“Oh. Oh, right, of course.”
“He wants to debunk them. He thinks they’re phonies. I also thought you should know that someone took a shot at him.”
Dunbar’s beer stopped halfway to his mouth. “Took a— What are you talking about? At who? The professor?”
“At the other PI. Through his office window. Made a mess, but didn’t hit him.”
“Who? Who shot at him?”
“I don’t know. And a couple of other things I don’t know. For example: Who are you?”
“I—wait, what’s going on here?”
My cranberry juice arrived, perfectly timed. I steered the straw to my mouth, gave my client another moment to stew. “Jeff Dunbar’s not your name and you’re not a collector. There’s no such person as Jeff Dunbar. For your information there’s no Professor Kah Ching, either. There is another PI on the case, though, and if you knew anything about the art world you’d have hired him, not me. I don’t know what your real interest is, whether it’s the paintings, because they’re worth a fortune, or something else.” I sipped again, gave him just enough time to open his mouth, and went on before he could speak. “Now, that doesn’t necessarily matter. You’re not required to tell me the truth. But I’m also not required to tell you anything. I’ve picked up a few leads. Since people are shooting guns around, though, and since someone came to my office and tried to buy me off, and threatened me when I refused—”
“Threatened you?”
“Yes. So you can understand that I’m reluctant to take this any further until I know what’s really going on.”
Jeff Dunbar looked at me with a steady gaze. “You took my money. Anything you learned, you learned on my dime.”
“And the man who came to my office and told me I’d be sorry if I didn’t stop? He was on your dime, too.”
A slight pause. “Who was he?”
“I don’t know. A Chinese gent calling himself Samuel Wing, though I have a feeling that’s as phony as ‘Jeff Dunbar.’” I met his eyes and I shut up.
After a few long moments, Dunbar nodded. He drank some beer and said, “You’re right.” His tone was conciliatory. “Jeff Dunbar’s an alias. For reasons I don’t want to go into I’d rather keep my name out of this. My interest in the paintings is legitimate. I don’t know anyone named Wing, I don’t know why someone would threaten you, and I certainly have no idea who’d shoot at some other detective. I’m absolutely sure, in fact, that that has nothing to do with me.”
“You could be right.” I softened, too, to show that while we may not be on the same page, we might be able to arrive there. “But that doesn’t mean it has nothing to do with the paintings.”
“But it does mean I can’t be held responsible for it.”
“Maybe you can’t, but it did happen. In view of that, and of Mr. Wing’s visit and his threats, your blamelessness doesn’t necessarily make me feel secure. And ‘legitimate’ is a nice-sounding word but I’m not sure what it means in this context.”
Dunbar looked to the windows. Cars whizzed by on the highway; beyond them, the river gleamed in the late sun. “The other investigator. Do you know who hired him?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure why. And I’m not going to tell you.” He started to object, so I added, “Any more than I told him who you are.”
“He knows I exist?”
“He knows I have a client interested in the same thing he is. His PI told him. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to get together with you. To even up the flow of information.”
We sat in our own cone of silence in the noisy bar. Finally, Dunbar said, “You say you’ve picked up some leads. Information about where the paintings are?”
“Possibly. I haven’t checked them out yet.”
“Why don’t you give them to me? That can be the end. I’ll follow through. You’ll be out of it, and no one will have any reason to threaten you. It’s only been one day, but you can keep the whole retainer. To compensate for the trouble this has caused you.”
From the corner of my eye I saw Jack take out his phone, slip off his barstool, and thread his unhurried way to the door. I wondered what was up. He’d gotten a call and it was too noisy to talk in here? With my back to the door I couldn’t see him leave, but I did see a brightening in the bar when the door opened. Whatever. He was a grown-up. I turned my focus back to my client. “That’s a generous offer.”
“No more than deserved, I’d say.”
“Samuel Wing, before he tried very elegantly to bully me, offered me ten times what you’d paid.”
“I see.” Jeff Dunbar took a long pull on his beer. “All right, point taken. You can’t be bought.”
“Yes, I can. Just not with money. I want to know what’s going on. Why you want me to find these paintings, why Samuel Wing doesn’t, what the other PI’s client wants.” Or wanted. And doesn’t now. “Who you are. Whether Ghost Hero Chau is still alive.”
He gave a small smile. “That last question, that’s the big one, isn’t it? The rest, I know some of those answers, and I don’t know others. But I’m not going to tell you any of them until you tell me what you know about where the paintings are.”
“I don’t know anything. I have some leads. They might turn out to be total dead ends.”
“Still, I want them.”
“And I want to know who I’m giving them to.”
“The client who’s paid for them.”
After a stand-off moment I slung my bag up from the floor. “I’ll return your money.” I ran the zipper. It was one heck of a bluff; of course I wasn’t carrying his thousand dollars around.
“No,” he said quickly. “No, don’t do that.”
Slowly, I zipped the bag again. “What, then?”
He looked across the room, across the highway. “Samuel Wing. I may know who that is.”
“You just said you didn’t.”
“I said I don’t know anyone by that name. But I might know who’s using it. If I’m right, I promise you he’s not dangerous.”
From the ineptitude of Samuel Wing’s menace I’d come to the same conclusion, but I didn’t see why I should share that. “Maybe he’s not. But maybe he is. And maybe he’s not who you think. Tell me about him.”
“No. But I’ll find out. If I’m wrong I’ll let you know.”
“And if you’re right?”
“I’d like you to continue your investigation.”
“Just like that? I’m supposed to believe you that Samuel Whoever’s not a threat, and the guy who is, who’s spraying bullets around, isn’t going to come for me? And that you’re the good guys and this whole investigation’s ‘legitimate’?”
Jeff Dunbar sighed. “Ms. Chin, it’s important those paintings be found. Not just to me. There are other … interested parties. I can’t tell you why, not right now. I can tell you, it’s not about money.”
“No?”
“No.”
“What is it about?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
I considered digging in, but the set of his mouth told me that would go nowhere. “All right,” I said. “Maybe I believe that: It’s not about money to you. Or your interested parties. But Samuel Wing claimed to be representing interested parties, too. And the guy with the bullets? Or the other PI’s client? It could be about money to them, couldn’t it?”
And speaking of the other PI, where had Jack gone?
“I don’t know,” Jeff Dunbar said. “But I’ll try to find out.”
“You can find out what those people want, but you can’t find the Chaus?”
He shook his head. “No. What I can try to find out is whether any of my interested parties are any of those people. Wing, or the shooter, or the other client.”
“Well,” I said after a long pause, “you do that. And here’s what I’ll do. I’ll keep looking. As long as no one shoots at me.” Not that that’s ever stopped me before, but that was another thing I felt no need to share. “But if I find the Chaus, I’ll need more than ‘it’s important’ before I give the information to someone whose name I don’t even know. Is that a deal?”