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while?"
    He shrugged. "It ain't rang in two days."
    I took my beer over to the pay phone against the back wall. I thought for a minute, about Tony, Jimmy, Eve Colgate's pasture, and some paintings she hadn't seen in thirty years; about how things change and how they don't. Then I slipped in some quarters, dialed Lydia's office number in New York.
    I got the bounce-line message; so she was on the phone; either actually in her office or at home on the line that rings through. Normally I would have just left a message of my own, but calling me back up here wasn't all that easy. I took a chance and dialed the other number, the one that rings at home, in the kitchen. It's not a number I call often, but it's engraved deep in my memory just the same. I lapped my fingers on the old, scarred woodwork as the phone rang and rang.
    Finally a woman's voice answered in Cantonese, using words I recognized, though I didn't understand them. I gave her my dozen Cantonese words: a respectful greeting and a request. There was silence, then a snort; then the phone clattered in my ear and I could hear the voice calling to someone else.
    A few moments later came another woman's voice, this time in English. "My mother says you should stop trying to impress her; your Chinese is terrible."
    "What did she call me this time?"
    Lydia said, "The iron-headed rat."
    "What does it mean?"
    "'Iron-headed'—you know, stubborn, willful; sometimes stupid. I guess it could mean gray-haired, too."
    "You think she meant that?"
    "No. In Chinese that's a good thing."
    "Great. Why rat?"
    "Don't ask."
    "Someday she'll like me. Listen, are you real busy, or can you take something on?"
    "She'll never even tolerate you. I'm tailing a noodle merchant whose wife thinks he's messing around with her younger sister, but it's not as engrossing as it sounds. But I thought you were up in the country."
    "I am."
    "You never call from there. Are you all right?" A slight quickening came into her voice.
    "I took a case."
    "Up there?" Now, surprise. "I thought you—"
    "It's a long story," I said, even though as I said it I realized it wasn't; or at least, not the way that's usually meant. "I got a call from someone up here; that's why I came up. Can you work on it?"
    "Um, sure." Her tone told me she wanted to ask more, maybe hear the long story, but she answered the question I'd asked. "What do you need?"
    I told her about the burglary, what was stolen. I didn't say from whom. She whistled low. "Six Eva Nouvels? My god, they must be worth a fortune."
    "Maybe two million, together," I agreed. "Could be more: they're unknown, uncatalogued."
    "How unknown?"
    "The client says completely. I don't know. But right now I'm not thinking anyone came looking for them. It was probably just a break-in, kids. They may even have junked the paintings by now, just kept the stuff that looked valuable to them."
    "That's a cheerful thought."
    "I'm going to try some other things, but if nothing turns up it may be worth a trip to the county dump. But just in case, I want you to look around down there. I don't think anyone will try to sell those paintings in New York; they'd ship them out to Europe, maybe Japan. If that's happening I want to stop them."
    "What were they doing in a storeroom? Six paintings that valuable?"
    " That's where the client kept them."
    "Okay, funny guy. And who's the client?"
    " I can't tell you."
    She skipped half a beat. "You can't tell me?"
    "Now," I said. "From here. Over the phone."
    "Oh." That single word held a dubious note, as though my explanation was logical but not convincing. "Are there other things you're not telling me?"
    "Yes," I said. "But when I tell them to you, you hang up on me."
    "For which not a woman in America could blame me. What do I do if I find a trail? Are the police in on this?"
    "No, and that's important. I don't want anyone who doesn't know these paintings exist to find out from us."
    "Top-secret paintings stuck in a storeroom by a top- secret client