filled me in on gossip my mother hadn’t gotten to, and asked about my family.
“My brothers are all thriving, in their own unique and bizarre ways,” I told her. “And I’ve been back less than twenty-four hours and my mother’s already driving me up the wall.”
Mary nodded her sympathy. “She told my mom yesterday that you’d taken a case with a guy who irritates you so you wouldn’t be thinking about Bill.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake! Why does she do that? You’d think she’d be happy.”
“She’s your mother. You’re not happy, she’s not happy, even if what makes you happy makes her unhappy. Why don’t you call him?”
“He doesn’t want me to.”
“So?”
“Listen, I’d love to sit and chat about my twisted professional and personal life, but I have jewelry to track down. And aren’t you on duty?”
“Oh, nice sidestep. Well, whenever you want to talk about it, I’m here.”
We gathered up our things and went out to show Chinatown photographs of men we didn’t know.
The day got old and so did my search. Yang Nuan-yi, as it turned out, had learned her husband’s Shanghainese dialect, but the only person she’d spoken it to lately was her husband. Old Wong at Harmony Jewelers recalled having a long conversation with a Fujianese yesterday, and just this morning threw two wealthy punks with that terrible Macao accent out of the shop for making a pass at his daughter, but all his other recent customers were Cantonese, or lo faan with no Chinese at all. White-haired Mr. Chen at Bright Hopes had a sharper nose than mine, and rounder eyes of a lighter shade of brown; he might be Eurasian, I thought, or from the western provinces. But he’d had no Shanghainese-or Mandarin-speaking customers in weeks, and I was beginning to think my smart idea wasn’t so smart after all, when I slipped the jewelry photos out of the envelope to show him anyway.
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