Part 8 (1/2)
”When do you leave?”
”After dawn. One hour.”
”Is there extra dive gear?”
Nakamori looked at Archer from head to heels. ”Mr. McGarry gear fit chest. But bottom...” The j.a.panese shrugged. ”Sorry. No fit.”
”If I get too cold, I'll sit up top until I'm warm again. Make sure there's room for Hannah, too.” Archer looked at her. ”I a.s.sume you dive.”
She smiled, thinking of the hauntingly beautiful ocean beneath the surface, where colors flowed into a thousand shades of blue and all was grace. ”I haven't really been diving since the storm. Christian said there wasn't room, and I didn't want to get in the way of salvage work. Then the engine started having problems. It's fixed now?” she asked, turning to Nakamori again.
”Not now,” he corrected. ”Tomorrow.”
”Right,” she said. ”Tomorrow.”
”If calm,” he added.
She looked out at the sky. No huge clouds loomed or gathered in a solid western wall. ”It will be fine.”
Nakamori went through the front door, paused on the verandah, and looked back. ”Mrs. McGarry?”
”Yes?”
”My divers must feed families. They ask if need find more work.”
”Everyone who works for Pearl Cove will be paid,” Archer said, understanding the question Nakamori was too circ.u.mspect to ask outright. ”Tell your men.”
Nakamori's black eyes scanned Archer with shrewd intelligence. ”Flynn say Pearl Cove ffft no good. Banks not build again.”
”If you work, you get paid,” Archer repeated.
”How?” Nakamori's voice was polite but insistent.
”By a check drawn on a Hong Kong bank.”
”Mr. Donovan,” Hannah said quickly, ”is a partner in Pearl Cove. He is underwriting what needs to be done.”
Surprise flicked like a whip over Nakamori's face, followed by no expression at all. ”Pearl Cove okay?”
”Pearl Cove is a mess,” Archer said, ”but you'll be paid for every hour you work.”
”Okay. I tell.” Nakamori bowed slightly and went out into the yellow violence of the sun.
”I don't want to leave you alone while I dive,” Archer said. ”Are you comfortable diving?”
”Is an ama?” she asked, smiling slightly, thinking of the famous female pearl divers of j.a.pan.
A smile split the darkness of Archer's beard. ”An ama? Do you wear what the amas wear, too?”
”White blouse and trousers? No.”
”They only wear that for the shows put on by the big j.a.panese pearl growers for tourists and government officials,” he said. ”The amas of old wore nothing but a G-string. They wanted to slide like fish through the water while they dove for sh.e.l.l.”
”Must have been chilly.”
”In j.a.panese waters, it was d.a.m.ned cold,” Archer agreed. ”But they worked hour after hour anyway. They kept up their energy by taking breaks to grill and eat whatever they found on the sea floor during their dives. And they gave a haunting, whistling cry when they surfaced after a long dive....”
Though he spoke to Hannah, his eyes were on Tom Nakamori, who was walking down the path to the pearling sheds. One more name to give Kyle to run through his computer. The j.a.panese man might be nearly sixty, with joints that screamed each one of his years as a diver, but he was plenty strong enough to slam an oyster sh.e.l.l between Len's ribs. Especially if he whacked him over the head with a board first.
”Any other players I should know about?” Archer asked, turning back to Hannah.
”What do you mean?”
”Flynn and Nakamori both have the strength and the access to murder Len. Who else benefited?”
She closed her eyes and fought a sharp battle with her stomach. ”I don't see how either Christian or Tom benefited from Len's death. If Pearl Cove goes under, they both lose their jobs.”
”Jobs aren't hard to find along this coast, especially for experienced pearl men.” And unless he was badly mistaken, the young Aussie had more than one job in any case. Archer turned away from the verandah and watched Hannah with eyes that showed only a ghost of green and no blue at all. ”Who else?”
”Ian Chang wants to buy Pearl Cove. Or seventy-five percent of it, anyway. He wasn't here during the cyclone, so he can hardly be a suspect, but he does know about the special pearls. I don't know how. Maybe Len told him.”
”Secrets are hard to keep, especially one like that. Even Len couldn't have done it year after year after year,” Archer added absently. He was running through his mental file marked ”Chang.” Nothing that came back was good news. Maybe Ian belonged to a different branch of the Changs. Maybe... but somehow Archer didn't think he would be lucky on this one. Not the good kind of lucky.
”This past year was the worst,” Hannah said. ”Len told me he was certain someone had stolen some of the experimental oysters just before we started harvesting.”
Archer shrugged. ”If Len hadn't been so d.a.m.ned clever playing off one group against another, he would have been stolen blind years ago. Ian Chang, for instance. Would that be Sam Chang's Number One Son? The Changs of Chang Enterprises International? The Changs who own a hefty slice of the Pacific Rim pearl trade and are looking to acquire more?”
She looked at Archer warily, sensing the intensity beneath his neutral voice. ”Ian's father is called Sam and is a businessman. Otherwise, you seem to know more about the Changs than I do.”
”What do you know about Ian Chang?” Archer asked.
”He works for the family business, has interests from mainland China to New Zealand, and single-handedly helped Australia pry the pearling industry's technology away from the j.a.panese monopoly. From what Christian has said, Ian with Australia's help is now working on ending j.a.pan's pearl soles monopoly.”
”Married?” he asked, surprising Hannah.
”Yes. Five children. And if gossip can be believed, a mistress. Several, actually.”
”Sounds like Sam's Number One Son,” Archer said dryly. ”How much did Chang offer for Pearl Cove?”
”The Changs would a.s.sume all debts and rebuild the farm operation.”
”Millions, I a.s.sume.”
She closed her eyes for an instant. The thought of how much Len had allowed Pearl Cove to slide into debt did nothing to settle her nerves. ”Yes. Millions.”
”Did you turn Chang down?”
”For Pearl Cove?”
It didn't take Archer a heartbeat to figure out what other offer Chang might have made. ”Pearl Cove and anything else he might have put on the table.”