Ghost Hero (20 page)

“Ma, you don’t even know him! He speaks and reads Chinese. And his field is Chinese art.” I didn’t tell her that in most other ways Jack was the guy who put the “A” in “ABC.”

“I thought his field was detecting.”

“In the art world. He finds stolen paintings, things like that.”

“So he’s involved with criminals, then.”

“No more than I am.”

“There, you see?” She plugged in the rice cooker emphatically, with bitter triumph.

I gave up. Whatever we were arguing about, I wasn’t going to win. And why, I suddenly asked myself, did I care whether my mother thought well of Jack Lee, anyway?

I was finishing my tea when the cell phone in my robe pocket chirped out Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs.” That would be Linus.

“Cuz!” he said. “Too early?”

“Not at all. Have a good time last night?”

“Dudess, it was sick! Dum Dum Girls at the Mercury Lounge! They tore it up! We didn’t get back until, like, five a.m.”

“And you’re up working? I’m impressed.”

“No way. We just didn’t crash yet. A little wired, you know? So I thought I’d check out your dude first, to kinda bring me down.”

“So does he? Bring you down?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, the dude himself, I don’t know anything about him. You didn’t get, like, cell phone pix or something?” His voice was hopeful.

“Linus, we were—” I almost said,
pointing guns at each other,
but I remembered where I was. “It was dark.”

“Oh. Well.” He sounded like he wasn’t sure why that mattered, and to a tech geek I guess it wouldn’t. But he moved on. “Okay, so, I found the car. This dude I know, he has a dude he rolls with—sorry, TMI. A Navigator—last year’s, like you said. Plate number you gave me plus six-eight at the end? It’s registered to Tiger Holdings, LLC. Addresses in Beijing, Hong Kong, Manhattan, and Basking Ridge, New Jersey.”

“Who are they, Tiger Holdings? What do they do?”

“Well, I don’t know who they are, but a couple of their honchos, you can see photos on their Web site.” He gave me the URL. “Maybe your guy’s there.”

“Okay, I’ll check it out. Anything else?”

“Well, sort of. I mean, I could be wrong.”

“But?”

“Well, you remember that Web site I built for Vassily Imports? So Bill could be a shady Russian?”

“Sure.”

“It kind of … smells the same.”

“What do you mean? You think the Tiger Holdings Web site’s a fake?”

“Not really. There’s got to be a real Tiger Holdings, because they own at least one car, right? But you said, make Bill’s look dubious, so I did. This one, it’s like they’re hiding the same things. Who the boss really is, all that. I mean, I was fake hiding, but I think they’re real hiding. Cuz, I think they’re gangsters.”

*   *   *

I didn’t finish the tea in my mother’s pot because I was headed out soon to Maria’s to meet Mighty Casey the Gangster. This disappointed my mother, but there’s not much I do that doesn’t. I had about twenty minutes before I needed to leave, so I sat down at my computer and brought up the Tiger Holdings Web site.

Linus’s conclusion didn’t surprise me. We’d figured Casey for a gangster last night. That whole kidnap thing, it was kind of a clue. Interesting to have it confirmed through the smell of a Web site, though. And Linus’s worried tone made me glad I hadn’t gotten to tell him the part about the guns.

I clicked through the bios of Tiger Holdings’s officers, each page topped by a photo of a confident Asian man in a costly suit. A prosperous crowd, though I could see what Linus meant: They made it easy to get in touch with them to discuss investment and partnership opportunities, but exactly what they did was hard to tell.

I did find Casey, though. His broad face and thick shoulders were labeled as belonging to one Woo Long. Title: Corporate Liaison. If last night was illustrative of his liaising technique, I’d be surprised to find Tiger Holdings actually doing all that well.

Figuring Linus had already followed Tiger Holdings as far as he could, I Googled Woo Long, but found nothing. Linus had been heading for bed, an unorthodox sleep schedule being his MO and one of the perks of running your own e-business. This wasn’t worth waking him for, but I sent him a note so when he resurfaced he’d know which of these guys I was interested in. Just because Google came up empty didn’t mean Linus would.

I got dressed, clipping on my small-of-the-back holster with the .25 that had come in so handy last night. I surveyed my closet for a drapey jacket loose enough to hide them. I have a bunch of those, mostly made by my mother. She sews them out of fabric I buy and to specs I describe while I wave my hands around. When I was young she taught me embroidery, knitting, and other handwork, but she never let me touch the sewing machine. Her theory was if I couldn’t sew I wouldn’t end up in the factory. Now that she’s retired, dressing my brothers’ wives and me is her chief joy. Though making things for my sisters-in-law seems to be the more gratifying: When she’s sewing my clothes she never stops grumbling about girls not finding husbands if they walk around wearing trousers and tents.

If she has any idea why I really like my jackets baggy, she’s never said.

I chose one of my favorites, a black cotton twill that swings at the hem. It looks particularly good with black pants and a white shirt, and I added a red scarf because black-white-and-red is a power-color combination and I was, after all, meeting a gangster. The fact that Jack Lee would be sitting at a back table watching me barely crossed my mind.

“So long, Ma,” I called, hopping around one-legged in the foyer, putting on my shoes.

“You are going to work?” She appeared from the kitchen, cleaver in hand.

“Yes.”

“With the white baboon? Or the hollow bamboo?”

“Both. Aren’t I lucky?”

She frowned. “Ling Wan-ju. You think you have been lucky, on your road in life. But take care. What looks like the path to good fortune can often be the opposite. And to bad luck, the same.” With that she turned and walked back to the kitchen. Wow, I thought. All that was missing were crickets and ants.

*   *   *

In the bright spring sunlight I cut a path—to what kind of fortune, I didn’t know. Pushing through the crowds of morning shoppers and early-bird tourists, I called Jack to ask if he’d heard from Anna Yang.

“Nope. I called her this morning again, just got voice mail. After I get through bodyguarding you here I’ll try again.”

“Here? You’re at Maria’s already?”

“The egg custard tarts come out of the oven at eight-thirty. Didn’t you know that?”

I was early, too, and as I planned, I hit Maria’s before Mighty Woo Long Casey. Inside the bakery things were only slightly less chaotic than on the street. I found Jack spread out over a cup of coffee, an egg custard tart, and
The Times.
His leather jacket hung over the back of his chair and he seemed completely absorbed in the news and caffeine, oblivious to the din around him, which included me ordering milk tea and a red bean bun.

I paid and stood with my tray, waiting for a table to clear. Jack, of course, could have gotten up and given me his, but then he wouldn’t have been able to watch over the meeting. If I couldn’t find one, though, Casey and I would have to take this meeting out to the street, in which case, what good was Jack having one? Quite a conundrum. I wondered if Jeff Dunbar, in the delicate diplomacy of the State Department, had ever faced one like it. Maybe after I’d filled him in on Tiger Holdings’s concerns about him, and passed on their advice, I could ask him.

Luckily, as I stood there, a young couple got up from a table by the window. I sped over, plunking my tray down ahead of the countergirl who was coming to pile their dishes up and push their crumbs onto the floor with a cloth. I thanked her. She nodded and turned to leave, nearly bumping into Casey as she did.

“Ms. Chin,” he grinned. “So nice, see you again.”

“Not all that nice.” I tried to play it tough, but it was hard to keep from smiling at the white bandage on his forehead. Nice work, Jack. “I trust you feel all right.”

“Feel great, thank you.” He pulled out a chair and deposited himself in it. Not far from Jack, a squarish young guy looked up from a Chinese-language newspaper and looked down again quickly. So we were both cheating: Casey had a second here, too. Not suprising. I hoped Jack had noticed. I thought he might have, because, still reading his paper, he shifted in his seat to where both our table and the square guy’s were within his sight.

Casey stuck a straw in his plastic cup of bubble tea. I don’t like that stuff anyway, and certainly not for breakfast. And the one he had was purple.

“What do you want?” I said.

“No,” he contradicted me after a slurp. “Question is, what do your client want?”

“That’s private business.”

“Some private business, he telling everybody.”

“Who?” I said, confused. “He’s telling who?”

“Everybody. Go around saying, I looking new Chaus, you know where to find?”

“Not as far as I know, he’s not. That’s supposed to be my job. Do you, by the way? Know where to find them?”

Casey laughed cheerily, as though I’d made a good joke. “Of course. Boss know. But not telling you.” He wagged a finger in front of my face. “Not telling your client, too. You tell him, go away.”

“No.”

The smile dropped from his face. His voice hardened to ice. “Yes.”

What, we’re not friends anymore? Then enough of this. “Mr. Woo—oh, you’re surprised? Don’t be. I know all about you, you and Tiger Holdings.” “All” was exaggerating, but I let it stand. “Mr. Woo, if you want something, you have to give something. That’s how it works. Who is Tiger Holdings, how do you know who my client is, and why do you and your boss care if I find the Chaus for him?” Because they could be worth a ton, I suggested to myself; but I wanted to hear what he had to say.

He stared at me. “Think you pretty damn smart, Lydia Chin?”

“Why, is Tiger Holdings a big secret? Then you shouldn’t have a Web site. Who are you people?”

Eyes still on mine, he took another slurp of his purple bubble tea. Some tough guy, I thought. Except I was glad there were three dozen other people crowded into the shop here. And that one of them was Jack.

“We same people as your client,” Woo finally said.

“Interesting. Last night you said you weren’t.”

His brows knit. “Said I weren’t, what?”

“With the government. When I asked who you worked for. So, what, did Samuel Wing send you because I didn’t fold fast enough?”

“Samuel Wing? Who is he?”

“Yeah, I don’t know his real name either. The skinny guy in the gray suit. Came to see me yesterday afternoon, to tell me to back off. He sent you because I threw him out? You’re the stick?”

“Pah. Stick, what is stick? You don’t make sense. Don’t know Samuel Wing. Boss sends me.” He blotted his thick lips on a napkin. “Last night, you don’t ask
who
I work for. You ask me, do I work for government. Government, big joke. I work for Tiger Holdings. Tiger Holdings just like…” He paused, searching for the right words. “Just like business interest your client work for.” He gave a humorless smile. “Tiger Holdings want that business interest to go away. Save everybody trouble.”

A light was beginning to dawn for me, but one dawned for him, too, and faster.

“Samuel Wing.” He frowned and held up a thick finger to stop me from saying anything. “You telling this guy come, say you stop looking for Chaus, you telling he work for government? American government?”

“Chinese government. I don’t know his real name or what his job is, but he’s at the Consulate. And you’re telling me you’re not?”

“Of course not.” He dismissed that with a wave of his purple tea. “Chinese government come bother you? Chinese government care about Chaus? Why?”

“I have no idea. You’re a gangster, right?”

His eyes widened. “Lydia Chin—”

“No, don’t bother. Tiger Holdings is a criminal organization, one way or another, and that’s what you mean by, you’re in the same business as my client. And Tiger Holdings is working for itself on this, not for the Chinese government.”

He rested his gaze on me, slurped, and smiled. “Yes. Tiger Holdings don’t want no trouble with Vassily Imports.”

No, who would?

“So you want me to tell Vladimir to back off.”

Because Vladimir Oblomov was a Russian mobster and Lydia Chin, as far as Tiger Holdings was concerned, was the art consultant helping him look for the Chaus. And State Department middle-manager Jeff Dunbar, aka Dennis Jerrold, and Lydia Chin, his PI, were nowhere to be seen.

“And you called me instead of Vladimir,” I said, “because mine was the number you had. He hasn’t been giving his out.” Except to Shayna. But Nick Greenbank and Doug Haig only had mine. Either of those fellows, it seemed to me, would hand it over without a squeak if a guy like Casey rose up on their horizon; but how would he know to rise? “Who told you Vassily Imports is interested in the Chaus?”

“Little birdie.” Woo seemed to relax a bit, now that I was catching on. He leaned back in his chair. “We understand, Vassily Imports want paintings. Chaus very valuable. We regret, Tiger Holdings got to protect investment. Sorry for inconvenience. Maybe Tiger Holdings can make up to Vassily Imports, some other time.”

“Oh? I’m sure Vladimir will be pleased to hear that. It might make your … suggestion … more palatable. Mr. Woo, what investment?”

“Not making suggestion. Giving advice.”

“And I’m asking a question. What investment?”

He shook his head. “Like you say, private business.”

I ignored that. “Your investment in the paintings? I don’t think so. You said you knew where they were but I don’t believe you. If you had them you wouldn’t care what Vladimir’s doing. You might even try to sell them to him. Or is your investment in the artist? Mr. Woo, is Chau alive? Do you know where he is?”

“Too many question.” Woo pushed away from the table and stood, throwing a shadow over my red bean bun. “Ms. Chin, you tell Oblomov, forget about Chaus. He do that, next time he need friends, Tiger Holdings don’t forget about him. He don’t do that…” Woo stared down at me. “He don’t do that, no one be happy.” He nodded, then turned, working his way between tables to the door, not looking back. I sat watching him, sipping my tea. The young square guy with the Chinese newspaper stood when Woo did and followed him out, leaving the paper and mooncake crumbs all over the tabletop. Outside the door he turned right, as Woo had. Jack got up, too. He shrugged into his jacket and left Maria’s as well; though, being a responsible citizen, he bused his tray and took his newspaper with him.