something. On deck, nobody looked.
I was already dead.
“Good day, Lovejoy.” Dr. Chao was in a stateroom—that what they’re called? A posh place with windows and a bar and elegant furniture, after miles of sleek carpeted corridors. He seemed happy, like all successful killers. “Tea?”
“Ta.” I sat. Amahs served, withdrew. Jasmine tea.
“You are not curious about the auction, Lovejoy?”
Three attempts later I managed to say, “How’d it go?”
“Very well, thank you. We decided to pay a price equivalent of sixteen thousand two hundred gold ounces.” About seven million, current. “Implication?”
“Brookers Gelman will jump at a merger. And, seeing that the Big Two auction houses get a third of their income from Impressionists these days, you’re in a position maybe to buy one out. Try Christie’s.”
“Would that be wise, Lovejoy?”
Oddly, I felt impatient. He should be getting on with the business of sentencing me to death.
“Well, if you want a cheaper deal, buy out a score of provincial auctioneers —they’re mostly struggling. You’ll put the fear of God into Bonhams, Phillips, and the rest. Maybe they’ll ask a merger too. You dictate the terms.”
He sipped his bowl of tea, cut the cackle with a faint gesture. “One thing troubles me, Lovejoy. Your Song Ping scheme went like a dream. But are you trustworthy?”
Here it came. I wished I’d not been so impatient. “You ordered me—”
“To do one, Lovejoy.” My hand quivered. I put my tea down. It was in a tiny blue-and-white porcelain stem cup, its horizontal stem grooves and spreading foot typical of the Yuan Dynasty, 1300-1350 a.d. or so. Its everted rim and three-clawed dragon decoration moved me almost to tears, except I had me to weep over now. “But you did two.” I said nothing. He put his tea down also. “It was found behind the panels of your studio. No wonder you had to work so hard, at the end.”
“Yes.” That took two whole breaths.
“Why?” His slender hands spread expressively. “Were you not well treated?”
When in doubt, use silence. I tried it until my nerve broke. “Yes.”
“So money matters so much to you that you would make a duplicate Song Ping, hide it, hope to gain by selling it later?”
“It was my one chance.” I tried to sound convincing. “Money is antiques.”
He seemed to listen as if to distant voices, then sighed. “One curiosity, though. It was an atrocious fake, Lovejoy. Fittingly, it has been destroyed. As you will now have to be, Lovejoy. A last request?” He didn’t want to offend any gods tuned in to my last agony.
I rose, amazed I could do it. “Ling Ling, please.”
He came to see me out. “Ling Ling? You mean… ?”
“Yes, please. Her.” I faced him. “You wouldn’t want me to be an annoyed ghost, ne?”
After all, at least one or two of them felt superstitious about me. Their mistake, but I’d naught else.
He stood his ground, judging me, but it took nerve. He nodded seriously. “Very well. I’ll see if it can be arranged. Good-bye, Lovejoy.”
The only so-long I knew in Cantonese means see-you-again. “So long,” I said.
The yacht sailed within twenty minutes. I was confined to a cabin, forbidden to shave or change. I could see the story—expat Lovejoy, Westerner on the run, would be found dead months from now in some remote bay. There would be no evidence.
Funny how things affect you. Sitting on the edge of a bunk I dozed, imagined a helicopter’s sibilant beat, dreamed I was back in my thatched cottage on a chill November morning.
And awoke sweating with Ong beckoning from the cabin doorway, saying, “It’s time, Lovejoy.”
The yacht anchored in a bay. A few islands were visible to seaward. Mountains rose steeply from a beautiful but narrow sandy beach. All was still and hot as hell as I climbed down into the dinghy. A sailor rowed us ashore. Ong and Leung plus two other goons accompanied me.
The sand was gritty, not soft. It felt machine made and shone like powdered rock. I went a few paces and asked what happened now. “I’ve never done this before, see.”
“Siu Jeah.” Ong pointed along the beach. Little Sister? Ling Ling was sitting in a shade recess where the rock face dived into the bay’s crescent. A frilled parasol protected her from reflected sun. She was a picture straight out of the Song Ping painting I had done.
I made it, the sand’s heat striking up through my shoes.
“Hello.” I stood like a lemon. She looked up, said nothing. “Look, love. I’m sorry. I only said it in desperation. I didn’t think they’d make you come and, well.”
“You are declining, Lovejoy?”
“Christ,” I said, then realized I’d better watch my language, the position I was in.
“Heavens, of course I want to… It’s just that, you being a jade and me only…” I flapped my hands.
She offered me an elaborate goblet of cold white wine. It was about 1680, Netherlands-made in the Venetian
