“I thought you could do anything. No, I’m just kidding, we don’t need that.”
“My Chinese isn’t good enough, is all,” he said defensively. “I could totally hack it if it was English. But I know some guys. Do you—”
“No, really, the people this is for, their Chinese is way worse than yours. I don’t see them bothering with the University site, and if they do they won’t be able to navigate it so they won’t know what they’re not finding. Listen, really, Linus, thanks. The whole thing looks great. Especially the picture.”
“Just a little Photoshop,” he said modestly. “So, Cuz, who is that guy? Is he really another Chinese PI?”
“I’ll tell you all about it. Later.”
“That’s what Trella said you’d say. Does Bill know about him?”
“Know what about him?”
“That’s what Trella said you’d say! Dudess!” I heard him call across the room. “I owe you five bucks! So, Cuz, you need me anymore?”
“I don’t think so, but I don’t know,” I answered truthfully.
“If you do, you know where to find me. I’m going back to bed.”
I changed my clothes, called Jack, got his voice mail, and left him a message to check the new Web site. There was no point in telling Bill that, but I called him anyway, just to say it was done and that I was heading out.
“You okay?” he wanted to know.
“Raging adrenaline. And my feet hurt in these heels.”
“I’ll be right over.”
“To carry me?”
“No, to watch you walk.”
I hung up and headed uptown, passing through the living room where my mother did a double take based on my outfit. “Why do you look so nice?” she asked suspiciously.
“I need a reason?”
“Many daughters would not. Do you have a date with the white baboon?”
“Have you ever known me to dress up for him?”
If she’d been anyone else I’d have had her. That I didn’t put on heels and a skirt for Bill should have signaled a lack of interest in what he thought of me, and should also have reassured her because he wasn’t getting any free peeks at my legs.
But this was my mother. “Pah. When you see him you look like a gang boy but he doesn’t stop calling you. He is a hyena with no understanding of beauty.”
I splurged on a cab, because of the shoes.
Outside Baxter/Haig I smoothed my skirt, elegantly mussed my hair, and pulled back the heavy glass door. I gave Nick Greenbank a sweet, sweet smile. He returned a scowl and muttered, “He’s here.”
“Yes, I know he is,” I said.
Little Nicky called the back office. When he hung up he jabbed his head in that direction, with a spreading smile so nastily predatory I began to wonder if Doug Haig had said to send me in, the bear trap was set. Nevertheless, I sashayed to the back where I was met by jittery Caitlin. She knocked on Haig’s private door, got a barked, “Come!” and opened it.
And there was the bear trap: Mighty Casey Woo.
20
Woo sat in a chair in the corner of Doug Haig’s inner office, where the take-out coffee he was sipping didn’t threaten the art. He smiled at me, a smile uncomfortably similar to Nick’s.
Doug Haig, meanwhile, sat examining a gold-and-pink pastel drawing just long enough for me to get it that the work on his table was far more important than I was and then slipped it with great care back into a portfolio, at which moment he finally looked up at me.
“Mr. Haig,” I said, blase and serene. Or I hoped I conveyed that impression. My heart was racing and my brain was outpacing it in an attempt to deal with this turn of events. “Thank you for seeing me.” I nodded to the corner. “And Mr. Woo. What a nice surprise.” I pulled out a chair at Haig’s worktable, sat primly and waited.
Wielding his chunky fingers with impressive delicacy, Haig tied the portfolio’s boards shut and laid it flat. He rejiggled his bulk to face me, showing Woo his wide back.
“Yes,” he said. “Well, Caitlin told me you said I’d be happy if I met with you. So far, I’m not.”
“You’re an impatient man. And,” I added, my brain reorganizing data like crazy, “you have such interesting friends.”
“A busy man. And my friends aren’t your business.” Haig didn’t look in Woo’s direction, as though the man weren’t there.
“No,” I said. “It’s not my business. It’s yours, and they’re not your friends. When Mr. Woo and I met, he told me he had an investment to protect. This is it. Your gallery. In my mind I had things more complicated than they needed to be. Now I get it. Tiger Holdings is your investor.”
“I don’t know why my financial arrangements were on your mind at all. You can’t really be expecting me to discuss them with you? Now, if you’re here about buying the Chaus for Mr. Oblomov, I’m not in a position yet —”
“I think you are.”
