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recalled having a long conversation with a Fujianese yesterday,and just this morning threw two wealthy punks with that terrible Macao accent out of the shop for making a pass at his daughter, but all his other recent customers were Cantonese, or
lo faan
with no Chinese at all. White-haired Mr. Chen at Bright Hopes had a sharper nose than mine, and rounder eyes of a lighter shade of brown; he might be Eurasian, I thought, or from the western provinces. But he’d had no Shanghainese-or Mandarin-speaking customers in weeks, and I was beginning to think my smart idea wasn’t so smart after all, when I slipped the jewelry photos out of the envelope to show him anyway.
    His face paled. Staring at the photos, he felt behind him for his stool and sat heavily. “This is what he stole, that man?”
    “Yes. Uncle, are you ill?”
    “Where . . .” He trailed off. His assistant hurried over, but he waved her away. “I’m fine, Irene,” he said gruffly. “See to the customers.” The shop was empty, but she took the hint and went back to her post by the door.
    I tapped Wong Pan’s picture. “You’ve seen this jewelry, this man?”
    “No.” Mr. Chen mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “I would like . . . May I borrow these photographs?”
    “They’re copies, you can have them, but you need to tell me why. Has someone offered to sell you these pieces?”
    “No.”
    “Then—”
    “I have to make sure. I might be wrong. You will hear from me.” He stood, collecting all but one photo from hiscounter. He handled them as delicately as if they were jewels themselves.
    “Uncle, you really need to tell me what you know about this.”
    But Mr. Chen was through speaking to me. He carried the photos into his office and shut the door. I was left alone with the assistant and, smiling up from the counter, the black-and-white face of Wong Pan.

4
    There’s no such thing as a quiet corner in Chinatown, but I found a sheltered doorway and called Joel.
    “Hey, Chinsky! Hope you’re having better luck than I am.”
    “I’m not sure. But a strange thing happened.” I told Joel about Mr. Chen. “He knows something, obviously.”
    “Excellent deduction, Watson.”
    “Give me a break. Are you going to call Alice?”
    He paused, and I wondered if he was chewing his lip. “I don’t know.”
    “Why not?”
    “Why not? Because I don’t have anything to tell her, because you didn’t push him.”
    “Push him? He’d have totally clammed up if I’d pushed him.”
    “And if he’d clammed up, you’d have what less than you have now?”
    “Nothing, but I might have less than I’m going to get when he calls.”
    “Or you gave him a chance to think about it and he isn’t going to call and you’re going to get nothing. Which is what you have now.”
    “Oh, Joel, come on! He’s an old Chinese man. There was no way—”
    “And you’re a young Chinese woman and you were being polite. Dangerous in our business, Chinsky. Anyway, forget it. I’ll call the client, she’ll at least see we’re wearing out shoe leather.”
    “I was—”
Drop it, Lydia,
I ordered myself.
While you’re at it, stop reminding yourself that Bill would never have suggested you’d mishandled an interview with an old Chinese man.
I gritted my teeth and asked, “Okay, so how did
you
do?”
    “Zippo. Blank stares on Forty-seventh Street. Hey, good name for a science fiction movie. So, what else you been up to?”
    Joel’s tone was conciliatory. Well, good. “I’ve read a couple more of Rosalie Gilder’s letters. From the Jewish Museum Web site.”
    “You have? Why?”
    “I’m not sure. I wanted to get to know her better, I guess.”
    “Ah, Chinsky. You never change. Okay, talk to you later.”
    After we hung up, I squinted down Canal. Just because Mr. Chen had nearly fallen over in a faint when he saw the photos, and just because I was irritated with Joel, didn’t mean other jewelers might not have seen these pieces. I’d need to keep