Ms. Lin, it said. My employer was most impressed with the examples of your work your agent showed him. He wonders whether you might be interested in meeting him to discuss a possible commission. We look forward to hearing from you. The signature was illegible.

Gazid was a wreck and an addict of most things going, who could not help going to any lengths to secure money for drugs; but this was not like any scam that Lin could imagine. There was no angle for him, unless there was indeed someone wealthy in New Crobuzon prepared to pay for her work, giving him a cut.

She had dragged him out of the bar, to catcalls and whoops and consternation, and had demanded to know what was going on. Gazid was circumspect at first, and seemed to rack his brains to think of what lies to spout. He realized quite quickly that he needed to tell her the truth.

“There’s a guy I buy some stuff from occasionally . . .” he started shiftily. “Anyway, I had the prints of your statues lying around . . . uh . . . on the shelf when he came round, and he loved them and wanted to take a couple away, and . . . uh . . . I said ‘yeah.’ And then a while later he told me that he showed them to the guy who supplies him with the stuff I sometimes buy, and that guy liked them, and took them away, and showed them to his boss, and then they got to the kind of top man, who’s huge into art—bought some of Alexandrine’s stuff last year—and he liked them and wants you to do a piece for him.”

Lin translated the evasive language.

Your drug dealer’s boss wants me to work for him??? she scrawled.

“Oh shit, Lin, it’s not like that . . . I mean, yeah, but . . .” Gazid paused. “Well, yeah,” he finished lamely. There was a pause. “Only . . . only . . . he wants to meet you. If you’re interested he has to actually meet you.”

Lin pondered.

It was certainly an exciting prospect. Judging by the card, this was not some minor hustler: this was a big player. Lin was not stupid. She knew that this would be dangerous. She was excited, she could not help it. It would be such an event in her art-life. She could drop hints about it. She could have a criminal patron. She was intelligent enough to realize that her excitement was childish, but not mature enough to care.

And while she was deciding that she didn’t care, Gazid named the kinds of sums the mysterious buyer was quoting. Lin’s headlegs flexed in astonishment.

I have to talk to Alexandrine, she wrote, and went back inside.

Alex knew nothing. She milked the kudos of having sold canvases to a crime boss for what she could, but she had only ever met an at-best middle-ranking messenger, who had offered her enormous sums for two paintings that she had just finished. She had accepted, handed them over, and never heard anything again.