Dragon Bones

by Lisa See

  “It was very popular during the Qing Dynasty in hair ornaments and pins.”

  “And in a ruyi?”

  “Especially a ruyi. Emperors have always prized the lingzhi. The largest lingzhi in the world is in the Forbidden City’s collection. It’s about three feet in diameter. It’s very beautiful to me—and to the emperor too, I guess—but to many people it just looks like a giant dried mushroom.”

  “So you think Brian found a special version of this fungus. Maybe a ruyi—”

  “I don’t care about artifacts, only live fungus,” Angela said haughtily. Then she shook off her professional pride and added, “I don’t know what I thought exactly. Maybe he’d found one even larger than the Forbidden City fungus, maybe it was a new variety, or maybe there was a special growth pattern. No one knows what causes the lingzhi to grow or why it’s found primarily in the Lesser Three Gorges.”

  “Did the photos give you any hints that you were going to find anything like what you’re describing?”

  Angela admitted that they hadn’t. “But there has to be something, otherwise he wouldn’t have been so persistent.”

  “And have you found this fungus?”

  “Mushrooms are springing up all over now that it’s raining, especially around Site 518. But I haven’t found the lingzhi or anything related to it.”

  Throughout the conversation, Hulan had been checking out the room. Camping equipment was piled up under the window, dirty clothes were thrown in a corner, and the desk was strewn with papers and tools.

  “Was this your brother’s room?”

  “They let me have it when I got here. I’ve gone through everything, even his clothes pockets. I didn’t find anything.”

  “May I look?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Typically Hulan would have searched the deceased’s belongings without a survivor present, but Angela made no move to leave nor did she feign some other activity. Instead, the young woman just sat on the bed, watching Hulan and commenting on what she was doing.

  As Hulan unrolled Brian’s sleeping bag, Angela said, “I already checked and there’s nothing inside.” When Hulan held up a miner’s light, Angela said, “My brother was a caver, but I bet you knew that.” Brian had owned a good set of kneepads and a hard hat to go with his miner’s light. “Caving was a hobby. My brother loved China, because he had so many new places to explore.”

  You could never tell how grief was going to settle on someone. Some people quickly got rid of all the deceased’s belongings; others kept entire rooms as they’d been in the deceased’s lifetime. But Angela was peculiar in the sense that she not only hadn’t disposed of her brother’s things but was living amid them. No wonder she acted so strangely. And yet there seemed to be nothing personal that belonged to the boy. No receipts, no matchbooks, no condoms in a pocket, and nothing related to Site 518.

  “Have you thrown out anything—papers, anything like that?”

  Angela shook her head, and Hulan believed her, which meant that someone had gone through this room between the time Brian disappeared and the time Angela arrived, taking away anything that might have helped re-create his actions in the days leading up to his death. Hom hadn’t mentioned searching the room, but given his laissez-faire attitude, she wouldn’t have expected him to. No one had reported that the room had been broken into, but then Lily’s room hadn’t been broken into either. Her killers had probably just used the room key she was carrying. The same undoubtedly held true for Brian.

  Hulan asked to see Brian’s daypack, and Angela got it out of the closet. Again, Angela watched intently as Hulan went through Brian’s effects. The bottle of water was still there, along with the pencils and cap. Hulan looked up and said, “Captain Hom mentioned a notebook.”

  “I didn’t find one.”

  “Captain Hom says he returned it to you.”

  “You’re free to look through the room. I don’t have it.”

  Hulan thought for a moment, then said, “I’d like to go back to something you mentioned earlier. You said your brother was worried about who else might be looking at his website and if his e-mails were private.”

  “Which was why he wouldn’t tell me what he’d found.”

  “Have you found anything in this room or since you’ve been here that has helped you determine what that was?”

  Angela shook her head. Her eyes welled with tears. “Do you think someone saw what he wrote and killed him because of it?”

  “It’s possible.”

  Angela bowed her head and began to cry softly.

  “Who else have you told about this?”

  “Lily,” Angela replied quietly.

  Hulan remembered on that first night how obliging Lily had been to Angela. Stuart had spoken of Lily as smart and manipulative, hardly the kind of person who would have befriended a bereaved young woman, even if she was the sister of someone Lily had slept with.

  “Did you know Lily before you came out here?” Hulan asked.

  “No, but when I got here and the desk clerk told me Brian was missing and presumed dead, Lily was very good to me.” Angela began to pick up speed as she relieved herself of those early hours and days. “She took me down to the police station. She helped me deal with Dr. Ma, who kept telling me I wasn’t allowed at the dig. She went with me to where Brian had fallen in the river. She liked to eat alone, but at night, after dinner, we’d come back here, sit on the bed, and talk. It was sad but like a slumber party too in a way. We talked about places Brian had gone and things he’d seen. I hoped she’d know what he’d found that was going to be so important to me, but she didn’t. What I liked best about her though was that she told me stuff about him. You know, how he slept around and things like that. I guess other people wouldn’t want to remember someone that way, but my brother….” Angela smiled wanly. “He had a way with the ladies. He liked them. He liked making love to them. Lily was willing to share that with me.”

  Hulan wondered if Angela had any idea of how peculiar she sounded, but in this recounting, another piece of Lily’s life—and perhaps her death—fell into place. Lily normally stayed in China for a few days. After Brian died, she had remained here, near Angela. Lily had courted the American and worked her way into this room. But whatever Lily was hoping to find had eluded her, otherwise she would have moved on.

  Who else had Lily told what she’d learned? Who else had Angela confided in? Who else had Brian spoken to about the mysterious discovery that would change his sister’s life? Hulan tactfully maneuvered Angela through these questions. The American didn’t think Lily had told anyone about their meetings. What about Stuart Miller? Hulan asked. Angela didn’t think so, because Lily had been pretty adamant that the two women keep their friendship a secret. (Which didn’t mean that Lily hadn’t told Stuart, only that Angela didn’t know about it.)

  “Could your brother have told Catherine Miller what he’d found?” Hulan asked.

  “He wouldn’t have shared anything important with her.”

  Maybe, maybe not. If Brian had confided in either Lily or Catherine, one of them could have passed the information on to Stuart. They both would have had their reasons: Lily was always shoring up her relationship with her client, while Catherine was always trying to gain her father’s respect.

  What Hulan couldn’t piece together though was what special thing could change a mycologist’s life forever and still be even remotely valuable to Lily. Hulan suspected, but didn’t have the heart to break it to Angela, that her brother may indeed have found something that would have helped his sister in some way, but that others had interpreted his cryptic messages to her as meaning that he’d found something of profound archaeological interest. Which brought her back to the missing notebook. Who else knew it existed?

  “Everyone, I suppose,” Angela answered. “Just about everyone told me he was always writing in it.”

  “Has anyone asked to see it?”

  “Besides Lily?”

  “Besides Lily.”<
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  Angela’s face scrunched in that way of hers and she shook her head.

  “But people knew Lily had asked you about it.”

  “I’d have to think about that,” Angela said. “Maybe.”

  No matter which way Hulan looked at all of this, she had to rethink Lily’s death. She’d been tortured, possibly for the purpose of obtaining information. Maybe someone had wanted the notebook, and if not the notebook, then the information contained in its pages. Would Lily have passed on what little she knew? Given the extent of her suffering, probably yes.

  “I’d like you to do me a favor,” Hulan said at last.

  “I’m not leaving here, if that’s what you’re going to suggest.”

  If Angela had followed this conversation at all, she would have understood in just how much danger her life had been since she’d arrived, though why she hadn’t yet been killed was an unanswered question in Hulan’s mind. But if Angela thought, as Hulan knew she did, that her brother’s dying wish had been for her to come to China and find something that was going to change her life, then there was no way Hulan was going to get her to leave this place. Hulan could try to have Angela deported or expelled from the country, but the truth was she didn’t meet any of the legitimate grounds. Still, there was one way to protect Angela’s life….

  “It would be helpful if tonight at dinner you could tell the group that you’ve given me your brother’s notebook. Or if anyone asks about it, just tell them to come see me.”

  “But I didn’t give it to you.”

  There was stupid and there was beyond stupid, Hulan thought. “Can you just do as I ask?”

  “I’ll do whatever you want if you let me stay here.”

  It was a bargain Hulan could live with.

  DAVID SCANNED THE ROOM AND SAW THAT STUART MILLER AND Madame Wang had taken seats on the center aisle about eight rows from the front. He made his way to them and sat in the chair they’d saved for him, his mind racing with everything Ma had said. This case had seemed so straightforward when David and Hulan left Beijing, but now he was being asked by a Ministry of State Security agent to retrieve the ruyi without waiting until the courts opened on Monday. How exactly was David supposed to do that? Why would he do that? What was it about the ruyi that was so important to the Ministry of State Security? The ministry’s mandate was to ensure the stability and security of the state by preventing foreign-inspired conspiracies, subversion, and sabotage. David simply didn’t see how the Site 518 ruyi could play a part in any of that.

  The catalog had stated that the auction would take place from seven to nine. Though David had thought two hours was an underestimate, it seemed that things would indeed move very quickly. Fitzwilliams was already on Lot 12—a seventeenth-century bronze Lohan seated on a Fu lion. A projection of the figure filled the screen on the left side of the podium. The screen on the right registered the bidding increments in 7.57 Hong Kong dollars to one U.S. dollar, and then the equivalent in pounds, euros, and yen.

  Fitzwilliams’s rigid posture was completely gone. His body undulated from side to side, his arms moving gracefully through the air as he acknowledged different bids in a sonorous voice. “Fifty thousand, fifty-five thousand, sixty thousand to you, sir. Sixty thousand. Do I have any advance on sixty thousand?”

  “Here, sir,” a man called out from the phone bank, where now every chair was occupied by a Cosgrove’s employee. Some were on phones with customers bidding on this lot, others were dialing and getting ready for the next lot, while a few simply sat and waited for their customers’ lots to come up later. Those on the phones cupped hands around their receivers, which meant that not only could no one on the bidding floor hear them but neither could their colleagues next to them. Although Cosgrove’s employees, in this moment they worked on behalf of customers at the other end of the line.

  “Sixty-five thousand, sixty-five thousand, sixty-five thousand. Anyone else? Are we all through then? Fair warning to you.” Fitzwilliams brought the hammer down decisively. “Sold for sixty-five thousand Hong Kong.”

  The man at the phone bank quickly gave Fitzwilliams the bidder’s number, and it was on to Lot 13—a blue-and-white porcelain vase, which sold in less than a minute for just under the published estimated price of HK$1,500.

  Stuart leaned over and whispered, “This next one should be interesting.”

  Lot 14 was also a blue-and-white porcelain, but instead of coming from uncertain origin in the late Qing Dynasty, it had a mark showing it had come from the Chenghua period. This particular piece had been exhibited in London, New York, Washington, D.C., and here in Hong Kong as part of an international tour. It was being sold from the private collection of someone from Salem, Massachusetts, whose great-great-grandfather had been in the China trade. The catalog estimated that the bowl would sell for between HK$1.5 million and HK$2 million, making it the most expensive piece in the auction.

  At the front of the room, split-screen photos showed the bowl’s silhouette and interior. To David’s left, eight employees on the phones waited to bid for people not in attendance. Fitzwilliams also explained that he had several bids on the books—meaning he would be bidding for absentee customers who’d submitted written bids.

  The action was lively and fast, with Fitzwilliams handling the crowd like a snake charmer. Paddles lifted here and there about the room. The men and women on the phones raised their hands periodically to indicate that their bidders were going up another increment. In less than thirty seconds the bidding had reached HK$1.5 million.

  “Watch Fitzwilliams, David,” Stuart whispered. “If you knew the players, you’d know that he’s acknowledging bids for longtime Cosgrove’s customers before the bidders who are strangers to him or who he doesn’t like.”

  “I’m out and off the book,” Fitzwilliams announced. The bidding had now gone above what the absentee bidders had offered. “Any advance on two million two hundred thousand?”

  “See how people are no longer holding their paddles up high,” Stuart said. “They don’t want the others to see they’re still in the game. See that! Just a slight nod of the head or a lifted finger. Most people want to hide in the crowd to do their bidding. But some like to make a big show of it, hoping to intimidate others from even trying. As I said before, it’s all in how you play the game.”

  When the blue-and-white languished at HK$2.4 million, Fitzwilliams said, “I want to remind everyone that Christmas is just a few months away.” Laughter rippled through the room from all except the two people still locked in the final phase of bidding. One of the men raised his forefinger, and Fitzwilliams said, “Two million five hundred thousand. Thank you, sir.” The auctioneer’s body oscillated slightly in the direction of the other bidder. “Going on? No? Fair warning then. Sold to paddle 417. Merry Christmas and good show.”

  After a small but appreciative round of applause, Fitzwilliams moved straight on to Lot 15.

  Madame Wang and Daisy Ting had a lively battle for the Song Dynasty dingyao, with the former triumphing. Nixon Chen, as predicted, bid repeatedly on the fifteen snuff bottles that came up as separate lots. After the blue-and-white bowl, the snuff bottles seemed like bargains, priced as they were between HK$500 and HK$6,500. Nixon came away with five, though none of his had gone over eighteen hundred. As Stuart Miller put it, “He’s a typical lawyer. He’s not the sort to get caught up in the moment.” David suspected it had more to do with the years Nixon had spent at the Red Soil Farm in the countryside with Hulan. Nixon had a fondness for luxury, but it was always tempered by the fear that it could be taken away again.

  Stuart bid on the jadeite ruyi with the carvings of the Eight Immortals but dropped out when the piece went over the estimated price. Ma bid on all of the jade pieces, winning all of the bis but falling out early on the one that looked like a boomerang, which went to someone in the front row. The latter, David read in the catalog description, was actually part of a larger musical instrument. Typically these chimes—whether made from stone,
bone, or bronze—were hung from a double-tiered support system and hit with a hammer, creating sounds reflective of the size of each piece.

  Lot 47 was the cloisonné ruyi, which Stuart easily added to his collection. After that, a pair of green-glazed early Tang Dynasty figures sitting astride horses sold for just over their estimated price. Through all of these lots, Fitzwilliams worked the room, enticing people to join the bidding, luring the audience with extra details about a piece, coaxing people to go higher, and praising them when they did. And when the action stalled or when prices soared, the waiters who lingered on the sidelines passed through the audience refilling champagne glasses, keeping bidders merry and purse strings loose. It was the most beautiful act of commerce David had ever seen.

  At 8:45, the Site 518 ruyi came up as Lot 95. Only one woman was on the phone and at the ready when Fitzwilliams opened the bidding at two thousand, a full thousand below the estimate. The price rose in the required increments of two hundred until it reached three thousand, then by three hundred until it reached five thousand. Fitzwilliams’s movements and the sound of his voice were mesmerizing as he quickly shifted between Dr. Ma and the person in the front row who’d won the chime. David could see only the back of the bidder’s head but could tell by the haircut that it was a man and by the color and texture of his hair that he was probably Chinese. Chinese American, as it turned out, which David learned when Stuart Miller once again filled him in.

  “That’s one of those Silicon Valley guys I told you about. Bill Tang is very greedy, very nouveau riche. He even gives the Red Princes a run for their money. Our old friend Dr. Ma doesn’t stand a chance.”

  The bidding passed ten thousand, then twenty thousand, then jumped to one hundred thousand. It had taken less than a minute, and the price was already considerably beyond the estimated value. People who’d gone to stretch their legs came back. Others, who’d become bored with the proceedings or were waiting for the reception and banquet to start, were suddenly intrigued. Feeling that there must be something to this piece they hadn’t realized, a few of the dealers Stuart had pointed out earlier joined in, driving the price up faster than the screen with all the foreign denominations could keep up. In the front row, Bill Tang held his paddle steadily aloft, signaling to everyone that he wouldn’t drop out.