Donovans 02 - Jade Island

the woman and then looked away. “You want to talk museum pieces, try the companions of the Taiwanese industrialists who just walked in. Especially the woman in red.”
    Kyle glanced beyond his brother. The red silk sheath—and the body beneath it—was an eye-popper, yet it was the woman’s headdress that sent murmurs of appreciation and greed through the crowd. A lacework cap of pearls encased her gleaming black hair. Teardrop pearls as big as a man’s thumb shimmered and swayed around her face. A triple strand of matched teardrop pearls the size of grapes fell from the back of the cap down to the cleft in the woman’s rhythmically swinging ass.
    “Companion, huh? As in mistress?” Kyle said.
    “It’s common enough. When some well-heeled Asian men come to the States, they leave their wives at home with the kiddies and in-laws.”
    “Afraid their little women will bolt to greener pastures if they get the chance?” Kyle asked dryly.
    “Wouldn’t you?”
    “I wouldn’t be fenced like that in the first place.” Kyle pushed through the hotel doors into the lobby. “Let’s try the atrium. That’s where the Jade Trader has its display. SunCo’s stuff will be there, too. Ever since China took over Hong Kong, the Sun clan has been whittling away at the Tangs.”
    Archer smiled slightly. “Been doing some research?”
    “If I had to do research in order to name the competition, I wouldn’t be much good to Donovan International, would I?”
    “You’re really serious about dragging Donovan Inc. into the jade trade, aren’t you?”
    “I’ve been serious about it ever since I held my first five-thousand-year-old jade bi, ” Kyle said simply. “I’llnever know why the piece was carved, but I do know that someone way back then was like me. He loved the smooth satin weight of jade. Otherwise he never would have tackled a stone that hard with little more than rawhide, sticks, and grit.”
    When Kyle would have turned and started toward the atrium, Archer put a hand on his arm, stopping him. “There’s only a limited market for Neolithic jade artifacts,” Archer said neutrally.
    “The market is expanding every day. Even New York has caught on. Besides, there’s a lot more to jade than Neolithic artifacts.”
    “Do you feel expert enough to advise us on the full spectrum of jade, to go one-on-one with the Pacific Rim’s best?”
    “Not yet. But Lianne Blakely is. Or didn’t your contact mention that?”
    “He didn’t make a point of it. He just said she was a kind of back door into the closed world of the Tang Consortium.”
    “Back door, huh? Okay, let’s see if I can learn more from sweet Lianne than she can learn from me before she’s finished using me for whatever old man Wen Zhi Tang has in mind.”
    Archer blinked. “That’s scary.”
    “What?”
    “I understood you.”
    Kyle forged a way through the crowd with Archer at his side. Once inside the atrium, the crush of people broke into clots centered around various exhibits of the corporations that were donating pieces to the auction.
    “Forget it,” Kyle said, pulling Archer away from an exhibit of black South Seas pearls. “Lianne Blakely is into jade, remember?”
    “Any harm in looking at something else?”
    “If it’s you and pearls, yes.”
    “As bad as you and jade?”
    “Worse,” Kyle said, looking around.
    Against the towering greenery-and-glass backdrop of the atrium, people from three continents and several island nations revolved around the central fountain, creating a kaleidoscope of languages and fashion. The fountain itself was striking—a clear, cantilevered glass sculpture of rectangles and rhomboids where light and water danced with a grace people could only envy. The sweet music of the water blended with the languages of Hong Kong, Japan, and several regions of China, as well as with English accented by countries as distant as Australia or Britain and as close as Canada.
    “The jade must be on the other side of the atrium,” Kyle said.
    “Why?”
    “Most of the Anglos are right here, crowded around the rubies and sapphires from Burma or the Colombian emeralds or Russian diamonds. Jade is a more subtle, civilized taste.”
    “Bull,” Archer said mildly. “Civilization has nothing to do with it. Jade was available in ancient China. Diamonds weren’t. Same goes for Europeans. Clear gemstones were more available than jade. Tradition is created from the materials at hand.”
    Kyle and Archer