The Deceivers

by Harold Robbins

  I wandered back into the museum to get another look at the Siva that had been duplicated by the world-class forger. Rim Nol had left me with the feeling that the invite to the genocide exhibit was more than just a polite invitation to get a guided tour. I had deliberately brought up the story of my own connection to the rescue of a cultural treasure of a small, poor country in the hopes of striking a cord with him and I think I had.

  I just wished we could meet and talk about the Cambodian art scene over a cold drink rather than going out to the notorious site. The grisly display was mentioned in the guidebook as a must-see, but it wasn’t on my list.

  I studied the Siva. It was an extraordinary piece, but after seeing what the forger could do with Apsarases, making a perfect imitation of the small statue was certainly within his abilities.

  What had drawn me back to the Siva was a question that had been gnawing at me probably from the time I found myself in an interrogation room with Detective Anthony and Prince Ranar.

  Why was the Siva chosen to be duplicated? It was a museum piece. Well known to experts on Khmer art. A catalogued museum piece. Its sale in New York would have set off alarm bells throughout the world of Far Eastern art. At least I would have thought so. But it didn’t. It took a nationally televised display to raise questions and then it turned out it was only a reproduction.

  Why choose a museum piece to duplicate? Why not start from scratch and make a quality piece and pass it off with a false provenance with the implications that it’s a looted piece that no one would be able to trace? A much safer way to go than duplicating a museum piece.

  Maybe the Siva was chosen because the forger didn’t have the ability to create a masterpiece from scratch—there is a paradox that art students can copy a great work of art almost perfectly but can’t themselves create a masterpiece.

  If Sammy’s Apsarases was an original creation, as opposed to being a copy of an existing sandstone, the artist certainly could do the quality work necessary to duplicate the Siva.

  I realized that if I came up with the answer to the mystery of why a prominent museum piece like the Siva was chosen to be duplicated, more pieces to the puzzle would fall into place, maybe all of them.

  At the moment trying to put together pieces to a puzzle gave me a headache.

  16

  My head was still throbbing as I went past the fu lions and down the steps of the museum. What had Kirk said about Cambodia? That everything in the country had two faces? I was beginning to wonder if that wasn’t an understatement.

  Another word that came to mind: chaotic. I was a product of a society where things were orderly and could be anticipated. There were stoplights at intersections and even if an intersection didn’t have a light, the law that said you stopped for pedestrians was usually obeyed. If there were rules in Cambodia, no one obeyed them.

  I was experiencing the impact of a culture that was new to me—the exotic Far East, a small, traumatized country that had endured a decades-long nightmare, and an awakening third world country whose top echelon were making a greedy grab for luxury while young girls spread their legs for the price of a pack of cigarettes … yet there was also that really nice curator at the museum, the people at the hotel, the friendly, smiling people on the streets who were sincere and guileless …

  It was all too much for me. I couldn’t wait to get back to New York where the chaos was managed and only appeared on the six o’clock news.

  A surprise was waiting for me as I came out the gate to the taxi line—Prince Ranar standing by a sports car.

  He opened the door for me and did a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Let me take you back to your hotel in my carriage.”

  I got in and sighed as a blast of air-conditioning hit me.

  As he pulled into traffic, he asked, “What do you think of my country so far?”

  “Beautiful, exotic, a little much for an innocent abroad like me.”

  I didn’t mention I was mugged by a moto driver within a couple of hours of arriving, that creeps like Bullock shot water buffaloes with machine guns while the rest of the country seemed to be up to its neck in anything-goes-sex-for-sale and antiquities smuggling when they weren’t stepping on land mines. Not to mention that the Cambodian people and the rest of the world was waiting for the government to punish the Khmer Rouge murderers guilty of genocide decades ago.

  “Have you made any progress with your investigation?”

  The question of the day. And nothing I felt confident about sharing with Ranar. He was technically my employer, but I was dealing with something more important than money for my rent—human beings. In a country where corruption was as common as rice, I had to wonder what would happen if I made unproved allegations about people. If I said that I’d spoken to a museum curator who seemed to want to share some information with me, would he be questioned? Or even treated much worse? How about Kirk and Chantrea? What kind of trouble would I get them into just mentioning their names?

  I just didn’t know and didn’t want to risk it, but I needed to tell him something.

  “I’m onto a couple leads I want to explore further.” God—did that sound like a politician hemming and hawing. “There’s an American named Emmet Bullock who has a very dirty reputation in the U.S. art world.”

  Bringing Bullock’s name into it was inspired. If he was tortured and dismembered, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all. I went on with my indictment.

  “I checked with contacts in the States. Bullock’s been known to conspire with art dealers in foreign countries to set up phony robberies so the dealer can smuggle antiquities out.”

  “You think he’s involved in smuggling Khmer art?”

  “I don’t have the evidence at this point, just my gut reaction to the man. He oozes slime and has a track record of dealing in contraband art in other countries. There’s a shop at the Russian Market that he has a connection to. I’m going to check it out.” I actually had intended to do that.

  “Did you find out anything from the curator at the museum?”

  How did he know that? Obviously, someone had reported my movements to him very quickly. I thought of Rim Nol’s quiet smile and warm, soft eyes. I didn’t want to risk Nol’s career by saying anything that would cause Ranar to focus on him.

  “No, only that the museum has a marvelous collection of Khmer art and that sadly even more pieces are in foreign museums. Something did occur to me that I find puzzling.”

  “Which is?”

  “Why would the forger choose a museum piece like the Siva to duplicate? He obviously ran a high risk of exposure.”

  Ranar shrugged. “Not really. The piece is not internationally known and there are literally thousands of Siva pieces in collections around the world.”

  “I suppose so. But I also wondered how it could be duplicated without the forger having the Siva in hand to closely examine it for an extended period of time. It’s hard to believe that a museum piece can be duplicated without the artist having the original to work from.”

  I was certain it couldn’t be done with photographs.

  “You are operating off of false premises. The problem is not in the museum. We know that. The personnel and collection have been thoroughly examined.” He shot me a look. “It won’t be necessary for you to go back to the museum. Your presence there may start rumors that affect my own investigation.”

  “I see.”

  “The problem is that a very clever forger is making Khmer art good enough to pass for genuine pieces. You are probably wasting your time here. The forger and the smuggling ring are in Bangkok. And probably Hong Kong.”

  Ranar weaved in and out of traffic with as much respect for law as the rest of the drivers. He said, “I’ve heard that the girlfriend of the dead Russian billionaire is planning to sell another piece at auction. This time the sale will be held in Hong Kong. She lives there and it’s a convenient venue for marketing stolen art. I would like to see some action before my country’s reputation is embarrasse
d again.”

  I could have told him his country’s reputation for not protecting its art was already black.

  “Do you know the name of the dealer in Hong Kong?”

  He shrugged. “No, but it should be easy to find out. Don’t you have sources in the art trade for that kind of information?”

  “I have a source.” I could call Bolger in New York and he could get it off the Internet from the auction company site.

  I pursed my lips. “I might need to make a trip to Hong Kong. See if I can follow the money. But I don’t think I’m wasting my time here. It’s Cambodian art that’s being looted and duplicated. It stands to reason that at some point somebody in Cambodia got money from the model or her husband before he got whacked.”

  “Whacked?”

  I grinned and made a slicing motion across my throat to indicate he’d been killed. “I guess I’ve seen too many crime shows.”

  He pulled up in the front of the hotel. “I’m having a gathering at my place early this evening.” He put his hand on the top of my thigh. “I’ll send a car for you.”

  I took his hand off my leg. “I’ve already made other plans.”

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m attracted to a guy who hunts bombs for a living and turn down a chance to hook up with a real prince who could help my career.

  Ranar was not happy with me. I didn’t know whether it was because I’d not made progress … or if it went back to my feeling that he didn’t want me here in the first place. Maybe both.

  My session with Prince Ranar had left me with a free-floating sense of anxiety. Nothing he said made me uneasy, but …

  I realized it was what he hadn’t said. I told him my suspicions about Bullock. Ranar is head of security for the nation’s antiquities. Shouldn’t he have asked more questions about Bullock? I threw him the name of a foreigner with a reputation for illegally smuggling art and he hadn’t been interested.

  Maybe he already knew about Bullock’s existence. That was possible. But wouldn’t he have volunteered something like you’re on the right track or we’ve already checked him out and he’s nothing but a pedophile?

  He didn’t ask me who else I’d met or where I’d been. If he had asked, I would have been forced to tell him I’d met Kirk and Chantrea.

  It occurred to me that that bit about everything having two faces could also apply to Prince Ranar. How many levels of deception was he playing? Anyone that rich and good-looking who could call himself a prince was too good to be true.

  I wondered about Chantrea, too. Did she report my activities to Prince Ranar? That notion hit home. She works for the antiquities administration; he’s the country’s head of antiquities security. If she had, it wouldn’t have surprised me. Cambodia was a place where survival wasn’t a God-given right. And if she wasn’t already reporting to Ranar, he may know by now that she was the one who took me to the museum. It was likely he would order her to report my activities to him.

  In a country like Cambodia, it’s a sure thing she’d report to Ranar regardless of what she thought of me. It also bothered me that she made contact with me at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club within hours of my arrival. And maybe Kirk hired that mugger to—

  Christ, my imagination was running wild. I no longer knew who was up to what. I was seeing a huge conspiracy surrounding me.

  I got a cold facecloth for my forehead.

  As I patted my face, something else occurred to me.

  Ranar had been pushing me toward Hong Kong. And Bangkok.

  Anywhere but Cambodia.

  He didn’t want me to come in the first place. I’d hardly begun my investigation and I was already persona non grata to the man paying the bill and calling the shots.

  17

  The front desk called and relayed an earlier message from Kirk that he wanted to take me to dinner and would pick me up at eight. He said that I had no choice but to say yes. That was fine with me. It gave me plenty of time to rest, take a leisurely bath, and get ready.

  He took me to a place called Tiger Moon. The restaurant was in a rather run-down French colonial building that looked like it hadn’t been repaired since the French withdrew half a century ago and the decades of war that followed.

  Deviously attractive women in provocative dresses, sure to arouse the carnal desires of any red-blooded male, were sitting at the bar. When we walked in, a bar girl wearing a dress barely covering her crotch approached us and held up three fingers.

  Kirk shook his head.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “She wanted to know if we wanted to make it a threesome. Sometimes couples come to Nom Pen to double their pleasure. Interested?”

  “Sure. If we can find a cute young stud built like Jet Li who would do both of us.”

  That got a laugh out of him. But I was only kidding—watching Kirk making it with another man didn’t appeal to me even if I was supposed to double my own pleasure by getting it from both ends.

  I told him about my visit to the museum with Chantrea and then taking a tour of the Royal Palace. I came close to telling him about my suspicion that Nol wanted to tell me something, but caught myself. What did I really know about Kirk? In my mind he was what they used to call a “soldier of fortune,” a person who seeks fortune and adventure in faraway places. I couldn’t think of any other way to describe a man who hunted land mines in the jungles of Cambodia for a living.

  But that didn’t mean that he was reliable or even honest.

  As men came in and teamed up with the underdressed, overly made-up women at the bar, I raised my eyebrows at Kirk.

  He grinned. “Okay, it’s a hostess bar, but low-key. Nothing overt. Some bars have girls who come and sit on a guy’s lap … even before the man sits down. But that’s just a starter. Tiger Moon lets you pretend you’re having a real date instead of store-bought love. I come here because the food’s good and cheap. Best hamburgers and fries in Nom Pen.”

  “Hamburgers? I came halfway around the world to an exotic city and you take me out for a hamburger?”

  “You haven’t tasted anything like this before. The hamburgers on this side of the planet have peanut sauce and the fries are sweet potatoes mixed with hot peppers. You’re going to love them.”

  He was right. Maybe I was just hungry, but everything tasted delicious.

  After dinner we went to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club and watched a boat parade from the upper level. Chantrea was also there. I wasn’t surprised to see her and wondered if anything was going on between her and Kirk. If there was, why was he putting the make on me?

  “It’s a river festival,” Chantrea said as a boat shaped like a dragon breathed fire into the night while it floated down the river. “To celebrate the Tonle Sab River reversing its flow and flooding back down its course, bringing water for the rice crop and plentiful fish. The boat that’s coming now has dancers whose performance tells the story of the Mermaid and the Monkey.”

  “That’s an unlikely pair,” I said.

  She laughed. “It’s a love story.”

  “With a happy ending,” Kirk said.

  “Kirk’s right. After a princess is kidnapped, a monkey general is ordered to rescue her. He has to build a bridge across the ocean to do the rescue, but each time his men set large stones in the water, a mermaid carries them away.

  “First the monkey general and the mermaid battle and neither is able to conquer the other, but out of conflict comes love. When they fall in love, peace is made, the bridge is built, and the princess is rescued.”

  “Love conquers all,” I said. “What I like about the Khmer myths is the effort taken to preserve them forever by recording them in stone.”

  “You’ll see wonderful tales of Khmer mythology when you visit Angkor,” Chantrea said.

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Speaking of Angkor,” Kirk asked, “when are you planning to go there?”

  “Sometime in the next couple of days. The flights are pretty frequent.”<
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  “That’s because they have to keep planes moving in the hopes one of them will make it.” He grinned. “Just joking, but they don’t have the same safety record as the commercial airliners in industrialized countries. Like most poor countries, a highly technical skill like airplane mechanics isn’t always practiced as a fine art. Personally, my feet never leave higher than the floorboard of a car unless flying is the only option.”

  “What about taking a boat up the river and across that big lake called Tonle Sap? Doesn’t the Tonle Sab River come from there?”

  “Yes, but it’s not a pleasant trip,” Chantrea said, shaking her head.

  “The old ferries are more African Queen than Caribbean cruise,” Kirk said, “and the new ones can still get stuck on sand barges and let you bake in a hot tin boat. Besides, all you get to see is dirty water and green riverbanks.”

  “So what’s the best way to get to Angkor?”

  “Driving,” he said. “And that doesn’t mean you rent a car and head out, it’s not a road for the uninitiated. You need pros who know the roads like Chantrea and I do. As a matter of fact, I’m leaving early tomorrow morning for Angkor. I’d invite you along but I need to take care of a land mine along the way.”

  Chantrea said, “I’m leaving in two days and meeting up with Kirk halfway to Angkor so we can caravan. The road’s mostly safe and caravanning makes it even safer. Why don’t you come along with me? I could use the company.”

  “There’s one thing driving will give you that a one-hour flight at twenty thousand feet won’t,” Kirk said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “An adventure that lets you see the real Cambodia, jungle and farmland, much of which hasn’t changed in eons.”

  “I like that part, but I usually find that adventures are fun memories only after I survived them in one piece. What are the dangers?”

  He shrugged. “The usual warlords, bandits, land mines, two hundred miles of oxen wandering out onto the roadway, and buses that don’t stay on their side of the road. But you only live once.”