Ghost Hero Read online

  “How much, by the way? Unless it’s none of my business.”

  “Since I’m paying you out of it, it can be your business. A grand against two days plus expenses. More after that, or we settle up if I find them sooner.”

  “A trustful sort of fellow, handing over cash like that.”

  I shrugged. It was a lot, but clients paying in cash are not all that rare. Many people like to avoid a paper trail leading to a PI.

  “But the phone,” I said, “is a prepaid cell.”

  “Ah. Now that’s damn dubious, I’d say.”

  “And the suit didn’t scream ‘too rich to work’ either.”

  “Shiny and threadbare?”

  “No, no. Perfectly fine, but strictly off the rack. A good rack, but not super high-end. Remember, I’m a seamstress’s daughter.”

  “You do your mother proud.”

  “Leave my mother out of it. And frankly, if he were a Getty or something—not to display my lack of self-esteem but why is he coming to me? All the big guys have Asians on staff.”

  “Because you’re better?”

  “But how would he know that? Seriously, I’m thinking he’s just a working stiff, and his work has to do with China. He said he learned Chinese because he thought it would be useful. I bet he’s in import-export, or he’s American legal counsel for a Chinese firm, something like that. That’s probably where he heard about the paintings—at work. He’s using a phony name because he doesn’t want his bosses to know he’s on the hunt, and he came to me, not one of the big boys, out of the same instinct. He’s not the new collector on the block. He’s not on the block at all. He just wants to cash in on the Chaus.” I finished my tea and looked at Bill. It was a sensible theory and he nodded.

  “Or,” I said.

  “Or.” Bill didn’t stop nodding, but he waited for me to say it.

  “Or he’s not looking for the paintings at all. He’s looking for the painter.”

  Bill lit a cigarette and dropped the match in the ashtray I keep around for him. “So. Why?” He streamed out smoke. “Chau owes him money? Stole his girl?”

  “Twenty years ago, when Chau was thirty-five and Dunbar was ten?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t Dunbar. It was his daddy. A multigenerational family feud. Your people go in for that, don’t they? God knows mine do. Maybe this is the Hatfields and the McChaus.”

  “Okay. But still. Chau’s well-known to be dead.”

  “An obstacle, but not insurmountable. Maybe he’s been reincarnated. Another thing your people go in for.”

  “You’re mocking my people.”

  “In case you might forget who I am.”

  “Fat chance.” We sat in silence for a few moments. Then I said, “Here’s what I propose: we take the case. But, whatever we find, we don’t tell the client until we know what’s really going on.”

  “Or, you could tell the client to go climb a tree and branch off.”

  “Are you kidding? May I remind you I haven’t worked in nearly a month? There was that fistful of cash, you remember.”

  Bill didn’t respond to that. He and I have both sent clients packing, retainer or not, when they were up to something we wanted no part of.

  I sighed and looked into my empty cup. “I realized something. While Dunbar was talking.”

  “Which is?”

  “The collecting thing … I don’t get it. I never have.”

  “Okay.”

  “But the hunting thing? Being the one to chase something down? Find it first, discover a secret? That I do get. I think,” I admitted slowly, “that’s why I’m in this business.”

  Bill cocked his head and grinned. “That’s your big insight?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If that’s news to you, you’re the last to hear it.”

  I felt myself redden.

  “No, come on,” Bill said. “You keep telling me I do this so I can be Sir Galahad, riding in and saving the town. Why can’t you have a less-than-pure motive, too?”

  “I never said Sir Galahad. I said the Lone Ranger.”

  “The effect is the same, and Sir Galahad doesn’t have to wear a mask.”

  “No, just a tin suit. Anyway, my motives are pure and we’re taking the case.”

  “So I can be Sir Galahad and you can be Indiana Jones?”

  “The Lone Ranger! And Indiana Jones, in case you missed it, is a guy. Why can’t I be Lara Croft?”

  “Okay, but she doesn’t have a whip.”

  “I’m so not going there. And for your information, we’re taking the case because at the end, when I’ve found the secret and you’ve saved the town, I can keep Jeff Dunbar’s retainer and maybe even send him another big bill. Coffee-making machinery doesn’t come cheap, you know. And a constant supply of beans? Please.”

  “Well, if that’s what’s at stake.” Bill finished his coffee. “So okay, boss. What’s our first move?”

  I sat back and gazed at the ceiling. “I wish I knew more about Chau. Or Chinese art. I Googled, but Chau’s story is pretty much what Dunbar said it was, and I didn’t find anything else helpful. The only lead I have is this gallery assistant who backpedaled.”

  “Well, let’s go lean on him.”

  “Sure, but what if he doesn’t give? I don’t have a clue where to go next.”

  “Art, according to Dunbar, is not why he hired you. Chineseness is.”

  “Yes, but he’s wrong. Seriously, whatever’s going on, who says anyone involved is Chinese except me and Ghost Hero Chau? It’s art I need.”

  Bill looked at me for a few moments with something in his eyes I couldn’t read. Then he shifted his gaze to his coffee cup, and the press, and the grinder. “Well, okay,” he said, and took out his cell phone. The coversation was friendly and brief: he ascertained the callee was in and would remain so, and that was that. He put the phone away and stood. “Come on.”

  * * *

  We subwayed up to a neighborhood I don’t usually have much business in, the part of the Upper East Side that’s waist-deep in old money. Bill, though, negotiated the sidewalks like he was right at home. That’s because he was. He lives as far downtown as I do—and was born in Kentucky, for Pete’s sake—but a lot of New York’s museums and galleries are up here. Bill is one of those rare New Yorkers who actually spends time in museums and galleries, looking at art.

  We weren’t going to a gallery or a museum, though. At a brownstone on Madison near Seventy-fifth Bill pressed a buzzer. A man’s voice popped from the speaker: “Hey! Come on up!” and, buzzed in, we climbed a curving staircase from the days when this was someone’s grand home. On the second floor, in the open doorway of an elegantly spare office—gleaming wood floor, sunlight pouring through wide street-side windows—stood a tall and grinning Asian man.

  “Bill Smith!” he said. “Way cool! Come on in.” He shook Bill’s hand, then turned to me. “Hi. I’m Jack Lee.” His words held no trace of any Asian accent, but not a New York one, either.

  “Lydia Chin.”

  “Bill’s partner, I know.” Jack Lee’s hand was big, his grip solid. “Come on, sit down, you guys.”

  Jack Lee was around my age, nearly as tall as Bill, and in weight somewhere between us, which made him a string bean. Loose-limbed and lanky, he wore a beautiful multicolored silk tie and ironed black jeans, but no jacket. His white shirtsleeves were neatly rolled back, revealing muscled forearms. Closing the door, he pointed us to wood chairs set around a low table piled with art books. Most of what was in the waist-high bookcase behind the desk were art books, too, though some had the staid leather bindings and stamped lettering of law manuals.

  Bill and I sat, and Jack Lee started to do the same, but stopped halfway. “Uh-oh. F for hospitality! I don’t have coffee or anything for you guys. Drank it up, haven’t replenished. You want something? There’s a good place a block up.” He rattled off words like a drum solo.

  “Not me, I’m fine,” I said. The minimalist chair was surprisingly co
mfortable.

  “Me, too,” said Bill. “I just had a really good cup of coffee.”

  “Cool. I’m second-generation ABC from Madison, Wisconsin,” Jack Lee said to me as he sprawled onto a chair. ABC, that’s American-born Chinese. I’m first generation, myself. “I may look Chinese, but think of me as an All-American midwestern college-town boy. That way you won’t be too disappointed.”

  I had to smile. “I’m already not disappointed.”

  “But she wasn’t expecting anything,” Bill put in.

  “Baseline zero, try not to make it worse, Jack, I get it. So, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “What do you do?”

  Jack Lee raised his eyebrows at Bill. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “I never tell her anything. Keeps the relationship fresh.”

  “‘Fresh’ isn’t the word I’d have used,” I said.

  “Got you. Well, the big secret he wants me to spill is, I’m a private eye.”

  “Oh.” I blinked. “No kidding?”

  “Yeah, how about that? And Bill’s been promising to bring you up here for months now. You know, so we can share mysterious Chinese trade secrets. I was starting to think you didn’t exist. That he’d invented a kick-ass Chinese partner to string me along, keep the top-shelf bourbon flowing.”

  “Kick-ass?”

  “He was lying?”

  “Not about that, no,” I said.

  “I was just waiting for the moment of maximum impact,” Bill said. “I thought it would be most efficient for you to share those mysterious secrets while you worked on a case.”

  “Hey,” said Jack, “you mean this isn’t just a social call? You come bearing work?”

  “We might.” Bill turned to me. “Jack, as he says, may look Chinese, but that’s actually beside the point. He’s an art expert.”

  “‘Expert’ is too strong a word,” Jack corrected, with Chinese modesty but an American grin. “But it’s my field. Art history, Asian art concentration.” I’d already taken note of the framed University of Chicago Ph.D. on the bookcase—which included the words “summa cum laude”—so that wasn’t news. “Life plan was to be a big-deal dealer. Came to New York to go the gallery route. But I couldn’t take it.”

  “It involves sitting still,” Bill said, in explanation.

  “Sad but true. So now instead of selling art, I corral it. Chase down the lost, stolen, or strayed. Bodyguard a vase on its way someplace. Check a bronze’s provenance. Make sure the dish that comes back from the restorer is the same one that was sent to be restored. Much more fun, and it keeps me out of trouble. And out of galleries. Still, galleries have their uses. That’s where I met your partner. At a Soho opening, last fall.”

  I said to Bill, “You hate openings.”

  “The gallery owner was a friend of mine. He’s helped me out over the years. I had to go.”

  “And he’s a client of mine,” Jack said. “So, so did I.”

  I looked from one to the other. “And you guys bonded over white wine, Chex Mix, and art?”

  “For that show,” Jack said, “‘art’ is too strong a word. Installations made from rusty tools and broken dolls. Pretentious, ugly, and lethal.”

  “See,” said Bill, “there’s that Chinese problem you have, where you won’t speak your mind. Same as Lydia.”

  I knew he was expecting me to roll my eyes, so I just sat politely, listening to Jack.

  “Pretty much everyone seemed to be impressed, though,” Jack said. “A lot of nodding and murmuring. ‘The juxtaposition is thrillingly unnerving.’ ‘He brings out the feminine side of steel.’ I was checking my watch to see if I could leave yet when I spotted a guy having as hard a time as I was keeping a straight face.”

  “Not my fault,” Bill protested. “There was a critic waving his hands, going on about a piece made from doll heads and buzz-saw blades. Then he cut his thumb on it.”

  “It was the start of a beautiful friendship. Cemented in the bar next door.”

  “Though I warn you,” Bill said, “Jack drinks martinis.”

  “Does that disqualify me from something?”

  “Not by itself,” I said.

  “So.” Jack crossed one long leg over the other. “Now that you have my CV, do you know why Bill brought you here? Besides the Chinese trade secret thing? Because if we get into that, of course we’ll have to throw him out.”

  “Of course. Let’s save that for later, in case we need it. Tell me, is contemporary Chinese art on your CV?”

  Jack glanced at Bill, then back to me. “Up to a point.”

  “Ghost Hero Chau. Is he before or after that point?”

  “Ghost Hero Chau.” Jack steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “He’s your case?”

  “His paintings. Or, some new paintings that are supposed to be his.”

  “Re-eally?” Jack drew the word out, giving me an odd look.

  “I know, he’s dead. But that’s what my client says. New paintings.”

  “Who’s your client? Okay, never mind,” he said in answer to my you-know-better smile. “But is he Chinese?”

  “No. WASP, even more midwestern suburban than you are.”

  “Ouch,” said Bill.

  “But that’s why he came to me. He searched online for a Chinese investigator. He thinks it’ll help.”

  “Hmm. Hmm, hmm hmm, hmm hmm,” Jack said. “What’s his angle? He’s been offered them and he wants you to prove the pedigree before he buys?”

  “No. He hasn’t even seen them. He wants me to find them.”

  “Re-eally.” Again, he drew the word out like taffy. “Why?”

  “The thrill of the hunt. And, he’s the new kid in town and wants to make his collecting bones by getting his hands on them.” To the look on Jack’s face, I said, “No, we don’t buy it either. We think he just wants to corner the market and flip them during Asian Art Week. Obviously, he’s gambling they’re real, or the market’s not worth cornering.”

  “And you came to me for what? Background?”

  “Yes,” said Bill. “And Chinese trade secrets.”

  “Which you’ll never hear, Kemosabe,” Jack retorted. I snickered as Jack looked from Bill to me. “Ghost Hero Chau. Do you guys know much about him? Why they call him that?”

  “He was involved in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989,” I said. “He was a big deal professor, but he stood with the students. He died when the army came in. After he died, according to my client, he was a ghost, but a hero.”

  “That’s how he put it?”

  “It’s wrong?”

  “It’s incomplete. For months after Tiananmen, there were rumors Chau was still alive.”

  I gave Bill a quick look. “Oh. So if the rumors are true, the paintings could actually be his.”

  “It’s unlikely, though.” Jack rearranged himself again, throwing one leg over a chair arm. “The PRC government admits to two hundred and forty-one people dying by the time Tiananmen was over. Rioters and hooligans, every one of them, threats to the public order and enemies of the revolution. But about a thousand more were never heard from again. The government says they were more rioters and hooligans and they ran away. Their families say they were killed, but no one’s been able to prove it. Those people are the ‘ghosts.’ But Chau was one of the two hundred and forty-one. He’s on the official list, his body was identified, he’s buried in his hometown.”

  “Then where did the rumors come from?”

  “People claiming they’d seen him. In different parts of the country, over the next few months. Rumors were flying everywhere that summer. They had a news blackout; no one knew what was going on. For anyone looking for a symbol to rally around, Chau would’ve been perfect. The rumors were probably started by underground student leaders trying to keep the movement going. Eventually, though, they died out.”

  “Were there paintings?” Bill asked.

  Jack’s thin face had been wearing a brooding look, but now
he broke into a grin. “Smith, two points! No. That’s one of the things that finally convinced people it wasn’t true. If Chau had been alive, he could’ve signaled that and rallied people by making new paintings. Even under another name, his work’s that distinctive. But there weren’t any.”

  “Okay,” said Bill. “Now I have another question. How come you’re a walking encyclopedia about Tiananmen Square? Which happened when you were eight?”

  “Nine.” Jack considered him. “If I told you we studied Tiananmen at art school because the Beijing art school was in a leadership role in the movement, would you believe me?”

  Bill shook his head solemnly. Jack turned to me.

  “I would have,” I said. “Except I never believe anybody who asks if I’d believe him if.”

  Jack regarded me another moment, then ejected himself from his chair. He strode the length of the room, turned, covered the distance again. He stopped with his back to us and stared at the full moon glowing from the only thing hanging on the wall, a Japanese woodblock print. “Okay.” He spun around. “Weighing the demands of client confidentiality against the possibility of actually solving the client’s case, and against the impossibility of maintaining confidentiality when I bump into you guys every ten minutes in the course of this investigation, here’s the answer: I know all that because my client told me.”

  “Client? What client?”

  He grinned and folded his arms. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. I have the same case.”

  3

  For the rest of our discussion we repaired to the café on the next block because Bill and Jack both thought the situation called for caffeine. Bill also wanted a smoke. I, of course, was completely self-sufficient and needed nothing, but I went along for the ride. Jack ordered and waited at the counter while Bill and I colonized a table. “The truth,” I said, as I unwound my scarf. “Did you have any idea?”