Part 32 (1/2)
He didn't pick up the conversational ball. Instead, he watched the room around them with eyes as clear and hard as diamonds. It beat watching Hannah fidget and wiggle in Honor's clothes clothes that had never looked like that on his sister. It was all he could do to keep from lowering his head and running his tongue deep into the cleavage that was so nicely displayed.
Irritated by his body's relentless hunger for the woman who had no use for him beyond s.e.x and protection, Archer turned his back and forced himself to focus on the room. The tail they had picked up as soon as they left the condominium was somewhere in the crowd behind them, fingering pearls as though she cared. The man who was with her didn't even pretend to care. He looked at everything but pearls.
Wistfully Hannah ran her fingertips over strands of gleaming dyed pearls. It had been nice to have a neutral conversation with Archer, if only for a few moments. Perhaps he could be lured back into it.
”Culturing pearls,” she said, ”inserting a bead, feeding and scrubbing the oyster for a year or two, then harvesting and grading the pearl I understand that. Once the seed is in place, the oyster is responsible for the color and l.u.s.ter of the pearl. How can they call this kind of manufactured dyed stuff pearls?”
”No problem.” Deciding their shadow was harmless, Archer turned back and faced the woman who could pierce his self-control with a word, a touch, a look. ”Some folks are calling imitation pearls 'semicultured.'”
”That's deceptive.”
”That's business. Let the buyer beware. Besides, pearl growers aren't eager to get into a public p.i.s.sing contest over cultured versus manufactured. Then people might start asking at what point a cultured pearl becomes a manufactured one.”
”When you add or subtract color,” Hannah retorted.
”Not to the j.a.panese. Or the Chinese, for that matter. Then there are the Arabs. To them, cultured is manufactured. Imitation. And we're not even touching on Majorica 'pearls'.” He tipped his head toward the next booth.
”Gla.s.s beads dipped in fish scales and glue,” she said, dismissing the legitimacy of the Majorica process.
”The people who produce Majoricas call the dip 'pearl essence',” he said blandly.
”More like essence of bull dust.”
”At least Majoricas have a brief history to recommend them. They've been made for a hundred years, they're heavier than plastic, cooler to the touch, and more expensive to buy.”
”But still imitation. Not pearl.”
He didn't argue the point. No part of a Majorica ”pearl” had ever seen an oyster.
Hannah went to another booth. This one also featured Akoya pearls, but of a higher quality. Sighing, she fingered the cool, silky weight of several necklaces. They had the pale blue overtone that was common to Akoya pearls in their natural state. The weight of the necklaces suggested that the pearls had spent a year gathering nacre in the oyster sh.e.l.l rather than the six months she suspected was the maximum for the previous booth. This booth also had the pink Akoya as well, but they had been handled with care and dyed with discretion. The drill holes were smooth and uniform. Not surprisingly, the price reflected the higher standard of production.
Quietly Archer urged her on around the room, milling at random through the booths, trying to make sure that only the government was following him.
”Wait,” she said suddenly. ”Aren't these beautiful? Odd, but beautiful.”
He looked at her hand on his arm. She didn't seem to be aware of having touched him. He wished he could say the same.
”Biwa,” he said curtly.
”What?”
”Freshwater pearls from Lake Biwa in j.a.pan.”
”What a lovely, icy, iridescent white,” she murmured, fingering a strand of the oddly shaped yet nearly identical pearls. ”A necklace of little crosses. Natural or cultured?” she asked, turning to him.
”Natural, probably. But the ones in the next booth certainly aren't.”
She looked at the next booth and laughed softly. ”Little Buddhas. How on earth...?”
”Same way maybe pearls are produced, on the sh.e.l.l itself rather than in the mantle of the oyster. Take a bead shaped like a flattened Buddha. Cement it on the inside of the sh.e.l.l. Cement lots of them, actually, like measles erupting all across the interior of the sh.e.l.l. The oyster just covers the intruders over. Six months later, the sh.e.l.l is harvested and the Buddhas are cut away. The Chinese have been doing it since the eleventh century.”
”Like blister pearls.”
Archer smiled slightly. ”Nothing is like blister pearls. They're naturals all the way. I have one in my collection that's as big as Summer's fist.”
”The pearl?” Hannah asked, startled.
”No, the blister. I haven't opened it up yet to see if there's a pearl inside the blister.”
The rise and fall of conversations around Hannah faded as she concentrated only on Archer. ”If there is a pearl, it would be natural. Priceless.”
”And if there isn't, if the blister is full of organic goo, the sh.e.l.l is worthless.”
”You won't know until you open it.”
”I've opened other blisters and found nothing but tar.”
”But you won't know about this one,” she insisted.
”Would you open it?”
”Of course. Not knowing would drive me crazy.”
”Even if you had opened other blisters?”
”Yes. That's what hope is all about. Knowing the odds are against you but going for it anyway.”
His black eyebrows rose. ”I should have been an oyster.”
”What?”
”Then you wouldn't be afraid to open me and see what's inside. But you're sure it's tar and there's no point to this conversation. Let's go. The bureaucrats following us are getting impatient.”
Touching her for the first time, he put his hand under her upper arm and led her toward a bank of elevators. Though the touch would look familiar to anyone watching, Hannah felt its lack of intimacy like a slap. There was no hidden circling of her skin, no tender caresses, no sweet feeling of connection, nothing but an impersonal pressure that directed her through the crowd.
”Where are we going?” she asked as the elevator doors closed.
They were alone in the cage that smelled of musty carpet, spilled espresso, and Chinese cigarettes. Asian nicotine addicts simply didn't get Seattle's no-smoking rule.
”To the next floor.”
”And then?” she asked.
”To the next. Then the next.”
”Do you really expect to find the Black Trinity in one of the retail stalls?”
”It isn't likely, but the Linskys aren't expecting me until eleven. If I'm lucky, I'll find a black rainbow in one of the wholesale booths. Then I'll trace it. If I'm not lucky, I'll have gotten a feel for what's new at all levels of the pearl market, and the two government bureaucrats following us will have learned more than they ever wanted to know about pearls.”
Hannah smiled slightly. ”What about the black pearl you already have? Why not trace it?”