The Deceivers (15 page)

“Nothing as noteworthy as you I'm afraid. I'm in the art business, buying, selling, appraising, that sort of thing. Cambodia has one of the world's greatest art treasures, so I thought I'd check it out.”

“So you're going to Angkor Wat?”

“Yes. I have reservations on a flight in a couple days.”

“Then let me introduce you to someone.” He led me to a group standing on the other side of the terrace and gave a friendly peck on the cheek to a woman who appeared to be in her thirties. “Chantrea Son, this is Madison Dupre.”

We shook hands as he spoke.

“You two are on different ends of the same business. Madison is an art dealer from New York. Chantrea is a deputy director of Apsara, the government agency that administers Angkor Wat.”

Meeting a woman in the top echelon of management for the Angkor site was a piece of luck I hadn't counted on. Prince Ranar had offered to set me up with people to contact but I turned him down. I could hardly go around pretending to be on the make for looted antiquities if I came with a recommendation from the country's antiquities security chief.

“I'm sure you can find some nice pieces here in the city,” she said, speaking perfect English. “Of course, you don't want to touch anything that's prohibited from export.”

“I'm in the market for any piece with resale value, but I stop at robbing cultural treasures.” I obviously didn't want to give her the impression that I was here to buy looted pieces.

“Good. You'd be surprised how many foreigners come here with the idea they can slip a few dollars to a customs official and take home a museum piece. Unfortunately, sometimes even the locals get involved.” She asked Kirk, “Did you hear Hardy got arrested?”

“Yes. Two days ago, I understand, just before I left Siem Reap. For smuggling antiquities.”

My eyes perked up with interest. “What happened?”

“Hardy owns a bar close to Angkor Wat. They found some pieces when they searched his bar, but there's a rumor that it was a setup.”

“Was it?” I asked.

“Siem Reap is the main town near Angkor,” Chantrea explained. “Hardy's bar has been very successful. In fact, he's taking business away from the other bars. Getting accused of dealing in illegal antiquities is a good way to get rid of the competition.”

Kirk made a slicing motion across his throat. “You can get the death penalty for smuggling antiquities. They're especially hard on foreigners.”

Oh, wonderful. Something to look forward to—getting my head cut off or hanged or whatever they do to foreigners.

A man approached us and I cursed a silent
oh shit
. Of all people, why did it have to be him.

“Emmet Bullock, this is Madison Dupre.

His eyebrows shot up. “Not
the
Madison Dupre.”

“Are you someone famous?” Chantrea's eyes lit up.

“Not at all,” I said, shaking my head. “We met on the plane.”

“She's just being modest. She's very famous in New York art circles. She was the head curator at the Piedmont Museum before all that nasty stuff about buying stolen antiquities from the Baghdad museum came out.”

I forced a smile at the sleazy, arrogant bastard. Now I knew the reason for his smug look on the plane. “Yes, I accidentally bought one of the fifteen thousand or so pieces stolen from the museum when it was looted as American forces entered Baghdad. It cost me my job and a lot more.”

“I'm surprised you didn't mention on the plane that you were also in the art business, but it's a cutthroat business, isn't it. I imagine you're hot after a particular piece.” He gave me a wink.

“Just on vacation.” I was tempted to tell him I didn't mention anything personal because he gave me the creeps but I held my tongue out of respect for Kirk and Chantrea.

He gave me a belly laugh. “Sure. Art is like perversion, it's a 24/7 preoccupation. I'm here in Nom Pen to buy. Why else would anyone come to this shit hole? Here's a tip: If you're looking for pieces that can be exported, check out Sinn's shop at the Russian Market. There's always a few things left after the better stuff has been picked over.”

Chantrea cleared her throat. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I'm stealing Madison away for a bit. There's someone I think she should meet.” She took my arm and led me away.

“Charming bastard,” I said, once we were out of earshot.

“He's rather disgusting, isn't he? Comes over from San Francisco for months at a time. He likes to brag about the big-game hunting he does.” She rolled her eyes upward in a distasteful look. “He went to one of the so-called shooting ranches outside of town and paid a couple hundred dollars for the privilege of shooting a staked-out water buffalo with a machine gun.”

“That's real sportsmanship.”

“It gets worse. If I told you what he was really famous for, you'd shove your cocktail pick in his heart.”

I already wanted to stick it in his eye. I was about to ask Chantrea what Bullock was notorious for when Kirk came up behind us.

“Sorry about that, Madison, but he did give you some good advice. The Russian Market is a good place to start if you want to pick up Cambodian art pieces. Not antiquities, of course, those come with a death sentence, but there are plenty of reproductions, some of them quite good. Sinn is spelled with two n's and it has some good pieces.”

“Why do they call it the Russian Market?” I asked. “Was it started by a Russian?”

Chantrea shook her head. “Back in the eighties when the Vietnamese invaded and broke the power of the Khmer Rouge, they occupied Phnom Penh. The Vietnamese had a close relationship with the Russians and a lot of Soviet Bloc goods were sold in the marketplace.”

“You can buy just about anything there,” Kirk added, “from shoes and handbags to fake thousand-year-old Buddhas and fresh marijuana and opium.”

“My guidebook said drugs aren't legal anymore in the country.”

“They're illegal, but they're openly sold.”

He saw the question on my face.

“Cambodia is like the Roman god Janus—everything has two faces. Take prostitution. It's illegal, but you can easily buy an hour with a teenage prostitute for the price of a pack of cigarettes in the States.”

“Really.” A pack cost somewhere between five and six dollars.

“We also have some very nice aspects of the city,” Chantrea chimed in, smiling. “It's not a big city. You can see the most important things in just a couple of days. This area has a lot of popular bars and restaurants frequented by foreigners and across the street is a strip of park that runs along the river. You'll like the esplanade. It comes alive after the sun goes down and people come out for a breath of air.”

“A carnival atmosphere,” Kirk said. “You can even ride on an elephant.”

“We have the National Museum which is a stone's throw from here, and the Royal Palace, silver Pagoda, and emerald Buddha are not much farther. They give tours of the palace even though the king still lives there. You really should see the gardens, they're beautiful, and nearly as dazzling as the colorful tiles of the palace roof.”

“I'll skip the elephant, but I would like to see the museum.”

“Good. I'll be glad to show it to you. I have a meeting tomorrow, but if we start early, I can give you a tour of it. I'm not on the museum staff, but my position with Apsara gives me access to just about everything.”

“Okay, I'd love that.”

Kirk escorted me back to the Le Royal Hotel in one of the motorized rickshaws. “Don't let Chantrea's Pollyanna view of the city make you drop your guard. If you make a list of all the bad things in the world—heroin, teenage prostitution, rampant AIDS, illegal arms, money laundering, police corruption—you'll find it here in the city, in spades. If you don't believe me, take a look at the local English language papers—you'll find ads in it from outfits that will negotiate with kidnappers.”

I believed him. “Why don't you tell me more about it over a drink I still owe you?”

“You don't owe me anything.”

“Yes, I do. You came to my rescue.”

I found out he was actually staying at the hotel attached to the Foreign Correspondents' Club and had been in my neighborhood on business.

We went into the Elephant Bar, an ensemble of old world Cambodian elegance and charm. He ordered an Angkor beer.

“They have a popular drink here called the Femme Fatale. It's a mixture of cognac and champagne. They supposedly created it for Jackie Kennedy. Want to try it?”

“Sounds too potent to me right now. Maybe some other time. I'll just take purified water.” I wasn't in the mood for liquor.

After listening to him talk about the ills of a country plagued by land mines and unexploded bombs for half an hour, I started to yawn.

“I'm boring you, aren't I?”

I smiled. “No, you're not. I don't know why but my eyes are suddenly tired.” I couldn't avoid another yawn. “Sorry.”

“I can take a hint. You need your beauty sleep.”

“I guess I'm still bummed out from jet lag.”

“I'll walk you to your room.”

“That's not necessary.”

“No, I insist. That way I know you're safe and sound.”

He made it sound like my life was in danger.

My room was close to the elevator. “Okay, here we are … thanks for the escort and for helping me today … good night.”

We shook hands but after several seconds he still hadn't let go of my hand. He looked in my eyes for a minute. Was he hoping I would change my mind and invite him inside? I was attracted to him, but I didn't want him to think I hopped into bed on short notice.

“Good night.” He started to leave, but then turned around. “I'm glad we met today.”

“Me, too.”

He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and left.

A real gentleman
, I thought. Not at all like Detective Anthony.

I sighed. Of course, it would have been nice to spend the night in the arms of a man.

*   *   *

WHEN I LOOKED
at the clock, it was close to midnight. Even though I was ready to hit the sack, I had to do one thing before I went to bed. With the time difference involved I figured it was nine o'clock in the morning in San Francisco, a good time to catch an old art school classmate who worked at the National History Museum in Golden Gate Park.

“Oh, yes,” Hailey Phillips said when I mentioned Bullock's name. “Everyone in the Bay Area art world has heard of Emmet Bullock.”

“Major dealer?”

“Major prick … and you can add thief and pervert. His specialty is arranging for third world dealers to be victims of robberies.”

It didn't surprise me that Bullock was involved in a scam. Phony robberies was an old trick. Dealers couldn't just smuggle well-known antiquities out of the country. When the pieces showed up in an auction catalog in New York or London, the cat was out of the bag. So a “robbery” was arranged. And it didn't get reported to the police until the “thief” was safely out of the country and through customs with a phony bill of sale listing the items as reproductions.

If the antiquities were ever tracked to an auction, the antique dealer back in the country of origin just shrugged his shoulders and told the police the thieves must have smuggled the pieces out of the country and sold them with a phony provenance.

“Yeah, he didn't have a good reputation to begin with, and ripping off museum pieces from poor countries hasn't helped him.”

“Where does the pervert part come in?”

“I hear there's a warrant out for him. He had his computer repaired and the tech found a slew of child porn stuff on his hard drive.”

“I thought that only happened to priests and politicians.”

She was still laughing as I hung up the phone.

 

The
National Museum of Arts in Phnom Penh … has a very rich collection of Khmer art.… [I]t lacks the most basic things, including security, locks, telephone lines, resources, etc.; as well as poor displays. On one occasion an exceptional statue was returned to Cambodia and then stolen again. Since then it has completely disappeared from view, most probably into somebody's collection.

—MASHA LAFONT,
Pillaging Cambodia: The Illicit Traffic in Khmer Art

15

I met Chantrea for breakfast early the next morning. It was only seven yet the streets were alive and crowded, the noodle restaurants in full swing. On the smaller side streets people sat on squat stools and chatted as they ate their morning meal.

“The city wakes up early,” she explained, “stays open until midday, shuts down for the heat of the afternoon, and then continues working until early evening.”

Carts loaded with roasted peanuts, chicken and beef teriyaki sticks, and steamed dumplings lined the streets. Big blocks of ice were being dumped onto the sidewalk for food vendors to break up and keep their food from spoiling.

I followed Chantrea's lead and ordered spicy Shanghai noodles. “Is this the same theory as Mexican food—hot and spicy dishes keep you cooler?”

“Nothing keeps you cool except air-conditioning and an evening breeze. I'm sure they serve an American breakfast of bacon and eggs at the hotel, but I thought you might want to try the local food.”

“Great. I love Cambodian cuisine.” A small lie. I had actually never tried Cambodian food, but glancing around the other tables, I could see the food looked similar to the Thai and Chinese dishes I was used to eating.

“It's very good,” I said. The clear soup with noodles, bean sprouts, strips of shredded chicken, scallions, mint, and red peppers was hot and delicious.

“I thought you'd like it. Rice and fish are the main staples for the Cambodian diet but noodle dishes are very popular.”