Tell Me No Lies

by Elizabeth Lowell

  "Of course."

  "Thank you. It will make working together easier."

  Yi gave Stone an opaque black glance, silently reminding the FBI agent that whatever happened, it would be Catlin and not Stone who worked with Lindsay.

  "Mr. Chen," continued Stone, "is from the People's Republic of China. He has come to us with a difficult problem. He believes that someone is stealing ancient bronzes from Xi'an and selling them in America."

  "Xi'an?" Lindsay asked, giving the name the quick tonal shifts that revealed her intimate knowledge of Mandarin. "From Mount Li?"

  Yi nodded.

  "Emperor Qin's tomb?" persisted Lindsay, unable to believe what she was hearing. Adrenaline spread through her in a wave of excitement. "My God," she breathed. "Are you saying that some of Qin's funeral bronzes are here in the United States right now?"

  "If not now, then soon," said Yi.

  "Where? When? Who's bringing them in?" demanded Lindsay, questions tumbling out one after the other in her eagerness.

  Stone laughed curtly. "That's why we need you. We don't know."

  "But – " began Lindsay. She shook her head when words simply didn't come. "If you don't know, how would I?" she asked finally.

  "You haven't heard any rumors?" asked Stone.

  She made an exasperated sound, remembering a similar conversation with Catlin. "Mr. Stone – Brad," she corrected hastily, before he could. "I've heard nothing but rumors since 1980, when word of the bronze find at Xi'an was released by the Chinese government." She turned suddenly to Yi, remembering his name in another context. "You're the Minister of Archaeology in Shaanxi province, aren't you?"

  Yi nodded.

  Lindsay's breath came out in a rush. "It's an honor to meet you, sir," she murmured, bowing her head briefly, gracefully, in the manner of a Chinese woman greeting an elder, powerful male.

  For the first time, Yi smiled. The expression transformed his face, making him appear to be a kindly grandfather rather than an aloof, perhaps even cruel, patriarch. "The pleasure is mine, daughter," he said. "Ah!"

  Stone shifted in his seat, impatient to get back to the rumors Lindsay had mentioned. Yi threw the agent a black glance, nodded curtly and tossed his cigarette into the ashtray to smolder sullenly.

  "About those rumors," Stone prompted.

  Lindsay looked away from Yi. "Nothing came of them. Each time I tracked down the rumors, the bronzes were either forgeries or genuine Han or sometimes even Shang. But never Qin."

  "Any new rumors?"

  She laughed, but there was little humor in the sound. "All the time. Every collector and curator is obsessed with the idea of owning something from Emperor Qin's grave. As long as there is a demand like that, someone will find a way to meet it. Or," she added dryly, "to appear to meet it."

  "None of the bronzes were from Xi'an?" pressed Stone.

  "I can't speak for all of them. The ones I saw definitely were not."

  Stone grunted. "But you haven't seen all of them?"

  "Hardly," she said, her voice cool. "I don't do business in that market."

  "What market?" asked Stone.

  "Some people call it the shadow market or the gray market. Most people call it the double market."

  "What do you call it?"

  "Thieves' market," she said, her contempt clear in the line of her mouth.

  "But some of your clients do business there," suggested Stone.

  "Not through me."

  "How can you be sure?" Stone asked, drawing out a cigarette and lighting it. "Are you positive that each and every piece that goes through your hands never has been bought or sold or traded on the double market?"

  Lindsay opened her mouth for a hot reply, then closed it again. After a moment she sighed. "No," she said quietly. "I can't be positive. But I try very hard to spot dubious goods."

  "What sort of thing do you look for?" asked Stone, blowing out a stream of mild tobacco smoke.

  "Frauds," she said simply. "If the piece is genuine, I look at the person bringing it to me. If their reputation is – " she paused.

  "No better than it has to be?" Stone suggested ironically.

  Lindsay nodded. "If the dealer's reputation is dubious, I have to assume that the provenance of the bronze is equally doubtful. So I check very carefully. But even so – " she hesitated again.

  "Even so?" prodded Stone.

  "Say a piece is stolen from its legitimate owner or looted from an archaeological site," said Lindsay, her indigo eyes focused inward, seeing something that made her mouth turn down. "A few dealers will buy artifacts that don't come with documentation. The first thing such a dealer does is forge a document to make it appear that a legitimate sale took place. Then he sells or trades the artifact to a slightly more scrupulous dealer and documents that transaction with another bill of sale."

  Lindsay looked from Stone to Yi, wondering if she were telling them things they already knew. Both men looked back at her with complete attention. She took a deep breath and continued. "The artifact is sold or traded for a third time, and a third piece of documentation is added. Now remember, except for the first bill of sale, all the paper is legitimate. Nor are repeated sales suspicious in themselves. Dealers trade more often with each other than with anyone else. It's a way of broadening and upgrading inventory without spending a lot of cash."

  Stone nodded. His narrowed eyes watched her intently, silently encouraging her to keep on talking.

  "By the fourth sale, even the most scrupulous dealer will accept the provenance of the artifact in question as legitimate. In fact," admitted Lindsay, "it's rare that more than two pieces of documentation will ever be asked for. There simply isn't time, especially if the artifact is of only modest value."

  "And the dealers who aren't careful of documentation?" asked Stone. "What about them?"

  "They exist," Lindsay said flatly. "Every profession has its rogues. Even the FBI."

  "Who are your rogues?"

  "Do you want a list?" she asked, half curious, half angry.

  "No. I want an introduction."

  Lindsay blinked. "You want what?"

  "We want you to take us to the dealers who might have knowledge of stolen Qin bronzes," Stone said bluntly.

  Slowly, Lindsay shook her head. "They won't see me," she said. "And if they did, they wouldn't say Bo-Peep about stolen art."

  "Why?"

  Her mouth turned down wryly at the corner. "I've made no secret of my opinion of such dealers. In fact, I've done a series of articles on the subject for a collectors' magazine. My contempt for thieves and double-dealers is well known. It has been years since I was approached by someone who had a bronze of doubtful provenance to sell."

  Stone threw a look at Yi. "Well?"

  Yi grunted. "It is her reputation that makes her necessary to my comrades."

  Bronze hair gleamed as Lindsay turned her head suddenly. "What do you mean?"

  "It is known that you cannot be bribed," said Yi, drawing sharply on his cigarette. "It is also known that you can determine rapidly whether or not a bronze is genuine. You are precisely what my comrades need to find the emperor's bronzes."

  "Mr. Chen, I would gladly help you if I could, but stolen bronzes won't be brought to me because of that very reputation," Lindsay said.

  "Sure they will," said Catlin from the doorway. "You wouldn't be the first good girl gone wrong in the name of love."

  The voice was ummistakable. Lindsay whirled and looked over her shoulder at the dark, powerful man lounging so casually against the doorframe. Catlin's words didn't register on her, but the impact of his sudden presence did. She had laughed and talked with him, and had even fallen asleep watching him take his turn at mah-jongg. When the click of the tiles had awakened her, she had been tempted to ask him to come to bed with her, to hold her so that if she woke up with her skin cold and a scream frozen in her throat, warmth would be right there, next to her.

  But
she hadn't. She knew that if he had come to her bed last night, it wouldn't have been simply to sleep. She didn't want the complication of a lightning love affair in her life right now. It was difficult enough coping with the tide of memories that kept rising powerfully within her, all the questions about the past that she had never asked her mother, questions whose answers would never come now, for the past was beyond her reach.

  She only wished that nightmare was, too.

  "Catlin?" Lindsay asked. It was the only word she could say in her surprise. "What are you doing here?"

  He looked into her indigo eyes and swore silently, even as he ruefully acknowledged that she had a way of cutting through the fat to the bone beneath with just a few words. Honesty – a sword with two edges and no sheath at all.

  "I'm recruiting you for a job that might well destroy you," he said bluntly.

  "Dragon – " began Yi in Mandarin, his tone a sharp warning. Then he remembered that Lindsay, too, spoke Mandarin. With a harsh sound he fell silent, but his eyes spoke blackly of betrayal.

  "You see," continued Catlin, his tone as hard and unflinching as his eyes, "these men have read your file backward, forward, upside down and inside out, but they're still blind to your overriding reality. Honesty. So I've been sitting on the other side of that mirror and listening to them tiptoe around what is really a very straightforward proposition."

  Reflexively Lindsay turned to look at the deceptive mirror. As the implication of Catlin's words sank through her confusion, color stained her cheekbones. She turned back toward him sharply, an angry question on her lips. The question died as she realized that at some very deep level Catlin was far more angry than she was.

  "What proposition?" Lindsay asked carefully.

  "Find Emperor Qin's missing bronzes, and in doing so prevent relations between America and the PRC from slipping back to the Bamboo Curtain days."

  "But-"

  "I know," Catlin interrupted curtly. "You can't help, because you have a reputation for honest dealing, and the people who will be handling these bronzes wouldn't qualify as honest even in Hong Kong." He smiled, but it wasn't comforting. "So we're going to have to take that beautiful reputation of yours and smear it from D.C. to Xi'an."

  Lindsay flinched subtly. "No one would believe it."

  Catlin's smile became even less reassuring. "Sweet innocence," he said, shaking his head. "It's a miracle you survived this long without a keeper.'' The smile vanished, leaving only the cold near-yellow of his eyes. "People can't wait to stand around and sing a chorus of 'Oh How the Mighty Are Fallen,'" he said sardonically.

  Lindsay's breath came in sharply, but she didn't argue what she knew to be the truth. "I have no objection to helping," she said, turning to face Chen Yi. "China has given much to me. It would be an honor to give back something in return, however small. But I don't see how I can."

  "Become a crook," Catlin suggested coolly.

  "No one would believe it," she retorted, turning to face Catlin again. "Why would I suddenly turn dishonest? Money? I'm not in debt because I don't live beyond my means. I've turned down bribes for years. I love bronzes, but I'm not obsessed by them, so I can't be bribed by even a spectacular piece of goods."

  "No?" he asked softly. "How about me?"

  For the first time the implication of Catlin's earlier words burst inside Lindsay: good girl gone wrong in the name of love.

  Catlin saw knowledge go through Lindsay in a wash of color beneath her clear skin.

  "They'll never believe I'm dishonest," she said tightly.

  "Will they believe you're in love?" asked Catlin. "Will they believe you're so much in love that nothing else matters to you? It happens to women, I'm told," he added coolly.

  "Does it happen to men?" she challenged.

  "Sometimes. With the right woman." Catlin's voice changed, softer now and even less comforting, sparing her nothing of the truth. "But love doesn't enter into the reality of what we'll be doing. For the first time in your life, Lindsay Danner, you're going to have to live a lie. You're going to have to watch people smile slyly and nudge each other as you walk past. People you wouldn't have wiped your shoes on will suddenly consider themselves your moral superiors – "

  "Catlin – " interrupted Stone roughly.

  "Shut up." Catlin's words were calm, neutral, and all the more effective for it.

  Lindsay sat without moving, watching Catlin with eyes that were almost black.

  "But that won't be the hard part," Catlin continued relentlessly, "because you don't give a damn about the opinion of thieves and fools. It's the people you respect who will tear the guts out of you. You have to deceive those people, too. All of them. All the way to the wall. No hedging, no flinching, no secret winks, no hand signals. And no exceptions. Not one. You'll know you've succeeded when the people you admire turn away when you approach, and maggots invite you to dinner."

  For a moment it was utterly quiet. Nothing moved but the smoke curling up from the cigarette held between Chen Yi's fingers.

  "That's when you'll be useful to us," Catlin said. "When you can eat with maggots and not gag."

  There was no color left beneath Lindsay's skin now, but she said nothing, did nothing, simply watched Catlin as though she had never seen a man like him before. Which was the exact truth.

  "That isn't the worst of it," continued Catlin. "You'll get to the point where carrion tastes like tenderloin, and maggots turn out to be pretty human, after all. And one day you'll look in the mirror and see a maggot looking back at you."

  Catlin smiled. Lindsay looked away.

  "Maybe you'll be lucky," Catlin said. "Maybe we'll find the bronzes before you lose your illusions about yourself. Even if we do, the worst is still to come."

  Lindsay looked back in startled disbelief, only to find herself caught and held in Catlin's cruel, compassionate glance. Her protests died in her throat.

  "The worst part is that when the whole mess is wrapped up, when Chen Yi goes back to China a hero or a dog, when Stone goes on with his career intact or in pieces, that's when you'll be patted on the head and turned back out into your own world. Only it won't be your world anymore. A good reputation is like virginity. You lose it only once."

  "Hold it," Stone said grimly. "We'll certainly tell Lindsay's boss that – "

  "What about the rest of the world?" Catlin retorted. "Are you going to take out ads in the trade magazines saying that Lindsay Danner isn't really a crook, that she helped her government pull some very, very delicate chestnuts out of a nasty international fire? Are you going to tell everyone to stop sneering and go down on their knees to thank God that one of His children was brave and foolish enough to risk everything she had of value in the hope of helping out two governments that don't give a damn about one Lindsay Danner?"

  "We'll do everything we can," Stone said firmly.

  Catlin's laughter coiled through the room, a sound darker than smoke, colder. "Sure you will, Stone. And when word comes down that all you can do with the Emperor Qin affair is hit it with a Top-Secret stamp and bury it in the files, what then? Who's going to help Lindsay put her life back together then? You? Yi? Her boss?"

  "We'll do everything we can," repeated Stone.

  Catlin smiled.

  Lindsay closed her eyes, but still she saw the cold yellow fire burning in Catlin's glance. Silently she asked herself how she had ever found his presence comforting.

  "There it is, Lindsay," said Catlin, "the unvarnished truth that you prize so highly. Open your eyes and look at it. Take a good look. Win, lose or draw, there's no going back from this moment. Learn to live a lie or walk out of here and never look back. Make your choice." He waited until her eyes were open again before he added softly. "Make a choice you can live with, because once you make it, no one can live with it for you."

  Lindsay held Catlin's eyes for a long moment before she looked at Yi, then at Stone. "Is there really a possibility that relations between the U.S
. and China could be destroyed over the Qin bronzes?"

  "Not a possibility," Stone amended, his expression grim. "A certainty."

  She looked at Yi, who said quietly, "There is no doubt. The tune when America was the enemy is still bright in many Chinese minds. Nor is there another person with your unique qualifications who can help us in our difficulty," added Yi.

  Without realizing it, Lindsay turned toward the man who waited so quietly in the doorway, dominating the room with his silence.

  "Catlin?" she whispered.

  He saw, and knew why she turned toward him, trusting him. He had told her the whole truth when the other men had told less than half. This moment was the reason why he had not seduced her last night when he could have, when he had wanted sensual oblivion as much as she had, and had known that he would find it in her, and she in him.

  "In that much, you can trust them," said Catlin. "For America it is economics, pure and simple. For China, it is a question of face among nations."

  Lindsay let out her breath in a long sigh, doubting no longer. The concept of face might seem elusive or ludicrous to most Americans, but she was not most Americans. She had lived in China, where face was as real as life and death. More real, for face transcended both, passed down through the generations from hand to hand as surely as ritual bronzes.

  "Then the only real question to be answered is whether I could live with myself if I said no," Lindsay whispered.

  Catlin waited, showing nothing of his thoughts.

  "There is no choice," she said quietly. "I'll do whatever I can, whatever the cost."

  Only Catlin saw the fine trembling of Lindsay's hands in her lap as both Stone and Yi congratulated her on her choice. Without a word, Catlin watched the betraying quiver, knowing exactly how a Judas goat felt. It was a feeling out of the past, a feeling he had sworn he would never know again.

  He had been wrong.

  Chapter 7

  "She was raised to love and serve China. Even so, that was a terrible chance you took," Yi said, staring at Catlin through a veil of smoke.

  Catlin stood at his apartment window, watching as the street below turned ruddy with the light of the dying sun. It was too soon for the street lamps to be on, but a few taxis prowled white-eyed through the streets, trying to attract fares.