The Deceivers (29 page)

“He's the artist who's been making the fakes,” I said. “He's Thai. And he's disappeared.”

The New York detective seemed singularly unimpressed with my startling revelations.

“I'll check him out,” he said.

That sounded a lot like he'd send a memo to whoever was in charge in whatever American agency that interfaced with Thai police and ask that they contact whichever Thai police agency and ask … whatever. In other words, it would get lost in a bureaucratic morass.

I told him about the strange session with Jimmy Cheung. “First he tries to unload a tourist fake, then he offers me a museum piece for a fraction of the price … knowing I'd get arrested for trying to get it out of the country.”

He didn't say anything, just listened. I wasn't exactly getting any rip-roaring enthusiasm or sympathy from him.

“You realize what would happen to me if I got caught at the airport with that piece?”

His lack of shock and anger at Jimmy Cheung trying to set me up left me with an empty feeling once again. I needed some enthusiasm; I was in a foreign country and up to my rear in alligators or crocodiles or whatever they had in the Far East.

My free-floating anxiety was swirling around my head by the time I reached the Epicurean Fair. Nothing I could put my finger on—just a strange day in a strange place had revved up my feeling of insecurity.

My feeling of unease was soon replaced with one of horror—a ticket to the rich people's fair cost five hundred dollars. With some Vegas shows costing half that and championship fights and football games costing more, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. Besides, even if you didn't buy anything, a five-hundred-dollar ticket that lets you see things you can't afford and mingle with people who think they're superior should be worth some bragging rights back home.

As I made my way down a red carpet, passing gold-plated bathtubs and a real estate firm that specialized in private islands, I hoped I displayed the same disdain that wealthy people did when they walked by the booths.

Nadia's tiger penis scent booth was wedged in between a Bugatti sports car that called itself the fastest street-legal car in the world—it got 3 miles to the gallon at 250 miles per hour and had a price tag of 1.5 million—and a lingerie display featuring live models and champagne. From what little the models were wearing, the manufacturer—a Chinese silk merchant—seemed to be advertising more flesh than silk.

Nadia wasn't hard to find—she was the only person in the small booth. She definitely had Hollywood looks, the type of glamorous female villain who would try to kill James Bond after fucking him. With high Slavic cheekbones and startling cornflower blue eyes—contact lenses, no doubt—her exposed breasts seemed to be so perfect that the plastic surgeon who crafted them probably could have faked the
Venus de Milo.

Her seductive, diamond-sequined, and strapless dress, something I had seen in Saks Fifth Avenue with a price tag of $4,000, fell just to the limits of indecency, leaving almost as little to the imagination as the lingerie next door. The whole ensemble—clothes, shoes, hair, makeup—spelled hot-hot-hot.

It went without saying that her perfect lips could also only have been crafted by a master surgeon. What he didn't hide was the hard edge—that characteristic quality of doing whatever it took—to whomever—that some women got when they had to walk a hard road in life.

Boldly sensual, exotically sexual, runway fashionable, and a very, very high-maintenance appearance, she gave off an aura of challenge that told men
come fuck me if you're rich enough.

She was the kind of woman that women like me loved to hate.

Even as I got near the booth and made contact with those startling blue store-bought eyes, I couldn't decide how to approach her. For sure, she'd be gun-shy about discussing anything about the fake art she'd sold and the pieces she still planned to sell. No doubt the Hong Kong police had been at her door at the bequest of the New York and Interpol authorities.

I realized my plea to this sexpot would have to be an appeal to a universal human aspect, one of those inborn cultural qualities that separated us from the lower beasts.

Greed
.

She tensed, eyes narrowing, as she saw me come directly at her in a frontal assault. I could see her claws dig in, ready to defend her territory. Not all women were aggressively territorial—this one was. I don't think she would have backed off if a tiger had come back looking for its penis.

“Ms. Novikov, I'm Madison Dupre, an art buyer from New York. I've handled pieces valued over fifty million dollars and I want to talk to you about your collection.” It was a mouthful, but to the point. “I just spoke to Jimmy Cheung. He was unhelpful after I told him I was in the market for very rare pieces—Khmer pieces—like the kind you have in your collection.” I needed a reason for not having Cheung's blessing, so I gave one. “He tried to sell me something else.”

A man suddenly appeared from behind the booth wall. Big, wide-shouldered, blond-haired, gray eyes, and square-jawed handsome in a brutal way, he could have played a movie villain. My immediate impressions of him were bodybuilder, personal trainer, bodyguard-lover.

Nadia ignored me and spoke to him in Russian. Then they both looked back at me.

“I know who you are,” she said. Her English was good, but underlined with a Russian accent.

“You do?”

She shrugged. “I follow New York and London art news. You were headlines in both.”

“My friends call me Maddy.” I offered my hand.

She ignored it.

I smiled. “You can call me Ms. Dupre.”

“What do you want?”

I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. “To make money, of course. But I'll do it with someone else.”

I spun on my heel and walked off.

Halfway to the front doors, the big guy caught up with me. “Mad-ee my name is Lav.” His English was more heavily accented than the model's. “Nadia wishes to talk to you.”

I pursed my lips, pretending to take my time about whether I was willing to give her the time of day.

“About making money.” He grinned. He reminded me of a tiger—an albino one. “You must pardon her. She is still in mourning about poor Illya.”

Uh huh. No doubt she wept crocodile tears all the way to the bank. And into bed with this stud. But I wasn't in a position to be choosy.

I took my time walking back to her booth.

Nadia eyed me more neutrally this time, letting me know that she still had claws but was willing to talk.

“What can you do for me that a hundred other dealers can't do?”

It was a good question.

“I have access to just about every major dealer capable of making bank transfers in millions. I can create a buzz about your pieces that will get worldwide attention, do the paperwork you need to make the deal, take care of where the money should go when the deal is closed. And know how to get the best price.”

“I expect those things from every dealer. Cheung is local and he did all that for the Siva.”

“Cheung also got you the scrutiny of major police agencies all over the world—FBI, Interpol, NYPD, Hong Kong PD, and the Chinese police.”

I had no idea whether the government of China had any interest at all in her pieces—they were not Chinese cultural art—but threw them in because they were the most threatening of the bunch.

“The difference between Cheung and me is that he has to bring in other dealers in New York and London to find a buyer. That gets a spotlight on you. I deal directly with collectors. That puts me into a position to offer you something priceless.”

“What?”

“Secrecy. I'm not the only one who has made headlines in the art world. The Siva got you a starring role, too. If you want to cut a deal for other items, it has to be done discreetly. Cheung is the kind of dealer who'll put a picture of your pieces in his Internet catalog.”

More Russian talk erupted between Nadia and her bodyguard, lover, or whatever he was. They definitely were a number—he wasn't arguing like an employee.

I checked out her bottles of tiger penis juice. Gold-plated bottles with thin black lines. She certainly wasn't into trying to be subtle with the U.N. or whoever came down on people who kill endangered species for fun and profit.

A couple entered behind me. A skinny, older Chinese man who looked like he was with his granddaughter—or a lap dancer at a hostess bar. I could see why he came in—Grandpa was going to need some tiger penis if he planned to have the girl ride his jade stalk.

Nadia looked at them, then back at me, dollar signs rolling in her eyes like the spinning symbols on a slot machine. They were a quick ten-thousand-dollar-an-ounce sale. Money in the bank. I was a question mark.

I quickly relieved her of the need to make a decision.

“I can meet at your convenience, but it has to be tonight. I have to get back to New York to close a deal. I'll need to see the pieces.”

“There's a party at my house tonight. We can talk there and you can examine my art.”

“I didn't bring a dress for a party.”

She raised her eyebrows. “There are many designer booths in this place. I'm sure you'll find something.”

Yeah … I could only imagine what they would cost per ounce.

She rattled off something more in Russian to the big guy and left me.

“Let me have your card,” Lav said.

He reminded me of Kirk, only bigger, a cross between Kirk and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I gave him the card. “You can check me out on the Internet.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What will I find?”

“Besides the piece that caused an uproar, I've handled many other valuable pieces, probably much bigger than anything in Nadia's collection. Sometimes the provenances weren't right, but I managed to get them sold.”

The last remark inferred that I was a crook, but I was finding out that passing myself off as someone from the dark side of art deals came natural to me.

I had only stubbed my toe once—more like cutting off my feet, actually—and it had been an accident. But I deliberately painted myself as a little shady to him.

Nadia not only had a shaky past herself, she was from a country where corruption had become a fine art during the repressive Soviet days and a way of life when the wall and Iron Curtain crumbled. I was certain she'd feel more comfortable with someone like herself. As my father used to say, water seeks its own level.

He gave me the address for the party. “It starts at ten o'clock.”

“I can come earlier and examine the pieces—”

“Ten o'clock. Nadia wants to get to know you before she lets you look at her collection. Give me the name of your hotel. We'll send a car.”

I gave him the address.

He walked away leaving me in a feminine quandary. I had nothing to wear to the party and I certainly couldn't afford anything being sold here. I casually walked around to leave the impression I was planning to buy something, then decided it just wasn't good enough for me.

While I wandered around looking at five-thousand-dollar dresses, I called Bolger in New York.

“I need to know where the least expensive high-fashion faux clothing and accessories are in Hong Kong. The merchandise has to be good enough to fool a professional model like Nadia.”

The Internet was truly a remarkable window on the world. Bolger would not only get me the name of a store, he'd probably find a blog that gave customer opinions of the store, pinpoint its exact location on a map with GPS, get driving instructions, mileage, and current weather conditions, do a virtual tour if the store had a Website … and see the exterior of the building with a camera from a satellite in space.

32

The limo that pulled to the curb to pick me up was sheer opulence. Besides the usual wet bar, computer, phones, and adjustable rear seats with warmers and coolers, the best part was the massage features. I could have spent hours in it, days. It was only slightly smaller than my walk-up.

It looked a little like a big Mercedes but I didn't recognize the front emblem.

“What kind of car is this?” I asked.

“Maybach,” Lav said. “German. If you decide to buy one, you can go to the factory in Germany to decide on the million or so design features. It's like ordering a custom-built yacht or a personal jet. No two cars are exactly alike.”

“Like fingerprints.”

That one flew right over his head. Mine, too. I didn't ask him the price. I knew it had to be in the hundreds of thousands.

I wondered if Lav was going to search me before he let me into Nadia's villa. If I was lucky, maybe he'd be thorough and give me a full body cavity search.

Lav was pumped and glowed with masculine power. I had a fantasy that he waxed everything below the neck. As far as I was concerned, he could have swept me into his arms and taken off into the sunset, ripping off my clothes as soon as we got to his castle.

I knew it was hypercritical for a woman who cherished and fought for her independence to be fantasizing about a man's protection, but sometimes the only solution to a problem was brute force applied by someone very big.

I'd found a good knockoff of a Valentino cocktail dress at a designer boutique store for three hundred dollars. Having paid ten times that much in New York, it would have been worth the airfare to Hong Kong just for a shopping trip. I knew it was a pirated copy, but I was too poor and desperate to care. Dealing with murderers and thieves had numbed me to mere clothing fraud.

The drive took us up the mountain and to the Victoria Peak district on top. An almost vertical tourist tram could be taken to the peak itself. As we drove around curves on a high road I got some good views. Victoria Harbor to the north was a bustling seaway, but the south end of the island was a surprise. Hundreds of small boats, mostly sampans and junks, crowded a bay. Sampans were fishing boats tipped up at both ends and with a small enclosure roofed with reed mats. Junks, which had square sails spread by battens and a high stern, were larger and often housed several generations of a family.