Ghost Hero by S. J. Rozan Read Free Book Online Page B

happened?”
    “Someone took a shot at Jack.”
    *   *   *
    Twenty minutes later we were back on Madison. For a few moments we hung back, getting the lay of the land: warning cones, crime scene tape, glass-covered sidewalk. A crowd milled, snapping cell phone pictures of the glittering shards of Jack’s front window. As we watched, the door to the stairs opened and a pair of unmistakable NYPD detectives emerged, sticking notebooks away. Without discussing it, but by mutual consent, Bill and I waited until their car pulled out. That seemed to cue the crowd, too. The sidewalk began to clear and we made our way to the door. A few seconds after we buzzed, Jack appeared above us, sticking his head out the ragged opening where his window used to be. “Oh, look! It’s Job and Calamity Jane! Go away.”
    “No,” Bill said.
    “Oh. Well, all right.” Jack disappeared and a moment later we were buzzed in.
    “Wow,” I said, walking into his office. As opposed to the mess on the sidewalk, this was the same serene and tidy place I’d seen two hours ago, except for the sharp glass daggers sparkling in the otherwise empty window frame, and the long thin groove in the plaster ceiling. “Is repelling debris one of your superpowers?”
    “I swept up because you were coming. Wanted to make a good impression.”
    “You did that already today.”
    “Good, because I don’t think it would work out now. Look, you guys, does this kind of thing happen to you much?”
    “Never,” Bill answered.
    I shook my head, too.
    “Liars.” Jack waved an arm. “The chairs are safe, if you want to sit down.”
    Bill settled onto a chair. “Chilly in here.” Jack, his leather jacket on and halfway zipped, glared at him.
    I hesitated, but it was the more Chinese move to risk my tender behind to an overlooked glass splinter than to imply I didn’t trust Jack’s housekeeping. “So what happened?” I asked as I sat.
    Jack didn’t sit. He spoke while striding the room. “I was at the desk going through auction catalogs online—tracing Chau’s sales history, thanks for asking—when POW! the window exploded. I ducked and covered”—he threw his long arms over his head, to demonstrate—“and waited until it stopped raining glass. When nothing else happened I peeked up to check on the Hasui.” He tapped the Japanese print on the wall as he passed it. “You’re lucky it’s okay. If anything had happened to it I’d have been really pissed.”
    “At us?” I protested. “We had nothing to do with it.”
    “No? I run a genteel uptown art investigation business for three years with nothing worse than papercuts, then Bill Smith introduces me to his kick-ass Chinese partner and people start shooting at me. Coincidence? I don’t think so.” He stopped and stared at Bill. “What are you dressed as?”
    “Beeg-time Russian gengster.”
    “Are you serious? You look like you got run over by the bling truck.”
    “What do the police think?”
    “About your outfit?”
    “About someone shooting at you. Try to stay on point here.”
    “Hah! They think it was random. Someone showing off, maybe trying out his new gun, just happened to hit my window.”
    “A gangbanger? On Madison Avenue?” I was incredulous.
    “Not a gangbanger. A private-school wannabe. Some punk brings Daddy’s gun to St. Snooty’s, shows his goods to a hot cheerleader, has an accident.”
    “You’re on the verge of talking dirty,” Bill warned.
    “The cops took the slug,” Jack thumbed over his shoulder at the furrow in the ceiling, “which was a twenty-five, by the way. But unless a matching one turns up in a stiff someplace, I don’t expect to hear from them again.” He stopped, rubbing the back of his neck with a scratched hand. “Look, you guys, I don’t even know how to shoot a gun.”
    “Point, cock, pull,” Bill said.
    “Oh, thanks.”
    “Did anyone see anything?” I asked. “Gunshots aren’t an everyday thing up here.”
    “If they did