Lester didn’t flinch. He reached for one of the sausage puffs on the silver cake stand and said, “Are you sure it’s worth that much?”
“Mr. Liu, this is the single most important work of Chinese art to ever come on the market. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—”
“It’s going to look so good in the rotunda!” Valerie couldn’t help blurting out. “We’re going to hang it so that the whole painting is panoramic, and I’m having the walls on the first and second floors repainted to exactly match the colors. I love those turquoise tones…”
Corinna ignored Valerie’s chatter and continued. “Aside from the artwork itself, the value of owning it will be incalculable. Think how much it will raise your profile—your family’s profile—once it’s known that you acquired it. You will have beat out the top collectors in the world. I’m told that representatives for the Bins, the Wangs, and the Kuoks are bidding. And the Huangs just flew in from Taipei—interesting timing, isn’t it? I also have it on good authority that Colin and Araminta Khoo sent a special team of curators from the National Palace Museum in Taipei to examine the piece last week.”
“Ooh—Araminta Khoo. She’s so beautiful and chic! I couldn’t stop reading about that incredible wedding of hers. Do you know her?” Valerie asked.
“I was at the wedding,” Corinna said simply.
Valerie shook her head in wonder. She tried to imagine the middle-aged, mousy-looking Corinna, who always wore the same three Giorgio Armani pantsuits, at the most glamorous event ever to hit Asia. Some people had all the luck, being born into the right family.
Corinna continued her lecture. “So let me give you the drill. The auction tonight begins at eight sharp, and I have secured us entry to the Christie’s VVIP skybox. That is where you will be throughout the auction. I will be downstairs on the auction room floor, bidding exclusively for you.”
“We won’t be with you?” Valerie was confused.
“No, no. You’ll be in this special lounge where you can look down onto all the action.”
“But won’t it be more exciting to be down on the floor itself?” Valerie pressed on.
Corinna shook her head. “Trust me, you don’t want to be seen on the auction floor. The VVIP skybox is where you want to be. That’s where all the top collectors will be, and I know you will enjoy that—”
“Wait a minute,” Lester interrupted. “What’s the point of buying the damn thing then? How will anyone know we made the winning bid?”
“First of all, you will be seen by everyone at the VVIP skybox, so people will already suspect, and first thing tomorrow, I will have one of my sources at the South China Morning Post issue an unconfirmed report that Mr. and Mrs. Lester Liu of the Harmony Insurance family acquired the painting. Trust me, that’s the classy way to do it. You want people to speculate. You want to be that unconfirmed report.”
“Ooh, you’re so brilliant, Corinna!” Valerie squealed in excitement.
“But if it’s ‘unconfirmed,’ how will people know?” Lester was still confused.
“Hiyah, slow tortoise, everyone will see the painting when we throw our housewarming party next month,” Valerie chastised her husband, smacking him on the knee. “They will confirm it with their own envious eyes!”
? ? ?
The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, situated right on the harbor in Wan Chai, boasted overlapping curved roofs that resembled a gigantic manta ray gliding through the water. That same evening, a parade of starlets, boldface-name socialites, low-level billionaires, and the sort of people Corinna Ko-Tung deemed to be inconsequential paraded through the Grand Hall, vying for the most visible seats at the auction of the century, while the back of the room was packed to the rafters with the international press and onlookers. Upstairs in the plush VVIP skybox, Valerie and Lester were in seventh heaven as they rubbed elbows with the serious-money crowd over Laurent-Perrier champagne and canapés prepared by Café Gray.
When at last the auctioneer stepped up to the polished wood podium, the lights in the hall began to dim. A massive gold latticework screen ran along the wall facing the stage, and at the appointed moment, the screen began to part, revealing the hanging scrolls in all their glory. Brilliantly enhanced by the state-of-the-art lighting system, they almost appeared to glow from within. The crowd gasped, and when the lights came up again, the auctioneer promptly began the session without any fuss: “An exceedingly rare set of twenty-four hanging scrolls from the Qing dynasty, ink and color on silk, depicting the Palace of Eighteen Perfections, by Yuan Jiang. Inscribed by the artist, and dated 1693. Shall we have an opening bid of—one million?”
Valerie could feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins as she saw Corinna raise her blue-numbered paddle to volley the first bid. A flurry of paddles began popping up around the room, and the price began its stratospheric climb. Five million. Ten million. Twelve million. Fifteen million. Twenty million. Within a matter of minutes, the bid was at forty million. Lester leaned forward in his chair, analyzing the action on the auction-room floor like some complex chess match, and Valerie clawed her nails into his shoulder repeatedly in high anticipation.
When the bidding hit sixty million, Lester’s phone rang. It was Corinna sounding frantic. “Suey doh sei,*2 it’s going up too fast! We’re going to pass your seventy-five-million limit in no time. Do you want to keep bidding?”
Lester breathed in deeply. Any expenditure over fifty million would surely be noticed by his father’s bean counters, and there would be some explaining to do. “Keep going till I stop you,” he ordered.
Valerie’s head was spinning in excitement. They were so close. Imagine, soon she would own something that even Araminta Khoo coveted! At eighty million, the bidding finally slowed down. No more paddles in the room were raised with the exception of Corinna’s, and it seemed like there were only two or three telephone buyers remaining to bid against the Lius. The price was going up only in increments of half a million, and Lester closed his eyes, praying he would get it for under ninety million. It was worth it. It was worth the scolding he would get from his father. He would make his plea that he had bought the family a billion dollars’ worth of good publicity.
Suddenly there came a commotion from the back of the auction room. Murmurs could be heard as the standing-room-only crowd began to give way. Even in a room packed with celebrities dressed to the nines, a hush came over the space as a strikingly attractive Chinese woman with jet-black hair, powdered white skin, and crimson lips, dramatically dressed in a black velvet off-the-shoulder gown, emerged from the crowd. Flanked by two snow-white Russian wolfhounds on long diamond leashes, the lady began to walk slowly up the central aisle as every head swiveled toward the sensational sight.
Clearing his throat discreetly into the mic, the auctioneer tried to regain the attention of the room. “I have eighty-five point five million, who will say eighty-six?”
One of the associates manning a telephone nodded. Corinna immediately raised her paddle to challenge that bid. And then the lady in black velvet raised her paddle. Looking down from the skybox, the director of Christie’s Asia turned to his associates in astonishment and said, “I thought she was just some publicity seeker.” Straining to take a better look, the director observed, “Her paddle number is 269. Someone find out who she is. Is she even prequalified to bid?”
Oliver T’sien, who was in the lounge bidding on behalf of a private client, had been staring intently with his opera glasses at the lady with the silken-haired dogs ever since she entered. He let out a chuckle. “Don’t worry, she’s prequalified.”
“Who is she?” the director demanded.
“Well, her nose and chin have been refined and it looks like she’s also gotten cheek implants, but I’m quite certain bidder number 269 is none other than Mrs. Tai.”