Cut and Run (18 page)

“I'm your editor—”

“I know what you are, Feldie, and I respect that.” He looked at her, trying to get some warmth back into him. “But the answer's still no.”

She sighed, hesitating as she pushed her glasses up on top of her head, but finally she nodded. “Okay—for now. You play this the way you have to. I'll cut you some slack.”

“Thanks. Look, I need a favor.”

“Jesus, I don't believe you. What?”

“A ticket to Antwerp.”

“What do you think this is, the fucking
Post?
”

“I'll be at Kennedy Airport tonight. I'm heading for New York right now.” He gave her a strained smile as he slung his jacket over one shoulder. “Want me to say thanks again?”

“Twice in one morning? I don't think I could stand it. Get out of here, Stark. Bring me back a story.”

 

Hendrik de Geer vomited once more into the sharp, cold wind. He made no sound as his guts twisted in agony. There was nothing left anymore to come up. He had filled the harbor with his
jenever
and his bile. Dutch gin, now just another of his enemies. When he was younger, he could stay drunk for days when he chose to, and there was never any vomiting or pain. Oblivion had come more easily then. Once he'd thought it was because he had less to forget, but now he knew that to be untrue. Another lie he'd told himself. It was because he'd had more years ahead of him, and he'd fancied that he'd have plenty of time to make up for the bad he'd done. When he'd envisioned himself as an old man, he assumed he would look back at his youth and see himself as well-intentioned but, at times, in over his head. Outmatched. But the good he'd done would outweigh the bad. He'd been convinced of that.

No longer. Now he had few years ahead, many behind. There was little time left to make up for the bad. He had no delusions. They were gone, with the laughter of his friends, with their trust. Perhaps he'd meant well then, as now. Perhaps not. What difference did it make? Only consequences mattered.

There was no more gin.

He collapsed on the deck and slept, in the wind.

 

It was late afternoon before Matthew caught up with Juliana Fall. He'd taken the shuttle into LaGuardia, then hustled a cab straight to the Upper West Side. The doorman at the Beresford said she wasn't in. Had he seen a woman in a raccoon coat and red vinyl boots leave? Yes, he had, but that wasn't Juliana Fall.

No, it wasn't. It was J.J. Pepper.

She was sitting at the baby grand in the Club Aquarian, playing Mose Allison, her hair tinted pink, her emerald velvet dress something out of an old Greta Garbo movie. The long bell sleeves were trimmed in mink. She had her shoes on, and her red lips were pursed in concentration.

Stark walked past Len Wetherall at the bar and right up onto the stage. Juliana didn't look up. She seemed unaware of his approach, of anything but what she was doing. The dim light caught the gleam of perspiration on her forehead and upper lip, and he could see the hair matted at the nape of her neck, where it was still more blond than pink. The effect was outrageously sexy. But Matthew told himself he couldn't care.

She finished her tune and took a breath, ready to begin the next, but Stark tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped and nearly fell off the bench. He felt himself going for her, but she caught her balance before he could help and looked around, dazed.

As she focused on him, the clouds disappeared from her dark eyes. She brushed away the glistening drops of sweat on her upper lip and didn't smile. “Stark—what do you want?”

“If I'm going to get tossed,” he said in a grinding, tight voice, still hearing Weasel's panicked cry, “I want to make it worthwhile.”

Her hand dropped to the middle of her gaudy rhinestone necklace, but she looked more excited than nervous. Not so glazed, not at all bored. She gave him a half smile that made his heart race. “What're you going to do,” she said in that liquid voice, “torture me for information?”

Jesus, he thought. “Don't tempt me.”

She lifted her round shoulders in a little shrug and picked up a glass of water off the piano, took a sip, deliberate and unintimidated, and set the glass back down. Pink-haired, purple-haired or pale blond, Matthew thought, the woman was breathtaking—and irritating as hell. He had to rock her.

He stared down at her, a hard, ugly stare that had no discernible effect on her. She just blinked at him.

“The name Peperkamp keeps turning up,” he told her. “Catharina Peperkamp Fall, J.J. Pepper—got that from Peperkamp, didn't you? Now I'm on my way to Antwerp to check out another goddamn Peperkamp. Johannes Peperkamp. I'll wager anything you want that he's related to you. And you know what else? He's a diamond cutter. Imagine. Think he knows something about the world's largest uncut diamond?”

He watched her swallow and turn white under the apple-blossom cheeks. The regal calm had vanished, but he had to admire her control. She didn't try to get away, and she didn't yell for Len Wetherall. She said, “Johannes Peperkamp is my uncle.”

“Lo and behold, the lady does know something.”

“He's an old man.” One pale, slender hand reached back and gripped the keyboard, as if anchoring her in a world she knew and wanted to believe in. “Leave him alone.”

“I'm not going to leave anybody alone, including you, sweet cheeks. An old buddy just may get killed because you think this is a goddamn game, like painting your hair pink and wearing funny clothes. Well, darling, it's not a game.”

Juliana was shaking all over now, white-faced, angry, humiliated. Stark fought the impulse to lift her into his arms. He wanted to kiss her, to make the shaking stop. But he didn't relent. He wasn't going to let Weasel go down because some bored piano player wouldn't talk; she was, however, hanging in there better than most people did when he got going.

“Tell me more about your uncle,” he said.

“No.”

Straight up and to the point. He liked that.

“You're crazy,” she said.

“Just wild. Diamond cutters, bakers, piano players, chickenshit politicians.” His voice was low and deep and dark, and he knew he had her scared. She'd have been a damn fool if she weren't. “You all can have a party when you get my buddy killed.”

Juliana breathed in sharply but said nothing.

“Where's your uncle live in Antwerp?”

“I won't tell you.”

“That's okay. I'm a reporter. I'll find out.”

“Stop it!” She balled her hands into tight fists, looking as if she were going to hit him. “Damn you, you have no right to—”

“I have every right to help a friend in trouble, and if I have to make you feel bad to do it, tough shit, lady. What do you know about the Minstrel's Rough?”

“Stop!”

“Hell, no, I'm not going to stop.”

“Oh, yes you are, bub.”

The voice behind Stark was bass-pitched and menacing. Matthew hadn't forgotten about Len Wetherall. He just didn't give a damn. He didn't turn around but looked straight into the wide, terrified, curious, pissed-off eyes of Juliana Fall, gorgeous eyes, and he had to stop his heart from melting and his brain from telling him to lay off her. But then he heard Bloch's laugh and one of Weasel's pathetic sniffles, and he felt himself hardening, drawing up his resolve inside himself, accepting the need to do what had to be done.

“If the Weaze ends up on a board because you wouldn't talk, darling, count on seeing me again.” Without giving her a chance to answer, he turned around and looked up at Len Wetherall. “I wouldn't fuck with me if I were you.”

He walked out. No one said a word, no one laid a hand on him. No one did a damn thing but let him go.

 

One piece flowed into the next. Juliana didn't care; she had to play. Wanted to. Len had said, “Dude's in a bad mood,” and she'd only nodded, unable to speak. He'd asked her what she was doing messing around with Matt Stark; he'd said himself he wouldn't want to mess with a guy in a mood like that, with a face like that. When she still didn't talk, he told her to get a drink and calm down, then play. She couldn't drink, she couldn't calm down.

But she could play. Had to.

As she played she thought not about the music but about the old man backstage in the little Delftshaven church seven years ago with his crumpled paper bag holding the Minstrel's Rough, which she hadn't known what to do with and so didn't do anything with it except take it home with her, and her mother's trembling hands and the quick dark eyes of Rachel Stein and the dreamy baby blue eyes of Samuel Ryder and Matthew Stark who, yes, was a mean-looking sonofabitch. But the hell with that. To hell with
him.
She wasn't afraid.

Something touched her shoulder, and she screamed, leaping up, disoriented.

Len caught her around the middle before she could collapse. “It's okay, babe,” he said tenderly, taking he weight. “I think you'd better head on home.”

“Why—what—” She looked up at him as he lifted her off the bench and stood her up, like a limp doll. “What was I playing?”

“You don't know?”

She shook her head, still holding on to him. Her heart was beating rapidly; she felt dazed and unsteady.

“You started out with jazz,” Len said, “but then you went into some kind of hairy-assed shit.”

Chopin. She remembered a nocturne. The Nocturne in B Major, Opus 62, No. 1. She'd been playing it for years. But she remembered some Liszt, too, and some Bach and Bartók. Not whole pieces, but phrases here and there.

She remembered hearing them, not playing them.

“Oh, hell,” she said.

“You played that stuff from memory.”

“I know I—” She licked her lips, but her tongue was as dry as her mouth. “I think I'll go home.”

Len got her raccoon coat and helped her on with it. She was dripping with sweat, and her big eyes were still glazed. He'd seen it happen before, that daze, when musicians were totally absorbed in what they were doing, and it took a while before they came to. He'd experienced that level of concentration himself on the court. He'd be unaware of the crowd, and even afterward, when he watched a tape of a play, he'd know exactly what he'd done, why he'd done it, how, but he wouldn't be able to remember how it had all come together at that precise moment. He'd just done it. It was organic, a part of him.

Just as what had poured out of J.J.—as he'd stood at the bar in stunned silence and folks around him just held their breath—had to be a part of her.

“Watch out you don't freeze, babe,” he told her.

“I will. Thank you.”

He put her in a cab himself. Insisted on it. The lady was on the edge, he thought, and in trouble.

It was dark and cold on upper Madison Avenue but crowded, the restaurants filling up. Catharina's Bake Shop was closed. Even Catharina herself had gone home. Juliana considered heading down to Park Avenue, to her parents' apartment, and battling it out with her mother. Maybe even her father would get in on it and demand that his wife be more forthcoming, although that had never happened in the past. There was no man in the world more understanding and loving than Adrian Fall. But his sympathy to his wife's feelings, his acceptance that there were things about her past he would never know, had contributed to a conspiracy of silence—and Juliana's frustration. How could a father argue with a mother's desire for their child to be happy?

A couple passed her on the street, dragging a Christmas tree behind them. They were laughing together and singing “Deck the Halls,” and for no reason at all, Juliana thought of Matthew Stark. He was a difficult man, to say the least. Remote, confident, unpredictable. He didn't exactly tiptoe around her. Myself, I wouldn't want to mess with him, Len had said. Yes, she could understand that. The changeable nature of his eyes, the scars on his hands and face, and the dark, gravelly voice suggested a certain toughness—but also, in her opinion, an intriguing vulnerability.

Suddenly she imagined herself dragging a Christmas tree along Madison Avenue with him, maybe even singing, and it was strange that the image didn't seem wrong, impossible, absurd.

You're in trouble, she thought, and hailed another cab.

W
ilhelmina watered the spider plants and strawberry geraniums in her kitchen window. She hadn't slept well, and when the telephone rang, she found herself reluctant to answer it. Who did she want to talk to? No one. But whoever it was would only call back. Resigned, she put down her watering can and picked up the receiver.

In flat-accented Flemish, a man identified himself as Martin Dekker of Antwerp. Wilhelmina sniffed. She had little use for Belgians. “What can I do for you?” she asked, pinching off a dried leaf from her spider plant.

“You have a brother, Johannes Peperkamp?”

“Yes.”

“I'm his landlord.”

He's dead, Wilhelmina thought, with no particular feeling that she could describe. My brother is dead.

“I don't want to frighten you unnecessarily,” Dekker went on quickly, “but Mr. Peperkamp hasn't been to his apartment since the day before yesterday. A man was just here looking for him—a diamond dealer. He says your brother hasn't been to his shop, either, and he owes him several diamonds. That's not like Mr. Peperkamp, as I'm sure you know. I was wondering if you might know where he is.”

Wilhelmina crumpled the leaf in one hand. “I haven't seen Johannes in more than five years,” she said. Actually, not that she thought about it, she realized it was probably longer. She shrugged. “He's a grown man. Maybe he has a girlfriend.”

“I don't think that's likely.”

Neither did Wilhelmina. Far more likely that her brother had been wandering around and fallen off a pier. He'd always loved the ocean. Johannes was getting old, and he'd lived alone since the death of his wife, to whom he'd been devoted, ten years earlier. Poor Ann. She'd been so kind and lovely—everything Wilhelmina wasn't.

A note of exasperation crept into Martin Dekker's voice. “Miss Peperkamp, if you're not concerned—”

“I didn't say that.” Wilhelmina was used to people taking offense at her. Although she wasn't a cruel or uncaring woman, she lacked subtlety and had long ago quit pretending to have any. She was a direct woman, and that was that. “Have you checked his apartment? He isn't dead in his bed, is he?”

The Belgian was taken aback by her bluntness. “I checked. He isn't there.”

“Humph. He hasn't missed a day of work in years, I'm sure.”

“That's what I was thinking.”

She sighed, and once more she found herself fighting images of Hendrik de Geer. She'd been fighting them for forty years. Did Johannes's disappearance have anything to do with Hendrik's presence at Lincoln's Center, Rachel's death, this business with Senator Ryder? Achh, she thought, annoyed, and threw the crumpled leaf into the trash.

“Well, perhaps I should come to Antwerp and see what my brother's about.”

The landlord agreed and hung up, much cheered to have the matter resting on someone else's shoulders. It's so often that way, Wilhelmina thought, and so often the shoulders are mine.

 

Juliana walked down the quiet, narrow streets of Delftshaven, trying to let the crisp air dispel the all-too-familiar numbness and disorientation of jet lag. She had decided to follow Matthew Stark to Antwerp, but via Rotterdam and Aunt Willie. She didn't know her way around Antwerp, didn't speak the language, and didn't have the slightest idea how to get to Uncle Johannes's apartment—all, certainly, handicaps shared by Matthew. But she preferred to be one step ahead of him, not shoulder to shoulder and definitely not two or three behind. She wanted to get to Uncle Johannes
before
he did.

She'd headed straight from her mother's bakeshop to the airport and had gotten a flight to Schiphol Airport, arriving early that morning. It was a simple matter to get a taxi to Delftshaven, where she'd decided to walk a couple of blocks to clear her head before knocking on her aunt's door. She'd slept some on the plane, having done what she could about her pink hair in its stainless steel bathroom. If anyone had recognized her, her reputation would have been shot to hell, but, as Matthew Stark could tell her, odds were she wouldn't be.

She put him out of her mind as she rang her aunt's doorbell. Wilhelmina Peperkamp wasn't the most lovable person, but Juliana sensed she was utterly reliable.

The old Dutchwoman answered her door in a shapeless wool dress, heavy socks, and sturdy shoes. Her hair was cut short in no particular style, and she wore no cosmetics.

“Juliana?” Her blue eyes crinkled as she squinted at her niece standing on the front stoop. “That's you, isn't it? What's happened to your hair?”

Juliana dragged her fingers through her hair, stiff with mousse and sticking out in odd places after the long flight, but she didn't bother to indulge Aunt Willie with an explanation. Wilhelmina was stubborn, sour, difficult, and critical. Nothing ever pleased her. Without any effort, she could make people feel frivolous and silly. She would never understand J.J. Pepper. Suddenly Juliana had her doubts about having come. Aunt Willie could easily tell her she was being ridiculous and send her home.

“Yes, it's me,” Juliana said, and let it go at that. What the hell, she thought. She was here.

“Come in, then,” Wilhelmina replied without surprise, and opened the door, eyeing her niece's green velvet dress and the smudged eye makeup. “I had a dress like that when I was younger. But I think it suits you better.”

A compliment? Juliana didn't know what to make of that, remembering how her aunt had snored through her Dutch premiere seven years ago and afterward had admitted as much.

“Of course,” Aunt Willie went on, “that was fifty years ago or more. But I suppose if we old women hadn't turned in our clothes to the secondhand shops when we were younger, what would crazy young people have to wear today?”

Juliana surprised herself by laughing. “I was waiting for the other shoe to fall.”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind.”

According to her mother and Juliana's own limited experience with her aunt, Wilhelmina Peperkamp seldom gave a compliment without some kind of stab. It seemed she didn't want a person to think she was actually being nice—or maybe she just worried about giving anyone a swelled head. Juliana supposed it was just as well that the world's second largest ocean separated the Falls and Aunt Willie, although the distance hadn't prevented her from criticizing her younger sister. She'd expressed in no uncertain terms her irritation with Catharina for not teaching her daughter Dutch. That Juliana had had little interest in learning Dutch—something she regretted later, but not at age eight—didn't faze Aunt Willie.

“You don't seem surprised to see me,” Juliana said.

“Surprise is for the young.”

Aunt Willie's apartment was small and tidy, consisting of a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom. The furniture was old but well-kept, and there were plants in most of the windows. Juliana followed her stocky old aunt, so familiar and yet a stranger, into the little kitchen.

“I'm packing cheese sandwiches,” Wilhelmina said, going to the counter. She sliced some thin pieces of cheese off a wedge of aged Gouda.

Juliana sat at the table, covered with a faded but still serviceable white cloth, and fingered one of a line of scrubbed clay pots. They were old but immaculate.

“Are you going somewhere?” she asked.

“Antwerp.”

“But that's where I'm—” Catching herself, Juliana didn't finish.

Wihelmina nibbled on a slice of cheese. “That's where you're what? Juliana, I don't like playing games. I prefer directness.”

Avoiding an answer, Juliana took a slice of cheese when her aunt offered it on the end of her knife. She wasn't fond of aged Gouda; it was too strong, too much like eating mold. But it gave her a moment to think: if she told Aunt Willie everything straight off, she might in turn not tell her niece a damn thing. She was, after all, her mother's older sister.

“Why are you going to Antwerp?” she asked casually. “You told me you haven't been to New York to visit because you hate to travel.”

“Antwerp isn't as far as New York.” Wilhelmina carefully wrapped the cheese back up and returned it to the refrigerator. “But it's true, I don't care to travel. Once a year I visit friends in Aalsmeer, and they take me to the flower festivals and feed me too much because they pity me.”

Juliana couldn't hide her surprise. “Why would they pity you?”

Wilhelmina laughed. “Because I'm old and alone. Always when I return home, one of my plants is wilted or dead. Do you have plants?”

“No. Goldfish.”

“Fish? Do you eat them?”

“Of course not. They're pets.”

“Sentimental Americans,” Wilhelmina muttered, and resumed her lunch-making. She got a half-dozen cookies from a tin and fixed a thermos of hot tea.

Juliana watched, fascinated. “Isn't Antwerp just a couple of hours from Rotterdam by train?”

“About ninety minutes.” She screwed the top down on the thermos. “Since the war, I always carry food with me. Once you've known hunger…” She waved a hand, not completing the thought. “Does your mother know you're here?”

“No,” Juliana said guiltily. “I came sort of on the spur of the moment.”

“You should call her and tell her where you are.”

“She won't like it.”

“Of course not, she's your mother.”

Juliana looked up at her old aunt and winced suddenly at her own rudeness. It had only just occurred to her that she should have offered to help pack lunch. But Aunt Willie always seemed so self-sufficient. “Have you talked to Mother recently?”

“Yes. She called to tell me about Rachel Stein.”

“Did she also tell you—”

“Our conversation was a private one, Juliana. Now go call her. You may use my phone, but be quick about it. Calls are expensive.”

With Aunt Willie looking on, Juliana dialed her parents' Park Avenue home. As expected, she got the housekeeper, who promised to relay to Catharina and Adrian Fall that their daughter was out of town and had called to say hello.

“You didn't tell her where you were,” Wilhelmina pointed out when Juliana hung up.

“I'm thirty years old. Aunt Willie, aren't you even curious as to why I'm here?”

She swept the lunch into a paper bag. “You'll tell me soon enough. Come, let's go to Antwerp.”

“But how do you know I'm going—”

“Juliana, I'm not a fool.” The old Dutchwoman put on her wool coat and tucked the lunch bag under her arm. Juliana followed her out of the apartment, putting her own coat back on. “I like the raccoon,” Wilhelmina said. “I'm used to you in your cashmere and silk.”

“You've only seen me a few times.”

“So?”

Juliana gave up.

Naturally Aunt Willie didn't drive. They took the underground tram to Central Station, where trains to Antwerp were frequent and on time. Juliana had always enjoyed her trips to The Netherlands. A crowded nation with one of the highest standards of living in the world, it depended on a modern, well-run system of mass transportation. Even Aunt Willie had no complaints. They found a seat on the train, and she insisted Juliana go in first so she could sit by the window for the view.

“It's good that you're here,” Aunt Willie said. “We can see about your uncle together.”

Juliana was instantly alert—even, given the events of the last few days, afraid. “What do you mean? What's wrong?”

“Sit down and don't fall to pieces on me.”

Stiff and insulted, Juliana sat down, but her heart was pounding painfully. She thought about the unanswered phone calls to Uncle Johannes. If Matthew Start could get his name and be on his way to Antwerp, so could others.

But how? Who?
Why?

Crazily, she thought of Shuji. Would he say she was in a full-fledged funk?

“Good,” Aunt Willie said, satisfied. “I was afraid you were going to do something silly like faint. I've always considered playing the piano a frivolous career, but perhaps your training has prepared you better for life than I'd anticipated.”

“What about Uncle Johannes?” Juliana asked.

Wilhelmina nodded and said stoically, “Johannes is missing.”

 

Someone at the exclusive
Diamantclub
at 62 Pelikaanstraat gave Matthew the address of Johannes Peperkamp's shop and pointed him in the direction of Schupstraat. As he walked down the busy, gray streets of the diamond district, he appreciated the chilly breeze and the bright sun, both of which helped him to chase off the fatigue that gnawed at his eyes and muscles. He hadn't slept on the flight over. He couldn't relax in the air unless he was doing the flying, but even if he'd been at his townhouse in Georgetown, he doubted he'd have slept.

He wasn't thrilled with himself for the way he'd treated Juliana. She was a musician, and she had different priorities. Whatever happened to the Weaze, it wasn't her fault, even if she was holding back information—which, goddamnit, he knew she was. But Weaze could have gotten out the day he'd shown up in Washington. He could have let Sam Ryder sink in his own shit (as Otis Raymond had so effectively put it), instead of risking himself to try and pull Ryder out. Stark sometimes forgot Otis had a mind of his own. He was a trained, experienced combat soldier who knew how to assess danger. Matthew was no longer his helicopter pilot; he no longer had to feel responsible for SP-4 Otis Raymond.