Meet Me in Venice (9 page)

Sitting in the truck, Lily handed over a wad of money to the “supplier.” He counted it, shaking his head in disgust that a woman had gotten the better of him, grunting his acceptance.

Mary-Lou was waiting for her and the two took their loot, loaded it into the SUV, then got back in.

Lily could feel the supplier’s baleful gaze boring into her as she
started the engine; she saw the guards lift their rifles, following them in their sights as they drove past. Sweating, she half-expected to feel the bullets thudding into the vehicle, but none came. Lily Song was a good customer; she paid cash and the supplier wanted repeat business. Maybe he would kill her one day, but not tonight.

The stolen artifacts in their padded wrap cloths bounced in the rear of the SUV as the two women headed down to the river and through the night on their long journey back to Shanghai.

“We did it,” Lily said jubilantly, taking out a cigarette.

“We did,” Mary-Lou agreed, noting in the spark of the flame from the lighter that Lily’s hand shook slightly. Hers did not. She closed her fingers over the small jade bowl hidden in her pocket and smiled. She would be rich at any cost. Lily did not know that her friend was also a thief.

PARIS

T
EN
days later, true to his promise, Bennett walked unannounced into Preshy’s store, laughing at her stunned exression when she swung round and saw him standing there. And within minutes it was as though he had never been away.

He gave her his cell-phone number and his e-mail address, and he returned every ten days or so after that. In two months they saw each other six times. Seven, Preshy thought, if you counted their first meeting, but it was as if they had known each other forever. Better, she believed, than many lovers who had been together for years.

They talked endlessly, when they weren’t making love that is, and there was nothing Bennett didn’t know about her and, she was sure, nothing she didn’t know about him. She knew his beautiful
body intimately, and how he made love; and she knew about his past lovers—not as many as she had expected. She knew how he felt about nature and food, exercise and travel, world events and movies and books. She also knew about his childhood.

Bennett told her he had been abandoned by his single mother when he was five years old and had spent his childhood years in New Hampshire, in a home for boys.

“I was too old to be a good candidate for adoption,” he said, “so I just had to get on with it, living in an institution with other kids like me. I never knew my mother, she simply dumped me there and I never saw her again. As for my father, I don’t even know who he was. Perhaps my mother didn’t either, and that’s why she didn’t care about me.”

He shook his head as though in denial, or else to shake off the bad memories, and there was a coldness in his eyes that made Preshy flinch.

“You don’t make many friends in an environment like that,” he told her bitterly. “All you want to do is get out. I won a scholarship to Dartmouth. It was there I learned everything there was to know about ‘real life’ as I called it. And that,” he said, smiling ruefully at her, “is why I am who I am now. And why I’m so busy making money, trying to eliminate those years of poverty and nonentitlement. I’m always on the move so there’s no time to form real friendships. Or maybe I’ve just been so caught up in becoming a success I’ve never made time for any close relationships. Until now,” he added, taking her in his arms. “And you, Preshy.”

SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH
the romance of it all: in love with their first meeting; in love with their partings when he went away and called her to say good night sleep well, regardless of the time difference. She was in love with their reunions when he came back to Paris, back to the apartment on rue Jacob, back to her waiting arms and her bed. She shared everything with him, the stories of her life, of her family; of Grandfather Hennessy and rich Aunt Grizelda; of her parents and the little she knew about Grandfather’s other granddaughter, Lily, who lived in Shanghai and whom she had never met.

She bought him gifts: a rare edition of John Donne’s poems that seemed to say all there was to say about passion and love; a special bottle of wine; a silly key ring with the Eiffel Tower on it—“to remind you of Paris and me,” she said, laughing. And he arrived with champagne and flowers and took her on a trip to the countryside where they stayed at a vast château made over into a hotel, and dined like royalty surrounded by servants.

How could romance not bloom, Preshy asked herself, lying in a silk-draped seventeenth-century bed in a vast gilded room with the moon outside the window bathing the gardens and parkland with a pale light. And looking at the beautiful sleeping man next to her, she thought this was surely Love with a capital
L
.

As though he felt her gaze, Bennett’s eyes flew open. “Preshy,” he said sleepily, “I don’t think I can live without you. Will you please marry?”

In love with the moment, the romance, the place, Preshy didn’t hesitate. “Yes,” she said and proceeded to cover his face with kisses.

“When?” he demanded.

“Right now,” she said, laughing. Then, “Oh, but I can’t. First I have to tell Aunt Grizelda.”

“Don’t worry about Aunt Grizelda,” Bennett said. “I’ll do the right thing. I’ll go to Monte Carlo and ask her for your hand in marriage.”

THE NEXT DAY, BACK IN
Paris, he took her out to dine at the restaurant Jules Verne high atop the Eiffel Tower, where over champagne and oysters he solemnly presented her with a ring, an antique cushion-cut diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds. He put it on her finger while the other diners applauded with encouraging cries of “Bravo.”

What, Preshy wondered, as she looked at her diamond engagement ring sparkling like the lights of Paris spread out before them, could be more romantic than this? But then Bennett always seemed to do everything right.

“We’ll live here,” he decided. “I’ll commute from Shanghai, but I’ll try to get home more often now. As often as I can,” he added, his eyes devouring her and sending tingles through places she hadn’t known could tingle. “And tomorrow,” he added, “I’ll ask your aunt Grizelda if she will hand you over to me. I hope she’ll approve,” he added, looking suddenly doubtful and making her laugh again.

“Of course she will, you can’t fail,” she said.

CHINA

M
ARY-LOU
had been showing up for work every morning, sullen and unable to concentrate, and it hadn’t taken Lily long to realize what the problem was.

“So, where’s Bennett?” she asked as they were driving the stolen antiquities to a client’s private warehouse.

“Why? What d’you mean?”

She was so defensive that Lily laughed. “I guess that’s all the answer I need. It didn’t last long, did it?”

“He doesn’t answer his phone, he doesn’t call . . . . I suppose he’s gone off to the States on business. Or Paris,” she added, as an afterthought, recalling their conversation at dinner when Lily had mentioned her cousin.

“He goes to Paris often?”

“So he says. But . . .”

Lily took her eyes off the road and glanced quickly at Mary-Lou. Her mouth was pulled into a tight line and there was a frown between her eyebrows. “But . . . what?”

“Ohh, I don’t know,” Mary-Lou said wearily. “I thought it was the real thing this time,” she said truthfully. “It was on my part anyway.”

Lily patted her friend’s arm sympathetically. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Maybe he’s just been too busy. Men are like that sometimes. I speak from experience, because as a businessperson that’s the way I am myself,” she added. “There’s no time for diversions.”

“I never thought of myself as merely a ‘diversion,’ “ Mary-Lou said bitterly, making Lily smile.

They completed their delivery and drove quickly away, their responsibility over. Lily didn’t want to know about the private plane waiting at the airport or how the buyers were going to get the stuff on board and out of the country. It was none of her business. She had the cash in her bag and that was all she cared about.

She paid Mary-Lou a hefty bonus, as she always did for taking part in a risky operation, and told her that she had another trip planned. “In a couple of weeks’ time,” she said. “Okay?”

Mary-Lou nodded but her mind was far from the Yangtze River. She took the rest of the day off and spent her bonus in the boutiques on the Nanking Road, but she wasn’t even truly concentrating on shopping. The sale of the necklace was running through her mind in an endless stream of rubies and diamonds and the priceless pearl . . . And how to find a buyer.

She had a single contact in the jewelry world—the diamond cutter, Voortmann, who she used to reshape the stolen jewels
she fenced. She called him and drove over there immediately.

Voortmann was a bald, soft-bellied, shabby Dutchman who had learned his trade in the diamond markets of Amsterdam. Long ago, he’d been convicted of theft. It wasn’t a major heist but in the diamond trade once you were convicted, you were an outcast. He’d made his way via Bangkok to Shanghai, where he now kept a low profile, cutting diamonds for the lower end of the trade, and he did his job well. But everybody in Shanghai had a sideline and his was selling stolen jewels, as well as recutting them. The occasional job Mary-Lou brought him was not substantial but he never turned away business. Now she said she had a proposition to put to him.

He buzzed her in through the double steel gates, hearing her high heels clatter as she came up the wooden steps to his second-floor office. She paused at the locked door and he buzzed her in again. “Take a seat,” he said, switching off the high-intensity lamp over his workbench and swiveling his chair to look at her. He thought, surprised, she seemed frightened. His hackles rose warningly, he couldn’t afford trouble.

“What’s wrong?” he asked abruptly.

“Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that I have a proposition to make you. It’s very special. Unique in fact.” Mary-Lou had made a copy of her necklace photograph on her home printer. She opened her purse and took it out but she did not give it to him right away.

“What I’m about to show you is confidential,” she said. “It must go no further than us. This is serious business, Voortmann. Do you understand?”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Some society woman in Hong Kong is missing a ten-carat diamond?”

She shook her head impatiently. “More,
much
more than that. First, listen to what I have to say.”

She told him the story of the Dowager Empress’s stolen jewels and the burial pearl, then sat back waiting for his reaction.

He shrugged, bored, glancing at his watch. It was time to close up shop and head for the bars. He managed to stay sober all day so his hand didn’t shake—yet. He couldn’t afford that in his line of work. But at seven p.m. he became a different man. “So?” he said.

She finally handed him the photograph. “This is what happened to those jewels,” she said. “And that is the infamous pearl.”

Voortmann studied it in silence. It was a blurred picture, obviously taken in secret and with bad light, but if the story was true then he was looking at something remarkable. “How do I know it’s not a fake?”

“You trust me,” she said simply.

He looked at her. She wasn’t giving him the song and dance, and making excuses, and for once he thought he could. He sat back in his big chair, arms folded across his chest, looking intently at her. Her beauty had no effect on him. Alcohol and opium were his lovers and every cent he made went to fuel those addictions. “So? What do you want from me?”

“I want you to find me a buyer?”

“Hmm. I assume you have the necklace in your possession?”

“I can get my hands on it—immediately if necessary.”

“It’s obviously stolen. A piece such as this, the police will be on top of it. It’s a dangerous game.”

“No one knows about it, it’s been hidden for years.”

“Who has it?” He couldn’t leave anything to chance.

“It belonged to a family. And when I take it, it can never be reported to the police. This piece would be confiscated, Voortmann. And the owner would be jailed. Of course this does not concern you, or me. All I want you to do is find the right buyer. And soon.”

Voortmann thought about it. Like Mary-Lou, he saw riches dance in front of his eyes. This could be the deal of the century. But how to pull it off? It would mean using his old contacts in Amsterdam . . . It might just be possible . . . . “I’ll see what I can do,” he said finally. “But I need to see the necklace first.”

She closed her purse with a snap. “No deal,” she said, confident now.

Voortmann sighed. “There is only so far we can go on hearsay,” he said coldly. “An important piece like this, the buyer will need to see it.”

Mary-Lou slung her bag over her shoulder and got to her feet. She smiled at him for the first time. “We’ll face that problem when we get to it,” she said. “And remember, you need to work fast.”

Voortmann buzzed her out of his grimy office. He heard her quick footsteps as she ran back down the stairs, then the buzzer signaling she wanted to get out. He opened the gates for her and heard them clang back into place. He sat back in his old leather chair, swinging gently from side to side, hands steepled in front of him, eyes closed, thinking about what might, if she were telling the truth, be the deal of a lifetime.

After a while he got up and put the photo of the necklace in his pocket. Then he locked his office, let himself out through the steel gates that had imprisoned him ever since Amsterdam, and headed for his favorite bar. Tomorrow, he would make some calls.

MONTE CARLO

T
HE
apartment in Monte Carlo that the two widows and old friends, Grizelda von Hoffenberg the aristocrat, and Mimi Moskowitz the ex-showgirl, called home was like a movie set from the 1930s, white on white with chrome and silver accents. A wall of windows overlooking the bay was lined with fragile voile curtains that billowed in the sea breeze. Shaggy white rugs were flung across pale limestone floors and oversized sofas were covered in white brocade. There were glass consoles and chrome-legged glass coffee tables; mirrored tables and cabinets. The walls and ceiling were painted a shade known as Bridal Pink, which while not exactly pink and not exactly white, contrived to give a soft glow to the room.