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“I was.”
“I thought you were supposed to stay in China.”
“In case you haven’t heard, Hong Kong was returned to China,” Stuart said lightly.
“Does Inspector Liu know?”
Stuart grinned as if his hand had been caught in the proverbial cookie jar. “Your wife….” He let out a low whistle. “We had a nice chat this morning, but my hat’s off to you, buddy. She’s tough.”
“Which doesn’t answer my question.”
“I didn’t tell her my plans. There’s nothing to worry about, though. I have my project to finish. I’ll be back.”
“Is everything okay up there? I heard a report on the weather.”
“Yeah, it’s a bitch. I took back roads down to Wuhan, then took a commercial flight. Same as you, I’ll bet.” Stuart smiled disarmingly, then gestured to the woman at his side. “Have you met Madame Wang? How would you like to be introduced, dear? Shall I say you’re the absentee owner of the Panda Guesthouse?”
“Whatever makes you happy,” Madame Wang answered.
A waiter appeared and silently refilled their glasses with Mumm’s. As soon as he’d stepped away, Stuart said, “I’m here for a few days. Why don’t you come up for breakfast tomorrow morning?” Then he made quite a show of offering his card to David in the Hong Kong manner, cupping it in both hands in presentation and bowing slightly. Stuart then returned to scrutinizing the competition. “David, have you been to an auction like this before?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Bidding?” Stuart asked with feigned disinterest.
“You know why I’m here.”
>
“Then you’re in for quite an experience. An auction like this is full of drama. Those two men by the bronzes are dealers from New York. Even though each believes himself to be specialized, there’s a lot of overlap in what they buy. So right now they’re negotiating over who’s going to bid on what. They’re competitors but they’re also businessmen, and there’s no need to drive up the price unnecessarily.”
“Sounds like price fixing.”
“Except that price fixing is against house rules.” Though Stuart spoke graciously, his eyes still surveyed the room. “No, we certainly don’t want to call it that, especially not after the Sotheby’s and Christie’s price-fixing fiasco. Of course that was between the houses themselves over sellers’ commissions, and not between buyers. But if the auction houses can call it friendly conversation, so can the dealers and collectors. This is high-stakes poker. Right now Cosgrove’s is shuffling the deck, and we, the players, are rolling up our sleeves and checking out who our opponents are and how high they’ll bid.”
This explained Nixon’s jocular inquiries, though even David—an absolute neophyte to the proceedings—could see that Hulan’s old friend was not a poker player of Stuart’s caliber.
David asked, “How many of these people do you know?”
“Tonight, in this room? Almost everyone, including Nixon Chen and Daisy Ting. We saw you talking to them earlier.”
“Nixon Chen and his snuff bottles.” Madame Wang sniffed dismissively. “But I saw Daisy examining the two Song dingyaos. They’re both fine pieces, but did you see the chip on the rim of the one with the ducks and lotus pattern?” When David shook his head, the woman appraised him with steely determination. “Which one will she be bidding on?”
“I don’t know,” David answered honestly.
“Dear, let the poor man alone. Here, why don’t you go and take another look? Don’t worry about what the others do. You can bid as you please.”
“Of course, of course.” Madame Wang languidly glided away.
“Once you get up into these prices,” Stuart continued, his eyes admiring Madame Wang’s figure as she insinuated herself into another knot of Hong Kong’s elite, “Asian art is a very small world, made up of collectors, dealers, and executive directors from museums. They all have their own reasons for buying, their own strategies, their own customers. See that woman over there? She’s from a museum in Singapore. The museum’s endowment is tremendous, and you could say that for her the sky’s the limit in terms of bidding, until you consider the new dot-commers out of the Silicon Valley. She’s probably trying to figure out if they were hit by the downturn. What she doesn’t know—and neither do I—is who’s going to phone in bids, who’s placed absentee bids, or who has someone in the room that none of us knows who’ll be bidding for him or her.”
“And the dealers?”
“They’re unique creatures unto themselves. For many of them it’s not about the art; it’s about the end sale. They’re buying on margin and hoping to turn over a piece within the ten days before the final funds are due at Cosgrove’s, making a quick twenty or so percent. But if a dealer hasn’t sold a piece within those ten days, he’s fucked.” Stuart grinned.
“They can’t all buy on margin.”
“True, but I love to watch the ones who do, because there’s this moment when they get this great look of triumph mingled with that pit of the stomach sick feeling that says, This one could break me for good. I love it. Sit with me and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
