Elizabeth Lowell - Tell Me No Lies

TELLME NO LIES

Copyright 1986 by Two of a Kind, Inc.

ISBN1-55166-096-2

All characters in this book have noexistence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoeverto anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspiredby any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pureinvention.

Catlin barely controlled a sound of disbelief.Adrenaline poured through him, ripping away the comforts of the present,revealing the bones of the past when a woman had taught him the true meaning ofbetrayal. The lesson would have cost his life had it not been for the speed ofanother man. The woman had died. The other man had died. The man known then asJacques-Pierre Rousseau had lived.

He looked at the ancient Chinese coin lying in hispalm. The metal had been cut deliberately in half, sundering the vague,graceful lines of a swallow in flight, leaving a bird with one wing. Inside thecut, the copper's untarnished core shone like a pale wound. The coin was bothfamiliar and subtly alien. He was used to seeing the other half of the swallow,the half that he carried as a good luck charm, the half that had come into hishands a world and a lifetime ago.

Long ago, far away, in another country.

Catlin's eyes shifted from the coin to the slight,erect figure of Chen Yi.

"An interesting keepsake," said Catlinneutrally. "A shame about the mutilation. Han coins like this arerare."

"A man of your connections could join bothhalves," pointed out Yi in a soft voice.

"Oh? Did you bring the other half withyou?" asked Catlin, but the verbal fencing had already lost its urgency.He had the other half in his pocket. All that remained was to be sure that Yi'spossession of the coin wasn't an accident or a trick to win Catlin'sconfidence.

Yi waited, his face as impassive as Catlin's.

"How did you get this?" asked Catlin.

"From a man who was also named Chen."

"There are literally millions of Chens in China ."

"Yes."

Yi took a hard pull on the evil-smelling Chinesecigarette he held. The act was a sign of addiction, not nervousness. Yi was nota nervous man.

The distinctive odor of Yi's cigarette, the oddcadence of Yi's English, and the ancient Chinese coin all combined to giveCatlin a feeling of dreamlike unreality. He wasn't fool enough to give in tothe feeling. The adrenaline expanding through his body in a chemical shock wavetold him that the night and the moment were all too real, potentially deadly.

"Which Chen gave this to you?" askedCatlin, flipping the mutilated coin absently into the air, catching it,flipping it again. His voice was like his body, totally controlled, poised forwhatever might come next. Including death.

"It came with word of my " Yi stoppedspeaking abruptly as he searched his memory for the exact equivalent of aChinese word. It did not come to him. "What is the English word for myfather's brother's nephew's nephew's son?" asked Yi.

"Shirttail cousin," Catlin offeredsardonically.

"Ah!"

The sound was not the soft near-sigh used byAmericans. It was a blunt verbal punctuation mark signifying that a point hadbeen made. That, and the ever-burning unfiltered cigarette, branded Yi as amodern mainland Chinese more surely than his folded eyelids or the subtlegolden cast of his skin.

"The cut coin came to me with the notice of thedeath of my shirttail cousin, Chen Tiang-Shi," said Yi.

The name caused a chain reaction of memories inCatlin's mind. For an instant he lived again in Southeast Asia , felt again the delicacy of Mei's hands searching over hishot flesh, smelled again the heady scent of her aroused body, knew again themoment of blank shock when at the instant of his own release she raised a gunbarrel toward his head. He knew then that he was dead, that the woman who wasclimaxing beneath him at that moment would kill him in the next, that he hadbeen betrayed in ways that he could not begin to name or number. Then theshots, the convulsive leap of flesh, more shots, the red rains of a woman hehad loved lying across him. And Chen Tiang-Shi slumped at the foot of thepallet, apologizing even as he died cursing his treacherous cousin GenevieveMei Chen Deneuve.

Later the mutilated coin had come to Catlin, bearingonly the message that one day the other half would also come to him, and withit a small request that he could ignore or honor as he chose.

Catlin's eyes focused on the silent figure waitingfor his decision. "If it is in my power, it is yours," said Catlinsimply. "And the English word to describe Chen Tiang-Shi is man. His lifegave honor to his family and to his ancestors."

Yi bowed slightly, making light stir within his fine,nearly white hair. "As I was told," he murmured, "no matter whatname you wear, you are a man of great face."

Grimly Catlin waited for the flattery to end so thathe could find out what kind of bargain he had made for the redemption of hisyounger, more foolish soul.

"You no longer work in Indochina ,"said Yi.

It was a statement, not a question, but Catlinanswered. "I no longer work in Indochina ."

"You no longer work for your government."

This time Catlin hesitated, counting all thegradations of lie up to the final truth. "I don't work against mygovernment, either."

"Ah." Yi noted the caveat, absorbed it andcontinued. "You owe no loyalty to family, community or tradition."

"Not in the Chinese sense," agreed Catlin.

"You walk in no man's shadow."

"Not if I can help it," Catlin said dryly."I love the sun."

Yi looked at him with black, shrewd eyes set wide ina face the color and texture of parchment. Yi was clean shaven; the People'sRepublic of China hadlittle use for the thin beards that had been the Chinese style since Confucius. Yi'snails, though long for Western tastes, were not so lengthy as to draw immediateattention. Although his hair had little black left in it, and his voice wasbreathy from a lifetime of cigarettes, his eyes as they probed Catlin werethose of a young man clear, quick, intense.

Catlin underwent the scrutiny with patience, sensingthat Yi was trying to understand him by describing him. To a Chinese, Catlin'slack of blood and community ties was unthinkable, abhorrent.

"You worship neither the Christian God, theMuslim Prophet, the Buddha, the silent Tao, the once-voluble Mao nor your ownancestors," continued Yi. "Yet you are a man of great face. A man ofhonor."

Catlin made a gesture with one hand that could havesignified agreement, disagreement or anything between.

"I am grateful to Chen Tiang-Shi," murmuredYi, "that you survived a woman's treachery to enlighten this poorintellect on the true nature of the impossible."

Impassively Yi continued studying the much larger,much more powerful man whose name had once been whispered in tones of fear andadmiration throughout Indochina . Yinodded abruptly, having reached a decision. He lit a crumpled cigarette fromthe ragged stub of the previous one and began to talk about events moretangible than honor, enlightenment and the nature of impossibility.