Chin - 01 - China Trade Read online

“How did you discover the theft?” I asked Nora.

  Dr. Browning, again unexpectedly, answered that one, too. “I discovered it.” He blushed, as if that had been an improper thing to do, discovering a theft. “When I came in yesterday afternoon to continue my work.”

  “Your work?”

  That had been enough for Dr. Browning. His eyes were back to examining the floor.

  “Dr. Browning is inventorying and cataloging the collection for us,” Nora told me.

  Puzzled, I asked Mrs. Blair, “Don’t people who have collections like this have inventories?”

  “My husband had a list,” Mrs. Blair answered, “but I’m not entirely sure it’s complete. The new pieces he’d recently acquired had not, I believe, been added to it.”

  Dr. Browning shook his head, as though he didn’t believe they had, either.

  “I’m surprised,” I said. “I mean, even just for insurance, you’d think someone would want to be up-to-date on his inventory.”

  Mrs. Blair’s smile was indulgent and tinged with sadness. When he was alive, I was willing to bet, his casual attitude toward things like that probably drove her crazy. Now she missed it.

  “That’s what I thought about the inventory, too,” said Nora. “But apparently this isn’t unusual.” She looked to Dr. Browning.

  “No, it’s not.” Dr. Browning answered a second late, as though he wasn’t sure he was the one being spoken to. He smiled the bashful smile again, but kept his eyes on his shoes. “A true collector knows every piece in his collection. He doesn’t need a list, any more than you need a list of your friends.”

  Something I had just said reminded me of a question I hadn’t asked. “Were these pieces insured?”

  “The collection is,” Nora said, after a hesitation that was, I assumed, another invitation to Mrs. Blair. “But those particular crates were the new acquisitions. Because Mr. Blair hadn’t gone through the process of adding them to the inventory list yet, those pieces weren’t covered.”

  “Those were all the new acquisitions? They all happened to be together?”

  “They didn’t ‘happen’ to be together.” For the first time I heard the kind of frost in Mrs. Blair’s voice that I associate with upper-class Hong Kong women. “I had them packed that way, to make Dr. Browning’s task easier.”

  “Strange,” I mused. “That that’s what was stolen and nothing else.”

  “Perhaps strange,” Mrs. Blair answered. “And perhaps coincidental. Any two crates would have included only certain pieces, about which we could have said it was strange that they, and not others, were stolen.”

  “I suppose,” I agreed, not sure I supposed any such thing. I turned my attention back to Nora. “Well, on principle I hate to agree with Tim, but the police have resources I don’t have. Why aren’t you going to them?”

  Nora looked at Tim. His jaw was tight and his ears were crimson. Childhood memories of times when his ears were that color gave me a strong urge to hide under the desk.

  Nora poured more tea for herself and for me. She warmed her hands around her teacup. “Dr. Browning tells me it’s almost impossible to recover stolen art. And the police have other priorities. We decided that the damage it would do our reputation if we made this public would far outweigh whatever advantage the police would have over our doing this privately.”

  I looked over at Mrs. Blair, wondering how she felt about the theft of Hamilton’s porcelains being handled without benefit of law enforcement.

  As if reading my mind, Mrs. Blair smiled. “I concur completely in this decision, Miss Chin. Nora consulted me on behalf of the Board before the decision was final. The police, as Nora said, have their own priorities and restrictions. As there is no possibility of an insurance recovery, I see no advantage in calling them in.”

  “Restrictions?” I looked from her to Nora.

  “The police,” Nora said, replacing a stray freshly-sharpened pencil into her freshly-sharpened-pencil cup, “are limited in the methods they’re permitted to use. In the sense, I mean, that if a crime’s been committed, they have to be as interested in catching and prosecuting the criminals as in recovering the property. We’re not. We want the porcelains back first. We’d like to see the criminals caught if possible, but that’s secondary.”

  “Do you mean,” I said, “that you’d be willing to deal with whoever has them?”

  Nora glanced at Tim, who scowled.

  “We might,” she told me.

  “Can you afford to do that? Buy them back?”

  “Not for their market value, absolutely not. But maybe we could … work something out.”

  “That’s where I come in?”

  “Well, we have to find them first. Someone on the Board suggested hiring a private detective, and of course you were the one we all thought of right away.”

  Of course, I thought. Even poor Tim must have thought of me right away and frantically tried to find some way to keep his busybody, embarrassing little sister out of his business.

  “And I again concurred,” Mrs. Blair assured me. “I understand that you’re young and relatively inexperienced, but Nora gave you quite glowing notices. And being Chinese …”

  She didn’t finish that, and I wasn’t sure what she hoped would come of my being Chinese.

  I looked around the room. Dr. Browning was gazing at his shoelaces. Tim wouldn’t look at me. Mrs. Blair was smiling gently. I turned to Nora. She looked at me with something like pleading in her eyes. Coming from her, that was startling, and I found myself feeling touched and suddenly protective.

  “All right,” I said, in my best client-relations voice. “Art’s not my specialty, but I have a colleague who’s experienced in art cases. I’ll need particulars, and I’ll do what I can.”

  After all, I thought directly at Tim, who seemed to find glowering out the window as fascinating as Dr. Browning found staring at his shoes, if I needed a lawyer, I’d go to you. That’s what you do, this is what I do. I don’t have an advanced degree and you don’t have a gun.

  And just because I’d never heard of the Blair porcelains didn’t mean I couldn’t find them.

  T W O

  Porcelain,” I said, critically examining the blue willows on the fluted white cup in my hand, then lifting it to sip the ginger tea it held. “What do you know about it?”

  “Nothing.” Bill Smith, my sometimes-partner, put out his cigarette as the waitress came back to our table with his double espresso. “Except that you’re going to spill your tea if you keep trying to read the bottom of that cup.”

  I’d just about come to the same conclusion, and was about to give up, but when he said that I raised the cup and ducked my head anyway, until I could see the “Royal Doulton” on the bottom. I didn’t spill a drop. The cup matched my saucer, but it didn’t match Bill’s, or the flowered teapot on the table. In fact, nothing in this Greenwich Village cafe matched anything else. That was why I liked it here.

  “People steal it,” I offered.

  “People steal anything. I had a client once who wanted me to steal his girlfriend’s garbage.”

  “You’re kidding. Did you?”

  “I told him I’d steal it but he’d have to go through it himself. I figured he was looking for evidence she was seeing another guy.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He didn’t want to go through it, he just wanted to have it. Something she’d touched and been close to, he said. He wanted me to steal him a fresh batch every Friday.”

  “Yuck. What did you do?”

  “I suddenly remembered I’d been called out to work on a case in Missoula, Montana. I suggested he get somebody else.”

  I sipped my tea and watched steam cloud up the cafe window. “I think that’s what Tim was hoping I’d do,” I said. “Suggest they get somebody else.”

  “Your brother Tim? He’s the client here?”

  “Well, sort of.” He drank his espresso, I drank my ginger tea, and I told him about CP, the museum, and the
missing Blair porcelains.

  Bill’s not really my partner. He’s a solo p.i., a one-person shop with a varied caseload, just like me. Only he’s older, taller, and tougher looking—oh, and a male white person—which means he doesn’t go as long between cases as I sometimes do. But most cases are better if you work them in pairs, and he’s usually who I call in when I need someone. Since we met I think he’s pretty much stopped calling in anybody else, too, except when he needs big muscle. I’m a good bodyguard, I’m a great shot, and I can fight; but at five-one, a hundred and ten pounds, I’m not very intimidating.

  When I need big muscle, I just call him.

  “I really hate the idea of working for Tim,” I finished up the story. “But I feel bad for Nora. She’s always been one of those people who put other people first, ever since she was a kid, and the museum matters a whole lot to her. I guess maybe I feel a little guilty, too. I used to date her brother, and we laughed at her a lot. Behind her back,” I added, so he wouldn’t think I’d been too awful.

  “Her brother? That was that guy named Matt? Your first boyfriend?”

  Even for Bill, that was surprising. “How did you remember that?”

  “He’s the one who threw you over because you were wild but not wild enough?”

  “You’re ignoring my question. And I broke up with him, in case it should happen to interest you.”

  “That’s not how you told it the first time. And it interests me deeply. I remember with crystal clarity everything you ever told me about your love life. I search your words for clues, your memories for hints. I examine the smallest detail for the key that will unlock the door to your heart.”

  “Well, keep it up.” I yawned. “Don’t let me stop you.”

  “Well,” he said, “in the meantime, if I’m going to have to work for your brother Tim, I think you’re going to have to buy me a piece of pie.”

  “Don’t pick on my brother,” I said as he waved the waitress over.

  “You always do. Want some apple pie?”

  “No. That’s because he’s stuffy and patronizing and has no sense of humor.”

  “And because you always had to wear his hand-me-downs.”

  “No, it’s because they wouldn’t let me wear his hand-me-downs. They were a club I couldn’t join, my brothers, and their club had all the fun. They played baseball while I learned to embroider.”

  “You embroider beautifully.”

  I glared. “And I’m a great shortstop.” He knew it was true; we’d played together in a Central Park league last summer.

  Bill grinned. “Hey, calm down. You can wear my hand-me-downs any time. I have this great ripped T-shirt—”

  The waitress brought his pie just in time, so I didn’t have to sock him. She also brought two forks. The pie was warm, its trails of cinammon and nutmeg mingling with the ginger from my tea.

  “I suggest we discuss this case,” I primly suggested.

  “Anything you want, boss.” Bill, still grinning, moved the pie to the center of the table. “Who’s CP’s protection?”

  I knew what he meant, and the answer wasn’t Pinkerton.

  “I asked Nora that,” I said. “She said not to worry about it, that that had nothing to do with this.”

  “How does she know that?”

  “She can’t know that. I finally caught on that she didn’t want to talk about gangs in front of the low faan. Low faan,” I started to add, “that’s—”

  “Barbarians,” Bill cut me off. “Guys who look like me. Isn’t that what your mother calls me?”

  “No, she has special words for you. Anyway, I think that’s what it was. I’ll go back to talk to her later, but it doesn’t really matter. That’s Golden Dragons territory, that corner, so it’s bound to be them.”

  All of Chinatown, with very few exceptions, is divided among a small number of gangs who extort protection money from the shopkeepers, guard the gambling dens, deal drugs, and run whatever rackets there are to be run on their blocks. They’re one of the worst facts of Chinatown life, but they are a fact, and I’ve never seen the point of pretending to outsiders that it doesn’t happen like that.

  “Have you talked to them yet?” Bill wanted to know.

  “My mother would kill you if she heard you ask that. As if any decent young woman who respected her father’s ghost would increase his sufferings in the spirit world by taking unnecessary chances, like for example speaking to a Golden Dragon.” I squared my shoulders righteously. “Not yet,” I added.

  “Want me to come with you?”

  “Oh, god, no. They may not talk to me, but they certainly won’t talk to you.”

  “I could pretend I’m a bad guy.”

  “Unless you could pretend you were a Chinese bad guy it wouldn’t help.”

  “I’ll work on it.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said, hearing in his tone what he wasn’t saying. “I’m only promising that because you didn’t tell me to.”

  “Oh, I know better than to do that.”

  “That’s why I love you.”

  “Really? You love me?”

  “No, but I appreciate you.”

  “Well,” he sighed, “that’s more than I deserve. Okay. Where do you want me to start?”

  I wasn’t sure, so I drank some tea and thought out loud. “What happens to stolen art?” I didn’t really expect him to answer me, but he did.

  “Depends who stole it. If they know what they’re doing they’ll find a fence who specializes.”

  “What does he do with it?”

  “He launders it through shady galleries. Usually he’ll have private customers of his own, too.”

  “What if the thieves don’t know what they’re doing?”

  “It’s a pain to unload if you don’t have a fence. Porcelain may be different, but in general you don’t get nearly as much for art on the black market as it’s worth—if you can find a buyer at all. There’s a provenance problem.”

  “There’s a what kind of problem?”

  “Provenance. Where the thing came from. Most people who collect are as interested in value as they are in beauty. Sometimes more. Having a clear provenance is like having a pedigree. Otherwise it’s harder to be sure things aren’t fake. Or stolen.”

  “That’s why you have to launder them through galleries?” I sampled the crumbly topping on the pie.

  “Uh-huh.” Bill ate some pie himself and went on: “The other possibility about stolen art is that it can have been stolen on commission for someone in particular.”

  “ ‘Can have been’? Is that really English?”

  “I’ll look it up. There’s a big lump of raisins over there.”

  I directed my fork to the big lump of raisins. “How often does that happen?”

  “Raisin lumps?”

  “Commissioned theft.”

  “I’ll bet not often. Most people who could afford to do that could probably afford to buy the stuff they want outright.”

  “Except from a museum or something that refuses to sell it.”

  “Could that have been a problem here?”

  “They hardly got the chance. People have to know you have something and then they have to offer to buy it from you before you can refuse to sell.”

  “Would they have, do you suppose?”

  “Refused? I don’t know. Why?”

  “I’m just wondering if someone did know they were getting this gift, and knew that that meant he’d never get his hands on any of it.”

  “Mrs. Blair said she didn’t tell anyone. And CP was keeping it secret until they were ready to unveil it to the public. They were planning a big opening. You don’t like the coincidence theory? Break in to a place because it’s there, grab whatever you can get your hands on, and leave?”

  “I’m not nuts about it, but I’ve seen stranger things. Here, you finish.” He slid the pie across the table to me.

  “It’s not my favorite theory either, but it’s a place to start.” I licked the la
st of the warm, spicy apple off my fork. “Anyway, once we find them, we can ask the bad guys why they took them.”

  I took a manila envelope out of my big black bag. “This is for you. It’s Dr. Browning’s descriptions of the stolen pieces, and some photographs. He hadn’t gotten to photographing them all, yet.”

  Bill glanced through the list and the Xeroxed photos. “Well, you’re right, it looks like porcelain. Where do you want me to start?”

  “With the slime, funny man. The specialist fences and the shady galleries.”

  I gathered my things and went to pay the check.

  Bill was lighting a cigarette in the late-day sun when I came out of the cafe. The air was so cold, after the cozy warmth we’d been sitting in, that the sharpness of it was like a slap in the face.

  Bill’s jacket was open and he wore no hat. Another hatless guy in another open jacket jumped back onto the curb so that a four-wheel-drive vehicle—so useful in the city—wouldn’t hit him. Then he calmly ambled across the street and up the block.

  “What is this, a man thing?” I asked, pulling my hat down around my ears and zipping my jacket up to my nose. “No hat is macho? That guy almost got killed probably because his brain is frozen.”

  “Or the driver’s brain is fried. You want me to call you later? Where will you be?”

  “Try me at home, this evening.”

  “Where are you going now?”

  I fished in my pocket for a subway token. “Downtown,” I said. “I’ve got to see a man about a dragon.”

  T H R E E

  By the time I came out of the subway, back in Chinatown, it was dark. I hate that about winter. I pulled my collar up to keep the icy air off the back of my neck and headed along Pell Street.

  Even in the dark and the cold Chinatown was crowded. It always is. Sometimes I get up at six on a Sunday morning just to go out onto streets I can have to myself. You can walk along the sidewalks then, at your own pace, without tripping over a guy who’s stopped for a bogus Rolex at a storefront stand or being jostled along by a family of four in a hurry to get the fish home for dinner while it’s still flopping and gasping in the plastic bag.