Ghost Hero (25 page)

He made no move to take it. “The paintings,” he said. “Were you able to ascertain whether they’re real?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

I waited a moment, then gave it to him: “They’re fakes.”

He visibly relaxed.

“But they’re about to come on the market as real. Authenticated by an expert. Next week. Asian Art Week, Beijing/NYC.”

“But you say they’re fakes. What expert would put his reputation on the line like that?”

“That’s not really the question. The question is, how bad would it be for you if it happened?”

After a moment he gave a soft laugh. “The funny thing is, it wouldn’t matter. In my situation, I can be a hero—though that’s looking less and less likely—but I can’t really be the goat. Nice work if you can get it, huh? No, keep the money, Ms. Chin. If it’s true you’ve found the paintings. It would be nice if we could keep them from hitting the market, but if they’re fakes the authentication won’t—”

“We might be able to.”

“What?”

“Keep them off the market. Or maybe not, but we can probably discredit them with a bang. And the person who’s going to be selling them. If we had a reason to. Would that work for you?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Do tell.”

“No, you tell. Give us that reason. What so-called heroics are you engaged in here and how was I supposed to be helping?”

“Well,” he said. “Well.” He looked around. “I suppose it’s reasonable to hope for a certain amount of discretion from all of you, even though I’m only paying Ms. Chin?”

“Actually, you’re paying Bill, too. And Jack’s one of us, so don’t worry about it.” I didn’t look to see who was smug-smiling whom.

“Fine. Not that it really matters. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, just … unauthorized. Going to you could earn me a reprimand, or, on the other hand, a commendation for creativity. If I tell you what I know—which I can already see won’t answer all your questions—then what? You’ll tell me where the paintings are?”

If I’d had any doubt Jerrold was a diplomat I’d be over it by now. Everything was a negotiation. I decided to stonewall.

We sat in silence; then Jerrold smiled. “Okay. Point made.” He crossed one leg over the other, settling in more comfortably. “As you surmised, I’m with the State Department.”

Surmised? We knew his job title.

“I’ve been there eight years. I’m not an art collector, in fact I’m not in the visual arts at all. Literature’s my field. But we all talk, and you hear things.”

“We all talk, who?”

“State Department staff, and our Consulate counterparts. In my case, the PRC Consulate. That’s where I heard about the Chaus, at a reception. Buzz in the air, worried looks, things like that. The Cultural Attaché, Jin, had heard rumors and he wasn’t happy. They have that Beijing/NYC show coming up, the whole Asian art world’s watching. If the PRC gets embarrassed here in New York it’s on Jin’s head. Xi Xao, the guy at my level in the visual arts over there, dismissed the whole thing. He tried to persuade Jin not to worry about it. He said no one could possibly take these paintings seriously, everyone knew Chau was dead. I guess he changed his mind, though, or at least, he couldn’t convince Jin, because I think Xi’s who came to you as Samuel Wing.”

“Older, skinny, receding gray hair?”

“Yes.”

“I’m still not clear. If they decided to look for the paintings after all and asked you for help, why did Xi come to me to get me to lay off?”

“They didn’t ask for help. First off, it wouldn’t have been me, it would’ve been one of our visual arts people. But they didn’t. Jin just scowled and Xi tried to jolly him up and they both drank scotch. No, what happened was, I was watching Xi fawning on his boss—a guy at least ten years younger than Xi, and nowhere near as educated or as smart—and my boss came over to join us and I had a lightbulb moment. It hit me that if I didn’t watch out I’d be Xi before I knew it. You know the difference between staff jobs and line jobs?” I shook my head. Bill and Jack, I noticed, both nodded. “Well, it’s what it sounds like.” Seemingly instinctively, Jerrold offered his explanation to all three of us, so I wouldn’t feel like the only dummy in the room. Very diplomatic. “Line does. Staff supports. At State you almost always start as staff but, like anywhere, line’s where the action is. Eight years, I suddenly realized, was borderline too long to still be staff. There’s a point beyond which you don’t get promoted because you haven’t been promoted, and I’m getting near it. I needed to make a move.”

“And Chau was your move?”

“Xi kept telling Jin he should ignore the rumors, that the paintings were obviously fakes and any notice they paid would do nothing but stir up interest in them. Jin was unhappy but he agreed that he didn’t want to draw attention. Someone poured another round and the talk moved on to other things.

“And I thought, well, okay. The PRC government looking for these paintings did have the potential to raise the paintings’ profile. Xi was right about that. But if collectors were already looking, one more collector wouldn’t matter.”

“So it wasn’t about their value? And it wasn’t about making a name for yourself?”

He smiled. “It absolutely was, both things. But their value’s not in money, it’s in the PRC’s diplomatic face, and the name I’m looking to make isn’t in the art world.”

“If you had the paintings, what would you do with them? Take them to Xi, at the Consulate?”

“No, to Jin. If I went to Xi he’d go to Jin, and that would get him some of the credit, diluting things for me.”

I nodded, considering that. “Speaking of Xi, Mr. Jerrold, how did Xi find out about me and why did he want me to stop?”

“I don’t know about the first. The second, I suppose it’s because, as he said, he thinks making waves is the wrong approach.”

“It was a lot of money to stop some waves that might turn out not to matter. His, I wonder, or the PRC’s?”

“Well, probably his. Like what I gave you was mine. The PRC isn’t that free with its purse strings.”

I sat back. “All right, Mr. Jerrold. Here’s what I think we can do. The paintings are fakes but they’re about to be authenticated. Then they’ll be shown.”

“I thought you said you might be able to stop that.”

“We’ll be able to keep them off the market. Maybe not to stop their being shown. But they’ll be discredited and the whole thing will look like a high school prank. But you can still be a hero.”

“Oh? How’s that?”

“The paintings have poems on them. Chinese classical paintings often do,” I added loftily. “Since the Yuan Dynasty.”

“I do know that much, Ms. Chin.”

“These particular poems are by Liu Mai-ke. Mike Liu.”

“Ah.” Jerrold rubbed at his chin. “Ah, damn.”

“It’s true, then? That might be a problem?”

“Chau and Liu, together? A dissident double-team. Jin’ll hate it.”

“If it turns out the paintings will be shown, I’ll warn you and you can warn Mr. Jin. Or tell your boss to warn him. At least it won’t be a surprise. The PRC can prepare a response. That should win you points.”

“Interesting thought. Not as many points as I’d hoped for from this, but it can’t hurt. Although if you told me where the paintings are—”

“Not going to happen.” I pointed to the money-stuffed envelope on my desk. “You can take that back if you want to, but right now that’s all you’re getting. If things change, I’ll call you.”

He eyed me. “They might?”

“You never know.”

*   *   *

Chinatown’s so near NYU that we walked up. As we neared Dr. Yang’s building I called his office. First hurdle jumped: he answered. I asked in a breathy voice for an appointment because I was an undecided student looking for guidance about my major. He blew me off, suggesting—really, ordering—that I talk to Dr. Somebody Else. Didn’t matter, though. By then we were in the building and we knew he was, too.

We caught him eating lunch behind his desk: pork dumplings from the Rickshaw truck accompanied by green tea in a rough pottery cup. The room smelled terrific, salt and onions, very homelike, but the comforting nature of his lunch mellowed Dr. Yang out not one bit.

“What are you doing here, Jack?” Dr. Yang lowered his chopsticks to glare at us.

“We know what’s going on,” Jack said without preamble. “We want to help. We have a plan.”

After a moment: “Get out.”

“No.” Not only didn’t Jack leave, he sat. I admired his courage and then realized I needed to do something, too, so I parked on the other chair. Bill wandered over to the window to look down at the world. “We’ve just come from Anna’s,” Jack told Dr. Yang. “We knew about the paintings before we went, the phony Chaus. We found out about them more or less the same way Doug Haig did. Anna tried not to tell us anything but she was too upset to fake it. We know what Haig wants and we can stop him.”

That was a tricky amalgam of three-quarter truths, but we wouldn’t get anywhere if, as it was threatening to, the top of Dr. Yang’s head blew off.

Dr. Yang, stiff-arming his desk, said in a voice he was obviously trying to control, “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Or who’s involved. I fired you for a reason. Keep out of this, Jack.”

“You fired me to protect Anna. That’s what I’m trying to do. And we do know. Government people from all directions. Chinese gangsters. And Doug Haig. We can deal. We’re just asking you not to do anything right now. Haig wants you to appraise and authenticate the fake Chaus. Just stall him. That’s all.”

After a six-ton silence, Dr. Yang, oddly, picked up on just one of Jack’s points. “Government people?” He stared as though Jack had turned into a Klingon. “What do you mean, government people? They went to you? You didn’t tell me?”

“Not to Jack. To me,” I said. Dr. Yang snapped his head toward me. His expression made me think I might be a Klingon, too. “From two governments. My client, who isn’t a collector. He’s with the State Department. And a fellow from the Chinese Consulate, too.”

Fury, bafflement, fear, and a need to know battled it out on Dr. Yang’s face. Maybe because he was an academic, the need to know won out. “From the Chinese Consulate? Who?”

“He said his name is Samuel Wing, but we think it’s really Xi Xao.”

It seemed to me a light dawned in Dr. Yang’s eyes and was quickly not extinguished, but hidden. “What did he want?”

“You know him,” I said.

“Don’t be ridiculous. How would I know him? What did he want?”

“He wanted me to stop looking for the Chaus. Who is he?”

“To stop, on behalf of the Chinese government?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me he was a diplomat. He gave me a phony name so I wouldn’t find out. But on the other hand he said he was representing ‘interested parties,’ and he threatened me. Who are his interested parties?”

“He threatened you?”

“If I kept looking. And offered me a lot of money if I’d stop. Why does he care?”

“If he didn’t tell you he was a diplomat, how did you find out?”

“Why do people keep asking how I find things out? I’m a private eye. Like Jack. Like Bill. People hire us to find things out. I looked into Mr. Wing because I don’t respond well to being threatened. Or to being bribed.”

“Like me,” said Jack.

“Or me,” said Bill.

“I can go to the Consulate and ask him what’s going on. Or you can tell us. We want to help. Please let us. Tell us who he is. Tell us why he cares.”

“No.” Dr. Yang looked us over. “You can’t help. You can only create a disaster out of what’s already a bad situation. Clearly worse than I thought, and I can tell you it was already grim. The State Department man. Does he want you to stop looking, too?”

I didn’t anwer, just met his angry eyes. If there’d been a heat differential between our glares there’d have been a thunderstorm in the middle of the room. Surprisingly, Bill stepped in.

“The State Department man doesn’t want us to stop, no. He’s Lydia’s original client. The one who claimed to be a collector. He wanted us to find the paintings. We just came from a meeting with him. We told him we’d found them.”

Dr. Yang went white. “You told him about Anna?”

“No,” I said. “We said we’d found the paintings and ascertained that they were fakes. We told him that’s all he gets right now.”

“Right now? When does he get more?”

“I don’t know. Maybe soon, maybe never. It depends on you.”

After a long stare, Dr. Yang asked, “What was his interest in the paintings?”

“I’m not going to tell you that. But you don’t have to worry about him. You have to worry about Doug Haig and what he wants from you. Just give us an inch or two, Dr. Yang. We really are here to help you. And Anna.”

Dr. Yang, dumplings forgotten, laid his palms carefully on his desk. “All right, I appreciate that you’re trying to help. And that you think you can. But you can’t. As I told you, you can only make things worse. I have to ask you again not to interfere.”

He stared at us, ranged around the far side of his desk, and we all stared back. It’s a good thing stubbornness has no smell or you’d have needed a gas mask to breathe in there.

“With all respect, sir,” Jack said evenly, “I’m not sure how we could make things worse. Isn’t it already a disaster? What are your options? To junk your principles to save your daughter’s future? Or stick to your guns and watch Anna go down in flames? Ghost Hero Chau—your
friend
—died for his beliefs, why? So Doug Haig can pay off his house in the Hamptons? And you’d better have negotiated a job as his houseboy, because if you do what Haig wants and it ever comes out, your career’s in the toilet, too.”

From Dr. Yang’s bugging eyes I guessed people didn’t generally talk to him this way. “If it comes out? Are you threatening me, Jack?”

“No,” Jack said. “None of us would stitch you up like that. But it wouldn’t have to be us. Lots of people saw Anna working on those paintings. All the artists out at East Village saw them. Mostly they didn’t know what they were, but as soon as they’re splashed all over
ARTnews,
sold for half a million each and authenticated by you, you’re toast.”

Dr. Yang replied through clenched teeth. “
With all respect
. Jack. There is nothing you can do. There is
nothing
you can do but make things worse. You’re taking a risk you don’t understand. You’ll—”