“I thought I did.”
“No, listen.” Jack tested his two-shot macchiato. “There’s an obvious conflict if we work together. Whose client gets the gold from the mummy’s tomb when we find it?”
“Let me point out that, personally,” I said, “I haven’t been hired to deliver the mummy’s gold. Just to locate it.”
“Ooh, Talmudic,” Jack said with admiration. “But I still see a conflict. I mean, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I admitted.
“But what I said before is true—we’d be running into each other anyway. It would get embarrassing after a while. And if I blow you off, tell you I never heard of Ghost Hero Chau, who you gonna call?”
“Ghost Hero Busters?”
“My client. The minute you scratch the Chinese contemporary art surface, you’ll find him. He’s the go-to guy. Bernard Yang, at NYU.”
“Oh. I think his name came up when I Googled.”
“Told you. You’d show up in his office looking for background on Ghost Hero Chau. Next thing, he has a cow and calls me. Then I have to say I have no idea who you are but I’ll check it out, which is a lie and makes me look a step behind besides. Or I have to tell him I know all about you but no worries, which makes my judgment in not warning him suspect. Or, I do warn him, and tell him to pretend he’s out of town when you call. Then I have to pretend to you I didn’t do that, and—man, you guys are putting me in a bad position. Some friends you are.”
“We’ll make it up to you,” Bill said. “When this is all over I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Not good enough.”
“
Jack brightened. “Now you’re talking.”
“Well,” I said to Bill. “At least they’re different clients.”
Jack said, “That’s why I asked before if yours was Chinese.”
“Is Yang Chinese-Chinese, or ABC?”
“Chinese-Chinese. From the mainland, here about twenty years.”
“From the mainland, Bernard?”
“No, Ji-tong, but he’s an American now. Hey, is your name Lydia?”
“No,” I admitted. “Chin Ling Wan-ju.”
“Ling Wan-ju? ‘Sparkling doll?’”
“More like the buzz-saw blades,” Bill put in.
Jack stuck out his hand to me. “Lee Yat-sen.”
We shook hands a second time. Maybe it was from his coffee mug, but now his grip seemed not just strong, but warm. “Named after Sun Yat-sen?”
“My mother’s a great admirer. What about you?” Jack asked Bill.
“Charlie Chan Smith. Your Professor Yang, what’s his interest?”
“Moral outrage.” Jack leaned forward, bony elbows sticking out. “Yang also taught at the Beijing Art Institute, back in the day. He wasn’t involved in the democracy movement—cautious kind of guy—but of course he knew Chau. They were friends, and he admired Chau’s work. He thinks these new paintings are fakes and all the mystery’s just a way to build them up.”
“For what purpose?”
“For some forger and some dealer to make a lot of money.”
“And that makes him so indignant he’s willing to pay an investigator to expose them? Before they’re even on the market?”
“They may never come on the market. Lots of art is traded privately. Yang says Chau died for his beliefs and he shouldn’t be resurrected to fill someone’s pockets.”
“So Yang’s doing what, salving his conscience for not marching shoulder to shoulder with Chau back then?” Bill asked. “He doesn’t have a horse in the race?”
“That’s the implication.”
“Okay.” I looked up from my spice tea. “The reason my client gave for hiring me sounded fishy and I told you what we think his real one is. Yours sounds fishy, too.”
Jack nodded. “It does.”
“And?”
“My completely theoretical, backed-up-by-nothing hypothesis?”
“You have another one?”
“No.”
“Then that one.”
