Cut and Run Page 11

  “Thank you for intervening,” she said. She hated lying to Len. He’d offered her friendship, trust—his stage, for God’s sake. And what had she given him in return? A purple-haired pianist he couldn’t understand. A potential bombshell.

  “Anytime. But that’s one mean-looking gentleman, J.J. I’d prefer not to have to mess with him again, myself.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  She left it at that, unsure herself exactly what she meant. She didn’t know what to make of Matthew Stark. Undeniably he had a menacing look about him—the scars contributed, certainly—but she didn’t think he was in fact mean or dangerous. Or was she just being naive? He was sarcastic, yes, but he had a smile that intrigued her, and even if he’d been less than sympathetic toward her dual identities, he hadn’t given her away.

  “You want to talk?” Len asked gently.

  Reluctantly, she shook her head. But that too was a lie. She did want to talk. About who she was, about who Matthew Stark was, what he wanted. About the Minstrel’s Rough. She remembered the soft, heavily accented words of her uncle as she’d prepared for the second half of her concert in the little Delftshaven church.

  “The existence of the Minstrel has never been confirmed. It’s best that way, Juliana. It’s a very, very valuable stone. Once cut, it would be worth many millions of dollars for its size and beauty alone. But its mystery, its status as a diamond legend, adds to that value. People will do terrible things for such riches. I know.”

  She hadn’t thought then to ask him how he’d known. It was all a joke to her—an adventure. How many concert pianists had crazy uncles passing them uncut diamonds backstage? But now she wondered if she should get in touch with her uncle and tell him about Matthew Stark, ask him about Rachel Stein, Hendrik de Geer. Uncle Johannes might talk where her mother clearly wouldn’t.

  “Len, does the name Matthew Stark mean anything to you?”

  “LZ,” Len said, without hesitation.

  She looked up at him, blank.

  “Hell, babe, where you been?” Len laughed. “You telling me you’ve never heard of LZ? Don’t you ever go to the movies?”

  “Rarely,” she said. It was the truth. “LZ’s a movie?”

  “Yeah, and a book—author’s Matt Stark. Book came out six or seven years ago, the movie a year or two later. It got best picture and best director, as I recall. The book was a bestseller.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Jesus, I don’t believe you. It’s about Vietnam chopper pilots. LZ stands for landing zone.” He looked at her. “You know, where helicopters land.”

  She hadn’t known. “I see.”

  Unfortunately, now she did see. She’d made a fool of herself. Stark must think she was a hopeless dingbat. How could she explain? When his book had been a best-seller and his movie a hit, she hadn’t had time to read books or go to movies. She had played piano. She had studied music history, music theory, music composition. Her friends were musicians and her enemies were musicians. Her world was music, and it consumed her. Lately, that had begun to change. She had the New York Times delivered, even if she didn’t always read it, and she was trying harder to keep track of what was going on in the world. But she had some catching up to do. She still had to find out who the Matthew Starks were. If he’d written LZ recently, she might have recognized his name. But seven years ago? Not a chance.

  “That the guy I just tossed?” Len asked. “Matt Stark?” He laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned, don’t you pick ’em. Go on and get your butt back to the piano, babe. Play.”

  She nodded, thanking him, and did.

  Eight

  United States Senator Samuel Ryder, Jr., was backpedaling as fast as he could.

  Plausible deniability. That was what was required now.

  He stared into the flames of the fire he’d built in the cozy study of his Georgetown townhouse and tried to think of ways he could distance himself from Phillip Bloch and Hendrik de Geer.

  “Jesus,” one of his aides had said, handing him a copy of the Monday morning paper, “can you believe you luck? Talk about your providential accidents. You get to look like a nice guy on the front page of the Times and get her off your back at the same time. This lady was a no-win situation.”

  Yes, indeed. What luck.

  Which one had done it, he wondered. Bloch? De Geer? Each had so much to lose. Each was capable of giving a tiny old woman a little shove. Or having someone else do it.

  Each had learned of her threat from him.

  It’s not your fault! Rachel Stein had known the risks before she came to him.

  Her death might have been accidental. Indeed, as his aide had said, providential.

  He wished he’d hear from de Geer. There’d been nothing since their meeting outside Lincoln Center, while Rachel Stein was dying—or before? After, perhaps? Could he kill a woman and then smoke a cigar? The man was a lowlife. He could do anything. But if he came up with the Minstrel, then—at last—Sam Ryder could put an end to his relationship with Phillip Bloch, be free of him once and for all.

  And if not?

  Plausible deniability. That was what would be needed. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know. I didn’t do anything! Yes, those were the words he needed to be able to say, with credibility. Just in case.

  His telephone rang. He tried to ignore it, but the damn ringing persisted. He was alone in the house, mercifully so. Cursing, he snatched up the receiver. “Yes?”

  “Lieutenant.”

  Bloch. “What is it? I asked you not to call here—”

  “Cut the bullshit, Sam. How’re you coming with the diamond?”

  Ryder stiffened, remembering the Dutchman’s warning reiterated in the car on Saturday. De Geer would cooperate, he said, on one condition: Ryder was not to mention the Minstrel, Rachel Stein, or the Peperkamps to Bloch. “If you do,” he’d said, “I will kill you.”

  “Sergeant,” Ryder said carefully, “I’ve made careful plans, and I cannot have you interfering. You could ruin everything. Please, just let me handle things on my end. Look—look, I’m taking a chance, all right? Guessing. This stone might not even exist, and if I can’t come up with it, I don’t want you to blame me. I’ve told you as much as I have out of courtesy.” And if de Geer finds out… He refused to consider the possibilities. He was a U.S. senator. De Geer couldn’t touch him.

  “Bullshit, Lieutenant,” Bloch said, laughing at him. “You told me because you knew if you didn’t I’d come up there and wring your fucking neck. But did I say I wanted to interfere? Just want to ask you a couple of questions, that’s all. Tell me some more about Stein’s connection to de Geer.”

  “What more is there to tell? He betrayed her family and the people who were hiding her.”

  “Those’re the ones I’m interested in. You say Stein told you de Geer pretended to be helping them while they were in hiding, bribing the Germans with diamonds. Where’d he get the diamonds?”

  “From a stash the Peperkamps had, I believe. They were careful to keep diamonds that would be used for war purposes out of Nazi hands and offered them only to Germans who wanted them for their personal use, and—” A cold shiver ran up his spine and he stopped, hearing the dead silence on the other end of the receiver.

  “What’s that name again, Sammy? Peperkamp?”

  Damn. Oh, dammit to hell, Ryder thought. Well, it wasn’t his fault. Bloch had manipulated him into talking, into dropping the name Peperkamp. In any case, there was nothing the sergeant could do with this knowledge. So what if he knew their name?

  “Don’t tell de Geer I told you,” he said.

  “Sure, Sammy. No problem. You think they’ve got this diamond?”

  Ryder said nothing, wishing only that he could be warm and safe and away, far away, from the fear that had gripped him since Phillip Bloch had called three months ago and said he was setting up a temporary camp at Ryder’s isolated fishing camp in northwest Florida. There had been nothing Ryder could do abo
ut it then or now. Bloch would do as he pleased. The only way to get rid of him—my only chance!—was through the Minstrel. It would provide Bloch the means to get a permanent camp, out of Ryder’s life. But first he had to get the Minstrel, and to do that, he had to deal with Hendrik de Geer.

  “It’s about all that makes sense,” Bloch said.

  Of course it was. The Minstrel’s Rough had to be in Peperkamp hands—if it existed. Rachel Stein decidedly did not believe it did. “It’s said Hendrik used the Minstrel as collateral to help us,” she’d told him in her desperate attempt to get the senator’s backing to go after the Dutchman. “But that’s nonsense. Where would he get his hands on such a stone? The Minstrel’s a myth. Hendrik de Geer has always been out for himself, and he’d promise anyone anything to save himself.”

  In his own desperation, Ryder had seized on the Minstrel and decided it had to exist. It had to. And that the Dutchman could get it for him—could be made to get it for him. It was a gamble—an insane gamble, perhaps. But it had to work.

  If only he knew where de Geer was now.

  “I will come with the stone,” the Dutchman had said. “Wait. Do nothing and talk to no one. Otherwise you will answer to me.”

  The cold shiver had developed into a cold sweat, and Ryder leaned in toward the fire. Who frightened him more? Block? De Geer? Lowlifes! His only chance was to play them off against each other.

  “I want their names, Lieutenant,” Bloch said. “I want to know who they are, where they live, everything.”

  “I can’t!”

  “In case you fuck up, Sammy, I want to be able to go after the stone myself. So talk.”

  “My God.” Ryder breathed deeply, sweat pouring down his back even though he was so cold. “Will you promise not to interfere—dammit, Sergeant, will you give me a chance?”

  “Sure, Sammy.”

  Bloch might have just laughed in his face; it would have been no less convincing than this empty promise. But what choice did Ryder have? He knew when he was beaten. If he didn’t talk, Bloch would come to Washington. And then what would Ryder do?

  “All right,” he said stiffly, trying not to sound defeated. “According to Miss Stein, there are four Peperkamps. Johannes Peperkamp, a diamond cutter in Antwerp, is in my opinion the most likely candidate to have or know where to find the Minstrel.”

  “Johannes Peperkamp, diamond cutter, Antwerp. Sounds good. Go on.”

  “But he’s the main one—”

  “And if he doesn’t know diddly? Then what? You said there were four. I want the other names.”

  Ryder shut his eyes, tasting the salt of his sweat on his upper lip. The fire crackled at his feet. “There’s a Wilhelmina Peperkamp. She resides in Rotterdam and is a retired civil servant of modest means. I don’t believe—”

  “That’s two. Next.”

  “She has a sister, Catharina Fall, who lives in New York and runs a bakery. She apparently was willing to corroborate Miss Stein’s accusations against de Geer, but now with her—umm—death…” His voice trailed off. Why had he brought that up?

  “Handy, wasn’t it? A loose end we don’t have to worry about.”

  Sinking deeper into the couch, Ryder recalled how Master Sergeant Bloch had never been able to tolerate anything he deemed a loose end. In combat, that compulsion had saved lives. But this was civilian life. Ryder bit down hard on his lower lip, nearly drawing blood, but he told himself it made no sense for Bloch to have killed Rachel Stein or to have had her killed. It was an accident. You saw how old and frail she was.

  Until now, frail had not been a word he had associated with the tough, cynical, and somehow warm-hearted old Hollywood agent.

  “That’s three then,” Bloch said. “Who’s number four?”

  Ryder didn’t move. He opened his eyes, and in the redorange flames he saw the pale silken hair of Juliana Fall, the dark green eyes, the curve of her breasts. Bloch wouldn’t dare touch her. She was too famous, too beautiful. “A young woman,” he said hoarsely. “She couldn’t possibly know anything about any of this. She’s not—”

  “For chrissake, her name.”

  “No!”

  “Goddamnit, then, I’ll find out myself.”

  “Don’t—no, don’t. Fall.” He put a shaking hand to his mouth, as if somehow it might catch the words as they came out and keep them from Bloch. “Her name is Juliana Fall. She’s Catharina Fall’s daughter.”

  “Lives in New York too?”

  “Yes,” Ryder hissed.

  “Then that’s all four.”

  He could hear Bloch’s yawn. “Sergeant, I’ve been more than fair to you. At least tell me what you plan to do—”

  “Sammy, Sammy. I’m going to make sure you don’t screw up. Isn’t that what I always do?”

  Nine

  Hendrik de Geer walked along Schupstraat, one of the main streets of Antwerp’s busy, highly congested and very wary diamond district. The buildings were mostly unremarkable, but inside were some of the greatest diamond minds and some of the most sophisticated communications and security systems in the world.

  The Dutchman knew enough about the code that operated here not to be lulled into a false sense of security. He moved slowly but with apparent purpose, not wanting to attract attention to himself. It was a gray day, cold and damp on the North Sea, and the streets were crowded with diamontaires. Hendrik noticed neither the weather nor his own sense of ambivalence as he walked past a group of men in the distinctive garb of the Hasidim. Many of Belgium’s Jews worked in the diamond business. As moneylenders, cutters, and polishers and as a persecuted people, they had dealt with diamonds for centuries. Cutting was one of the few crafts they had been permitted to practice, and as moneylenders they were often asked to exchange diamonds for gold and silver. When forced to flee their homes, they could take the easily portable gems with them, knowing diamonds were valued virtually anywhere and would help them to reestablish themselves. The Holocaust had decimated the twentieth-century diamond industry in Amsterdam and Antwerp, but, although Amsterdam never fully recovered its prewar status, Antwerp had regained its place as the diamond capital of the world. Here again could be found the most highly skilled cleavers, the ones who knew what to do with difficult roughs.

  Among them was Johannes Peperkamp, a Gentile, an old man but still a legend in the business. He had knowledge, and he had instinct. No matter what problems a rough presented, he could cut it successfully, and few remembered the rare times the hands of Johannes Peperkamp—or any Peperkamp—had reduced a valuable rough to splinters.

  But Johannes was in his seventies now. Age, computers, and lasers were cutting into his business, and Hendrik wasn’t surprised to find that his old friend’s shop was located in one of Schupstraat’s lesser buildings. Security wasn’t as tight as it would have been in other buildings, and Hendrik, speaking in Dutch to the Flemish security guard, was quickly permitted to go upstairs. As he mounted the two dingy flights and approached a door with a frosted-glass window, Hendrik felt no change in himself. His heart wasn’t pounding. He wasn’t sweating. He was doing what had to be done. That was all.

  He zipped his jacket halfway. Until now, he hadn’t noticed the cold. He sighed at his weakness and pushed open the door.

  Johannes Peperkamp was sitting at his ancient desk eating his lunch—bread and cheese and a cup of hot tea. His eyes looked glazed, and he chewed slowly. He hadn’t heard Hendrik enter.

  Closing the door behind him, Hendrik took a moment to stare. He remembered Johannes as a vibrant and healthy man, gentle in his way, intelligent, already one of the world’s premier diamond cleavers. He’d had little choice in the matter. When you were a Peperkamp male, you were expected to be in diamonds. At least in Amsterdam you were for the last four hundred years. After WW II Johannes had taken his business to Antwerp. Now he was the last of the Peperkamp males; Juliana Fall was the only member of the next generation. The Peperkamp diamond tradition would die with her uncle.

  So many
years gone since he’d last looked into those blue eyes, Hendrik thought, weighing the passage of time. They’d both survived to grow old. It seemed so inconsequential now, more than forty years later. If they’d died during the war, would they have missed so much? He didn’t think so. And they’d have died as friends.

  Although Hendrik knew not to judge the power and success of anyone involved in diamonds by his surroundings, it seemed Johannes’s day had passed. How many diamontaires even knew Johannes Peperkamp was still alive, still working? His shop was small and pathetic. Hendrik remembered the large roughs, the people flowing in and out, the feel of life and success, back in Amsterdam. This place was little more than a small, shabby room. It contained all the paraphernalia of his trade—the lights, wedges, hammers, mallets, saws, loupes, and roughs. A yellowed photograph of Johannes with Harry Winston, which had appeared in Life magazine, hung on the wall. The years hadn’t worn well on Johannes. Time and technology—computers, lasers—were making him obsolete.

  The old cutter swallowed a bite of his bread and cheese and wiped his long fingers with a paper napkin as he started to glance up. “Yes? I’m not expecting—” He spoke in Dutch, but his mouth snapped shut and his piercing eyes fastened on his fellow Dutchman. “Hendrik de Geer.”

  There was no wonder in the old man’s tone, no surprise, not even any hate. Already he’d reduced Hendrik to a nonentity. At most, a bug crawling across his floor. Hendrik had forgotten how arrogant and unshakable Johannes could be—how he’d looked down his big nose at Hendrik. The de Geers weren’t diamond people. Hendrik had grown up on the fringes of that world, not in its midst as Johannes had.