Cut and Run (22 page)

“Okay, Aunt Willie, you've made your point. But I still think Mother should tell me what happened in Amsterdam.”

“So do I, but it's not my place to make her.”

“Aunt Willie—”

“Are you sure this driver knows what he's doing? I hate cars. I don't want to come all this way and then die on a highway in New York City.”

Juliana sighed and tried again. “Aunt Willie—”

“If I do,” she persisted, “just have me cremated. Don't bother with the expense of having my body shipped back to Holland.”

“You're impossible.”

“Yes, I know. But I'm honest.”

“To a fault,” Juliana said.

 

His head pounding with fatigue and frustration, Matthew indulged himself in a fresh round of self-reproach for having mentioned to Juliana that he was on his way to Antwerp. Dangling such information in front of her was the equivalent of handing her a free ticket and driving her to the airport. How could he not have realized that she just might follow him?

But he had to admit he'd felt a certain satisfaction in running into her at her uncle's apartment. It meant she wasn't so self-involved that she didn't give a damn about an old diamond cutter who just happened to be a relative. It meant she was tough and tenacious enough to risk at least trying to find out what was going on.

It meant the prospect of bumping into him in Antwerp hadn't bothered her one bit.

Now, though, the adventure was over. Her uncle was dead—
two
people were dead. That was too much of a coincidence for Stark. Rachel Stein and Johannes Peperkamp had something to do with Otis Raymond and his problems. With Sam Ryder and Phil Bloch. Whatever was going on, Matthew couldn't justify bringing Juliana Fall and her stout, cranky old aunt further into it. No more encouragement, no more questions.

Do whatever you goddamn well please, ladies, just leave me alone and stay the hell out of this mess.

But Juliana knows something about the Minstrel's Rough, he thought; you know damn well she does. Probably the aunt does, too. You should ignore
feelings,
goddamnit, and go after the facts.

He shook his head, adamant. He could see the dark, beautiful eyes of Juliana Fall widen and fill with unspilled tears when he'd told her about her uncle. She was a piano player, for God's sake. Let her entertain herself with J.J. Pepper. He couldn't control what she did, perhaps, but he could control what he did.

And what he was going to do was leave her the hell alone.

Aaron Ziegler thrust a sheet torn off the wire in front of him. “I found the Peperkamp obit,” he said proudly. “It was just a couple of lines, a repeat mostly of the information in the folder I already gave you. He died of a heart attack in Amsterdam. He was part of a dying breed of highly skilled cleavers who eschewed lasers and computers in doing their work. His wife was Ann Visser, whose father was in the House of Asscher in Amsterdam before World War Two. The Nazis murdered him in Auschwitz. She died ten years ago.”

“Thanks,” Stark said. “I appreciate it.”

“Sure.”

“Want to do me another favor?”

Aaron shifted from one tassel loafer to the other. “Okay.”

“See what you can find out about a retired army sergeant by the name of Phillip Bloch.” He handed Ziegler a scrap of paper he'd scrawled names on during the flight from Belgium. “You can try the guys listed her. They might be able to help.”

“Is there anything specific you're after?”

“Yeah. I want to know where he is.”

 

Juliana's apartment building was an outrage, of course, but Wilhelmina resisted comment as her niece led her past the uniformed doorman into the marble lobby, then to the brass elevator with its smiling elevator man. Juliana explained that Central Park West attracted numerous performing artists and she felt comfortable there, she could be herself. Wilhelmina wondered, how could you be anyone else? To her, the place felt like a museum or a queen's palace.

And the apartment itself! So many locks, so many rooms! Juliana told her aunt she could choose whichever bedroom she wanted, except for the “blue” one and the “rose” one.

“I use the blue,” Juliana said.

“And what about the rose?”

“My friend J.J. stays there when she's in town; she's left a lot of her stuff in the closet.”

“Oh.”

Wilhelmina investigated. In and out, in and out. She counted closets, bathrooms, bureaus, fireplaces, paintings, vases. She found some comfort in seeing the film of dust on virtually everything. Perhaps Juliana's material possessions didn't mean too much to her.

She settled on a tidy, sparsely furnished room in the back. It was the smallest. Juliana had taken a shower while Wilhelmina looked around, and she grinned from the doorway, her hair up in a big white towel. “This is the former maid's room, Aunt Willie,” she said.

“Is it? How charming.”

“Did you want to see Mother this afternoon?”

“Yes, of course.”

“She isn't going to talk to you in front of me, you know.”

“Then you can always leave. Now hurry up and get dressed.”

In less time than Wilhelmina thought her niece would have been capable of, Juliana joined her in the living room, wearing a pretty multistriped mohair coat and a black mohair scarf tied over her hair, which was still slightly damp. She had a leather satchel hooked over one shoulder.

“We can get the bus across the street and take it over to Fifth Avenue,” Juliana said, “then walk over to Madison—unless you'd rather take a cab.”

“The bus is fine,” Wilhelmina said, buttoning her coat. She nodded to the satchel. “What's in there?”

Juliana grinned. “Bus tokens.”

But when they climbed onto the bus, Juliana slipped two tokens from her coat pocket. Wilhelmina sniffed. Better to be told something was none of her business than to be lied to. However, she said nothing, more interested in the man standing on the corner just down from the bus stop, leaning against a nude tree on the wide sidewalk. He was a solid, pleasant-looking man, perhaps in his midthirties, with a fleshy face. He wore a trench coat and a tweed cap. Wilhelmina had spotted him watching them as they'd crossed the streets from the Beresford.

Now, as they got onto the bus, he flagged a cab. He would know the bus route, possibly even guess where they were heading. Not that it mattered. She didn't think he'd have any difficulty at all following the bus and getting out at the same stop they did.

“Aunt Willie, is something wrong?”

Juliana had responded well to the Nazi who'd followed them in Rotterdam; Wilhelmina had been impressed with her niece's display of nerve and competence. And she'd seemed to take no real pride in what she'd done, which was good. Wilhelmina believed one should act in accordance with one's own tolerance for risk, not to impress or shock anyone else. In her experience, that was when trouble started. Better to deal with an admitted coward than an un-admitted coward. She loathed bravado.

Nevertheless, being followed in Europe was quite different than having one's own home watched. Wilhelmina shook her head. “No, nothing.”

“You saw him, too, didn't you? The man in the Burberry, right?”

“Yes.”

Juliana smiled, her eyes shining. “It sounds like an Agatha Christie novel, doesn't it?
The Man in the Burberry Coat.
”

“Juliana—”

“It's all right, Aunt Willie.” Her expression was grim but also surprisingly determined; she would deal with what was happening and not fall to pieces. “We'll handle him.”

Of that, of course, Wilhelmina had no doubt.

 

Sergeant Phillip Bloch stormed into the fishing lodge and kicked the chair out from under his desk, putting all his pent-up rage into that one motion. He didn't sit down. His body was rigid with tension; he felt as if he could break himself into pieces, like chopping wood.

That idiot Ryder, he thought.
That goddamn, fucking idiot!

Block tried to calm himself. This level of stress wasn't good for his health; he had to take things in stride. Ryder wasn't going to turn smart overnight. He'd just let Hendrik de Geer go off as he pleased, and now Johannes Peperkamp was dead, and Ryder didn't know where the Dutchman or the diamond was.

Jesus!

Ryder, who didn't know shit about people, had said de Geer was a drunk and had just gone off on his own. He'd disappeared. Bloch didn't believe it. De Geer had his own reasons for not killing Ryder and being done with the stupid asshole. Whatever those reasons were, Bloch didn't trust them, and he was going to make damn sure he didn't have that stinking Dutchman flying back in his face.

“Christ,” he said aloud, his teeth gritted, “do I have to do
everything
myself?”

It was so fucking simple. With the old man dead, all you do is go to the Peperkamp women. Wilhelmina Peperkamp, Catharina Fall, Juliana Fall. You take them one by one, nothing fancy. You point out that their brother or uncle would have made arrangements to pass along the Minstrel's Rough to one of them. You point out that means one of them has it. You let them know that you want it. They argue, you grab them by the throat and say, “Get me the Minstrel or else.” One of them does, and bingo.

You don't act wishy-washy. You have to
believe
that one of them has the stone.

Once you get it, you have it cut, polished, and evaluated, and you go about snipping off any loose ends still hanging in your face. Rachel Stein-type loose ends. No big deal. Just the things that have to be done to achieve the larger objective. Means to an end. Like stuff he'd had to do in Vietnam.

Then you cash in on the world's largest and most mysterious uncut diamond—now cut—and you say hello to the big time.

To do anything, you couldn't rely on fucking incompetents.

“I don't have the maneuverability you do,” Ryder had whined.

Christ.

“You have to understand, Matthew Stark is nosing around. You know what he thinks of me.”

Same thing I do, Sammy.

Bloch grunted, calmer. Yeah, Ryder had a point about Stark. Neither of them could afford to have that sonofabitch climbing up their backs, trying to bring them down. Guess it was time he and Steelman—Christ, he hated all those dumbass nicknames—came to terms.

He sat down at the desk and picked up the phone.

 

Juliana found her mother sitting disconsolate in a quiet corner of the bakeshop kitchen, a pot of tea in front of her. Aunt Willie had broken the news about their brother's death and retreated to the shop, for coffee and something to eat, she'd said. Juliana knew better; her aunt wanted her sister and niece to have a chance to talk.

“Just don't mention our gentleman in the trench coat,” Aunt Willie had whispered.

Juliana knew better. He'd stayed behind the bus until they got off and was waiting across the street from the bakeshop when they arrived. Juliana had both horrified and delighted her aunt by waving to him.

“Shouldn't we call the police?” she'd asked.

“Why? Because there's a man smoking a cigarette on Madison Avenue?”

“He followed us.”

“That's true. But even if we could prove it, what would he tell the police? ‘I'm a fan of Juliana Fall's, she's so petty.'” She'd lifted a broad palm in dismissal.

They'd decided to let him stand outside in the cold.

Catharina bit her lip, and tears streamed down her pale cheeks when she saw her daughter. “Thank God—oh, thank God. I've been so worried!”

She took Juliana's hand, squeezing it hard, as if to make sure she was really there, and Juliana sat down, her frustration with her mother gone. She felt so guilty. Her mother's only brother was dead. Juliana hadn't known her uncle well, although she'd loved him, and she didn't have any siblings or any cousins on the Peperkamp side of the family. But she was close to her Fall cousins and would hate to lose any of them. She knew so little of death.

“I'm sorry, Mother—for worrying you, for Uncle Johannes. For everything.”

Catharina nodded, accepting the apology as readily as she always did, believing in her daughter, trusting her. Juliana could only wonder what her mother would do when she learned she'd had the Minstrel's Rough for the last seven years.

She won't find out, Juliana vowed silently. I won't tell her. I'll figure a way out of this so she won't have to know.

“It's all right,” Catharina said at last.

“Mother, I…”

But Juliana found herself unable to go on. She couldn't press her mother for answers now, not with her grief and shock so raw. And did she really have the right to go demand to know what had happened to her mother long before she was born? What about her mother's right not to tell her daughter certain things about her own life? If I have a child, Juliana thought, would I want her to know everything I've done? Aren't there feelings, events, decisions that I will want to remain private?