Part 23 (2/2)
”What about your father's company?”
”Donovan International?”
”Yes.”
He shrugged. ”We have offices in every country that has significant mineral reserves, if that's what you mean.”
In mock salute she touched the brim of the wide, floppy black hat she had picked up in the airport. ”Impressive.”
”That's The Donovan, all right,” he said, forcing a path through the crowded sidewalk so that they could stand close to one of the many display windows. ”Impressive. Like that pearl choker.”
He stepped back just enough to let her look past him into the display window. To the right, next to a long strand of golden pearls alternating with glittering diamonds, she saw a black pearl choker. The pearls were at least eighteen millimeters, as big as the choker Archer had bought for her in Broome. After that, all similarity between the two necklaces ended. These pearls had a fine l.u.s.ter, an iridescent blue-black color, and a fat six-figure price tag.
Frowning, she went in closer until she was all but pressing her nose against the gla.s.s. The city heat was so intense she couldn't have steamed up the gla.s.s with her breath if she tried.
She looked at the necklace with such concentration that the rest of reality just faded into background.
”What do you think?” he asked after a few minutes.
”Quite nice, despite the fact that the color match across the strand is only good, not excellent.”
He turned, looked at the necklace appraisingly, and then at her. ”Only good?”
”Yes,” she said, not glancing away from the window. There was no hesitation in her voice. ”I can't tell from here, but I suspect that the surface isn't quite up to the price on one or two of those pearls. If so, it would explain the less than superior color match.”
A slow smile spread across Archer's face. He thought of how quickly she had become a pouting tourist for the shopkeeper in Broome. He was accustomed to working alone, but he was beginning to appreciate just how useful she could be in catching pearl traders off guard.
”Can you play the part of an ultrafussy, not-too-cla.s.sy rich b.i.t.c.h without revealing how much you really know about pearls?” he asked.
”You mean the kind of spoiled brat who knows what she likes, never sees it, and could find fault with G.o.d?”
Archer laughed out loud. ”Perfect.” He ran his fingertips over Hannah's cheek in a light caress. ”You're looking for a very special black pearl necklace. You don't know what kind, but you'll know it when you see it.”
”How special?” she asked.
He shook his head, silently telling her not to mention the Black Trinity. ”As long as you don't describe right away how special the orient is, the necklace can be as special as you like.”
”A real colorful black,” she said, deadpan.
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. ”You got it. Let's go make the manager chew his very expensive carpet. If he gets irked enough, he'll let us into the vault in back just to show us how important he and his pearls are and how ignorant and ordinary we are. Then we'll see how much he knows and what he's saving for his special clients.”
And, depending on what Archer saw or didn't see, he would decide if it was time to put a rainbow cat among the sleek pearl pigeons.
”How do you know this store has the really good stuff hidden in a vault?” she asked.
”Stores like this always do. What's in the windows is just the lure. Besides, I've been in the vault before. That's where they keep their virgins,” he said, using the common name for pearls that haven't been drilled. ”Nice goods. Really nice.”
”Will someone here recognize you?”
”I doubt it. It's been years.”
He pulled out a pair of clear gla.s.ses. It looked like they were bifocal, but they weren't. There was just an extra thickness of gla.s.s at the bottom of the lens. The frames were thin, black, the latest in Italian flash. The lenses were amber tinted. The gla.s.ses, like the hat, completely changed the lines of his face.
She lifted her eyebrows in silent salute. ”Spoiled, b.i.t.c.hy, and way too picky. Anything else?”
”I don't know anything about pearls. And my name is ”
”Sugar,” Hannah cut in quickly. ”I'm rotten with names.”
”Sugar?” His mouth curled up at the corners. ”Okay, I can live with that. It beats b.u.t.tercup.”
”b.u.t.tercup?” She looked him up and down, lingering on the size and set of his shoulders. ”Doesn't suit.”
”Thank you. But that's what my sister Honor calls her husband when she's annoyed with him. And vice versa.”
”b.u.t.tercup. Is her husband, um, small?”
”Am I?”
”No.”
”Jake's the same size as me.”
”b.u.t.tercup.” She rolled the word around on her tongue and grinned. ”I like it.”
Archer had a feeling he was going to wish he hadn't let Hannah in on that particular family joke. Yet seeing her face light up with amus.e.m.e.nt was something he couldn't really regret.
The inside of the store was like a museum rather than a commercial enterprise. Instead of putting out as much merchandise as possible, the decorator had used empty s.p.a.ce to create a feeling of importance around the display pedestals. In place of the brilliant, pinpoint lighting used by jewelers to enhance diamonds and other faceted stones, the light aimed at the pearls in their satin nests was soft, carefully color balanced and often fluorescent rather than incandescent.
No gla.s.s caged the tops of the pedestals. Potential buyers were kept just out of easy arm's reach by burgundy velvet ropes. A very old, fabulously costly silk carpet m.u.f.fled the sound of expensively shod feet. French Impressionist paintings and works by ancient masters of calligraphy hung on the walls, adding to the feeling of richness and cultural worth. Intricately carved, museum-quality folding screens separated various areas. Quietly, repeatedly, the decor let customers know that they were privileged to be part of such elegance and taste.
The interior was divided into suites. Each had its own type of pearls. Freshwater baroques from every river, stream, pond, and lake in the world, in sizes from hummingbird to chicken egg. Salt.w.a.ter baroques from abalone whose rainbow orient was intense, but lacked the mystery of the Black Trinity's pearls. Small j.a.panese Akoya pearls, with their natural pale blue tones and their unnatural pink and silver ones. Larger Tahitian pearls, whose highlights ranged from steel gray to peac.o.c.k blue to jungle green. Big South Seas pearls with their silver-whites and radiant golds angel dreams fas.h.i.+oned into necklaces and bracelets, set into earrings and brooches and rings. The Australian pearls were biggest of all, legacy of the Indian Ocean's sweeping tides and the pearl farmers' skill.
Most of the suites held customers conversing in Chinese. There were a few speaking English and what might have been Italian. The suite specializing in black pearls was empty but for a man sitting at a desk. The polished bra.s.s plaque announced that he was Paul Chevalier. Archer knew that Monsieur Paul was one of Sam Chang's head pearl buyers, an up-and-comer from Tahiti who had his eye on one of the Chang granddaughters. If rumor was correct, the granddaughter had both eyes on the very handsome Paul.
Paul barely nodded to Hannah and Archer before he went back to his phone call. He left the distinct impression that he knew important customers on sight, and they didn't qualify.
Archer bent over Hannah, nuzzled and nibbled on her neck, and said softly, ”We're in luck. That's their top black pearl expert. If anyone can get us into the vault room, he can. Word is that he's a vain, self-important son of a b.i.t.c.h. The kind who loves to put people in their place, which is the dirt under his feet.”
Her slow smile was pure acid. ”Only in the colonies,” she said in a calm, carrying voice, ”would anyone think their great-grandmother's hallway rug was cla.s.sy.”
”You're the one who wanted to look at pearls,” Archer said. A tw.a.n.g had appeared in his voice, something between Oklahoma and Texas. ”We were told this was the place to look, darlin'. So look. Screw the rug.”
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