Meet Me in Venice

Chapter One Shanghai Six Months Later Lily Song was eating breakfast at the Happybird Tea House, an open-fronted place in an alley off the Renmin Road, named for the tiny birds, the pets of the customers that accompanied them in their little bamboo cages, singing their morning songs. She ate there every morning at exactly the same timeeight o'clockand she always had exactly the same thing: shrimp dim sum with vegetables and green tea with semolina grains that swelled up like miniature cannonballs in the hot tea and tasted like slippery bird shot. Her fellow breakfasters were all men but that did not bother her and anyway they were all too immersed in their newspapers and noodles to notice her, even though she was an attractive woman. She was small and very slender, with a shoulder-length swing of glossy black hair and eyes so dark a brown they looked almost black too. She had the fair skin of her European mother and the delicate bridgeless nose of her Chinese father, and she wore either conservative Western clothes bought at the better boutiques on the Nanking Road, or the traditional brocade dress, the quipao in jewel tones, tailored specifically to her directions by an expert in his tiny storefront shop near the Bubbling Well Road. Either way, though she was not beautiful, she gave the impression of an attractive, successful woman. Which, in a sense, she was. This morning, however, she was wearing narrow black pants with a black linen top. Her hair was pulled back and large sunglasses hid her eyes. She could have passed unnoticed in any Shanghai crowd. She glanced up as a man entered, then stood looking around him. He was a foreigner, older, smart in a lightweight beige business suit and he carried a leather document case. Lily lifted her hand, beckoning him over. He came and sat in the chair opposite. With a gruff "good morning" he placed the document case on the table in front of him. A soft-footed server hovered nearby and Lily ordered plain green tea for her guest. She asked if he would like to eat and with a faint look of disgust he said he would not. He was Swiss and conservative and he did not like Chinese food. The teahouse was not a place he would have chosen to do business but this was Lily's call. "My client is interested in anything you can show him," he said without wasting any time. "Provided it can be authenticated, that is." Lily had done business with him before. His client's identity was preserved under a cloak of strict anonymity, which suited her just fine. That way she didn't have to deal with tricky, rich, artistic personalities who thought they knew more than she did. Antiques and, in particular, stolen antiques were what she had dealt in since she was sixteen and she knew what she was talking about. "I have some things your client might be interested in," she said in a low voice, because you never knew who was listening. "I expect to take delivery of a batch of antiquities very soon. Cloisonne, famille verte, statues. . . ." "When will you have them?" His eyes bored into her, questioning her integrity. She hated him for it but she did not show that. Instead she smiled. "Within a few weeks. Meanwhile, here is something very special. The most important piece I have ever come across." She reached in her purse, took out a photograph and handed it to him. The man studied it carefully. "My client doesn't care for jewelry," he said cAdler, Elizabeth A. is the author of 'Meet Me in Venice ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780312364472 and ISBN 0312364474.