Part 35 (1/2)
”It gets better. In India, where pearls have been pursued for thousands of years, both Buddhists and Hindus have a category of G.o.d called nagas. They're snakes that have a human head.”
”I think I've met them,” Hannah said wryly.
A smile flickered over Archer's mouth. ”Nagas are guardian G.o.ds. They guard pearls, drops of rain, and the elixir of immortality.”
”Maybe Jung was right about all those archetypes running around in human brains,” she said. ”Not to mention Freud. He would have a lot to say about snaky phallic symbols and pearly drops and all.”
This time Archer's smile stayed on his lips. ”I can imagine.”
So could she. And what she was imagining made heat slide into her blood. She wanted to hold Archer like that again, only this time she would taste as well as touch the liquid pearls that escaped his restraint.
He saw the small s.h.i.+ver that coursed through her. ”Do you want Honor's jacket?”
”What?” she asked, dragging her mind away from the image of him naked and potent as she bent down to him.
”This,” he said, holding up the jacket that had been folded over his arm. ”You're s.h.i.+vering. You're used to temperatures a lot warmer than the open floors of the Pearl Exchange.”
Rather than tell him that the goose b.u.mps coursing over her came from thinking about getting him naked, Hannah let him settle the jacket over her shoulders like a cape. The casual touch set off another s.h.i.+ver.
”Why didn't you tell me you were cold?” he asked, rubbing her arms briskly, careful to keep the jacket as a barrier to direct touch.
”I didn't notice.”
He gave her an odd look.
She looked straight ahead and wondered how other women dealt with being ambushed by pa.s.sion in public places. Especially when they were with a man who was doing everything but walk on the ceiling to avoid touching her, skin to skin.
”Angelique Dupres is Coco's half sister,” Hannah said in a low voice.
He simply nodded and filed the information away.
Side by side, not touching at all, Archer and Hannah went to every booth in the room. They traded off asking about the special black pearls. Some people had heard of them. No one owned any. Or if they did, they were keeping it secret.
”Here they come again,” Hannah said under her breath.
”Our shadows?”
”Um,” she agreed. ”What would they do if we walked up and introduced ourselves?”
”Chat with us until backup arrived. Then we'd have to go to the trouble of picking the new bureaucrats out of the crowd.”
”Better the devil you know, is that it?”
”Sometimes.”
”Is this one of those times?”
”So far.”
”And when it changes?”
”We'll lose them.” He looked at his watch.
”You're really angry underneath all that calm, aren't you?”
Archer looked at her with steel-colored eyes. The realization that she could see so well into him made him even more angry. ”Yes.”
”Why?”
”Someone told the Changs where we were. When I get my hands on her ”
”Her?” Hannah cut in.
Archer thought of April Joy: beautiful, intelligent, and above all, ruthless. ”Her. Definitely.”
Twenty-one.
Fred and Rebecca Linsky were in their eighty-first year of life and their sixty-second of marriage. Despite, or perhaps because of, that, they were known as the Battling Linskys. Lean, white-haired, childless, no taller than five and a half feet, they ruled their small pearl kingdom with a firm hand and an eye toward their employees' offspring. The l.u.s.trous pearls that had pa.s.sed through the Linskys' hands had paid for many college educations. Their doctor, who lived next door in one of Seattle's many waterfront condominiums, made house calls at least once a week and never charged them a fee; her entire education had been paid for with Linsky pearls.
While Fred and Becky didn't live at the Pearl Exchange, it was their true home. They had built it, nurtured it, and continued to enhance it with the presence of their Third Planet Pearls collection. The huge collection was housed on the top floor of the Exchange.
Hannah barely acknowledged the introductions Archer performed when the Linskys greeted them. She was riveted by the cases of pearl objets d'art, the one-of-a-kind jewelry, and all the rest of the Linskys' eclectic collection, including the sorting tables just visible through a doorway at the end of the huge room.
”Excuse me,” she said, turning back to Becky. ”What was your question?”
Becky laughed and put her fragile but not frail hand on Hannah's. ”I asked if you were interested in pearls. Your eyes tell me you are. Would you like to see the collection?”
”We both would,” Archer said, ”but I'm afraid we don't have time for the full tour.”
Hannah made a soft sound of protest.
Becky smiled. ”There are other days, dear.”
Because she didn't know how to say she might not live to see those other days, Hannah simply smiled in return.
”A short tour, then,” Becky said, pinning Archer with her faded blue eyes.
”A short tour,” he agreed. Becky's eyes might be faded, but her will wasn't. Displaying their collection to an appreciative audience was one of the Linskys' greatest pleasures. He wouldn't deprive them of it.
Smiling, Becky walked eagerly toward a smooth cherry wood cabinet that was four feet high and divided into drawers that were wide and shallow. The top of the cabinet was clear, beveled gla.s.s, giving a view into the contents of the first drawer.
”Pearls were the first and most perfect of all the gems men used to make themselves and the things they prized more beautiful,” Becky said to Hannah. ”The oldest pearl fishery we know of started off in Sri Lanka more than two thousand years ago. Others contend that the honor belongs to Persians, who have been bringing up sh.e.l.l in an organized manner for at least that long.”
Hannah looked down into the cabinet and saw what appeared to be irregular gold links forming a chain perhaps sixteen inches long. Small pearls, impaled on thin strands of gold, hung from some of the links.
”Forty-three hundred years ago,” Becky said, ”pearls are mentioned as tribute in China. Mother-of-pearl has been found in Babylonian ruins that are more than four thousand years old. Where there is mother-of-pearl, there is, inevitably, pearl itself.”