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Authors: S. J. Rozan

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Asian American, #Private Investigators

Ghost Hero (35 page)

BOOK: Ghost Hero
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Jack asked, “They’ve seen the paintings? They’re here?”

“Snyder’s here for the week’s festivities. Lin’s in Hohhot. I sent him photos. Not so easy for him to travel, you know. Though now that he’s advisor to the top dogs in Chinese contemporary, he thinks his government may cut him more slack. Listen, if you people don’t have any crimes to plan right at the moment, let me buy you a drink.”

“Drinks are free here, Eddie.”

“All the more reason to get you the best. Come on, come say hi to Frank. Lydia and Bill, you haven’t met him yet. He’s right over there.”

We started out of Francie’s studio. “You guys go ahead,” I said. “There’s someone I want to talk to. I’ll catch you up.”

“Cool.” The four of them walked away down the corridor. Only Bill gave me a lingering glance, and I gave him a tiny head shake. To which he responded with a minute nod. I was tempted to wink, just to confuse him, but the man I wanted to speak with was turning the corner and I went after him.

That man was Dr. Yang, and I found him outside. A few yards away, under a streetlight, a half-dozen people were taking a cigarette break.

“Getting some fresh air, Professor?”

He turned to me. “Ms. Chin. Good evening.” He gestured at the others. “I used to smoke. After I stopped, I realized one of the things I missed most wasn’t the cigarette itself, but the excuse to leave a room for a brief, unquestioned period.”

“I understand the feeling completely. But if you were hoping for an unquestioned period right now, I’m afraid I’m going to mess you up. I have a question.”

He didn’t give me permission to ask it, but he didn’t turn away. So I said, “Chau Chun is alive.”

“Is that the question?”

“No, Jack’s got me convinced that’s true. But the other day in your office you gave us a very persuasive account of holding your friend’s hand while he died. Either you’re a terrific actor, or that story was also true.”

“Performance has never been one of my talents.”

“I disagree. I saw you in Haig’s office. But that’s not the point. That story was true.”

“Yes.”

“But it wasn’t Chau Chun who died.”

“No.”

“But,” I said, “Chau Chun was there.”

A long pause. Dr. Yang looked down the quiet street. “Yes. He was there.”

“And he’s here now.”

“Tonight? At this party? No, he—”

“No, Dr. Yang. Here. On this sidewalk. With me. You’re Chau Chun.”

The professor didn’t speak, didn’t move, didn’t react at all.

“It was Yang who died,” I said. “You took his identity. That’s why there were rumors about Chau for months afterward. People saw you before you managed to leave the country.”

“You’re stating these hypotheses,” the professor said quietly, “as facts. My students learn early on not to do that. You said you had a question.”

“I have. What really happened that day?”

“I have a question, also: What gives you the right to ask that?”

“I could say, I just risked an awful lot to save your reputation, your daughter’s career, and your son-in-law. But that’s not really it. I took this case from the start to find out what was going on. I’ve found a lot, some of it complicated, little of it what I expected. But there’s still something else. There’s still something I don’t know.”

“And do you have to know?”

“Do you mean, will I shrivel up and die if I don’t find out? Probably not. But I might keep looking, now that I know it’s there to be found.”

“Are you that tenacious?”

I told the simple truth. “Yes.”

Another long pause, and I gave him time for it. “What happened,” he finally said, “was what I told you. Chau had been in the square for days with our students; teaching, painting, chanting, encouraging. Yang went to persuade the demonstrators to leave. ‘Violence will serve no purpose,’ he said. ‘We can build the movement with our art.’ As they debated, the tanks came. There was gunfire, there was running, there was blood and screaming.” The professor fell silent again, and again I waited. Staring into the night, he said, “Yang was shot. The gentle peacemaker. Bleeding to death on the paving stones. I held his hand.”

The door behind us opened. Music thumped out of the party as a couple left laughing.

“But I didn’t take his identity,” the professor said. “He gave it to me.”

“I’m sorry?”

“As he lay there. His name and his papers. ‘They know you, Chau,’ he said. ‘They’ll come for you. Everyone knows you’ve been here from the beginning. And Yang the Coward, back in the studio, everyone knows about me, too. Take my papers.’ I refused. I told him he was being foolish, that I’d get him a doctor, that he’d be fine. ‘I’m dying,’ was his answer. ‘It doesn’t matter. But they’ll come for you.’ ‘Then let them come.’ ‘And Yu-feng?’ he said. ‘They’ll come for her, too. Your daughter, born in prison and taken away? Don’t let me die with that fear in my mind.’”

“So you did what he asked.”

“Yes. I exchanged our papers. He thanked me, and he died. Thanked me! Do you understand? I made my way out of the square and back to our offices, to do another thing, the last thing he asked of me. On his wall were three paintings I’d made for him to celebrate his faculty appointment. I took them. ‘I have no gift for your child. Take the paintings. From you to me, and now from me to your daughter.’ I stayed until he died, and then I did that.”

“But his body,” I said. “It was identified as Chau’s.”

“By me! Who better? I presented myself at the Public Security Bureau in the morning, claiming to seek information on my friend. It was chaos there, frightened people whose loved ones hadn’t come home. They showed me bodies, a roomful of them, all laid along the floor. I recognized one of our students. And Yang. ‘Chau Chun,’ I said. ‘From the Art Institute. A painter.’ That was all they needed. All they wanted. I left Beijing within the hour, making my way circuitously to my hometown, to my wife. We went into hiding until it was safe to contact Xi Xao, the man who came to you as Samuel Wing. He brought us here. My wife needed false papers made. I didn’t. I used Yang’s.”

Overhead the stars were bright; before us the street was empty. Music pounded from the artists’ studio, where a poet’s freedom was being celebrated.

“That’s why you wouldn’t give Anna’s Chaus to Haig.”

“They weren’t mine,” he said simply. “I’d been painting all along, in any case, in a rented studio.”

“And also, what Jack said was true. Your professional pride demanded those paintings be new, if you had to say they were.”

He regarded me. “I think you know something about professional pride, Ms. Chin.”

A compliment from the fierce professor? I tried to keep myself from falling over. “Does Anna know?”

“That I am Chau? No one knows but Xi Xao, my wife, and myself.” Slowly, he asked, “Will you tell her?”

“No.” I didn’t have to think about it at all. “This story isn’t mine to tell. Except to my partner. And my friend.” Interesting, what I’d just heard myself say. I’d have to consider that later. “But they won’t share it, I know. Chau Chun is Anna’s hero, though. Now that she knows he’s alive, she’ll want to meet him.”

“Many people will want to meet him. It will pass. Anna has other things to think about now. A career. A family. Thank you, Ms. Chin.”

“On behalf of Bill, Jack, and myself, you’re welcome.” I bowed. “Maybe we should go back inside now.” I added, “Dr. Yang.”

He held the door for me. Probably it was the lights, and the music, and the giddiness of the party as we walked in, but I imagined I saw a sparkle in the professor’s eyes as we went in search of his family.

ALSO BY S. J. ROZAN

THE LYDIA CHIN/BILL SMITH NOVELS

China Trade

Concourse

Mandarin Plaid

No Colder Place

A Bitter Feast

Stone Quarry

Reflecting the Sky

Winter and Night

The Shanghai Moon

On the Line

OTHER NOVELS

Absent Friends

In This Rain

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

A Tale About a Tiger

Building

AS EDITOR

Bronx Noir

The Dark End of the Street
(with Jonathan Santlofer)

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

GHOST HERO
. Copyright © 2011 by S. J. Rozan. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

e-ISBN 9781429974639

First Edition: October 2011

BOOK: Ghost Hero
9.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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