Donovans 02 - Jade Island

wasn’t gripping her black briefcase, her fingers trembled.
    “Lianne?” he said, touching her shoulder.
    She jerked.
    “Why don’t we just get a quiet dinner at the Rain Lotus?” he asked. “You don’t look up to a Donovan family brawl.”
    Her nostrils flared as she took a quick, deep breath, forcing the iron bands around her lungs to loosen and allow air in. “No. I had all the quiet I can take on the drive down from Vancouver.” And it hadn’t done her a bit of good. She turned to the receptionist. “Anything that can’t wait, Fred?”
    “Mrs. Wong wants to know when you’ll be available to appraise her father’s collection for insurance purposes.”
    “You have my calendar. Put her on it.”
    “That’s the problem. Mr. Han—”
    “Not again,” Lianne muttered.
    “—has edited his collection and brought with him the pieces he wants to sell. Mr. Harold Tang, uh, requests—”
    “Requests? Harry?” she interrupted. “That would be a first.”
    “Yeah,” Fred said, sighing. His thin white hair was a stark contrast to his unlined face. His employment records said he was fifty-five. His face looked at least a decade younger. His eyes were much older. He had been a U.S. government liaison in Taiwan until he put in his twentyyears and decided there was more to life than bureaucracy. “However, the Tangs are your best clients, and they know it. Mr. Tang wants you to pick up the Han jades soon as possible. The Jade Trader has pieces ready to swap for whatever parts of his collection that Mr. Han wishes to deacquisition. They will be brought to you.”
    “Deacquisition?” Kyle said. “Is that a word?”
    “Only among museum types who have trouble with the truth,” Lianne said.
    “Which is?”
    “Some acquisitions just don’t hold up well over time. Or perhaps you find a better piece and you don’t want both. You keep the better one and—”
    “Deacquisition the inferior one,” Kyle finished.
    “Yes.”
    “ Unload has fewer syllables,” he pointed out.
    Lianne smiled for the first time since she had left the Tang compound. “That’s why unload isn’t used in these circumstances. The more syllables the word has, the more important the object, and the more important, the bigger the price.”
    “ Junk is a one-syllable, four-letter word, is that it?”
    “In my business, yes.” Lianne’s smile became laughter. She felt like giving Kyle a hug for no other reason than being glad to see him. He looked at her with approval rather than contempt.
    Fred cleared his throat and looked up from the calendar he had opened. “Mr. Tang was a, um…”
    “A pain in the ass?” Kyle suggested.
    The receptionist tried not to smile. “You could say that. I couldn’t.” He looked at his boss. “Mr. Han is expecting you tomorrow at six o’clock.”
    “In the morning?” she asked, startled.
    “Evening.”
    “But the ferries don’t run after—”
    “Arrangements have been made for you to stay overnight,” Fred said quickly. “You’ll take the ferry to Orcas Island. A boat from the institute will pick you up, shuttleyou out to the institute, and take you back in the morning.”
    Lianne’s amusement vanished. The memory of Seng’s greedy eyes crawled over her skin like insects. “No.”
    “Mr. Tang said it was vital to—” Fred began.
    “No,” she broke in, her voice flat. “Make another appointment, one that will allow me to go home for dinner.”
    “I tried. Mr. Han’s calendar is filled.” Fred flipped a steno notebook open and referred to his notes, which were a mixture of Chinese ideographs and Western script. “He leaves for China the day after tomorrow, and has meetings tomorrow from five A . M . until eight P . M . He’ll try to join you sooner, but is confident of your ability to deliver the Tang jade, just as he—Han Seng—is confident that Mr. Wen Zhi Tang will choose appropriate pieces for the trade.”
    Closing her eyes, Lianne thought hard about what Fred had told her. Obviously Harry and Seng were continuing to finesse the problem of taxes, money transfers, currency exchange, and the like by trading jade for jade. It wasn’t an uncommon thing. Dealers did it all the time. Trading up, trading down, trading sideways; none of that was taxed.
    More important, if Seng was in meetings, he wouldn’t be rubbing up against her like a tomcat with a rash.
    Even as Lianne told herself that Seng’s overbearing manner didn’t mean that he had a little forced