Cut and Run

Ten

M atthew took the shuttle back to Washington and headed straight to the Gazette. It wasn’t the first time he’d shown up in a newsroom after hours, but his colleagues on the Gazette didn’t know that. He ignored their curious looks and went over to Aaron Ziegler’s desk.

“Burning the midnight oil, Ziegler?”

The young reporter looked up at Stark and nodded, his expression betraying a mix of eagerness and nervousness. “I’ve got your information. I didn’t tell Feldie, but she knows I’m doing some research for you.”

“She around?”

“No.”

“Good. Give me what you’ve got.”

“I haven’t written anything up yet.”

“That’s okay. Just spit it out.”

Ziegler, his rep tie loosened, consulted a steno book on his neat desk. Stark remained standing. He didn’t know what to do to make the kid less nervous, so he didn’t do anything.

“The world’s largest uncut diamond naturally varies from time to time because it doesn’t stay uncut for very long-unless you’re talking about the Minstrel’s Rough.” He glanced up, his eyes questioning Matthew.

Stark said, “I don’t know if I am or not. Give me what you’ve got.”

“Well, it sounds pretty farfetched.”

“Don’t worry about that. If it’s not what I’m looking for, I’ll just keep digging.”

“All right. Supposedly ‘the world’s largest and most mysterious uncut diamond’ is the Minstrel’s Rough.”

“Supposedly?”

“That’s just it: no one’s ever been able to verify the thing even exists. It’s been rumored to exist for the last four or five hundred years, and there have been a number of unconfirmed sightings of it. Nothing can be substantiated, but I gather it’s not supposed to be. Part of the legend-the mystery-is that the Minstrel can never be proven to exist. That way no matter how big the current biggest uncut diamond is, people will always wonder if there’s one bigger.”

“The Minstrel.”

“Right.”

“Sounds like a lot of bullshit, Ziegler.”

“I know. But the mystery surrounding the Minstrel adds to its symbolism. Supposedly it’s in the hands of caretakers who’ll never cut it, in remembrance of those who have suffered persecution and hatred. In other words, it’s a reminder that no story is more important than human life. Which brings me to the Minstrel’s ‘alleged’ potential as a cut and polished stone. Not only is it huge, but it’s an ice white.”

“What’s that?”

“The highest grade of diamond, as close to pure and colorless as possible. If the Minstrel does exist and ever is found and cut, it could be worth millions. Over the centuries there’ve been countless sightings and loads of attempts to track it down, but still no Minstrel. But the material I’ve read treats it strictly as legend.”

Matthew’s thoughts were already racing. Just who the hell was Sam Ryder planning to buy off with those millions? Because Sam, of course, was enough of a dumbass to go after a mythical diamond. The Weaze was right about that, no doubt. “Shit,” he muttered, then sighed. “Okay, Ziegler, thanks. Anything on the other business?”

“That was considerably easier,” Aaron said, looking more relaxed, if not at ease. “Rachel Stein came from Amsterdam; she was a member of an old diamond-cutting family that was wiped out during the Holocaust. She and her brother Abraham were the only survivors. Pretty grim stuff. I have a lot on her life in the U.S., but you were just interested in the Dutch connection, right? There wasn’t much. They were hidden by a Dutch family through much of the war but were discovered in its last months and deported to the death camps. As I said, there wasn’t a lot of detail. As for Juliana Fall-there was a nice, fat folder on her in the library.”

“I’ll bet,” Stark said.

“As you said, the Dutch connection comes from her mother, whose maiden name was Peperkamp. She grew up in Amsterdam. There was a file on her-a review of her bakeshop. I went ahead and checked under Peperkamp. You’re not going to believe this, but there’s a diamond cutter named Johannes Peperkamp.”

Here a Peperkamp, there a Peperkamp. “Go on.”

“There wasn’t much recent stuff. He started out in Amsterdam and moved to Antwerp after World War II, and he’s cut a number of famous large diamonds, including the Breath of Angels, which is now in the Smithsonian. He’s the last of the Peperkamp cutters, who apparently got into the business in the sixteenth century when they provided safe haven for Jewish diamond merchants fleeing the Inquisition in Antwerp and Lisbon, which until that time were the principal diamond cities.”

“Any relation to Catharina or Juliana Fall?”

“None mentioned, but that’s not surprising. Juliana would have been just a kid when most of the material in the folder was published.”

“Any mention of Hendrik de Geer?”

“No. I couldn’t find anything on him.”

“Any connection between this Johannes Peperkamp or Juliana and Catharina Fall and Rachel Stein?”

“None that I could find.”

“Okay. Thanks, Aaron. I appreciate it.”

Ziegler beamed. “Should I keep stalling Feldie?”

“By all means.”

Matthew went for coffee, pure rotgut but hot, and sat in the cafeteria for an hour talking sports with a couple of reporters. The Caps were playing the Bruins at home and losing in the third period. He wondered if Juliana Fall had ever been to a hockey game. They could go together, and she could get up on the organ and play the national anthem. Hell, that’d kill her reputation faster than getting caught as J.J. Pepper. Did she even know what the inside of a hockey arena looked like? He doubted it. Had she ever eaten a hotdog from a concession stand? Had she ever eaten a hotdog at all? Probably called them frankfurters.

He pulled himself up short, got a refill, and headed back downstairs.

His telephone was ringing. He picked it up. “What?”

“Oh. You are there.”

He recognized the liquid voice instantly and dropped into his chair. “Shall I call you Juliana or J.J.?”

“Usually I’m called Miss Fall-or Ms. Fall.”

“Still mad, huh?”

“That’s irrelevant. Why didn’t you tell me Rachel Stein was dead?”

“Because you would have said, ‘Rachel who?’ I described her to you, if you’ll recall, and you said you didn’t know her. I didn’t think there was any point in telling you she was dead.”

“You were trying to trap me,” Juliana said. “Besides, you didn’t believe me anyway.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I might have told you more if you’d been honest with me.”

He felt himself grinning. “And I might have told you more if you’d been honest with me. Want to talk now?”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“Then why did you call?”

“I only met Rachel Stein once, but I-well, I want to know more about this story you’re half working on.”

“Why?”

He heard her take a breath, controlling herself; he irritated the hell out of her. “Curiosity, I guess,” she said stiffly.

“More interesting than painting your hair purple and dressing up in nutty clothes to play jazz? You’re bored, Juliana Fall, and I’ve got better things to do than to unbore you.” Then again…he thought, but left it at that.

“Do you know why Rachel Stein was with Senator Ryder on Saturday?” she asked, her voice cool now, distant and very calculating.

“No, do you?”

“Of course not. You and Senator Ryder know each other, don’t you? Why were you at the concert?”

“I like music,” Stark said. The woman was holding back on him, which was one thing. But holding back and expecting him to talk was another, and it pissed him off. “Let me ask you something, Ms. Fall. Are you any relation to a diamond cutter by the name of Johannes Peperkamp?”

Not a sound came out of her. Matthew leaned back, listening. Finally she said, even more cool, even more distant and calculating, “Why do you ask?”

“Curiosity, I guess,” he said, mimicking her.

He’d pushed her too far. She called him a bastard and hung up. He’d memorized her phone number when he went to her apartment, and he reached for the phone to call her back. But he stopped himself. What the hell was he doing? Juliana Fall had no business getting mixed up in anything that involved Otis Raymond and Sam Ryder. She was a pianist, for God’s sake. Let her get her kicks out of keeping Shuji from finding out about J.J. Pepper and Len Wetherall from finding out about Juliana Fall.

He put on his coat and went home.

Wilhelmina Peperkamp scrubbed a batch of clay pots in her tiny kitchen, oblivious to the bright morning winter sun screaming through her window. Her apartment was on the first floor of a restored seventeenth-century building in Delftshaven, where she had lived for the last forty years. Literally Delft’s harbor, it was the quietest, most picturesque section of Rotterdam and virtually the only one that had escaped the 1940 German bombings. The rebuilt Rotterdam was pleasant enough-likeable, efficient, and convenient. But it was the cobblestone streets and centuries-old buildings of Delftshaven Wilhelmina had grown to love.

She was elbow-deep in water and had just begun to have some success with the stubborn mildew on one of her pots when her telephone began ringing. She considered not answering, but she received so few calls she changed her mind. Grumbling to herself, she put down her stiff wire brush and wiped her hands on her apron as she picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“Willie…”

She recognized the soft, unhappy voice at once. “Catharina, what’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry, Willie, I don’t mean to sound so upset-”

“Never mind,” Wilhelmina responded abruptly. She had spoken in Dutch, Catharina in English, automatically, as if it never occurred to her to speak in her native language. Ordinarily Wilhelmina would have remarked on her sister’s thorough Americanization. This time she didn’t. Catharina rarely called, least of all when something was bothering her, and Wilhelmina opted to speak in her own excellent English. “What is it, Catharina?”

“It’s Rachel-Rachel Stein. She’s dead, Willie. It was in the papers here.”

Rachel. Even after all these years, Wilhelmina thought, I can still see her lively, tiny face and the expressive eyes that had had no effect whatever on an officer of the Green Police. They were bastards, all of them. Nazis, Dutch Nazis. So filled with hate. That one had kicked Rachel like a dog and dragged her away-and Wilhelmina, too. But that was of no consequence; she’d failed to protect Rachel, and the Nazis had taken her away.

Now she was dead.

Wilhelmina reached for a cotton towel and dried her dripping forearms, cradling the phone between her shoulder and chin. She looked down at her hands, red and rough with work and age. They had never been pretty hands; she had never been a pretty woman. But her plainness hadn’t bothered her; she had other qualities.

“Willie?”

“I’m here.”

Her eyes remained tearless. She hadn’t cried in many, many years, although she had lost many friends. It was the worst part of growing old. Slowly, she sat at her small table where already a half-dozen of her clay pots were lined up, scrubbed and empty.

“I’m sorry to have told you so abruptly,” Catharina said. “I know it’s shocking.”

“How did she die?”

“She fell on the ice-an accident, they say.”

Wilhelmina was instantly alert. “You have doubts?”

“I don’t know. I-I don’t know what to think.”

“Tell me everything, Catharina.”

Haltingly, Catharina related the events since Rachel’s appearance at the bakeshop for tea, requesting corroboration of her story to Senator Ryder. Although she was alone, Wilhelmina refrained from showing any visible reaction to what she was hearing. Not since the winter of 1944-Hongerwinter, the Winter of Hunger-had she and Catharina discussed Hendrik de Geer or even spoken his name. There was no need. He was a man neither would ever forget. Wilhelmina had tried.

“I’m probably overreacting,” Catharina said. “But I don’t know. It’s late here; I haven’t been able to sleep. Juliana came by the shop earlier, and she’s asking so many questions. She-she’s asked me about Hendrik. I wouldn’t talk to her, I…Willie, how can I tell her? This doesn’t concern her! It can’t touch her-I won’t let it!”

“You’ve never told her about Amsterdam?” Wilhelmina tried to keep the condemnation out of her tone, but it was there; she could hear it herself. And of course Catharina would be listening for it.

“No, I did not. Don’t interfere, Willie. What I do or don’t tell my daughter is between us.”

“You were the one who called me,” Wilhelmina pointed out, her sister’s agitation all that kept her tone mild.

“I know! I thought…I don’t know now what I thought, just that you have a right to know about Rachel, I suppose. Maybe I thought you could help.” Catharina paused and gave a small, bitter laugh. “I always do, don’t I? Nothing’s changed. Oh, Willie, I’m not blaming you. God knows I haven’t changed, either. When something goes wrong, who do I call? My big sister. I want you to be strong, Willie, I expect it, just as you expect me always to crumple and do as you say.”

“It’s all right,” Wilhelmina said, feeling tired. Catharina had Adrian, Juliana her piano, Johannes his diamonds. What did she have? Her pots of flowers. Well, she wouldn’t feel sorry for herself. Her flowers were enough.

“I’m probably being silly,” Catharina said, breathing deeply, nervously, and Wilhelmina felt her younger sister’s uncertainty, her dread of censure. Too many times she’d had big sister Willie tell her she was being foolish. “When I saw Hendrik at Lincoln Center, at first I thought it must be my imagination.”

“Have you ever imagined seeing him before?”

“No, of course not.”

Wilhelmina had.

“It was so strange seeing him again,” Catharina went on, calmer now. “He’s the same.”

Wilhelmina snorted. “Did you think he’d be any different?”

“I suppose not. I-I can’t believe he had anything to do with Rachel’s death. It must have been an accident.”

“Perhaps.”

“I’m not afraid, Willie, I wouldn’t want you to think that-not for myself, anyway.”

“For Juliana?”

“Yes.”

Wilhelmina had to smile at her sister’s eternal naiveté. “Catharina, please. Hendrick would never hurt Juliana.”

“You sound so sure.”

“I am. Don’t you see? Juliana’s your daughter. Hendrik could no more hurt her than he could you.”

Catharina cried out in surprise and disbelief. “But he did hurt me!”

“Not in any way he would understand. In the mind of Hendrik de Geer, he saved you. That’s all he knows.”

“Willie…”

Her hands were trembling, but she blamed age rather than emotion. “Call me if there’s anything more.”

“What should I do about Juliana?”

“If I were you, I would tell her everything.”

“No.”

“But, of course, I’m not you. Just-how do you say it? Lay low, I believe. Do nothing. Juliana will stop asking questions soon enough. Now that Rachel is dead and any threat against him eliminated, Hendrik will simply disappear. He must be very good at that by now.”

“You really think he will?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because he was at Lincoln Center on Saturday. If he was going to disappear, wouldn’t he have done it then?”

Not if he came to kill Rachel he wouldn’t, Wilhelmina thought. But Hendrik had never been one to do his own killing. Catharina had a point-one, of course, Wilhelmina had already considered.

“Unless you want to go after Hendrik yourself, Catharina, there’s nothing else you can do but pretend you never saw him on Saturday.”

“How-how could I go after him myself?”

“That’s something you must answer for yourself. I cannot.”

“I have to go, before I wake Adrian.”

“You’ve not told him what’s been happening?”

“Of course not. Goodbye, Willie.”

Wilhelmina was appalled, but she said goodbye and hung up. She made herself some café au lait, ignoring the sinkful of flowerpots. Hendrik de Geer. She’d hoped he was dead, although she’d never believed it. She took her coffee into the living room and sat on her chair by the window, watching her narrow, picturesque street. She missed the pots of begonias that had stood on her windowsill. They’d all become diseased and died. Perhaps it was an omen.

“No matter,” she said aloud, accustomed to talking to herself after so many years of living alone. “They were old enough to die.”

Johannes Peperkamp stood on the deck of the old cargo ship and looked out at the busy Amsterdam harbor. It was still early, very cool, and the ship was an old one that smelled of bad fish and rancid oil. He remembered how he’d dreamed of being a sailor when he was a boy, and home sick for days with influenza. While he was recovering, his father had sat with him and filled his head with another dream, the legend of the Minstrel’s Rough. The Minstrel had made the Peperkamp diamond tradition real for Johannes, something that was exciting and mysterious. For a long time now, that excitement and mystery had been absent. Diamonds were work. They provided a living. That was all.

He had been looking out at the city since dawn, watching it slowly rise out of the darkness into the new day. Not since Ann’s death had he been back to Amsterdam. For both of them, it had been a city of painful memories. But she’d wanted her ashes brought to the Jodenhoek, the old Jewish quarter, and he’d acceded to her wish. During the sixteenth century, thousands of Jews had fled to Amsterdam for its tolerance and religious freedom. With them, they’d brought diamonds and their knowledge of the gems. They were predominantly Sephardic Jews escaping persecution in Lisbon and Antwerp, and their diamond money had helped finance the Dutch East India Company. With it, Amsterdam could establish its own route to India and become the main European port of entry for diamonds. The Netherlands’ golden age followed, and it became for a time the major seafaring nation of the world.

In 1940, Nazi Germany invaded, violating Dutch neutrality, imposing and encouraging intolerance and hatred. After four hundred Jewish men were rounded up, beaten and deported in early 1941, the Dutch responded with a general strike. The furious Reichskommissar, Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Viennese attorney who’d engineered the Anschluss of Austria with the German Third Reich, crushed quickly and brutally crushed the strike. Resistance moved underground. Before the Allies liberated all of The Netherlands in the spring of 1945, seventy-five percent of its Jewish population-one hundred thousand people-had been killed.

Ann had been one who lived. A part of her, at least.

The old cutter’s eyes filled with unbidden tears. How happy they’d been before the war! And even after, when they’d still had each other. Now he felt so tired. The brisk morning air didn’t penetrate his fatigue as a kaleidoscope of images from the past spun around him. Perhaps Wilhelmina was right-he should have killed Hendrik de Geer when he’d had the opportunity, before, in Amsterdam. But he’d been unable to believe Hendrik had actually betrayed them. Wilhelmina had accused her brother of being overly sentimental. Perhaps she was right about that, too. Hendrik had been his friend.

Hendrik, Hendrik…damn you, why?

Blinking back the tears, Johannes pictured his niece, so young, so beautiful, so talented. He’d seen Juliana just twice, for brief visits, since Delftshaven seven years ago. Neither had mentioned the Minstrel’s Rough.

I should never have given it to her, he thought, ashamed. At the time, he’d felt himself growing old, felt keenly the recent loss of his wife, the knowledge that there was no one to carry on the Minstrel tradition. He’d decided it was his duty to pass the legendary rough on to Juliana, to let her choose the course of its future. A cowardly way out, perhaps. Forty years ago, Catharina had begged him to toss it into the sea. From the moment she first saw the diamond, she’d hated it. She always would. The tradition meant nothing to her. It had been soiled by Amsterdam. By Hendrik de Geer’s betrayal.

Perhaps he should have listened to her as well.

He became aware he was no longer alone on the deck, but he neither looked around nor changed position. Hendrik left him alone much of the time, because, after all, Johannes was an old man and what could he do? He’d considered throwing himself overboard into the icy waters of the canal but realized his suicide would accomplish nothing. Hendrik would only find another way to get hold of the Minstrel. He would go to his sisters…eventually to Juliana. No, the best Johannes could hope for was to buy time for the others-to give them a chance to find out he was missing, to figure out what was happening, and to take precautions. For once, he appreciated the careful, suspicious mind of the older of his two sisters. Wilhelmina would guess what was going on. She would act.

So he would wait, he thought, and looked up into the cold face of Hendrik de Geer.

“You look tired, Johannes,” the younger Dutchman said.

The old diamond cutter shrugged. “I’m old; I get tired.”

“I know you, Johannes, perhaps even better than you know yourself.” Hendrik pulled his watch cap down over his ears. Despite the sharp wind, Johannes wore neither hat nor gloves. “You haven’t given up. You’re still trying to think of a way out of this.”

Johannes turned back to the water, saying nothing. What was there to say? Hendrik did know him.

“There is no way.” The younger Dutchman’s tone was curiously quiet. “We’re caught between two opposing sides, as we were before.”

“As you were, Hendrik,” Johannes replied, aware his one-time friend was referring to the war, when the Dutch had tried to remain neutral in the face of German aggression, as they had successfully in the first World War. “I was against the Nazis from the beginning. I was never noncommittal. You, Hendrik-you have always been just for yourself.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” There was no self-condemnation in his tone, only acceptance-resignation. “But that doesn’t change anything. You know that getting the Minstrel won’t be enough. You’ll have to cut it as well, and you’re thinking, ah ha, this is my chance. I can make the wrong cut, use too much pressure, whatever is necessary to render the Minstrel worthless. And you think that will be the end of it. But it won’t be, Johannes. As you said, I’m not doing this on my own. Me, I would kill you for the trouble, maybe, and move on, cut my losses. You know that’s my way. But the men I work for aren’t like me. They believe in vengeance, and they don’t like loose ends.”

Johannes sniffed. “That’s not my concern.”

“It is, Johannes. Think of your sisters. Think of your niece.”

Johannes turned to the man he had once called his most trusted friend, and he felt a tug of emotion, in spite of everything. What had happened to turn Hendrik into this? He had aged, his skin weathering, marred by the brown spots of age, lines cutting deep into his face, muscles sagging, although not as much as in other men of seventy. But in Hendrik de Geer, always so strong and agile and fierce in Johannes’s memory, the signs of advancing years were a particular shock-a reminder of how long ago Amsterdam had been, of how young Hendrik had been. Johannes thought suddenly: had they all asked too much of him? But no. There was no excuse. Much more had been asked of even younger men.

“And what about you, Hendrik?” Johannes said. “Have you thought of them?”

“Yes. You called my bluff in Antwerp, Johannes. You know I’d never hurt them. If I were as ruthless as the men I’ve worked for during the past forty years, none of you would be around for me to worry about. I’d have the Minstrel myself instead of being forced to get it for someone else. But I’ve never bothered with it. I do think about your sisters and your niece-and of you, too, my friend.”

“And as usual you believe everything will work out because you want it to. You’re an optimist, and you’re selfish. You’ll do whatever you have to do to save your own skin.”

The cold, blue eyes of the younger Dutchman held Johannes’s a moment, and they might have shown doubt, could have, but Hendrik turned away, his expression grim. “Johannes, understand me: I had no choice.”

“No, Hendrik, you made your choice.”

“I wasn’t the one who told you about the Minstrel. I’ve kept the secret since Amsterdam. Achh, never mind. Just get me the stone, Johannes. Cut it for me. Let me handle the rest. If you cooperate, nothing will happen to Wilhelmina, Catharina, or Juliana. I promise you.”

“I believed your promises once.” The older Dutchman turned away, refusing to look at Hendrik. “Never again.”

“It’s Catharina I worry about, more than Willie or Juliana,” Hendrick said quietly, staring, as Johannes did, out at the city of their birth. Like Venice, low-lying Amsterdam was built on pilings. As boys, they’d played together on the canals that drain the city. “Juliana is a pianist, in the public eye, which should help protect her, and Willie’s as tough as anyone I’ve ever encountered. She can take care of herself. But Catharina’s not a survivor. You were a fool, Johannes, to have given her the diamond in Amsterdam.”

“It was her choice.”

“But she was a child! She didn’t understand.”

“Don’t underestimate her,” Johannes said, but he could hear the sudden despair in his voice. The unbearable sadness. He would never see his sister again. He knew it.

For a long time, neither man spoke.

“In most things, it’s true, I take care of myself first,” Hendrik said at length. “I’ve always been that way.”

“Not always, Hendrik.”

“Yes, Johannes, always. When we were boys, you took no notice-and it never mattered then. What harm could I do? Little Hendrik with the bright blue eyes and curly blond hair. I was harmless. But during the war, you finally saw what I am. I know you don’t trust me-God knows I’ve given you enough reason not to-but in this you must.” He pulled the old cutter’s arm and made the Dutchman look at him. “Do you understand, Johannes? You must. I repeat: if you do as I say, if we act quickly, nothing will happen to your sisters or to your niece.”

“You promise?” There was no hope in Johannes’s voice, only sarcasm and resignation. Hendrik de Geer would never change.

“You must get me the Minstrel.”

“Why don’t you tell your people I threw it into the sea?”

“Because they wouldn’t take my word for it. The Minstrel presents too important an opportunity for them to pass up without being positive that it’s lost. Johannes, if you know anything, know now that I’m telling you the truth.”

Johannes lifted his bony shoulders in an impassive shrug, feeling the wind slice through his jacket, his shirt, his very soul. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so cold. “It’s there,” he said, looking out at the city skyline. “In Amsterdam. We have only to go to my safe-deposit box and get it. I told you.”

“I hope so,” Hendrik said.

For a moment, Johannes could sense the weariness in him and suddenly wondered if he might be wrong after all. Perhaps Hendrik, too, was tired of the sparring, the memories, the grief, the hatred. Was it too much to forgive? But, no, Johannes thought, I mustn’t be sentimental; I mustn’t imbue Hendrik with my own values and morals. Hendrik de Geer would never tire of the games he played with people’s lives for his own advantage. He would never tire of believing in himself, believing he could involve his friends in his schemes, put them into danger, and everything would work out because he wanted it to.

“Trust me, my friend,” the aging mercenary, the one-time friend, said softly, leaving the deck as silently as he’d come.

Johannes welcomed being alone. He continued to stare at the water and looked out toward the west, toward the sea, thinking about its seeming infinity, and in that he found comfort.

Hendrik de Geer drank straight from the bottle of good Dutch gin-jenever-in his dirty cabin. He liked to drink alone, preferred it. He’d never really been a lush: too dangerous, given his lifestyle. There were lost days, of course, but generally speaking, in drinking, as in everything else, he was a man of supreme self-control. He knew exactly how much he could consume without endangering himself.

Yet now he wanted to finish off the bottle, and perhaps another. He wanted oblivion.

How could I have let this happen?

Boyhood friend, lifelong foe, premier diamond cleaver, old man. Whatever he had been and whatever he was, Johannes Peperkamp no longer had the Minstrel’s Rough.

It wasn’t in Amsterdam. This trip was an act of desperation-a ruse. The Minstrel was not here. There was no safe-deposit box.

Hendrik moaned aloud. “What am I to do?”

Run…

It was his first impulse. Always his first impulse.

He gulped the gin and rose from his chair, stumbling as he made his way to his bunk. His eyes brimmed with hot, worthless tears, blinding his vision but not the images that burned in his head.

Catharina tearing at his sleeve, screaming “No, no, no!”…the unearthly emptiness of the house…the smug looks of the Green Police when Hendrik had confronted them.

Images. Memories. But what was done was done. That the Steins and the Peperkamps had been captured by the Nazis wasn’t his fault. He had been cheated-lied to!

And yet he hated himself, now more than ever before, with desperation and anger, without hope. The cool detachment of recent years was gone. He knew he couldn’t change. Johannes was right. As always, Hendrik thought he could handle everything. Make everyone happy. Get the stone, get Ryder off the hook with Bloch, maintain his own position with Bloch, keep the Peperkamps out of it. He’d never considered the possibility that Johannes wouldn’t have the Minstrel’s Rough.

Hendrik swore fiercely but broke off when a young deckhand rushed into the cabin. “It’s the old man-something’s wrong.”

The Dutchman threw down the gin and moved quickly, but when he got to the deck, Johannes Peperkamp was lying on his back, ashen and unconscious. The sharp, cold wind gusted, but the old man made no attempt to get out of it.

“My God!” Hendrik felt a faint pulse in Johannes’s neck and tore open the old cutter’s jacket and shirt. “My friend, don’t die now. It won’t help either of us.”

He pounded on Johannes’s chest and screamed to the deckhand, a red-faced boy, and together they administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Hendrik continuing to scream orders.

“It’s no use,” the deckhand cried, tired and repulsed. He’d never touched a dying man before.

“Keep going!”

“I’m cold-”

“Damn you, there’s still a pulse!”

The boy sat back on his knees, frightened. They’d picked up Hendrik in Antwerp-he was an old friend of the captain’s-and the boy had steered clear of him. “He’s not going to make it.”

Hendrik gave the boy a fierce look and said in a low, deadly voice, “Keep going or I’ll kill you. I can do it.”

“You’re crazy,” the deckhand said, but he kept going.

It was dawn, and a pinkish light glowed over Central Park. Juliana sat at her piano. It was quiet in her apartment; there was no music on the rack. She rolled up the sleeves of her flannel nightgown and shut her eyes.

Behind her, the aquarium bubbled. She could hear herself breathe.

She had tried to call Uncle Johannes in Antwerp. He wasn’t at his shop or his apartment. She didn’t know where else he could be.

She had resisted the temptation to call her mother at the bakeshop. She would be there, baking cookies. Speculaas. Dutch spice cookies. For Christmas.

Juliana’s fingers found the keyboard. They brushed the cool ivory.

She played.

Something, nothing. She didn’t know what. Her fingers were her only cues. They knew the right keys, the right phrasing. Her mind wasn’t involved. It didn’t matter, not here, not alone. Everything blended together. Scales, arpeggios. Beethoven, Schoenberg. Eubie Blake, Duke Ellington. Music poured out of her, uncontrolled, and filled the room.

The sound ended the silence and the bad thoughts.

When you have bad thoughts, her mother used to say when Juliana was small and woke up crying from her nightmares, you should try to think of something else. Something happy. Imagine yourself at a picnic in the country with your father and me. Picking wildflowers. Playing in the stream.

Think happy thoughts.

Repress.

It was always easier to do at the piano.

She played until she hurt, and when she stopped, tears and sweat poured down her face and her back and between her legs, and her muscles ached, and she didn’t know how long she’d been at it. Hours? Minutes?

The first bright light of morning shone over Central Park. She went over to the couch and sat where Matthew Stark had sat and watched the street below fill with people. She would remain upstairs, alone, playing piano and talking to her fish.

Thinking happy thoughts.