“Unexpected glitch. We need a meeting. Can you be ready soon?”
“Girlchik, I vass born ready. Meetink vit whom?”
“I’ll set it up and call you back. Wear the bling,” I added. “All of it.”
Next, I called Jack.
“How’d it go?”
“You guys use the same dialogue coach? Listen, there’s a problem. Haig’s gallery is the investment Mighty Casey Woo’s protecting from Vladimir Oblomov.”
“Woo’s the investor?”
“His boss. A Mr. Lau.”
“Damn. How do you know?”
“He’s there. Woo. He’s sticking to Doug Haig like a bad smell. It seems his boss is worried Haig will dispose of the Chaus without cutting him in, as soon as he finds them.”
“Haig? Double-dealing?”
“I know, it rocks your world. It didn’t make either of them happy when I announced I knew he’d already found them.”
“Either of them, Woo or his boss?”
“Either of them, Woo or Haig. His boss wasn’t there. Woo’s probably on the phone to him right now. Bill and I are going to go up and see him. Vladimir and I, I mean. Actually, this might turn out not to be a bad thing.”
“You don’t think so? Gangsters wanting a piece of Haig?”
“As far as I’m concerned everyone can cut him into lots of little pieces.”
“Be practical.”
“I’m trying. Right now, I think we should go ahead. Momentum’s on our side.”
“Sometimes they call that the slippery slope.”
“You want out?”
“Why do you guys keep asking me that? Anyway, you can’t do this without me.”
“We’d do something else.”
“See,” he sighed, “in every species on earth, it’s that carefully calculated who-needs-you attitude on the part of the female that keeps the male strutting, sticking his neck out trying to prove himself.”
“It’s not calculated. It’s instinctive. Are you still in?”
“Was there ever any real question?”
“And so the real reason I’m calling: Did you speak to Dr. Yang?”
“Which is the real reason I’m still in. After the trouble he gave me? Now that I’ve talked him into getting with the program, the rest of this is going to be like taking candy from a baby.”
“That usually results in a lot of deafening squalling.”
On that encouraging note, we hung up.
* * *
I smartphoned my way to the Tiger Holdings Web site and checked out Lau’s photo so I’d know him when I saw him. Then I called. By dropping “Baxter/Haig” a couple of times, I leapfrogged through levels of secretary to the secretary to the man himself. When I hung up Vladimir Oblomov and I had an as-soon-as-we-can-get-there appointment with Lionel Lau.
We got there soon, meeting at Lau’s midtown building so we could saunter in together.
“Does your mother know you dress like that?” Bill asked when he saw me.
“You mean, parading my well-rounded calves for all the world to see?”
“And your dimpled knees, and not inconsiderable amounts of thigh.”
“She thought I looked very nice. She just hoped I wasn’t meeting you. You should consider piercing your ear, by the way. A nice diamond stud would complement the rings and chains.”
“Uh-huh. In your dreams.”
On the twenty-ninth floor the elevator opened into a hushed lobby. Glass doors guarded by a pair of marble lions announced “Tiger Holdings” at the far side of a carpet no bigger than a town square or softer than a summer evening. Bill peered around in smiling, fellow-gangster approval at the gaudy gold dragons on crimson columns, the blue-painted vases big enough for assassins to hide in, and the young woman at the desk, whose scarlet lipstick accentuated her Ming-princess cheekbones and porcelain skin.
“Lydia Chin and Vladimir Oblomov for Lionel Lau,” I told her. She arched an eyebrow and spoke into an elegant 1930’s desk phone, listened, then pointed a fingernail at the door behind her. A moment later it opened and a familiar squarish Asian man beckoned us in. I smiled at him. “My, my. So nice to see you again. I’m sorry, at the bakery I didn’t catch your name.”
He didn’t offer it now, either, just scowled and stood waiting. He and Bill sized each other up with identical nice-to-meet-you-I-wouldn’t-try-it looks. I ignored the rising scent of testosterone and walked past them into a large room where a wall of windows spread Manhattan below me. Bill followed me in. The young man shut the door
