Mundane? Shanghai’s shadows vanished in an instant: Joel was dead, and the Shanghai Moon might be to blame.
“You’re right.” I put my teacup down. “Can we go back to the Shanghai Moon? You saw it. What do you think it’s worth?”
“I saw it, yes, as a boy. But childhood memories are unreliable.”
“Still. You’re an expert in this field, after all.”
“Ah, such barefaced flattery! But all right, I’ll take that bait. As described-as its legend has it-the value of the Shanghai Moon would approach two million dollars. More, if collectors let their hearts rule their heads. And they always do. That truth has brought me a good livelihood. But I deal in gems I can hold in my hand! The Shanghai Moon is a shadow. A quicksand. Tread carefully.”
“It may be too late for that. Mr. Zhang, I’m not the only investigator hired to look for Rosalie Gilder’s jewelry. The other was shot dead in his office.”
The traffic must have stopped for a light, because the room went silent. “Shot dead?” C. D. Zhang paused. “And the search for Rosalie Gilder’s jewelry was the cause?”
“I’m not sure of that,” I admitted.
“And you’re not sure the Shanghai Moon has reappeared, even if it was.”
“No, but-”
“Exactly my point. The Shanghai Moon attaches itself to danger, to romance. The way a shadow attaches itself to substance. My cousin is sure, no doubt.”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, I can promise you he is. If he hasn’t said as much, it only means he thinks he’s close to the Shanghai Moon and wants to keep it for himself. It’s always the same.”
“You’re saying he was freezing me out?”
C. D. Zhang just smiled.
“Will he try to freeze your brother out, too?”
“Well, he hardly can, can he?”
“Why not?”
“My cousin’s wasted a great deal of money on this wild goose chase over the years. That money has all been my brother’s.”
“Zhang Li’s been financing him? I didn’t know that.”
“Does it surprise you?”
“Yes. He seemed more, I don’t know, down to earth.”
“They’re both mad, not just the one. Although Brother Li lives in less of a dreamland than Cousin Lao-li, perhaps precisely because the money’s his. He’s seen through some of the more absurd hints and offers, over the years. Chases Lao-li would have dashed off on if he had his way. And this, Ms. Chin, sounds like another of those. That a long-vanished jewel should be involved in a recent killing…” He fixed his eyes on me. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? You’re caught in the web.”
My cheeks grew hot. “I’m trying to solve a murder.” Which didn’t mean he was wrong, but I ignored that. “The book I read said the Shanghai Moon disappeared in the last days of the civil war. I asked them-Mr. Chen and Mr. Zhang-about that, but they wouldn’t talk about it. Can you tell me anything?”
“The gem’s disappearance?” He shook his head. “My father and I didn’t return to Shanghai until a Communist victory was clearly inevitable. Even then we were there just hours, racing for a ship for Taipei. My final memories of Shanghai are dark ones: dodging down alleys and lanes, running to meet my father on the Taipei Pearl, ahead of the slow, silent march of Mao’s soldiers toward the Bund.”
“How old were you?”
“By then, eighteen. Ms. Chin, let me ask you: Where was Rosalie Gilder’s jewelry found?”
“In a construction excavation.”
“In Hongkew?”
“No, in the area that used to be the International Settlement. On Jiangming Street. Mr. Zhang? What is it?”
C. D. Zhang had gone still. “If I’m correct, what is now Jiangming Street was once Thibet Road. The Chen family villa was at Number 12.”
“You mean…”
A long pause. “The story, the romantic one the wives whispered, was that Rosalie Gilder was never without the Shanghai Moon, wearing it always hidden on a chain around her neck. But there was another rumor, counter to that and equally persistent, that she didn’t take it to Hongkew. She was said to never lock her door, to underscore the fact that the brooch wasn’t there.”
I thought about this. “If she’d buried her jewelry before she went to Hongkew, why wouldn’t she dig it up once the war was over? The Jews didn’t have to stay in Hongkew after that, did they? Couldn’t she go back to the villa?”
“She could, and she did. But after the Japanese surrendered and left China in 1945, tyranny was replaced by anarchy as Nationalists and Communists tore at each other’s throats. Treasure of any kind was better buried, denied, declared already stolen. And after 1949, with the revolution blazing a glorious path into China’s future, it was both vulgar and perilous to admit to wealth.”
“So do you think it could be true?”
“I think, Ms. Chin, that each tale of the Shanghai Moon’s re appearance is credible to those who want to believe.” Then, slowly, came a different smile: indulgent, almost conspiratorial. “I will admit, however, this tale is more compelling than most. What will you do now?”
“I’m not sure. Your brother may yet talk to me: He said he would, though that may have been just to get me to leave. But I don’t know how much use he’d be. Any memories either of them have that could help in the search, they’d have followed already. As you say, childhood memories are unreliable, and they were both very young.”
“Yes.” C. D. Zhang nodded. “They were young. And I suppose Dr. Gilder is too old?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Dr. Gilder. He and I are nearly of an age, though we barely know each other. I understand his mind has been slipping for some time now. So I suppose he’s of no help?”
“Who’s Dr. Gilder?”
“Paul Gilder,” said C. D. Zhang, surprised. “Rosalie’s younger brother.”
17
“You still have that car?” I asked Bill the second he answered the phone.
“What car?”
“Any car.”
“Sure. Why?”
“Pick me up. We’re going to New Jersey.”
Teaneck, specifically, our goal was. Where Dr. Paul Gilder, eighty-four, lived with his granddaughter’s family.
“It never crossed my mind he might still be alive,” I said as I snapped my seat belt. “Much less near here. He’s like a fairy tale character. I didn’t expect him to be real.”
“I wonder if he’ll be happy to know that.” Bill pulled the car into traffic.
“According to C. D. Zhang he doesn’t know much. His granddaughter said the same thing: He’s in and out. Why are you stopping here?”
“So you can get a cup of tea for the drive. I’m well trained.”
“Very. But please, no. I’ve spent the whole day with old Chinese men. You have no idea how much tea that involves.”
As we drove I told Bill about my phone conversation with Paul Gilder’s granddaugher, Anita Horowitz. “I came clean with her: told her I’d spoken to Mr. Chen, Mr. Zhang, and C. D. Zhang, told her about the Chinese cop and Joel, and about Wong Pan and Alice. The whole thing worried her, but she’s willing to let us speak to Paul. Though she doesn’t see how he can help. He’s only lucid sometimes, for one thing, and anything he ever knew, Mr. Chen and Mr. Zhang would know.”
“Maybe not, if they were just kids when the Shanghai Moon disappeared.”
“No, but since they came here in ’sixty-six they’ve been in touch with him. They’ll have pumped him long since.”
Bill’s GPS led us to a neat raised ranch with bright plastic toys dotting the lawn. A dark-haired woman answered the doorbell.
“You’re the detectives? I’m Anita Horowitz. Paul Gilder’s granddaughter.” As she stood aside to let us in, a toddler clomped up. She looked from one of us to the other and offered Bill half a cracker.