Читать книгу Cut And Run - Carla Neggers, Carla Neggers - Страница 8

A young woman in a fresh white apron smiled across the counter in Catharina’s Bake Shop at the tiny dark-haired woman. “May I help you?”

“Yes,” Rachel Stein said, only vaguely aware that in this place, her faded Dutch accent seemed right. “I’m here to see Catharina Peperkamp—Fall, I mean.” It was impossible to think of Catharina married, with a child. “Catharina Fall.”

“And who should I tell her is here?”

“Tell her Rachel.”

It would, she believed, be enough.

The waitress went back to the kitchen, and Rachel took a piece of broken butter cookie from a sample basket on the counter. For many years when she was young, she’d often been mistaken for a child, but now, with deep lines etched into her forehead and around her serious mouth and small, straight nose, people thought she was an old lady when she was only sixty-five. She’d gone from looking too young to looking too old. Her cab driver had offered to help her out of the taxi! She’d declined, of course, but thanked him lest he not offer his help the next time to someone who truly needed it. She supposed a face-lift would help, but although she could easily afford one, she refused even to investigate the procedure. In her opinion, people needed to see in her face, in its lines, what life had done to her. She believed that. But she kept herself well-groomed—her nails were always manicured, her hair perfectly styled—and she wore expensive, fashionable clothes. In that way, life had been good to her.

Within thirty seconds, Catharina Fall rushed out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, a panicked, uncertain look on her face. Rachel wished she could smile to reassure her. But she couldn’t. A smile, now, would be a lie. Yet she wasn’t surprised the impulse was there; everyone had always wanted to protect Catharina.

“My friend,” Rachel said quietly, holding on to her emotions, “you look wonderful.”

“Rachel.” Catharina put her fist to her mouth and held back a sob. “I don’t believe it’s you.”

She’s going to throw me out, Rachel thought. She can’t bear to see me. I’m a reminder. A shadow. As she is for me.

Instead Catharina burst from behind the counter and threw her arms around Rachel, crying, “My God, Rachel, oh, Rachel,” and Rachel found her own eyes filling with tears and her arms going around her strong, good friend. She’d missed her. Without realizing it, she’d missed her.

It had been more than forty years.

Catharina was sobbing openly, and the people around them were pretending not to notice. “I can’t believe…I never thought I’d see you again.” She stood back and brushed away her tears without embarrassment; flour stuck to her nose and she tried to laugh. “Oh, Rachel.”

Rachel’s throat was so tight it hurt. A sob would relieve the tension, but she blinked back her tears and refused to cry. She was a master at self-control. She hadn’t expected Catharina to have this kind of impact on her. “My dear friend,” she said, squeezing Catharina’s hand, then releasing it. I must be strong. “It’s so good to see you. I heard about your shop, and I thought, while I’m in New York I’ll have to stop and see you.”

Catharina had stopped crying and was shaking her head. “You know that’s not true.”

Rachel had to smile, and some of the tightness in her throat eased. “Achh, I never could fool you. It’s always been that way between us, hasn’t it? You always know when I’m not telling the truth. Even after all these years. But come, let’s pretend for a little while.”

“Rachel…”

There was fear in those deep green eyes. Rachel wished she hadn’t seen it. “Please, Catharina.”

“All right.” Catharina nodded, but the fear didn’t go away. “We’ll have tea.”

“Wonderful.”

She pointed to a small table in the far corner. “There, go sit down. I’ll bring a tray.”

Rachel quickly took her friend’s hand. “Don’t be afraid, Catharina.”

“I’ll be all right. Now go sit down. I’ll bring the tea.”

“As you wish. I’ll wait for you.”

The big, open newsroom of the Washington Gazette was filled with the noise of bustling reporters, computers, typewriters, and telephones. Alice Feldon had been at her desk for two hours and had yet to sit down. She didn’t mind. It was a sign things were hopping. What she did mind—what irritated the hell out of her—was that she couldn’t find Matthew Stark. Again. She ignored the skinny, sorry-looking man who wanted to talk to Stark and scanned the newsroom. She had to squint her eyes because her glasses were on top of her head instead of on the bridge of her too-prominent nose. She was a large, lumpy-fleshed, big-boned woman, and she had no illusions about herself or the blue-collar tabloid she worked for. Last night, during a bout of insomnia, she’d painted her nails a shade of lavender she’d found on her daughter’s shelf in the medicine cabinet.

“Where the hell’s Stark?” she demanded of no one in particular.

A young reporter three desks away looked up nervously from his computer screen. A Post type if she’d ever seen one. His name was Aaron Ziegler, and he’d majored in journalism, which she considered a dumb thing for a reporter to have done. She’d hired him because he didn’t show her any of the practice obituaries he’d done in class reporting. “He went for coffee,” Ziegler said. “Promised he’d be back in five minutes.”

“When was that, a half-hour ago?” Alice growled and glared at the skittish guy as if it was his fault she was stuck with a lazy shit like Matthew Stark. She should have fired him four years ago when she’d come in as the Gazette’s metropolitan editor. He’d been occupying space for six months and hadn’t done a damn thing that she could see. But he was a name, and the Gazette had precious few names. The boys upstairs had pressured her to give him a chance. She sighed at Ziegler. “Go find him, will you? Tell him he’s got company.”

Ziegler was already on his feet. “Any name?”

The skinny guy sniffled, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Just tell him the Weaze is here.”

Alice wrinkled up her nose but didn’t say a word. Ziegler hid his grin as he headed out of the newsroom. Like most everyone else at the Gazette, he was intimidated by Matthew Stark. Alice wasn’t, although she couldn’t understand why. Lazy or not, he was the scariest sonofabitch she’d ever known.

Catharina’s hands shook as she poured tea from a white porcelain pot. She had prepared the tray of Darjeeling, little sandwiches, round scones, two pots of jam, and a plate of butter cookies herself. Rachel understood that her sudden appearance was a shock for Catharina. Forty years ago they’d said goodbye in Amsterdam, and Catharina, who stayed there a few more years, had cried and promised she would stay in touch. Rachel hadn’t shed a tear or made a promise, because she had already cried a lifetime of tears and no longer believed in promises.

“Don’t be nervous,” Rachel said kindly. She added sugar to her tea. They were strangers, she and Catharina. And yet, how could they ever be? “I haven’t been to New York in so long. There’s no other city quite like it, is there?”

“No, there isn’t,” Catharina said. She added a drop of cream to her tea but didn’t touch it.

“But how are you, Catharina?”

“Fine, I’m fine.”

“That’s good.” Rachel concealed her own awkwardness as she tried some of the tea. “I can see why you opened a bakeshop. You were always a wonderful cook, and you took such pleasure in it. Nobody could make the meager rations we had in the war tolerable the way you did—and remember your beet stew?” Rachel laughed, not a happy, carefree laugh, but still a laugh. “It was ghastly, but much better than anything we’d had in weeks.” She was suddenly silent, observing Catharina’s discomfiture with a small sigh. Did her old friend never think about the war? Rachel asked softly, “Adrian’s a decent man?”

“Yes, wonderful.” Catharina seemed relieved at the switch in subject. “He’s so kind and strong.”

“He’s a banker?”

“Yes, and he loves it.”

“I’m glad. I’ve often wondered what would have happened to you if he hadn’t come along when he did. Holland—” Rachel shrugged and thought perhaps it would be best not to dig any deeper than was strictly necessary. “You needed to get out of there. Wilhelmina would have suffocated you. Have you been back?”

“To Amsterdam, once, when Ann died. Johannes was inconsolable; I’d always hoped they’d die together.” She quickly picked up a scone, absently coating it with raspberry jam. “And to Rotterdam seven years ago, when my daughter made her Dutch premiere in the church in which Adrian and I were married. He didn’t come—he and Willie have never gotten along, and their fighting would have spoiled everything.”

“Does she still think you’ll come back?”

“Of course.”

Rachel nodded, remembering the tough, solid woman who was Catharina’s senior by a dozen years and had been Rachel’s closest friend. Wilhelmina Peperkamp had held the Nazis in the strongest contempt from the very beginning, long before Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, certainly long before the German occupation of The Netherlands. Rachel had never met anyone more reliable. “Yes, I can believe that.”

“Do you see her?”

With their five-year age difference, the friendship between Wilhelmina Peperkamp and Rachel Stein had been more a meeting of equals. Catharina had always been the baby. They’d all protected her—Wilhelmina, Johannes, Rachel, her brother Abraham. Everyone. They’d seemed to believe that if they could prevent the war from touching her, they could somehow preserve some of their own innocence. But the war had touched her. Nothing they could have done would have stopped that. It had robbed her of her youth, her girlhood. Rachel saw that now, understood, but she wondered if Catharina felt she’d failed them all.

“How can I see Willie?” Rachel said with a snort. “You know she doesn’t travel, and I won’t go back. She sends me cards at the holidays. She tells me about you, Juliana, her begonias.”

“Do you write to her?” Catharina asked.

“No, but of course that doesn’t stop Willie from doing what she feels is right. If it did…” She lifted her small shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe then I would write. Catharina.” Rachel sighed, taking a tiny sandwich of smoked salmon. She wasn’t hungry, but she knew she needed to eat. Five years of near starvation had developed in her a practical attitude toward food. “Do you have any idea why I’m here?”

“I can guess.”

“I’ve seen him,” Rachel said without further preamble. “I’ve seen Hendrik de Geer.”

Catharina shut her eyes and held her breath, and Rachel thought her old friend was going to faint. “Catharina?”

She opened her eyes. “I’m all right,” she said weakly. “I’m sorry.”

“Please, don’t.”

“I’d convinced myself he was dead.”

“Hendrik dead?” Rachel hooted. “He’ll outlive us all. He’s blessed that way, you know—or cursed. Remember the time he brought us the chocolate? We’d had nothing but sugar beets to eat for days and Hendrik showed up with chocolate. I thought I’d never tasted anything so wonderful. He was so proud of himself, and we were too thrilled even to think to ask him where he’d gotten it. But you know Hendrik. He’s the kind who picks up the world each morning and gives it a good shake. For once, Catharina, I want it to go the other way around. I want the world to give Hendrik de Geer a good shake.”

Catharina stared down at her tea, which had become cold, the cream filming on the top. She hadn’t touched her scone. “Where did you see him?”

Rachel nibbled on a watercress sandwich. “On television, two weeks ago. It was fate, I think. Abraham and I have retired to Palm Beach.” Fleetingly, she thought of the last thirty years, during which she and her brother had become two of the savviest, toughest Hollywood agents. It seemed so distant now. The past, Amsterdam, seemed so much closer. “I never liked Los Angeles, I don’t know why. Anyway, now I have a whole new group of politicians to watch. I always watch politics, of course, since Hitler. One of our senators is Samuel Ryder—very handsome, charming, on the whole too conservative for me, but nothing I can’t live with. One day I’m watching the local news, and a reporter catches Sam Ryder as his car pulls up to the curb and starts firing questions at him—you know how they will—about some controversial bill he’s sponsoring, and sitting beside him is Hendrik de Geer. Hendrik! In a limousine with a United States senator.”

The bell at the door tinkled, and Rachel looked around, pausing as two young women entered the shop, loaded down with shopping bags. Rolls of bright Christmas wrapping paper poked out of one bag.

“You’re certain?” Catharina asked.

“Absolutely. After all these years, do you think he’s changed? No, he looks just as he did in Amsterdam. I knew immediately it was he. My stomach told me, before my brain.” She remembered how she’d run to the bathroom and vomited. That was something she would never admit to Catharina, for whom, she felt, she must remain especially strong. “I called Ryder’s office at once and demanded to know why he was riding around with Hendrik de Geer, and, of course, they thought I was crazy. But I persisted, and finally they put the senator on.”

“You told him—”

“I told him everything I could think of about Hendrik. Yes, that’s exactly what I did. I talked and talked; everything just poured out of me, because now I think the time has come. I told him Hendrik de Geer betrayed me and my family and the people who were hiding us to the Nazis and that he was a Nazi collaborator and has never answered for what he did.”

Catharina regarded her old friend with despair. “He’s never even admitted he did anything wrong. Oh, Rachel, what’s the point? You know what he is—”

“That’s the point. I do know what he is!”

Rachel balled one tiny hand into a fist and thumped the table with her bony knuckles. Dishes rattled. Catharina jumped, looking startled and hurt.

Inhaling deeply, Rachel calmed herself and went on with quiet intensity. “He says Hendrik conned his way into seeing him to urge him to support an increase in defense spending but that he, Ryder, knows very little about him and had no way of getting in touch with him. I don’t believe him, but no matter. He’s agreed to investigate my allegations further if I can corroborate my story. I asked Abraham, but he thinks I’m crazy and that Ryder is only trying to pacify me and look good to a Jewish constituency. Maybe he’s right.” She laughed, remembering the shouting match she and her brother had had. But they had been fighting all their lives; they had good fights. “Abraham’s content to believe Hendrik de Geer will meet his fate one day, if not until the moment of his death. Me, I believe Hendrik will even fast-talk God!”

Rachel grinned, but the light in her dark eyes faded as soon as it appeared. “I intend to make Hendrik answer for Amsterdam,” she said, her gaze on the fair woman across the table, not easing up, not letting her off the hook. “You can help me, Catharina. You can corroborate my story.”

“You can’t make Hendrik answer for anything,” Catharina said, tension strangling her words. “No one can. Rachel, he’s a hard, hard man. Please don’t do this. Don’t go after him. Leave the past alone. Not for his sake, not for mine—for your sake, Rachel. You know what he is!”

Rachel filled her teacup once more, her hand steady. “I can’t leave the past alone.”

She could see the mix of anguish and determination in her friend’s face and understood, because she had waged the same battle with herself and made her decision.

Catharina sighed softly. “Of course, how could I even ask you? It’s just that I’m afraid for you, Rachel.”

“I know.” Rachel smiled and waved a hand, but she couldn’t dismiss the pain in Catharina’s beautiful eyes. She’d forgotten what it was to have someone—aside from Abraham of course—care about her. “The future holds nothing for me. It never did, even when I was twenty. I think only of the past. I can remember so clearly, as if it happened just this morning, how my father would sit me on his knee and tell me about diamonds, let me help him sort them. So boring! But there was such life in his eyes. Do you remember?”

Catharina nodded sadly. “Your father was one of the gentlest, wisest men I’ve ever known.”

“He was younger than I am now when he died.” Rachel drank some tea, replacing the cup on its saucer with a firmness that underlined her own resolve. “Don’t be afraid for me, Catharina. I’m doing what I must do, what I want to do. I know exactly the kind of man I’m facing, and I don’t care. If Hendrik wins, he wins. But at least I’ll have tried. All I want is for him to understand what he did.”

“He never will, Rachel,” Catharina said.

“We’ll see.”

“Hendrik never intended for bad things to come of what he did, and when they did, he couldn’t admit he was at fault. He couldn’t accept the consequences of his own actions—he probably still can’t. It’s not in his nature. You’re not going to change him. Hendrik de Geer will always be out for himself.”

“Let’s not argue,” Rachel said. “I won’t force you to help.”

Catharina looked shocked. “No, that’s not what I meant. Of course I’ll talk to Senator Ryder, if that’s what you want, but I’m pessimistic that anything will come of it. Even now, Hendrik probably already knows you’re after him. He won’t stick around. And Rachel, my God, you’ve suffered enough.”

“We all have,” she said, fire coming into her eyes. “But not Hendrik.”

“I know, but…”

Rachel reached across the table and grabbed Catharina’s strong hand, squeezing it tightly, aware of how small and frail her own hand was—but it was only bones, skin, muscle. Nothing that counted. The bond between them, what was unseen and immeasurable and timeless, was all that mattered. “You live on Park Avenue and have dried dough under your nails. Only you, Catharina. My friend, my dear, dear friend, I know how difficult this must be for you. But you don’t have to see him. You—”

Catharina was looking at someone across the room. “Oh, dear heavens.”

Rachel felt her heart pound. Hendrik—was it Hendrik? Had he found her? She whispered, “What’s wrong?”

“Juliana. I forgot, I invited her to tea.”

Resisting the impulse to draw a heavy sigh of relief, Rachel turned around and looked at the young woman grabbing a butter cookie and waving to her mother. Blond hair falling over her open black cashmere coat, dark green eyes sparkling, smile bright—a fascinating combination of strength and delicacy was this Juliana Fall. Full of piss and vinegar, Abraham would say. “So that’s your Juliana? She’s very beautiful, Catharina. You’re fortunate.”

“I know. Sometimes I wonder how I produced such a child. From the time she was a tiny girl, her whole life has been music. I don’t understand. Adrian and I aren’t musical, but with Juliana, there’s never been anything else. Have you ever heard her perform?”

“Not in person, but I’ve listened to her on the radio many times. And Senator Ryder has tickets for Lincoln Center tomorrow night. He suggests we meet there, after the concert, and—Catharina?”

She’d gone white. “Rachel, she doesn’t know. Juliana. I haven’t told her.”

“About Amsterdam? Nothing?”

“I couldn’t. Even Adrian…” Catharina shut her eyes briefly; Rachel watched her fight for self-control with a mother’s willpower as her daughter made her way to the table. “Neither of them knows what happened. I know I’m overprotective, but I didn’t want any of that to touch them. I just can’t talk about Amsterdam.”

“That’s your right,” Rachel said carefully. Having never married, she had never had to make such decisions. “I understand.”

“You’ll keep her out of this?”

Rachel smiled reassuringly, and although she didn’t understand, perhaps didn’t approve, she felt good about being able to comfort her friend. “Of course. There’s no reason whatever for Juliana to be involved in this.”

Matthew Stark was in the middle of an argument on shortstops with a couple of sports reporters when Ziegler found him in the Gazette cafeteria. At thirty-nine, Stark was a dark, solidly built, compact man with a face that might have been good-looking except for the shrapnel scars. His eyes were deep-set and a very dark brown; people told him that sometimes they seemed black. He had on jeans, a chambray shirt, and his heavy, handmade Minnesota Gokey boots.

“Sorry to bother you,” Aaron said, “but Feldie’s got a guy downstairs who wants to see you. He looks like somebody out of Night of the Living Dead. Calls himself the Weaze.”

“Weasel? Hell, I thought he’d be dead by now.”

Without rushing, Stark refilled his mug and walked back with Aaron, a curly-haired kid who wore tassel loafers and suits and didn’t know a damn thing about baseball. Matthew knew he scared the hell out of Ziegler, but he didn’t let that trouble him.

“Feldie was getting pretty impatient,” Aaron said.

“Right.”

When they returned to the newsroom, she had put her glasses, big black-framed things, on her nose. “Don’t hurry, for Christ’s sake,” she said.

Stark didn’t. He hadn’t heard from Otis Raymond in a couple of years, but he’d had twenty years of his troubles and expected he’d have twenty more, if either of them lived that along. “Where’s the Weaze?” he asked.

“I parked him over at your desk. He says he has a hot tip for you. Who is he?”

“Nobody who’ll sell newspapers.”

Otis Raymond sat restlessly on a wooden chair next to Stark’s desk. Matthew just shook his head as he approached the thin, ugly figure and noticed the swollen bug bites along the back of the scrawny neck, the yellowed eyes and skin. He had on ragged jeans and an army issue jacket that didn’t look warm enough for him. He was shivering. It seemed crazy now, but lot of guys owed SP-4 Otis Raymond their lives. He’d been good. Damn good.

“Weaze,” Matthew said, coming up behind him. “So you’re alive.”

Weasel turned around on the chair, grinned, and rose unsteadily. His clothes hung on him, and he looked like hell. According to the book, he and Stark shouldn’t have become friends. A warrant officer and a spec-four, a helicopter pilot and a gunner. They’d flown Hueys together, and they’d survived two tours. Not many in their positions had. It was as good a reason as any for a friendship.

“Matt—yeah, hell, I’m still kicking. Christ, I’m hitting forty, you believe it?”

Stark went around and sat down, and Weasel dropped back in his chair, eyeing the cluttered desk. “Figured you’d have an office.”

“A piece of the wall is about the best you get in a newsroom.”

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know much about this stuff. When’d you quit the Post?”

“Two years before the last time I saw you.”

“Oh. Right. Shit, man, I can’t remember nothing anymore.”

“You never could. What’s up?”

“I got trouble, Matt.”

Stark waited for him to go on, but Weaze was gnawing his thin, yellow-purple lower lip, and he’d crossed one foot over the other. Except when he was behind his M-60, he always had an excess of useless, unfocused energy. Stark had often wondered where Otis Raymond would be today if he’d been able to channel that energy.

“You gonna help?” Weaze asked.

“Maybe. What kind of trouble are you in?”

“Not me this time. Ryder.”

It wasn’t a name Stark wanted or expected to hear, but he kept his face from showing it. “What’s Ryder got to do with you?”

“I owe him. He tried to set me up after ’Nam, give me a hand, remember? I fucked up, made him look bad.”

“He survived. The Sam Ryders of the world always do. You don’t owe him a damn thing, Weaze. If anything, he owes you. Whatever trouble Ryder’s got, let him handle it.”

Weasel gave a honking snort, and Stark recalled that in the last ten years Otis always seemed to have a runny nose. “Shit, man, I thought I could count on you.”

“You can. Ryder can’t.”

“He’s in deep shit, Stark, and you know what a goddamn asshole he is, he’ll never learn, and if we don’t pull him out, he’ll go down. Man, I mean it. This time he’s in it.”

“That’s his problem.”

“May be a story in it for you.”

“Too much history between me and Sam Ryder, Weaze. No objectivity.”

“Then a book, maybe.”

Weasel somehow sounded both hopeful and smug, as if he’d struck the right note, the one that would make Matthew Stark do what his old buddy wanted him to do. “Forget it, Weaze,” Matthew said. “That part of my life is over.”

“Oh, come on—for old times’ sake, then?” Otis Raymond laughed hoarsely, coughing. “’Member the good ol’ days, huh, Matt?”

The good ol’days. Jesus. “You never change, Weaze. Go ahead, tell me what you’ve got. I’ll listen.”

Otis started chewing on the knuckle of his index finger, as if he’d gotten further than he’d expected and now didn’t know what to say.

“I can’t help,” Matthew said, “If you don’t level with me.”

“Hey, I’m doing the best I can.”

The Weaze had his own rhythms, and Stark knew better than to push. “What’re you doing in D.C.?”

“How do you know I haven’t been here all along?”

Weasel’s look was filled with challenge, saying he was just as good as Matthew Stark and anybody who didn’t believe it could go to hell. Getting a straight answer out of Otis Raymond had always been one big pain in the ass, Stark remembered. He managed a smile. “You wouldn’t stay anywhere the temperature falls below freezing.”

“Yeah, right.” Weaze laughed, one of his high-pitched, slightly hysterical laughs that always gave people goose bumps. It ended in a fit of coughing and then an ugly grin. “Fuck winter. I been to see Sam, that’s what I’m doing here. Had coffee together, me and Sam. Bought me breakfast. He’s doing good, you know? Man, I wouldn’t be surprised to see his ass in the White House. I’d vote for him, yeah, shit, why not?”

“No, forget it, I know you never liked him, but, you know, he means well.”

“I know too many good men who are dead because of Golden Boy Sammy Ryder and his good intentions. So do you, Weaze. No point in you being one of them.”

“Don’t make no difference to me if I am.”

Stark said nothing, knowing there was nothing he could say that would make any difference. He didn’t give a damn what kind of mess U.S. Senator Samuel Ryder, Jr., had gotten himself into, but Otis Raymond, crop-picker at fourteen, Huey door gunner at nineteen, was another matter. He was a loner and a survivor, and he considered the greatest accomplishment of his life not getting killed in Vietnam—and coming between Sam Ryder and a rush of AK-47 bullets. Since then, he hadn’t been able to slip quietly back into the daily routines of his old life. What Otis Raymond was and what he had been no longer mattered. The bond was there. Stark couldn’t abandon him.

“Sam wouldn’t like it if he knew I was here,” Otis said. “You make him nervous, you know.”

“Good.”

Weasel laughed a little. “Christ, you two. He’s got some plan, Ryder does, to get money to get himself out of the mess he’s in. He wouldn’t give me all the details, but it sounds nuts, really crazy, Matt. Says he’s going after a diamond, goddamn biggest uncut diamond in the fucking world. You believe it? Jesus, what a stupid asshole.”

Coming from Weasel, that was almost a compliment: it meant Ryder needed him.

“He’s meeting a guy tomorrow night at some concert at Lincoln Center—a Dutchman. Name’s Hendrik de Geer.”

“Know him?”

Weasel shrugged his bony shoulders and pulled out his pack of cigarettes, tapping one out unconsciously and sticking it on his dried, cracked lower lip. “Sort of. He’s nobody you can’t handle, Matt. I thought maybe you could show up tomorrow night and look into this thing.”

“Look into what?”

“The de Geer connection, what Sam’s got cooking with this diamond thing.”

“And begin where?”

“How the fuck do I know? You’re the reporter.”

“All right,” Matthew said. Sometimes he forgot what a cocky little shit Otis Raymond could be. “What about you? You want to hang out at my place until we figure this thing out?”

Weasel shook his head, lighting his cigarette. “Naw, can’t.” He grinned, showing crooked, badly yellowed teeth. “I gotta be heading back.”

“Where to?”

“Some place warmer, that’s for damn sure.”

“Weaze—”

“Buddy, don’t ask me questions I can’t answer. You do your thing, I’ll do mine.”

“He’s not worth it,” Stark said in a low voice.

“Man, who is? You gonna help or not?”

“Yeah. I’ll see what I can do—for your sake, not for Sam Ryder’s.”

The Weaze sniffled and coughed, his breathing rapid and noisy, and he laughed, a hollow, wheezing sound that Stark found utterly desolate, the sound of a wasted life. “You do remember,” he said in his raspy voice. “Man, I knew you would. I did good back in ’Nam, huh? I was okay there.”

Matthew felt his mouth suddenly go dry. Behind his stoicism and quiet air of competence, he’d always felt helpless where Otis Raymond was concerned. “You were the best, buddy.”

Dragging on his cigarette, Weasel headed out. He gave Feldie a grin that was almost a come-on, and Matthew had to laugh. He could hear his buddy’s out-of-tune whistle as he disappeared down the corridor. The stupid shit thought he’d won. That Matt Stark was on the story and all was well.

Stark stood up, feeling the sorrow and anger he always felt after he saw Otis Raymond, but he kept the mask in place, the one that said he was always in control, always at a distance. He picked up his coffee and went over to Feldie’s desk. She’d finally sat down, but he’d been aware of her looks in his direction—suspicious looks tinged with concern. Feldie was a stickler for facts—give people the facts, she said, and let them arrive at their own truths—and a damn fine editor, but she also cared. Trying to reform him gave her something to do besides going after facts and pleasing the big guns upstairs. But she’d never admit as much, and although Matthew admired her for it, what the hell. He’d had his fifteen minutes of fame. He still led a pretty good life, and as much as Feldie carped, he did get his assignments in, more or less on time. Maybe a few years ago he’d had the drive and ambition to do more—to make a difference. But that was a few years ago.

Feldie pulled off her glasses and snapped them closed. “Well, what did he have to say?”

“Nothing.”

“You two yakked it up enough.”

“Catching up.”

“On what? I want facts, Stark.”

“You don’t get facts from Otis Raymond.”

“You’re not going to tell me,” she said. There was resignation in her tone, and maybe a little respect.

Stark smiled. “Nothing to tell.”

“Christ, Stark, you drive me fucking crazy.”

“Without me around, who’d give you ulcers? I’m going up for some fresh coffee, you want anything?”

“No, jackass, I want you to tell me what that conversation was all about!”

Mug in hand, Stark started across the newsroom but, as if remembering something, turned back around. “Hey, Feldie, you want to do me a favor?”

“No. Sit your ass back down and tell me what that sorry-looking bastard wanted. He said he had something for you—”

“I’ll be taking the shuttle to New York tonight,” Matthew said, cutting her off, “probably spend the weekend. I’d like to take in tomorrow night’s concert at Lincoln Center, on the paper.”

She frowned, opening up her glasses with both hands. “Why?”

“Something to do while I’m in town. I figure the paper can afford to spring me a ticket.”

“You’re checking out something this Weaze character said, aren’t you? He gave you a hot tip.”

“I just like music.”

“Then who’s playing?”

“Has to be someone good.” He grinned. “It’s Lincoln Center, right?”

“Stark, damn you.”

But he ducked out for his coffee, leaving Alice Feldon sputtering.

Juliana immediately sensed her mother’s tension when she came to the table, but Catharina smiled tenderly and introduced her friend. Rachel Stein rose, also smiling. “Ahh, Juliana, I’m so happy to meet you at last. You could only be a Peperkamp.”

“You know my mother’s family?” Juliana was surprised: she had never met anyone who did. She knew Aunt Willie and Uncle Johannes, of course, but none of their friends, none of the people who’d known her mother when she had lived in The Netherlands. “You’re Dutch, aren’t you? I detect an accent.”

“We knew Rachel in Amsterdam,” Catharina supplied quickly.

“Yes, and I’m sorry I can’t stay,” Rachel said. “A pleasure meeting you, Juliana.”

“Likewise. You’re sure you can’t stay another minute? I’d love to talk.”

But Rachel hurried out, and Catharina swept away the remains of their tray and had a fresh one brought over. “It’s so good to see you, Juliana. I missed you. Now,” she said, filling two porcelain cups with hot tea, “tell me about your tour. Was it successful?”

“Yes, but, Mother—”

“A friend of mine heard you in Vienna. She said you were magnificent.”

Juliana sighed. She wasn’t going to hear about Rachel Stein. She considered asking but knew it would do no good. Only on rare occasions would her mother discuss her life in The Netherlands, and then in the most general terms. Even her father remained relatively ignorant of that phase of his wife’s life. Catharina Peperkamp Fall had survived five years of Nazi occupation when she was little more than a girl, and she’d left her homeland not on the best of terms with her family, especially Aunt Willie, who was, to say the least, difficult. She hadn’t seen her older brother and sister since the concert in Delftshaven seven years ago, and neither Wilhelmina nor Johannes would travel to the United States. But no matter how deep her own curiosity, Juliana hated to pry into a past her mother obviously didn’t want to discuss. In any case, she knew better. Catharina would only tell her daughter precisely what she wanted her to know, no more.

Already, simply by changing the subject she was exerting her will. If Juliana pressed for information on Rachel Stein, her mother would only get upset—and still would not talk about Rachel and how they’d known each other in Amsterdam and what she was doing in New York. You don’t need to know these things, her mother would say; they are of no consequence. You shouldn’t worry. You should be happy. They were the refrains, well-meaning but maddening, of Juliana’s childhood. She’d learned not to argue and, eventually, to keep quiet about her own problems, because they would always cause her mother more grief than they did herself. As a result, Catharina Fall had no idea her daughter was playing jazz incognito in a SoHo nightclub, no idea Shuji thought she was in a funk, no idea she both dreaded and looked forward to her long-awaited performance at Lincoln Center tomorrow night, her final concert of the year. Juliana wouldn’t tell her. Her mother would worry that something wasn’t quite perfect in her daughter’s world. And Juliana didn’t want her mother to worry.

“Tell me everything,” Catharina said.

Juliana did. At least everything her mother would want to hear.

When Stark returned to his desk an hour later, Alice Feldon had left a note on his keyboard. “I want a story out of this. You can pick up your ticket at Lincoln Center before the concert. By the way, Juliana Fall will be performing the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Opus 15, with the New York Philharmonic. That’s Beethoven as in Ludwig van.”

Matthew grimaced. “Sounds like a yawner.”