I splurged on a cab, because of the shoes.
Outside Baxter/Haig I smoothed my skirt, elegantly mussed my hair, and pulled back the heavy glass door. I gave Nick Greenbank a sweet, sweet smile. He returned a scowl and muttered, “He’s here.”
“Yes, I know he is,” I said.
Little Nicky called the back office. When he hung up he jabbed his head in that direction, with a spreading smile so nastily predatory I began to wonder if Doug Haig had said to send me in, the bear trap was set. Nevertheless, I sashayed to the back where I was met by jittery Caitlin. She knocked on Haig’s private door, got a barked, “Come!” and opened it.
And there was the bear trap: Mighty Casey Woo.
20
Woo sat in a chair in the corner of Doug Haig’s inner office, where the take-out coffee he was sipping didn’t threaten the art. He smiled at me, a smile uncomfortably similar to Nick’s.
Doug Haig, meanwhile, sat examining a gold-and-pink pastel drawing just long enough for me to get it that the work on his table was far more important than I was and then slipped it with great care back into a portfolio, at which moment he finally looked up at me.
“Mr. Haig,” I said, blasé and serene. Or I hoped I conveyed that impression. My heart was racing and my brain was outpacing it in an attempt to deal with this turn of events. “Thank you for seeing me.” I nodded to the corner. “And Mr. Woo. What a nice surprise.” I pulled out a chair at Haig’s worktable, sat primly and waited.
Wielding his chunky fingers with impressive delicacy, Haig tied the portfolio’s boards shut and laid it flat. He rejiggled his bulk to face me, showing Woo his wide back.
“Yes,” he said. “Well, Caitlin told me you said I’d be happy if I met with you. So far, I’m not.”
“You’re an impatient man. And,” I added, my brain reorganizing data like crazy, “you have such interesting friends.”
“A busy man. And my friends aren’t your business.” Haig didn’t look in Woo’s direction, as though the man weren’t there.
“No,” I said. “It’s not my business. It’s yours, and they’re not your friends. When Mr. Woo and I met, he told me he had an investment to protect. This is it. Your gallery. In my mind I had things more complicated than they needed to be. Now I get it. Tiger Holdings is your investor.”
“I don’t know why my financial arrangements were on your mind at all. You can’t really be expecting me to discuss them with you? Now, if you’re here about buying the Chaus for Mr. Oblomov, I’m not in a position yet—”
“I think you are.”
He stopped. “I am what?”
“In a position to sell them. Well, let me qualify that. You have them. But it’s true you can’t sell them yet. And without my help I don’t believe you’ll be able to.”
Woo sat forward. “You have Chaus? This true, what she say?”
“Why is he here?” I asked Haig.
Still without a glance at Woo, Haig said, “Certainly not at my invitation.”
“And yet, here he is. You, who threatened to have Vladimir Oblomov thrown out yesterday, you who bullied a terrified young woman into leaving just because you could, you’re putting up with this coffee-swilling klutz in your pristine inner sanctum. It’s killing you, I can see that. But there’s nothing you can do. He’s here because his boss is getting impatient. You owe Tiger Holdings a lot of money and they’ve heard about the Chaus.”
Woo, who’d let “coffee-swilling klutz” whizz right by him, jumped again on “Chaus.” “You have Chaus? You have, don’t tell Mr. Lau? That don’t make him happy.”
Haig’s tongue darted out and licked his lips. He didn’t seem to like the thought of Mr. Lau being unhappy.
“Why, Mr. Haig,” I marveled. “They’re afraid you’ll cheat them. Mr. Woo’s here because Mr. Lau—that’s the boss, right?—isn’t going to let you make a move anymore without him knowing about it. They suspect you of being the lying, cheating worm you are. I bet Woo’s even supposed to follow you home. At least he buys his own coffee. Mr. Woo, please sit down.” Haig whipped his head around. Woo, out of his chair, stopped uncertainly. “Mr. Woo, you won’t get what you want by physical intimidation. Not because Mr. Haig is a brave man by any means, but because you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip. Do you know that expression in English? Well, it doesn’t matter. Please sit down. I’m here to help you both.”
After a moment, Woo sat, scowling. Haig, who’d paled at the word “blood,” slowly turned back to me, showing great self-control by not rearranging his chair to bring Woo into his line of sight. Maybe he was braver than I gave him credit for.
“As I say,” I told Haig, “you’ll need my help to sell the Chaus. Without me,” I spoke to Woo, “he can’t sell them and Mr. Lau can’t get his money back.” I gave him a significant look. I wasn’t sure what it signified but he seemed to be. When I turned back to Haig, Woo stayed silent.
“Your help?” Haig said, starting to recover. “I cannot think of a situation in which I’d need your help. Oblomov’s not the only interested party, you know.”
“I do know that. But finding a buyer’s not the problem, is it?”
“Ms. Chin. If I did have the Chaus,” he flicked an involuntary glance in Woo’s direction, “why couldn’t I sell them? And if you think I can’t sell them, why are you here?”
“You do have them,” I repeated. “You knew all about them, even where they were, when Vladimir and I were first here, but you didn’t have them yet. Now you do. But you can’t sell them because you can’t get them authenticated. And I’m here because I can help.” I crossed my legs, letting my skirt ride up a tiny bit. Oh, Lydia, sometimes you’re just so cheesy.
Haig zeroed in on my leg-crossing operation. When it was over he switched his attention back to my face. “I can’t imagine how.”
I fingered the jade on its gold chain around my neck and smiled again. “Then I’ll explain. You can’t get the Chaus authenticated because they’re not authentic.” Movement in the corner caused me to turn my head. “Mr. Woo, sit down!” He scowled, but after a moment, he sat. “Thank you. You didn’t know they were fakes? Don’t worry, we can still make Mr. Lau happy.” I turned back. “But you, Mr. Haig, you knew all along. Anna Yang painted them, Bernard Yang’s daughter. Please, Mr. Haig, don’t insult me by looking affronted. Or surprised. Thank you. Or by asking me how I know this or anything else I’m about to say, because of course I’m not going to tell you. You’ve asked Dr. Yang to authenticate them, but he won’t. But maybe I should be more precise. You didn’t ask him to determine whether they’re authentic. You asked him to say that they are. To put his stamp of approval on them, so you can sell them for the fortune they’d be worth if they weren’t fakes. Your threat, if he didn’t, was that you’d claim Anna Yang already rooked you, sold them to you as real, using his name to pull the wool over your eyes. You’d look like a fool and be stuck with worthless junk paintings—which by the way you stole, she didn’t sell to you, but that’s another issue entirely and in fact I commend you on your resourcefulness.”
Haig made a strangled sound.
“Please, Mr. Haig, this really will go better if you just let me finish.” I bounced my high-heeled foot impatiently.
“Again, thank you. You’d be stuck, but Anna Yang’s reputation would be ruined and her career would be over. You thought that would be a persuasive argument, forcing Dr. Yang into this bit of chicanery. But it wasn’t. His own reputation means more to him, it seems, than you were banking on. More than his daughter’s, and more than her career. In any case, there’s a rift between them since her wedding in Beijing. Apparently, when she married that dissident poet, Liu Mai-ke, it was without her father’s permission.”