The Shanghai Moon Read online

  “Mulgrew can’t find Alice,” I told Bill. “He thinks that makes her look bad. I can’t tell him where to find her, so I look bad, too.”

  “Did she check out?”

  “No.”

  “Then what makes him think she’s not just in a meeting or something, with her phone off?”

  “Probably because so many people avoid him all the time, it’s his first guess.”

  “She may not even know he’s looking for her.”

  “Or she could be in trouble. Maybe that’s what was fishy.” I tried Alice’s cell and the Waldorf myself but just got voice mail. I pulled her card from my wallet. “I’m going to call her office in Zurich. Maybe they know how to reach her.”

  “You can do that, but it’s eight at night there.”

  I did it anyway, and all it got me was a woman’s voice, speaking German, saying nothing I understood except “Alice Fairchild.” I tried to leave a message, but the phone clicked off.

  “How’s your German?” I asked Bill.

  “My Dutch is better. Why?”

  I made the call again and handed him the phone.

  “The office is closed for two weeks,” he said. “Please call back.”

  “That’s why it won’t take a message?”

  “Who wants their voice mail clogged with two weeks’ worth of calls?”

  “Who can afford to blow off business for two weeks? Wouldn’t your clients drop you if you did something like that?”

  “My clients drop me for all sorts of reasons.”

  “Yeah, like you don’t have that smart, dependable Chinese partner anymore.”

  “And they know it’s my own fault. Maybe all the clients she cares about have her cell number.”

  I was trying to think what to do when the phone rang again. It was another unfamiliar number, and I considered letting it go to voice mail, but at the last minute I answered, drawing out both names in case it was Mulgrew again.

  “Ms. Chin? This is Leah Pilarsky calling.” The voice was tentative. “You don’t know me. I’m Joel Pilarsky’s sister-in-law.”

  I felt as if the sun had suddenly gone down. “I’m so sorry about Joel.”

  “Thank you. We all loved him. Ms. Chin, Joel’s wife, Ruth, asked me to get in touch with you. She got a call from someone looking for Joel, someone who didn’t know . . . Anyway, Ruth thinks it has to do with the case he’d just started, with you. Joel always spoke highly of you, and Ruth is sure he’d want you to go on. Do you want the number?”

  Joel spoke of me at all? And, highly? “Yes, I do, please. Was it Alice Fairchild?”

  “No. A man called Friedman, Stanley Friedman.” She gave me a number. “Do you know him?”

  “No, but I’ll call him right away. Thank you very much. And please tell Mrs. Pilarsky how sorry I am.”

  I briefed Bill while I dialed.

  “Friedman and Sons, you’ve reached Stanley Friedman.” The voice had an Eastern European accent.

  “Mr. Friedman, my name is Lydia Chin. I worked with Joel Pilarsky. I understand you called him?”

  “Yes, I did. You’re his partner? My condolences to you.”

  “Thank you.” I let the inaccuracy slide. “Mr. Friedman, do you have information you wanted to give Joel?”

  “I’m not sure I do, I’m not sure I don’t. Yesterday when he came here, he spoke to my son, I was out. I only just now saw the pictures he left.”

  “Do you know something about the pieces in them?”

  “Something. Ms.—Chin? A question: Maybe it’s possible for you to come here? The telephone is a fine instrument, but some things are better face-to-face.”

  “I completely agree. Where’s here?”

  “Thirty West Forty-seventh Street. Third floor. Friedman and Sons.”

  “I’ll be right up.”

  I hung up and looked at Bill. He was already on his feet.

  For the second time that day I took the N uptown. Weaving along the crowded Diamond District sidewalk, Bill and I parted for three bearded, black-coated Hasidim and eddied around a Latino couple holding hands at an engagement-ring display. At Number 30 a minimal lobby led to a no-frills elevator. On the third floor, a camera peered from the ceiling and a buzzer clung to the wall by a door labeled FRIEDMAN AND SONS. I buzzed and it buzzed back.

  In a windowless but brightly lit room we were greeted by a man with warm blue eyes and white hair under a black yarmulke. “Ms. Chin, I’m Stanley Friedman. Thank you for coming.”

  I introduced Bill—as my associate, not my partner; he looked at me sideways and I thought, So sue me—and we all shook hands. Stanley Friedman gestured us to chairs around a book-piled coffee table. Luscious color photos of rings, bracelets, and necklaces decked the walls.

  “These are your work?” I asked. “They’re beautiful.”

  He smiled. “My father, of blessed memory, was a real jeweler, an artist. So are my sons. In between is Stanley Friedman, a peasant. I choose the stones and run the business.” He lifted an envelope from the table and slid out photographs I recognized. “Now, Ms. Chin, I ask you a question: These are the pieces you and your partner, may he rest in peace, were looking for?”

  “Yes. Have you seen them?”

  “No.”

  “No? But—”

  “Again, I ask you a question: These were all?”

  “All?”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Not as far as I know. Should there have been something else?”

  “Should, I can’t say. I’ll admit to you, when I saw these pictures, I got excited. I thought probably it was just Friedman being romantic, and it wouldn’t be true, but if it was, how wonderful to be part of it! But then I find the man who brought the pictures is murdered, and I think this: The chances of it being true are greater, and wonderful it’s not.”

  “Mr. Friedman, I’m sorry, but I don’t follow you.”

  He turned one of the photos over. On the back a bulleted list covered the facts of the case: Rosalie Gilder’s name, and Elke’s, Horst’s, and Paul’s; the date of Rosalie and Paul’s arrival in Shanghai; Wong Pan’s name, the date the box was dug up, and the date the contents disappeared.

  “My son is a precise man,” Stanley Friedman said. “This is the information your partner gave him. It’s correct? These pieces were Rosalie Gilder’s?”

  He spoke Rosalie’s name with an odd familiarity.

  “Yes, it’s correct.”

  He leaned forward. “Ms. Chin, your partner. He had found these pieces?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Possibly, you may need to think again.” From the coffee table Friedman picked up a thick book. “Legendary Gemstones of the World. Scott and Huber, 1992. A reference in my field. May I read an entry?” He slipped on half-glasses and opened to a bookmark. “ ‘The Shanghai Moon. A disc of white jade streaked with green, set in gold, surrounded by diamonds. The surface of the jade worked in a pattern of clouds and magpies, China, Tang Dynasty (618–907); the diamonds of nineteenth-century origin, reportedly bar-and princess-cut.’ Ms. Chin, Mr. Smith, do you know this gem?”

  “No,” I answered.

  But Bill said, “Yes.”

  “You do?” I was surprised, though Stanley Friedman didn’t seem to be.

  “When I was in the navy, in Asia,” Bill said. “It’s a brooch, right? And it’s lost. It was the Pacific seaman’s equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge. If you were particularly clueless, some guy would always offer to sell you the Shanghai Moon.”

  “A brooch,” Mr. Friedman agreed. “And lost. Listen to Scott and Huber. ‘One of the more recent pieces in this volume, the Shanghai Moon is also the most mysterious. Its story is unverified, but there is general agreement on the basic facts: In Shanghai in 1941, a young couple brought a jade disc and a diamond necklace to a jeweler whose identity has been lost. The couple were a Jewish refugee from Salzburg, Rosalie Gilder—’ ”

  “Rosalie?”

  Mr. Friedman stopped, peering
over the glasses.

  “I’m sorry!” I said. “Go on. That gem is Rosalie’s? Who was the man?”

  The jeweler went back to the page. “ ‘Rosalie Gilder, and a Shanghainese named Chen Kai-rong. Secretly—’ ”

  “Kai-rong! Oh! Oh, good! No, I’m sorry, go on.”

  He lowered the book. “Ms. Chin? You don’t know the Shanghai Moon, but you know these people?”

  “I’ve read some letters. Her letters. From when she met him. That’s all. Please go on.”

  “Letters?”

  “At the Jewish Museum. In the Holocaust archives.”

  “Ah.” He nodded slowly and resumed. “ ‘Secretly betrothed, the pair asked the jeweler to combine the jade, an heirloom of the Chen family, with the stones from the necklace, which had been Rosalie Gilder’s mother’s. The resulting brooch was known as the Shanghai Moon. Worn by the young woman at their wedding the following year, the Shanghai Moon was seen only rarely after that. It was variously reported sold, stolen, or destroyed; the most fanciful rumor had it in the possession of a German officer’s widow in a Japanese internment camp. None of these stories was ever proved true. It remains most likely that Rosalie Gilder Chen, or in any event the Chen family, retained possession of the brooch throughout the war.’

  “ ‘Jewish refugees leaving Shanghai after the war took with them rumors of the Shanghai Moon’s splendor, as did repatriated European and Japanese nationals. How many of these people had actually seen the brooch is unknown, but its legend grew.’ ”

  Here Stanley Friedman looked over his glasses, then went back to reading. “ ‘For four years following the Second World War, civil war raged in China. Occasional accounts of sightings of the Shanghai Moon reached the West, none verifiable. In 1949, as the Bamboo Curtain fell across the early days of the People’s Republic, the brooch was said to be in Kobe, Japan; in Bangkok; and in Singapore. Over the years stories have put the Shanghai Moon in such places as Taipei, Hong Kong, and San Francisco, and collectors have followed; but to date every search has been fruitless.’ ”

  Finished, Friedman took off his glasses and passed the book to us. The glossy white page opposite the entry was conspicuously empty except for these words:

  THE SHANGHAI MOON

  VALUE: UNKNOWN

  (NO ILLUSTRATION)

  I looked up at Stanley Friedman. “This is what should have been with Rosalie’s jewelry? The Shanghai Moon?”

  “Should, who can say? But this story, I heard it when I was young. Even then, I was a practical man. I paid no attention. It was a legend, you see, this gem.” He folded his glasses and slipped them into his pocket. “So for sixty years, no one sees these pieces that were Rosalie Gilder’s. Everyone starts to think like Stanley Friedman: They’re a myth, the Shanghai Moon’s a myth, it’s all a romantic story from bad times. But now? Suddenly, here they are, these pieces, and suddenly, your partner’s killed. These, they don’t look to me like something worth killing over. Especially, they’re not worth killing someone who hasn’t found them.”

  “But the Shanghai Moon is?”

  “Would I kill for it, or would you?” Stanley Friedman shrugged. “But if your partner had caught its scent—Ms. Chin, there are people who’ve been looking for the Shanghai Moon for a very long time.”

  9

  “It must be what Joel meant,” I said to Bill as the elevator started down. “He must have heard about the Shanghai Moon.”

  “Maybe. But why would that be ‘fishy’?”

  “Because Alice never told us about it?”

  “She might not know. Just because it was Rosalie Gilder’s doesn’t mean it was found with this other jewelry.”

  “True. But when the heirs were notified about the find, wouldn’t they have asked?”

  “Maybe they never heard of it either.”

  “That’s a stretch. You’ve heard of it.”

  “It was one of those back-room legends in sailor’s bars.”

  “With which you’re quite familiar, I’m sure.”

  “Legends?”

  “Bars. Did you ever meet anyone who saw it?”

  “Not that I recall. Just guys whose buddies, captains, and pawnbrokers had. The drunker guys were, the more spectacular they claimed it was.”

  “By which you mean the Shanghai Moon.”

  “Don’t tell me,” he said as we issued onto Forty-seventh Street, “that besides taking up the use of four-letter words, you’ve developed a dirty mind.”

  “Without you around someone had to provide the smut.” I sagged against the building, dismayed at the rush hour crowds. “God, I’m tired. I feel like my tank’s empty.”

  “You’ve had a hard day.”

  “No kidding.”

  “You want a cup of tea?”

  “Can I go home to bed?”

  “Sure.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  We started along the block, looking for a place to try the tea option. We didn’t make it to the corner before my phone rang. I flipped it open and answered, sticking my finger in my other ear to hear better. What I heard was “Lydia? This is Alice Fairchild.”

  “Alice!” I practically yelped. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course.” She sounded surprised at the question. “Lydia, what’s happened? I’ve been in meetings, and I just got your messages. A police detective has been trying to reach me, too. Have they found Wong Pan? And the jewelry?”

  “Oh,” I said. “No, I’m afraid not. Alice, there’s some very bad news. I’m sorry, but . . . Alice, Joel’s dead.”

  I heard her quick breath. “What? Oh, my God! What happened?”

  “Someone shot him. At his office, this morning.”

  “Shot him?” Her voice rose a few notes. “This morning? But I just spoke to him this morning. Who? What happened?”

  “They don’t know. That’s why the police want to talk to you.”

  “To me?” A pause. “They can’t be thinking this has anything to do with the jewelry?”

  “They don’t know.”

  “But how? I don’t see—Had Joel located it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Had he found Wong Pan?”

  “I don’t know, Alice. He called me, but he just said to come up. I don’t know why.”

  “Oh, my God. What if he’d found Wong Pan, and Wong Pan—Yes, of course I’ll talk to the police, if it would help. I’ll call that detective right away. Will you come?”

  “To see Mulgrew?” The idea did not fill me with delight.

  “You might remember details I’ve forgotten. Of our discussion. Something that might have sent Joel off in one direction or another.”

  I had to admit it was a good idea.

  “I’m almost back at the Waldorf,” she said. “I’ll call him now.”

  “I’m nearby. I’ll meet you there.”

  I relayed this conversation to Bill, who’d steered me into a notch in a facade and planted himself between me and the surging crowds. We headed toward the Waldorf. Our steps fell into rhythm, as they often did; as it often did, that surprised me, Bill being thirteen inches taller than I am. “Hey, by the way,” I said, as we neared the hotel’s doors. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Showing up.”

  For a moment, he didn’t speak. Then, “I was afraid it was too little, too late.”

  “Almost. Not quite.”

  I got no smile this time from the Waldorf’s doorman, who probably thought I shouldn’t be running around in wrinkled linen when I had that nice silk suit. Or maybe he didn’t like the looks of Bill. Bill can clean up well, but in general he’s not a Waldorf kind of guy. Nevertheless, a call from the desk to Alice’s room got us an invitation up to a floor where the corridor was plushly carpeted and the walls layered in molding. I clinked a little brass knocker; the door opened right away.

  “Oh, Lydia!” Alice pressed my hands in quick sympathy. “This is so terrible. I’m so sorry about Joel.”r />
  “Thank you. Alice, this is a colleague of mine, Bill Smith. Bill, Alice Fairchild.”

  They shook hands. Alice asked Bill, “Did you know Joel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then my condolences on your loss, too. Sit down, please. Coffee and tea are on the way. Or would you like something stronger?”

  “Aren’t we going to the precinct?” I asked.

  “The detective’s coming here.”

  “Mulgrew?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “At him, for being so accommodating.”

  “I think he thinks I’m a delicate lady of a certain age who might get rattled in a police station. Where he got that idea, I have no clue.” Her eyes twinkled. “But I’m sure it’s more comfortable here than there.”

  The room was populated by carved furniture, brass lamps with pleated shades, botanical prints on striped wallpaper. Street sounds drifted up, muffled by glass and the soft purr of air-conditioning. I sat in a flowered armchair, but Bill leaned near a window, where he could look both into the room and out over New York.

  “Tell me what happened,” Alice said.

  I gave as clinical an account of Joel’s death as I could manage. Her hand went to her mouth when she heard I was the one who’d found him.

  “That’s horrible! Oh, Lydia, I’m so sorry.”

  “He called me. He said something was fishy. He told me to rush up there.”

  “Fishy? What was it?”

  “I don’t know. I never found out. But if I’d done what he said—”

  Bill shifted on his perch, about to break in and give me a hard time for giving myself a hard time, but Alice spoke first. “It’s so natural,” she sighed. “To blame ourselves when something terrible happens. I think it’s comforting in a way. It makes us feel there’s something we could have done if we’d been smarter, or faster, or whatever it is. Sometimes thinking we’ve failed is less frightening than admitting we were helpless.”

  My face burned. I felt like I’d caught sight of myself in a mirror, and I didn’t look so good.

  “But Lydia,” Alice went on gently, “you say the police think it was random, a robbery. Couldn’t that be true?”