Amber Beach

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “At least you don’t tell lies in bed,” she said thinly.

  “Keep it in mind. Now take your pick—put on a good act or get out of the game.”

  “It isn’t a game. It’s Kyle’s life.”

  “It’s mine, too, a fact that you didn’t bother to tell me when I hired on as your ‘fishing guide.’ ”

  “I didn’t know!”

  “You didn’t want to know. You live in a fantasy world where money means nothing. In the real world people will kill you for a handful of shit, much less for a million dollars.”

  “You knew that before I hired you as a fishing guide. I didn’t have to tell you.”

  “I didn’t know it was going to turn into an international mud-wrestling match over the Amber Room.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have hidden a piece of it in with ordinary amber!”

  Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what Archer said I did?”

  “It’s what he said happened. Either you did it or Kyle did it.”

  “And Kyle, being a Donovan, couldn’t have done it,” Jake said icily. “That leaves me, the world-class chump who thought Kyle was his friend.”

  “He was. He likes you!”

  Jake looked at Honor’s face and saw all the outrage, hurt, and confusion she felt. And love. She would go to her grave believing that Kyle had done no wrong.

  “Kyle likes me, huh? Thank God he didn’t love me. I wouldn’t have survived.” Suddenly Jake removed his arm. “In or out, Honor. Your choice. It’s more choice than I was given.”

  The weary edge of bitterness in his voice slid past Honor’s defenses. He was no happier than she was. It shouldn’t have made a difference, but it did. She didn’t know what the difference was; she only knew that something had changed.

  “In,” she whispered.

  Jake got out, pulled a battered overnighter suitcase from behind the seat, and shut the door of the truck. Without looking to see if she was coming, he headed for the Chowder Keg.

  Honor barely caught up with him before he reached the front door. He opened it and ushered her into the smoky room. One glance told her it was more bar than café and hadn’t been cleaned since she was in diapers. Several men who were drinking lunch glanced up from their beers. They looked Honor up and down. Twice.

  Jake’s hand pressed lightly low on her back. She stiffened at his touch. In the next breath she realized there was no need for her to worry. No matter how intimate his touch might look to an outsider, she knew in her gut that it was impersonal.

  I want you to act like I’m an all-day sucker you can’t wait to lick. I’ll do the same with you.

  A tall, athletic-looking blond man with wide cheekbones and an equally wide mouth stood and walked toward them. He skirted the few locals without appearing to notice their sullen dislike of having an outsider in their territory. His clothes were informal, expensive, and neither Russian nor American. Smiling, he held out his hand to Jake as though greeting him at a private home for a cup of tea.

  “So good of you to come,” Resnikov said, shaking Jake’s hand firmly. “This is the charming Honor Donovan, yes?”

  Honor shaped her mouth into a social smile, nodded, and allowed her hand to be gently taken between both of the Russian’s. His accent teased her. It was similar to Snake Eyes’s, but less coarse. She felt she had heard it before . . . but as Jake said, there were a lot of Russian immigrants around.

  “Those marvelous eyes,” Resnikov said. “Does every Donovan have them?”

  “Two each,” she said. “Standard issue.”

  He laughed as though she had said something amusing. “You have wit as well as beauty. Surely you are the smaller sister of Kyle.”

  Jake removed Honor’s fingers from the lingering trap of Resnikov’s hands. “Quit drooling, Pete. She’s spoken for.”

  Resnikov looked from Honor to Jake and sighed. “I am devastate.”

  “Desolate,” Jake corrected dryly, “or devastated. Your choice.”

  Behind them the Keg’s door opened. Jake turned just enough to see who was coming in. A man and woman walked through the door with a confidence that visibly irritated the locals.

  Jake turned his back on the couple. At this point in the game, Ellen and her pinstriped escort weren’t going to stick a knife in him.

  “Let’s get out of the doorway,” he said.

  Honor spotted the woman and frowned. No red jacket, but the rest looked real familiar, even without binoculars. “Isn’t that the wom—” she began.

  Jake shut her up with a hard kiss. “Move, darlin’. We’re blocking progress.”

  “Of course, buttercup. Whatever you say.”

  He gave her a warning look. She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent, empty smile and turned to follow the Russian to his table.

  Ellen took a table nearby. Her partner went to the bar and ordered two mugs of chowder and two beers. Jake watched the couple without appearing to. He held out Honor’s chair, then sat down beside her so close that their thighs rubbed. She flinched subtly but didn’t move away.

  The bar door opened again. Resnikov’s pale blue eyes narrowed. Jake glanced sideways toward the front of the bar.

  “Old home week,” he murmured.

  “What?” Honor asked.

  “Snake Eyes. Don’t look. Trust me.”

  She bit back the obvious retort. “Who’s his date?”

  “He’s solo.”

  “No surprise there. Even a mirror wouldn’t want to be seen with him.”

  Jake smiled faintly. He looked toward Resnikov. “Friend or competitor?”

  “Pavlov?” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Jake didn’t believe him.

  The door opened again. Conroy walked in with a young, burly man who was probably a recruit. Jake saluted silently. Conroy responded with a nod and headed toward the bar.

  “Who is that?” Resnikov said sharply.

  “An old friend.”

  “Will he want to join us?”

  “I don’t know. Will he?”

  Resnikov appeared to think about it, then shook his head in the negative. “On the whole, for you it would be better to renew old friendships elsewhere.”

  Jake wasn’t surprised. “Right. What’s on your mind?”

  Before Resnikov answered, he looked around the smoky room. The tables close to them were full. Then came a swath of empty chairs. Then came a knot of regulars who looked frankly surly at the invasion of their turf.

  “I was told this was a quiet place,” the Russian said. “Perhaps we should return to my ship. It would not be wise to show you the amber here.”

  Honor took a swift breath. Before she could speak, Jake’s hand clamped down on her thigh beneath the table.

  “What amber?” he asked. Though the words were clear, they didn’t carry any farther than Resnikov.

  “A, er, sampling? Is that correct word?”

  “Close enough. Samples of what?”

  “Amber, but of course. My employers would like your opinion of the worth of these pieces.”

  “Why didn’t they ask you?”

  “They wanted the best. I am merely quite good.”

  Honor looked from Resnikov’s handsome, surprisingly elegant features to Jake’s rough-edged face. Beneath his offhanded expression, she sensed an intensity in him that compelled her. It reminded her of the single-minded lover who had turned her world inside out in the space of a night.

  But sex wasn’t the center of Jake’s attention right now. Amber was.

  He loves amber like some men love God.

  “There’s a back room here,” Jake said. “I’ll see if it’s available.”

  Two minutes and forty dollars later, he led Resnikov and Honor into a dingy private room. The Russian set down his beer and a small suitcase not unlike Jake’s. Resnikov pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and settled into a chair. In front of him was a circular table whose ruined cover might once have been green but now was the color of dirty hands. So was the deck of
cards stacked near the overflowing ashtray.

  Jake chose a chair that had a view of the door they had just come through. There was another door that led out to the alley. He could see that one, too. He pulled a chair very close beside him, patted it, and smiled at Honor.

  “Come to papa,” he said.

  “You’re old, buttercup, but not that old,” she said, deadpan.

  Resnikov snickered. “She is like her brother, yes?”

  “Not in the ways that really matter,” Jake said, giving Honor an up-and-down look and a slow grin.

  She blew a kiss to him through lips that wanted to snarl. When she noticed the Russian giving her an odd look, she took Jake’s hand and nipped at the pad of his thumb. “You promised this wouldn’t take long, remember?”

  Jake’s eyes narrowed. He made no attempt to hide the leap of hunger caused by Honor’s playful bite.

  “You heard the lady,” he said in a husky voice. “Let’s see the amber.”

  Resnikov opened his briefcase, pulled out a piece, and set it on the table. Jake picked up the stone. It was half the size of his hand. In bright light it would have been a rather thin yellow. The amber was unpolished, still in its oxidized, opaque “shell.”

  He set the piece down, put his own briefcase on the table, and opened it. Honor got a quick glimpse of a heavy needle, a lighter, various bottles and implements whose uses she couldn’t guess, and a black gun whose purpose she understood all too well. The top half of the case held what looked like samples of amber in see-through compartments.

  Jake pulled out a tightly stoppered bottle, put a drop of fluid on the pale surface of the stone, and pushed the stopper in firmly again. The penetrating smell of ether curled up. He waited a few moments, then touched the surface.

  “New Zealand copal,” he said dismissingly. “You’re wasting my time.”

  He tossed the piece to Resnikov, who caught it with an easy, quick movement of his hand.

  “It isn’t amber?” Honor asked, surprised.

  “Not for a million years,” Jake said. “Amber is fossil resin. That piece is way too young to qualify.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Ether makes copal sticky. It doesn’t do a thing to true amber.” He looked toward Resnikov. “If your employers can’t do better than that, they don’t need me. They need a decent source.”

  Resnikov smiled gently. “Patience, my very American friend. These people do not know you as I do. They insisted that I, er, show your gaits.”

  “Do you mean they want me put through my paces?” Jake asked dryly.

  “Is that the idiom? Put through paces . . . very nice. They hope to hire you for the smallest possible price, you understand.”

  “American dollars, British pounds, German marks, Japanese yen, Russian rubles?”

  “A more fitting coin. Amber.”

  “They’ll pay me in amber?”

  Resnikov nodded, making light run like pale water over his blond hair. “The amber will be from items such as I have with me now.”

  Jake’s black eyebrows rose. “Interesting. If I settle for a fraud, I’ll get paid in kind.”

  “But of course. Is it not always so?”

  “What happens if I prove to be very, very expensive?” he asked.

  “They will wail. They will scream. They will pay.”

  Jake grunted. “I hope you have something a hell of a lot better than copal.”

  With a thin smile, Resnikov brought out something wrapped in dark, soft cloth, set it on the table, and gestured for Jake to go to work.

  Jake unwrapped the cloth quickly but carefully. A piece of jewelry lay inside. The oval cameo was several inches long, opaque, somewhere between butter and cream in color, and had a nice satin shine. A woman’s face was carved in relief. A delicately wrought Victorian silver setting displayed the brooch very nicely.

  “I don’t have an ultraviolet lamp with me,” Jake said, balancing the brooch on his palm, “but I suspect this will fluoresce white.”

  “Truly?” Resnikov asked.

  Jake weighed the brooch and said only, “Do you object to a hot needle?”

  “No. You will be careful, of course.”

  Setting the piece aside, Jake took a lighter and a sturdy steel needle from his briefcase. Flame leaped. He held the tip of the needle in the fire. When he was satisfied that the metal was hot enough, he turned the brooch over and touched the needle to an inconspicuous edge of the stone, where the tiny mark wouldn’t show. Immediately the bitter scent of burned milk bit into his nostrils.

  “As I thought,” he said. “Casein.”

  “What?” Honor asked.

  “Imitation amber made of milk protein and formaldehyde. It’s a third again as heavy as the real thing.” He ran the ball of his thumb lightly over the carving, appreciating its fragile lines. “Very nicely crafted. Probably a hundred years old. Is it for sale?”

  “Why?” she asked, before Resnikov could answer. “You just said it’s a fake.”

  “Half the items in museums are fakes. This,” Jake said, rubbing his thumb over the brooch again, “is an artfully carved bit of history from the time before plastic made counterfeiting amber easy and cheap. It would fit right into my collection.”

  “Of fakes?” Honor asked in disbelief.

  Resnikov laughed out loud.

  Jake’s smile showed as a flash of white against his short, dense beard. “Not all of my collection is fake.”

  “You are too modest,” Resnikov said. “Your collection of antique carved amber is one of the finest in private hands.”

  “What else do you have in the case?” Jake asked.

  Shaking his head, the Russian replaced the samples Jake had already seen and took out a box. He opened it and presented the contents with a subdued flourish.

  “You may handle it with your customary care,” the Russian said.

  Honor leaned forward. “What is it?”

  “A pendant, probably,” Jake said, looking closely at the item without lifting it out of the box. “Etruscan style with oversized eyes and the kind of nose we call Roman today. Broken and mended where the boy’s leg lies between the woman’s.”

  “Boy? It looks like a girl to me,” Honor said, peering at the carving. “It’s a smaller figure than the other one, with bigger eyes and more delicate features.”

  “Cultural bias,” he said succinctly. “Etruscan goddesses, and probably the wealthy Etruscan women as well, had much younger lovers. A mature woman’s face is more fully formed than a boy’s. In any case”—he handed Honor the loupe—“look where the figures are almost joined.”

  After a short silence, Honor handed back the loupe. “Right. Definitely not female. Not real delicate, either.”

  Jake laughed quietly. “From the position of the figures, this probably was a fertility fetish.”

  “Then it is a genuine piece,” Resnikov said with the air of a man stating the obvious.

  “I wouldn’t buy it.”

  Surprise and something less pleasant flashed across the Russian’s aristocratic face. It made Honor wonder if, like Jake, Resnikov had a gun stashed in his suitcase along with all the other odds and ends.

  Jake must have wondered, too. As the uneasy silence expanded, he watched Resnikov’s hands.

  16

  RESNIKOV SPREAD HIS fine-boned hands on the table as though he would have preferred to wrap them around Jake’s neck.

  “What are you saying?” the Russian demanded.

  Jake shrugged, but there was nothing casual about the way he was gathering himself for a fight, if it came to that. “There’s something about this carving I don’t like.”

  “Explain. But do not question or test the amber substance itself. It is real beyond a doubt. I will guarantee it.”

  “It’s not the amber that bothers me.”

  “Excellent. Continue.”

  “I’m not an art historian,” Jake said calmly, “but there’s something wrong about the drapery or wings
or whatever they are on the woman’s figure. It’s hard to tell which on such a small piece.”

  “Examine it more closely.” Then, as though hearing the cold anger in his own voice for the first time, Resnikov forced himself to smile. “If you please.”

  Jake picked up the amber, set it on the lens of his flashlight, and turned on the beam. Light glowed through the tiny sculpture, setting it afire.

  “The crazing isn’t thick,” he said, looking at the network of hair-fine cracks all across the surface that gave a textured appearance to the amber.

  “If the piece came from a grave, locked away from oxygen and light for all the long centuries, then crazing would not develop greatly,” Resnikov pointed out.

  Though Jake nodded, he obviously wasn’t convinced. He bent over and examined the small carving for a long minute through the loupe.

  “Look at this edge,” he said, straightening. “It’s ragged and the others are smooth, as though a piece was broken off after the carving was finished. Yet the crazing is the same on the ragged edge as the smooth.”

  “It could have broken during the burial ceremony.”

  “It could have.”

  “You do not think so,” Resnikov said.

  “No. I think this is a copy of a real piece, a copy that was made without benefit of magnification and baked in an oven or hot sand to simulate the natural aging of time.”

  Resnikov took the flashlight and carving. Without waiting for a request, Jake handed over the loupe. Silence condensed in the room while the Russian bent over the amber. He began speaking softly in his native language. The look on his face said that he wasn’t composing love sonnets to the carving.

  Unhappily he stuffed the amber back into its box. His lack of care said more than words about how his opinion of the artifact had changed.

  “As I said,” he muttered, “I am merely quite good. You are best.”

  As he opened his small suitcase wider and reached in for another item, the door leading back to the main cafe´ swung inward. Jake didn’t have to move his head to see Ellen look around the room. Though her glance was fast, it missed nothing.