The Deceivers by Harold Robbins Page B

painful to take, but cats think we love it.
    â€œTell me more about Angkor Wat art,” I said. “How many of these Apsarases are there?”
    â€œTwenty-six, each representing a distinct aspect of the performing arts, similar to how the ancient Greeks thought of their Muses. A couple thousand images of them are carved in sandstone at Angkor Wat. That’s why they’re so identified with the site.”
    â€œHave you been to Angkor?”
    â€œA couple times. Long ago. The damage to the site is obvious and a lot of it happened during our lifetimes, especially during the seventies and eighties. You’ve heard of the Khmer Rouge?”
    â€œSome kind of political thing?”
    He nodded his head. “Some kind of political insanity. Khmer Rouge means Red Khmers, as in communist red. They took over the country back in the mid-seventies and banned all institutions—stores, banks, hospitals, schools, religion, even families. They set up an unworkable agrarian utopian society instead.
    â€œEveryone was forced to work twelve to fourteen hours a day, every day. Children were separated from their parents to work in mobile groups or serve as soldiers. People were fed a watery bowl of soup with a few grains of rice thrown in. A horrible time in history,” he said, shaking his head. “Babies, children, adults, the elderly were killed en masse.”
    I grimaced.
    â€œThe Killing Fields is what they came to call it,” he said.
    I’d heard the expression. “Wasn’t that a Vietnam War thing?”
    â€œThe years following it. The Killing Fields were sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge. A good movie was made about it.”
    â€œHow many people actually died?”
    â€œOne out of every three or four people in a pretty small country, to the tune of maybe a couple million. The commies killed people if they didn’t like them, if they didn’t work hard enough, if they were educated, if they came from different ethnic groups, if they showed any sympathy when their family members were taken away to be killed—”
    â€œJesus, who didn’t they kill?”
    â€œThey weren’t discriminatory, for sure. Everyone had to pledge total allegiance to the government. It was a campaign based on instilling constant fear and keeping their victims off balance. It was a bloody, brutal reign of terror.”
    I smiled at him. “Is there a moral in this horror story for me?”
    â€œAbsolutely. You start flirting with contraband Khmer art, you’ll find yourself running with tigers and sharks that make the Mafia look like schoolboys.”
    â€œSammy’s Thai, not Cambodian.”
    â€œSame difference, right next door. The Thais run the criminal syndicates in Indochina because they have more international contacts than any of the other groups.”
    He leaned forward, locking eyes, staring at me, hard. “Walk away from this, Maddy. It means nothing but trouble for you. Things are a little tough, but I still get authentication work. I’ll start subbing the assignments out to you.”
    â€œThanks. Let me think about it.”
    I needed to change the subject and talk more about Khmer art instead of the sick bastards who killed people—and the dangers to me. Bolger didn’t understand how desperate I was.
    Morty stopped kneading and got himself in a comfortable position on my lap.
    â€œGetting back to Khmer art, what do you look for in differentiating between an authentic piece and a forgery?” I asked.
    â€œSandstone is a good substance for creating frauds because it’s not subject to most tests that determine authenticity. While none of the tests tell us how old the piece is, we can examine the corrosive coating on the stone to see if the chemical, biological, and mineralogical composition of patina conforms to the conditions where it was supposed to have been for centuries.