pretty safe.”
“I see. So people like this Ghost Hero Chau are insulated by money. I guess I’m not surprised.”
But Dunbar shook his head. “Chau’s a special case. For one thing, if what I hear is true, the new paintings are here, in New York.”
“If what you hear is true? You mean you haven’t seen them?” I was getting a glimmer of what this was about.
“That’s right. I haven’t, and no one seems to know where they are. I’m hoping you can find them.”
“Because I’m Chinese?”
“That sounds like racial profiling, doesn’t it?” He smiled again. “I suppose it is. It occurred to me, if I wasn’t having any luck tracking the paintings through art channels, there might be another way. I did an online search for a Chinese investigator.”
I might have taken offense, but after all, that’s why my Chinese clients come to me, too. “Tell me something, Mr. Dunbar. If no one’s seen these paintings, what makes you think they exist?”
“Rumors. The collecting community’s always full of rumors. Backhanded, of course, because everyone’s trying to beat everyone to the prize.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“Oh, someone sidles up to you at an opening and asks if you’ve heard this nonsense about the new Chaus, the Ghost Hero’s ghost paintings that don’t exist. They’re hoping you’ll say,
“And that’s been going on?”
“Variations of it. For about a week now. But I’ve spoken to the galleries and private dealers—I’m sure everyone else has, too—and I’ve gotten nowhere. Only one gallery assistant even admitted to knowing what I was talking about, and then he backpedaled. I think he realized he was in over his head. The Chinese contemporary world’s pretty small and his boss must be as eager as anyone to find these paintings. If I end up with them because this kid put me on the inside track, and his boss finds out, he’s up a creek. Plus, I just started collecting. He might be willing to go out on a limb for one of the big collectors, but he doesn’t know me from a hole in the ground.”
A creek, a limb, and a hole in the ground. Maybe these were nature metaphors with hidden political meaning.
“So what do you think, Ms. Chin? Can you find them?”
“Mr. Dunbar, you’re not even sure these paintings exist. Why not wait until they either surface, or it all turns out to be smoke? I guess what I’m asking is, Why is paying for an investigation worth it?” It’s not that I wanted to talk myself out of work, but something wasn’t adding up here.
Jeff Dunbar regarded me. “Do you collect anything, Ms. Chin? Stamps, coins, Barbie dolls?” He added, “Guns?” Racial profiling, but carefully politically correct about gender.
“No.”
He leaned forward. “For a collector, the hunt’s as much of a thrill as the find. I want these Chaus, if they’re real. But I also want to be the one who finds them, and finds out if they’re real. Especially since I’m the new kid on the block. Does that make sense?”
“I guess so,” I said, though the collector’s passion, to me, is like gravity: I admit it has a pull but I don’t understand it.
“Also,” he said, “there’s a time issue.”
Ah. Time is money. And money does talk.
“Asian Art Week starts Sunday. All over town: The auction houses, the museums and galleries, two big Armory shows, and a show the Chinese government’s sending over called Beijing/NYC. Mostly classical art and antiquities, but a lot of contemporary, too. The big collectors, the critics, the curators all come. From everywhere—Asia and Europe, as well as here. If these Chaus exist, whoever has them might be planning to unveil them then.”
“To make a splash.”
“That’s right.”
“And you want them so you can make the splash.”
“I told you the collecting world’s small? It’s also closed and clannish. Some things I’m interested in I never get a shot at, because when they show up, I’m not the one who gets the call. I want that to change. If I had the new Chaus, trust me, that would change.”
“All right. But there’s something else. I don’t know much about this, but wouldn’t an artist, or a dealer or somebody, whoever has these paintings, either just put them on the market, or not? I mean, one or the other. Rumors, mystery, paintings no one’s seen that may or not be real—is this how the art world works?”
“Normally, no. But as I said, Ghost Hero Chau is a special case. The possibility of new paintings by him would be bound to stir up all kinds of mystery and rumors.”
“And why is that?”
Dunbar sat back. “Are you familiar with the uprising at Tiananmen Square in 1989?”
I thought for a moment. “A democracy movement that never got off the ground, crushed by the Party. That’s about all I know.”
“Correct. They sent the army in against the protestors. Hundreds of people were killed. Including Ghost Hero Chau. Ms. Chin, he’s been dead for twenty years.”
2
Back in my office an hour later, I watched Bill Smith take an evaluative sip of coffee. He used
