Cut and Run (33 page)

“Why not? It's only the world's largest uncut diamond.”

“If you'd seen Uncle Johannes that night, you might have done the same.”

“I don't make jam.”

Ignoring him, she recounted the night at the little stone church in Delftshaven, when her uncle had presented her with the crumpled bag and the stone wrapped in faded velvet.

When she'd finished, Matthew asked, “How did the Minstrel come into your family?”

“According to the legend, the Peperkamps provided safe haven in Amsterdam to Jews driven first from Lisbon, then Antwerp. Those were the major diamond centers at the time. The Peperkamps helped them settle into Amsterdam, where they were able to establish themselves as diamond merchants. They were always voices for tolerance and religious freedom.”

“Were they in the diamond trade themselves?”

“No, they were simple merchants. It was a turbulent time in Holland. Throughout the century, they were fighting off the Spanish—particularly after Philip the Second came into power in 1556. He was extreme in his anti-Protestant views and enacted a number of vicious edicts, instigating revolt in the northern provinces. There were uprisings and atrocities on both sides until Philip was dead, the Spanish Armada defeated, and the Spanish finally routed from Holland by 1609, I believe it was. Anyway, the Peperkamps became known for their advocacy of what we now might call human rights, but they paid dearly for their positions: several family members were tortured and executed by the Spanish
and
extremist Protestants, neither of whom appreciated their views.

“Rumors about the Minstrel's Rough had existed for some time, and it came into their hands in 1581, three years before the assassination of William of Orange by a Free Catholic for a reward offered by Philip of Spain. It was presented to them anonymously, for their sacrifice, and ultimately led them into the diamond business themselves. They were curious about the stone and had no idea of its value. They decided among themselves that it would never be cut, in remembrance of those who'd been lost and those who'd been left with no choice but to accept their help. It would not belong to them; it would belong to no one. They would be the caretakers. No one would know for certain the stone existed, its grade, its potential value. In each generation, there's been one primary caretaker, one person trusted with the tradition. Only he—until me, it's always been a he—has control over the stone, whether it's finally to be cut, what becomes of it. Everything—the legend, the tradition, the mystery—rests with that one person.”

“Hell of a responsibility,” Matthew said.

Juliana was shivering uncontrollably. She nodded, saying nothing more.

He gave her a small grin. “Some advantages to having a family that goes back to about the Depression. Juliana, you're going to freeze. Come under the blankets a minute and warm up—or here, take one.” He peeled off the top quilt and flung it down to her. “You should get back to sleep. You'll need it.”

“I know, but I can't. Mother—”

She broke off, shutting her eyes and putting her thumb at the top of her cheekbone and her forefinger at the inner corner of her eyebrow and pressing down hard, as if that would help hold back the anguish. Matthew slid forward, the quilts dropping to his waist, but he seemed unaware of the cold as he took her in his arms. She felt herself go limp as she laid her head on his shoulder, absorbing his warmth.

“Oh, hell,” he breathed, and kissed her hair. Unable to fall asleep, she'd taken a shower after he'd gone to bed, trying to wash out the pain and the frustration and the worry and watch it go down the drain. She'd wanted him to come to her. But he hadn't.

“I know Bloch,” he said. “He'll figure out you have the Minstrel and use your mother and your aunt, if he can manage to grab her, as bait for you. He won't kill them, Juliana.”

“Until he gets the Minstrel or realizes he can get it,” she finished, knowing Matthew wouldn't. “Then he'll kill all of us.”

“We don't know that.”

But she could see he did.

“For now, they're safe.”

She turned her face to him, her hair falling against the warm skin of his shoulder and her eyes as luminous and unreadable as the stars. “Who is he?”

In the dim light she could see the blackness of his eyes, but she didn't turn away. She pulled the quilt up over her, staying in his arms instead. For the first time that night, she finally felt warm.

“Phillip Bloch is a retired army sergeant—”

“And he was a platoon sergeant in Vietnam, and a platoon's made up of three ten-man squads. I mean, who is he to you?”

“Sam Ryder was his platoon leader. We were in the central highlands at the same time—those two, Weasel, a pilot named Jake MacIntyre, a crew chief named Chuck Fisher, and me.”

“When you were flying a Huey?”

“Yeah.”

“As a slick?”

“That's right. Ryder's was one of the platoons we transported. Bloch was in for his third tour; Ryder was as green as they come, but indecisive as well as incompetent. The army has a nice way of weeding out the dumbasses: if you're no good, you get killed in combat. Sometimes you had to hope they got killed before they killed you just by being dumb. Sometimes you had an experienced platoon sergeant who could keep things from getting out of hand, keep guys alive where the lieutenant, the platoon leader, couldn't.”

“What did Bloch do?”

“He had the experience and the knowledge to get around Ryder, and sometimes he used them, when it suited his purposes. Mostly it didn't. I knew platoon sergeants who died saving their men, who rubbed green lieutenants' noses in it to make them learn fast or find a way out. Bloch looked after himself, period. He wanted Ryder to survive, and he wanted him to come out of Vietnam a hero, so he covered for Ryder and cushioned him and his commanders from the results of his incompetence. Because of that, guys who should have made it out didn't.”

“And now Bloch is using what he knows about Ryder's true role in Vietnam against him—as collateral for blackmail,” Juliana said, understanding. “Matthew, what about Jake MacIntyre and Chuck Fisher?”

He looked away from her, but their bodies still touched. “Their names are on the wall.”

The Vietnam Memorial. “Was Bloch responsible for their deaths?”

“They were in my ship. I was responsible.”

“You're hard on yourself, Matthew.”

“Not hard,” he said. “Honest. At least I try to be.”

“I like that.”

“Do you?”

He seemed to want an answer, and she nodded, not taking her eyes from his, wanting to know everything about him—and him to know everything about her, the bad as well as the good.

“Yes,” she said finally, with certainty. “Integrity, compassion, intelligence, courage, sensitivity—they're not easy to find in ourselves, much less anyone else. But they mean more to me than money, power, success, any of that stuff. On paper, I guess people don't come any more different than the two of us, but I don't think we're all that different, not where it counts.” She smiled, a little taken aback with herself. “Anyway, I should get back downstairs.”

With his fingertips, he brushed a few stray hairs from her forehead. “Do you want to?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“You're tired.”

“I know, and I hurt. No one's ever hit me, Matthew, until today. I've never felt so—small. I—I wanted to be big and strong enough to scare those men off. I've never even
thought
about my limitations in that way. Do you know what I went after them with when they had my mother? A wooden shoe. A goddamn wooden shoe.”

“Darling, you're tough in all the ways that count.”

She laughed bitterly. “So put that on my mother's tombstone.”

“Darling—”

“I want to forget for now, Matthew—I just want you to hold me…” She caught his fingers in hers. “I'm so glad you're here, Matthew. I don't think I could have stood being alone, not tonight.”

She lifted her face to his, and his mouth was there, warm and soft and everything she needed. His arms went around her, his lips opening, and she closed her eyes as his tongue slid between her teeth. It was a different kind of burning she felt now, not the burning of tired eyes and sore muscles and unanswered questions. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself into him, and they fell down onto the pillows together, a tangle of quilts, sheet, and nightgown.

“I don't want to hurt you,” Matthew whispered.

“Don't worry, please.”

“I've never met anyone like you. Never.”

She smiled, wishing she could laugh. “Don't think I stumble on Matthew Starks every day.”

He kissed her again, a deeper, harder kiss, and when it was over, he'd pulled the nightgown over her head and tossed it onto the floor. They climbed under the quilts, pulling them all on top of them, their cool, naked bodies intertwined. They didn't speak. Juliana didn't want to break the spell with reminders of death and betrayal and diamonds and all they would have to face. The now, the present, the moment, was filled with need and passion. She ignored the pain of her bruises and her terror and focused on the stirrings that had been thee inside her ever since Matthew Stark had darkened her dressing room door at Lincoln Center.

He smoothed his hands over her breasts and stomach and followed with his mouth, arousing her with nipping, wet kisses. Soon they both got so hot they had to throw off a couple of the quilts. She touched his hard muscles, rubbed her fingers through the dark hairs on his chest, let them examine the scars he had yet to explain. But what she still had to learn about him no longer mattered. She felt a part of him, felt him a part of her.

“Are you sure?” he asked again, sliding her on top of him, so it wouldn't hurt so much. He kissed her bruised wrist, gently.

“Yes. More than anything, you're what I need right now. Don't stop.”

Even in the dark, his smile was gentle. “No problem, darling.”

Whatever else she felt took second place to the mounting, insatiable longing that welled up inside her as she lay on top of him, his hands moving over her hips and bottom and legs. He lifted her up slightly, and when she came down, he was in her. She cried out when he came into her, but so did he, and they made love explosively, tenderly, and she hoped,
knew,
this wouldn't be the last time.

“Matthew!”

She groaned, feeling the spasms, and his arms tightened around her as he shook and moaned with her, until there was silence and stillness, the snow falling lightly outside and no place warmer than beneath their tattered quilts.

D
uring the past few days, Wilhelmina had discovered she hated to fly. In her mind, it was unnatural. God meant for birds to fly, not people—and, besides, the motion, the
unnatural
motion, upset her stomach. The plane she'd taken across the Atlantic Ocean had been her first, and she'd considered the entire experience oppressive. It had been one of those monstrous things with an upstairs and innumerable comforts to make the passengers forget they were in the air when they weren't supposed to be. Think of yourself as an eagle, the man sitting next to her had advised, seeing her look of distaste and mistaking it for fear. She'd felt more like one of the fat pigeons in the park who never looked as if they'd get very far when they tried to fly.

As unpleasant as that trip had been, it was more like a stroll to her neighborhood grocery compared to the flight to which she and Catharina were now being subjected. They bumped along in the air like a bad driver on a rocky road, and there were many strange noises and creakings that Wilhelmina refused to tell herself were normal. Catharina had told her the plane was small and that was why the flight was so much rougher. Wilhelmina had responded yes, that was exactly her point.

Bloch had separated them in the passenger compartment, putting a man with a gun on each of them and telling the one on her to “watch the fat ass, she's a sneaky bitch.”

Wilhelmina held her tongue, but only because she thought her pretended ignorance of English might still be useful. Had it not been for the danger Catharina was in, Wilhelmina would have slit the coward's throat when she'd had the opportunity and damned the consequences. If he shot her with his filthy gun, so be it. She was too old to take him as a hostage, not that that would have produced an acceptable outcome. Given the looks of this man, Wilhelmina had suspected his men wouldn't be terribly loyal and would likely enough have simply let her have him and cut their losses, which could have proved disastrous for Catharina.

She glanced at Catharina, who smiled wanly. She was holding up well—better than Wilhelmina would have expected. Juliana was not with them. That was something to bolster the spirit. Wilhelmina remembered during the war, when she'd sat in the dank, horrible Gestapo prison listening to them torture her father, how she would think of her little sister and be thankful that at least she was still free.

The plane landed with a series of bumps and rattles, and she and Catharina were herded out into a ridiculously small airfield that smelled like gasoline and rotting vegetables. The air was moist and warmer than in New York, although by no means summerlike.

With her good hand, Catharina pulled on the arm of the sergeant. “Why don't we go directly to Switzerland and get this over with?”

Wilhelmina admired how clear and strong her sister's voice sounded, in spite of the pain she suffered. She'd gathered Catharina was trying to get him to believe she had the Minstrel in a safe-deposit box in a Swiss bank. It was a gamble, but better than putting him onto Juliana.

“Just do as I say,” Bloch replied.

Nazi, Wilhelmina thought. He was too accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. Expecting people to be afraid of him.

He ordered them to get into a helicopter. He called it a bird.

Wilhelmina looked around with a sense of foreboding she hoped she masked, but in the eerie light of the airfield she saw the silhouette of a helicopter. To her it looked nothing like a bird, but more a dead spider on its back. When the propellers began to twirl, it looked like a dying spider on its back, which in Wilhelmina's opinion wasn't any better at all.

Whispering in Dutch, Catharina explained she thought they were in Florida or southern Georgia, near a swamp, that's what the smell was, and did Willie think they should continue to cooperate?
Dag,
she whispered. Yes. For now.

The man Bloch told them to shut up and get in the chopper, the fat ass first.

Wilhelmina got the idea.

 

Matthew awoke at dawn, the light streaming through the window as pale as the soft hair spilled across his chest. He had willed himself to awaken before Juliana. She was lying on her side in a dead sleep, her smooth back to him, snuggled up close, the quilts pulled up to her chin. He could feel his own warmth on her skin. A part of him told him to kiss her and love her and maybe later call the police and let them handle everything while they just stayed in bed together.

But then he saw the bruise along her jaw, and he stopped the wishful thinking. He knew Phil Bloch. The sergeant would get the Minstrel on his own terms, not anyone else's.

Taking care not to let the cold in under the covers, Matthew extricated himself from the bed. The room was freezing. He could see his breath in front of his mouth, and the last thing he wanted was to wander around buck naked. He gathered up his clothes and his boots and tiptoed out of the room, cursing silently as the goosebumps sprang up all over him. For no reason at all he thought of the Weasel and how he'd laugh his ass off right now, seeing Matt Stark tiptoeing out of a warm bed, with a woman in it no less, turning purple, all so he could go finish up what Otis Raymond had started him on.
A piano player,
the Weaze'd say, grinning that ugly, yellowed grin,
Jeez'm, Matt.

Jeez'm indeed. He got down the stairs and jumped into his clothes and rubbed his hands together, trying to get warm. He checked the thermostat: fifty-five degrees. Good Christ. And it was colder than that upstairs. With a growl, he turned the heat up to all of sixty-two. He wouldn't be around to enjoy it, but what the hell.

Juliana would. She could afford the damn oil bill.

He snuck around in the kitchen and got the keys to the Mercedes. The keys to her Audi were already in his pocket. Then he went outside. It was cold out but breathtakingly beautiful. Three inches of snow—a mere dusting around here—had fallen during the night, and the view was as picturesque as any he'd ever seen. He could understand Juliana's attraction to this place. But he didn't linger. The Batten Kill River, with snow-covered branches hanging low on its banks and its clear, cold waters running past patches of ice, wasn't going anywhere. He'd be back to see it. He glanced up to the side window and in his mind saw Juliana snuggled up under the blankets, and he thought, damn right I'll be back.

Unless after this she didn't want him. But that was a chance he'd have to take.

He opened up the hood of the Audi and pulled out the spark plug wires, just in case she had a spare set of keys in the house or in her purse. Then he got in the Mercedes. It started right up and handled the snow in the driveway with hardly any trouble at all.

But, apparently, the noise was just enough to awaken his sleeping beauty.

Juliana leaped out the front door with nothing but a ratty quilt over her and yelled, “You sonofabitch,” as she pounded through the snow after him. Good thing there weren't any neighbors, Stark thought somewhat grimly, or they'd talk. World-famous pianist trots naked through snow after has-been reporter. Well, not quite naked. But that'd kill her reputation a hell of a lot quicker than J.J. Pepper could.

As the Mercedes hit the plowed and sanded main road, he left her standing there, cursing him. He took some consolation in knowing he'd turned up the heat. At least he wouldn't have to worry about that lovely behind of hers getting frostbite.

He doubted she'd see it that way.

 

Bloch pulled the phone toward him in the handsome study of Senator Samuel Ryder's fishing lodge on the western edge of the Dead Lakes. As a military compound, it worked out okay, but not great. He and a couple of his most trusted men occupied the lodge, while the others were tucked into the fishing shacks around the perimeter. Ryder had been properly horrified when Bloch had called him up and said, hey, Sammy-boy, guess where I'm hanging out? But it was only a temporary arrangement. Bloch had himself a
real
camp in the works.

He nibbled on a handful of sunflower seeds and carob chips. If he ate any more than that, he'd feel too full, and then he'd want to sleep. Couldn't afford to sleep right now. He'd blown it. An A-plus shitass job he'd done. The two women were stashed in one of the unoccupied shacks. The old one still wasn't saying anything, and the young one was still saying the Minstrel was in Switzerland. Christ! How stupid could he be? Ryder must be rubbing off, he thought, dialing the senator's Washington number with a steady hand.

The aunt hadn't slit his throat, which he had deserved to have slit for letting a goddamn seventy-year-old woman get in that kind of position over him. She'd only let him off because she wanted to be with her sister.

The mother was protecting the daughter. Jesus, did it piss him off for forgetting how sentimental and dumb people could be about their relations. He had a brother; hadn't seen him since before Vietnam. He hadn't wanted to sign up. “I don't believe in this war,” he'd said. Bloch felt a war was a war, and one was pretty much the same as another. When you were a soldier, you were paid to kill, not to think.

Yeah, he thought with a spasmodic laugh, you leave the thinking up to idiots like Sam Ryder.

The senator answered on the twelfth ring. Bloch kept count. “Knew it was me, didn't you?” he said.

He could hear Ryder's fear just in the way he breathed. “What do you want?”

“Juliana Fall.”

“What?”

“She has the diamond.”

“That's ridiculous, Sergeant, she's a concert pianist! She knows nothing about diamonds, I'm sure. Why would she have it? Look, why don't you just give it up? I'll see what I can do about getting you some stop-gap funds to help you vacate the camp and start over elsewhere—”

Bloch ignored him. “The Dutchman helped her get out yesterday. Sammy, Sammy, you're not helping me. Why don't you go and find out where she went.”

“Sergeant, I can't help you! Don't you understand?”

“Yeah, I do.” Bloch ate some more sunflower seeds. “I understand I'm sitting down here in your goddamn fishing camp with a couple tons of illegal weapons and ten men who probably ought to be in jail and how sweet that'd look splashed across the front page of every goddamn newspaper in this country.”

Ryder coughed, spitting with anger, but that, Bloch knew, was the most he could ever do with his anger—just spit and sputter with it. Made a good politician, Sammy-boy did. “Where am I supposed to find Juliana Fall?”

“Don't whine, Lieutenant. You'll think of something.”

“Sergeant—”

“And keep an eye out for Stark, let me know if he comes your way. I don't like it that he's messing around out there and I don't know where he is. I've got a man at his house, but he hasn't showed. You keep in touch, Lieutenant. And Sammy? I can use you in Washington.”

Ryder sputtered, and Bloch laughed, hanging up.

Then he got his number-two man into the office and told him to start packing up. “When I give the word,” he said, “I want to be able to abandon camp within thirty minutes.”

“Will do,” his man said.

Bloch grinned. Now that was what he liked to hear.

 

Juliana had put on clothes—heavy corduroys, turtleneck wool sweater, socks, boots, deerskin gloves with her spare keys, and parka—before trying her car. It didn't start. She didn't know a damn thing about engines, but she opened up the hood anyway and had a look.

She knew enough to spot pulled wires.

“That bastard.”

He'd made damn sure she couldn't follow him—not that she had the slightest idea where he was. Going after Phillip Bloch, undoubtedly, but where was he? If she had a telephone, she'd call the police and have Matthew Stark arrested for stealing Shuji's car. But she didn't have a telephone. She couldn't even call a damn garage to come fix her car.

“Aunt Willie would say I'm soft,” she told herself aloud.

Aunt Willie, she thought, would be right.

Slamming the hood shut, she went inside for a scarf. Cashmere. It was softer on her neck and mouth. Then she went into the kitchen and looked on the pine shelf where she kept her jam recipes.

The Minstrel's Rough sat there collecting dust.

Why hadn't Matthew swiped it along with Shuji's car?

“Because,” she said, “he knows Bloch is going to get rid of everybody whether he gets the Minstrel or not.”

Get rid of everybody. What a quaint little euphemism. Phillip Bloch would kill everybody whether or not he got the diamond. Matthew knew this, and so hadn't bothered with it.

But maybe she could use it as a bargaining chip, if not to make a deal, at least to buy some time—for her mother, her aunt, even for Matthew.

She snatched up the huge rough, shoved it into her inner coat pocket, and headed back outside. Her head was pounding, and she was stiff and sore and hungry, but she trudged outside. The sun was blinding on the snow, and the wind had picked up; it was bitterly cold. Walking was difficult and, because she couldn't see the patches of ice under the freshly fallen snow, treacherous. If she fell and broke a wrist or her hands got badly frostbitten, her career would be over.