Cut and Run

Nine

H endrik 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.

“So you remember me,” Hendrik said, although there had been no question in his mind that Johannes would. “I’m honored.”

“Don’t be.” The old cutter set down his sandwich. “None of the memories are good ones.”

“Then perhaps your mind isn’t as sharp as it once was. We used to skate the canals of Holland together in the winter, before the war, and race bicycles in the summer. Remember, Johannes?” Hendrik was surprised by the sadness in his voice. “Those were fine days, ones not to forget.”

Johannes shrugged. In all the years he had known him, Hendrik had never seen Johannes Peperkamp show fear. He would today, unless he was a fool. That was some consolation, Hendrik decided, for this miserable predicament. As much as they’d been friends, a part of him had always wanted to make Johannes sweat.

But for now, the old man continued to chew his lunch, and not even his fingers shook. It was as if he believed there was nothing left Hendrik de Geer could do to him.

“Do you know why I’m here, Johannes?”

He sipped his tea, swallowing. “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

There was that tone of cool superiority once more, and moving deeper into the shop, Hendrik recalled fewer moments of friendship and more those of indignation. He’d never been good enough for the Peperkamps. When he was a boy, his mother had tried to tell him that that was all in his head, but he knew better.

Catharina…

Yes, she was different. The others had expected him to fail, and yet they’d put their trust in him-and he’d done what he’d had to do. As he was now.

He said without drama, “I must have the diamond, Johannes.”

The old cutter gestured to his shop. “As you see, I have many diamonds-not so big, perhaps, as in the past, but some fine stones. Take what you want. It makes no difference to me.”

“These diamonds don’t interest me.”

“They don’t interest me, either, but they’re all I have. I’m an old man, Hendrik. Not very many people bring me the big diamonds anymore.” He held up his large, bony hands. “They don’t trust these.” Then he pointed to his eyes. “Or these.”

Johannes spoke without self-pity and shrugged as he resumed drinking his tea. Hendrik moved closer, but the old man looked at him without interest. If he hadn’t known Johannes Peperkamp better, Hendrik might have panicked, thinking he’d come to the wrong place.

He took the teacup from the old man and set it down. Nothing in Johannes’s expression indicated fear or anger-or even curiosity. I am nothing, am I, old man? Hendrik thought, but he refused to let his frustration show. “You know what I want, Johannes.”

“To be honest, no, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do, damn you!”

The old cutter sighed patiently. “Why don’t you just tell me, Hendrik?”

“The diamond,” Hendrik said. “The Minstrel’s Rough.”

Johannes laughed derisively and sucked something from his teeth, as if he had nothing better to do. “Don’t be ridiculous, Hendrik. I no longer have the Minstrel.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“As you wish.”

“Even if you don’t have it, you know where it is,” Hendrik said, fighting to regain the upper hand. Damn Johannes Peperkamp and his smugness! “You’ll get it for me.”

“Why would I do that?” With the stubborn self-righteousness that had always infuriated Hendrik, Johannes looked into the younger Dutchman’s eyes. “Only once in my seventy-three years have I ever been indiscreet. Never again, Hendrik. Never. It doesn’t matter what I know or what I don’t know: I will not cooperate with you.” He picked up his tea, pursed his thin lips, and took a sip. Peering over the rim of the cup, he said, “You must kill me first.”

“Then I wouldn’t get what I want, would I?”

Hendrik spoke in a mild tone, pleased with how unperturbed he sounded, and he slowly spun Johannes’s swivel chair around. Holding its wooden arms, Hendrik leaned over and searched the beady blue eyes. There was superiority there, all right, and hatred. He’d expected that. But there was also anguish. Sadness. That Hendrik hadn’t expected. Had Johannes hoped he’d changed? Shaken, Hendrik almost turned away.

“Exactly so,” Johannes said. “You wouldn’t get what you want. Kill me if you must. It makes no difference. I will not give you the stone.”

“You have family, Johannes. What if their lives were in danger?”

“My wife is dead.”

Ann. Intelligent, beautiful. She’d been a Jew married to a Gentile, but she’d survived the war-only just. Hendrik had put her out of his mind for forty years. Once more he shoved aside the thought of her, and as he did so, he straightened up.

“Your sisters are still alive.” He tried to sound cold and determined, as Senator Ryder had in the car on Saturday night, but he felt the uncertainty churning deep inside him, just as he knew the handsome Ryder had. They were not so different, the foolish senator and himself. They hid their fears behind an air of competence. Would Johannes see through his one-time friend? Hendrik warned himself he was thinking dangerously and went on steadily, “Wilhelmina lives in Rotterdam, and Catharina is in New York. Juliana, your niece, has an apartment on Central Park West. I know where they are, Johannes. I can find them.”

Now, he thought. Now the fear would come. Hendrik waited, but the old diamond cutter merely wiped his mouth with his napkin and climbed slowly to his feet.

“Catharina you would never harm, and Wilhelmina would cheerfully welcome the opportunity to slit your cowardly throat.”

He sounded slightly amused at the thought, but Hendrik couldn’t contradict him-they both knew Willie Peperkamp. If her older brother cooperated with Hendrik de Geer to protect her, she would only be annoyed.

“And Juliana’s too famous,” Johannes went on. “There’d be so much publicity if you touched her. Too risky. However-” The old man took his jacket from a peg on the wall next to his desk and shrugged his bony frame into it. “However, it’s been a long, long time, Hendrik. You could have come for the Minstrel anytime, but you didn’t. That means there are others involved. Someone else has guessed you’ve seen the Minstrel and is twisting that arm of yours that twists so easily. To whom did you promise the stone this time? Never mind, it makes no difference.” Johannes gestured politely toward the door. “Shall we go?”

Catharina’s Bake Shop had closed for the evening. In its gleaming kitchen, its proprietor rolled out pastry at an island counter. She patted the dough carefully, lovingly with the strong, broad hands, their cuticles and lines caked with flour and drying dough, the nails blunt and tough.

Juliana watched silently from the kitchen door. She’d come straight from the Club Aquarian and had used her key to enter the quiet, darkened shop. It was silly to be thinking about her mother’s hands, but she couldn’t stop herself. They were so unlike her own. Juliana had long, slender fingers, and although she kept her nails cut short, they were always manicured. Twice a day she massaged a European cream into them. They were strong hands. To be a pianist, they had to be. But suddenly she envied her mother’s wide palms and thick fingers. If Juliana had been born with Peperkamp hands, everything might have been different.

“Hello, Mother.”

Catharina didn’t look up. “Yes.”

She hissed the yes, clipping it off. Usually she just said, “Yaa,” drawing out a long, broad a. She pounded the dough, her usual care and gentleness abruptly gone.

“Mother, is something wrong?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“Mother, talk to me-please. Look, a reporter’s been asking me about your friend Rachel Stein. I know she was with Senator Ryder on Saturday at Lincoln Center. Ryder was also supposed to meet with a Dutchman by the name of Hendrik de Geer. Have you ever heard of him?”

Catharina sprinkled flour on the wooden rolling pin and slammed it down on the dough. She had yet to glance up, to see her daughter in her lavender hair and raccoon coat. She was the rock of Juliana’s existence, her stability, the one thing she could count on in her frenzied life not to change, and something was desperately wrong. More than a visit from a friend she hadn’t seen in a long time, more than a daughter asking too many questions. Juliana had never seen her mother so withdrawn and uncommunicative.

“Mother?”

“You should be in Vermont, Juliana. You need rest.”

“I wish you’d talk to me. Look, don’t I have a right to know what’s going on?”

Still not looking up, Catharina banged the rolling pin on the counter.

“Mother, what is it?”

“Rachel,” she said at last. “She’s dead.”

“Oh, my God-I’m so sorry. What happened?”

Still Catharina didn’t look up, still she continued to work. “She fell outside Lincoln Center and hit her head and died. It was in the papers this morning.” The words came out machine-gun style, but more heavily accented than was usual for her. “The police say it was an accident. That Rachel slipped on the snow and ice.”

Juliana worked at controlling her breathing, a relaxation technique she often used before a performance. “How awful,” she said. But something inside her told her not to believe it. Did Stark know? Had the bastard been playing games with her?

With the top of a bent wrist, Catharina brushed wisps of white-blond hair off her pale, sweaty forehead. A bit of flour stuck in her eyebrow. The tight anger seemed to disappear all at once, and Juliana watched the pain and grief descend, filling the soft eyes with tears and drawing out the lines in the attractive face. Her lower lip began to tremble, and then her hands. She quickly began to smooth the flattened, ruined dough with her fingers.

“Go to Vermont,” she said. Finally, she looked at Juliana but didn’t even see the hair or the coat. “Please.”

“Mother, what aren’t you telling me? I wish you’d be honest-”

“I am being honest!” Her head shot up, and more curls fell into her face, but the tears hadn’t spilled out from her eyes. They shone in the dim light. “I’ve lost a good friend, Juliana. I don’t want to burden you with my sadness.”

“That’s bullshit, Mother,” Juliana said quietly.

Catharina picked up the rolling pin.

“You just want to get rid of me. You don’t want me in town. Why not? Is it because of what happened to Rachel?”

“Don’t be silly.” Catharina tried to smile, but there was too much fatigue and sadness-and terror-in her face. “Rachel’s death was a tragic accident.” Her voice cracked. “She was a childhood friend, Juliana, my friend. I know I’m not being myself, but-her death has nothing to do with you.”

“Why did she come to New York?”

Catharina sighed. “To see me.”

“And Senator Ryder?”

“I know nothing about that. Rachel knew many powerful people, including senators. Now she’s dead. Whatever business she had with Senator Ryder is none of our affair. Take your vacation, Juliana. You look tired.”

“You hadn’t seen Rachel Stein in a long time, and she shows up in New York just like that?”

“It’s easy to lose track of people as you get older.”

“Mother-”

Catharina abandoned her ruined dough. “That’s the end of it, Juliana. It’s finished. Did you see I made chicken pies today?” She brushed back a fallen curl. “Something new. Take one with you to Vermont.”

“Mother, dammit.”

But under the best of circumstances Catharina Fall was closemouthed-discreet, she called it. At the moment, however, Juliana wasn’t sure she had much room to criticize. She had never told her mother about Uncle Johannes’s visit backstage seven years ago, about his gift-if one wanted to call it that-of the Minstrel’s Rough. Her mother knew the Minstrel existed, knew the four-hundred-year-old tradition. All the Peperkamps did. But Uncle Johannes had advised her not to mention the Minstrel to her mother, and she never had.

My God, where will this end?

“What about Father? Does he know any of this?”

A dumb question, she thought. Catharina Peperkamp Fall told her husband as little as she did her daughter-unless he’d been feigning innocence all these years.

“Know any of what?” Catharina countered. “There’s nothing to know.”

“Well,” Juliana said in a falsely cheerful voice, “I suppose the Dutch don’t have their reputation for stubbornness without foundation.

“Go to Vermont,” her mother said. “And wash your hair first.”

Of course she wouldn’t ask why it was lavender to begin with. Juliana said goodnight. On her way out, she didn’t take a chicken pie.