Tell Me No Lies (9 page)

Then Catlin heard the echo of his own musings and remembered that he was talking to an expert in the field. With a soft laugh he shook his head ruefully. "Sorry. It's been a long time since I held a Shang bronze in my hands. It went to my head."

Lindsay smiled at Catlin with genuine pleasure. It was rare for her to meet someone who shared her complex appreciation of ancient bronzes. And she had no doubt that Catlin did. It was there in his voice when he spoke and in his hands as he held the bowl. He loved ancient bronzes, not because they were rare or valuable or fashionable, but because they whispered to him across an immense bridge of time, telling of people who had lived and laughed, wept and died. And if the people had been lucky, very lucky, they had a genius among them who could preserve their fears and dreams in art, passing on to the future the very soul of the past.

"Don't apologize," she said, her voice husky. "It's a pleasure to meet someone who appreciates art for more than its investment value."

For a moment Catlin didn't know whether Lindsay's perceptivity or her honesty was more startling. Then he decided it didn't matter. Both were as unusual and evocative as the bronze in his hands. He looked into Lindsay's indigo eyes and heard Yi's words again: To be near her was to know the serenity of the lotus blooming beneath the summer moon.

Grimly Catlin wondered if he were going to redeem the mistakes of his past only at the cost of Lindsay Banner's future.

5

Lindsay stood in front of the mirror, brushing her smooth cap of hair into place, wondering if Catlin had meant what he had said about her when they first met. Elegant and restrained. His casual compliment had wedged in her thoughts where the more pointed compliments of other men had not. Perhaps it was just that he had responded to the bronzes as she herself did, but she had the feeling that Catlin had been honest in his words. Nor had he tried to follow up the compliment immediately with a pass, subtle or otherwise.

That, too, was unusual. Washington, D.C. was a city where political power was king and sex was queen. If Hollywood was a magnet for girls of flamboyant looks and lackluster minds, Washington was a magnet for girls of high polish, both mind and body. The competition for dates with politicians and power brokers was unrelenting. Nearly all the bright, eager secretaries and shopgirls who poured into the city from the South and Midwest soon learned to settle for lovers instead of fiances and serial relationships instead of lifetime commitments.

If the girls were lucky, they eventually found a rising young lawyer and settled into motherhood in suburban Virginia or in Georgetown. If they were unlucky, they grew too old for the mating-go-round and were forced to retreat to their less sexually competitive hometowns. Once home, they also settled into motherhood, raising another generation of the nubile and the ambitious who would in their own turn be drawn by power's cruel magnet to Washington, D.C.

Lindsay had never really fitted into the D.C. cycle. She had come late, at twenty-nine. By then she had already discovered the limitations of marriage and the self-recriminations of divorce. She also had discovered that those same limitations and self-recriminations applied to an extended affair as well as to marriage. At thirty, she had finally accepted the fact that the concept of fidelity simply was foreign to men, and to many women as well. Her aunt had been the first to point that out to her, but Lindsay had had a hard time believing. The example of her parents' marriage had remained, silently proclaiming that anything was possible, even enduring love.

Possible, yes. Probable? Well, not really.

Ultimately, Lindsay had decided that lasting love wasn't necessary for emotional survival. There were other beautiful, enduring things to be enjoyed, things that didn't require the passionate commitment of two people in order to work. For some people that life focus was politics, especially in Washington. For others it was gambling or sex, religion or law, dog breeding or duplicate bridge. For Lindsay, it was art.

She glanced at her watch, wondering if she would have time to dip into one of the auction catalogs piled on the table. Although she rarely found any ancient bronzes of museum quality in the big public auction houses, the catalogs provided good indicators of the changing fashions in public taste that inevitably had an impact on museum acquisition and display. No matter how excellent a museum's collection of Aztec war axes, if Polynesian feather capes were in vogue, then the museum had better have something bright and colorful and plucked from birds to attract the public.

Trends often went the other way, too, from museum to general public. After the King Tut exhibit, every curio importer on two continents had dusted off scarabs and sold them all, no matter how ugly or obviously fraudulent. The museums that lacked the prestige to attract the traveling Tut exhibit had been forced to rummage in their basements amid turn-of-the-century boxes and dig out overlooked and often mundane Egyptian artifacts. These had been cobbled together into displays whose only redeeming grace had been that they had brought money into often starved museum accounts.

At the moment, all things Chinese were in vogue, a reflection of the increasing trade ties between the two nations. In less than a decade Lindsay had seen the value of even the most ordinary Chinese objects d'art double, triple, quadruple and then simply soar. A decent bronze that would have brought several thousand dollars at auction ten years ago would now sell for ten times that much. There simply were not enough artifacts to supply the needs of American decorators, much less enough art for the discriminating collector.

Which was why the catalog held so little lure for Lindsay at the moment. She knew she would see item after item that was artifact, not art. Even worse, some of the items would be artifice – three-dimensional lies created to fill the gap between demand and supply. She frowned at the slick catalog, but in the end she picked it up. Perhaps a truly rare, truly superb ob-jet d'art had eluded collectors and museums alike and had found its way into this catalog. Like love, such a thing was possible, if not particularly probable.

In any case, looking at the catalog would prevent her mind from spiraling uneasily down and down into the past, where unanswered questions waited, questions whose very existence she had ignored for years. That wasn't possible any longer. Somehow the death of her mother had released the chains holding down the past. Now the nightmare came to Lindsay nearly every night, and she awoke shaking, remembering the sound of screams and the color of blood.

But now it was too late to ask her mother why the dream came, why it would not go away, why Lindsay had the cold feeling that she had forgotten something crucial. Something cruel.

"Stop it," she told herself sharply, suppressing a shudder. "Most of what's bothering you is just a lack of sleep. Frightened people sleep badly, which is something you learned a long time ago."

With a grimace, Lindsay opened the catalog. Chimes sounded a moment later. She rucked the catalog under her arm and went to the front door of her apartment.

"Who is it?"

"Catlin."

The voice identified Catlin to Lindsay even more than the name. Reflexively she peeked through the spy hole. As though expecting it, he was thoughtfully standing far enough back from the door to be fully encompassed by the tiny lens.

With the catalog held precariously under one arm, Lindsay began opening the various locks that were de rigeur for modern city living. Even if she had been living in a cornfield, she would have locked her house in exactly the same way. The uncertainty and fear of her childhood had taught her that locks could be a definite aid to peaceful sleep. Lately, though, locks hadn't been enough. She was thinking of getting a dog or a cat, something that would be warm and real in the small hours of the morning when nightmares pursued her.

As Lindsay opened the door, the catalog slithered out from under her arm. Catlin's hand shot out with startling speed, grabbing the catalog before it fell farther than her hip.

"Window-shopping?" he asked, glancing at the cover.

For an instant Lindsay was too unnerved by both Catlin's speed and the hard warmth of the back of his hand moving over her hip to answer. She said the first thing that came to her mind. "Actually, it's more like hunting snipe. Come in."

Catlin caught her eyes and smiled suddenly. "Snipe?" he asked, glancing again at the catalog as he walked into the living room.

"Right," she said, closing the door and automatically throwing the dead bolt. "Lots of false trails, giggles from the tall grass – and no snipe."

Catlin's laughter was as warm and unexpected as the touch of his hand had been. After a moment Lindsay laughed with him.

"What kind of snipe did you have in mind?" he asked.

"How about a perfectly preserved bronze charioteer inlaid in gold and silver, half life-size, taken from Emperor Qin's very own tomb?" Lindsay asked whimsically, putting her own private fantasy into words.

Though Catlin still smiled, a subtle change came over him. "That," he said distinctly, "would be one hell of a snipe."

She looked at him suddenly, reminded of the moment in the basement when he had looked like a man anticipating danger. The rational part of her mind said that she should be afraid of this man. The irrational part of her – the part that she depended on for her visceral judgments of bronzes – told her that she was safer with Catlin than she had ever been in her life with anyone. As soon as that realization came to her, she relaxed, accepted Catlin without further questioning, just as she accepted her gift for discerning genuine from fraud among ancient Chinese bronzes.

"Yes, a charioteer would be a hell of a snipe," she agreed. Her smile turned down slightly at one corner. "But don't hold your breath, Catlin. The Chinese discovered the Emperor Qin's bronzes in 1980 – and then they covered them right back up!" She shook her head slowly. "Ever since I heard the first rumor, I've dreamed of seeing just one of Qin's bronze charioteers. Just one."

Catlin heard the longing in Lindsay's voice, saw it in the indigo depths of her eyes and in the soft curve of her mouth. "Have you?" he asked quietly.

"No. I've been to Xi'an three times. Each time I've wangled the VIP tour of Mount Li and the digs."

"And?"

"Terra cotta," she said. Then she heard her own words and laughed very softly. "Don't misunderstand me. To stand among Emperor Qin's resurrected army, to see rank upon file of soldiers erect in the trenches, faces as individual as yours or mine, men rising from the earth and marching down through time…" Her voice died, then resumed quietly. "To see that is to see a great people's soul given form and substance and texture. It's beautiful. It's terrifying." She hesitated, trying to explain the eerie magnificence that was Xi'an. "It is art," she said simply.

"And this?" asked Catlin, raising the fat catalog.

"Commerce," she said. "And maybe, just possibly, some true art."

"The auction house would be offended."

"I doubt it. They're better than most at finding quality artifacts and weeding out frauds, and they know it."

"But no Qin dynasty bronzes?" asked Catlin casually, riffling through the pages with a blunt thumb.

"No."

"How about rumors of Emperor Qin's bronzes?"

Lindsay shrugged. "Occasionally."

"Lately?"

She looked up from the pages flying by beneath Catlin's thumb and found him watching her. She felt as though she had stepped into a searchlight. His eyes were clear, intent and missed nothing.

"No more than usual – why?" she asked.

"What's usual?" countered Catlin.

"Ever since the first of the emperor's mortuary bronzes were found, every Tom, Dick and Hop Sing has one for sale," Lindsay said dryly.

"Bought any?" asked Catlin, idly fanning through the catalog again.

"No, but I've appraised a few for clients who had bought them elsewhere."

"And?"

"The worst of the bronzes had hardly cooled from the casting process."

"What about the rest?"

"One Sung forgery. Several genuine Han bronzes. One bronze from the Warring States period."

Catlin closed the catalog with a snap. The small sound startled Lindsay, who had been watching Catlin as intently as he had been watching her.

"Fascinating. I collect rumors as well as bronzes," said Catlin. "They, too, tell about the soul of man." He smiled. "Why don't we swap rumors over squid with ginger, Sichuan rabbit and shrimp with garlic?"

"Throw in pot stickers and you've got a deal," Lindsay said, suddenly realizing just how hungry she was.

"You're on."

Mentally Lindsay crossed her fingers, knowing that for every excellent Washington restaurant, there were three that were at best adequate. When the taxi deposited Catlin and Lindsay in front of the steps leading down into the Sichuan Garden, she mentally crossed another set of fingers. She had heard of the restaurant, but had never eaten there.

"Relax," said Catlin, smiling. "This place is owned, run and staffed by the People's Republic of China. You won't find a menu like this anywhere outside China and probably not inside, either. The Sichuan Garden is the PRC's showplace of Chinese cuisine."

The first thing Lindsay noticed as the door closed behind her was that in the restaurant's low light, Catlin's eyes became the clear, luminous brown of fine cognac. Then she noticed the enormous vases and intricately painted temple dragons that were on display. A Tang horse pranced in place, as vibrant today as it had been a thousand years ago.

"Some of the artifacts are genuine antiques," said Catlin, as he seated her. "Others are antique or modern copies. All of them are beautifully crafted."

"It's rare to find such valuable things on open display," Lindsay said. "I know a museum that would kill for the vase by the entrance."

"Displaying the art without barriers or guards is a subtle and very powerful display of face," said Catlin, picking up his chopsticks.

Lindsay glanced at him with increasing interest, realizing that he was right – and that he must know a great deal about the nuances of Chinese culture. When the meal was served, she realized that he must be as familiar with the everyday aspect of Chinese life as he was with the cultural. He used chopsticks as easily as she did.

"Were you born in China?" asked Lindsay, looking up from her plate, a tidbit of rabbit poised in her chopsticks.

"No. Why?"

"You use chopsticks like a native."

Catlin looked down at the chopsticks as though just realizing that he wasn't using a knife and a fork. He looked back at her. "So do you."

"I was born in Shaanxi province."

"Really?" Catlin asked, his voice encouraging. He wanted her to talk about herself rather than ask questions about his own past. Her file had shown up at his apartment, along with Yi's file, but there had only been time enough to skim the pages before he had to pick Lindsay up for dinner. Besides, he would find out a great deal about her inherent truthfulness if he could compare what she said with the information in her file. "I thought Americans were thrown out of China by then." He smiled suddenly, looking at her with open male appreciation. She was wearing a tourmaline green sheath that owed far more to Paris than to the Orient. "And don't try telling me you were born before 1949.1 wouldn't believe it."

"You're right. I wasn't," said Lindsay. She paused to savor a bite of her very spicy shrimp dish before she continued. "Dad was Canadian. Mom was American, but they kept that a secret as long as they could. When I was eighteen I had to declare citizenship in one country or the other. I was living in San Francisco by that time, so I chose to become American."