodyguard a vase on its way someplace. Check a bronze’s provenance. Make sure the dish that comes back from the restorer is the same one that was sent to be restored. Much more fun, and it keeps me out of trouble. And out of galleries. Still, galleries have their uses. That’s where I met your partner. At a Soho opening, last fall.”

I said to Bill, “You hate openings.”

“The gallery owner was a friend of mine. He’s helped me out over the years. I had to go.”

“And he’s a client of mine,” Jack said. “So, so did I.”

I looked from one to the other. “And you guys bonded over white wine, Chex Mix, and art?”

“For that show,” Jack said, “‘art’ is too strong a word. Installations made from rusty tools and broken dolls. Pretentious, ugly, and lethal.”

“See,” said Bill, “there’s that Chinese problem you have, where you won’t speak your mind. Same as Lydia.”

I knew he was expecting me to roll my eyes, so I just sat politely, listening to Jack.

“Pretty much everyone seemed to be impressed, though,” Jack said. “A lot of nodding and murmuring. ‘The juxtaposition is thrillingly unnerving.’ ‘He brings out the feminine side of steel.’ I was checking my watch to see if I could leave yet when I spotted a guy having as hard a time as I was keeping a straight face.”