Part 23 (1/2)
She braced herself and didn't budge. ”Not until you tell me what's going on.”
”Simple. We're going after the Black Trinity.”
Fourteen.
From the air, Hong Kong was a silent, glittering white dream sleeping between blue ocean and black land. From the ground, Hong Kong was an exhilarating nightmare. Noise. Traffic. Smells. Crowds. Urgency. The rapid rise and fall of the Chinese language ran like a seething river through the city's high-rise canyons. There was calm to be found inside walled residences, those private oases of proportion and elegance and silence. There was no calm on the streets. The streets were for reckless commerce, sharp-edged and unapologetic.
The change in government known as the Turnover hadn't diminished Hong Kong's wealth or ambition. The newspapers printed communist sentiments and exhortations daily, but the city was fueled by a breathtaking capitalism. Hong Kong was a neon-flas.h.i.+ng city of gamblers whose sheer dedication to money made Las Vegas look like a sixty-five-watt bingo parlor run by parish priests.
The streets boiled with pedestrians locked in unequal battle with delivery trucks, taxis, buses, motorbikes, bicycles, and private cars. Beneath the haze of vehicle exhaust, white was the most common color of the buildings. Dazzling rainbow bursts of neon signs climbed entire buildings, calling attention to commerce. Black was the usual color of clothes. Smoke blue was the color of the air in the streets where sidewalk vendors grilled snacks on braziers for the endless, restless, relentless tide of humanity.
Archer tapped the taxi driver on the shoulder and pointed toward the sidewalk. Without looking at traffic, the driver pulled over. Hannah tried not to look, either. Despite her dislike of the rain forest's primitive villages, she had never been comfortable in big cities. They were exciting. They were fascinating. They were exotic. But after a while, a numbing sort of overload set in. Then all she wanted was silence and s.p.a.ce. Cities offered neither.
”Almost there,” Archer said. He tugged down the black cowboy hat he wore. He had picked it up from one of Hong Kong's remarkable street vendors. Wisely, he had declined the dazzling diamond ”Rolex” the same vendor was ready to part with for ver' tiny cash, sir sir, ver' tiny.
”Anyone following us?” Hannah asked.
”We lost the last one in the meat market, when those German tour buses unloaded.”
”Did you recognize him?”
”Them,” he corrected. ”No. I just recognized the moves. But you could lose an elephant in that market. That's why I went there.”
Hannah swallowed and said nothing. Hong Kong's immense open-air food market had reminded her of a jungle without trees, Genesis without pages. Every kind of creature that walked, flew, jumped, swam, or slithered waited in cages for housewives and cooks to bargain over the cost of fresh protein for dinner. The cats and dogs were difficult enough for her to bear, but the monkeys were the worst, so nearly human in their silent pleas to be freed from the cage of heat and smoke and noise. Eventually, this meal or the next, they would get their wish.
Shuddering, Hannah put the memory of the cages out of her mind.
”Over there,” Archer said.
She followed his glance and saw the store without even having to stretch her neck; when they weren't being followed, being tall enough to look over the heads of most of the street crowd was an advantage. She couldn't translate the ideographs that flashed over the shop, but the owner obviously had his eye on world trade. Translations of the Chinese symbols were provided in j.a.panese and Korean ideographs, the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, plus the more familiar alphabet used by the French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and English speakers.
”No Arabic,” Hannah said.
”No Arabian buyers.”
”Why? Do they like hard gems?”
”They like diamonds as well as the next guy, but the Arab princes and oil sheiks have treasure rooms that are jammed with ropes of natural pearls,” Archer said. ”They've been harvesting naturals for two thousand years in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Gulf of Aden.”
”Bet they hated Kokichi Mikimoto.”
Archer looked around. Despite being literally shoulder to shoulder with other pedestrians, he and Hannah might as well have been alone. The people dividing around them were talking fast in Chinese, walking faster, and smoking as though there was a million-dollar prize for finis.h.i.+ng the most cigarettes in a day.
”Are you talking about the guy who patented the technique for culturing round pearls?” Archer asked.
She nodded.
”You're right,” he said. ”Mikimoto's not a hero in the Gulf. He blew the bottom out of the pearl trade when he destroyed the rarity of the pearl.”
”But not the beauty.”
”The child of moonbeams. Tears of the G.o.ds. The soul of the sea.” Archer smiled. ”Pearls are all of that and more.”
”But not cultured pearls, is that it?”
”Not to the Arabs. They say cultured pearls are inferior to naturals, and they'll say it as long as they have natural pearls supporting their currency along with the rest of the royal treasury.”
”What do you think?”
While people jostled and chattered and poured by on either side in a human tide, Archer looked across the bobbing heads at the window where a gleaming South Seas necklace was the centerpiece of one display. The choker was made of round pearls that had an unusual, almost tangerine orient. ”I think that gem-quality natural pearls are far too rare and therefore astronomically expensive to support any kind of extensive pearl trade. Fortunately for Chang's Sea Gems stores, the rest of the world isn't prejudiced against cultured pearls.”
”I admit to a prejudice in favor of black pearls,” Hannah said, looking at a matinee-length necklace that had a lovely dark l.u.s.ter. She would have liked to get closer to the window, but the crowd was like a moving, impenetrable barrier.
”Must be your American parents,” Archer said. ”Asians prefer silver-white. South Americans like South Seas gold. It's cla.s.sic white for Europe, pink for the low-ticket American Akoya trade, and black for the American luxury trade.”
She leaned very close to Archer. ”If the Asians don't like black pearls, why are we here?”
”j.a.pan loves black pearls. For the right gems, they'll pay twice what Americans would.”
”Then we should be in j.a.pan.”
”Last year. Or maybe next year. But right now, the yen is very weak against the dollar. Whoever has the goods will sell them where the currency and demand are the strongest.”
”America?”
Archer nodded.
”So why are we in Hong Kong?” she asked.
”When it comes to luxury goods, Hong Kong is the commercial crossroads of the world. If someone wants a quick transaction and is willing to settle for a cut-rate price, this would be the place.”
”Isn't this kind of shop too, um...”
”High-end for crooks?” he finished dryly.
”Right.”
”No matter where on the food chain you start, goods like we're chasing would end up in Sea Gems, where the clientele is rich enough to buy third-world countries but would rather have baubles.”
Hannah chewed lightly on her lower lip. She was still getting used to the taste of indestructible lipstick. ”Is Sea Gems part of the Chang family's holdings?”
”Sam Chang is the owner of record,” Archer said quietly, ”but you have to dig a long time to find that out. The store has the best pearls in Hong Kong, which is to say some of the best pearls in the world.”
”Both the name Sam and the name Chang are common, especially in the westernized East. Are you sure it's the same Sam Chang? Ian's father?”
Archer nodded. ”The old man owns and operates high-end pearl stores all over the world. Tokyo. Shanghai. Los Angeles. Manhattan. London. Paris. Rome. He was going to open up one in Moscow, too, but the ruble keeps cras.h.i.+ng.”