The Deceivers (20 page)

Kirk and Bullock. My new lover and a scummy crook. They were standing on the sidewalk in front of a shop. I could see faded green paint on a sign advertising the shop as Sinn's.

My nerves went on fire. That miserable bastard. Kirk told me that he had to leave town early to disarm a land mine halfway to Angkor.

What a fraud. He'd shown contempt for Bullock at the Foreign Correspondents' Club but here they were, chatting away like old pals.

Bullock walked away, going down the street away from me, while Kirk got into a big white SUV parked at the curb and drove off.

I waited a moment, shaking my head at the old woman running the shop. I left her a dollar for taking up space for a moment and headed for Sinn's shop under the theory that the best time to visit the shop was right now when I knew people I didn't want to run into weren't there.

My intuition was right about Kirk. I couldn't trust him. My temper was high enough that I must have had steam coming out my ears as I thought about Kirk. What kind of game was he playing? I knew it had to be dirty if it involved Bullock.

Was it bad karma or what? I wasn't a bad person but lately it seemed like I was attracting the wrong people. Maybe I deserved it, like water seeking its own level, but I couldn't think of a reason why.

Sinn's store looked like the other storefront shops—a big front window too dusty and too buggy to see into the dimly lit interior. I entered, setting off a jangling bell attached to the door. The place had the distinctive smell of burnt marijuana.

A woman making thumping noises as she walked came out of the curtained opening to the back, smoking a cigar.

Sinn, I presumed, an observation aided by the fact a black and white picture of her standing next to a Cambodian notable—politician, king, or whoever—was prominently displayed on the counter.

She had stumps ending at the knees with prostheses for legs. A land mine victim.

The “cigar,” which looked like an awkwardly rolled wad of pot, added to the pot smell in the room. Hopefully the marijuana helped whatever pain she endured.

Her English was as nonexistent as my Cambodian but we found common ground with hand signals and facial signals. I noticed her French was slightly better than mine.

She thought I was a tourist and immediately began showing me souvenirs. I kept trying to convey the impression that I was a clueless American with too much money and it seemed to work because she finally brought something from under the counter that pinged as the real McCoy.

She laid a pretty battered, chipped, and broken sandstone Buddha about four inches tall on the counter. I examined it. I had a feeling that it was real, centuries old, but not a very valuable piece. It was neither in good condition nor did it demonstrate fine craftsmanship. The only thing it had going for it was old age. I wouldn't have paid more than a couple hundred for the piece even if I could have gotten it out of the country. But I had established a major point: she dealt with antiquities. Now the question was whether she had something of museum quality.

I shook my head and got across again that I wanted a finer piece. Finally, I cut to the chase. Taking a hotel notepad out of my handbag, I wrote down $10,000.

She looked at the figure and back at me and disappeared into the back room much faster than anyone on poor quality prosthetics should have been able to move.

She came back with a small bundle wrapped in newspaper. She laid it on the counter and carefully unwrapped a small piece of sandstone. I froze. Like the piece Sammy showed me, it was a bas-relief of a scene from Hindu mythology—the god Vishnu with the celestial nymphs called Apsarases.

“Twenty thousand American.”

That came from her in perfect English.

I took the magnifying glass from my purse. “I need to look at it.”

The lighting was bad, but I was only looking for one thing and I found it. The half moon mark.

The piece was a fraud, made by the same artist who had made the Apsaras piece Sammy had in New York and who was suspected of making the Siva that went for millions at auction.

“Twenty thousand American,” she said, again.

“Yes, I heard you.” I knew she would take ten, probably even less. She had to know it was a fake. A marvelous one, but a reproduction nonetheless.

I looked up at the woman. She saw through my facade and read me right—I wasn't really a buyer. I had been putting her on. Her eyes narrowed, her lips had tightened. She looked meaner than a Rottweiler whose bone I'd just grabbed.

Panic hit me. What was I doing? I finally stumbled onto something important, something I could report to Ranar, and I felt like a scared kid. I had to get out of there.

I hurried out the door. I stopped and snapped back at her, “It's a fake.”

“Of course it is,” a voice behind me said.

I gasped and spun around.

Bullock
.

*   *   *

WHAT A SHIT.
I awoke in the middle of the night and laid in bed thinking about that jerk. Kirk, not Bullock. Bullock wasn't human enough to be called a shit. I nearly passed out when I ran into Bullock holding a cup of iced coffee outside the shop. I left him leering—not grinning—at me as I dashed around him.

No, it was Kirk on my mind. Damn him. I thought I had found an ally, someone I could trust and who was tough and street-smart and was good-looking and sexy on top of that.

Should I tell Ranar about the fake piece at the shop? I realized the woman wasn't violating any laws—there was no law against selling a fake as a fake and I suppose in Cambodia it's buyer beware—no one's going to have sympathy if you buy a fake thinking you're robbing the country of a priceless antiquity. But there certainly was a connection to the New York sale.

I decided to keep the information under wraps until I had resolved in my mind that Ranar could be trusted.

It would be nice to find someone in the country who I could trust.

20

An official car with two Culture Ministry security officers was waiting for Rim Nol when he came out of the Killing Fields main gate after his shift.

He kept his features inexpressive as he obeyed the officer's command and got in the back of the car.

“Where am I being taken?” he asked.

“Shut up.”

The command was spoken without malice or even irritation and he accepted it without anger, just as he accepted without complaint what he thought to be his detainment, if not arrest.

When they were near the river on the outskirts of the capital, Nol realized where he was being taken and confirmed his suspicion of who had commanded his presence. He had attended a reception at the sprawling palatial mansion and on several occasions had delivered museum documents.

It was the home of Prince Ranar. He had an official office at the ministry building but preferred working out of the comfortable, climate-controlled atmosphere of his home.

The two officers escorted Nol into the house and to the reception area outside Ranar's office. Nol sat for an hour until the prince was ready to see him. It occurred to him that the wait might have been designed to make him nervous and more eager to please when questioned.

When he entered the office, Ranar gestured at a cold pitcher of mango juice, but Nol smiled politely and shook his head. His mouth was dry but he was afraid his hands would shake if he held a glass.

“Tell me everything you and the American woman discussed at the museum,” Ranar said.

Nol started to speak and Ranar held up his hand to stop him.

“Also tell me why she met you at Choeung Ek. And what was said there.”

*   *   *

CHANTREA ENJOYED HERSELF
in the pool at Ranar's villa while Nol was being questioned. She swam naked, bathing in the cool, sweet waters in the atrium courtyard. She loved the tropical paradise Ranar had constructed in the center of his residential compound—with a domed, glass roof and temperature-controlled climate, the atmosphere was pure, bugless, and serenely pleasant. Best of all, Ranar's wife stayed in another section of the residence.

When she saw Ranar come into the atrium Chantrea leisurely swam to him. She stepped out of the pool, unashamed of her nakedness. Almost forty years old, her body was still firm and sensuous.

Ranar had seen her naked before but his eyes still feasted on her body. He pulled her toward him and kissed her on the mouth, tenderly at first, then with fiery passion.

“You have a very beautiful body. You know that, don't you?” he said huskily.

“Yes, I do.” She lightly toweled off as Ranar got out of his expensive clothes, dropping them at his feet for the servants to pick up later. “So what did Rim Nol have to say?”

“The woman was curious. She asked some interesting questions.”

“Like?”

“Why was the Siva chosen when it's a museum piece? How did the artist duplicate it without being able to examine it at length? I already knew these issues puzzled her.”

“Good questions,” Chantrea said. “I hope he didn't answer any of them.”

“He says he didn't.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I believe him. But he's weak. And idealistic. Two bad traits for someone to keep their mouth shut.”

Ranar gave her nipples a squeeze before he waded naked into the pool. Good living was putting a ridge around his waist, still only bicycle tire size, but noticeable.

The door opened and a girl entered.

The first thing Chantrea noticed was her age—she was young, probably no more than eighteen.

Chantrea wasn't surprised that another person was joining them. Or that Ranar came out of the pond with an erection. He picked up a towel and patted himself, not bothering to hide his engorged organ.

The girl was a younger sister of Ranar's. Their father had been married four times and produced a brood that left big age differences between the half-blood siblings.

The old man had neither the power nor the money that Ranar had accumulated. Chantrea heard that Ranar and his father were not on good terms.

“My sister wants to go to a fine arts university in Paris. She needs money and a letter of recommendation from the Ministry of Culture.”

Ranar looked at the girl and nodded at the pool. She dutifully took off her clothes and went into the water.

Chantrea knew her own body gave a man much more pleasure than a young girl's. “Young stuff” was a psychological titillation for men, not so much a pleasurable physical one. It made men feel younger and more virile, but like the affects of liquor, it was a form of false courage. She lay on the soft grass and was already starting to get wet from the anticipation as she waited for the young girl.

Ranar motioned his head toward Chantrea as the girl came out of the water. He had long ago become bored with having sex in a way that was considered customary.

Chantrea went along with his sexual deviations not because Ranar told her to, but the truth was she found the experience of sex with two people titillating. Having another woman touch her while being stroked by a man aroused her much more than a single sex mate. And having sex with another woman was definitely more erotic.

She also knew that she wasn't that much unlike the girl who was fucking for a French education. Not having the education and career opportunities granted upperclass men, Chantrea and the girl both chose to feed a wealthy, powerful man's ego and lust in exchange for the opportunity to live richer lives themselves.

Chantrea slowly spread her legs apart and drew them back. The girl came toward her and knelt between her legs. She was hesitant at first, so Chantrea leaned up and took the girl's head and pushed it down between her legs. “Lick me with your tongue.”

Awkward at first, the girl got the idea. She flicked the lips of Chantrea's vulva, then took Chantrea's clit in her mouth and started sucking.

Chantrea moved up and down with the rhythm of the girl, then brought the girl's head up and had her suck on Chantrea's nipples.

Ranar's phallus was enlarged and throbbing as he watched the two of them. He positioned himself behind the girl's buttocks and pushed his cock inside her. She was tight and he had to work his cock in despite the wetness. He began to pump, shoving back and forth in a rhythm.

Chantrea looked at the girl's face. Her eyes were wide. She was no longer nervous. The expression on her face was one of wide-eyed glee.
She likes it
, Chantrea thought. This was probably the first time she had done it both ways. Chantrea pushed the girl's head back down between her legs.

Ready to orgasm, Chantrea pictured Madison Dupre on top of her instead of the young girl.

21

I spent the rest of the day in my room reading up on Khmer art and Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. And slept. It gave me a chance to rest my body and mind. I needed it after realizing that Kirk was flat-out lying to me.

Thinking about the road trip to Angkor, I almost decided to call it off. I took their word that it was a safe trip … but was it safe for me? Could this Cambodian art mafia or whatever they were ambush us on the road and murder me?

With cheerful thoughts like that, I was already waiting in the lobby the following morning when Chantrea arrived to pick me up for our trip to Angkor Wat. When we were a few blocks from the hotel, she pulled over and bought some roasted crickets from a sidewalk street cart.

“I thought you might like to try them.”

Uh huh. The thought of eating a jumping insect didn't quite appeal to me but they seemed to be sold all over the place and a part of me wanted to find out what they tasted like.

Wrapped in a green lotus leaf, the brown, glazed crickets smelled of smoked sweet wood.

Chantrea downed them like candy.

“Sure, I'll try it.” I took a small bite and started chewing.

“How do you like them?”

“They're … interesting.” I gave her a scrunched-up face.