MANDARIN PLAID (Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series) (14 page)

Bill stepped aside to let me go before him. “It’s a lot to ask, for me to start taking care of a dog, with everything else,” Mrs. Lattimer was saying, “but you don’t see anyone else offering to take him. Poor Bobo. Well, there it is.”

She waved the glass in her hand at the garden below. Stairs curved down from the deck we were on to a small flagstone terrace that met an area of hard-looking soil, scattered crocuses, and pots bristling with the straw remains of last fall’s chrysanthemums.

“He never gardened, you know,” Mrs. Lattimer said. She sipped from her glass. “I do it all. It’s too much for me, by myself, but no one else cares. Well, go on. You don’t expect me to go in there with you?”

The dog had run down the steps and was scurrying around the garden. “I don’t know anything about it,” Mrs. Lattimer said, her voice taking on a defensive tone. “Just that the tape is broken. It must have happened last night. The police didn’t turn his alarm on when they left, you know. Not a bit worried, even though someone could have broken into the building and murdered us all in our beds.” She finished what was in her glass. “I probably shouldn’t even have called. I knew it would only be trouble for me. But someone has to do what’s right. I only saw it because I was in the garden this morning looking at the mess the damn squirrels made digging up the tulips. But they weren’t blooming anyway. They froze two weeks ago, when it got so cold.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Lattimer,” I said, stepping efficiently past her and starting down the wooden steps. “The city needs more public-spirited citizens like you. Smith?” I turned back to Bill.

“I’m on my way,” he responded.

F
OURTEEN

A
t the bottom of the curved steps, under the deck, was the door into Wayne Lewis’s garden apartment. It was closed, but the yellow crime scene tape on it was broken.

I extracted a pair of photographer’s thin white cotton gloves from my bag, inordinately pleased with myself for having put them in there that morning. I hate to carry a handbag; with me, it’s generally a briefcase, a satchel big enough for me to sit in, or nothing. But the handbag had been part of the disguise for Ed Everest, and I’d stuffed the gloves in it along with my wallet and sunglasses as I was dashing out of the house because you never know.

Gloves on, I tried the door.

It opened.

It opened because the lock, having obviously been jimmied, wasn’t going to work again.

Scratch marks and gouges all up and down the door frame testified to the hard work someone had done, probably with a tire iron, to get into Lewis’s place. As the door swung open in my hand, I looked at Bill. He shrugged. We went in.

I closed the door behind us.

“Why is it,” Bill asked, “that when I’m with you, we can’t even go in straight when we’re going in straight?”

“Don’t tell me
you
would have resisted a chance like this handed to you on a silver platter,” I retorted. “Now, come on, we probably don’t have much time.”

“No,” he said. “Which may be just as well, since for sure we don’t know why we’re here.”

“What I want to know is why the last guy was here. The guy who broke the tape.”

“Maybe he came to adopt the dog. Poor Bobo.”

I gave Bill the evil eye when he said that, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was standing still, hands in his pockets, gazing around the apartment, moving his eyes slowly over everything.

That’s how Bill works, and I try to learn these things from him, because I’m the type who charges in, not actually without thinking, but sometimes without thinking really hard. I like to stir things up and see what’s at the bottom of the pot. Bill would rather sniff the steam and read the recipe first.

We surveyed the apartment. We could see the whole place from here. The kitchen, where we were standing, was ended by a counter; beyond that was a living room whose hardwood floor, covered partly by a Southwest-looking rug, stretched to the front windows. A double bed was carried on a loft built against the wall, with a desk tucked under it.

It was the floor near the Southwest rug that had the chalk outline of Wayne Lewis’s body.

“The police have been over this place, you know,” Bill said, still not moving, still looking.

“I know. But someone thought it was worth breaking into anyhow.”

“That doesn’t mean they found what they came for.”

“Just a quick look,” I said.

“Sure,” said Bill. “Before the real police come.”

I wasn’t so sure they would. “She said she had to call them twice when she heard shots. How fast do you think they’ll come just because the tape is broken?”

“Fast enough,” Bill said, “to dig our graves. Three minutes, then we’re gone.”

“Okay.”

I looked around again. We’d come to learn something about Wayne Lewis, and I’d learned one thing already: he’d been a very neat man. Possibly obsessively, though that was judgmental and who asked me?

I could see obvious evidence of cop activity: papers piled sloppily, drawers not quite closed, closet doors ajar—though any of that might also be evidence of whoever had broken in here last night. But under that, the true Wayne Lewis shone through. A spice shelf, bottles
organized by size. Books in the bookcase alphabetically by author, and within author by title. Plants on the windowsill in identical green glazed pots. A matched and extensive set of enameled cookware hanging from perfectly spaced hooks above the kitchen counter.

I was willing to bet that there wasn’t a drop of spilt milk on any refrigerator shelf, and that the sheets in the closet were ironed.

“A lot of electronics,” I said to Bill, pointing to the sleek black stereo recessed in the wall, the TV with built-in VCR on a swivel shelf, the digital readout on the microwave. The stove had as many dials and buttons as the dashboard of Bill’s car. A blank computer monitor and keyboard stood to technological attention on Lewis’s desk.

“Mmmhmm,” Bill said, looking over the computer. “Do you think you can work that?”

“Sure,” I answered, glancing apprehensively at the thing. I have a little laptop, which I haul back and forth between home and office, and which I adore, but I think I treat it a little too much like a person: people are reputed to only use a tenth of their brain power, and that’s about how much I use of my computer’s.

“Of course, the police will have checked it out already,” he said.

“Of course. But they weren’t looking for what we’re looking for,” I answered, heading across the room.

“Which is what?”

“Who knows?”

I switched the machine on and waited for the menu to come up. When it did, I scanned the directories available. Bill still hadn’t moved.

“Anything interesting?” he asked.

“It’s hard to say.” I switched into some random directories and opened some random files. “These all have to do with his work. There’s not that much here. A memo about shoes, a letter to a lighting designer … I don’t know. There might be something helpful, but I’d have to look at it awhile before I could know.”

“Download it onto a disk and take it with you.”

I had just decided to do that. I picked up a box marked “blank” and slipped a disk into the floppy drive. “I’m impressed you know ‘download,’ ” I told Bill. I searched the disk to make sure it really was
blank, then copied Lewis’s files and the directories they were in.

“Jargon’s easy,” Bill said. “Comedy’s hard.” He crossed the room to the desk where I was, but he didn’t look at the computer screen. He crouched, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and with it pulled a briefcase from under the desk.

It was a fine, square-cornered leather one, no scratches anywhere. Bill clicked it open. Inside, it was leather also, with special places to put pens, calculators, business cards, and yellow legal pads. It had one of those, but nothing was written on it.

“In the computer,” Bill asked, contemplating the inside of the briefcase, “is there some kind of appointment calendar? A datebook, that kind of thing?”

“I don’t think so.” I went back to the directories. “I don’t see anything called that, and the only program he’s got here is a word processing one.”

“That means something?”

“Well, it’s not what you’d use for keeping appointments. You know, I really think you should take a computer course, so at least you’d know as much as the average ten-year-old.”

“All comparisons are invidious.” Bill pulled open some desk drawers, closed them, and made his way around the counter back to the kitchen again. He opened drawers and cabinets. “Hah,” he finally said, standing with an accordion file in his hand. He began flipping through it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Don’t you have one of these? A place where you keep all your warranties and manuals and instruction booklets?”

“My mother puts them in a shoebox, but I haven’t seen the shoebox in years. She figures that since they’re written in English and she doesn’t speak English, they don’t mean anything.” I pointed to the file he held. “That one’s all alphabetized. Is yours like that?”

“Of course.”

“Amazing.”

“Must be a man thing.”

“I thought men never read manuals.”

“We never do. But we keep them all.”

“What are you looking for?”

He pulled a small booklet from the folder. “This.” Leafing through it, he asked me, “Do you have a datebook?”

“Of course I do,” I said. “How else would I remember my second cousins’ wedding anniversaries?”

“I don’t have second cousins. But I scribble things on scraps of paper and stick them in my pockets. And I have a wall calendar I write important things on. Your birthday, for example.”

“You have to write that down or you’d forget it?”

“I have to write it down to restrict it to one day. Otherwise I’d be celebrating it every day of the year.”

“Nice recovery.”

“Look in there.” Bill pointed at the open briefcase.

I followed his finger. “What am I looking at?”

He gestured the booklet at the briefcase. “Pens. Pencils. Business cards. Reading glasses. Everything tucked into its place. But no datebook. No desk calendar. No wall calendar with birthdays written on.”

I stared into the briefcase, then at him. “You’re a genius.”

“No—what do you nerds say, hard copy?—implies to me some electronic device to do what scraps of paper were made for. If it’s not on the computer it must be somewhere else.” He held up the booklet for me to see. “The Fushida Model CS1936 Electronic Wizard Pocket Time Manager with Calculator, Clock, Calendar, and Address Keeper.”

“You’re a genius,” I said again.

“I could be wrong.”

“So could I, about your being a genius. But I don’t think so. I think you’re right: that’s what’s missing.”

Bill consulted the booklet. “There’s a pocket in there next to the glasses about two and a half inches wide,” he said. “That’s just about the size of this thing.”

“He’d have to have one,” I said. “Especially if he worked freelance. To keep track of everything.”

“Especially,” Bill added, “a guy as compulsive as this.”

“You think so, too?”

He gave me a look that I felt free to interpret any way I wanted to.

“I have another question,” I said.

“Me too. What are we going to do about
that?
” Bill nodded toward the front window. I swiveled my head, then crossed the room quickly to get a better look.

A Sixth Precinct car was double-parking in front of the house.

Bill slipped the instruction booklet for the Electronic Pocket Wizard into his jacket and shut the folder in the cabinet he’d taken it from. I closed Lewis’s briefcase, slipped it back under the desk, and turned off the computer. Over our heads we heard the sound of the doorbell and the scrabbling and yapping of Bobo the dog.

We looked at each other and at the back door as footsteps creaked above.

Then, two minds with but a single thought, we both sped toward the front.

My first fearful thought was that this was the kind of door that you needed a key to get out of, as well as in. I’d started from closer, so I reached it first. I turned the two thumb latches, crossed my mental fingers, and pulled the door.

It opened.

Bill right behind me, I ducked the crime scene tape and found myself under the front stoop. It smelled damp and stony. Silently, Bill pulled the door shut.

I waited, listened, then chanced a peak at the street.

The police car was empty; both cops must have gone up to see Mrs. Lattimer. I wondered if seeing Mrs. Lattimer was, in this precinct, a well-known two-cop job.

“Let’s go,” Bill suggested succinctly.

We went. Up the stairs, down the block, walking at a healthy pace but not running, because people notice you if you run.

“You think she remembered our names?” I asked Bill as we rounded the corner and headed north, against the traffic. In the Village, it’s possible to get all the way to the subway on one-way streets so narrow that police cars would get stuck if they headed down them the wrong way.

“Yours, maybe,” Bill grinned. Without breaking stride, he lit a cigarette. “Mine’s too hard.”

F
IFTEEN

W
e made the Eighth Avenue subway without anyone following us, arresting us, or lifting our licenses. The local rolled into the station first, and we jumped on it. Once headed downtown, I relaxed.

“You have awfully long legs,” I said, plopping down on a seat next to Bill, catching my breath.

“They actually get longer when I’m with short people in a hurry,” he said, stretching out those very legs in the near-empty car. “It’s a scientific fact.”

“Science is amazing. It brings us facts like that, and electronic datebooks that are also address books. You know, the police may have it.”

Bill shook his head. “They’d have taken the instructions.”

“Maybe they couldn’t find them.”

He lifted one eyebrow at me. “Any man could have found them.”

I lifted both eyebrows back and stuck my tongue out besides. “Well, maybe they didn’t look. Maybe they thought they’d get a set from Fushida.”

“That would take a few days. Why wait?”

“But why not take the thing?”

“They probably didn’t look closely at it. They probably thought it was a calculator or something.”

I thought for a minute. “Okay, suppose I buy that. Why do you guess someone cared enough about it to risk breaking in to steal it?”

Bill slipped his hands into his pockets as the train rocketed on. “Because there’s something in it someone wanted.”

“And I called you a genius. Can’t you get any closer?”

Bill frowned. “The crystal is growing cloudy. The connection is failing. If you bought me a drink I might get smarter.”

“That never works. But I do owe you one, don’t I?”

“You bet you do.”

“Well, can we save it for later, when we meet Andrew? I sort of want to go through these files now.” I patted my bag, where Lewis’s disk was.

“All work,” Bill grumbled, pushing to his feet as the train rolled into the Spring Street station. “That’s what they said about you. That Lydia Chin, they told me, she’s no fun. I should’ve listened. Does nothing but work, work, work, they said, never even buys a guy a drink …” He was still muttering to himself as he left the train.

“I’ll phone you,” I called through the closing doors. Bill and the lighted platform disappeared quickly as the train plunged into the darkness of the tunnel, carrying me toward Canal Street and home.

Home was where my laptop was at the moment, so home was where I went. The late-afternoon sidewalks of Chinatown were crammed with people: new immigrants with bad teeth and wary eyes, looking over one shoulder for the authorities and the other for the main chance; prosperous businessmen from Hong Kong and Taiwan, striding through the streets in three-piece suits, cheerfully considering buildings for investment the way you’d chose among bracelets in a jewelry store; sidewalk vendors, selling knockoff watches and fake Chanel scarves next to jade pendants and tiny clay figures of fat, contented fishermen. The soft spring breeze did nothing for the odors of oranges and frying scallion cakes and fish in piles in cardboard boxes except to mix them all together.

I sidestepped people, fish, and a Chinese chess game that, judging from the intensity of the spectators, had quite a lot of money riding on it, and arrived at my own front door. Up the four flights, through the door with the four identical locks—this week, only the first and third were locked, based on my mother’s theory that if you leave half your locks unlocked, a lock-picking thief will drive himself crazy locking some as he unlocks others—and into the tiny vestibule where I kicked off my shoes, pulled on my embroidered slippers, and looked up to find my mother staring at me.

“Ling Wan-ju!” she breathed in horror. “What happened to your head?”

It took me a second to realize what she meant. I straightened to face her. “Come on, Ma,” I said. “This is the latest thing going. All the models wear their hair like this.”

“They do?” She sounded as astonished as she would have if I’d told her all the models were actually men. “Why?”

“Men love it,” I said, putting words to her deep, unspoken—or, more precisely, not-yet-spoken—fears. “And don’t worry,” I added, to reassure her that I was not permanently disabled, “it’ll grow back.”

She stared, then shook her head sharply, as though to force herself back to reality from a bad dream. My head and I were still there, however, so she said, “Well, I suppose until then you can wear a hat.”

“Oh, come on,” I said. “You’ll get used to it, Ma. You’ll learn to love it.”

She frowned at me, as though I’d already spoiled her plans for something. I headed for my room, when from behind me she spoke again. “He called,” she said.

I turned to face her. She was still frowning. “Who?” I asked.

“Who?” she repeated with a wave of her hand. “I hope you don’t act this foolish around him. He’s very clever, you know. He has a good degree, an MBA.”

As opposed to yours, Lydia: sociology with an emphasis on criminal justice. Useless, unless I wanted to be criminal, about which my mother by her own admission had suspicions, given the quality of the people I knew.

But who did I know with an MBA?

Suddenly a light dawned, though it was a strange light, an odd quality to it casting weird shadows. “Roland Lum?” I tried.

“Of course. Who else would be calling you? You chased Paul Kao away; don’t make the same mistake again. I hope Roland Lum likes short haircuts. Now go call him back. Don’t keep him waiting.”

Paul Kao was a friend of Andrew’s I had dated briefly a few months ago. My mother had high hopes for him: he was educated, cultured, handsome, and very polite to his elders, especially her. Like a lot of men who claim to be fascinated with my profession at the beginning,
though, the reality of it—unpredictable hours and predictable trouble—got to him, and we called it quits in a friendly way. I missed him a little, then got over it.

My mother hasn’t.

The only way to avoid a replay of the Paul Kao argument, I could see, would be to go do what she was telling me to do. That, coupled with the fact that my own curiosity was killing me, made my choice clear, and I went and did it.

My mother gave me both Roland’s home and factory numbers. It wasn’t very late, so I tried the factory first.

The phone was answered on the second ring by a sort of pan-lingual, “Yah?”

I asked, in English, for Roland. The phone clattered in my ear and I heard a shout. While I waited for something else to happen, I listened to whines and screeches and clanks just like the ones that had been part of my childhood, the sounds of the long hours and sometimes backbreaking, sometimes numbingly dull work it takes to put together a shirt or a skirt that will end up in the Goodwill bag a year later.

“Hello!” It was Roland’s voice, the greeting not a question but an emphatic statement, delivered in a half-shout over the noises of the machinery.

“Roland? It’s Lydia. My mom said you called?” It suddenly flashed into my mind that it was actually possible he hadn’t called; that it was within the bounds of believability that this was a sly matchmaking trick of my mother’s.

But not so. “Lydia!” Roland yelled back. “I sure did. You home?”

“Yes, why?”

“Can you meet me? I have—well, sort of a problem, and I thought, boy, Lydia’s the one I need! And I’ll bet she could use the work, too! What do you say? Can you?”

“Meet you when? What sort of a problem?”

“Anytime. How about now? I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”

“Well …” I glanced over at the clock. “I’m meeting someone at ten, and there was something I wanted to do before that—”

“Great! You do that, and I’ll finish up here, and then I’ll buy you
dinner. Eight o’clock, Tai Hong Lau? A buddy of mine’s a chef there. He’ll take good care of us.”

From just beyond my bedroom door I heard the floorboards squeak as my mother shifted her position in the hallway. “Okay, Roland,” I said. “That sounds good. See you later.”

“Terrific! See you.”

We hung up. I went out to the hallway where my mother was straightening the pictures on the wall.

“Why do you bother to eavesdrop?” I asked her. “We were speaking English.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she huffed, dusting the top of a picture frame. “Although it’s a shame that you children forget all your Chinese. Mrs. Chan says Roland Lum can’t even talk to the ladies in his shop now, except to give them orders. None of you children can even speak to your own relatives anymore.”

“Roland’s ladies are probably all Fujianese by now, so even if his Cantonese were perfect, he wouldn’t be able to speak to them. And I’m speaking to you right now, Ma,” I said, although the obvious never scored any points with my mother. “Anyway, I won’t be home for dinner.”

“Oh?” She was a study in lack of interest. “Do you have plans?”

Might as well give her a sweep. “I’m having dinner with Roland Lum,” I told her. “And afterwards I’m going to have a drink with An Zhong.”

I disappeared into the bathroom, leaving my mother in the hallway, dumbstruck at her incredible good fortune.

I took a shower; then, wrapped in my yellow silk robe, I sat down on my bed with the laptop and Wayne Lewis’s disk. I went through things methodically, trying to be like Bill, or like he’d be if he had any clue how to use a computer. I opened directories and then files, scanned them, opened the next ones, and scanned them, too. It was a bust. Or, at least, if there was anything on it that was useful to me, I didn’t recognize it. Most of it was letters or lists: lists of models; of music organized by designer and year; of themes—the seaside, angels,
ladies who lunch—also organized by designer and year. Probably so his clients wouldn’t repeat themselves, or each other. On the models list I found Andi Shechter’s name and number, which would have been useful this morning and which I wrote down in my address book, but the fact that she was there wasn’t necessarily surprising, and I didn’t find anybody else I recognized. I didn’t find Dawn Jing.

The letters, as business letters tend to be, were dull. Let’s get together when you’re in New York; we’ll need forty more yards of green canvas; all the high-heeled sneakers were defective and not only is my client not going to pay for them, you’ll be lucky if we don’t sue you. They reminded me why I hate my own paperwork. I finally gave up. I tucked the laptop in its case and the disk in among my own disks, and got dressed for dinner.

As I stared into my closet I was a little sorry Andrew hadn’t told me what kind of a club it was that Dawn Jing haunted. In New York there are as many acceptable looks as there are places to wear them, and it’s a large number. Not that I could cover all of those from my closet. Most people’s clothing, including mine, tends to stick within stylistic limits. People wear things they like and feel good in, things that identify them with the sub-tribe they want to be part of. You generally don’t find people with a closet full of Dior suits also owning a bureau packed with bulky Guatemalan sweaters. It’s all a matter of who you’re claiming to be.

Because of my profession, though, my clothing vocabulary is larger than most people’s. It’s not really a question of disguise, more of acceptability, ease of movement from one world into others. If you look wrong you’re instantly noticed, and, quite properly, distrusted: you’re not a member of the tribe. In my job, getting past people is a major preoccupation. Dressing for Success means something specific to a P.I.

So I took from my closet a midnight-blue silk vest and a pair of black silk pants tailored like jeans, with pockets and everything. I added a pair of black heels I’d paid a lot of money for because they look classy but I can walk in them. I stuck my little .22 in a holster in the back of my waistband. The vest would cover it there, and it wouldn’t show if I sat up straight. Maybe I should tell my mother that carrying a gun was good for my posture. I put on some gold bangles
and a thin gold chain around my neck. I started to brush my hair and had to laugh at myself.

I checked the mirror. Not bad. The silk jeans made the look slightly trashy, which was probably good for just about any place I’d find myself tonight.

And Roland Lum would probably appreciate that, too.

I wasn’t sure how to take Roland, or what to make of his calling me today. My first instinct was to go up in his face, subtly, of course, but in a way that would make sure he knew that Lydia Chin didn’t need his help, not his warnings about other clients being nuts or the work he thought I could use.

On the other hand, it was possible that my annoyance with him was my problem, and Roland was just a brash, pushy old friend of the family.

I collected keys and cash into a black silk handbag the size of a postage stamp, and called Bill.

“Oh?” he said, after I’d announced myself. “To what do I owe this honor?”

“I was thinking about pushy men. Besides, I said I’d call.”

“You said you’d call,” he echoed. “Hah. You said you’d buy me a drink. You said you loved me madly.”

“Good try, but forget it. I’m having dinner with Roland Lum.”

Bill was briefly silent. “How did that come about?”

“My mother lit incense. Roland says he has a case for us.”

“A case? What kind of case?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“What? Taking another case in the middle of this one, or taking a case from Roland Lum?”

“Both.”

“I don’t know.”

“Gee,” he said, “there’s so much you don’t know. Maybe I could teach you. Maybe I could—”

“Maybe you could meet me at Andrew’s at ten, looking cutting-edge.”

“Maybe I could fly to the moon. What the hell do they wear on the cutting edge?”

“Forget it. Just wear black. You know which one is black?”

“Sure. The one you look so gorgeous in. Though come to think of it, that doesn’t narrow it down very far, does it?”

“You’re getting on my nerves.”

“I’ll take anything I can get on. Andrew’s, at ten. Black,” he said, and for the first time in recorded history, he hung up on me.

I put on a black velvet hat, took my black-and-red silk baseball-style jacket from the hall closet, called good-bye to my mother, and slipped out the apartment door. That didn’t work; she poked her head out as soon as the door closed.