Dollar Down (16 page)

Knocked once, twice.

Silence.

I opened the door and closed it behind me. The only
light was the faint glow of the city filtered through a shuttered
window. In darkness, I sat on the edge of the bed and touched
Alexandra's hair. She lay still and quiet as death as I listened to
the rush of blood through my heart and pulled back the covers.
She wore nothing.

I undressed, lay beside her and kissed her neck and
breasts.

But for the sharp rise and fall of her chest, she did not
move either in response or in protest. Was it fear that stilled
her or something else?

I found my answer as I brushed my lips down her
stomach and found four silk scarves.

She'd been expecting me.

Sunlight eased softly into the bedroom and spun
golden accents through Alexandra's hair. Her head lay on my
arm; her face nuzzled against my chest. A musky afterglow of
passion had replaced the light scent of perfume.

I found a stray scarf, nudged Alexandra onto her back
and placed it over her eyes. "A mask."

"Kinky." It was the only word she'd spoken since I'd
come to visit.

I pulled back the covers and saw her in light for the
first time. Her physique had the same sculpted perfection as
her face. I looked at her, burning the image into my
memory.

"What are you doing?" She smiled playfully.

"Admiring."

She brushed the back of her hand across my belly. "Tell
me what you see."

I started with colors and traced the fine veins glowing
faintly blue through her translucent skin. Described the
flamingo-pink caps of her breasts before I kissed them and the
burnished beige at the juncture of her thighs before I caressed
it. She was dewy.

She pressed her thigh against my groin and made a
husky hum deep in her throat.

Last night had been a marathon. I just chuckled and
shook my head.

Alexandra pushed me over and straddled me. She tied
a scarf tight around my eyes and tied each of my wrists to a bed
post.

"Turnabout is fair play, but I don't think this is going to
be possible."

I felt her lips on mine; the nips of a tigress on my neck,
chest, stomach; a hard grip on the inside of my thigh.

The impossible turned out to be far more attainable
than I had guessed.

After I was freed from bondage, I beat Alexandra to the
kitchen to make coffee. While I was at it, Pascal called.

"
Que paso
, Irish. Short, balding and plump,
right?"

"Good morning, Pascal. Who are you talking
about?"

"That fits your description of Marcel Gatineau."

The Paris managing director of Winchell. "It describes
a lot of people."

"About five-foot-seven, but acts like he's
seven-foot-five, and wields a six-foot sword. He's too broad in the hips to
swagger, but he has a mean waddle."

"Yeah, that sounds like Gatineau."

"I saw him last night with our PDVSA man."

"What were they doing?"

"Just eating and talking. The Venezuelan was in a
crepes café. The short guy joined him later."

"Did you get photos?"

"Uh-huh. No audio though. There was one other man.
He showed up last. The three of them stayed nearly an hour,
and they all left together. I followed the Venezuelan back to his
apartment. End of story."

"I'd like to see your photos."

"Same place as last time, the jazz club. Is thirty minutes
too soon?"

"I'll be there in fifteen. Make it as soon as you
can."

Alexandra was in the shower. I opened the bathroom
door. "I need to meet someone. I'll be back soon."

She peeked out from behind the curtain. "Wait. I'll go
with you."

"I won't be an hour. It's just around the corner."

She pushed back the shower curtain. Water streaked
her face and body. "I'll wash you, very quickly."

"Got to go. I'll be right back."

"I won't be here." She turned up her nose.

"Yes you will. Coffee's made." I felt a fistful of water hit
my back just before I closed the door.

The café was still setting up for business when I
got there. Pascal arrived several minutes later.

"I don't have printed photos. You'll have to use this."
He handed me a digital camera. He also gave me recordings
from the bugs in the rooms of the PDVSA man. "The device
stopped transmitting last night, so there's nothing from
today."

"Any idea why?"

"Either it's busted or he found it."

"If he'd found it, he would have alerted his
colleague."

"Unless he's on something that doesn't involve the
other guy."

I already suspected that might the case.

He turned on the camera's display screen. "Tell me if
this is your man." The first image was a clear shot of
Gatineau.

"That's him. Did anything unusual happen?"

"No, but why do you think they met in a crepes
café? If it's business, they have an office. And why only
one and not both of the Venezuelans? Why a cheap café?
Gatineau is a rich big shot."

Pascal clicked to another image. "Here's the third man.
I don't know this guy."

I did. He was tall and suave and had curious eyes. What
I could not fathom was why he was meeting the Venezuelan
and Gatineau.

The third man in the photo, Geir Oddsson, did not
belong. I could have made a fit if he had met Gatineau alone,
but the presence of the PDVSA man made no sense that I could
see. Around the corner from the café, artists were setting
up easels, stools and paint stands. Tourists and locals alike
trickled into the Artist's Square and the cafes that fronted it. I
looked absently through the crowd, wondering what I had
missed in my meetings with Oddsson.

Burroughs had asked me why I was worried about
China's bug when there were suspiciously dangerous events in
the forex market. The overt answer was I saw only a coincident
relationship. What I needed was a logical tie—if there was
one.

Li, the Taiwanese door painter was daubing yellow
on the frame of a bicycle. He would know more about China
than I did. "
Zao an, Li xiansheng
," I said.

"Good morning." He looked up without smiling. "David
told me you met him."

"He was a lot of help."

"You were not." He looked back at his painting.

His response might have been unsettling under other
circumstances. As it was, it was just one more thing I couldn't
make sense of. "What was I supposed to help with?"

"You caused trouble for him."

"He said something like that. He was nervous the last
time I talked to him. He hung up on me, but I couldn't
understand why. Earlier, it seemed as though he liked
upsetting an enemy from the mainland, who couldn't do
anything to him because he's Taiwanese."

Li put down his brush and stared up at me. "Nothing he
can do? He can have David killed if wants."

"Over a translation?"

"Over anything, anywhere, in Paris, Hong Kong, Taiwan.
David is true Taiwanese. He has blood of the aboriginal people.
He is mostly Han Chinese, but his family has been there for
many generations. Do you know our history?"

"Some."

Li grunted. "In the early sixteen hundreds the Dutch
came and built forts. At that time, the population was mostly
Malay-Polynesian people. In the middle of that century,
General Koxinga was defeated by the Manchus in China. He fled
to Taiwan with bands of pirates and drove out the Dutch. In
sixteen eighty-three, the Dutch came back to help the Manchus
defeat the command that Koxinga had establish." Li folded his
hands as though he was set on a long story that he thought I
needed to know.

"The Dutch had an official presence, a suzerainty if
you will,
before
the Chinese arrived in Taiwan. The
Manchus were nominally in charge for about the next two
hundred years. In 1895 the Sino-Japanese war ended, and
Taiwan was ceded to Japan. The Japanese were harsh. We
fought them for five months, men and women, native
Taiwanese and immigrant Han Chinese, side by side for the
first time. We lost fourteen thousand against a few thousand
Japanese losses and most of those to malaria. We fought with
bamboo pikes against rifles.

"The Japanese built railways, roads and schools,
although with classes conducted in Japanese. Tokyo was trying
to incorporate the island into its national system.

"Dutch, Manchus, Japanese." Li held up a finger for
each new ruler. "The Manchus ruled at arm's length. We were
never an integral part of China. When Japan was defeated in
1945, Chiang Kai-shek sent an occupation force that did not
represent a Chinese government. They were like Koxinga and
his pirates. Not only did they make the Japanese look almost
benign, they were also corrupt. A massive protest by
Taiwanese lead to the February Twenty-Eighth Incident in
1947. More than twenty thousand people were murdered,
including most of the nation's elite.

"Soon after, the 'white terror' began. Thousands more
Taiwanese were arrested, tortured or killed. Chiang lost to Mao
and brought two million of his followers from the mainland.
The mainlanders accounted for only fifteen percent of the
population, but they imposed martial law on the other
eighty-five percent for nearly forty years. It was not lifted until
1987."

Li made a gentle, almost wistful smile. "So you see, it
has been less than thirty years since we got a taste of freedom.
It wasn't until 1996 that we had our first presidential election.
It was won by Lee Teng-hui. He was from Chiang's Kuomintang
party, but it had been much localized. In 2000, Chen Shui-bian
was elected the first president from an opposition party. After
four hundred years of domination, of fighting and losing, we
Taiwanese are in control of our own destiny at last."

Mr. Li lifted an eyebrow.

"Except." I said.

He nodded. "For our very, very, very big brother."

It occurred to me that the "why" I was looking for was
the same "why" you sought in a murder investigation. Motive.
"If Taiwan tried to escape that influence, how far do you think
China would go?"

"As far as it needs to."

"Force?"

"Of course. It hasn't acted yet, not because it has lacked
the will, but because it has lacked the capability. That's
changing. On Jinmen, one of our small islands just off the
mainland, there is a huge manmade cave in a mountain. It has
enough supplies for a large force to hold out for years. That
used to mean something, but what good is it today with
hundreds of missiles aimed at us across the Taiwan
Strait."

"It doesn't seem likely. China is becoming a prosperous
country, why would it use force?"

Li sneered. "Why don't you explain that to Tibet? To
Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. China has fifty-five recognized
minorities including small groups like the Hui Muslims. If
Taiwan can resist China's power, others might get similar ideas.
China wants hegemony in East Asia. That includes de facto
domination of its old enemy, Japan. For that it needs Taiwan. It
is strategic. If you don't understand that, just look at a map.
Naval bases in Taiwan would control shipping lanes that carry
oil to Japan and surround disputed waters in the South China
Sea."

Li greeted a group of tourists, and then ended his
lecture to me with a parting shot. "The only thing stopping
them is your Pacific fleet."

Ironically, the tourists who had stopped to admire Li's
paintings were mainland Chinese. I walked away and looked
back. They were laughing, chatting and bargaining. Li sold a
painting.

Alexandra really was gone when I got back, but I
wasn't there long before she showed up with a sack of
groceries.

She kissed me hello. "How did it go with your
dangerous friend?"

I took the sack and followed her toward the kitchen.
"The more things I turn up, the more confused I get. Do you
know Sabine's husband?"

"Geir? Of course."

"Is he friends with Gatineau?"

Alexandra stopped dead and turned to face me. "Our
managing director?"

"Yes."

"Why do you ask that?"

"Someone I know saw them together in a cafe."

"Someone you know?"

I wanted to ask her to stop questioning the questions
and just answer them. Instead, I ignored her. "A Venezuelan
who works for Petroleos was also there."

"Was it someone working on the study?"

"Yes, his name's Ruiz."

Alexandra made a series of faces as though each
possibility she thought of affected her emotions in different
ways. Finally she just said, "That's strange."

"Geir and Gatineau, are they friends?"

"Not so far as I know. I would be surprised if Gatineau
has any friends at all, only business associates. I could try to
find out, but I'm supposed to be in the country grieving for my
departed grandmother."

"Don't even try to find out. It probably isn't important.
Anyway, I can ask Geir himself, if I need to know."

"I'm not much help, am I? I can't think of
anything."

"There's no reason you should."

I still needed to send the vial of oil to Houston. With
the events of last night and Pascal's early morning call, I'd
forgotten. I asked Alexandra to call a delivery service.

"Let me see it again. It's glass, so I need to describe the
size for packaging. You can't use one of their standard
envelopes." She called the delivery company for me and
described the size and fragility of the vial.

The delivery man showed up with a few package
options.

"Pick one," Alexandra said. "Where are you sending it?
I'll fill out the forms for you."

"Thanks." I wouldn't even have been able to contact
the delivery company without her help. While she wrote, I
thumped the sides of containers to find the strongest one. I told
the deliveryman which box I wanted, and Alexandra swatted
her forehead.