Mandarin Plaid

by S. J. Rozan

  “Okay,” I said, “all right.” I looked around at all the people coming and going, straightened myself up. “We’d better go see Genna. I think I’d like to tell her about this before she finds out some other way.”

  We took the subway back to Chelsea; just a few stops, but faster than walking. Holding a stainless steel pole while the subway car roared and rocked, we talked about Wayne Lewis’s murder and what it could mean.

  “It sort of fingers him as the double-crosser, doesn’t it?” I said. “And his partner didn’t like it. Which would explain why nobody called Genna yet with a new arrangement. He was busy killing Wayne.”

  “Or the partner was the double-crosser. They fought about it and the partner killed him.”

  “That could be too,” I admitted. “Either way, I’ll bet Genna doesn’t hear from them again.”

  “No,” Bill agreed. “Being a shakedown artist’s one thing, being a killer’s another. Even if the killer hasn’t got the money, I don’t think he’ll expose himself by asking for more.”

  The train raced around a curve, throwing me off-balance. I grabbed the pole.

  “But,” I said, “what if Wayne was just the thief, with no partner, and the hijacker was somebody else sort of piggybacking on Wayne’s racket? Isn’t that possible?”

  Bill considered that. “And he killed Wayne because Wayne knew who he was?”

  “Or something like that. Bill?”

  He watched me, waiting.

  “The hijackers?” I said. “There had to have been at least two of them.”

  He nodded. “One shooting, the other to grab the envelope.”

  “So this could be more messy than it looks.”

  “I’m almost sure it is.”

  We rode Genna’s slow elevator up to the big glass door. Brad buzzed us in and waved us to wait as he grabbed the pencil from behind his ear and scribbled down a message from the phone mashed against his other ear. He hung up the phone, slipped the pencil back behind his ear, and stuck out his hand to me.

  “Hi!” he said with a smile. “I’m Brad. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you before. How’s it going? Brad Hadley,” he told Bill, offering him his hand next. Handshaking didn’t stop Brad from other movement. He snatched up the phone as it rang, asked it to wait, and zipped around the desk to show us into the conference room. “Genna’ll be in in a minute. How’s Andrew?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  The phone rang again. Brad grabbed the receiver behind me, asked it to hold a minute, pressed the other blinking button and told it he’d be right with it, replaced the receiver, and shrugged. “I’d love to talk.” He grinned. “But I guess I can’t. After Market Week? Maybe we can get together with Andrew?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Great.”

  “Okay,” he said as the phone rang again. “See you.” He ran back to his desk.

  “It’s past five,” Bill said to me as we watched Brad’s figurative dust settle. “Don’t these people go home?”

  “Not before Market Week,” I said, as though I’d known that all my life.

  Bill turned his attention to the fabric, the trimmings, and the sketches pinned to the walls. “This is what she does?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He surveyed the walls silently, examining each grouping, each strange combination.

  “That crinkly gold stuff, up here?” he finally said. “That would look great on you. Maybe pajamas.”

  “It’s for a man’s suit,” I told him haughtily, but I don’t think he believed me.

  I heard the quick tap and soft pad of footsteps, Genna’s flats followed by John’s wing tips. Genna and John, both looking harried, came toward the conference room in whispered conversation. Inside, John slid the glass door shut.

  “Lydia,” Genna said, with an uncertain smile. “I thought you were going to call.”

  “We have to talk,” I answered. “Genna Jing, John Ryan, this is Bill Smith, my partner.”

  Bill shook Genna’s hand, then John’s. His smile was noncommittal. Genna returned the smile, maybe a little mechanically. John gave us both a frown.

  “What’s this about?” John asked. “You can’t believe how wild it is around here right now. We don’t have much time.”

  “You’ll have time for this,” I said bluntly. “Wayne Lewis is dead.”

  Genna’s porcelain face drained of all color except the color that was painted on. She groped for the chair beside her, for support.

  John Ryan didn’t move. Finally, as though he hadn’t heard, as though he were still waiting for me to say whatever it was we’d come to say, he asked, “What?”

  “Someone killed him,” I said. “Shot him. I don’t know when or who, but they were taking the body out when we got there about an hour ago. Genna, you have to go to the police.”

  “No!” That was a small but quick and definitive burst of sound from Genna. She swallowed. “No,” she repeated, her face still colorless, her voice soft but clear. “I can’t. If this gets around in the industry it’ll ruin me, Lydia. First the theft, then murder …” She trailed off, looking at nothing across the room. “I’ve worked all my life for this. And it’s almost here. I can’t give it up now.”

  “You sure as hell can’t!” John put a firm hand on her shoulder, turned to me angrily. “How do you even know Wayne was really involved in this? It was just a suspicion of Genna’s. She was probably wrong. He wasn’t the type. And people get killed in New York all the time.”

  “Have the thieves called again?” I demanded.

  “No,” said Genna, in a shaky voice. “No, they haven’t.”

  John looked quickly at Genna, then back to me. “So what?”

  “If I were an extortionist and I hadn’t gotten my fifty thousand dollars I’d call again. Unless I found out my partner had double-crossed me. If I killed him and took the money back, then I wouldn’t call again.”

  John and Genna were both silent.

  “Genna,” I said, pressing, “there’s a killer out there. He’s got your money and he’s killed for it. If you don’t do everything you can to stop him, then you’re responsible for whatever he does next. The next scam, the next death. Whatever he does.”

  Color flooded Genna’s cheeks, hot, high color. “I’m not!” Her eyes flashed. “It’s not my responsibility! It’s not my fault!” She spun, yanked open the glass door, dashed past Brad to her office.

  John moved slowly to the door and pulled it shut again. He turned to face us.

  “This is too important to her,” he said. “You can’t ask her to throw it away like that.”

  “That’s not what we’re asking,” I answered. “We’re asking her to help find a killer.”

  “And throw her career away in the process.”

  Bill, who had said nothing since we’d come here, now said calmly, “Are you sure that would happen?”

  “What?” John’s voice was impatient.

  “Are you sure Ms. Jing’s career would collapse if this became public?”

  “Of course. Her investors would disappear in a flash.”

  “Why would they?” I asked. “Isn’t a little scandal good for business?”

  “A little scandal, people jetting off to Rio with other people’s wives, sure. But murder? Who’s going to put money into someone involved with that?”

  “No one’s saying Genna was involved.”

  “Oh, come on, Lydia! You’re saying it: he stole her sketches, now he’s dead.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Not what you meant? Oh, really? But if you had half a million dollars to invest, don’t you think you’d be looking for somewhere else to put it?”

  I’d never thought about looking for a place to put half a million dollars. I said, “If Genna doesn’t go to the police, this might come out anyway. Wouldn’t that be worse?”

  “It won’t come out, because Wayne didn’t steal Genna’s sketches and there isn’t anything to come out. If Genna gets mixed up in this it’ll rui
n her for nothing. By tomorrow they’ll find the guy who killed Wayne, and it’ll turn out to be some trick he picked up on the pier.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then it will take them two days, or they’ll never find him. So what?”

  “Even if he was involved,” I said slowly, “you don’t care if they find his killer, do you?”

  “No,” John said bluntly. “He wasn’t involved. But if he was, no, I don’t care. It’s not my problem. Genna’s my problem. This is her time, and no one’s going to screw it up for her.”

  My eyes traveled over the walls, the suede and the silk, the black netting and white wool. Bill was silent, waiting for me. My case, my move.

  “If Wayne Lewis was involved,” I said, turning back to John, “if, then we have information that could be the difference between the police catching his killer or not. We can’t not give it to them. We have licenses to think about, John.”

  “Then I guess you’ll do whatever you have to do,” John said angrily. “Though maybe you should think about something besides your licenses. Maybe you should think about the fact that Genna’s not the only one around here with a name to protect.”

  I felt Bill tense, but he said nothing.

  “What does that mean?” I asked tightly.

  “Just that private eyes who botch an easy job and then run to the cops might have a harder time finding the next job, if it gets around.” He looked deliberately from me to Bill, then back. Then, as if this were just the end of a disagreeable sales meeting, he looked at his watch and said, “We’d better wrap this up. I have to be at the factory in the morning.” He paused, to make sure I’d get it, then said, “In Chinatown.” He slid the glass door aside. “Look,” he said, “I think it would be better if you don’t come back here. Just send your bill, we’ll take care of it.”

  My face flushed hot as Genna’s had. “It was Genna who hired us,” I said.

  John looked at me for a beat. He said, “Wait.” He stalked out, down the hall, into Genna’s office.

  Bill leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets, his whole attitude so careless and casual that I could tell he was boiling mad.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  His eyebrows went up. “What the hell for?”

  “Getting you in a bad situation.”

  “It’s what I live for.” He pushed off from the wall and crossed the room to stare out the window.

  I wanted to say something else to him, though I wasn’t sure what it was, but John and Genna emerged from Genna’s office and headed toward us. Genna’s face was still pale and her makeup was new. Walking into the conference room she didn’t look at John, but she was able to look me in the eye as she said, “John tells me he doesn’t think there’s anything else you and Mr. Smith can do for us, Lydia. I think he’s probably right.”

  “Genna—”

  “I’m grateful for everything you’ve done and tried to do. I’m sorry it worked out like this.” She held my eyes for another second, then turned to go.

  I said, “What if they call again? The thieves?”

  Genna stopped but didn’t turn. John said, “If they do, we’ll think about it.”

  That was about as much nothing as I’d ever gotten from anyone, but I had no way to answer it.

  “Thank you,” Genna added, still without looking at us. “Seriously, thank you.” She left the room.

  “I hope,” said John pointedly, after she was gone, “that your next case goes better than this.”

  He walked from the room and disappeared into Genna’s office, leaving us to find our own way out. Brad, on the phone, gave us a raised-eyebrow smile, and I smiled back. No need for Andrew to hear about this.

  Neither Bill nor I spoke on the ride down. Bill lit a cigarette as soon as we left the building. I watched him shake the match and throw it away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “Knock it off. Let’s get coffee.”

  It was purple dusk in Manhattan. Cars stood headlight to tail-light on the crosstown streets waiting for the avenue traffic to stop and give them a chance. Bill and I walked up the block to Fifth and found another of the new coffee bistros three storefronts in.

  We settled, he with his espresso and me with my keemun, on tall stools at the glass counter in the window.

  “This stinks,” I said.

  Bill didn’t answer. He knew I didn’t mean my tea.

  “We’re going to the cops,” I said. I tossed my head. “The hell with John Ryan.”

  “What would you do if I weren’t involved?”

  The question was unexpected, and made me look up from my tea to meet Bill’s eyes. His face was completely serious; no jokes, no anger. I knew he already knew the answer to the question he was asking.

  That was the only reason I told him the truth. “I wouldn’t go to them,” I said.

  “Because if you do, Ryan will do a hatchet job on you. On us; but it would be worse for you than it would be for me.”

  I nodded glumly. That was true. I was much newer in the business than Bill. I didn’t have repeat clients going back years, or a reputation that might be able to ride out a wave of bad talk. In Chinatown, especially, respect was critical; being young, and a woman, I already had two strikes against me there. And Ryan, through Roland Lum’s factory, was connected in Chinatown.

  “But if we don’t go to the cops we could be in trouble,” he went on. “That would be worse for me than it would for you.” ‘Be in trouble’ is one of those phrases that only has one meaning, like ‘if anything happens to me.’ ‘If anything happens’ is a euphemism for ‘if I die,’ and ‘be in trouble’ is a P.I. euphemism for ‘lose my license.’

  Which to some P.I.s is the same thing.

  I knew this was true, too. Young and new, I might be able to bluff my way through an investigation. Gee, officer, I didn’t have any idea my client’s case was related to this murder …

  But Bill wouldn’t. He’d been around too long; he’d cut too many corners, skirted the edge of trouble too often. No one would cut him any slack.

  “If you went to the cops,” Bill said, “it wouldn’t be to spite Ryan. It would be to protect me.”

  I felt my cheeks flush. I looked away. “I got you into this.”

  “I took the job. I’m a grown-up.”

  “You didn’t know it would mean this kind of trouble.”

  “No.” He grinned. “But I was hoping. Listen,” he said when I made an impatient noise, “let’s forget that for now. Answer this: if your honor and my license weren’t up for grabs, what would you do?”

  I drank my tea. It was a reasonable question; I tried to think about it reasonably.

  “I wouldn’t go to the cops.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” I said, “because there’s something else here besides what we’re seeing.”

  He nodded. “Go on.”

  “They’re hiding something.” Until I heard myself say that I hadn’t been sure I was thinking it. “They were anxious to pay up yesterday,” I went on, thinking out loud, “and so nervous they hired us to handle the drop. Today I’ve been shot at and someone’s been killed. That ought to be even scarier, but they’re not nervous anymore, except about the idea that this will come out and ruin Genna’s big chance. The thieves haven’t called again, but no one seems to be worried about what they’ll do with the sketches. Obviously there’s been a change from then to now, something we don’t know about.”

  “And what’s your inclination?”

  “To look into it.”

  “Rather than going to the police.”

  “Maybe not rather than. Maybe before. Just to make sure.”

  “Of … ?”

  “Of whether there’s any faint chance John could be right. That going to them could ruin Genna without helping anybody.”

  “Because you don’t want to ruin her.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Because you like her.”

>   “Shouldn’t I?” I said defensively. “Just because she’s hiding something and she fired us and her boyfriend threatened us, is that any reason to dislike a person?”

  “Not for one Chinese woman to dislike another.”

  I looked out the window and sighed. “You’re right. I’m being ridiculous.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  I turned back to him. “You like her, too?”

  “No,” he said. “I like you.”

  I felt my cheeks grow hot again.

  “You want to know why?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you. Because you’re beautiful. Wait, don’t throw that,” he said quickly as I hefted my teacup. “The real reason is, because you have two reasons not to go to the police and you were going to do it anyway. For me.”

  “Well, really for me,” I said.

  He gave me a skeptical look.

  “So I wouldn’t feel guilty when you lost your license and ended up on the street corner with a cup and I never put a quarter in it.”

  “You wouldn’t put a quarter in my cup?”

  “My mother needs them for the laundry. So if I look into this on my own—just a day or two—will you lie low until then?”

  “No.”

  “Bill—”

  “We look into it. On our own. That’s my last offer.”

  “I don’t want you to be messed up in this any deeper.”

  “You should have thought of that before you met me. Now,” he said, standing, “I’ll go get us a refill so we can make a plan.”

  He threaded his way through the crowded cafe. I watched him, his familiar, fluid walk, the easy set of his shoulders, the way his eyes covered the room as he moved through it, looking everywhere without seeming to look anywhere in particular. Deep-set eyes in a worn face, a face even I couldn’t call handsome.

  Even I? What’s that supposed to mean, Lydia? I demanded. Why should you, as opposed to anybody else, expect to think of Bill as handsome?

  Of course, there wasn’t any reason, and I turned my thoughts stubbornly back to the case while I waited for my new cup of tea.

  FIVE

  While I thought, I stared through the window and watched the parade of people on Fifth Avenue. This far downtown, in Chelsea, Fifth Avenue isn’t the glamour-and-glitz address it is uptown; but it’s taken on a new identity in the past few years, a cutting-edge, creative-professions sense: architects, ad agencies, designers, photographers. Like my brother Andrew, I thought guiltily. I really had to call Andrew.