“Dah. I mean yes!”
“Good boychik. Now, vile your boss—charmink man—ees looking, ve’re going to see your leetle Shayna. Meanvile, if you suddenly theenk of something maybe I should know, you giff Brown Eyes a call, how about dat?” Bill reached over the counter, lifted a pen from a steel tube, peeled a Baxter/Haig business card from a steel box, and scribbled my number again. He tucked the card in Nick’s shirt pocket and patted him on the cheek. “Okay. Now chust tell me diss. Your little Shayna, ven ve get dere, iss she going to say she hass no idea vat dat cute guy from Baxter/Haig iss talking about? Or maybe, Shayna don’t even remember no cute guy from Baxter/Haig?”
“She’ll remember me,” Nick said savagely, already angry with Shayna for stabbing him in the back.
“I’m gled for you. But you’re not gonna remind her? You’re not thinking right now, maybe you’ll give dat cute Shayna a call? Because I’ll be very disappointed iff I get dere and Shayna suddenly vent home sick.”
Nick shook his head. “No, no.”
“And diss won’t be, vat do dey say in English, a vild bird chase? Vee get up dere, Shayna don’t got no photographs on her phone, and vee come back here and little boychik iss da vun vent home sick? Because…” Bill swept the room with his arm one more time.
“No,” said Nick. “It’s what I said. You ask her where that open studio was that Doug Haig got excited about. That’s who has the Chaus. But I’m telling you—”
“Fakes, yess, yess, thenk you, boychik. Now, you get back to verk, so Meester Haig, he don’t fire you, dah? Hah, fire you! Det’s pretty funny.” Bill socked me in the arm again, turned, and left. I hurried after him. Too bad Bill had told Nick to stay put. He looked bad enough to go home sick.
5
Bill and I stayed silent until we’d rounded the corner onto Ninth Avenue and put another block between us and Baxter/Haig. Then I exploded. “That sleazy, twisted, pervy horn-dog! Ugh ugh ugh. Creeparama! Can I burn his gallery down myself?”
“After we’re through.”
“That poor woman! Unbelievable! All the way from China and she had to put up with that! And your rings are hideous. Where did you get them?”
“Chinatown, where else?”
“And the accent? Did you get that in Chinatown, too?”
“Come on, girlchik. Dat’s vun of my besst.”
“Vun uff your most ridiculous, enyvayz. I can’t believe either of them bought it.”
“Haig was hearing the clink of coin. That drowns out a lot. And little Nicky saved his boss’s business. He’s a hero.”
“Thanks a bunch, by the way, for giving both those jerks
“That was payback for ‘Oblomov.’ Russian Lit. 101?”
“First time it’s ever come in handy.”
We’d almost made it to the subway when Bill’s phone rang. “Well, it can’t be either of those, um, jerks.” He checked the screen and told me, “Jack.” He answered, listened, stopped walking, and said, “Jesus Christ! Are you okay?”
I stopped, too. “What happened?”
He waved me silent, listened another few moments, then said, “Okay, we’re on the way,” and clicked off.
“On the way where?” I demanded. “What happened?”
“Someone took a shot at Jack.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later we were back on Madison. For a few moments we hung back, getting the lay of the land: warning cones, crime scene tape, glass-covered sidewalk. A crowd milled, snapping cell phone pictures of the glittering shards of Jack’s front window. As we watched, the door to the stairs opened and a pair of unmistakable NYPD detectives emerged, sticking notebooks away. Without discussing it, but by mutual consent, Bill and I waited until their car pulled out. That seemed to cue the crowd, too. The sidewalk began to clear and we made our way to the door. A few seconds after we buzzed, Jack appeared above us, sticking his head out the ragged opening where his window used to be. “Oh, look! It’s Job and Calamity Jane! Go away.”
“No,” Bill said.
“Oh. Well, all right.” Jack disappeared and a moment later we were buzzed in.
“Wow,” I said, walking into his office. As opposed to the mess on the sidewalk, this was the same serene and tidy place I’d seen two hours ago, except for the sharp glass daggers sparkling in the otherwise empty window frame, and the long thin groove in the plaster ceiling. “Is repelling debris one of your superpowers?”
“I swept up because you were coming. Wanted to make a good impression.”
“You did that already today.”
“Good, because I don’t think it would work out now. Look, you guys, does this kind of thing happen to you much?”
“Never,” Bill answered.
I shook my head, too.
“Liars.” Jack waved an arm. “The chairs are safe, if you want to sit down.”
Bill settled onto a chair. “Chilly in here.” Jack, his leather jacket on and halfway zipped, glared at him.
I hesitated, but it was the more Chinese move to risk my tender behind to an overlooked glass splinter than to imply I didn’t trust Jack’s housekeeping. “So what happened?” I asked as I sat.
