“What are you thinking?” I asked, as it began to dawn on me what he was thinking.

He stood and dropped two twenties on the table.

I stood, too. “We’re going to get in his face in the hospital?”

He didn’t answer, and I didn’t ask again. Of course we were.

“There might be cops here,” I said as we rode the elevator to C. D. Zhang’s floor. “In case he changes his mind about talking.”

“Not if they’re not charging him. It’s not in the budget. But aren’t Chen and Zhang supposed to be here? That might put a crimp in his willingness to talk to us.”

“What willingness? Especially given what we’ve come to talk about.”

But in C. D. Zhang’s room no visitors were in evidence. A jovial man, watching TV from the near bed, tipped his head helpfully toward the curtain around the bed by the window. “He’s sleeping.”

“That’s okay,” I smiled. “We’ll be quiet.” I tried to look like a concerned relative, though I wasn’t sure what Bill looked like. We pushed through the curtain, and there was C. D. Zhang, looking old and frail. His eyes were shut, but he wasn’t sleeping, or if he was, we woke him. He turned his head, looking at us but saying nothing.

“Hello, Mr. Zhang,” I said. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”

After a moment he gave what, if he’d been stronger, might have been a snort. “I’m not sure, Ms. Chin, whether you endangered my life or saved it,” he said in a voice weak but clear.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “Mr. Zhang, we’ve come to ask you some questions.”

He turned his head away. But he didn’t tell me to stop.

“Wong Pan. You knew who he was?”

“Of course I did.”

“And you knew what he was selling?”

“Why else would I have been there?”

“Why were the White Eagles there?”

“To steal both the jewel and the money, I can only assume.”

“But there was no money.”

He gave me a long look. “It’s true, then? That was what I understood the police to tell me, though I’ve been given so much medication I thought perhaps I’d imagined it.”

“No, it’s true.”

“Nor any jewel, I understand.”

“Mr. Zhang, why was there no money?”

He smiled sardonically. “Thank you for the courtesy of the indirect question. What you really mean is, at what point did I steal my brother’s million dollars and where is it now?”

“I didn’t-”

“I think you did. No matter! The police certainly did. They think I hired the White Eagles, in a clever scheme.”

“You obviously knew them.”

“They bring me orange trees at the New Year! For which I pay a considerable amount, I promise you.”

That’s how protection works: The gang brings a good-luck orange tree, the merchant gives them a good-luck red envelope. Luck smiles on everyone all year.

“I didn’t, though. Hire them. Nor did I take the money. I thought that briefcase full of cash.”

Bill asked, “Was it ever out of your sight, the briefcase?”

“I had it with me every minute.”

“And you’re sure it had the cash in it when you got it?”

“No.” C. D. looked away again. “It was locked when my brother gave it to me.”

“It was?” I asked. “Why?”

“Perhaps they didn’t trust me not to help myself.”

“They trusted you to make the buy, but not to leave the cash alone? Weren’t you offended?”

He sighed. “With the exception of sponsoring them to come to this country, my cousin and my brother have never asked anything of me. An introduction, a loan, advice on a business venture… the small good turns of families. Nothing. This was the first time. And on a subject so vital! If I was offended, that was secondary. I was honored and delighted and I’d have accepted the charge on any terms they’d proposed.” He paused. “Ms. Chin? Mr. Smith? When the police left and Li and Lao-li were allowed back in this room, I told them what I’d learned about the money in the briefcase. My cousin seemed quite startled.”

“And your brother?”

“He only said, ‘The important thing is for you to get well, brother. The rest means nothing.’ ” C. D. Zhang smiled in a way not at all sardonic but sweet and sad. “I’ve been waiting all my life to hear words like that from him. If I’d known the way to do it was to get shot, I’d have made the effort sooner.” The smile faded. “But I don’t know if he believes I didn’t take the money. I think, to the contrary, he believes I did, but, since the Shanghai Moon was not lost as a result of my pilferage, he’s willing to forgive me. He probably expects I’ll return it to him when I’m well, and all will be as before. But I didn’t take it. I can’t return it. His anger, kept in check now by a family feeling I’ve been hoping for all my life, will erupt.” A pause, and then, tentatively, “Can you… talk to him? Ms. Chin? Can you persuade him this is the truth?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

“Yes. Yes, of course it is.”

“Well, maybe it is. And maybe I can convince Mr. Zhang. But you haven’t been entirely devoted to the truth in the stories you’ve told so far.”

“What do you mean?”

“Or maybe you told a little too much of it.”

“I still don’t-”

A brief moment, while I reminded myself this was not just an old man but an injured one. Then I shoved that qualm aside. “Why weren’t you and your father together on the day you left Shanghai?”

“But we were. On the Taipei Pearl. I told you.”

“Not on the ship. Before that.”

“In the wailing and screaming, in the crush in the streets, people flying every which way with their pitiful possessions-the miracle would have been if any two people had been able to stay together as they made their way through Shanghai.”

“Especially if they had different destinations.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were going to the wharf. Your father went somewhere else, didn’t he?”

“Once we’d lost each other, I don’t know what he did.”

“He went to the Chen villa with two other men and tried to rob it. He killed Rosalie Gilder when she fought back. That was what your father did before you met him on the Taipei Pearl.”

Pale already, C. D.’s face drained of all color. “Ms. Chin! How can you-”

“You told us your cousin and brother are sure robbers took the Shanghai Moon. But neither Mr. Chen or Mr. Zhang ever told the story of that day. To anyone. How do you know about the robbers?”

We could have been wrong. If he’d said of course his brother had told him the story, what could we have done? But this was the answer Bill had proposed to the question he’d asked. I’d agreed, and my instincts told me we were right.

And we were. But wrong, also.

“Did your father take the Shanghai Moon from Rosalie?” I asked, more gently, when he didn’t respond. “Have you had it all these years?”

“No.” C. D.’s voice was dry and rustling. “No. My father didn’t kill Rosalie.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s too much wrong. Your knowing what went on. Rosalie not having the gem. You and your father not staying together. Maybe the reason you didn’t take your brother’s million dollars is that you already have his jewel.”

“Is that what you believe? Is that what you’ll tell my brother and my cousin?”

“I don’t know what I’ll tell them. I don’t know what to believe. Except that this all needs to be explained. If your father didn’t give the Shanghai Moon to you-”

“He didn’t give it to me. Or to anyone. He never had the Shanghai Moon. My father didn’t kill Rosalie Gilder, Ms. Chin. I did.”