Ghost Hero (6 page)

“Come on, girlchik. Dat’s vun of my besst.”

“Vun uff your most ridiculous, enyvayz. I can’t believe either of them bought it.”

“Haig was hearing the clink of coin. That drowns out a lot. And little Nicky saved his boss’s business. He’s a hero.”

“Thanks a bunch, by the way, for giving both those jerks
my
phone number.”

“That was payback for ‘Oblomov.’ Russian Lit. 101?”

“First time it’s ever come in handy.”

We’d almost made it to the subway when Bill’s phone rang. “Well, it can’t be either of those, um, jerks.” He checked the screen and told me, “Jack.” He answered, listened, stopped walking, and said, “Jesus Christ! Are you okay?”

I stopped, too. “What happened?”

He waved me silent, listened another few moments, then said, “Okay, we’re on the way,” and clicked off.

“On the way where?” I demanded. “What happened?”

“Someone took a shot at Jack.”

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later we were back on Madison. For a few moments we hung back, getting the lay of the land: warning cones, crime scene tape, glass-covered sidewalk. A crowd milled, snapping cell phone pictures of the glittering shards of Jack’s front window. As we watched, the door to the stairs opened and a pair of unmistakable NYPD detectives emerged, sticking notebooks away. Without discussing it, but by mutual consent, Bill and I waited until their car pulled out. That seemed to cue the crowd, too. The sidewalk began to clear and we made our way to the door. A few seconds after we buzzed, Jack appeared above us, sticking his head out the ragged opening where his window used to be. “Oh, look! It’s Job and Calamity Jane! Go away.”

“No,” Bill said.

“Oh. Well, all right.” Jack disappeared and a moment later we were buzzed in.

“Wow,” I said, walking into his office. As opposed to the mess on the sidewalk, this was the same serene and tidy place I’d seen two hours ago, except for the sharp glass daggers sparkling in the otherwise empty window frame, and the long thin groove in the plaster ceiling. “Is repelling debris one of your superpowers?”

“I swept up because you were coming. Wanted to make a good impression.”

“You did that already today.”

“Good, because I don’t think it would work out now. Look, you guys, does this kind of thing happen to you much?”

“Never,” Bill answered.

I shook my head, too.

“Liars.” Jack waved an arm. “The chairs are safe, if you want to sit down.”

Bill settled onto a chair. “Chilly in here.” Jack, his leather jacket on and halfway zipped, glared at him.

I hesitated, but it was the more Chinese move to risk my tender behind to an overlooked glass splinter than to imply I didn’t trust Jack’s housekeeping. “So what happened?” I asked as I sat.

Jack didn’t sit. He spoke while striding the room. “I was at the desk going through auction catalogs online—tracing Chau’s sales history, thanks for asking—when POW! the window exploded. I ducked and covered”—he threw his long arms over his head, to demonstrate—“and waited until it stopped raining glass. When nothing else happened I peeked up to check on the Hasui.” He tapped the Japanese print on the wall as he passed it. “You’re lucky it’s okay. If anything had happened to it I’d have been really pissed.”

“At us?” I protested. “We had nothing to do with it.”

“No? I run a genteel uptown art investigation business for three years with nothing worse than papercuts, then Bill Smith introduces me to his kick-ass Chinese partner and people start shooting at me. Coincidence? I don’t
think
so.” He stopped and stared at Bill. “What are you dressed as?”

“Beeg-time Russian gengster.”

“Are you serious? You look like you got run over by the bling truck.”

“What do the police think?”

“About your outfit?”

“About someone shooting at you. Try to stay on point here.”

“Hah! They think it was random. Someone showing off, maybe trying out his new gun, just happened to hit my window.”

“A gangbanger? On Madison Avenue?” I was incredulous.

“Not a gangbanger. A private-school wannabe. Some punk brings Daddy’s gun to St. Snooty’s, shows his goods to a hot cheerleader, has an accident.”

“You’re on the verge of talking dirty,” Bill warned.

“The cops took the slug,” Jack thumbed over his shoulder at the furrow in the ceiling, “which was a twenty-five, by the way. But unless a matching one turns up in a stiff someplace, I don’t expect to hear from them again.” He stopped, rubbing the back of his neck with a scratched hand. “Look, you guys, I don’t even know how to shoot a gun.”

“Point, cock, pull,” Bill said.

“Oh, thanks.”

“Did anyone see anything?” I asked. “Gunshots aren’t an everyday thing up here.”

“If they did the cops didn’t find them. No one heard the shot.
Lots
of people heard the glass break.” He pointed accusingly at the empty window frame.

“A twenty-five’s pretty quiet,” Bill said. “Relatively speaking.”

“I think it’s a dumb theory,” I said. “About the private-school kid.”

“I happen to agree with you, but the police don’t. Or at least, they’re refusing to budge until I come clean.”

“Come clean about what?”

“The real reason, of course! Which must be related to my shady profession. They jumped all over me. Like getting shot at was my idea.”

“They wanted to know about your enemies, that sort of thing?”

“Me? Enemies?”

“Oh, right, of course. So what did you tell them?”

“What you’re trying subtly to ask is, did I tell them about the case, about Ghost Hero Chau?”

I nodded, admitting it.

“I would’ve, if I’d had an idea how to say it and not sound like a wackjob. ‘This ghost is painting pictures and two clients want to find them, one who wants them to be real and one who doesn’t. I think one of them, or someone else, or the ghost himself, is responsible for this outrage, Inspector Lestrade.’”

“Works for me,” Bill said.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think it would work for the Nineteenth Precinct.”

“That’s why you didn’t tell?” I asked.

Jack stopped crisscrossing the room. He stood for a few moments, looking at me. “No.” He threw himself into a chair, legs splayed out, arms dangling. “I didn’t tell because it’s not just my case. Not that I owe you guys anything, but I thought I ought to wait until we talked.”

“We appreciate that,” I said.

“Besides, I’m a private eye. Don’t we have some kind of code? One for all, all for one, none for the cops? Something like that?”

“Something like that,” Bill said.

“Okay. I waited, we’re talking. So what the hell’s going on?”

“I can’t imagine,” I said. “This case is barely started. Are you sure there’s nothing else you’re working on that could’ve—”

I stopped because he was shaking his head. “I don’t have any other open cases. I’d just started this one and all I’ve done is a little research.”

“It doesn’t have to be an open case. It could be an old case, someone you made unhappy who’s been stewing about it and finally decided to get you.”

“This isn’t how art people get you. They’d either have stabbed me with a jeweled dagger in the heat of the moment, or they’d cool down and get all baroque about it. Start rumors about what a stoner I am, what STD’s I have, how I plagarized my Ph.D. thesis. That kind of thing. So they could see it happening. Art people like to watch.”

“What about an old girlfriend?” Bill asked.

“I don’t date girls who carry guns.”

“That seems a little narrow-minded,” I said.

Jack turned to me in surprise. For the first time since we’d arrived, he smiled. “Really?”

Now I shrugged, to cover the fact that I was a little surprised that I’d said that, myself.

“Personally, I consider it sound policy,” Bill elbowed back in. “So look: If this is the case that got you shot at, then what about this case?”

Jack said, “My money’s on you guys.”

“If it’s us,” Bill asked, “why didn’t they shoot at us?”

“That’s a damn good question. Second only to: How do I get them to next time?”

“Look,” I said. “When this kind of thing happens it’s usually because someone’s cage has been rattled.”

“I thought you said this kind of thing never happens.”

“Um, hypothetically. The point is, Bill and I hadn’t rattled anything yet.”

“If you’re asking what
I’ve
rattled since last night, the answer is also nothing.”

“Last night?”

“When I was hired.”

Reluctantly, I said, “Oh. Well, that makes my theory that it’s you a little shakier, if they could have shot at you any time since last night, but they waited until now.”

“You mean, until after I met you. Hah!”

A short silence; then Bill said, “Okay, here’s the big question. Do you want out?”

Jack frowned. “What? You mean me? Are you nuts? Ditch a client? Never.” He sat up and pounded the arm of his chair. “And besides, no one shoots at Jack Lee and gets away with it!” He slumped back again. “There, isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?”

I nodded approvingly. “And well delivered, too.”

Jack squinted at me. “It’s really true, what Bill said? You’re not afraid of anything?”

I glanced at Bill in surprise. “A complete fabrication,” I told Jack. “I just hide it well.”

He kept his narrowed gaze on me. Finally he said, “Anyway, quitting, besides ruining my self-image, would only mean I’d be out of the loop. I wouldn’t feel any safer, just lonelier. No, I want to be right in the middle of finding out what the hell is going on here. Right in the middle, with one of you guys on each side. With a gun.”

“You mean, we should work together?”

“Why not?”

“For the same reasons as this morning.”

“This”—arm waving from broken window to drilled ceiling—“makes it not the same as this morning. Look, you don’t trust your client and I don’t trust mine. It’s perfect. Though at least I didn’t just meet mine today.”

“No?”

“I’ve known Dr. Yang for years. No way he’d shoot me. He doesn’t shoot people anyway, just vaporizes them with his eyes. But there’s definitely something he’s not telling me. Listen, you guys, if people are firing away in the middle of Madison Avenue, this whole thing is even farther from what we thought it was than we thought it was. Don’t!” He pointed at Bill, who’d been about to speak. “You know what I mean. What I’m saying is,” his voice and eyes grew serious, “I don’t trust my client, but I trust you guys.”

“You just met me this morning,” I said.

“Technically correct, but I’m willing to take a chance. How about it? If we combine our info and resources maybe we can figure out what’s going on before we all get killed.”

“What do we do when we find the paintings?” I asked.

“We worry about it then.”

We sat in silence. A chilly breeze charged through the empty window frame and spiraled some papers off Jack’s desk. He gave them a glare but didn’t go after them.

I looked at Bill. His eyes were telling me
your case, your choice
. I knew that; what I was searching for was
but I wouldn’t recommend it
. I didn’t see that.

“Okay,” I said.

“Yes!” Jack fist-pumped. “Porthos, Athos, Aramis.” He pointed at each of us. “The Three Musketeers.”

“Weren’t there really four of them, though?”

“We’re better.”

“Okay,” Bill said, standing. “Good to be working with you, Aramis. Come on, you need a drink. I’ll buy you a martini.”

Jack cocked his head. “A pickletini?”

“For me to pay for that,” Bill said, “there’d have to be blood.”

Jack spent a few minutes locking his computer and his Hasui in a closet, in anticipation of the emergency window repair and the inevitable sawdust. Then we headed downstairs. Jack spoke to the manager of the ground-floor chocolate shop. “Sorry about the mess,” he said, giving her his key for the window crew.

She shrugged in a very French way. “Some excitement. Good for the neighborhood.”

While that was going on, Bill crossed the street. He prowled the sidewalk, looking at Jack’s building from various spots. Jack and I followed on the next light.

“Something up, Sherlock?” Jack asked.

“That shot came from over here.”

Jack scanned the ground. “Footprints?” He sniffed. “Gunshot residue still in the air?”

“The length of the track in your ceiling. A shot fired from your side of the street would’ve gone straight up. Probably right through the floor above.”

“And plugged poor Mischa, who rebuilds violins up there. I’ll be sure to tell him how lucky he is. Listen, not to diss your detecting genius or anything, but the police already worked that out.”

“Which must be why they think their ‘random’ theory’s reasonable. If you were at your desk, there’s no way anyone over here would’ve seen you.”

Jack gave Bill another brief look, then glanced across at his own window. “Well. Damn. Do you think maybe they’re right, then?”

“Not for a minute. I think it wasn’t real.”

“A mass hallucination? Group hypnosis? No, wait, you mean it was me! A grab for attention? A cry for help?”

“If it were you it would’ve been more theatrical.”

“Well, thanks for that, anyway. Though how much more theatrical could it get?”

“You weren’t supposed to get hurt. Just scared.”

“A complete success, then! Can I ask who? Why?”

“You can ask, but I can’t answer. Someone who wants you off the case.”

Jack sighed. “Though it hurts my ego to say it, there are other people in New York who do what I do. Scare me off and my client would just hire one of them. Why not shoot at my client and scare him off? Then he’d fire me and run away, and we’d all be happy.”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe,” I said, “we should ask him.”

“Dr. Yang?” said Jack. “You want to go charging down to NYU and ask Dr. Bernard Yang why someone’s shooting at me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I think that’s a damn good idea.” He took out his iPhone and poked a number. When he spoke it was obvious he was leaving a message. He clicked off and said, “Voice mail. He’s probably in class. I said to call me.”