by S. J. Rozan
Jack drank more beer. “We do what we have to. Some suffer with blondes in dim bars, some use politically incorrect accents. I checked whitepages.com on my way here, found his first name. Haven’t gotten any further than that yet.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “That’s what cousins are for.” I took out my phone and hit the speed-dial number.
“Wong Security.”
“Linus, hi. Thanks for that stuff before. It seems to have worked.”
“Awesome! Bill got the girl?”
“He got the info, which is what we were after. Listen, I know it’s late—you up for another job?”
“He needs to be somebody else now?”
“No, this would be totally different, and easier.”
“We’re thinking of going to a club at, like, nine, can I do it before that?”
“I think you can do it in five minutes. A guy named Dennis Jerrold, lives on Second Avenue.” I relayed the address Jack gave me. “Who he is, what he does—I want to know whatever you can find by whenever you have to leave.”
“Easy peasy, call you later.”
“Wait! I just thought of something. Have to put you on hold.”
“’K.”
I did, checked my outgoing call record, and thumbed him back in. “Can you trace a phone number?”
“Is that a trick question?”
I gave him Samuel Wing’s cell.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s what I want to know.”
As I clicked off, Jack’s soup arrived. “Umm.” He sniffed. “Smells as good as my mother’s.”
“Your mother’s from Fujian?”
“My mother’s from Chicago. She takes a lot of cooking classes. Makes a hell of a pile of potato latkes, too. Now, your turn.”
Bill reached for his phone so I could show Jack the Chaus. Before he got it out of his pocket, though, my own phone rang. An unfamiliar number, so I answered in both languages.
“Hello, this is R. T. Singh calling.” The voice spoke English with the lilt of India. “You have said you lost an object in my taxi this afternoon?”
Samuel Wing’s cabbie! I’d just about forgotten. “Yes, Mr. Singh, thank you for calling. Yes, I think I might have lost something. Though it wasn’t an object.”
“I don’t understand, I am sorry.”
“It was my husband.”
Cautiously, he said, “Please?” while the men at my table exchanged surprised looks.
“Mr. Singh, you picked up a Chinese man at four on Hudson Street. He’s thin, with gray hair. He was wearing a gray suit? That’s my husband. I’m afraid—” I let my voice catch, then went on. “I’m afraid he was going to see … He was on his way … Mr. Singh, I think he has a mistress!”
“Oh. Oh, my. I—” said R. T. Singh. Bill and Jack were grinning, so I turned to the wall. Unfortunately, it was a mirror. They were inescapable.
“All I want, Mr. Singh, is to know where he was going. I’ll pay you for that. It’s just, not knowing, do you understand? It’s driving me crazy!” As were Jack’s and Bill’s merry stares.
“Now I see,” R. T. Singh said slowly. “Because when I received the e-mail, I said to myself, you did not have a woman passenger this afternoon at the time the alert is telling you, I think so. But Mrs. Chin—”
“Please, call me Lydia.”
“Mrs. Chin, I do not like to be indiscreet.”
“Of course not. And I wouldn’t ask you. But I have to know! Maybe I’m wrong. That’s what I’m hoping, you see. That I have it all wrong and we can laugh about it later. But I look at the children—our youngest looks just like him—and I start to cry. Please? I’ll send you a reward, I really will. I just have to know! Where did he go?”
After a short pause, he said, “Please. No reward. I prefer not to become involved in affairs such as these. I will tell you where I took the gentleman and after that I will delete your telephone number. If mine has appeared in your telephone record I ask that you delete it, also.”
“I promise! Can you check now?”
“There is nothing I need check. I remember because I was saying a prayer, that he does not want to turn about and go downtown. To get stuck in the Holland Tunnel traffic, you see, that was my worry. Luck was by my side, however. The address the gentleman requested allowed us to take the West Side Highway not south, but north. The Lincoln Tunnel can of course be a problem at that hour, also, but the tie-up was not bad, and we reached his destination soon after passing through that jam.”
To a woodpecker, the world’s a tree. To a cabbie, it’s all about the traffic. “Yes,” I said, with impressive self-control. “His destination, which was where?”
“Right at the next exit beyond the tunnel. Twelfth Avenue, at the foot of Forty-second Street. I left him on the south side, as that was where I turned. But he crossed to the north side while I drove away.”
I was temporarily speechless. “Did he go into the building there? On the northeast corner?”
“I believe he did. I am sorry, Mrs. Chin, if this is what you feared.”
“I—no, Mr. Singh, I’m better off knowing. Are you sure I can’t send you something to show my gratitude?”
“No, as I say, I don’t want to become involved, I think so. I hope for you everything works out well.”
“Thank you,” I said automatically. “I hope the same for you.”
I clicked off and stared at the guys. They exchanged glances. “What’s up?” Bill said. “You look a little stunned. What was that about?”
“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “Remember I told you someone came to my office and threatened me?”
“Circuitously, yes. I wasn’t sure you were serious. You didn’t sound worried.”
“I didn’t think he was serious, so I wasn’t.”
“Are you now?”
“I honestly don’t know. The guy—he said his name was Samuel Wing—told me he represented some people who wanted me to stop looking for the Chaus. He wouldn’t say who or why they cared but he was ready to hand me ten thousand in cash and when I turned him down he sweetened the offer. When I threw him out he suggested I reconsider or else, but there was no or else.”
“That was when he didn’t mention your mother? Now I get it.”
“Yes.” I pointed at my phone. “That was his cab driver. I left him a message before. He dropped Wing, or whoever he is, on Twelfth and Forty-second and saw him go into the building on the northeast corner.”
“Oh,” said Bill. “Damn.”
“What?” Jack demanded.
I asked, “You’ve never been to the mother ship, have you?”
“Hong Kong,” Jack said. “Not the mainland. Why?”
“You don’t need a visa for Hong Kong. I haven’t been to the mainland, either. But I’ve had relatives go back and forth over the years. Sometimes they need someone to pick up visas, papers, something, at the Chinese Consulate here.”
“At the— Is that it? Where Wing went?”
“Forty-second and Twelfth. Northeast corner. There’s nothing else there.”
Silence covered our table in the clinking and slurping around us. “You called it,” Jack said. “You said, from the mainland, but here a long time.”
“You knew about this guy?” Bill asked Jack.
“You’d have known, too, if the bar you were in hadn’t been quite so hushed,” I retorted. “Listen, you guys. The Chinese government?”
“Or, one diplomat, freelancing,” Bill said.
“To what end?”
“The same end as our other interested parties? He sees a chance to hit it big?”
“Well, but hold it,” Jack said. “Maybe we’re jumping to the wrong conclusion. Why can’t it be just one guy, a civilian, doing two errands in one afternoon? Trying to buy you off: bad. And picking up papers from the Consulate: innocent. Unrelated.”
I shook my head. “Nice try, but too late in the day. They close to the public at three. I’ve been on lines there often enough. If
he got in the building this late, he works there. But come on. The Chinese government?”
Bill shook his head. “If he’s really a diplomat he’s got to be freelancing. If the Chinese government wanted you to knock something off they’d go to our government. The State Department or the CIA.”
“Maybe they tried, but the State Department doesn’t want to do the PRC’s dirty work.”
“I have to think they’d rather do that than let the PRC do its own, going up in the face of an American citizen.”
“Or maybe this is about something the PRC doesn’t want to share with the State Department,” Jack said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Chau was a political pain when he was alive. Maybe he’d be a pain again if he were alive again.”
“But then, wouldn’t Wing be trying to buy my information, not scare me off? Wouldn’t he want to find out where the paintings are and whether he has a problem?”
Bill said, “Not if he knows already.”
“Oh.” I stopped a spoonful of salty broth on its way to my mouth. “Oh.” I was considering the ramifications of that when my phone rang again. In some restaurants this much cell phone usage might fetch dirty looks, or even get us ejected. But this was a Chinatown noodle dive. Half the customers, the waiter, and Tau at the front, were working their own hustles on their own cell phones. “Linus,” I answered it. “You have something?”
“I’m still working. But I found some stuff you want right away.”
“I do? Tell me.”
“I don’t know what you’re into, but you might want to, like, tiptoe. First, that phone number. I hit a wall. But not a regular wall. My phone company dude said, ‘Dude, you can’t have that and you don’t want it.’”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, see, most of what my phone company dudes do for me, it’s technically, you know, illegal?”
“Technically?”
“Yeah, but, see, there’s like a line. Stuff they’ll do, and the other stuff. Like, this number, giving me anything about it, it’s not just illegal. It’s, like, deeply illegal. You dig?”
His earnestness as he tried to explain the nuances was almost funny. “Okay, I get it, and back off it. I don’t want you doing anything deeply illegal because of me. But what does it mean?”
“It means it’s, like, a government phone.”
“It’s like a government phone? Or it is a government phone?”
“No, not it is, necessarily. But it’s, like, a phone the Feds care about. Guys like me can’t trace it and neither, by the way, can the NYPD, unless the Feds say they can. Not the owner or the call history. By ‘can’t,’” he added quickly, “I mean my phone company dude won’t help. But I know some other dudes. Serious guys.” Reestablishing his bona fides. “You want me to find someone, or what?”
“Don’t sound so eager. I don’t think we need to. Just tell me, is this the kind of protection a foreign diplomat’s phone would have?”
That made him pause. “’Zactly. What, you’re like, Dancing with Spies?”
“It would be a spy?”
“Not necessarily. Actually, probably not a spy, they’d have their own tech. This, it’s just to be polite. Something our guys do for VIPs when someone asks them to, so when they make a date to go to, like, Stringfellows, it doesn’t end up on Page Six. But what I mean, they don’t just do it for anybody. If this dude that has this phone is from somewhere else, he’s probably pretty high up in whoever’s government we’re talking about. What’s going on?”
“I’m not telling you so you don’t have to deny anything.”
“Hey! Uncool! I—”
“Did you say you had something else?”
“Oh, man, I should hold out on you until you talk. Uh-oh, Trella’s giving me a look. Never mind, here’s the rest: the government. They’re, like, everywhere. Your Dennis Jerrold dude? That’s where he works. But not some foreign government. Our government. He’s with the State Department.”
12
Linus filled me in, I told him to keep digging, hung up, and turned to the guys. “Hoo boy.”
“What’s up?” Bill echoed himself from my last phone call.
“I wish I knew.” I told them what Linus had said about Samuel Wing’s phone, and then about Dennis Jerrold. “Chances are this won’t surprise you, but Linus says Jerrold’s on the China desk. Cultural affairs. Mid-level. Not a newbie, but not senior.”
Jack gave his drawn-out, “Re-eally?” Then he said, “But the PRC guy, Wing, he is senior. According to Linus.”
“To have that phone protection. Seems that way.”
Jack looked at Bill. “You said if the PRC government wanted to stop Lydia, they’d have gone to the State Department. Well, here’s the State Department.”
“But not trying to stop me,” I objected. “Dunbar, or Jerrold or whoever he is, is the one who got all this started in the first place.”
Bill said, “Unless he’s freelancing, too.”
“You think there’s that much of that going around?”
“It makes sense. Otherwise why meet you in a tea shop and use a phony name? If the State Department wants to find the Chaus, they have all kinds of resources. Why go to a PI? But if Dunbar heard about the Chaus in the course of his work and is trying to get over without his bosses finding out, that makes the stakes pretty high if he gets caught. Even if he’s not committing a crime, it would be the end of his diplomatic career.” Bill turned to Jack. “I wonder if your client’s working for someone’s government, too.”
Quick swallow of soup. “You must have missed it. I don’t have a client.”
“What?”
“I got canned.”
“I thought you specifically didn’t get canned.”
“Until Dr. Yang thought about it. He called about five-thirty and told me I specifically was canned.”
“Why?”
“He changed his mind.”
“About?”
“Me. No, I don’t believe it and no, I don’t know what’s going on.” Jack scooped up the last of his eight-treasure tofu.
“So why are you here?”
“Instead of back in my office, washing my hands of all this? You think, just for the chance of finding something to do that might turn out to be both safe and profitable—not to mention actually doable—I’d miss noodles this good?”
“You didn’t know how good they were when you came down here,” I pointed out.
“Hey, do I have to remind you which of us got shot at?” Jack crumpled his napkin into his empty bowl. “I have a stake in this and getting pink-slipped just fanned my flame.”
“I knew I liked you.” I signaled Tau for the check.
Jack grinned. “Almost worth getting shot at, to hear that.”
“Really?”
“No. Well, maybe once.”
Our grumpy waiter dropped a greasy scrap of paper onto the table. Bill picked it up and stood. He took out his phone and handed it to Jack. “Shayna’s photo of the Chaus is on there somewhere.”
“Say what? You’ve been sitting here with photos this whole time and you didn’t tell me?”
“Only one. And it’s not very good. Anyway, there you go. Lydia found it.”
“Is that a dare? How fast?”
“Took her close to two minutes.”
“Piece of cake.”
Bill grinned and headed for the counter to pay up. I grabbed the phone from Jack. “For Pete’s sake, save the chest-thumping for something important.”
“It’s all important,” Jack said. “That’s how guys roll.”
“Don’t I know it. Okay, here. In fact, this show was what we were going to ask you about.” I found Shayna’s photo and turned the phone to face Jack. “It was Chinese-American artists, in Queens. The Chaus are on the right there—what’s the matter?”
Jack’s smile had faded. Silent, he stared at the image on the screen. “These are the Chaus?”
“Don’t they look li
ke Chaus?”
“They sure do.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “And I think they answer another question, too.”
“What question?” said Bill, coming back from the counter.
“Why I was fired. These papercuttings in the studio with the Chaus?” He looked up. “They’re Anna Yang’s.”
* * *
Night had fallen while we ate, and so had the roll-down gates on Chinatown’s shops. The tourists had either gone happily back uptown with their fake Pradas and Rolexes, or were working their way through dinner at Red Egg or the Peking Duck House. The locals were home supervising homework. On the way to Bill’s car we were able to walk side by side by side.
I said to Jack, “So I guess you became superfluous because your client found the Chaus himself. In his daughter’s studio.”
“Looks that way.”
“If those are the ones the fuss is about. They might just be copies of early ones she keeps around for inspiration.”
“No. I know Chau’s work. Maybe not every piece, but enough that if these were a set of repros there’d be something I’d recognize. And remember, they got Doug Haig’s Calvins all in a knot, too, and he knows Chau better than I do. At the very least, and even if they are copies, they’re copies of unknown works.”
“But possibly old ones? That would make sense, for her to have unknown old ones. If her dad brought them from China with him.”
“And she what, stole them out of the attic without telling him?” Bill asked. “To stick on her studio wall in a shared warehouse?”
“Well, when you put it that way … Though maybe she doesn’t know? Maybe she just took some old paintings that she’d always liked one day when she was visiting her mom? Dad wasn’t there, she didn’t think to tell him? Weren’t you just saying this generation might not know about Chau?”
“Anna would,” Jack said. “Bernard Yang’s daughter? Trust me, she’d know.”
“All right, then maybe she knows, but she took them anyway. For inspiration.”
“I have to agree with Bill,” Jack said. “Without telling Dr. Yang? They’re worth a fortune, old or new, if they’re real. You don’t just walk off with that and pin it to your studio wall.”
“Maybe she told him and he said it was cool.”
