His face paled. Staring at the photos, he felt behind him for his stool and sat heavily. “This is what he stole, that man?”
“Yes. Uncle, are you ill?”
“Where…” He trailed off. His assistant hurried over, but he waved her away. “I’m fine, Irene,” he said gruffly. “See to the customers.” The shop was empty, but she took the hint and went back to her post by the door.
I tapped Wong Pan’s picture. “You’ve seen this jewelry, this man?”
“No.” Mr. Chen mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “I would like… May I borrow these photographs?”
“They’re copies, you can have them, but you need to tell me why. Has someone offered to sell you these pieces?”
“No.”
“Then-”
“I have to make sure. I might be wrong. You will hear from me.” He stood, collecting all but one photo from his counter. He handled them as delicately as if they were jewels themselves.
“Uncle, you really need to tell me what you know about this.”
But Mr. Chen was through speaking to me. He carried the photos into his office and shut the door. I was left alone with the assistant and, smiling up from the counter, the black-and-white face of Wong Pan.
4
There’s no such thing as a quiet corner in Chinatown, but I found a sheltered doorway and called Joel.
“Hey, Chinsky! Hope you’re having better luck than I am.”
“I’m not sure. But a strange thing happened.” I told Joel about Mr. Chen. “He knows something, obviously.”
“Excellent deduction, Watson.”
“Give me a break. Are you going to call Alice?”
He paused, and I wondered if he was chewing his lip. “I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Because I don’t have anything to tell her, because you didn’t push him.”
“Push him? He’d have totally clammed up if I’d pushed him.”
“And if he’d clammed up, you’d have what less than you have now?”
“Nothing, but I might have less than I’m going to get when he calls.”
“Or you gave him a chance to think about it and he isn’t going to call and you’re going to get nothing. Which is what you have now.”
“Oh, Joel, come on! He’s an old Chinese man. There was no way-”
“And you’re a young Chinese woman and you were being polite. Dangerous in our business, Chinsky. Anyway, forget it. I’ll call the client, she’ll at least see we’re wearing out shoe leather.”
“I was-” Drop it, Lydia, I ordered myself. While you’re at it, stop reminding yourself that Bill would never have suggested you’d mishandled an interview with an old Chinese man. I gritted my teeth and asked, “Okay, so how did you do?”
“Zippo. Blank stares on Forty-seventh Street. Hey, good name for a science fiction movie. So, what else you been up to?”
Joel’s tone was conciliatory. Well, good. “I’ve read a couple more of Rosalie Gilder’s letters. From the Jewish Museum Web site.”
“You have? Why?”
“I’m not sure. I wanted to get to know her better, I guess.”
“Ah, Chinsky. You never change. Okay, talk to you later.”
After we hung up, I squinted down Canal. Just because Mr. Chen had nearly fallen over in a faint when he saw the photos, and just because I was irritated with Joel, didn’t mean other jewelers might not have seen these pieces. I’d need to keep going, but that would have to be tomorrow. All along Canal, Closed signs were going up in store windows.
Hungry, thirsty, and tired, I headed to Pho Viet Huang for a bowl of noodle soup. I was annoyed at Joel for getting on my case, annoyed at my mother for being right about me getting annoyed at Joel, and annoyed at myself for having the sneaking suspicion Joel might be right, too. Joel Pilarsky and my mother-now there was an unholy alliance.
The soup was full of mint, bean sprouts, and beef, and after it I felt much better. I went to the park, sat on a bench, and spent twenty-five minutes on a conference call with my brothers. Ted’s and Elliot’s wives, Ling-an and Li-jane, were in on the call; Andrew’s boyfriend, Tony, stayed out of it; and Tim’s girlfriend, Rita, was too new to get mired in Chin family business. The subject was my mother, her stay in Flushing, and how we could leverage the experience into an argument for a permanent move. The conclusion we came to, as usual when the five of us discussed anything, was none at all.
“She was adjusting, she just needs time,” was Ted’s mild assessment.
“She seemed fine,” came from Elliot, who’s an emergency room doctor and tends to see all emotional states less dramatic than hysteria as the same.
“She liked the garden,” said Andrew, who’d made the long trip to Flushing a couple of times during my mother’s month there.
“She hated the whole thing,” retorted Tim, who hadn’t gone but is the one my mother calls to complain about the rest of us.
“Lyd?” Andrew said. “How did she seem when you got home?”
“Like the only way to get her to move to Flushing would be to stuff her in a box and load her on a van. Look, guys, it’s good to have Ted’s apartment there, but I think it’ll be a while until we can talk her into it.”
“That okay with you?” That was also Andrew. Tim wouldn’t think to ask, and the others are afraid to, in case someday I might say, No, I’ve had it with this.
“Right now she seems intent on proving what an uninterested, privacy-cherishing housemate she is,” I said. “I can deal, for the time being.”
So we decided to do, say, and plan nothing. A classic Chin family outcome.
To stay on Sensei Chung’s good side, I went down to the dojo. When I got home, my mother was watching the news on Cantonese cable. She looked up. “Have you eaten?”
“I had some soup. Is that shrimp I see?”
“To cook with spring onion.” She added, “It was cheap.”
Uh-huh. I knew what shrimp, one of my favorite foods, was selling for. “I’ll chop the onion,” I offered. It no doubt took iron self-control, but she didn’t stop me.
Dinner conversation was mostly about my brothers, my niece and nephews, and, in expanding rings, various cousins whose exploits, troubles, or luck required discussion. After the dishes, jet lag suddenly clobbered me. I took an herb-laden bath. When I came out, barely able to keep my eyes open, I found my mother absorbed in a Hong Kong soap opera, one she’s been following since I was in first grade. It’s set in an apartment complex on Kowloon, and the cast must have changed ten times since it began. I kissed her; she kissed me back but kept an eye on a red door closing to ominous music.
5
In the morning I found my mother sewing on a blouse she was making for Ling-an.
“How did you sleep?” she asked as I put water on.
“Strange dreams. I think it’s the jet lag. What’s going on in Cloud Lake Mansion?”
“On television?” She seemed dumbfounded by the question.
“Is that girl marrying the rich guy her father wants her to? And what about that soldier, did he come back?”
“I didn’t know you followed that show.”
“Ma, it moves so slowly I only need to walk by once a month when you’re watching to catch up. Did the politician’s wife have the baby yet?”
She blinked. “No, but she’s in the hospital, she’s having problems. And that pretty girl is a fool. She’ll marry that old man to make her father happy, instead of waiting for her soldier.”
“She probably will, but I’m surprised you don’t approve. Isn’t she being properly filial, doing that?”