Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

cages for housewives and cooks to bargain over the cost of fresh protein for dinner. The cats and dogs were difficult enough for her to bear, but the monkeys were the worst, so nearly human in their silent pleas to be freed from the cage of heat and smoke and noise. Eventually, this meal or the next, they would get their wish.
    Shuddering, Hannah put the memory of the cages out of her mind.
    “Over there,” Archer said.
    She followed his glance and saw the store without even having to stretch her neck; when they weren’t being followed, being tall enough to look over the heads of most of the street crowd was an advantage. She couldn’t translate the ideographs that flashed over the shop, but the owner obviously had his eye on world trade. Translations of the Chinese symbols were provided in Japanese and Korean ideographs, the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, plus the more familiar alphabet used by the French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and English speakers.
    “No Arabic,” Hannah said.
    “No Arabian buyers.”
    “Why? Do they like hard gems?”
    “They like diamonds as well as the next guy, but the Arab princes and oil sheiks have treasure rooms that are jammed with ropes of natural pearls,” Archer said. “They’ve been harvesting naturals for two thousand years in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Gulf of Aden.”
    “Bet they hated Kokichi Mikimoto.”
    Archer looked around. Despite being literally shoulder to shoulder with other pedestrians, he and Hannah might as well have been alone. The people dividing around them were talking fast in Chinese, walking faster, and smoking as though there was a million-dollar prize for finishing the most cigarettes in a day.
    “Are you talking about the guy who patented the technique for culturing round pearls?” Archer asked.
    She nodded.
    “You’re right,” he said. “Mikimoto’s not a hero in the Gulf. He blew the bottom out of the pearl trade when he destroyed the rarity of the pearl.”
    “But not the beauty.”
    “The child of moonbeams. Tears of the gods. The soul of the sea.” Archer smiled. “Pearls are all of that and more.”
    “But not cultured pearls, is that it?”
    “Not to the Arabs. They say cultured pearls are inferior to naturals, and they’ll say it as long as they have natural pearls supporting their currency along with the rest of the royal treasury.”
    “What do you think?”
    While people jostled and chattered and poured by on either side in a human tide, Archer looked across the bobbing heads at the window where a gleaming South Seas necklace was the centerpiece of one display. The choker was made of round pearls that had an unusual, almost tangerine orient. “I think that gem-quality natural pearls are far too rare—and therefore astronomically expensive—to support any kind of extensive pearl trade. Fortunately for Chang’s Sea Gems stores, the rest of the world isn’t prejudiced against cultured pearls.”
    “I admit to a prejudice in favor of black pearls,” Hannah said, looking at a matinee-length necklace that had a lovely dark luster. She would have liked to get closer to the window, but the crowd was like a moving, impenetrable barrier.
    “Must be your American parents,” Archer said. “Asians prefer silver-white. South Americans like South Seas gold. It’s classic white for Europe, pink for the low-ticket American Akoya trade, and black for the American luxury trade.”
    She leaned very close to Archer. “If the Asians don’t like black pearls, why are we here?”
    “Japan loves black pearls. For the right gems, they’ll pay twice what Americans would.”
    “Then we should be in Japan.”
    “Last year. Or maybe next year. But right now, the yen is very weak against the dollar. Whoever has the goods will sell them where the currency and demand are the strongest.”
    “America?”
    Archer nodded.
    “So why are we in Hong Kong?” she asked.
    “When it comes to luxury goods, Hong Kong is the commercial crossroads of the world. If someone wants a quick transaction and is willing to settle for a cut-rate price, this would be the place.”
    “Isn’t this kind of shop too, um . . .”
    “High-end for crooks?” he finished dryly.
    “Right.”
    “No matter where on the food chain you start, goods like we’re chasing would end up in Sea Gems, where the clientele is rich enough to buy third-world countries but would rather have baubles.”
    Hannah chewed lightly on her lower lip. She was still