MANDARIN PLAID (Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series) (7 page)

“No,” I said.

“Too bad. That’s hot these days, especially on the Oriental girls. Well, we can always do temporaries if we need them. Why don’t you bring your book by tomorrow? You have a book? Doesn’t matter, I probably wouldn’t use it anyway. Photographer we use, he’s a brilliant guy, goes a little further than most of these wusses, gets an edge. I like my girls to have an edge. You, Mishika, you have an edge. I can see it.”

I didn’t say anything, but Ed Everest smiled again, as though
he’d gotten the answer he wanted. “Call tomorrow,” he said. “I have a full plate but tell my girl that Ed said he wants to see you.” He was peering deeply into my eyes, totally focused on Mishika and her modeling future. Then his gaze was suddenly distracted, catching a glimpse of someone across the room. Probably it was someone more important than I. Well, who wasn’t?

Ed Everest left his bar stool, squeezing my shoulder, saying, “Great, sweetheart. Mishika. Great. Looking forward,” and wormed his way through the crowd to find another face.

Well, I thought as I sipped my drink. Well. That’s two people already today who want me to model. My mother would be so pleased.

The bar stool next to me, so recently emptied of Ed Everest, now took on another occupant, a black-haired, red-lipped young woman in a cropped top and tight pants. Is this a uniform, I wondered, or is it just that no one but a model is willing to take the risk of showing that space above the waist where most of us have at least a tiny little bulge of flesh?

The red-lipped woman lit a cigarette and cocked her empty glass at the bartender. He brought her another Perrier. Holding the cigarette not at her fingertips but down lower, between her knuckles, she took a drag, sipped her drink, and, without looking at me said in a raspy voice, “You’re new.”

I already knew that, I wanted to say, Ed Everest told me. But instead I smiled and said, “Yes. Mishika.”

“Mishika,” she repeated. “Yeah, okay. I’m Francie. Listen, Mishika. I don’t know what you know, but you probably don’t know much because you’re not dressed right and you’re not made up right and you need some work on your hair. Okay? So you’re new.” She drank some Perrier, leaving a voluptuous red stain on the glass. “What you need to know is, stay away from Ed Everest.”

“He was just here,” I said.

“What the hell do you think I’m telling you for?” She waved her cigarette impatiently. “He said he could help you, right? Said your look is different but he could do a lot with it, right? Tell me, Mishika, you see anyone else rushing over here to do you a favor and make you famous?”

I had to admit that I didn’t.

“No one will.” Francie sucked on her cigarette. “It doesn’t work like that. Anyone who tells you it does is lying. Ed’s clients,” she said, turning her eyes on me for the first time. They were an intense, luminous green, a contact lens green. “They’re not so interested in how you look
in
the clothes.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, still not completely sure what she was telling me.

“You don’t believe me? You think I’m trying to screw up your career or something? You think I’m trying to keep him for myself?” She gave a short, nasty laugh. “Ed doesn’t want me. He doesn’t specialize in white girls.”

She swigged down the last of her Perrier and climbed off the stool. “Suit yourself. Most girls don’t want to hear it. But don’t say I didn’t try.”

She pushed through the crowd. It parted to let her pass and closed up seamlessly after her.

I stared after her thoughtfully. Then I turned my attention back to John Ryan and Andi Shechter. They were still alone together, still talking, but Ryan’s gestures, the tilt of his head and set of his shoulders, had taken on a tinge of impatience. The bar stool next to me stayed empty, so I was able to sip my Perrier and watch.

The music had changed from the Stones to 2 Live Crew, yesterday’s bad boys blending into today’s. It was louder now, less melody, more beat. Andi Shechter pressed out one cigarette and lit another. Her lips seemed tinged with a hard smile; she appeared to be enjoying herself.

Ryan ran his hand through his hair. He looked around wordlessly. Pulling a moneyclipped thickness from his pocket, he seemed to ask a question and she seemed to answer. He seemed to be unhappy with the answer. He said one more thing as he peeled some bills, folded them over, and handed them to her. He stood and walked away without looking back.

Hmm, I thought. Not quite what I expected.

I picked up my Perrier and headed over.

Donna’s was more crowded now, a crush of young, leggy, beautiful bodies. The music had changed again, to the weird, dreamy harmonies
of a rising indie group called Saturnine. I threaded my twisty way through the room with a lot of bumps and “excuse me’s,” until I finally broke free from the tangle of people to emerge into the area where Andi Shechter sat. The two chairs across the low coffee table from her were occupied, but the one beside her was still empty. I settled myself gingerly in it and smiled tentatively at her.

“Hi,” I said. “Is this okay?”

She looked at me, surprised, as though she hadn’t noticed me sitting down. She shrugged.

“Aren’t you Andi Shechter?” I asked.

Her stare was blank, a little unfocused. She said, “Yeah.”

“I’ve seen your work. I really like it,” I said, hoping that was how models talked to each other.

She smiled, a different, surprised little smile, one that softened her face. The softness made her look startlingly young. Maybe that was why it faded so fast, so she could go back to looking like a grownup. “Thanks,” she murmured.

“I’m Mishika,” I said. “I’m new.”

Her smile came back, but this time it wasn’t soft. It was the hard-edged one she’d smiled at John. She pulled on her cigarette. “I know.”

“Everybody seems to,” I sighed. “It’s my clothes, right? And my haircut?”

“Don’t worry, honey, you’ll catch on.” She spoke idly, not particularly interested in me or my problems.

“That man you were talking to,” I asked tentatively, “was that John Ryan? Who works with Genna Jing?”

She looked directly at me for the first time. “Yeah. That was him. Why?”

“I’d love to work for her,” I said wistfully. “I’d love to wear her stuff. Do you know if they have all their girls for their show already?”

Andi Shechter stared for a moment, then laughed. “Go for it, honey. Get your agent to call. Maybe you’ll get a gig. John’s into Oriental girls these days.”

I was trying to decide how model-wannabe Mishika Yamamoto would answer that when another thin pale woman in a cropped top and tight pants—she must not be new—burst through the crowd
abruptly. It was Francie, I realized, formerly of the bar stool next to mine. She threw a quick, dismissive glance at me, then crouched beside Andi Shechter’s chair. She asked Andi urgently, “Did you hear what happened?”

The pounding of the music and the loud edginess of the talk and laughter around us made her have to almost shout, but this was obviously the start of a private conversation. So Mishika drank her Perrier, shifted politely in her seat to face away from them, let her eyes search the room, and listened very hard.

“What do you mean?” Andi almost-shouted back.

“What happened,” Francie repeated. “Did you hear? Wayne’s dead.”

“
What?
”

I chanced a quick look.

Andi’s eyes were wide. She leaned in closer. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Shot,” Francie said. “This afternoon.”

“Oh, shit!” Andi said. “Oh,
shit!
” She took a long drag on her cigarette, then stamped it out hard in the ashtray. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

“We have a choice?”

Andi stared, then shook her head. “Oh, what, the Peak of Perversion? Fuck Ed, I’m not going to Ed.”

“Where are you going to go, then?”

“Someplace else. I’m not going to Ed.”

“Yeah,” said Francie. “Whatever. If you think of something better, let me know.” She stood, looked at Andi, then plunged back into the crowd.

“Shit!” Andi said, to no one. The smoke from her cigarette curled toward the ceiling. She stayed like that for a few moments, unmoving. Then, suddenly, she jerked to her feet, yanked her purse from the chair, sliced through the crowd, and was gone.

S
IX

I
jumped up and tried to follow, but I had more trouble with the crowd than she did. I got tangled up with a grinning man who seemed to think our mutual misunderstanding about who was stepping left and who was stepping right was pretty funny. Almost yelping with frustration, I finally broke free and made it outside. I looked up and down the street but didn’t see Andi. I turned to the doorman, who was scowling professionally.

“Excuse me, please,” I said, retrieving the Chinese accent. “Miss Andi Shechter, do you see where she goes? So foolish, the address she gave to meet her I have lost.”

Without breaking the scowl, he nodded toward Eighth Avenue. I hurried down the block, but it didn’t do me any good. By the time I reached the corner, she was gone—maybe north, maybe west, maybe into a cab and far away.

I stood on the sidewalk, just breathing. The cool spring air tasted as good as a glass of ice water on a summer day. A good long walk, that’s what I needed, to clear the smoke from my lungs and my brain. For the second time that day I headed down from Chelsea to the Village, toward Wayne Lewis’s place.

After a few calming blocks of Eighth Avenue traffic, I found a pay phone and called the answering machine at my office. “Three messages,” it said, in the nasal electronic voice that always sounds like it’s scolding me. I played them back.

The first was from Andrew. So was the second. “Lydia,
call
me! What’s the matter with you?”

What’s the matter, indeed. I listened to the third.

“Miss Chin, this is Eleanor Talmadge Ryan.” The voice was an older woman’s, firm and clipped. “Please call me at your earliest convenience.” Then came the number. Then came the hang-up click.

Ryan, I thought. My goodness. I spent my last quarter doing as told.

I introduced myself to the voice that answered the phone. That voice went away and got another one, and I introduced myself again.

“Miss Chin,” the firm and clipped tones pronounced. “Thank you very much for calling. I’d like to see you.”

“Ms. Ryan,” I said innocently, “I’m afraid we haven’t met … ?”

“You know my son John,” she said, in a voice that suggested that disingenuousness might not be the way to go with this one. “And it’s
Mrs.
Ryan, if you don’t mind.” I got the feeling that it was
Mrs.
Ryan whether I minded or not.

“Yes,” I said. “I know John.”

“Of course. Now, can you come up?”

“Tonight?”

“I would appreciate it. Unless you have plans?”

Which I would change if I knew what was good for me, the subtext went.

Luckily I hadn’t had any plans that sounded more interesting than this.

“All right,” I said. “Give me time to make a call. To change my plans.” See, lady, Lydia Chin can play this game, too. “Where shall I come?”

“To my home.” She gave me an Upper East Side address, I promised her I’d be there in half an hour, and we hung up.

I ran into the deli on the corner, got a cup of tea and more quarters, and called Bill.

“Hi,” I said, swallowing a mouthful of tea when he answered the phone. “I smell just like you.”

“Manly?” He sounded impressed.

“No, of stale tobacco. Guess who called me?”

“Your brother Andrew.”

Taken aback, I said, “How do you know that?”

“Because he called me, too. He wants to talk to us. He says he has something to tell us.”

“I’ll bet he does. Whatever it is I don’t want to hear it, because I know what it is. He’s going to yell at me. If you’re there he’ll yell at you, too.”

“If he yells in Chinese I won’t care.”

“I’ll translate, so you’ll have to. Anyway, forget him; I’ll talk to him later. No, this was better. John Ryan’s mother.”

“No kidding.”

“Ummhmm,” I said through my tea.

“How did she get to you? And what are you eating?”

“I’m drinking tea. And I don’t know. But she knows I know John, and she wants to see me. Now.”

“Are you going?”

“Are you serious? But first I wanted tell you what else happened. And to find out what you found out.”

“I found out nothing. Mike’s going to call me back on the guns. Nothing else interesting’s turned up yet, either.”

“That’s because you were in the wrong place. Where I was, things were
very
interesting.” Finishing my tea, I told him about John and Andi, Andi and Francie, Ed and Francie and me. I had to put three more quarters in the phone to get through it all. “They sounded upset that Wayne was dead, Andi and Francie,” I said at the end. “But I’m not sure it was because they liked him. Andi didn’t even ask Francie what had happened, who had killed him.”

“Do you—” he started, but an electronic voice broke in, demanding more quarters.

“Give me your number, I’ll call you back,” Bill said.

“No, ask me later,” I said. “I have to go anyway. I’ll call you.”

He barely had time to say, “Okay,” before the telephone, in a huff, cut us off.

As I hailed a cab on Eighth Avenue it occurred to me to wonder whether the rude phone and my disapproving answering machine might be cousins.

The Ryan homestead was in a blocky red-brick building on York Avenue, the eastest of the Upper East Side. The building was of the age that’s always vaguely referred to in New York as “prewar.” A uniformed doorman opened a glass door for me into a softly lit lobby. A half-dozen polished antique chairs and two end tables stood very
carefully in their places on the marble floor, as if they’d lose their jobs if they got out of line.

Behind a counter a concierge waited to hear what I had to say.

“Mrs. Ryan, please.” I emphasized the
Mrs.
maybe a little more than I absolutely had to. “I’m Lydia Chin.”

“Mrs. Ryan’s already called down,” the concierge told me, his face a polite blank. “East elevators.”

At the east elevators another man in a uniform turned a key so the elevator would go, and sent me up.

The lobby on the twenty-third floor was carpeted, softly lit, and tiny. Only three doors opened off it. In a building this big, that told me something about the apartments.

I saw that what it told me was true, when the door to 23A was opened by a square-shouldered, gray-haired woman in a wool skirt and low-heeled shoes. Behind her, the foyer gave way through an arch to the living room. Spindly wooden chairs and velvety sofas clustered on an acre of white wool. Above the huge marble fireplace an oil portrait of a balding man with a nice smile and a proudly handsome woman with icy blue eyes watched everything that went on, including my entrance. Beyond them, at the end of the room, spread a stunning view of the East River.

“Miss Chin?” the square-shouldered woman said. “If you’ll follow me, please. Mrs. Ryan is expecting you.”

We walked down a thickly carpeted hallway hung with framed prints of fruit and flowers, past a series of rooms whose open doorways I peeked into but whose uses I couldn’t keep up with. The floors that weren’t carpet were polished dark wood, parqueted in intricate patterns. I recognized the formal dining room by the long table and sparkling chandelier, and the study by its leather chairs and its shelves of leather-bound books, although I thought the oil portrait of two golden retrievers broke the serious mood a little.

At the end of our walking tour I was ushered into an enclosed terrace, glassed on three sides. From it the lights across the river glowed close and clear. Traffic on the highway, which I knew was a tangled snarl of honking horns and screeching brakes when you were in it, from here flowed in a silent, serene ballet of white and red lights. The bridges arched over the river, barges floated under the
bridges, and everything was peaceful, purposeful, and under control.

This glassed-in terrace, I thought to myself as my guide left, would have made a nice winter garden, a conservatory.

But there wasn’t a single thing growing in it.

“Miss Chin.” A voice leapt into the room from behind me. It announced my name as though it were telling me—and would tell me only once—something I didn’t know. “Sit down,” it instructed.

I turned around, in time to watch a tall, unsmiling woman stride through the doorway onto the terrace and seat herself on a heavy, expensive-looking wood garden chair. I recognized her from the portrait over the fireplace, though her short, silk-white hair had been darker then.

She folded her hands and faced me, obviously expecting something. Her icy blue cashmere sweater and slacks were too much like her eyes for coincidence. In the wave of her hair and the blue of those eyes, I saw John Ryan.

She watched me with an air of controlled impatience. I wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, but the last order she’d given was for me to sit down, so I did. The chairs, I found, were as solid as a boulder and about as comfortable. The back of mine was too deep and the arms too wide apart for someone my size. I had two choices: slouch or perch.

I perched.

The woman’s face resolved from expectation to satisfaction. That order carried out, she was ready to continue. “I’m Eleanor Talmadge Ryan,” she stated, as though for the record. “I want to speak to you about my son John, and Genna Jing.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Ryan,” I said, although the phrase suddenly rang more frivolously time-wasting than it ever had before. “But I’m not sure what I can do for you. I don’t know John or Genna very well. We only met yesterday.”

“You’re a private investigator they hired,” she said bluntly. “I want to know why.”

Boy, I thought. If this woman treats money the way she treats words, no wonder she’s rich.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not sure how you know that, but I can’t tell you anything beyond it.”

“Of course you can. What you’re saying is that you won’t. How I know is not your business, but so that you’ll appreciate how serious I am I’ll tell you that I pay to be kept up-to-date on my son’s activities.”

I swallowed to keep my jaw from dropping. “You pay people to spy on John?”

“I am John’s mother, Miss Chin.”

Well, yes, I thought. But.

However, relations between mother and son were clearly not the subject under discussion, and I wasn’t anxious to be told something else wasn’t my business.

“Have you asked John about this?” I was pretty sure she hadn’t, but I was interested in hearing her answer.

“Don’t be coy, Miss Chin,” she said coldly. “If I’d wanted to speak to John I would have called him here.”

Called, I thought. Summoned. Commanded. Required the presence of. Hi mom, I’m home.

I said, “It was actually Genna who hired me, Mrs. Ryan.”

“Genna Jing,” Mrs. Ryan said, articulating carefully, as though she didn’t want me to miss any of this, “is a woman with whom I would prefer my son not be associated. I am willing to pay rather more than you might expect for anything which will help separate them.”

“Excuse me?” I didn’t exactly stammer, but I didn’t quite sound like the queen of cool, either.

“My son,” she said, “is a wastrel and a dreamer. He understands the value of very little. He is in some ways like his father, but for all his faults, my husband never forgot who he was or where he belonged.” She smoothed her perfectly smooth slacks and continued. “John is my only child. I have largely written him off.” She said this as if it were just one of the many choices available to mothers concerning their children, like buying him a new suit or sending him to college.

“However,” she went on, “his children will be my grandchildren. I have hopes for them. Children can be taught, perhaps schooled with a firmer hand than John was; that was my mistake, I believe.” She frowned, as though trying to understand where she’d gone wrong in a recipe and why her cake had fallen.

“And you would prefer,” I said, not quite able to believe what I was hearing, needing to test it out, “that John’s children not be Genna Jing’s?”

“I have nothing personally against the young woman. I’ve never even met her. But surely you can see how unsuitable a match like that would be.”

“No,” I said, “I really can’t.”

“Oh, please don’t be deliberately obtuse, Miss Chin. My son and Genna Jing are from completely different backgrounds. They cannot possibly have anything in common.”

“Don’t you think that’s up to John and Genna?”

“I absolutely do not. An immigrants’ child, raised among you people, and John—they would find out for themselves in a matter of months how little they share.”

“Then maybe you should let them do that,” I said hotly. “And for your information,” I added, remembering what Andrew had told me, “Genna’s from a fancy suburb of Chicago. Oak Park. She went to boarding school and a private college. And she’s got her own business.”

What are you doing, Lydia?
I demanded, furious with myself.
Those things aren’t the point anyway
.

“A business,” Mrs. Ryan continued, acknowledging my anger in no way whatsoever, “which, without adequate capitalization, will never survive. I believe that’s what Genna Jing is after from my son.”

I pulled in hard on myself, trying to match her cold control. “His money?”

“Would it be the first time a woman made love to a man for money? Many women make a profession of it.”

“Mrs. Ryan—!” So much for control.

“I really don’t care to hear your comments, Miss Chin.” She backhanded the air in front of her as though she were shooing something away. “My son, for his part, is no doubt attracted to the glamour he believes he’s found in the circles in which Genna Jing travels. John has never understood the difference between true elegance and cheap glitter.”

Oh, but you’re wrong, I said to her inside my head, seeing Genna’s face, the straight line of her back, her small, well-kept hands.
I think John understands true elegance very well.

Mrs. Ryan said, “I’ll give you a thousand dollars to tell me why you were hired.”

My eyes widened before I could stop them. That was more than I’d gotten for being hired.

“No, thank you,” I said, trying to sound as cool as if I were turning down a cup of tea.

“Five thousand, then. This is not a negotiation. Dealing with you is worth five thousand dollars to me. Beyond that it’s easier to see if I can get the information elsewhere. Your partner, for example. He may have expenses you don’t have and might welcome some extra cash. But consider this: if someone is going to sell me this information for five thousand dollars, why should it not be you?”