“Mike Liu’s getting out of prison?” Eddie broke in.
“He’s out, Eddie.”
“Let Jack finish,” I said.
“But—” said Eddie, looking like the Red Queen had just suppressed him.
“It’s not public yet,” said Jack. “So keep it in your hat. It will be, in a few days.”
“I—” Eddie stopped. “Am I supposed to have any idea what we’re talking about?”
“No.”
“Oh. Fine.” He reached for a fig.
“So I asked him,” Jack said. “About Mike. He told me to back off. He’d opposed the marriage because he didn’t want Anna involved with a Chinese dissident, something he knew something about. But now Mike’s his son-in-law, now he’s family. I said, then for his son-in-law’s freedom, Anna’s happiness, and incidentally her career, this was his best shot. Now, Eddie, here’s what matters to you. Where Dr. Yang got stuck every time was at claiming Chau was alive. I told him we had to, that we had to make them want badly something that they couldn’t get, so they’d demand second best, which was the smuggler. He dug in and fought me. I thought his problem was the old idea of exploiting his friend.”
“But?” I said.
“Finally he told me he had to think and he’d call me. When he did and agreed, I thought I’d just worn him down. Then at the gallery he pulled those paintings out, and I got it. You were blindsided because he brought three. For me it was the paintings themselves.”
“Jack, really, you’re not saying—”
“Yes, I am. The line quality, the composition—everything about those paintings screams the same painter, twenty years later. When I was supposed to be up the street having coffee while you guys messed with Jerrold’s head in my office? I really was with Dr. Yang. I had to know. Then I came back and read from my script the way we’d made it up. Except it was all true.”
“My God. Jack, really?” I stared at him. “The Ghost Hero is alive?”
Jack looked into the clear liquor of his drink, possibly because it was more attractive than the three pairs of bugging eyes around the table. Well, two—mine and Eddie’s. And one narrowed: Bill’s. He doesn’t bug. Jack went on: “That’s why Dr. Yang didn’t want us to say it. Because it’s true.”
“Oh.” I sank back against the banquette.
Eddie To sat openmouthed and speechless.
After a moment, Bill said, “The same smuggler? Around the same time?”
“That’s right. Exactly what we said. Chau’s been underground for twenty years. Painting, never showing, just the way we had it. He’s a citizen, so he’s not actually in danger, but Yang didn’t want to out him.”
“What made him change his mind?”
“He talked to Chau.”
“Oh,” I said again.
“Chau told him to get over himself. He said this was for Anna, what was the big deal? If a lot of problems could be solved by people thinking he was still alive, so fine. And by the way, don’t use Anna’s paintings from China, here are three actual new ones.”
“Why?”
“He said Dr. Yang had never made a false attribution in his life and he wouldn’t let him start now. If he was going to have to sign off on paintings as new to make gangsters happy—by which, apparently, he meant Jerrold and Jin as well as Lionel Lau—they were going to be new.”
“You know,” I said, “I think he really may be a hero.”
“But not a ghost. The only thing he asked was that Dr. Yang not say where he was if at all possible. He likes his new life.”
“Jack,” said Eddie. “Jack. The Ghost Hero lives, he’s still painting, and Red Sky will be showing the first new Chaus in twenty years? Do I have that essentially correct?”
“You do.”
“Oh. My. God! Jack, if I weren’t already married to Frank I’d marry you. You could marry us both! I’m sure Frank won’t mind. Jack, will you marry us?”
“No. But maybe you should go home and break the good news to Frank.”
“I will. I will.” Eddie gulped the rest of his champagne and stood. “Though I get the feeling you’re throwing me out. You want to be alone with your co-conspirators? Are you starting another conspiracy? I don’t want to know. I’m leaving. Will you come to the opening? All of you. The wine will be excellent. It’ll be invitation-only. Yes, I’m going. Frank! Oh, Frank!” He practically ran out of the bar.
29
The next morning I slept in. That’s unlike me, but the celebration had gone on and on. After the drinks, Jack took us to a Lebanese restaurant for tajines and loud music from a joyous three-man band. Then I suggested coffee and tea at Silk Road. Then Bill had an after-hours club he recommended. The sun wasn’t yet crawling up over the horizon by the time I got home, but it was nearing it. And I’d had a pink drink.
“Ling Wan-ju,” my mother said, as I stumbled into the kitchen in search of the tea I knew she’d made. “You’ve slept quite soundly. Perhaps you came in late last night. I didn’t hear you.”
Uh-huh. “Pretty late.” I kissed her, grabbed the teapot, and poured a cup.
“How is your case going?”
I took a sip, felt the heat cut its way down my innards. “It’s over, Ma. It worked out well.”
“You were successful?”
“Yes, we were.” Caffeine began kick-starting my brain.
“I see. That is good. Professional success is important. No matter what one’s profession.”
Uh-huh, again.
“Now that the case is over,” my mother said, her back to me as she sorted dishes from the dish rack onto cabinet shelves, “I suppose you will not be seeing the other detective? The Chinese one?”
“Jack? I guess I hadn’t thought about it.” I hadn’t, and I had to say, my first reaction to the idea wasn’t positive. “But Ma, I thought you didn’t like him.”
“Ling Wan-ju.” She turned, wearing the wide-eyed look. “I do not know him.”
This was true, and was the point at which, normally, I’d have given up. Now, though, maybe prompted by the still-circulating remains of my cosmo, or maybe by the not-yet-faded flush of victory, I found myself soldiering on. “Ma, you just seriously flip-flopped on the subject of Jack. A few days ago you were completely disenchanted when you found out he was an investigator, and second generation, too.”
“I do not understand what you mean by ‘disenchanted.’ I have not been under a spell.”
Bilingual communication failure: The Chinese word I’d dredged up to express that thought was obviously not quite right. “If you spoke English I wouldn’t always be using the wrong Chinese word,” I said. “I meant ‘disappointed.’”
“If you spoke better Chinese, you would not, also. I was disappointed. I was hoping you had met a young man in a respectable profession. First generation, or possibly Chinese-born. More Chinese than American.” She shut the cabinet. “However, you have not. You have met this Lee Yat-sen. You seem to enjoy his company. He appears to be a respectable young man.”
“How do you—oh, no. You had someone Google him, didn’t you?”
“Someone” could only be one of my brothers, and her affronted look told me I was right. “Ling Wan-ju, I don’t know that word, goo-goo. I asked your brother on the telephone if he knew this Lee Yat-sen. He called me back to tell me that he had heard good things about him, as far as that is possible in your profession.”
My mother never tells me which brother she’s talking about; I’m supposed to just know. In this case, it could have been any of them, until she hit that last snide remark. That made it Tim, and I snorted.