Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Among the Killers of Men

“And the fourth is Cheung?” said Gabriel.

“Yes. Qingzhao’s former employer,” said Tuan, and Gabriel realized it was the first time he’d heard the woman’s name. “I believe he made his millions in currency speculation. His first millions.”

Gabriel fired a glance back at Qingzhao. “So you were an employee of his.”

“Mr. Cheung arrived in our fair land just as Communism was gasping its last,” Tuan rattled on. “The CCC is the new land of opportunity, but it is all quite subsurface now. That’s why Occidentals fear it so much, I think.”

“And you,” said Gabriel to Qingzhao, “used to work for this guy? The one you’ve been trying to—”

Her hand was on his forearm, extended across the body of the bowman between them. “Yes.” Her eyes added: Not now. Not in front of Tuan. Please.

This was one raincheck Gabriel was going to follow up on.

Next to a booth whose sign proclaimed CHANGE YOUR I.D., Tuan pointed out an ammo hawker with half a face, masked as though by a giant eyepatch. Most of the man’s fingers were missing or truncated.

“Do not purchase ammunition from that man,” Tuan said. “Unreliable. Misfires.”

“The man or the ammunition?” asked Gabriel.

“Both.”

Tuan led them into another cubbyhole with signage halfway-hidden from the commonweal: SU-LIN GUN MERCHANT. It stank of gunpowder and gun oil, and was a cramped warren of firepower old and new. Su-Lin was a gnomish woman with a calm Easter Island gaze; she weighed maybe 75 pounds. Tuan bent from his enormous height to grace her cheek with a kiss.

“You must use the keyboard,” said Qingzhao. Two laptops were set up collaborator-style on a small counter, with Su-Lin perched behind one as though ready to commence a game of Battleship. “This translates. First you type the proper greeting.”

They set down the bowman and Qingzhao typed: YOUR PIG MOTHER EATS NIGHT SOIL, which transposed to Chinese characters on Su-Lin’s screen.

Su-Lin typed back: I LOVE YOU, TOO.

Gabriel’s attention meanwhile had been arrested by a very special gun hanging from a clip on the back wall. His eye coded it as a close cousin to his faithful Colt Peacemaker, which he still wished he had strapped to his hip. That one was out of reach. This wasn’t.

“You have seen something you like?” said Tuan.

It was a large Colt revolver—age-burnished, true, but Gabriel recognized it as the treasure it was. “If this is what I think it is…”

Tuan lifted it off the wall and handed it to him. The gun sprang open cleanly at his touch. There wasn’t a spot of rust on it anywhere.

“This,” Gabriel said, as if he were introducing an old friend to a new one, “looks like an old Navy Colt, .36 caliber—from when they first started converting cap-and-ball ‘percussion pistols’ to the more newfangled revolver. They called them ‘wheelguns.’ ” He glanced back at Su-Lin. “How much do you think she might take for it?”

“That depends on whether you like it,” Tuan goaded.

“I like it very much,” said Gabriel. “Anyone who knows about guns would.”

“Then it is yours,” Tuan said. “For your trouble. With my compliments.”

“Why?”

“You are a guest. Qingzhao said you helped to save her life. That is a favor bestowed upon me as well. Please allow me to repay this debt in a way that pleases you.”

Gabriel nodded his thanks. He was always ill at ease accepting gifts, because you never knew what obligations might accompany them. But he wasn’t about to turn down this one. He had a feeling he might need a good gun very soon.

The place Tuan called his Pleasure Garden featured a cabaret stage—empty just now—and about a million varieties of flowering plant life nourished by misting nozzles and artificial sunlight, here in the middle of a city of stone.

The newly unwrapped terra-cotta warrior—Qingzhao’s bowman—watched silently as they ate from a table carved from a monkey-puzzle tree, laden with about forty dishes of food.

Tuan held up a goblet of absinthe for a toast.

“To my newest soldier,” he said.

The licorice-flavored drink went down hard and sizzled with an afterbite of burned sugar.

Apparently, Qingzhao bartered the terra-cotta warriors with Tuan for supplies and intelligence. The figures she had discovered near the idol in the shrine room had great value, even as damaged as they were. The two empty slots Gabriel had noticed were remnants of earlier deals between Qingzhao and Tuan; their collaboration had been ongoing for the better part of a year.

“Barter being the best form of trade?” asked Gabriel.

Tuan nodded.

Gabriel surveyed the table. “My apologies, but this seems like an awful lot of food for three people.”

“I am showing off,” Tuan smiled. “Forgive me.”

“It will feed others when we are done,” said Qingzhao. “Tuan is responsible for filling many bellies.”

“So,” Gabriel said, returning to the subject of the clay warriors, “value for value. Like the black market in religious ikons in Russia.”

“Not quite,” said Tuan. “The Russian way provided an interesting lesson on the subject of smuggled antiquities, because so many of their black- and gray-market religious ikons were forgeries. Of course, one of my business interests is a thriving popular outlet for replica warriors. We’ve copied most of the basic templates from the warriors found in the Xian pits and the army of Emperor Qin. We do custom paint jobs. We even have a service whereby your own features can be worked onto the terra-cotta warrior replica of your choice. My artisans use photographs of the subject. You’d be surprised at how many people want a recreation for their garden or foyer. How many people actually collect them.”

“At a couple grand a pop, no doubt,” said Gabriel. It was no different to him than some spinster collecting plates from the Franklin Mint. “But the replica market provides cover for moving the real warriors to private collectors who can’t show them because it would be illegal to possess them.”

“They pay for that privilege,” said Tuan. “The funny thing is, the replica company actually started turning a profit last year. And most people cannot even discern authenticity, which has allowed the market in art forgeries to thrive the way it has.”

It was true. Forgers had become so painstaking at their craft that the difference between a fake masterpiece (which hung in galleries and toured worldwide to the acclaim of millions) and the genuine article (which hung in someone’s expensive, climate–controlled cellar and was available for viewing only by an elite few) had been reduced almost to nil. As far as the world was concerned, the fake was real. The real paintings only increased in value every time a subterranean auction was held, and sometimes the aficionados tried to screw each other. Michael had told him that half the Impressionists in the last Getty exhibition were bogus, but no one wanted to say so. What was the point in starting that blaze of controversy unless the whereabouts of the real ones were known?

The epidemic had gotten so dire that within the last five years, even the Mona Lisa had come under serious doubt. Which might explain her goofy, cryptic smile at last. I’m a fake, boys.

Tuan pushed back his seat. “My honored guest,” he said. “Permit me the ill manner of a private conversation with Qi.”

“Qi?” said Gabriel.

“My diminutive for our delectable little fighter. You have no doubt already felt the strange attraction she exerts.”

She lowered her gaze.

“No doubt,” Gabriel said.

He handed Gabriel a puzzle box of closely worked unlacquered cedar. “We have a few small affairs of business to transact that are not for all ears to hear.”