Cut and Run

Fifteen

U.S . Senator Samuel Ryder, Jr., adopted a carefully constructed expression of pensiveness and control as he looked across his walnut desk to the wine-colored leather chair where Hendrik de Geer sat, rumpled, ashen-faced, spent, tired old man, reeking of sweat and gin. Ryder felt no sympathy. His aides had volunteered to call security-had pleaded with him to let them call-but the senator had refused. He’d insisted de Geer be ushered into his office, into the quiet, formal surroundings of a United States senator.

The room was unchanged from the days when it had been occupied by Samuel Ryder, Sr., the longtime senior senator from Florida. When elected, Sam had brought out all the furnishings that had been in storage-the desk, the carpets, the chairs, the mementos. Everything. There was only one addition: a portrait. It had been painted shortly before the senior Ryder’s death, an ominous picture of a man remembered for his soft baby blue eyes and deadly incisiveness, and it hung above the desk, behind his son, where Sam, Jr., wouldn’t have to look at it all the time.

“Are you absolutely positive that Johannes Peperkamp didn’t have the stone?” Ryder asked, concealing the panic brought on by the Dutchman’s succinct, unemotional testimony about the events over the past few days in Amsterdam. “He must have!”

“That’s what I thought as well,” the Dutchman replied calmly.

Did you kill him? Ryder’s mind burned with the question, but he didn’t ask it, instead convincing himself that the operational details of de Geer’s activities weren’t his concern. He licked his lips, rubbing one finger into the polished walnut of the edge of his desk. He refused to meet the Dutchman’s impassive, penetrating gaze, as if that would dissociate him even more from the events he’d put into motion.

“Then who has it?” Ryder asked.

“No one. The Minstrel is lost-if it ever existed.”

Ryder slapped his slate blotter. “It has to exist, and it can’t be lost!”

“Why, because you don’t wish it?”

“Dammit, man, do you know what this means?”

The Dutchman leaned back deeper into the chair, looking as if he might fall asleep-or fall down dead-at any moment. He had disengaged himself. “It means you must devise another plan to get Bloch his money,” he said. “You’re a clever man, Senator Ryder. You’ll think of something. With Rachel Stein’s death, you no longer have any hold over me. Even if I did know where to locate the Minstrel, I would no longer feel compelled to get it for you. If I’d known about her death before I left for Antwerp, I’d never have gone.”

“I don’t believe she was ever your sole motive for going along with me. It was a factor, to be sure, but the Peperkamps were your friends-”

“That was many, many years ago. Now, I’m afraid, they would all be delighted to hear of my death. You know what Rachel Stein said about me. It’s all true.”

“Did you kill her?” Ryder asked suddenly in a low, hoarse voice, regretting his words almost immediately. He couldn’t believe he was articulating such an accusation! Why couldn’t he be as cool and unperturbable as de Geer-as Matthew Stark had always been? Steelman. The chopper pilot the men all wanted to ride with. His skill, his uncompromising sense of duty, his steady nerves, his reliability were all highly regarded by the men he transported, dusted off, and aided in combat Ryder himself had never commanded such respect. It was something he’d learned to live with.

The Dutchman withdrew a cigar and a small pocketknife, shaking his head in feigned despair. “The man you must think I am, to kill an old woman, to throw her down on the ice.” He sighed, deftly cutting off the end of the cigar, pocketing the knife, and putting the cigar in his mouth. “I was sitting in your car when Rachel died. I had no interest in killing Rachel Stein. I’ve done enough to her.”

Ryder rubbed his forehead with all eight fingers, his thumbs planted firmly under his cheekbones as if holding his head together. “Then it must have been an accident after all.”

Hendrik de Geer laughed a cold, unpleasant laugh, the unlit cigar sticking on his lip. “You’re a fool, Senator Ryder-a blind, dangerous fool. You don’t believe that any more than I do. You told Sergeant Bloch about Rachel, didn’t you? He can arrange to have old women pushed down as easily as he can blackmail a United States senator.”

“He’s not blackmailing me,” Ryder said sharply. “I’m helping him establish himself as a self-sustaining force for freedom-”

“Oh, spare me, Senator. I’ve been in this world a long, long time. You need not make your excuses to me. How much did you tell Bloch?”

Ryder didn’t answer at once. He folded his hands on his blotter and sat very still controlling his anger and distaste for the Dutchman. At the moment, it was more important to think clearly. He had to debate with himself what to tell Hendrik de Geer and what to handle himself. How would the Dutchman react to a full account of Ryder’s conversations with Bloch?

But de Geer was impatient-and, as always, entirely too perceptive. “You told him everything, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t-”

“Don’t lie to me!” The Dutchman didn’t raise his voice, but the intensity of his words deepened the piercing blue of his eyes and brought him forward in his chair, the unflappable impassiveness shattered. “You told Bloch what you know about the Minstrel.”

“I had to-don’t you see? Look, de Geer, you know Bloch. He wants the diamond. You must get it for him, don’t you understand? If you don’t…for God’s sake, man, if you don’t he’ll go after it himself. Do you want that to happen?”

“That’s not my problem,” the Dutchman said, rising, his disgust underlining his words.

Ryder fought the urge to jump up and plead his case, and he felt the familiar gnawing of indecision, the aching emptiness of simply not knowing what to do. “I can’t control Bloch-he’ll go to the Peperkamp women, he’ll try each one until he’s positive none has the diamond or until he gets it. Or he’ll expect me to do this, despite my valid unwillingness to be involved on that end. You can’t let this happen! De Geer-for God’s sake, help me!”

Hendrik de Geer lit his cigar with a match, puffed, shook out the match, and dropped it on the senator’s desk, where its smoking melted through layers of wax. The room filled with the smoke of the cigar. Without pleasure, the Dutchman looked at Ryder and smiled. “I’ll help myself.”

Alice Feldon wasn’t relieved to see Matthew Stark wander into the Gazette newsroom. She was standing at her desk as usual, glasses on top of her head, her nails painted something called African Violet. Stark couldn’t have spent more than a few hours in Antwerp. She’d just come from fighting the money boys upstairs about his bebopping around, spending the paper’s money with no discernible progress on any kind of story, large, medium, or small.

“You’re the ones who’ve been telling me to give the man a chance,” she’d said. So go suck an egg, she’d felt like adding.

Yes, they’d replied, but did she know how much it cost to fly to Belgium?

Stark moved past her desk, his black leather jacket unzipped. Underneath was a black denim shirt and, for a change, heavy charcoal cords. And those damn boots, of course. Alice tried to imagine him in tassel loafers and couldn’t. The man was informal to the point of insolence. But she knew he gave such matters little or no thought. People could take him or leave him. He didn’t give a damn which.

“I thought you were in Antwerp,” she said.

“I was.”

“And?”

The black-brown eyes were leveled at her. “And now I’m back.”

“Jackass,” she said, unintimidated. “I want a progress report on my desk in an hour. You can’t be trusted, Stark.”

“Zeigler in?”

“Forget it. He’s not doing any more errands for you. I haven’t got the staff to waste on a story that’s going nowhere fast. You prove you’re nursing something important, I’ll give you all the help you need. Get me some facts, dammit. Until then, you’re on your own.”

“Never mind,” Stark said, as if he didn’t hear her. He was looking around the big, open newsroom. “I see him. Love your nails, Feldie. Make you look like a real dragon lady.”

She shoved her chair in under her desk, just missing her fingers. “Stark, goddamn you, I’m serious!”

He gave her one of his slow, disarming grins. “You’re always serious, Feldie. Loosen up.”

“You don’t come up with a story this time, you lazy ass is out of here. I mean it, goddamnit.”

“That’s not much of a threat,” he said.

He sauntered over to the massive copy machine, where Aaron Ziegler was feeding in paper and looking bored out of his mind. Rookie reporter or not, he had on a dark suit, rep tie, white shirt, and shiny Weejuns. Alice thought he had to have a trust fund or something. God only knew he couldn’t afford clothes like that on what the Gazette paid him. Dread and excitement came into his face when he saw Stark, but five minutes with Alice earlier that day had reminded him which side his bread was buttered on, so to speak. He glanced up at her.

She nodded. Oh, why the hell not? Somebody else could feed the copy machine.

In her sturdy shoes and worn coat, with her single carryon bag held firmly under her arm, Aunt Willie looked a bit like a bag lady after they’d cleared customs at Kennedy Airport. “Where do we get the bus?” she asked.

“We can take a cab,” Juliana said, leading the way.

“A cab? Why, isn’t there a bus?”

“A cab’s easier. Come on.”

Wilhelmina made no comment, but Juliana could feel her aunt’s disapproval. Americans were extravagant and wasteful. Why should her niece spend the money on a taxi when she could use public transportation? Material success meant nothing to Aunt Willie, and neither did the inconvenience of taking a bus or a train. Juliana wondered what her aunt would have to say about the expensive sportscar she had sitting in a garage. She seldom used it, except to escape to Vermont on occasion.

Vermont. Shuji. Now that her uncle was dead, the dilemmas she’d faced only a few days ago seemed trivial.

“When I’m gone,” Uncle Johannes said in his gentle way, “the Minstrel is yours to do with as you must. No one can tell you what is right, what is wrong. That is for you to decide. Do you understand, Juliana?”

She hadn’t. The largest uncut diamond in the world, the mystery surrounding it, the legend, the myth, the tradition. It was all so much mumbo jumbo to her. Her throat tightened as she remembered the quiet, intelligent man with the soft, proud look in his eyes as he’d come backstage seven years ago in Delftshaven. She’d felt an instant bond with him-as if she could do anything, be anything, and he still would be there for her. You’re the last of the Peperkamps, he’d told her. Until then, she had never thought about it. The Peperkamps had been strangers to her.

She’d stuck the Minstrel’s Rough away and tried to forget about it. And, as he’d requested, she’d never mentioned it to her mother or her aunt.

Now she wasn’t sure what to do. Over and over again on the flight to New York, she’d considered telling Aunt Willie she had it, asking her advice. But she’d resisted. Were people dying because of the Minstrel? Would telling Aunt Willie about it endanger her?

Am I in danger?

Although this was her first trip to the United States, Wilhelmina seemed unimpressed and asked no questions about the sights as they drove into Manhattan. Juliana didn’t bother to point out any landmarks.

Wilhelmina was leaning back against the torn seat, frowning thoughtfully. “Do you think your reporter has gone back to Washington?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible, I suppose. He might try Mother.”

“He’ll get nothing out of her,” Wilhelmina said with assurance.

“I suspect you’re right; I certainly never have.”

“Well, we’ll just have to locate him and find out what he’s up to. You can do that, Juliana. I’ll see to Catharina.”

“Me? Aunt Willie, Matthew Stark isn’t going to stand for me hanging around.”

“So?”

“So I’m not about to follow him around like a puppy dog with my tail wagging!”

“Achh, so much pride. I don’t understand this about puppy dogs and tails.”

“Never mind. I just think you and I could accomplish more if we stay together.”

“You do, do you? And just what information do we have that we can act upon?”

“You and Mother know who Hendrik de Geer is. You could tell me.”

Aunt Willie snorted in disgust. “And what would that accomplish? Would it tell us where he is? No, it would not. Would it tell us what this Senator Ryder is up to? No, it would not. Would it tell us if Rachel’s and Johannes’s deaths were acts of God? No, it would not. Would it-?”

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

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

“Aunt Willie-”

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

Juliana sighed and tried again. “Aunt Willie-”

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

“You’re impossible.”

“Yes, I know. But I’m honest.”

“To a fault,” Juliana said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sure.”

“Want to do me another favor?”

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

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

“Is there anything specific you’re after?”

“Yeah. I want to know where he is.”

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

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

“I use the blue,” Juliana said.

“And what about the rose?”

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

“Oh.”

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

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

“Is it? How charming.”

“Did you want to see Mother this afternoon?”

“Yes, of course.”

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

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

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

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

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

Juliana grinned. “Bus tokens.”

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

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

“Aunt Willie, is something wrong?”

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

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

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

“Yes.”

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

“Juliana-”

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

Of that, of course, Wilhelmina had no doubt.

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

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

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

Jesus!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christ.

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

Same thing I do, Sammy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He followed us.”

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

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

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

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

“I’m sorry, Mother-for worrying you, for Uncle Johannes. For everything.”

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

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

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

“Mother, I…”

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

“I want you to know how sorry I am about Uncle Johannes,” she said. “I know you didn’t see much of him in recent years, but I also know that didn’t make any difference to how you felt about him. In your own way, you’re a close family. I think I see that now.”

Catharina caught her lower lip and released Juliana’s hand so she could brush away her tears. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Juliana said truthfully.

“Aren’t you working on the Chopin concerto?”

Juliana smiled, rising, and gave her mother a quick hug. “You’re just as impossible as Aunt Willie, just not in the same way. But I do love you, Mum.”

“And I love you, too,” she whispered. Then she sat up straight, inhaling, determined. “Send Aunt Willie in here.”

“Well, Steelman.”

Matthew recognized the voice instantly and sank back against his chair. “Bloch.”

“You don’t take to warnings, do you?”

“You tell me.”

“My man saw you in Antwerp.”

Dammit, Stark thought, how stupid could he have been? He’d never even considered that Bloch would have someone watching Johannes Peperkamp’s shop, his house.

And Juliana?

Dammit to hell. If Bloch had had a man at the Peperkamp house, he’d seen her and the old aunt. How much did the bastard know?

Bloch went on, pleased with himself, “You were picked up at the old man’s house not long after Juliana Fall and Wilhelmina Peperkamp got there. They’re a real Mutt and Jeff, aren’t they? I hear Fall’s quite the looker. What do you think?”

“I think I should have blown your fucking ass to bit when I had the chance.”

“That’s what you get for playing by the rules. But that’s history. I’m concerned with right now. Want me to give you a rundown of what I know?”

“No.”

“I know you were at Lincoln Center the same night as Ryder and the Stein woman, and I know you’ve been to New York to see Juliana Fall and to Antwerp looking for her uncle. And you know why you’ve been to those places, sir? Because your old buddy Specialist Otis Raymond has been snitching to his hero Matthew Stark.”

“Let me talk to Weasel,” Stark said stonily.

“He’s unavailable.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I trusted him, you know, tried to give him a hand. But that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

Stark felt everything inside him turn cold. “If you touch Otis, I’m coming after you, Bloch. I don’t care where the hell you’re hiding, I’ll find you.”

“Stay out of this,” Bloch said, adding with heavy sarcasm, “Steelman.”

“Bloch-”

The sergeant hung up.

Hey, Steelman, we just landed our asses in some serious shit…sir.

That was Otis Raymond. Matthew raked one hand through his hair and tried to regain his sense of balance, of distance. The Weaze had never played by the book or worried about making it out of Vietnam. There was no future for him, not much past, just the present. He’d treated his M-60, standard equipment for a door gunner, with more care than most of the people he knew. But he’d cried like a two-year-old when a low ceiling prevented them from pulling out a stranded platoon and they’d had to go in later, too late, for the casualties. He’d laughed hysterically when he shoved grunts out of the chopper eight or ten feet above the ground, yelling, “Playtime, fellas!” He’d been proud of his medals, of the lives he’d saved; he never said much about the lives he’d taken. Just that one time.

You just do what you gotta do. I figure, my time’s up, it’s up, and they must figure the same. You know? Shit, I guess you don’t. I’m the one does the shooting, huh?

He was right, at least for a time. Toward the end of his first tour, Stark had switched from slicks to gunships, AH-1G Cobras. Snakes, they were nicknamed. He’d wanted a chance to shoot back for a change. It hadn’t made him feel any better. By then, nothing did. The snakes didn’t need door gunners, and he and Otis Raymond were finally split up. It didn’t last. He’d transferred to light observation helicopters, the scouts, and once more Weasel was his gunner. Crazy, stupid, ugly, brave, cocky SP-4 Otis Raymond. He figured one day someone was going to make a movie out of him. The best damn gunner in Vietnam, he’d said of himself more than once. He might have been right. He’d lived, hadn’t he? And somebody had made that movie. But Otis had never read or seen LZ, and Matthew had never gotten around to telling his old buddy that the nutty, heroic loner of a door gunner in both the book and the movie was modeled after SP-4 Otis Raymond.

Matthew felt empty and so goddamn alone.