O'Donnel grinned. "Yeah. Old Joe Kennedy didn't do bad for himself, did he?"
"A president, an attorney general, a senator and enough money that he didn't have to count it anymore. No, old Joe didn't do bad at all." Stone yawned and checked his watch again.
"After the benevolent society reunion," continued O'Donnel, "Lindsay and Catlin went to Asian-American Imports. Two hours, more or less. They didn't buy anything."
"Did they meet anyone?"
O'Donnel made a frustrated sound. "We don't think so, but we can't be sure. Once they get off the tourist track, they're damn hard to tail."
"I'd think they would stand out."
"So do the tails, and you told us to be very sure not to tip any watchers that Lindsay is being followed."
Stone sighed and took a hard drag on his cigarette. A pretty problem, hiding a round-eye surveillance team in Chinatown. Not that Lindsay or Catlin needed to be fooled, but any surveillance by the opposition was another matter altogether. "Don't any of the local Bureau boys blend in?"
"Most of the ones who do are undercover already, working on organized crime. If we pull them, we jeopardize their cases."
"I'll talk to the director. We've got to have people who can go into Chinatown and not stick out like dams on rice."
O'Donnel carefully kept his face expressionless. The San Francisco Bureau was already unhappy about its turf being invaded by D.C. brass who explained themselves only within the most stringent need-to-know rules. If Stone started yanking local agents out of cover to work on a case that had all the earmarks of becoming a no-win political hot potato, there would be real hell to pay. But then, Stone knew that better than anyone else. If he were even considering it, the director must be camped on Stone's ass and the President must be similarly camped on the director.
"They had lunch at a no-name Sichuan place. Or if it had a name, the tail sure as hell couldn't read it." O'Donnel looked over the notebook. "The agent who was working in close said he'd never eaten better Chinese in his life."
Stone put out his cigarette and thought of the congealed hotel food that had been his last meal. "Wonder if they do a takeout business," he muttered.
Smiling, O'Donnel continued his recital. "Nobody approached Lindsay or Catlin. Of course, they could have given their life stories to the waiter and we wouldn't have been the wiser," O'Donnel said, scanning the page quickly. "Not speaking Chinese can be a real handicap in this part of America." He began to laugh. "Oh, Jesus, I'd forgotten about that. The poor son of a bitch."
Stone listened to O'Donnel's laughter for a moment and then said, "Who?"
"The agent who was working in close. He no more speaks Chinese than I speak Gaelic. So his helpful non-English-speaking Chinese waiter goes over to Lindsay's table and enlists the pretty blonde's aid. She goes over, translates the menu for the agent and then goes back to her own table."
Throwing back his head, Stone laughed, knowing just how uncomfortable the agent must have been.
"I'll bet Catlin nearly busted something keeping a straight face," said O'Donnel, snickering.
"Lord, what a mess. I'll bet that agent " Stone stopped, struck by something. "Lindsay did the talking? Not Catlin?" Stone asked, remembering that Catlin spoke fluent Mandarin.
"Nope. She ordered for Catlin, too. Why?"
"He speaks Mandarin as well as Chen does."
O'Donnel was still for a moment. "Interesting," he murmured. "Wonder if Lindsay knows that?"
"Let's save it for now," Stone said thoughtfully. "We can always use it if undercover fever gets to her and she forgets who she's reporting to. That lady doesn't take kindly to being misled."
"Yeah. A more unlikely undercover agent God never made." O'Donnel shrugged. "But she volunteered." He flipped over another page. "After lunch they went to Tien Sung's Garden of Serenity that's one of those fancy import shops that looks like a museum and is priced like God's back teeth. Again, they could have talked about the overthrow of the American government for all the tails could figure out. Every so often Lindsay gave Catlin an English update. I guess the tail did everything but crawl in Catlin's shorts trying to overhear."
"I told them not to "
"Relax, they switched off outside the restaurant. A woman did the close work for the import shop. She came on to Catlin like she was trying to pick him up."
"Maybe we'd do better wiring Catlin for sound."
"Hell of an idea, boss. Who gets to bell the cat?"
Stone grimaced. Even if Catlin stood still for it very doubtful wiring someone was an overrated way of eavesdropping on conversations. Half the time only garbage was transmitted. When it came down to making the final buy, maybe wiring someone would be worth the trouble. Until then it was easier to trust Lindsay to pass the word if anything useful were discovered. They weren't trying to build a case for a courtroom, after all. They were just trying to pacify the President and the Chinese government without giving away every FBI counterintelligence agent and informant between D.C. and San Francisco.
After a moment O'Donnel continued his recital. He summarized visits to three more shops, looked at his watch and said, "They should be going into Hsiang Wu's China Dream about now. Next report isn't due for an hour."
Without a word Stone looked at his watch. He wondered if the next hour would provide anything more useful than the past twenty-four.
Stone wasn't the only one wondering, but none of Catlin's impatience showed beneath his calm exterior as he walked Lindsay toward her former mentor's store. Dragged her would have been a more accurate description. After Wu's polite, devastating evasions of the previous night, she had not wanted to impose herself on him.
"I'm sure Wu has the message about my newly fallen status," Lindsay muttered rebelliously. "What good does my coming here do?"
"Wu sells bronzes, doesn't he?"
"Not the kind we're looking for!"
"You mean he doesn't touch third century inlaid "
"You know what I meant," interrupted Lindsay, her voice low and hard.
"Is Wu known for his bronzes?"
"Of course he is! He's "
"Then it would appear odd if we avoided him, wouldn't it?" Catlin countered. "Especially when you're so demonstrably eager to please your new lover," he added smoothly. He opened the door for Lindsay and gestured her into the shop. "After you."
Lindsay looked into the yellow-brown eyes that watched her without flinching. "Damn you," she whispered. "Do you know what this will be like for me?"
"Yes."
Catlin didn't say another word. Nor did he have to. Lindsay remembered what she had said to him in D.C.: I won't say you didn't warn me if you don't say I told you so.
The blithe words out of her past turned in Lindsay's mind like broken glass, cutting her. She wanted to object that she hadn't known what it would be like, that no words could have prepared her; but that was exactly what Catlin had told her in Washington. He had flatly stated that she was volunteering for a tour of hell. She hadn't believed him. Not really. She hadn't known that she would feel as though her life were being peeled away from her layer by layer. First her mother's death, then the nightmares, then the relentless demands of a double life she had neither the experience nor the temperament to handle gracefully.
She had hoped it would become easier, that she would adjust to the necessities of living a lie. It was getting harder, not easier. Watching Wu's reactions had been like sitting at her mother's deathbed and watching life fade with each ragged breath. In many ways Wu had been Lindsay's father, elder brother, uncle. He had taken her eager, untrained mind and shown it the fantastic world of ancient bronzes. Her gift for recognizing genuine bronzes had both amazed and oddly amused him. He had all but adopted her, arranging with her aunt for Lindsay to come and go from his home and shop as she pleased.
For Lindsay, Wu's house had been like a stable island in a stormy sea of change. When the pressures of adjusting to
a new culture, a new home and a new life in America had eroded her sense of reality, she had slipped from her aunt's home to the seething, exciting, familiar sounds and smells of San Francisco's Chinatown.
She had been an exotic creature there, a white teenager who spoke Mandarin and had the protection of some of Chinatown's most powerful immigrants through her affiliation with the Chinese Christian Benevolent Society. Though she never became wholly a part of the lives around her, she had been accepted into them. That, too, was familiar, a continuation of her childhood in China.
Now Lindsay had to appear to disdain all the guidance, affection and patience that Hsiang Wu had given to her. She had to seem ungrateful and uncaring, a person to whom the sensual moment was more important than the enduring ties of loyalty and family. To a Chinese there could be no greater betrayal.
Without a word Lindsay walked past Catlin into Wu's shop.
As the bell shivered on the doorframe, announcing Lindsay's arrival, the scents and textures of her teenage years reached out to welcome her ginseng and the imagined dust of the ages, the crisp aroma of ginger and the satin finish of ebony furniture, framed examples of calligraphy like black lightning dancing across a white silk sky. And above all there were the gracious shades of blue and green and bronze itself, ritual vessels condensed out of time and silence and man's hunger for continuity.
A young girl was washing the glass-fronted cases where the most expensive bronzes were displayed. From the back of the building came the high-pitched conversation of two young men struggling to uncrate a bulky shipment. There were several people in the store, either customers or friends of Wu, or both. One of Wu's daughters was showing a fine collection of bronze spearheads to a well-dressed man. She looked up, saw Lindsay, hesitated and then spoke rapidly to the man.
As the girl turned and vanished into the private area of the store, Lindsay tried to hide the clammy wave of sickness that was sweeping through her. May was the youngest of Wu's many daughters, too young to have been close to Lindsay. Even so, the girl's precipitate flight was like a slap in the face.
"Wu should be along soon," Catlin said, his voice low but not so soft as to ensure complete privacy.
Lindsay felt Catlin's strong fingers lacing through her own in silent reassurance that she wouldn't be alone when she confronted Wu. Unconsciously she squeezed Catlin's hand in return, accepting what small comfort his presence could bring. He turned and smiled down at her. Very carefully she avoided looking at his eyes, not wanting to see them empty of all but calculation. She needed the act, the pretense of caring and passion. It was the only warmth left in her world. She smiled blindly up at him, her eyes unfocused, unseeing. His fingers tightened almost painfully over hers.
Behind them the street door opened, making the bell shiver musically. Catlin turned, saw the casually dressed white man and looked away. Catlin had seen the same man once before, when the FBI woman had handed Catlin off half an hour ago. He was relieved that Stone was changing tails frequently, for they were highly visible; and more than once Catlin had sensed that he was being watched by someone other than the FBI. If he had been alone he would have quickly found out whether he had more than one set of tails. But he wasn't alone.
If he were right about the new watchers, he couldn't leave Lindsay by herself long enough to flush the surveillance. The game within a game had frozen him on center stage. He couldn't exit long enough to find out if the watchers belonged to Lee Tran or some unknown player.
As Catlin heard Wu's voice from the back of the shop, his hand tightened protectively on Lindsay for a moment before he tipped her face up to his and smiled like a lover into her haunted indigo eyes.
"Ready?" he murmured, nuzzling the corner of her mouth. Lindsay took a ragged breath and nodded. "Then smile," he breathed. "You're happy, remember? Passionately involved with me. Can you pretend that, or " his hand slid up and stopped just below her breast " do I have to go back to reasoning with your body instead of your mind?"
The warning reached through Lindsay's misery. She didn't bother to protest, because she knew that Catlin would do whatever he had to in order to get to the missing bronzes. If that meant stripping her and taking her on Wu's ebony desk, then that was what would happen.
Catlin felt Lindsay tighten beneath his hands as his words sank into her. "Don't tell me, I already know. I've known for years," he whispered. "I'm a ruthless bastard."
The bleak words went into Lindsay like slivers of ice. Her eyes focused on Catlin's. The raw desolation she saw there made her breath stop. She realized that he no more wanted her to confront Wu than she did. For a moment she felt dizzy, disoriented, as though reality had shifted unexpectedly. Catlin hated what he was doing as much as she did, but he accepted the necessity without flinching.
Abruptly she remembered what Chen Yi had called Catlin, a word that was both simple warning and complex description. "Dragon," she whispered. And then she stood on tiptoe and kissed him.
Chapter 16
Catlin let the effusive Mandarin flow past him like a moonlit river, each polite apology and each polite denial of inconvenience a separate current curling darkly, creating emotional eddies that turned and gleamed in blackness. He kept his face blank, revealing nothing of his understanding of the language. But even if he had not known a single word of the exchange between Wu and Lindsay, he would have known that she was distressed. Did Wu know? Did he sense the raw misery that lay beneath her welcoming smile?
Without thinking, Catlin smoothed his fingertips slowly down Lindsay's spine, stroking her gently, trying to tell her that he understood what she was going through, that he would rather be anywhere else than right here, right now, watching her unravel the delicate fabric of memory and affection that bound her to Hsiang Wu.
It will get worse, Lindsay, Catlin thought grimly. But you don't think that it can and I'm damned if I'm going to be the bearer of more bad news. Unless it's necessary. I'll do it if I have to. And you know it.
Then, relentlessly, came the question that he couldn't ask her because it wasn't part of the act they must play.
Why did you kiss me? At the moment I was pushing you the hardest, why did you turn to me as though I not you were being dragged to the fire?
There was no answer but the tactile memory of her warm lips against his, the sweetness of her breath in his mouth. If she had turned on him in confusion and rage as she had last night, he would have understood it. He had expected it. What he had not expected was the baffling tenderness of her kiss. It had gone through his defenses like light through darkness, swiftly, wildly, illuminating parts of himself that he thought had died long ago.
"We're in luck, darling."
Lindsay's words penetrated Catlin's fierce inner concentration. He wondered if her fluent Mandarin apologies had softened Wu's impeccably, cruelly polite treatment of the woman he had called daughter.
"We are?" Catlin asked.
The look in his amber eyes made Lindsay pause. "Yes. Wu just got in a shipment of Huai-style bronzes."
Catlin smiled.
Lindsay flinched subtly. "If you've seen enough bronzes for today," she said, "we can come back some other time. Wu won't mind. He understands the necessities of business." What Lindsay didn't add was that it was obviously business rather than affection that kept Wu standing nearby, watching the interchange between her and Catlin. She didn't have to say it; Catlin knew that brutal truth as well as she did.
"Honey cat," said Catlin, tracing the line of Lindsay's mouth with his fingertip, "have you ever known me to turn down a chance to look at good Huai?"
"No," she said, her voice dry, thin. "I never have."
"And you never will."
Catlin looked from the sensual curve of her lower lip to the shrewd eyes of Hsiang Wu. Not for the first time, Catlin wondered what Wu was thinking, if he loathed Catlin as much as most men in Wu's position would have. If Wu felt resentment, it didn't show on his face; not by so much as a
flicker of his eyelids did he reveal that the conversation meant any more to him than the distant barking of dogs.
Smiling, Catlin nodded to Wu and said very clearly. "Thank you, I'd be delighted to see what you have in the back room. And it will be in the back room, won't it? All shops like yours have them."
"Catlin!"
At Lindsay's low, scandalized cry, Catlin turned toward her. "C'mon, Lindsay," he said, his voice a careful mixture of amusement and exasperation. "You act like back rooms are a big secret. Hell, everyone has them. Have you ever been in a Chinatown shop that didn't have at least one?"
Lindsay swallowed and shook her head. It wasn't Catlin's words she had objected to as much as the baiting tone of his voice. It was as though he were angry at Wu for something. Quickly she turned toward Wu, apologetic Mandarin pouring from her lips in an invisible torrent.
"Forgive me, honorable Uncle Wu. My American client does not have the fine understanding of the Chinese in these matters. He did not mean to denigrate your esteemed bronzes."
"It is as nothing to this humble self. Be at ease, and permit your servant to direct your discerning eye toward objects of vast antiquity and beauty."
Wu's polite rejoinders faded into the small sounds he made as he led them to the back of his shop. In silence Catlin followed the shadow-thin Wu until he put a key in the lock of a door and ushered his clients inside. The room reminded Catlin of the Museum of the Asias basement workshop, except for the closed-circuit TV cameras set inconspicuously at opposite corners of the dropped ceiling. The furniture was hardy, scarred by use, and scattered with various tools. The lighting was harsh, relentless, not at all like the flattering light of the public display room. Packing cases bearing Chinese ideographs, U.S. Customs forms and official stamps from both countries lined the walls.
Two assistants were unpacking a large crate. They looked up as Wu entered. An invisible signal must have passed among the Chinese, for the assistants bowed briefly and disappeared through a different door, leaving Wu and his clients alone. Catlin watched the assistants leave and wondered what Wu was keeping back there that he didn't want his own men to see.
Tell Me No Lies Page 26
