A Catered Tea Party (22 page)

“Is this a bad time?” Libby asked her.

Lucy Chin shook her head again. “Sorry,” she said. “I was just thinking.”

“About what?” Bernie asked.

“The teapot. Zalinsky,” she said, then fell into another silence.

Bernie and Libby waited.

“Why do you think he paid so much?” Bernie asked.

“Because he wanted it,” Lucy Chin said, “and he was a man who got what he wanted.” But the expression on her face told Bernie that there might be more to the story than that.

“Any other reason?” Bernie asked quietly.

“One hears rumors,” Lucy Chin replied.

“Like?” Libby said encouragingly.

“About Ludvoc,” Lucy Chin said after another moment had gone by. “His honesty. Or lack thereof.”

“I've heard those too,” Bernie said. “But I don't see what that has to do with the teapot.”

“If it were stolen,” Lucy Chin said slowly, “you would get insurance money, and then if you were the one who was responsible for the theft, you could resell the teapot to a collector. Or even better, you could copy it and sell it to multiple collectors. They wouldn't know they'd bought a fake because they're doing something illegal and aren't apt to check. So you would get paid over and over again. Well worth the two-million-dollar investment.”

Bernie leaned forward. That would explain Zalinsky's thinking. “Are you saying Zalinsky did that?”

“I'm not saying anything at all,” Lucy Chin told her. “Some other people are, though.”

“Would someone actually do something like that?” Bernie asked.

Lucy Chin laughed. “They most certainly would. We have our sharks in our world just like everyone else. Only they tend to be a little politer.”

“Not necessarily,” Libby said, thinking of how Zalinsky had ended up.

Lucy Chin got up. “And now I really must go,” she said.

“Are you sure you don't remember what Zalinsky's fiancée looked like?” Bernie said as she rose.

“Positive,” Lucy Chin answered. Libby and Bernie were halfway to the door when she called them back. “We take pictures of our events. If I have the chance, would you like me to go through them and see if I can find Zalinsky and the woman he was with?”

“That would be fantastic,” Libby assured her. “Absolutely fantastic.”

“And I think I can give you that list of people you were asking for before,” Lucy Chin said.

As Bernie watched, Lucy Chin walked over to a desk that was butted up against the far wall, picked up a fountain pen, uncapped it, and began to write on a piece of thick, white stationery, the pen making a scratching sound as she wrote.

“Here,” she said, straightening up. She handed the list to Bernie. “I hope this helps.”

“Can I ask you why you've changed your mind?” Bernie inquired.

Lucy Chin smiled. “Because everything is about money these days, and I'm tired of it. Good luck.” And with that she walked out into the hallway and held the door for Libby and Bernie.

L
ibby and Bernie walked out of the Asia Institute and into the muggy heat of a New York City summer. Their ears were assaulted by the sounds of taxis honking as the vehicles navigated the traffic on Park Avenue.

“So we were right about Zalinsky planning to steal the teapot,” Bernie said as she watched people fanning themselves with magazines and newspapers as they walked along, trying to keep to the buildings' shadows. Even the impatiens planted in the medians on Park Avenue looked as if they were wilting in the heat.

“It makes sense,” Libby agreed. “Not that that always means anything.”

“True,” Bernie said.

A nanny hurriedly pushed what Bernie knew to be a five-hundred-dollar stroller across the street. A small boy on a scooter wearing shorts and a T-shirt struggled to keep up with her. Clearly they were on their way to Central Park, as were the three British tourists next to them discussing whether they should go to the zoo or the lake. Then the light changed, and the cars started zooming by again in a scrum of traffic.

“I hope Lucy Chin finds those photos,” Libby said. “I bet it's Erin.”

“I bet it is too,” Bernie agreed. “She certainly fits the description. Heaven only knows, if anyone had a reason to kill him, she did. I know I would want to if I was in her shoes.”

Then Bernie leaned against the wall of the Asia Institute and unfolded the paper Lucy Chin had given her. The ink was a bright blue. The paper felt creamy in her hands. She studied the writing. It was beautiful. A lost art. They didn't even teach cursive in school anymore. A pity, she thought, as she studied the list of art dealers Lucy Chin had given her.

There were ten names on the list. Four of them were small galleries scattered on the Upper East Side, one was located on Columbus Avenue on the West Side of town, and the remaining five were in the West Village.

Bernie thought about the best way to approach them. She could only see one way, and she didn't think that Libby was going to be that enthusiastic when she told her. Oh well. Bernie sighed. It was going to be a long, hot day, and she was not in the mood. Especially because she was going to have to deal with Libby first—Libby, whose default position was always no.

* * *

“I don't want to go into Bloomingdale's,” Libby whined.

Bernie and Libby were standing on the corner of Fifty-Ninth Street and Lexington Avenue breathing in the exhaust fumes from the buses and cars driving by.

“There is no way people will believe you're in the market for the teapot looking the way you do,” Bernie pointed out. She'd been saying the same thing to her sister for the last ten minutes and had gone from tactfully hinting to baldly stating.

“Rich WASPs would look the way I do,” Libby told her.

“True,” Bernie replied. “But you're not tall and blond and thin.”

“You're saying I'm fat?” Libby asked.

“Don't start,” Bernie warned.

Libby frowned. “Fine. We can call them.”

“No, we can't,” Bernie argued. “We want to see their faces so we can gauge their reactions. That's the whole point of the exercise.”

“If you want to see their reactions, you go right ahead and see them. I'm going home,” Libby told her sister, putting her hands on her hips. “If you ask me—which, by the way, you haven't—this is a stupid idea anyway. What are we going to do? March into these places and say—oh, hello, I'm looking for a stolen two-million-dollar clay Chinese teapot? Do you happen to know where I could find one?”

“That's not exactly what I had in mind,” Bernie told her.

“Fine. Then what do you have in mind?” Libby challenged.

Bernie smiled what she hoped was a smug smile. “I'm hoping to spread the word that we're in the market for the teapot.”

“And then?”

“If someone calls, we can work backward and find out who took it.”

Libby took a couple of steps back so she and her sister were out of the pedestrian flow. She studied the store windows in front of her. They were featuring fall clothes already! How depressing. Where had the summer gone?

“And once more I ask,” she said to Bernie, “why should they tell us anything?”

“For the money,” Bernie said. “They'll want the money.”

“So this is essentially a sting operation?”

“Yeah, Libby. You can call it that.”

Libby, however, noticed the defensive tone in her sister's voice and decided to push things a little further. “What are you going to tell them when we meet them?” she asked, then added, “Exactly.”

Bernie made a dismissive motion with her hand. “Don't worry.”

“I'm not worried,” Libby retorted. “I'm just asking.”

Bernie would have answered her sister's question if she'd known exactly what she
was
going to say. But she didn't. However, she was confident she'd come up with something once they got to where they were going. She found she did best when she was improvising.

Instead she put her hand over her heart and said, “I'm deeply, deeply wounded and insulted by your lack of trust.”

“Ah hah,” Libby cried, jabbing her finger toward her sister and feeling vindicated. “Just as I suspected. You have no idea what you're going to say once we get into those places, do you?
If
we get into those places,” she added.

“Of course, we'll get in. They're public places. And I will have an idea by the time we get there,” Bernie promised. “When have you ever known me not to come up with something?”

Libby snorted. “It's the something that worries me.”

“It's air-conditioned in Bloomie's,” Bernie cooed, trying another approach.

Libby reached up and wiped a drop of sweat out of her eye. All she wanted to do was go home, jump into a cool shower, and have a large iced coffee. “I don't care.” She moved to let a woman carrying a parasol go by.

“You need a new dress anyway,” Bernie told Libby.

“I can buy it online,” Libby snapped.

“We can get some of the chocolates you like,” Bernie murmured in her most seductive voice.

“No,” Libby said again. But Bernie could tell from the slight hesitation in her voice that her sister's resolve was weakening.

Bernie smiled and widened her eyes. “We can get an iced coffee. That'll help get the taste of Lucy Chin's tea out of our mouths.”

“It was pretty bad,” Libby admitted. “The biscuits weren't too great either.”

“No, they weren't,” Bernie allowed. “You know,” she began, “we'll just have to come back down here again to do this if we don't do it today. And we don't really have the time. For one thing, we have the Kings' party coming up, and then there are the four bar mitzvahs.”

Libby thought about everything she and Bernie had to do in the coming weeks and caved. “Alright,” she said. “But let's make this fast.”

“We will,” Bernie promised.

“And I don't want to spend a lot of money either.”

“We won't,” Bernie swore.

Libby stared into her sister's eyes. “I mean it.”

“Me too,” Bernie replied, although clothes that she considered cheap Libby considered prohibitively expensive.

A half hour later, the sisters left Bloomie's with Libby sporting a black linen mid-thigh shift that Bernie had found on the sale rack at seventy percent off, a pair of gold sandals, a small gold clutch, and a new pair of sunglasses, while Bernie had scored a five-ply black cashmere sweater, a pair of red-rimmed leopard-print ballet flats, and a Burberry scarf.

“We did good,” Bernie said, indicating the shopping bags she and Libby were carrying.

“I feel ridiculous,” Libby groused to her sister while Bernie stepped out into the street to hail a cab.

“You look great,” Bernie assured her before she put her fingers in her mouth and let out a loud whistle. A cab stopped, and the sisters hopped in. “Stop fidgeting,” Bernie told Libby after she'd given the cabby the address of the first place on the list.

Libby gave her skirt another tug anyway. It was way too short, in her opinion. Way, way too short.

A
ston's, the first stop on Bernie and Libby's list, was located on Madison Avenue two blocks down from the Carlyle Hotel. Everything about the place screamed money, from the window display of old Greek and Roman coins, to the Roman torsos on pedestals dotted around the floor, to the muted lighting, cream-colored walls, and thick, light-gray carpeting.

But then, given the neighborhood, what else would it be, Bernie thought, as she gazed at the man sitting behind a desk, a desk Bernie was sure was extremely valuable. The man was slender and tanned, the kind of tan you get at the Hamptons, not at your local tanning salon. He had a full head of carefully barbered silver hair and bright-blue eyes. In spite of the heat, he was wearing a light-gray suit, a periwinkle shirt with French cuffs and gold cuff links, and a dark-navy Italian silk tie. He looked comfortable, and in charge.

“Can I help you?” he asked, looking up from his phone.

“Perhaps,” Bernie replied. She took a couple of steps toward him, took a couple of deep breaths, mentally crossed her fingers, and began her spiel. “I'm really embarrassed,” she said, “to ask this, but I don't know who else to turn to, and Lucy Chin from the Asia Institute told me you might be able to help me and my sister.” Bernie stopped talking and indicated Libby, who was standing slightly behind her. “You are Mr. Aston, aren't you?”

The man sat up straighter and folded his hands on the desk. His fingers, Bernie noted, were long and slim, the nails carefully cut. “Indeed I am,” he said, nodding his head slightly.

Bernie smiled her best smile and approached the desk. “This is just so embarrassing, Mr. Aston.”

He leaned forward. “Wycliff. Call me Wycliff. Now suppose you tell me what this problem of yours is.”

So Bernie did. She gestured toward Libby. “You might have heard about Ludvoc Zalinsky's death.”

Wycliff shook his head. “Horrible. Simply horrible. Such a loss. A brilliant collector. So young too.”

Bernie couldn't tell whether Aston Wycliff was being sarcastic, so she opted for neutral. “So I was told,” she said. “I'm sure you heard about the teapot he purchased from Sotheby's.”

Wycliff nodded his head graciously. “I have indeed. I was at the auction when he bought it. Excuse me, his representative did. Everyone wondered who the purchaser was, considering the price that was paid. The purchase made quite the stir.”

“You think Zalinsky paid too much for it?” Bernie asked, genuinely curious.

Wycliff shrugged. “Not if he wanted it badly enough. Over the years, I've found that price is set by desire, not by intrinsic worth. If I had to guess, I would say that Zalinsky was satisfied with his purchase. From what I'm told, he certainly could afford it.”

“So you think the teapot was real?” Libby asked, introducing a new wrinkle into the conversation.

“Well, given the price, I certainly hope it was. I haven't heard anything to the contrary. Is that what this is about?”

Bernie took another step forward. “It could be. From our point of view, it would be nice if it was a copy.”

“Really?” Wycliff leaned forward. Bernie could tell she had him hooked as he cocked his head and waited for the explanation.

“Here's the thing,” Bernie said, approaching Wycliff. She placed her hands on his desk, leaned over, and lowered her voice to a whisper. “My sister gave the teapot away to a friend,” she said, counting on the gallery owner not having heard about Casper and the teapot. “She didn't know what it was.”

“Oh dear,” Wycliff said gravely. “That
was
a major error.” If he thought Bernie was lying, he didn't show it. “So why doesn't your sister ask her friend to return it?” he asked.

“She has. I have. Unfortunately, her friend has a stand at the Thursday evening flea market at the Longely train station. She sold it. For cash. To someone in the antiquities business. And no, she doesn't know to whom. We've already asked.”

“Nice find for that someone,” Wycliff remarked dryly.

“Isn't it, though?” Bernie said. “Unfortunately, the executors of Zalinsky's estate want the teapot back. They're being quite strident about it.”

“I imagine they would be,” Wycliff said. “I can see your problem. What I'm unclear about is where I come into this fiasco.”

“We would like you to put the word out that we'd like to buy it back,” Bernie said.

“How do you know it's not sitting in someone's kitchen being used to brew Lipton's tea at this very moment?” Wycliff asked.

“We don't,” Libby answered. “We're just hoping that's not the case.”

“I bet you do,” Wycliff said. He leaned back in his chair and looked Bernie up and down. “How much are you willing to pay?”

“As much as we have to,” Bernie quickly responded.

“Really?” Wycliff said. “If you'll pardon me for saying so, you don't look like someone who has access to that kind of money.”

“We have access,” Bernie told him. “And naturally, there will be a finder's fee.”

“Naturally,” Wycliff said gravely. He leaned further back in his chair, clasped his hands together, turned them inside out, and stretched. “I'll see what I can do,” he said after a minute had gone by. “But I'm not too optimistic.”

Bernie smiled again. “That's all I ask.”

“Do you think he knows anything?” Libby asked Bernie when they were back out on Madison Avenue.

Bernie shook her head. “But maybe he knows someone who does.”

“Personally, I still think this is a waste of time.”

“You may be right,” Bernie admitted, “but this way we close off some of the loopholes. And you have a new dress.”

Libby couldn't say anything because it was true, not that she had wanted a new dress. But she did need one. Even she couldn't argue about that. The sisters spent the rest of the day imparting their message to the people on Lucy Chin's list. Midway through, Bernie decided that Libby might have been correct after all and they'd embarked on a fool's errand. But then they got to the next-to-last person and heard something interesting.

Michael Cotton dealt antiquities out of the first two rooms of his ground-floor apartment on Jane Street. Bernie had always loved the West Village, fantasizing at sixteen that she would buy a brownstone when she got older and live in it. She felt that dream come alive again as she looked around Michael Cotton's shop. The place called to her. It seemed like the kind of place that would welcome you home at night, a place that would be cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

“If it were me,” Michael Cotton said, handing them two large glasses of water that he'd gotten from the kitchen, “I wouldn't be drinking out of that teapot. That's all I'm sayin',” he told Libby and Bernie when they told him what they wanted. Then he told them why he'd said that. “I'm not saying it's true, but why take chances?” He pursed his lips. “On the other hand, it could be a complete fabrication. People love to make up stories on the basis of no facts at all. ”

“Where'd you hear this?” Bernie asked as she took a drink of the water he'd offered them. It tasted delicious. She hadn't realized how thirsty she was until then.

Michael Cotton shrugged. “At a party in Dumbo.”

“Do you think we could talk to the people you heard it from?” Libby asked.

Michael Cotton laughed. “I don't remember their names, if I ever knew them. Too much booze. It was that kind of party.”

“Thanks anyway,” Bernie told him as she finished her water.

She kept thinking about what Michael Cotton had told them as she and Libby caught the 6:15 Metro-North train to Longely out of Penn Station.

They were in the tunnels underneath Penn Station when Libby turned to Bernie. “Cotton's story. Do you believe it?”

Bernie bit her lip. “It seems far-fetched.”

“Yes, it does,” Libby agreed. “But why would someone make something like that up?” she asked.

“I think because it's exciting. If you have insider information”—here Bernie made air quotes with her fingers—“it puts you at the center of attention.”

The sisters were silent for a moment, then Libby said, “That story you told everyone about the teapot.”

“What about it?” Bernie asked.

“It has more holes than a wedge of Swiss cheese.”

“It doesn't matter,” Bernie replied.

“How so?” Libby asked as the train began to move again.

“Because greed always wins.”

“You don't really believe that, do you, Bernie?” Libby asked.

“Yeah, Libby. With a few exceptions I kinda do,” Bernie replied.