Reflecting the Sky (8 page)
Read Reflecting the Sky Online
Authors: S. J. Rozan
The most complete confidence. Hear that, Lydia?
“I’m grateful that, thinking that way, you chose me, Grandfather,” I said, adding, “Bill feels the same.” Might as well get Bill some good Chinese press while I had the chance. “I do wish I knew exactly what those interests are. It would help me know how to serve them best. Do you think Wei Yao-Shi was worried that something like this would happen?”
“As to Wei Yao-Shi, we can only speculate on his concerns. At this point I do not believe that would be profitable. But remember, Ling Wan-Ju, you have known me all your life. My own interests have not changed. Now tell me: What do you propose to do?”
Confused but dutiful, I answered, “I don’t see that I have much choice. If the price of the child’s return is Wei Yao-Shi’s jade, what can I do but turn it over to them?”
“What, indeed?” Grandfather Gao responded. “The jade itself is of small consequence in this matter. But do you feel this action is sufficient?”
“Is there something else I should be doing?”
“You are the professional in these matters, Ling Wan-Ju.”
Usually that’s
my
line. And the way he said it—and the fact that I’d known him all my life—made me feel like there
was
something else to be done, if only Lydia Chin were bright enough to think of it.
my
line. And the way he said it—and the fact that I’d known him all my life—made me feel like there
was
something else to be done, if only Lydia Chin were bright enough to think of it.
So I thought. “Grandfather, tell me this: What is this jade worth?”
“We discussed that in New York, Ling Wan-Ju,” he said, scolding me gently. “Perhaps twelve thousand dollars—American dollars. Fifteen, if the market is right.”
“I just wanted to make sure I remembered correctly,” I said. “Because it doesn’t seem like enough to risk a kidnapping for.”
“No, it does not.”
“Also, something else: How would anyone outside the family know about the jade? Wei Yao-Shi left it with you when he went into the hospital, to give to Harry if he died, but it isn’t in his will or anything, isn’t that right?”
“That is correct. The will names myself as responsible for distributing personal property possessed by Wei Yao-Shi at the time of his death, but does not list this property.”
“Then it would seem that someone inside the family, or at least close to the family, would have to be involved in this.”
“Yes.” Go on, Ling Wan-Ju, you backward but hardworking child.
I suddenly decided not to go on. I loved Grandfather Gao and I trusted him, but I wanted to think on my own for a while. Actually, I wanted to think with Bill, but he wasn’t here. And speaking of that, where was he? “Grandfather, there are some things I want to do,” I said. “I will call you again as the situation develops.” There, that’s your last chance to tell me to mind my own business.
Another brief pause. “Please remember, Ling Wan-Ju, that the safety of the child must be your first concern,” said Grandfather Gao, in a way that made me wonder if I’d somehow implied it was not. “Family was of the highest importance to Wei Yao-Shi.”
Uh-huh, I thought. That must be why he had two of them.
But “mind your own business” was nowhere in sight.
“Yes, Grandfather. I will do my best.”
“I am sure you will.” I thought I could hear a smile in his voice as we hung up, and although it was a strange time to be smiling, the sound of it warmed me in my too-cool room in the Hong Kong Hotel.
I did want to think, but I was Lydia Chin: I could do two things at once. From the desk by the window I pulled out the hotel’s directory of guest services and checked for what I wanted. Of course, I found it. I wanted something else, also, but I had no doubt a little looking downstairs would find me that, too. I dialed Bill’s room, but only got his hotel voice mail. I left a message that I was in the hotel but not in my room, and then I left my room so it would be true.
The Hong Kong Hotel is at one end of one of the biggest, classiest shopping malls in a city that, according to the guidebook, prides itself on constantly redefining luxury shopping. I checked the directory and headed to the third floor, past Italian designer shoe stores, shops with brightly colored bolts of liquidy silk in the windows, stores that sold Qing dynasty bride’s and groom’s painted wedding chests for use as armoires to put the TV in in the modern Hong Kong apartment. As I scurried by I glanced at one shop window where the linen suits and skimpy silk dresses displayed were, by my rough calculations, inexpensive enough for me to consider. They were also, it seemed, shaped for people who, like me and most Asians I know, are, by the standards of American designers, undressably short.
The shop I was looking for was tiny but well located, at a corner where two wide shopping boulevards converged. Its windows were tiny, too, which suited the exquisite, glistening jewels they displayed.
Behind the counter, an old man with wispy white hair and a thick mustache looked up as I came in. He removed the jeweler’s loupe from his right eye, placed the gold chain he’d been examining on a velvet tray, and said, “Good afternoon,” in Cantonese.
“Good afternoon to you, uncle,” I replied.
The courtesy of the old-fashioned reply must have pleased him, because he smiled. “Such a warm day. Have you had tea?” He beckoned to a young woman at the rear of the shop, only about ten feet away.
“Thank you,” I said, as she brought a pot and two tiny cups over on a tray painted with cranes and willow trees. I waited for her to pour for both the old man and me and to replace the pot on the tray. I sipped at the tea, golden in the white porcelain cup. “Your tea is delicious,” I told the old man. “So delicately flavored. The perfect refreshment among so many beautiful things.”
He bowed his head to acknowledge the compliment. “I try in my shop to offer only those items which approach, in some small way, the beauty of their wearers.”
Okay, I thought, enough of this, or I’ll walk out of here with a diamond tennis bracelet it’ll take me a decade to pay off.
“Uncle,” I said, putting my teacup down, “I have a piece of jade whose value I am curious to know.”
He nodded as though this were exactly what he’d been expecting. I got the feeling he’d have done that no matter what I said, because I was the customer, but that he probably felt a little pang as he saw the tennis bracelet fading from my wrist.
I took the little velvet box from my bag and opened it to show him Harry’s jade.
He regarded it gravely. “May I?” he said, reaching for the box. He lifted the Buddha by its chain, letting it dangle from his hand. It sparkled in the bright lights. He put the loupe back into his eye and for the next minute or so, he didn’t speak.
Finally he looked up, removed the loupe, and placed the Buddha back in its box.
“It is quite beautiful,” he said. “The carver’s hand was precise, but also playful. Do you wish to sell it?”
“Perhaps one day, uncle.” It seemed rude to ask for a professional appraisal of the thing without offering him the hope of someday getting his hands on it. “Now I wish only to understand its true value.”
“No,” he corrected me mildly. “What you are asking is its price.”
I felt myself blush. “Yes, uncle. What you say is true.”
He smiled and looked again at the jade. “If you were interested in selling it, I would be prepared to offer one hundred twenty thousand dollars.”
My heart jumped and I almost knocked my teacup over. Then I reminded myself: Hong Kong dollars. That was fifteen thousand, American. Which meant he probably thought he could sell it for twenty.
More than I had been told, but not enough to really notice.
“Uncle,” I asked, “is there anything … unusual … about this jade?”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Its color? Its age? Anything?”
“It appears to be approximately three hundred years old,” he said, “from the late Ming or early Qing. The stone is good, a bright apple green much valued today, although this piece is streaked with paler veins. The jadecarver, as I have said, was precise, but he did not attempt any unusual or difficult details—for example, do you see here how the folds of the Buddha’s robe are suggested, but not elaborated?” He shook his head. “No, it is fine piece, but there are others like it. In what way did you think it might be unusual?”
“Uncle, I don’t know,” I repeated. “Only that I have been offered for this piece a far greater price than you have told me it is worth.” That wasn’t the exact truth, but close enough. “Although I don’t want to sell it, I wondered why the offer was so high.”
He shook his head. “That I cannot tell you.”
I looked again at the Buddha on its white silk bed. I thanked the old man and the young woman and took my leave of them and their tiny, sparkling store.
The next shop I was heading for was larger, more straightforward, and empty of other customers when I found it. I did my business, charging it on the American Express card, taking on faith my ability to explain the need for this to Grandfather Gao when it came time for him, the client, to cover the expenses of this job. I headed back to the hotel, shopping bag in hand.
In my room the little red message light on the phone was blinking, and the message was from Bill. It said, “I’m in the bar.”
My first thought was: Oh, surprise. My second was: Thank God. What, Lydia? I demanded, as I felt a flush of relief spread through me. Bill’s a grown-up. He’s been in this business for twenty years. Whatever he was up to, he can handle himself. This is a civilized city, it has cabs and subways and cops. Yes, I argued with myself, locking up my room and heading down the hall, but he’s a foreigner here. The way things work in other places isn’t necessarily the way they work here. He may not remember that, or know it when he sees it. I took the elevator to the shopping mall mezzanine and then floated down on the escalator to the lobby bar.
In the cool, high-ceilinged splendor of the bar it took me about three seconds to spot Bill. He sat at a table near the piano, his back to the low wall, with a view that took in the main lobby, the hotel entrance and the escalator. He raised his beer glass in greeting. I stopped by the desk to redirect any phone calls, then trotted across the marble floor.
“Such class, coming from you,” I said as I deposited myself on the armchair across from Bill’s at the low carved table. “You usually don’t bother with a glass.”
“If you took me to places like this more often, I might class up my act,” he answered. “In fact, it might be your responsibility to do that. For the good of my immortal soul, or something.”
“If the good of your immortal soul depends on the use of a beer glass, I’m afraid you’re beyond my help.” I was trying for a blasé air of moral superiority, but by accident our eyes met. I saw something in his that mirrored the relief I’d felt hearing his voice on my phone message, and he saw something in mine and grinned that grin again.
“I’m starving,” I said, snatching up the menu card from the table and studying it intently.
“Before you bury yourself in food, tell me: Have you spoken to the Weis? Is there any news about the kid?”
I looked up at the tone in his voice. It struck me that he’d been trying for something, too, maybe simple cool professionalism, but where there’s a kid involved, Bill can’t really manage that. “Yes, in fact,” I said, gently. “No real news, but we have to go up there soon.”
“Why?”
I detailed my conversation with Steven Wei.
“The jade.” Bill sipped some beer, watching tourists, travelers, businessmen coming and going in the high-ceilinged lobby. “I don’t know about that.”
“What don’t you know?”
“A lot of things. Why anyone who knew we were bringing the jade today wouldn’t just mug us on the way over. Or on the other hand, wait until the Weis had the jade for sure. How did they know we weren’t just bringing papers to sign? The jade could even still be in New York, waiting for us to say it was okay to ship it over.”
“Unless someone in the family was involved, who really knew what was going on.”
“Or someone close to the family.”
“The amah?”
“She knew,” Bill said. “And it might be natural for her to think of using the kid.”
She’s been taking care of him since he was a baby, I thought: It doesn’t seem natural to me.
A uniformed waiter approached our table and stood waiting, in case I wanted anything to go with Bill’s beer. “Lemonade, please,” I said. “And a chicken salad sandwich. And two steamed pork buns.”
“Three,” said Bill. The waiter bowed slightly and left. “In case you’re really starving,” Bill said. “To make sure there’s something left for me.”
“You think I don’t think about you,” I said, “but I do. For example, I have something in this bag for you. But you can’t have it until you tell me where you’ve been.”
“Am I sure I want it?” he asked dubiously, eyeing the shopping bag by my foot.
“I’m sure you don’t. But you’ll be glad to have it. Now come on, talk. We have to be at the Weis’ before three.”
He shrugged and sipped his beer. “Just doing my job. There was a guy who seemed to care when Steven Wei came and went, so after Wei took off in a cab I followed him.”
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