MR. BING'S | COCKTAIL LOUNGE

P.I., ARTISTS HELP RECOVER STOLEN PAINTING
By J. K. Dineen
Of The Examiner Staff
Originally ran in The Examiner March 21-23, 2003 edition

It is a story that involves a private investigator, a South of Market loft party, a grafitti artist, and a joyous late night delivery.

In a happy ending to a classic Chinatown mystery, the old-time cocktail lounge Mr. Bing's has recovered a beloved painting that a drunken group of kids ripped off its walls more than two months ago.

"Now I can rest peacefully at night because I think about it quite a lot lying in bed," said Mr. Bing, a silver-haired Chinatown fixture whose real name is Henry Grant. "I've had it so many years and it brought back so many memories."

The portrait in question is hand-painted on bamboo and features a blonde woman in a tennis dress, carrying a racket and scratching her bare posterior. It was brought to Mr. Bing's 30 years ago by Kim Chow, a seaman who hung out at the bar at a time when the joint was wall-to-wall Hawaiian-Chinese and Hawaiian-Japanese seamen.

Grant considered the picture a "good luck charm." After it was swiped, Grant's daughter-in-law, Rose Fabrao-Grant, launched an extensive search.

She posted an item on Craigslist, pleading for information. She called a reporter at The Examiner. She put up signs around Chinatown.

Finally, Fabrao-Grant got an e-mail from someone who said he had seen it hanging in a loft at Sixth and Howard. The e-mailer said he didn't know exactly where the place was, but had caught a glimpse of it at a drunken late-night loft bash.

After recognizing it from an Examiner story, he confronted his host, who said, "Oh, yeah, man, it was stolen out of the bar. But I didn't take it."

Then the tipster said Fabrao-Grant should track down a street artist named Rambo at the San Francisco Art Institute. She did, and found a picture of him on a gallery Web site. She then forwarded the information to private investigator Don MacRitchie.

Finally armed with the same good information, Fabrao-Grant and MacRitchie independently showed up looking for the portrait at a packed, sweaty art opening at a gallery on Howard Street. Rambo was one of 30 artists featured that night.

It was not a normal night out for Fabrao-Grant.

"Here I am at this party looking for the picture, my private investigator, and this guy named Rambo," she said. The painting was nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile, MacRitchie, who works as an illustrator on the side, was squeezing his way through the gallery when he found Rambo "looking pretty lonely sitting off by himself."

After a series of denials Rambo said he could help get the missing artwork back, although he insisted he was not the culprit.

"He was real worried and told me all kind of wild stories, none of which I believed," said MacRitchie.

The sleuth dropped Rambo off on a dark corner near Union Square. An hour later a homeless guy delivered the tennis lady neatly wrapped in a green towel. He had been paid $5 for the job. At Mr. Bing's, shots of vodka were served all around and the regulars raised a toast to the return of the tennis lady.

Grant said he is proud of his daughter-in-law, who spent so much money and time to get the sentimental picture back. And he made sure it would not be taken again.

"I counted the screws, about a dozen," he said. "to pry it out they would have to take the wall."

Memoriam for Norma R. Grant | More about Mr. Bing's