“No.”
“Check it out. There’s a rally next week. It’ll be big. Important. You’ll want to be there. Jack, you will, too.”
Jack didn’t say anything, but he walked over and took a flyer.
“You think it’ll help?” I asked. “The Chinese government doesn’t respond to much. Rallies and letter-writing, with other dissidents it sometimes looks like they don’t even notice.”
Pete’s hard gaze held me. “I don’t know. But I know doing nothing won’t work.” After another moment: “And this time, I’m pretty sure they’ll notice.”
He stood up and walked to the door, where he just waited. So we actually had to leave. By then I wasn’t too worried. Bill’s fast, especially when he’s breaking the law.
Jack and I walked back down the hall the way we’d come. We both threw quick looks at Anna Yang’s door, saw nothing but her name. We waved to Francie See as we passed her studio. She didn’t respond, just kept feathering pale blue onto the emerging painting on her easel.
Jack said, “I didn’t know you could do that. Quote Mike Liu.”
“I read the open letter.”
“I read it, too. But I can’t quote it.”
“I can do it in Chinese, too. You want to hear?”
Jack sighed. “No, I believe you.”
“But actually,” I admitted, “I read it twice.”
We turned the corner and found Bill lounging on an entryway sofa, leafing through a book on the history of Chinese fireworks. A FREE LIU MAI-KE flyer, I now noticed, was pinned to the bulletin board.
“Hey,” Bill said, getting up. “How’s Pete Tsang?”
“Curt,” said Jack.
“Handsome,” said I.
“Really?” said Jack.
“I’m just reporting.” I handed Bill the flyer as we headed for the door. “He wants us to come to a rally next week. He says it’ll be big.”
“For Anna Yang’s husband?” Bill looked at Jack.
“Lydia can quote his whole manifesto by heart. In two languages.”
“I’m translating it into Italian, too, right now in my head. No, seriously, that passage is the only part I can quote. It just grabbed me.” I repeated the passage for Bill. “And now that we’re outside”—which we were, on the sidewalk under the Flushing stars—“tell!” I wheeled on Bill. “Are they there? In Anna’s studio?”
“The Chaus?”
“No, Jimmy Hoffa and Judge Crater! Of course the Chaus!”
“No.”
I stopped. “No? Wait. No?”
“Not on the walls, and as far as I can see, not in the file drawers. That wall you’d have seen from about where Shayna took the photo? It’s empty.”
“Maybe they’re what Anna came to get.”
Jack said to Bill, “What about you? Will there be any way for Anna to know you were there?”
“If I didn’t know you were asking that question out of concern for your friend Anna’s nerves,” Bill said, lighting a cigarette, “I’d take offense.”
“Bill does a very clean B and E,” I reassured Jack. “It’s a point of pride with him. And you’re sure that’s where they were, the Chaus? Those papercuttings were for sure Anna’s?”
The question had been for Jack, but Bill nodded. “I saw the ones in the photo. They’re still there. It’s just the Chaus that’re gone.”
“Well, damn,” I said. I’d have said more, but my phone rang. An unfamiliar number, so I answered in both languages. The voice that replied, speaking in English, was not unfamiliar, but I was glad it was on the phone and not up close and personal.
“Chin Ling Wan-ju, my apology. I think we start on bad foot. I don’t try to scare you, just want to talk.”
I covered the phone and whispered to the guys, “Mighty Casey.” To Casey himself, I said, “How did you get this number?”
“Just want to talk,” he repeated. “About your client.”
“Okay, we’re talking.”
“No, we meet. Have tea, be civilized.”
“Your driver almost ran me down, you pointed a gun at me, you tried to kidnap me, and you shot at my friend. You might have tried this ‘civilized’ approach first.”
“I say, I apologize. Sometime, get too … involved, my work.”
“Who are you?”
