Cut and Run

Sixteen

C atharina’s Bake Shop was warm and crowded, and Wilhelmina had enjoyed just sitting quietly for a moment, experiencing her sister’s life. It seemed a satisfactory one, but she wished Johannes were there. They could have tea and cookies and get to know each other again. But that was not to be.

Juliana emerged from the kitchen looking shaken, but she managed a quick smile at her aunt. “Your turn. I’ve got to go out, but here’s the key to my apartment. I’ll meet you back there.”

“Where are you going?”

“SoHo. I won’t be gone long.”

“And what of our man in the trench coat?”

“He won’t follow me, Aunt Willie.” This time her smile was genuine, lighting up her dark eyes. “You can count on that.”

Wilhelmina wasn’t so certain and found Juliana’s confidence unsettling, but she made no argument. If the man outside meant them harm, he would have done something by now or at least been less obvious. He seemed to be keeping an eye on them. But why? On whose orders?

Sighing, she nodded. “Just be careful.” And she too managed a smile. “Don’t leave me having to explain to your mother!”

Juliana laughed and went to the counter to order something to eat, and Wilhelmina retreated to the back, where she found her sister seated at a small table in the storeroom. Even dressed as she was in simple pants and a pullover, with her softly graying hair piled on top of her head, Catharina looked elegant. In the same outfit, Wilhelmina thought, I would look dumpy. It was one of the many differences between them.

She’d fixed a pot of tea and had a plate of speculaas and bread and cheese in front of her, untouched. “Willie,” she said, her voice cracking, and she went on in Dutch, “I hate to say it, but I’m so glad you’re here. I mean…”

Wilhelmina laughed, taking no offense. “I know what you mean, Catharina.”

“Johannes…” Her voice trailed off, her eyes once more filling with tears.

“Yes. We’ll miss him, won’t we?”

“I’d begun to think he’d never die. Willie, what’s happened to us? I remember when I was a little girl I could never imagine being away from my family. I wanted to live with Mother and Father forever-and you and Johannes. I thought you’d always be close by.”

“You were the one who left,” Wilhelmina pointed out, but without condemnation; it was a fact. She filled two simple white mugs with tea.

“I know, but I never thought we’d drift so far apart. I-”

Catharina cut herself off and began pulling distractedly at her hair, upsetting several pins, so that part of a braid came loose. Wilhelmina remembered how blond her little sister’s hair had been as a girl, how she used to braid it for her so carefully and tenderly, not wanting to pull. Catharina’s hands trembled, but she shoved them quickly into her lap.

“You’re so strong, Willie,” she went on, trying to smile. “I-I can’t lie to myself, you know. I can’t pretend I’m not relieved you’re here. All these years…” She inhaled deeply. “And I still depend on you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, Catharina.”

“But who do you depend on?”

“Myself. But that’s only because that’s all I have.”

“What about me?”

Wilhelmina sighed, feeling awkward; she didn’t like to discuss these things. “You’re my sister. It’s enough that you don’t hate me.”

Catharina held back a sob and shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe her sister’s words. “Oh, Willie, how could I ever hate you?”

“Sometimes, Catharina,” she replied quietly, “I wonder how you could ever not. But enough of this nonsense. We must talk, don’t you agree?”

Quickly and succinctly, in Dutch, they filled each other in on the events of the past few days, but Wilhelmina found herself facing more questions than answers.

“So Hendrik hasn’t changed,” she said at length. “He’s out for himself and always will be. After all this time, he’s finally going after the Minstrel.”

Catharina nodded, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “But Willie, is it possible Johannes went with Hendrik voluntarily?”

“No.” Wilhelmina put a small chunk of cheese on a slice of the dark bread; it was just what she needed after the exhausting trip. “Johannes would never give Hendrik the Minstrel. Hendrik had to have coerced him somehow-he had to have some kind of leverage. Us, I would think. Hendrik would know Johannes would rather die than to give him, of all people, the Minstrel. So threatening Johannes with his own death would do no good. Even threatening him with my death alone wouldn’t make Johannes go for the Minstrel; he would know better than to engage in any ridiculous protective sentiments toward me. Hendrik knows this.”

“Johannes cared about you.”

Wilhelmina waved a hand impatiently. “I know that, but he cared for me in a different way than he cared for you. Catharina, you’ve always been the favorite-Mother’s, Father’s, Johannes’s, Hendrik’s, mine. And Johannes may not know Juliana very well, but she’s your daughter and she’s all that represents the future of the Peperkamps. If he were threatened not with his own life, not with mine, but with the lives of you and Juliana, he would tell Hendrik anything. Do anything. Next to all of us, the Minstrel’s Rough and four hundred years of tradition mean nothing.”

“But you said yourself Hendrik wouldn’t hurt me!”

“Of course he wouldn’t.” With a satisfied sigh, Wilhelmina swallowed the last of the bread and cheese. She added sugar to her tea and took a sip. “But the more I think about it, the less inclined I am to believe Hendrik is acting alone. Perhaps someone is threatening him.

“Who? Not Senator Ryder?”

“Who knows? It’s all very complicated, I’m sure.”

Catharina shuddered. “Willie, please, don’t tell me this.”

“What do you want to do, pretend nothing has happened?”

“I want to leave well enough alone.”

Wilhelmina studied her sister for a moment. “And do you believe we can, Catharina?”

She waited for an answer while her younger sister sat rigidly in the chair, her eyes glazed and unfocused. She hadn’t touched any of the food or her tea. Wilhelmina dunked a spice cookie and ate it in two bites.

“Of course you’re right,” Catharina said tightly, more hair falling out of its pins, and she added almost inaudibly, “We can’t.”

“I wish that we could. Believe me, I do. Have you been followed?”

Catharina’s round soft eyes grew even larger as she took in her sister’s words. “You, too?”

“Yes-and Juliana.”

“Juliana!” Catharina jumped up, her face ghastly white. “No, Willie. She can’t be involved!”

“Why, because you don’t wish her to be?”

“That’s cruel.”

“We must look at the facts and not let our judgment be influenced by wishful thinking.”

“Juliana has no place in this,” Catharina said sternly, returning to her chair.

“We might not have that choice.”

“She’s my daughter, Willie.”

“Yes, and she’s also an adult. She must make her own decisions and deal with their consequences. Catharina, she’s thirty years old.”

Catharina broke a cookie in half, then into quarters, then into crumbs. “You don’t have a daughter, how could you understand?”

“Achh, I understand more than you think. Because of who she is-her career in music, her growing up here with all this wealth-Juliana knows little of the world. You can’t stop her from finding out what it is.”

“You think I’ve spoiled her.”

“Life has spoiled her. She’s been very lucky, Catharina, to have you and Adrian, to have so much.” Wilhelmina smiled, trying to take the edge off her words. “Except for not teaching her Dutch and, perhaps, being so closemouthed about the past, you haven’t done anything I wouldn’t have done in your position. You don’t want what we suffered in Amsterdam to touch her. I understand that. We didn’t want the war to touch you, but it did. That wasn’t our fault or yours. It was just something that happened.”

“Willie-”

“Catharina, talk to her.”

“I don’t think I can.” She brushed the cookie crumbs off her trembling fingers. “Willie, I don’t want to lose her.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I believe I do. More than thirty years ago I watched a ship sail with my only sister aboard. She’d married an American, the man she loved, and I was happy because she was so happy. But I’d lost her. There was no going back, no making up for what was done. Never in my life have I felt so alone as at that moment.” She looked into her sister’s soft green eyes. “You see, I do understand how you feel.”

Catharina looked stricken. “You never told me you didn’t want me to go. Willie-”

“I did want you to go. You deserved your life with Adrian.”

“But if you’d told me you cared…”

“What? It would have changed anything? Never mind, Catharina, you know I despise these emotional discussions. Let us consider our options, shall we? It seems to me the best thing for us to do now is locate the Minstrel-if for no other reason than to keep Hendrik from getting it.” She looked at her sister and asked matter-of-factly, “Do you have it?”

“No, of course not!” Catharina was indignant. “I’d have thrown it into the ocean, you know that-and so did Johannes. I hate that stone. If you ask me, it died with Johannes. There’s no one to carry on the tradition.”

“What?” Wilhelmina asked sharply, suddenly acutely alert. “Catharina, what did you say? There’s no one to carry on the tradition?”

Catharina was frightened by her sister’s wild look. “That’s right, there isn’t. Why wouldn’t Johannes just turn the Minstrel over to someone else in the business and let another diamond family take over as caretaker? Just because the Peperkamps have had it for so long doesn’t mean-Willie?”

Wilhelmina was shaking her head, more pale and shaky than she’d been in a long, long time-since she’d heard the boots of the Gestapo Green Police outside her window. She said woodenly, “Another family wouldn’t be the Peperkamps.”

“Well, of course not, but…” Catharina grabbed her chest and gulped for air as she realized what her sister was getting at. “Juliana-no! She can’t have it! She’d have told me!”

“Would she?”

“Yes!”

Catharina quickly cleaned up the table, her hands shaking violently, knocking a cup to the floor. It broke, but she paid no attention, gathering up the tray and fleeing from the little storeroom into the kitchen. She threw everything into the giant sink and began sobbing uncontrollably, shutting out what was happening, shutting out the truth.

Her daughter had the Minstrel’s Rough. Catharina knew it.

“I’m staying with Juliana,” Wilhelmina said quietly behind her. “I’ll look in her apartment for the stone and let you know what I find. Johannes must have given it to her during one of the few times he saw her-perhaps even in Delftshaven, when we were all together. And right under our noses, too. He wouldn’t have told you because you wouldn’t have approved and because I would have felt it my obligation to tell you.”

“Why?” she asked hoarsely.

“Because you’re her mother.”

Catharina said nothing, not looking around as her sister left.

For seven years Juliana could have had the Minstrel. Seven years! And without ever once hinting to her own mother, confiding in her! What else did Juliana know? What had Johannes told her that she’d been waiting to hear from her mother all this time?

“Juliana, Juliana,” she whispered, “why don’t you talk to me?”

But she knew. Because you don’t let her. She protects you, too, like everyone else does.

A brisk wind had kicked up. Juliana pulled her glittery shawl more tightly about her and headed around the corner to the Club Aquarian, running hard into a wind tunnel. She’d turned into J.J. Pepper in the bakeshop restroom. The giant shawl had disguised the mohair coat, and she’d tucked her blond hair under a black, rhinestone-studded turban. Her red vinyl boots, gobs of makeup, two handfuls of rhinestones around her neck and on her wrists and the black twenties shift she’d worn under the coat, guessing she wouldn’t have to take it off for her mother, had completed her bit of subterfuge.

She’d left the man in the Burberry coat making a halfhearted attempt to pretend to be interested in a gallery window as he smoked a cigarette. Halfway to the club, she’d realized that now Aunt Willie would have to deal with him alone and had felt a passing guilt. But her stalwart old aunt had outwitted Nazi occupiers for five years; she could handle someone following her on the streets of New York.

Instinctively protective of her fingers, she shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets; she’d forgotten gloves. The brisk air revived her, pushing back the bone-deep fatigue and the thought of Matthew Stark’s dark eyes searching hers in the stairwell of her uncle’s tenement. Had he guessed yet that she had the Minstrel’s Rough? What would he do when he did?

A group of corporate types had the entrance to the Club Aquarian blocked, anxious for their after-work drinks-maybe even to hear J.J. Pepper perform. They all looked so normal. She wondered if that was what she was missing in her life: normality. Sometimes she dreamed about living a nine-to-five life, what it would be like to put on dress-for-success clothes in the morning and rush out to a corporate job with a properly stodgy briefcase tucked under one arm, to be in an office with people all around her. After work she could dress up and go to a concert if she wanted to and sit in the balcony, anonymous. She would have a life she could count on, routines.

The long, daily hours alone at the piano were her only constants. She could wear whatever she felt like, and there was no clock to punch, no one to tell her what to do-except Shuji. But she didn’t have to listen to him or to anyone else. And there was seldom anyone around to see her sweat, concentrate, hurt.

She thought of Matthew Stark again-his remoteness, his wry sense of humor, his strong sense of self. He didn’t give a damn what The New Yorker or Vogue or anyone else said about her. Toots, he’d called her. Sweet cheeks. It was a change from the most beautiful concert pianist in the world.

She wondered where he was. What he was doing. If he was thinking about her as much as she was thinking about him.

Len was at the bar, and he didn’t mention her lapse into classical the other evening. “Another time we’ll talk,” he said. “You’ve got a crowd waiting.”

Nodding gratefully, she kicked off the vinyl boots and slipped on J.J.’s gold T-strap shoes from her satchel, then went straight to the piano. There was a crowd-an appreciative one. She didn’t think she could do much for them. She was too tired, too preoccupied. She wanted to know what Aunt Willie and her mother were saying to each other. She wanted to know who was after the Minstrel. And why. What she was supposed to do about it. How Senator Ryder was involved. What Uncle Johannes had been doing in Amsterdam. Who Hendrik de Geer was. How Matthew’s buddy was doing.

She wanted answers, and all she had were questions.

That wasn’t true. She had one big answer: she knew where the Minstrel was.

She began with a few Eubie Blake pieces, slipped in some Cole Porter, and then was moving. Lost. Transported. She focused on the music, on her playing. She stayed with it. Controlled it instead of letting it control her. Then lost the need to control or be controlled and played only to play. She could feel the motivation, if not define it; feel the need. For the first time in months, she had something real to communicate. Mood, feeling, loss, confusion, terror. It was all there at her fingertips.

When she finished, she bounced up, filled with energy, sweating, exhausted. She grinned at Al, who had her Saratoga water waiting. Len was there at the bar, clapping with the rest of the crowd. It felt good. She’d moved them, but more important, she’d moved herself.

“See those walls?” Len said. “They’re shaking, babe. I knew they would be when you put it all together. You’re letting loose, not holding on so tight. I like it. Now what’re-” He stopped and narrowed his eyes, watching her go white as she stared down the bar, mouth open, her entire body stiff. “Shit, not again. Stark?”

She gave a little shake of her head, unable to talk. She felt as if she were going to crack and crumble, like one of those cartoon characters, Sylvester the Cat or Wile E. Coyote when they’d slammed into a brick wall.

“Somebody I need to toss?” Len asked darkly.

“No.” It came out as a breath. “Please, no.”

“Okay, babe. You just tell me.”

“I will,” she mumbled.

She glided away, her feet not making a sound on the floor, and slid against the bar next to Eric Shuji Shizumi.

Matthew double-parked on the narrow tree-lined street in front of Senator Samuel Ryder’s townhouse. Cars could just squeak by his. If they couldn’t, the hell with them. They could back up and go another way. He wasn’t going to be long. Although they lived within the same half-dozen blocks, he and Ryder never seemed to bump into each other. For a while they had, at least on occasion, but that was back when Stark worked for the Washington Post and was still being invited to some of the more desirable Washington parties. The ones where you didn’t wear Gokey boots and drink beer and talk baseball. He’d still go to those parties when he didn’t have anything better to do, like read the latest books panned by the New York Times Book Review or catch a game, and he’d provide the touch of cynicism and distance people expected from him. In drawing rooms filled with antiques and sterling silver and men and women who used poll results to tell them what was going on “out there,” he was a reminder of how different they all were. The chosen people. They’d all read LZ, of course-or pretended they had. “It’s so realistic,” they’d tell him, as if they knew.

That was another thing about Juliana Fall, he thought suddenly: no damn pretending. If she didn’t know who the hell you were, you got that blank look and that was that. Of course, with her pale beauty and international reputation, she’d get along just fine with the Washington crowd. Artists weren’t supposed to keep up with current events. They could be forgiven their airheadedness.

He bounded up the curving front steps and gave the garnet-red door two firm whacks. Ryder’s was a high-style Federal with black shutters, a Palladian window, pilasters, shiny brass fittings, and a delicate wrought-iron rail. An unadorned pine cone wreath hung in the middle of the door, put there, undoubtedly, by a conscientious housekeeper. The appearance of taste and perfection was important to the Golden Boy. Stark thought of his own townhouse. It needed renovating. Badly.

Ryder answered the door himself, in neatly pleated trousers and a casual sweater that made him look even more the rich, handsome, perfect young senator. They’d be begging him to run for president before long. Matthew wasn’t fooled-or impressed. He knew what Sam Ryder was, and he wouldn’t be getting his vote come election day.

Stark took no pleasure when Ryder went pale at seeing him on his doorstep. “What do you want?”

“We need to talk.”

“I can’t, I haven’t the time-I’m going out.”

“It’ll just take a minute.”

Matthew pushed past him into the foyer, elegantly simple with its cream walls and Queen Anne furnishings. Such perfection. Ryder left the door open, and a chilly breeze floated into the warm house.

“I don’t want you here,” the senator said, his tone an unconvincing mix of arrogance and fright. “Get out before I-”

“Before you what? You’re not going to do anything, Ryder. You couldn’t risk it, not with Phil Bloch on your ass.”

The baby blue eyes widened, and Stark could feel his former platoon leader’s tension. But then Ryder gave a small supercilious laugh, as if he’d found relief in Stark’s words, as if to say, oh, so that was what all this was about. Just Phil Bloch.

“Bloch? I hate to disappoint you, Matthew, but I haven’t heard that name in years. I can’t believe you two are still at it. What’s he up to these days?”

Stark’s gaze was relentless. “You tell me.”

“Look, Matthew, honestly, I don’t have time to talk. I’m due at a dinner in half an hour-”

“I don’t care if you’re due at the White House.”

Matthew spoke in a level, deadly voice. “I want to know what you’re in with Bloch for, what you’re doing about it. And I want to know where he is.”

As he straightened up, Ryder made the mistake of looking into Stark’s black-brown eyes, and Matthew watched the air go out of him. “I-dammit, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Matthew clenched and unclenched his scarred fists. He wanted to choke the bastard-not that it’d do any good. Some people you could count on never to change. “Weasel’s been snitching to me,” he said. “The dumb bastard thinks he’s helping you. Bloch knows what’s been going on. I want to get to him before he gets to the Weaze.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“You owe him.”

“I don’t. He was just doing his job.”

“And you weren’t.”

“Look, I didn’t ask for his help.”

“I know. Weasel still thinks you’re worth more than he is. I don’t, Ryder. If Otis Raymond gets himself killed because he was trying to help you, I won’t forgive and I won’t forget. And I won’t keep my mouth shut. Not this time. Count on it.”

“If he gets himself killed, it’ll be because he trusted you!”

“Talk, Ryder.”

Matthew could see the sweat pouring down the senator’s face; he took no pleasure in it. “Otis Raymond is a drug addict and a loser,” Ryder said. “Whatever he told you about me I’ll deny. You have no proof, and you’ll get none.”

“Where you’re concerned,” Stark said, “I don’t need proof.”

Ryder licked his lips. “Don’t threaten me, damn you!”

“Tell me about the Minstrel’s Rough, Sam.”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, then let me give you an idea of what I know. Rachel Stein, the woman you were with the other night at Lincoln Center, said something that made you decide you could get your hands on the Minstrel, give it to Bloch, and solve all your problems. The Dutchman, de Geer, is your connection to the diamond. He went to Johannes Peperkamp in Antwerp, who took him to Amsterdam to get the stone-only it was a wild-goose chase, wasn’t it?” Matthew had no sympathy for Ryder’s white, stricken face, graying slightly around the mouth as he realized how much the former helicopter pilot already knew. Stark kept his voice steady, unemotional. “You’re not going to collapse, Ryder, so don’t pretend you are. The old man didn’t have the stone, did he?”

“Matthew…” Ryder’s voice was little more than a pathetic whisper. “Matthew, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Did he, goddamn you?”

Shit, Stark thought. Shit, damn, hell. The old man didn’t have the stone. Did that mean one of the Peperkamp women did? Is that what Ryder thought-de Geer, Bloch? With Phil Bloch, thinking something was so made it so. Matthew focused again on Ryder, barely able to control the impulse to back the senator up against the wall and make him talk. But he’d never operated that way, and he wasn’t going to start now.

“If anything happens to the Weaze or to the Peperkamps, Sam, I’m coming after you.” He didn’t raise his voice. “I don’t care what shitpile you’re hiding under. I’ll keep digging until I find you.”

“You’re a has-been, Stark.” But Ryder’s voice squeaked, undermining his words. “You’re grasping. You want a story so badly you’ll listen to nonsense. I don’t know what Otis Raymond told you, and I don’t care: I’m not involved. I’m not afraid of you, Matthew. Now get out.”

With the knuckles of one hand, Ryder brushed at the drops of sweat on his upper lip. Stark knew he had him scared, but not scared enough to talk-or at least not scared enough of him. Ryder had Phillip Bloch to worry about; the sergeant didn’t have any of Stark’s scruples getting in his way.

“I should have tossed your stupid butt out of my ship in Vietnam after the stunt you pulled then.”

“Get out, Matthew,” Ryder said hoarsely. “Damn you, get out!”

Stark’s dark eyes never wavered. “Make sure I don’t get a second chance at you, Sam. I might not resist.”

Shuji’s mouth was a grim, thin line, and his black eyes were two tiny pits of fury. He looked just as she’d envisioned he would at this moment-as if he was going to go after someone with one of his authentic short swords-namely, his sole student, one Juliana Fall, aka J.J. Pepper.

“Hello, Shuji,” Juliana said, surprised at how relaxed she sounded.

He looked at her. “A turban,” he said. “For Christ’s sake, a rhinestone-studded turban.”

“Usually I leave my hair down.”

“And no one recognizes you?”

“No, because it’s never blond. It’s pink or lavender. Sometimes blue.”

“Goddamnit,” Shuji said.

“How did you find out?”

“I have friends who frequent SoHo clubs and Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. One thought he recognized you, but he believed he had to be seeing things. I…my God, you look ridiculous.”

Juliana tried to smile. “I know. Fun, isn’t it?”

“It is not fun, Juliana.”

“It is for me. Why are you here?”

“I had to know if this black rumor were true.” He drank some of his martini, too much. “My God. Jazz, pop, blues.”

“Don’t be so damned sanctimonious. I happen to like jazz, pop, and blues.”

He sighed. “Do you have any idea what this will do to your reputation?”

“I’ve only been in this business since I was eleven years old. Since I’m so damned dumb, why don’t you tell me?”

“Juliana-”

“I know what I’m doing, dammit. I don’t care what this does to my precious reputation. That’s right, I don’t care. I enjoy playing the Aquarian, and if people don’t like it, well then to hell with them. Being J.J. Pepper gets me out of myself, out from under the pressures of being Juliana Fall all the time. It’s important to me, Shuji. And if I’m in a funk, this is helping me, not hurting. I need an outlet. And musically, playing here is enriching me, not ruining me.”

Shuji was unimpressed. “Your work in the practice room should be your outlet.”

“My work is my work. I don’t want to give that up-I can’t. But I need this, too.”

“Let me hear the Chopin,” he said, tight-lipped.

“Now?”

“Yes, why not?” He nodded to the baby grand. “There’s a piano.”

“I’m J.J. Pepper here.”

“Play the Chopin, Juliana, or I walk out of here.”

His gaze was hard and direct. Shuji wasn’t one to pussyfoot around, and she knew he meant what he said. “And then what?”

“And then I’ll remember fondly the eleven-year-old girl who begged me to teach her, not the thirty-year-old ingrate who has turned her back on me and everything we’ve worked for together for almost twenty years.” His tone was scathing, filled with bitterness, edged with sadness. “You’ve been J.J. Pepper for eight months. Eight months, damn you, and not a word.”

“I wanted to tell you.”

“You didn’t.”

She stiffened. “You’re right-I knew what a jackass you’d be about it.”

“The Chopin,” he said.

She got up and walked over to Len. “That’s Eric Shuji Shizumi at the end of the bar,” she said, whipping off the turban. Her blond hair tumbled onto her shoulders. “I’ve lied to you, Len. My real name’s Juliana Fall. I’m a concert pianist.”

Len folded his arms on his chest. “Names aren’t what’s important here. It’s who you are, babe, what you want to do, that counts.”

“I don’t know the answer to that.”

“Well, until you do, it’s okay by me if you want to keep up with your J.J. Pepper act. Just no hairy-assed stuff, okay?” He grinned at her. “Unless you want to do brunch.”

She managed a smile. “That would really kill Shuji. May I play now?”

“Piano’s yours, Juliana Fall, muddy bass and all.”

She glanced over at Shuji. He was still working on his martini, not smiling, not understanding, wrapped up in his own hurt and anger. A pang of horror sliced through her as she tried to imagine going on without him. What would she do?

She sat at the piano and played the first chord of Chopin.

But she couldn’t continue. She couldn’t betray Len, her Club Aquarian audience-J.J. Pepper’s audience. She couldn’t betray herself. And, finally, she couldn’t betray Shuji. Playing the Chopin now, here, would be a lie. He wouldn’t see it that way, of course, but she couldn’t help that. She switched to a short Duke Ellington piece she thought everyone might like, even Shuji.

But when she finished and turned around, he was gone. In his place at the bar there was only a half-drunk martini.