“It must be kismet, how lovely. I was going to call you. I have a Jin Nong I’ve just gotten, a lotus pond, from the same year as the one at the Met. Shayna, will you take charge of Lydia and Vladimir? If you need me”—she included me and Bill in her smile—“we’ll be in my office. Come.” She took Jack’s arm and drifted off to the back.
A cloud crossed Shayna Dylan’s face as Jen Beril made off with first prize. But she dutifully stood, though I thought leaving the magazine open was a little pointed. Hair cascading over her shoulders, she led us across the floor to the glass case.
“It’s a complete set,” she said, sounding a little weary, as though she wished she didn’t have to tell people things this obvious. “From a duke’s tomb. Five musicians and three dancers. All women. In the Eastern Han, as you probably know, the musicians were often women.” She was examining Bill with a newly appraising gaze. “And the dancers, always. The Han understood that beauty and grace could go hand-in-hand with talent and power.”
I made a note to ask Jack if that was true. About the Han, I mean.
“The musicians would have had their instruments when they were placed in the tomb. But the instruments were wood and wood rarely survives burial.” She was speaking exclusively to Bill, so I decided I might as well actually look at the figures. Traces of colored paint still clung to them; they must have been riotous when they were new. Even now, their odd, flat faces, squared-off edges, and empty hands didn’t detract from their exuberance. Shayna took a step closer to Bill. “But I’m sure you know that. Are you a collector?”
“Not of antiquities,” I said, partly to hear my own voice to make sure I was still here.
Shayna turned slowly to me. “Oh?” She couldn’t have been less interested and still conscious.
“I wish we were. I love these old pieces. So much history, such subtlety.”
“Yes.” Shayna gave me a cold, customer-is-always-right smile.
I sighed. “But Vlad is the real collector.” Bill grinned like the Cheshire cat, to underline my meaning: He was the one with the money. “He gets bored easily. He’s only interested in what’s flashy and new.” I looked Shayna up and down, then gave Bill a smile sweet enough to cause a toothache. “Our focus is contemporary Chinese art. Because that’s what Vlad loves.”
“Oh?” Shayna said in a totally different tone, swiveling back to Bill.
“Dat’s right.” Bill winked. “Lydia doesn’t like it, but I can’t get enuff.”
“Is that so?” Shayna eyed me with pity. “Well, many people are skittish. Unhappy with anything outside their comfort zone.”
“Absolutely,” Bill agreed. “But dey don’t know vat dey’re missing. Me, personally, I don’t care about comfort.”
“No?”
“Not exciting, comfort.”
“I can hear the passion in your voice.” Shayna swept her glossy hair. “I feel the same way.”
“Dah. I tink I could tell dat as soon as ve came in.”
“The edgy, the transgressive. The very newest. That’s what I love.”
“Iss dat so?”
Their eyes met with a spark that made me want to remind them they were talking about art.
“Vell,” Bill smiled, “iss possible you could help me out vit something.”
“I’d certainly like to try.” Shayna shifted her weight from one Jimmy Choo to the other, thrusting forward, ever so slightly, the hip that came between me and Bill.
“Sveetie,” Bill said to me, “dis von’t interest you. Ve came here so you could look at dis stuff.” He waved a vague hand. “Take long time, look at vatever you vant.” His hand came to rest on Shayna’s elbow. He steered her across the prairie of gleaming floor, toward her desk, where he, with no hesitation, slipped behind the counter to sit beside her as though he were working, too.
Which he certainly was.
* * *
I spent twenty minutes wandering lonely as a cloud, absorbing ten centuries of my heritage. What Bill was absorbing, I didn’t know. Or Jack either, until the rear wall swung open and he emerged with Jen Beril. They were both smiling, though her smile tightened as she glanced around the gallery and took in the situation. Jack’s smile, on the other hand, widened.
“Shayna?” Jen Beril’s voice rang across the oak-floored miles with the silver sound of tinkling icicles. “Have you shown our guests what they wanted to see?”
Shayna’s head, and Bill’s, popped up, both with guiltier looks on their faces than the situation seemed to warrant.
“Absolutely,” Bill answered.
“Yes,” I agreed from beside a shelf of snuff bottles. “We’ve seen more than enough.”
I wouldn’t have been surprised if my words had just echoed and faded away; by now I’d concluded I might be invisible. But Jen Beril said, “I’m glad,” and Bill stood, though he didn’t look happy about it. I waited, kind of icily myself, until he walked over to where I was. Just as he reached me I turned and stalked away, to the door. I yanked it open and strode with great majesty down the hall, where I punched the elevator button. Before Bill and Jack had left the gallery I’d stepped through the closing doors and started my descent.
6
Bill and Jack came out onto the sidewalk laughing. I was behind them, sitting on a planter near the door. They stopped and looked around; I let them be confused for a minute, then I spoke up.
“All I want to know is, did you see the photos on her phone? The rest can stay in Vegas.”
They spun around like a two-man dance routine. “Awesome,” Jack grinned. “I wish I’d seen the whole thing. Do you guys run that gag often?”
“It changes,” Bill said. “Sometimes she’s the boss, and I’m all crude and Neanderthal.”
“It’s easier that way,” I said. “Closer to reality.”
“I was expecting the art-consultant routine that you pulled on Nick Greenbank.”
“One look at Shayna, I could tell this would get Bill next to her faster. Cutting me out made her day.”
“Did you know it was coming?” Jack asked Bill.
“I just go with the flow.”
“Hey, I wasn’t the one who hauled out the Uncle Vanya accent and the Jersey Shore jewelry when we started this,” I said. “So? The photos?”
“Not yet. We were interrupted at a delicate moment.” Bill looked at Jack, who shrugged an apology. “But I’m buying her a drink later.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Hey, she’s not the kind of girl who shows her phone to a guy on the first date.”
“Why not? She shows everything else.”
“Oh, snap,” said Jack. “Do I smell the sickly sweet scent of jealousy?”
“Impatience. What good is later going to do us? Why didn’t you just swipe the phone?”
“I thought about it. But seeing the photos wouldn’t have told us where they were taken. Or would it? Is there some way—could Linus—”
“You ask that as though, if there were some way and Linus could, you’d actually go back up and steal it.”
“I would.”
“Who’s Linus?” Jack asked.
“Well, there’s not, so don’t bother.”
“Who’s Linus?”
“My cousin.”
“Ah.” Jack nodded sagely, as though that had clarified something. “Who’s Linus?”
“Linus Wong,” Bill said. “Runs a computer security business. His motto is, ‘Protecting people like you from people like us.’”
“He’s a hacker?”
“At heart.”
“Really. Is he good?”
“The best,” I said stoutly.
“In that case,” Jack said, “I think we could use him anyway.”
“Why?”
Jack leaned beside me on the planter. “Shayna’s the daughter of one of Jen’s big collectors. Jen’s assistant is out on maternity leave, so she gave Shayna the fill-in job to keep Shayna’s daddy happy. Shayna knows enough about the art to avoid making a fool of herself, and she’s decorative enough that a lot of collectors don’t care what she knows. But she’s also wildly ambitious. According to Jen, who’s counting the days, she’s everything you think she is.”