Ghost Hero (24 page)

Bill gave me raised eyebrows as I clicked off. “Is his Chinese up to that? As I recall, it’s kind of primitive itself.”

“That’s okay,” said Jack. “No one who matters who’ll see this site can read Chinese, either.”

The action switched back to Jack’s phone. First, he called Chicago.

He’d objected when I’d first brought up Clarence Snyder. “That other expert,” I’d said. “The one you studied with. Are you on good enough terms to call him?”

“Not to ask him to lie, no.”

“Nothing like that. He’s just insurance.” I explained what I had in mind. Jack was skeptical, but my logic was irrefutably sound. He made the call, skirting the details but letting Dr. Snyder know he was working for the Yangs (which was sort of true) and that Doug Haig was trying to get over on them. In the end, since Jack promised to reveal all once the case was over and since Dr. Snyder wasn’t being asked to do anything except tell the literal truth, he agreed. “More than just agreed,” Jack said, hanging up. “He was impressively enthusiastic.”

“Well, you said he was a friend of Dr. Yang’s.”

“And also, he knows Doug Haig.”

The next event on Jack’s phone happened almost immediately. Pete Tsang called. Jack didn’t put him on speaker but the gist of the discussion wasn’t hard to follow.

“I know,” Jack said. “Well, you could do that. Or you could let Haig hang them out to dry.… Yes, we do.… Anna’s on board. She told you?… No, because she doesn’t know the details.… Pete. If you see Jon-Jon Jie, or Doug Haig … I said
if
 … No, that would screw everything up. Just be your normal warm and fuzzy self.… Pete? Please?… Later on today.… Okay, great. Thanks.”

“Reluctant?” I asked when Jack clicked off.

“Oh, he’s fine. I just had to talk him out of blowing Jon-Jon Jie’s brains out and stuffing what’s left down Doug Haig’s throat.”

“Creative solution.”

“He’s an artist.”

So our first three good guys were relatively easy pickings.

The fourth, we weren’t even sure was a good guy.

“If he is, it’ll be a lot simpler,” I said. “He lied and we don’t know what he’s up to, but if he’s on our side the whole thing will be easier.”

The guys agreed, so I called my client.

He answered on the second ring. “Ms. Chin! News?”

“A whole lot of it. Mr. Jerrold.”

Into the silence while he was thinking up how to respond, I said, “Don’t bother. But we have to talk. I’d like you to meet me at my office.”

A pause, then just, “When?”

“An hour from now.”

What could he say?

We were about to pack up and leave our little paradise when an unexpected good guy called us. Jack’s phone rang, and he answered it with, “Hi, Eddie. What’s up?… Say again?… Seriously?… Holy cow. Eddie, can I put you on speaker? I’m here with Lydia and her other partner.”

That brought a snort from Bill. I swatted him. Jack pressed the button and lowered the phone, holding it so we could all hear. “Guys, this is Eddie To. Eddie, if you hear a voice you don’t know, it’s Bill Smith. Eddie, go ahead and tell Lydia and Bill what you just told me.”

“Hi, Lydia, and good to meet you, Bill,” Eddie To said politely. I pictured him in his gallery surrounded by giant springs and speeding red boxes. “I called Jack because I’m being a source. A gent from the Chinese Consulate was just up here. Wei-mai Jin. Jin Wei-mai it would be in the patois of Mother China, which I don’t speak. He’s the Cultural Attaché.”

“Eddie, it’s Lydia,” I interrupted. “About five-nine, skinny, receding gray hair?”

“No. Smaller, chubby, bald.”

I glanced at the guys. “Okay, go on.”

“He’s been here before, has Mr. Jin, in his position as culture vulture. I’ve also seen him at receptions and such, once or twice in the company of a fellow like you’re describing, if that helps.”

“That other fellow, do you know his name?”

“No. Frank’s fluent in four dialects of the mother tongue, plus Japanese, so he gets the eastern hemisphere VIPs. I get the French and all those stodgy Germans, plus the occasional Argentine, olé. But Frank’s not here today, so Mr. Jin was all mine. I thought it would interest Jack and Co. to know he was after Chau Chun.”

“Chau himself? He said that?”

“No, I’m sorry, the paintings. The rumored ones you and Jack were up here asking about yesterday.”

“Eddie, this is Bill. What did he say, exactly?”

“Hi, Bill. Exactly, he said he’d heard someone was trying to pass off forged Chaus as real and was that a circumstance we here at Red Sky were familiar with?”

“It sounds almost like an accusation,” I said.

“From the PRC Cultural Attaché, it’s always an accusation. Understand, the role of Cultural Attaché is rarely played by anyone cultured. Mr. Jin’s the third in that job since Frank and I opened this gallery. It’s a reward position they give to party-liners who can be trusted out of the country and might enjoy a little capitalist R & R. Just like
Ninotchka
. There are other people at the Consulate whose job is to actually know things, but knowledge can be dangerous, so they have the Cultural Attaché to keep an eye on those people and to look after the government’s and the Party’s interests. At least that’s what Frank always says, while I’m filling him full of martinis after an afternoon at the Consulate trying to get visas for our artists.”

“So this Mr. Jin, he thought you had the Chaus?”

“I doubt it. It’s a reflex with him, to make threats.”

“Did he make a specific threat?”

“Why waste the opportunity? He told me regretfully that ‘a lot of Chinese artists might have to be protected from the corruption of the Western art markets’—which means they’d have trouble getting visas—‘if forged paintings falsely attributed to a discredited bourgeois counterrevolutionary were exhibited in New York in a blatant attempt by calculating capitalists to embarrass the People’s Republic.’ Which, by the way, is a direct quote. I liked it so much I wrote it down as soon as he left, so Frank could hear it.”

“It sounds to me like he does think you know something about the paintings.”

“No, he’s probably going to all the galleries where they might turn up, to see if he can learn anything and to make sure everyone’s disinclined to get involved with them if they do. Except to call him. That, it seems, would put him in our debt. So? How’d I do? Now you know the Chinese Consulate cares, too. Is that important news? Can I be Deep Throat?”

“Eddie, you’re the very epiglottis,” Jack said. He didn’t mention we already knew the Chinese Consulate, or at least someone up there, was interested in this case. “Thanks. Stand by and keep your ear to the ground. Report in if you hear anything else.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Bond. Over and out.”

The phone went silent and we all three looked at each other. “Well,” said Jack.

“No kidding,” I answered.

“What now?” Bill asked.

I thought. “We have to go see Dr. Yang, but before that, I have to get back to Chinatown to meet with my client. Maybe after
that,
we should consider dropping in at the Chinese Consulate.”

“Right up in their faces?” Jack asked.

“Maybe. First things first.”

We gathered up our garbage and our cell phones and headed for the car. Bill unlocked it, said, “Saddle up!” and we were back on the road.

We’d reached the Manhattan Bridge and were admiring the view when Jack’s phone rang once more. He checked it. “A 718 number I don’t know. Maybe it’s your cousin. Jack Lee,” he told the phone. “Yes, hi, Linus, good to meet you.… I know. You ready?… Well, but it doesn’t have to be good Chinese.… No, not even … Great. Here’s what we need. Go to my Web site…” The conversation got art-technical from there, Jack directing Linus to a few places online, listening to Linus’s questions and suggestions, responding with his own. By the time we’d reached Bill’s parking lot they were done. “He thanks you for your faith in him,” Jack said to me, slipping his phone into his pocket.

“Was he being sarcastic?”

“No, just nineteen.”

18

We’d debated whether the guys should be in on my confab with my client.

“I’ve never even seen the guy,” Bill said.

“I have, but I bet he couldn’t tell me from Daniel Dae Kim,” Jack said.

“A common mistake, no doubt.”

“It’s the broad shoulders and smoldering brow. Still, it could be useful. Him not knowing what we look like.”

“You could hide in the closet,” I suggested.

“Both of us?” Jack said. “I think it would have to be the bathroom.”

“What if her client has to pee?” Bill asked.

So we decided to come clean with Dunbar/Jerrold, in the hopes that he’d come clean with us.

Bill stuck his head in at Golden Adventure as we passed and was rewarded with the usual waves and smiles.

“Guess you don’t need panic button today, Lydia!” Andi Gee called.

“No, I’m good,” I agreed, unlocking my door.

“I don’t get it,” Bill complained as he followed me in. “They all like me. Why doesn’t your mother?”

“You flirt with them.”

“I could flirt with your mother,” he offered. The idea did not merit a reply.

“I’m going to hear about you, too,” I told Jack. “You know our dinner last night was all over the Chinatown telegraph? The aunties think you’re cute.”

Jack gave Bill a smug grin.

Bill, in response, went to my desk drawer and retrieved his ashtray. He’d just lit up when the doorbell buzzed. I buzzed back, and we waited.

Dennis Jerrold, aka Jeff Dunbar, pushed my door open but stopped with his hand on the knob when he saw Jack and Bill.

“Come in, Mr. Jerrold.”

“Who’re they?” He showed no sign of recognizing either of them, which I guessed spoke well of Jack’s lurking-and-tailing talents.

“Colleagues,” I said. “Bill Smith, Jack Lee. Guys, this is Dennis Jerrold, who likes to be called Jeff Dunbar.”

“What are they doing here?” Jerrold/Dunbar ignored the introduction.

“Working the same case.”

“What does that mean?”

“I told you there was another investigator with another client. Bill’s my partner; Jack’s the other investigator.” This time the smug smile went from Bill to Jack.

“Who’s the other client?”

“I didn’t tell you before and I’m not going to tell you now. But I do have other things to tell you. And some to ask you.”

“I don’t want them here.”

“I don’t care. The three of us are working on this together. I’m following through on what I’ve found no matter what you think about it and don’t start with the stuff about your dime. I offered you your money back and you said no. Unless you’ve changed your mind, come in and sit down, Mr. Jerrold.”

So much for the whole Jeff Dunbar thing. Another hesitating moment, and Dennis Jerrold shut the door and sat. Jack was in the other chair; Bill, of course, was standing, though there’s not much to be seen through my pebbled alley window.

“We found the paintings,” I said.

Jerrold halfway stood again. “You have them?”

“No. I said we found them. We know where they are but there are complications.”

“What do you mean, ‘complications’?” He settled back down, recognition in his eyes. “A shakedown, is that it? Now that you have them it’s going to cost me?”

I sat back in my springy chair. “Why is it,” I asked the air, “that everyone involved in this case is so hard to help? So
suspicious
? But come to think of it, maybe this is a shakedown. Yes, sure, call it that. It’s going to cost you, Mr. Jerrold. Just not money. A lot of that going around, too. I’ll tell you what we know if you tell us what you know. And you have to go first. Why did you come to me and why use a false name? Why does the State Department care about a dead Chinese artist?”

He stared. “The State Department?”

“You know, if you start denying everything this could take all morning. State Department, Assistant Deputy Director, East Asia Section, China specialist. And speaking of China: the PRC government, why do they care? The phony Mr. Wing is from the Chinese Consulate and I’m pretty sure you know that, and you were supposed to call and tell me and you never did. The real Mr. Jin, is, too, do you know him? Now either tell me what’s going on or take your money back and get out of here.”

Jerrold’s expression was that of a man trying to choose a path through uninviting but unavoidable terrain. He extemporized. “Is it considered professional in your field to talk that way to people who hire you?”

“Is it in yours, to lie to people you hire?”

“He’s a diplomat,” said Bill. “I think it is.”

“That was unnecessary,” Jack said. “Sorry, Mr. Jerrold. But you can see how it’s frustrating to try to do your job when your client doesn’t even trust you to know his name.”

What was this? They were doing Good Cop/Bad Cop without me?

“Whoever you are, I’m not your client,” Jerrold said.

“And you’re about to not be mine in a minute,” I said. “Unless we get some answers.” When Good Cop and Bad Cop are already taken, there’s always Steamroller. “Besides the guy with the gun I told you about yesterday, there’s the matter of the Chinese gangster.”

“Who also had a gun,” Jack said.

“He suggested I stop looking for the Chaus because he has an investment to protect. What investment, Mr. Jerrold? And the so-called Samuel Wing, who made the same suggestion, though he wouldn’t say why, and the mysterious Mr. Jin, who’d also rather these paintings didn’t see the light of day. Who are all these people and what the hell is going on here?”

The question, besides being phrased in stronger language than I generally use, was admittedly disingenuous. I had, in essence, the information Jerrold had paid me to get: where the paintings were. And the bonus fact, that they were fakes. Nevertheless, we waited, all three of us staring my client down.

Dennis Jerrold drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “How did you find out my name? Where I work?”

“Oh, please, Mr. Jerrold. You’re a diplomat, we’re investigators. Would I be surprised if you negotiated a treaty, or whatever it is you people do? Okay, nuts to the whole thing.” I spun in my chair to reach my safe, which doubled as the sideboard with the tea set I wasn’t serving Dennis Jerrold tea from. Turning my back on a client isn’t something I consider good practice, but it’s great drama and with Bill and Jack there I wasn’t worried. I ran the dial, extracted the envelope holding Jerrold’s thousand dollars and tossed it on my desk. “If this is the level of trust we’ve got going you’ll be happier with some other PI anyway.”