Tell Me No Lies

by Elizabeth Lowell

  "No worse than the chance you took," Catlin said.

  "Explain."

  "She's an innocent," he said flatly. "She was made to be protected, not to be put in the line of fire."

  "We are all born innocent. And we all go into the fire."

  Catlin turned with a feline motion that was very quick, very controlled. Predatory. "Have you never met a genuinely good person?" he asked softly.

  "Yes. One." Yi made a sharp motion, sending his spent cigarette into the fireplace. "Do not mistake goodness for weakness. A fatal mistake, dragon. A very American mistake."

  "Do not mistake innocence for stupidity," retorted Catlin. "A fatal mistake, Yi. A very Chinese mistake."

  Yi stood with his hand in the pocket of his suit coat, waiting for Catlin to continue.

  "If you had told Lindsay only half the truth – that China needed her – she would have volunteered without hesitation." Catlin's voice was flat, calm, even though anger seethed just beneath his careful surface. "But then she would have come apart the first time an old friend drew back from her in distaste. That would have been the moment when she realized what living undercover really meant. Then she would have known that you had lied to her by not telling her the whole truth. She would have begun to question everything you had ever said to her, including the worth of the ultimate goal. And then, my friendly enemy, it would all go from sugar to shit in a hurry. Lindsay won't sell her soul for people who lie to her. She's innocent, not stupid."

  Yi's lighter flame hissed in the silence before the top shut with a metallic snap. He inhaled sharply and stared at his too-intelligent dragon, remembering the moment when Lindsay had turned to Catlin as the only source of truth in a room full of near-truths and outright lies.

  "Ah!"

  The guttural sound was followed by a very thin smile as Yi returned the lighter to his pocket.

  "So. Now it is you whom she trusts?" asked Yi, but it was not really a question. It was a statement of discovery.

  "Yes."

  Yi laughed and laughed.

  "What next, dragon?" he asked finally, smiling as he pulled on his cigarette.

  Catlin turned back to the window because he didn't trust himself to look at Yi any longer. "When are your comrades due?"

  "That is not known."

  Catlin's mouth flattened into a line. "Do you trust them, Yi? More important, do they trust you?"

  Nothing answered Catlin but silence. He turned around. "Do they know about half of a Han coin?" he asked. "Do they know that you chose Lindsay long before you arrived in America to watch a farce through a two-way mirror? Are your comrades part of your plan, whatever that plan might be?"

  "They chose you to advise us in this matter," Yi said.

  "The way the FBI 'chose' to use Lindsay?" retorted Catlin caustically. "Do your comrades know about my past?"

  Smoke curled silently from Yi's lips. "We have not discussed it. It does not matter. A sword is a sword, no matter the hand it was made for."

  "But a cormorant comes only to one master's call."

  "What a pity that you are not a cormorant." Yi made an abrupt gesture. "What is it you wish to know from me?"

  "Did you choose the people who came with you to the United States?"

  "No."

  "Then they are your enemies," Catlin said flatly.

  For a long time there was only silence and smoke dissipating in random currents. Catlin thought that Yi wasn't going to answer. Finally his voice came, as soft and astringent as the smoke curling up to the ceiling.

  "A wise man assumes that everyone is his enemy."

  Catlin made a disgusted sound and looked back toward the red light flooding the street below. The wind blew, making twilight shadows twist while branches shifted and shivered as though trying to escape the descending night.

  "How are you going to manage it?" Catlin asked after a long silence. "Are you going to travel with Lindsay and me? Are you going to pretend that you don't know us? Are your comrades in on the sting?"

  "I will travel in many of the same places that you do, but not as the Minister of Archaeology. I will be a resident of Taiwan, a buyer of old bronzes. That will give me an acceptable reason to openly approach Miss Danner on occasion, through you."

  "If your comrades are working for the thieves, your cover was blown before you ever left China.''

  "Yet for them to act upon that knowledge would be to proclaim that I am in the company of betrayers. That would not be wise. As for the rest, I have strongly advised Mr. Stone not to tell my comrades anything about interviewing Miss Danner. They will assume that you are merely being attentive to her in order to use her for their purposes."

  "True enough," said Catlin. His eyes were hooded, his blunt cheekbones thrown in relief by the angle of the sunset light. "But will your comrades believe it?"

  "Mr. Stone will tell them that he has spoken with several experts, told them of the missing bronzes and will await their information. When word of bronzes comes from those dealers, it will go to you, as well. Mr. Stone will say nothing about you, because he is not supposed to know that you are working directly for me. My comrades will accept that, because it has always been their intention to purchase you as their own expert and source of information in America."

  "If your comrades are helping the crooks, won't they try to prevent me from getting information that might get back to you?"

  "That is one possibility. If, indeed, one of my comrades is guilty of treachery."

  Catlin grunted. "Then Lindsay is in immediate danger."

  "Perhaps. Perhaps not."

  "Why not?"

  "Who," Yi asked softly, "will authenticate the bronzes if not Miss Danner?"

  "The dealer making the purchase," retorted Catlin.

  "But if the person is not a dealer, or is not trusted to be unbiased in his appraisal? What then, dragon? Who will my comrades trust not to cheat them? Who will the buyer trust not to cheat him in turn?"

  There was no answer except the obvious. The thieves would end up wanting Lindsay Banner's opinion for the same reason that Chen Yi and his comrades did – her expertise would not be questioned, even after she had been compromised by taking as her lover a man who had a reputation for buying and selling bronzes of verifiable authenticity and very dubious provenance.

  Yi drew hard on his cigarette, matching for an instant the red glow of the setting sun. "Candidly, I do not expect to find the bronzes through the experts and dealers I listed for the FBI," continued Yi. "As you pointed out, the thieves must be well connected to my government. They will know whom the FBI has talked to and whom it has not."

  "So that's why you put three of the biggest crooks in the business on the list," Catlin said. "You wanted them out of the game early on. The same for the best-known legitimate experts. You cut the heart out of the competition. A brilliant move, Chen Yi. My compliments."

  "It will limit the thieves' potential outlets," agreed Yi, "and make it even more likely that Miss Danner will be called upon to authenticate the bronzes.''

  "Why? Lindsay was on that list. They'll know about her."

  "Two women appeared on that list. If someone wishes to check, one of them was blond, and rather careless of her reputation as a dealer. Mr. O'Donnel brought her to be tested just after Miss Danner left the building. The woman came and went through the public entrances. Miss Danner did not."

  "Nice of your comrades to get sick in L.A." Catlin said. "Saves Lindsay having to play hide-and-seek with them, too."

  "That was quite fortunate, yes."

  Catlin watched a lone pedestrian walk toward a cab parked by the curb. After a moment the person retreated with angry steps and flagged a passing cab. Catlin smiled wryly. He suspected that if he went down to that cab he would be taken anywhere in town, anytime. There was another watcher parked down the street in an ordinary car. FBI, no doubt. There would be a similar surveillance on Lindsay's home.

  Yi's cigarette
made a flat arc into the fireplace. He didn't watch the flight. He had eyes only for the man who stood with his back to the room, asking questions whose answers Yi would just as soon not give. But that was the price of fishing with a dragon.

  "When will the bronzes arrive in the States?" asked Catlin.

  "I do not know."

  Catlin didn't bother to believe or disbelieve Yi's statement. The only truth that mattered was that Catlin wasn't going to know the arrival date of the bronzes right now. Nor did he know how much time he would need with Lindsay, how long it would take to turn her into some semblance of a player.

  "How much time does it take to ruin a reputation that took a lifetime to build?" he wondered aloud, his voice bitter.

  "A moment only," said Yi. "The right moment."

  "Which you will no doubt provide."

  Yi shrugged. "What is it that you Christians say? God will provide?"

  "We're more likely to say "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord,'" Catlin retorted, his voice as hard as the line of his mouth.

  "An unusual sentiment," said Yi after a moment.

  "It isn't mine," Catlin said, turning around with feral swiftness. "I respond more to the line of reasoning that goes 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'''

  Yi smiled. "As I said, you are a Chinese Legalist beneath your Western surface."

  "What do you respond to?" asked Catlin.

  "History. Family. Face."

  Yi turned away from the man silhouetted against the dying sun. Catlin watched as Yi went to the door, opened it and closed it noiselessly behind him. Catlin stood to one side of the window, staring out, waiting for Yi to appear on the street at the front of the building. After a few moments Catlin closed the drapes.

  Yi hadn't reappeared.

  Catlin showered, shaved and dressed quickly. There was a fund raiser for a senator that night, one of those glittering dinners requiring the attendance of wealthy patrons, collectors, curators and anyone else who wanted to contribute to the campaign chests of the senator whose committee oversaw the disbursement of federal grants to the arts. Originally L. Stephen White had been slated to attend in the name of the Museum of the Asias. White, however, had come down with a touch of flu. Lindsay would be attending in his place, with Catlin as her escort.

  How long does it take to ruin a reputation?

  Just one moment. The right momen..

  Catlin wondered if that moment would come tonight. The thought did nothing to soften the grim line of his mouth as he stepped into the street and walked to the taxi that had been turning away fares for the past two hours. He opened the door himself, slid in and gave directions to Lindsay's home. When the cab arrived, Catlin slid out, closed the door and walked away.

  "Hey, what about my fare?" complained the cabby.

  'Tell Stone I stiffed you.''

  There was a shocked silence, then a curse. "How did you make me?"

  "You're the first cabbie I've had in years who speaks English."

  The driver's rueful laughter followed Catlin up the walkway. He didn't bother to ask the cabbie to hang around until he returned with Lindsay. The taxi would be there when he came back, waiting by the curb like a well-trained hound.

  Lindsay opened the door on the first knock. She was wearing a beaded gold silk blouse over a matching full-length skirt that glittered with more of the tiny crystal beads. The slit in the fitted skirt showed her long, elegant legs to advantage. The blouse was loose, but the weight of the beads made the material cling to her breasts, outlining her in shimmering light with each breath she took. From the burnished bronze smoothness of her hair to the elusive, tantalizing fragrance she wore, everything about Lindsay was clean, untouched, radiant.

  Abruptly Catlin felt like turning on his heel and walking out, telling anyone who asked why to go to hell, he wasn't going to ruin a woman like Lindsay just to redeem a debt incurred by a younger, much more foolish man.

  "It's not too late to back out," Catlin said flatly.

  Lindsay's eyes widened in surprise, revealing depths of blue. Slowly she shook her head, causing light to ripple through her hair.

  "Listen to me," he said, catching her chin in his hand, holding her very still. "There's no way for words to convey the truth of being undercover. You aren't tough enough."

  For an instant the nightmare rose in Lindsay like a dark whirlwind, a twisting spiral of screams and fear and a child running through the night with blood on her hands. Behind the nightmare was the reality of the past, a childhood spent with whispers and gunfire, hunger and the kind of silence that came only to hunted animals.

  "I've survived more than most," Lindsay said in a husky voice. When she saw that Catlin was going to argue, she put her fingers over his lips in a gesture that surprised her as much as it did him. She lifted her hand quickly. "I'm going through with it. And," she added, smiling crookedly, "I won't say you didn't warn me if you won't say I told you so."

  There was no answering flash of humor in the harsh amber eyes watching her. "You're a fool, Lindsay Danner."

  "Then what does that make you?" she retorted.

  "A Judas goat."

  The humor curling her mouth died. "But I know where I'm being led. You told me."

  "Did I?"

  "Yes. Hell."

  "And you didn't believe me."

  "Oh, but I did," said Lindsay. "I could see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice."

  "Yet you're following me."

  She shrugged, making silk and crystal move sensuously. "I'm not the first woman to follow a man into hell. And," she added with quiet determination, "I won't be the first to come out of hell carrying the seeds of spring in my hands."

  "Persephone carried winter, too," said Catlin, remembering the old myth.

  "Yes. Makes for a more interesting world, doesn't it?"

  "Tell me that in a few months," he retorted. He looked at Lindsay's unflinching eyes for a moment longer before he removed his hand, releasing her. "So be it," he said bleakly.

  Catlin closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again there was no emotion, neither passion nor compassion, anger nor encouragement. There was only predatory intelligence and an equally predatory control.

  "Will any of your clients be at the dinner tonight?" asked Catlin.

  Like his eyes, his voice was devoid of emotion, almost inhuman. Lindsay stared at him, hardly able to believe this was the same man who had knocked on her door just moments ago, taken one approving look at her and tried to talk her out of finding Emperor Qin's bronzes.

  "Will they?" rapped Catlin.

  "Y-yes," she said, stumbling over the word, off balance. "How do you do that?" she asked before Catlin could ask her another question.

  "Do what?"

  "Just – vanish. Emotionally."

  "It's a trick you learn in hell," he said indifferently. "Which clients?" he asked, pursuing all that mattered now – Qin's bronzes and the other half of a mutilated coin.

  "What?"

  "Which clients will be there tonight?"

  There was neither patience nor impatience in Catlin's controlled voice, simply a sense of vast stillness waiting to be filled by answers. Lindsay shook her head in silent disbelief.

  "No wonder Chen Yi called you dragon," she whispered.

  There was no answer.

  "Sharen Kerry," said Lindsay. "Dave Goldstein. Mr. and Mrs. Tom Stoltz."

  "In order of their honesty?"

  Lindsay hesitated. "I – they're all honest with me."

  "Cut the crap, Lindsay," he snapped. "You know what I mean. If you had a bronze of dubious provenance to unload, which one of the three would you go to first?"

  Unconsciously Lindsay bit her lip. "Mr. Stoltz. He does a lot of buying from Jackie Merriman. She isn't dishonest," added Lindsay quickly, "just careless. If she likes a piece, she won't ask uncomfortable questions about where it came from, no matter ho
w odd the papers accompanying it might look."

  "Next."

  "Dave. He's very competitive."

  "That leaves Sharen Kerry."

  "Forget it. She's teaching art at a private school in the suburbs. She would faint at the suggestion of a dubious bronze."

  "And you won't?"

  "No. I just won't buy it myself or recommend that a client buy it."

  "How does Sharen get the money to collect?"

  "Born with a platinum spoon between her perfect teeth," Lindsay said wryly.

  "Will any dealers be there tonight?"

  "Overwhelmingly.''

  "Honest? Dishonest?"

  "Yes," she said succinctly.

  Catlin turned several ideas over in his mind, rejecting them one by one. He knew what he had to do. He just didn't like doing it.

  "All right," he said abruptly. "Tonight you're going to give your best imitation of a woman being swept off her dainty little feet by a man. You'll conduct the normal amount of business, but you'll do it with me by your side. You will appear distracted. Not rude, simply absorbed in the man who is your new lover. Can you handle that much acting?"

  Lindsay remembered watching Catlin over mah-jongg tiles and thinking that it would be good to lie in bed with him, to have his comfort and warmth and power wrapped around her. "No problem," she said honestly. "You're a very distracting kind of man."

  Catlin's first reaction was to wonder if she meant it. His second was to realize that she did. She wasn't an actress. That was the problem. He smiled a bit grimly, surprised in spite of himself that she admitted an attraction to him. Again he regretted that she wasn't a different kind of woman. Having an affair with her would provide a high gloss of realism to her actions, the kind of realism that might just make the difference in an amateur undercover's performance.

  Not to mention being a real pleasure for him.

  But Catlin knew that Lindsay wasn't the kind of woman to take a lover for a night or a week, to put up with unwanted sex to create a fake atmosphere of intimacy. Her discrimination was written all over her file, all over her body, all over her life, revealing a pride, intelligence and integrity that simply refused to settle for casual screwing.