Tell Me No Lies by Elizabeth Lowell Read Free Book Online Page B

get it?"
    "Then the other one must be real, too," said O'Donnel, ignoring her question as he pointed toward a kuang that was twice the size of the one she had rejected and much better preserved. The patina was an even dark brown.
    "That's a fifty-footer," said Lindsay, glancing up from the beautifully wrought hill-censer toward the kuang.
    "What's that?"
    "A fraud you can spot at fifty feet," Lindsay said dryly. "It's trying to be Shang, but the designs are Chou. The patina is a standard vinegar spray job. The proportions of the animal are wrong. Totally inept all the way around."
    Behind the mirror Catlin laughed softly. Like Lindsay, he had nothing but contempt for an amateurish job of deception. Unlike her, he had a professional's admiration for a fraud that passed unnoticed. After all, his life had depended on the success of being a living fraud – a covert agent living in enemy territory.
    As Lindsay proceeded down the line of bronzes, Catlin divided his attention between the two sides of the deceptive mirror. Stone, in particular, interested Catlin. Whatever Stone's area of expertise in the FBI, it obviously wasn't in art fraud, illicit traffic in antiquities or anything having to do with dubious artifacts of any kind. Beyond scoring Lindsay on a piece of paper, Stone spent his time watching Yi and Catlin rather than the bronzes.
    Catlin had a suspicion that amounted to a certainty that Stone was a member of the FBI's elite Foreign Counterintelligence Division. The certainty increased as Catlin listened in amused understanding while Stone tried to get more information from Yi than Stone had gotten from his superiors.
    "I hope your comrades will be well soon," said Stone.
    Yi acknowledged the conversational gambit with a nod of his head, but his black eyes never wavered from the glass.
    "Do you know when they'll join you?"
    "No."
    Stone watched Yi for a moment, then flicked a glance at the next room, where Lindsay's quiet comments made a counterpart to his own, more pointed, questions.
    "Are those bronzes anything like what you're looking for?" asked Stone.
    "No."
    "Do we have any deadline for finding your missing bronzes?"
    "No."
    "Where do you want to begin? West Coast? East?"
    "We have begun," Yi said simply, watching as Lindsay bent over another bronze.
    "Do you want to wait while we go through the whole list of experts?" continued Stone. "Two of them are still out of the country.''
    "That is up to you."
    "It's your expert we're picking," Stone said.
    "Is it? Your government insisted on giving me an expert to help in my search." Yi tossed his cigarette into a nearby ashtray. The butt rolled once, then lay and smoldered like a banked fire. Pungent smoke curled up, disturbed by random currents of air in the room. "I submitted a list of four Americans who are qualified to tell Chou from Qin under the most stringent circumstances. Your government submitted a list of twelve. We agreed to interview eight. You have interviewed six."
    The lighter snapped open as Yi turned away from the mirror, shielding the flame with his body and cupped hands. He inhaled, snapped the lighter shut and focused his black eyes on Stone.
    "Shall we compromise?" continued Yi in a clipped voice. "Our expert. As soon as we choose him."
    Silently Catlin admired Chen Yi, the consummate actor. Catlin knew what Stone did not: Yi would maneuver until the FBI chose Lindsay Danner. Catlin didn't know how the trick would be accomplished, but he was sure that it would be.
    "Some experts," Stone said sarcastically. "More than half of them are under suspicion as either crooks or con artists. Wouldn't trust them to tell me if a nickel was wood or metal."
    "Caveat emptor," said Catlin, "is the motto of the art trade."
    Yi looked sideways at the man he had gently blackmailed into helping him.
    "It's Latin. It means let the buyer beware," said Catlin, translating without being asked.
    "Ah!" Yi laughed abruptly. "Not every wise man was born in China."
    Stone took a