by Sam Waite
"Sounds kinky." She smiled. It was an easy gesture and mildly flirtatious.
I touched her waist as she kissed my cheek. She wore a faint fragrance that hinted of tangerine and peach.
"I'd better get my rest then. Good night, Mick." She went to bed and left me bathed in the aura of her touch and scent.
I didn't know what he looked like, but even so, a vision of Jim Burroughs rose in my mind. I strangled him. I might have done likewise to the man himself if he had been on the same continent. I imagined the swell of the sea, smell of salt and the wind tossing Alexandra's hair. His why seemed far less important than it had in the car.
The only question I could think about now was why I had listened to him. I poured myself a shot of brandy and swirled the glass under my nose. The fumes were pungent, but I still smelled Alexandra. I put the glass down without tasting the fiery liquid and walked to her door.
Knocked once, twice.
Silence.
I opened the door and closed it behind me. The only light was the faint glow of the city filtered through a shuttered window. In darkness, I sat on the edge of the bed and touched Alexandra's hair. She lay still and quiet as death as I listened to the rush of blood through my heart and pulled back the covers. She wore nothing.
I undressed, lay beside her and kissed her neck and breasts.
But for the sharp rise and fall of her chest, she did not move either in response or in protest. Was it fear that stilled her or something else?
I found my answer as I brushed my lips down her stomach and found four silk scarves.
She'd been expecting me.
Chapter 21
Sunlight eased softly into the bedroom and spun golden accents through Alexandra's hair. Her head lay on my arm; her face nuzzled against my chest. A musky afterglow of passion had replaced the light scent of perfume.
I found a stray scarf, nudged Alexandra onto her back and placed it over her eyes. "A mask."
"Kinky." It was the only word she'd spoken since I'd come to visit.
I pulled back the covers and saw her in light for the first time. Her physique had the same sculpted perfection as her face. I looked at her, burning the image into my memory.
"What are you doing?" She smiled playfully.
"Admiring."
She brushed the back of her hand across my belly. "Tell me what you see."
I started with colors and traced the fine veins glowing faintly blue through her translucent skin. Described the flamingo-pink caps of her breasts before I kissed them and the burnished beige at the juncture of her thighs before I caressed it. She was dewy.
She pressed her thigh against my groin and made a husky hum deep in her throat.
Last night had been a marathon. I just chuckled and shook my head.
Alexandra pushed me over and straddled me. She tied a scarf tight around my eyes and tied each of my wrists to a bed post.
"Turnabout is fair play, but I don't think this is going to be possible."
I felt her lips on mine; the nips of a tigress on my neck, chest, stomach; a hard grip on the inside of my thigh.
The impossible turned out to be far more attainable than I had guessed.
After I was freed from bondage, I beat Alexandra to the kitchen to make coffee. While I was at it, Pascal called.
"Que paso, Irish. Short, balding and plump, right?"
"Good morning, Pascal. Who are you talking about?"
"That fits your description of Marcel Gatineau."
The Paris managing director of Winchell. "It describes a lot of people."
"About five-foot-seven, but acts like he's seven-foot-five, and wields a six-foot sword. He's too broad in the hips to swagger, but he has a mean waddle."
"Yeah, that sounds like Gatineau."
"I saw him last night with our PDVSA man."
"What were they doing?"
"Just eating and talking. The Venezuelan was in a crepes café. The short guy joined him later."
"Did you get photos?"
"Uh-huh. No audio though. There was one other man. He showed up last. The three of them stayed nearly an hour, and they all left together. I followed the Venezuelan back to his apartment. End of story."
"I'd like to see your photos."
"Same place as last time, the jazz club. Is thirty minutes too soon?"
"I'll be there in fifteen. Make it as soon as you can."
Alexandra was in the shower. I opened the bathroom door. "I need to meet someone. I'll be back soon."
She peeked out from behind the curtain. "Wait. I'll go with you."
"I won't be an hour. It's just around the corner."
She pushed back the shower curtain. Water streaked her face and body. "I'll wash you, very quickly."
"Got to go. I'll be right back."
"I won't be here." She turned up her nose.
"Yes you will. Coffee's made." I felt a fistful of water hit my back just before I closed the door.
The café was still setting up for business when I got there. Pascal arrived several minutes later.
"I don't have printed photos. You'll have to use this." He handed me a digital camera. He also gave me recordings from the bugs in the rooms of the PDVSA man. "The device stopped transmitting last night, so there's nothing from today."
"Any idea why?"
"Either it's busted or he found it."
"If he'd found it, he would have alerted his colleague."
"Unless he's on something that doesn't involve the other guy."
I already suspected that might the case.
He turned on the camera's display screen. "Tell me if this is your man." The first image was a clear shot of Gatineau.
"That's him. Did anything unusual happen?"
"No, but why do you think they met in a crepes café? If it's business, they have an office. And why only one and not both of the Venezuelans? Why a cheap café? Gatineau is a rich big shot."
Pascal clicked to another image. "Here's the third man. I don't know this guy."
I did. He was tall and suave and had curious eyes. What I could not fathom was why he was meeting the Venezuelan and Gatineau.
Chapter 22
The third man in the photo, Geir Oddsson, did not belong. I could have made a fit if he had met Gatineau alone, but the presence of the PDVSA man made no sense that I could see. Around the corner from the café, artists were setting up easels, stools and paint stands. Tourists and locals alike trickled into the Artist's Square and the cafes that fronted it. I looked absently through the crowd, wondering what I had missed in my meetings with Oddsson.
Burroughs had asked me why I was worried about China's bug when there were suspiciously dangerous events in the forex market. The overt answer was I saw only a coincident relationship. What I needed was a logical tie—if there was one.
Li, the Taiwanese door painter was daubing yellow on the frame of a bicycle. He would know more about China than I did. "Zao an, Li xiansheng," I said.
"Good morning." He looked up without smiling. "David told me you met him."
"He was a lot of help."
"You were not." He looked back at his painting.
His response might have been unsettling under other circumstances. As it was, it was just one more thing I couldn't make sense of. "What was I supposed to help with?"
"You caused trouble for him."
"He said something like that. He was nervous the last time I talked to him. He hung up on me, but I couldn't understand why. Earlier, it seemed as though he liked upsetting an enemy from the mainland, who couldn't do anything to him because he's Taiwanese."
Li put down his brush and stared up at me. "Nothing he can do? He can have David killed if wants."
"Over a translation?"
"Over anything, anywhere, in Paris, Hong Kong, Taiwan. David is true Taiwanese. He has blood of the aboriginal people. He is mostly Han Chinese, but his family has been there for many generations. Do you know our history?"
"Some."
Li grunted. "In the early sixteen hundreds the Dutch came and built forts. At that time, the population was mostly Malay-Polynesian people. In the middle of that century, General Koxinga was defeated by the Manchus in China. He fled to Taiwan with bands of pirates and drove out the Dutch. In sixteen eighty-three, the Dutch came back to help the Manchus defeat the command that Koxinga had establish." Li folded his hands as though he was set on a long story that he thought I needed to know.
"The Dutch had an official presence, a suzerainty if you will, before the Chinese arrived in Taiwan. The Manchus were nominally in charge for about the next two hundred years. In 1895 the Sino-Japanese war ended, and Taiwan was ceded to Japan. The Japanese were harsh. We fought them for five months, men and women, native Taiwanese and immigrant Han Chinese, side by side for the first time. We lost fourteen thousand against a few thousand Japanese losses and most of those to malaria. We fought with bamboo pikes against rifles.
"The Japanese built railways, roads and schools, although with classes conducted in Japanese. Tokyo was trying to incorporate the island into its national system.
"Dutch, Manchus, Japanese." Li held up a finger for each new ruler. "The Manchus ruled at arm's length. We were never an integral part of China. When Japan was defeated in 1945, Chiang Kai-shek sent an occupation force that did not represent a Chinese government. They were like Koxinga and his pirates. Not only did they make the Japanese look almost benign, they were also corrupt. A massive protest by Taiwanese lead to the February Twenty-Eighth Incident in 1947. More than twenty thousand people were murdered, including most of the nation's elite.
"Soon after, the 'white terror' began. Thousands more Taiwanese were arrested, tortured or killed. Chiang lost to Mao and brought two million of his followers from the mainland. The mainlanders accounted for only fifteen percent of the population, but they imposed martial law on the other eighty-five percent for nearly forty years. It was not lifted until 1987."
Li made a gentle, almost wistful smile. "So you see, it has been less than thirty years since we got a taste of freedom. It wasn't until 1996 that we had our first presidential election. It was won by Lee Teng-hui. He was from Chiang's Kuomintang party, but it had been much localized. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian was elected the first president from an opposition party. After four hundred years of domination, of fighting and losing, we Taiwanese are in control of our own destiny at last."
Mr. Li lifted an eyebrow.
"Except." I said.
He nodded. "For our very, very, very big brother."
It occurred to me that the "why" I was looking for was the same "why" you sought in a murder investigation. Motive. "If Taiwan tried to escape that influence, how far do you think China would go?"
"As far as it needs to."
"Force?"
"Of course. It hasn't acted yet, not because it has lacked the will, but because it has lacked the capability. That's changing. On Jinmen, one of our small islands just off the mainland, there is a huge manmade cave in a mountain. It has enough supplies for a large force to hold out for years. That used to mean something, but what good is it today with hundreds of missiles aimed at us across the Taiwan Strait."
"It doesn't seem likely. China is becoming a prosperous country, why would it use force?"
Li sneered. "Why don't you explain that to Tibet? To Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. China has fifty-five recognized minorities including small groups like the Hui Muslims. If Taiwan can resist China's power, others might get similar ideas. China wants hegemony in East Asia. That includes de facto domination of its old enemy, Japan. For that it needs Taiwan. It is strategic. If you don't understand that, just look at a map. Naval bases in Taiwan would control shipping lanes that carry oil to Japan and surround disputed waters in the South China Sea."
Li greeted a group of tourists, and then ended his lecture to me with a parting shot. "The only thing stopping them is your Pacific fleet."
Ironically, the tourists who had stopped to admire Li's paintings were mainland Chinese. I walked away and looked back. They were laughing, chatting and bargaining. Li sold a painting.
Alexandra really was gone when I got back, but I wasn't there long before she showed up with a sack of groceries.
She kissed me hello. "How did it go with your dangerous friend?"
I took the sack and followed her toward the kitchen. "The more things I turn up, the more confused I get. Do you know Sabine's husband?"
"Geir? Of course."
"Is he friends with Gatineau?"
Alexandra stopped dead and turned to face me. "Our managing director?"
"Yes."
"Why do you ask that?"
"Someone I know saw them together in a cafe."
"Someone you know?"
I wanted to ask her to stop questioning the questions and just answer them. Instead, I ignored her. "A Venezuelan who works for Petroleos was also there."
"Was it someone working on the study?"
"Yes, his name's Ruiz."
Alexandra made a series of faces as though each possibility she thought of affected her emotions in different ways. Finally she just said, "That's strange."
"Geir and Gatineau, are they friends?"
"Not so far as I know. I would be surprised if Gatineau has any friends at all, only business associates. I could try to find out, but I'm supposed to be in the country grieving for my departed grandmother."
"Don't even try to find out. It probably isn't important. Anyway, I can ask Geir himself, if I need to know."
"I'm not much help, am I? I can't think of anything."
"There's no reason you should."
I still needed to send the vial of oil to Houston. With the events of last night and Pascal's early morning call, I'd forgotten. I asked Alexandra to call a delivery service.
"Let me see it again. It's glass, so I need to describe the size for packaging. You can't use one of their standard envelopes." She called the delivery company for me and described the size and fragility of the vial.
The delivery man showed up with a few package options.
"Pick one," Alexandra said. "Where are you sending it? I'll fill out the forms for you."
"Thanks." I wouldn't even have been able to contact the delivery company without her help. While she wrote, I thumped the sides of containers to find the strongest one. I told the deliveryman which box I wanted, and Alexandra swatted her forehead.
"What's wrong?"
"Out of habit, I wrote in Sabine's office address for the sender. I need another label."
The deliveryman handed her one. While she filled it out, he dumped foam pellets into the box with the vial and sealed it.
Alexandra handed me the label. "Check it, please."
I couldn't read much French, but I recognized Sabine's home address. "Label's good." I handed it back to her, picked up the box and thumped it again. "Package is good. We're on our way." It would arrive Monday, and the strike day was Wednesday. Not that there was any apparent connection, but it was the last day I had to work on the case. I called my Houston friend and asked him to let me know when he got it.
Now for the important stuff. My stomach rumbled as I went to the kitchen to help fix lunch.
"Are you going to talk to Geir about meeting Gatineau and Ruiz?" Alexandra said, as she sipped an amber-tinged Chardonnay.
"I'd like to, but I'd have to explain how I know he met them."
"And how was that? A little bird told you or a dangerous friend." Alexandra's smile was almost, but not quite, playful. That was a new look that I hoped to see again.
"I don't speak pigeon."
"Does that mean you are having Geir followed?"
"No, of course not. I subcontracted some of the work to a local investigator, but he didn't even know what Oddsson looked like. By the way, I got another recording this morning. Would you mind listening to one of them?" She said OK and took the hint to stop talking about Oddsson.
While Alexandra was busy with the recorder, I called Gav
izon to see if he had found anything else on Cervantes.
"I couldn't get anything, nothing at all. Don't ask me again about Cervantes. I'm out of this."
"What happened?"
"My contact in Maduro's office has gone missing. If Cervantes and his thugs decided to grab her, then she could lead them to me."
"Maybe it was something else."
"Maybe not. Adios, Mick."
The list was getting longer. Of people I'd contacted in regard to Trevor's case, Sabine had been killed, David had been threatened. Alexandra and Gavizon were afraid with just cause, and Gavizon's source was missing. There were times I regretted abandoning the Catholic faith, especially the catharsis of the confessional. I had need for absolution just now, with no one to turn to but myself, an unforgiving apostate.
I called Burroughs. "Have you found out anything more on who's making the bets against the dollar?"
"Only more questions. The money flow seems back to normal. There were no heavy bets against the dollar over the past twenty-four plus some odd hours."
"So..."
"The play is in place. You know what would be a great help?"
"A weekend in Monaco." Burroughs ignored me.
"I need a detailed description of the instrument that's being used to short the dollar. I haven't been able to get it."
"Mumby might be a good person to ask."
"From what I've found out about the guy, he could create an instrument like that, but I have no reason to suspect that he actually did. That's why you're important here, Sanchez. How are you going to get that information out of him?"
"I didn't say I was going to."
"You don't have to say it, just let me know what you find out. By the way, did you figure out why you were connecting China Petroleum to the forex business?"
"I hadn't until just now." The left and right hemispheres of my brain must have decided to start communicating with each other. A thought came up without my trying to evoke one. "What would happen if the dollar fell as much as Trevor's figures predicted?"
"Anyone betting the right way becomes incredibly wealthy."
"I mean big picture. Would it hurt the American economy?"
Burroughs hummed into the phone for several seconds. "Exchange rates go up, and they go down. If the dollar lost thirteen percent of its value against the yen and euro that fast, then imports would become very expensive and exports would get cheap. Because of an effect called the 'J curve', the trade deficit would mushroom. Imports would suddenly cost a lot more and the U.S. would not be able to reduce them immediately. It would take a while for exports to ramp up, but in time, exports would increase because of their cheap price. Eventually, stronger exports would cause the dollar to start rising and the cycle repeats."