Cut and Run

Seven

M atthew arrived in the newsroom early Monday morning, too damn early, and drank two cups of coffee even before Feldie showed up. He wasn’t doing any work. He just sat at his desk, staring at the Plexiglas partition above it where he’d hung the poster of the movie that had been based on his book, LZ. They’d kept the title. The movie had won lots of awards-so had the book-and now was available on tape for VCR; the book was required reading in college courses on the Vietnam War. He used to have some of the reviews stuck up on the partition next to the poster, but he’d pulled them down about a year ago. No reason. Just tired of looking at them, he supposed. A few months ago, Time had done a piece on whatever happened to Matthew Stark, the helicopter pilot who’d been awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and survived two tours in the central highlands, only to return to Vietnam one more time as a freelance journalist, publishing articles with The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s. When he finally came home he wrote his book and joined the Washington Post. He was the tarnished hero, the Vietnam vet people could dare to like.

Then he got sick of it all or ran out of things to say-something. He’d quit caring about what had brought on the change of heart. He’d resigned from the Post, done nothing for a while, then, still with a reputation left, showed up at the Gazette to do a tabloid’s version of investigative reporting.

He sipped some coffee and admitted he felt better. Nothing like a newsroom to help him forget a long Sunday of nightmares that had haunted him, awake and asleep. He called them nightmares, although they weren’t. They were memories.

“Asshole!”

Alice Feldon stomped over to his desk, the front page of the New York Times crushed in one hand, her glasses down on the end of her big nose. “Goddamn you,” she said. “I stick my neck out for you, I call in a few chips to get you a ticket to a sold-out concert at Lincoln Center, I trust you, you son of a bitch, and how the hell do you repay me?”

“Relax, Feldie. It was a dead end, all right? No story.”

“Bullshit.” She flung the Times at him. “There, read. A woman slipped and fell outside Lincoln Center after the concert Saturday night. Died. Her body wasn’t discovered until yesterday afternoon.”

“Great story, Feldie. I’ll get right on it.”

“I don’t need your sarcasm. The woman’s name was Rachel Stein. Mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“She was with one Senator Samuel Ryder at the concert-your old pal.”

Matthew rubbed his forehead. “Jesus Christ.”

The story started on the lower half of the front page. Rachel Stein had been a prominent Hollywood agent; she had recently retired to Palm Beach. A quote from Ryder’s office said she had become a prominent supporter of the senator’s and he was deeply grieved by her death.

“This guy Weasel-he a friend of Ryder’s, too? Is that why you were at Lincoln Center, because Ryder was there? They say Stein’s death was accidental. You have any other ideas?”

Stark let Feldie rant. The world’s largest uncut diamond, Ryder’s troubles, Weasel’s dumb urge to help him. Now this.

“Look, Stark, goddamnit, I don’t feel sorry for you. You could quit this job and still make more money on royalties and interest than I do putting in a sixty-hour week. I could fire you, you’d make out fine, which is probably the biggest reason I don’t.” She pushed her glasses up on top of her head. “People used to say you gave a damn.”

No one talked to him like that except Alice Feldon. No one else dared. Matthew liked it that he didn’t scare her. “Maybe I never did.”

“I don’t believe that.” Her voice had softened, and she let out a heavy sigh. “Was this Otis Raymond character in Vietnam with you and Ryder?”

“Weaze is a burned-out Vietnam vet. Country’s bored with them, Feldie. About all I get from him is bullshit. If there’s a story in this, you’ll get it. I promise.”

“All right, Stark. You’re a journalist. Follow up.”

Muttering that she ought to give up on the lazy shit, Alice stalked back to her desk. Matthew drank some more coffee and read the piece on Rachel Stein’s death. She could easily have slipped. He remembered how tiny she was, how wrinkled and old-looking, even if the article said she was only sixty-five. She wasn’t used to snow and ice. So maybe she slipped and maybe she didn’t-did it make any difference? He went back to the beginning and reread the piece.

And there it was. Rachel Stein had emigrated from Amsterdam in 1945, having spent the last months of the war in a Nazi concentration camp. She was a Dutch Jew.

A Dutch Jew.

And the man Ryder was supposed to have met, Hendrik de Geer, was also Dutch.

Stark looked up at the LZ poster, not seeing it. Something else was stirring around in his head, but he couldn’t pin it down. He pulled out the program he’d saved from the concert, just in case Feldie wanted proof he’d attended, just in case he felt like cutting out the picture of Juliana Fall and sticking it on his partition.

He flipped to Ms. Pianist’s bio. There was the usual garbage. First and only student of Eric Shuji Shizumi, who didn’t want her to go to Vermont. Attended Juilliard, which stood to reason. Career launched after winning various prestigious piano competitions, including the Levenritt at Carnegie Hall, which Stark was glad he hadn’t had to sit through. The bio neglected to mention she was beautiful. He remembered the way her dress had clung to her. Hell, yes, she was beautiful. He skipped the stuff about her technique and conception of the Beethoven concerto and dropped down to the last personal items. She lived in New York, where she’d been born and raised, the daughter of Wall Street banker Adrian Fall and Catharina Peperkamp Fall, owner of Catharina’s Bake Shop on upper Madison Avenue-and a Dutch immigrant.

And what a handy coincidence that was. Feldie was right: he was a journalist. As such, he didn’t believe in coincidences.

A year ago, before J.J. Pepper, Juliana had bought an aquarium and put it up behind her concert grand piano, near the French doors that separated her dining room and huge living room overlooking Central Park. She’d filled the aquarium with water and added goldfish, six of them. Their names were Figaro, Cosima (after Wagner’s wife), Puccini, Carmen, Bartók, and the Duke (after Duke Ellington; to Shuji he was Ludwig). They didn’t talk, and they weren’t much to look at, weren’t, in fact, any company at all, but they were something alive to have around during her long hours of isolation. She could turn around in her chair at the piano-she practiced far too many hours for her back to tolerate a bench-and have a nice chat with them, as she was doing now. They fit her itinerant lifestyle more easily than would a dog or cat. It was easy to get people to feed fish while she was away, but she had a feeling if they ever forgot, they’d just flush the bodies down the toilet and buy new ones for her. Would she ever know?

Shuji had won. She’d decided to postpone Vermont. Saturday night at the Club Aquarian had gone too well, been too much fun. She needed to work. She had to get J.J. Pepper out of her system. There was no time for decent practice on the road, and she needed to get back into it. If she did at least eight hours a day at the piano for the next two weeks, she’d be back in shape-like a runner. The real work of being a pianist, Shuji had said. He had a point, although she was still so irritated with him for ruining Vermont for her that she wasn’t about to tell him so. Once she’d established her schedule, she could spare a few days in Vermont without compromising her progress. Without guilt.

But she couldn’t just leap back into her old routines. Yesterday, after a meager three hours of practice, she’d ended up trotting off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Christmas tree.

Today she’d done a little better. She’d climbed out of bed at eight, just an hour later than she’d meant to, and had done ten minutes of stretching, although twenty would have been better. She should have gone jogging in the park if it was warm enough or jumped on her stationary bike. She’d jumped into the tub. Her “healthy breakfast” was two of her mother’s famous butter cookies and a pot of tea. A proper schedule would put her at her Steinway by nine, there to stay for eight to ten hours, with occasional breaks and time out for lunch and dinner. Today’s schedule had put her at her piano at eleven with lots of breaks.

It was just three o’clock, and so far she’d had four fish-talk breaks. But she refused to be hard on herself. All she needed were a couple of days. She’d be back to her old self, as demanding and absorbed in her work as ever.

“What do you say, Duke, back to the Chopin?”

Duke wiggled and darted away. Chopin had little effect on him. She was working on the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, a bitch of a piece, which she happened to love. It wasn’t the music that had her talking to fish. It was something else-the isolation, she supposed.

The doorman called up, startling her, and informed her that a Matthew Stark was downstairs in the lobby and wanted to see her, was that all right?

“Damn,” she said, surprising both herself and the doorman. She remembered Matthew Stark vividly-the sardonic laugh, the dark, changeable eyes. She couldn’t imagine what he wanted with her. She didn’t even know why he’d been in her dressing room Saturday night. Just to say hello to Sam Ryder? To her? She doubted he’d been even momentarily tempted to ask her to dinner. He’d called her toots. What was he doing downstairs? She didn’t need the distraction right now, but what the hell. “Send him up.”

For no reason that made any sense to her, she considered her appearance: black sweatpants, oversized sweatshirt with the bust of Beethoven silk-screened on the front, scrunchy black socks, sneakers. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and her hair was up in a ponytail.

At least it isn’t pink, she thought as the doorbell rang.

She went into the large foyer and opened the door only as wide as her chain-lock would permit because she was a New Yorker and didn’t trust anyone. But the man she peeked out at was definitely the one who’d made her feel like such a ding-a-ling the other night. He had on a black leather jacket, a black sweater, jeans, and heavy leather boots. No hat, no gloves. Somehow she wouldn’t expect any. Snow had melted into his dark hair, but his scarred face didn’t even look cold. She hadn’t realized it was snowing. Maybe the Chopin was going better than she’d thought it was.

Stark gave her a lazy, unselfconscious grin. “A ponytail? How un-world-famous of you.”

No one had ever been that irreverent to her. Absolutely no one. “Don’t you think you should wait until I let you in before you turn on the sarcasm?”

“It never occurred to me.”

She believed him. “What do you want?”

“Five minutes. I’d like to ask you a couple questions.”

“About what?”

“A few things. I’m a reporter.”

“I only have your word on that.”

“The way I’ve been going lately, that might be the best you’ll get. But here.” He fished out his wallet and handed a press card through the opening. “Check me out.”

Juliana managed to take the card without touching his fingers. As she glanced at it, she could feel his dark eyes on her. “You’re with the Washington Gazette?”

“Uh-huh.”

He sounded amused, and she recalled she was supposed to have heard of him. Well, bullshit. “No wonder I didn’t recognize your name.” She gave him a haughty look and one of her cool, distant smiles, both of which she figured he deserved. “I don’t read the Gazette.”

“Nice try, sweetheart, but nobody knows me from the Gazette.”

She felt her cheeks redden with anger and embarrassment-and, she thought desperately, awareness. He was still standing out in the damn hall, and already she was noticing little things. The lopsided grin, the muscular thighs, the thick, jagged scar on his right hand. It probably wasn’t from anything as simple as slicing cucumbers.

“Forget it,” she said. “I’ve never heard of you, and I don’t care if I haven’t.”

“You going to check me out or leave me standing out here all afternoon?”

She shut the door and considered just going back to her work. He would hear the Chopin and get the message. But she went to the phone in the living room. Curiosity, she supposed. She tapped out the number for the Gazette printed on his card. The switchboard routed her call to Alice Feldon, who verified that Matthew Stark worked for her. “If you want to call it work,” she added, half under her breath.

“Would you mind describing him?”

“Why?”

“He’s outside my door, and I’m not sure I want to let him in.”

“I see. I guess I can understand that. Who are you?”

“My name’s Juliana Fall. I-”

“Stark’s pianist. I’ll be damned.”

Stark’s pianist. My God. What was going on here?

“He’s about five-eleven, dark, scarred face, wears a black leather jacket and Gokey boots, and-”

“That’s him. Thank you.”

“Wait-put him on, will you?”

“I’ll have him call you,” she said, and hung up.

She unlatched the chain-lock and let Stark open the door himself. “You’ve been confirmed.”

“Sounds ominous.”

He walked into the living room. Juliana followed. It was a huge room that overlooked Central Park, now a Currier and Ives Christmas card under the light covering of snow. She saw him eyeing the place, as if he didn’t expect the dust on the windowsills, the marble fireplace, the piano, the hodgepodge of expensive furniture, the books, magazines, photographs, clippings, letters, awards and junk stacked everywhere. For the first time since her return from Paris, she noticed it herself. And the two big Persian carpets needed vacuuming.

“Goldfish, huh?” he said, walking over to the tank and taking a look. Then he glanced back at her. “Nice place you have here. No cleaning lady?”

“I’ve been away for a while and haven’t taken the time to cleanup and-well, I do have someone come in to clean, but she hasn’t been in yet. She doesn’t come on a regular basis. It’s hard to concentrate with the vacuum running and someone flitting around with a dustcloth. To be honest, a little dust doesn’t bother me.”

“I’ll bet.”

She felt his eyes on her and was aware her ponytail was coming loose and she probably looked a little vague. She usually did this time of the day, after hours of practice. It took a while for her to pull herself out of her heightened state of concentration.

“What do you do when you throw parties?” he went on. “Just shove all the stuff under the couch and turn the lights down low so nobody’ll notice the dust?”

She ignored his dry tone. “I don’t throw parties.”

“You just attend them.”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“La-di-da.”

Her elastic band was at the end of her ponytail. She pulled it out, letting her hair flop down, and noticed his eyes widen slightly. She wouldn’t have noticed at all if she hadn’t been looking. So, she thought, he’s paying attention. A reporter’s eye for detail, she supposed. Nothing more than that.

“Mr. Stark,” she said coolly, “did you want to ask me something or did you just want to insult me?”

He looked at her, a touch of the warm, dark brown coming into his black-seeming eyes. “I’m sorry.” There was an abruptness to his words, and she suspected they were ones he didn’t say very often. “It’s obvious from the looks of this place, and of you, that you work hard at what you do. I didn’t expect that.”

“You thought I just woke up one morning and knew how to play the piano?”

He grinned. “Something like that.”

“Well, I didn’t.” She decided to leave it at that. “What do you want to ask me?”

“I’m half working on a story,” he said, walking over to the dusty Steinway. A dozen or so nubby pencils were scattered on the floor under the piano and her chair. He picked one up. It was two inches long. “Some life still in it, I guess.”

“I do all my markings in pencil. I don’t take time to re-sharpen my pencils when I’m working, so I start with about a dozen and throw them on the floor when they get dull. I hate dull pencils.”

“Nothing worse.”

Despite his wry tone, he was as fascinated as he was amused, Juliana could tell. “When I run out, I gather them up and sharpen all of them at once. It saves time. Look, I can’t dress up what I do or how I do it. If my methods, this place, shatter your image of what a concert pianist ought to be like, then so be it. How can you be half working on something?”

“In the immortal words of Alice Feldon, by being a lazy shit.” He started to put the stubby pencil on the piano rack but stopped himself and dropped it back on the floor. “Wouldn’t want to get mixed up. Aren’t the Dutch supposed to be tidy?”

Juliana frowned at him. “How do you know I’m Dutch?”

“Research,” he said.

“What kind of research? I thought you weren’t a music reporter. If this is a formal interview-”

“It isn’t. Relax, okay?” He looked at her, his eyes dropping to Beethoven glowering on her front. She felt like an idiot. “Mind if we go sit down?”

She sighed. “As you wish.”

He sat on the couch, amidst several musty books on Chopin and Mozart, while she lifted a huge stack of newspapers and magazines and letters off a wingback chair. “Four months of mail-and I forgot to stop the paper before I left.” Only, she thought, because she’d just started having it delivered. She’d wondered if reading the morning paper would help her feel more in touch with the world. Or maybe it was just one more thing to do in the morning before practicing. “I haven’t gone through it yet.”

“So I see. Need a hand?”

“No.”

She said it too quickly. She knew it, and she could see, so did he. She didn’t want him getting too close. He was so different from the men she knew. Sitting down, she gave him a quick, sweeping look, taking in the scarred face, the strong dark hands, the boots that looked as if they’d been worn a long time and would be worn even longer. Shuji, she thought, wouldn’t like him.

“Go ahead and ask your questions,” she said.

Stark crossed a foot over his knee and held it by the ankle. He looked totally at ease, and suddenly Juliana wondered what would get this man worked up. What would make him angry? What would make him laugh?

“I was at Lincoln Center Saturday night to see a Dutchman, Hendrik de Geer,” Stark said. “Do you know him?”

Juliana laughed incredulously. “Is there any particular reason I should?” she asked, hearing her own sarcasm.

Stark didn’t react. “Sam Ryder didn’t mention him?”

“No, should he have?”

“I don’t know, I’m fishing. De Geer and Ryder were supposed to have gotten together at the concert.”

“Is your half-story about Senator Ryder?”

“Maybe.”

She looked at him thoughtfully, her lips pulled in slightly in concentration. “You don’t like him, do you?”

“I don’t like many people. You’ve never heard the name Hendrik de Geer?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“I guess that might not be saying much. You’d never heard of Sam Ryder, either.”

Juliana sat up very straight, stiff and insulted. “Are you always this hostile to people you interview, Mr. Stark?”

“Call me Matthew, all right?” He gave something that passed for a smile. “How come you didn’t go to Vermont?”

“I’ve been on tour since September, and I have some pieces I want to add to my repertoire. Vermont’s not going anywhere.”

“I guess not. You put in long hours?”

“Right now I am, eight a day minimum. To get back in shape.”

“Then you’re following Shuji’s advice.”

“He’s often right about this sort of thing.”

“That piss you off?”

She couldn’t resist a grin and madly wondered what this intense, remote man would think of J.J. Pepper. “Sometimes. But tell me more about this Hendrik de Geer. Is it just because he’s Dutch that you thought I might have known him?”

“Frankly, yes. I always check out a coincidence. And there’s nothing more I can tell you about him. What about your mother, think she might know him?”

“My mother?”

“Sure. She’s Dutch, too.”

Juliana stared at him, unable to believe he was serious, but nothing in his gentle-tough face, in the unreadable dark eyes and earthy grin, suggested he was-or wasn’t. “My mother left The Netherlands more than thirty years ago,” she told him, “before I was born. She has a sister in Rotterdam, but they don’t get along, and a brother in Antwerp whom she rarely sees. No Hendrik de Geers, I’m afraid, not that I know of.” Which, she thought, remembering tea with Rachel Stein, wasn’t saying a hell of a lot.

“Okay. Sam Ryder attended the concert with an older woman, very tiny, dark, well-dressed. You wouldn’t know her, would you?”

Juliana tried not to react, tried to keep her face as unreadable as his. Rachel Stein-it had to be! But she shook her head automatically, her instincts telling her to deny she knew anyone of that description. She should talk to her mother before bandying about Rachel Stein’s name and their relationship to a reporter. They were both Dutch, like this Hendrik de Geer. But what did any of them have to do with Senator Ryder-or with each other, for that matter?

“No,” she said, shaking her head for added emphasis, “I don’t think so.”

“Know anything about diamonds?”

Juliana felt herself go numb. “Diamonds? No, how would I? I’m a pianist.”

“Then you don’t know anything about the world’s largest uncut diamond?”

Oh, Jesus. Could he mean the Minstrel’s Rough? No, impossible. Juliana resisted the impulse to jump up and pace. Matthew Stark didn’t even know about the Peperkamp diamond tradition. How could he know about the Minstrel?

Her mother, Rachel Stein, the Dutchman Hendrik de Geer, Senator Ryder-was this the connection among them? The mysterious, legendary Minstrel’s Rough? When cut, it would be worth millions.

No, don’t be silly, she told herself, annoyed. She’d never really believed her uncle’s tale. What he’d handed her seven years ago was simply a rock with an interesting story behind it. If a diamond, one of only moderate value.

But what if?

Her heart thudded and her hands had gone clammy, but she called on her training and years of experience as a performer to maintain an outward air of self-control. Matthew Stark hadn’t lifted his perceptive eyes from her. She could feel them probing as he waited for her to give herself away. Well, she thought, I won’t.

“I told you,” she said calmly, “I don’t know anything about diamonds. I don’t even like them.”

Stark climbed slowly to his feet, his black eyes never leaving her. He walked over and fingered the diamonds in her ears, first the left, then the right. They were simple posts that she wore nearly every day, just so she wouldn’t have to fool with picking out earrings. Stark’s touch was very light, but not quite delicate. “What about these?”

“They’re different.”

“Why?”

“They’re blue diamonds. Colored diamonds are the rage now. Once they were considered practically worthless.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about diamonds.”

She smiled haughtily. “Obviously I know about the ones I wear.”

The particular two in her ears had been cut by her great-grandfather Peperkamp, who’d been around during the wild early days when the South African diamond mines were discovered and the De Beers empire founded. But she didn’t think she should tell Matthew Stark that.

He pulled back, and she looked up at him, carefully controlling her breathing like she did when she had the preconcert jitters and didn’t want anyone to know. She was more aware of Matthew Stark, his earthiness and obvious maleness, than she felt she ought to be. “Any more questions?” she asked coolly.

“Juliana.” He spoke her name without anger, but his gaze was dark and distant, and she knew there would be no middle ground between them. “I’ll let it go for now, but lies don’t work with me. Remember that.”

“I’m not-”

“Just remember.”

He walked past her to the foyer, and she was surprised at how softly the door closed behind him. For a minute she didn’t move. She took a huge gulp of air and flopped back in the chair, exhaling at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “Jesus. Next time-well, the hell there’ll be a next time!”

But something told her there would be. Whatever was between her and Matthew Stark felt very unfinished. And he was the kind of man who finished things. He was also the kind of man, she thought uncomfortably, who would push and dig and ask questions until he learned that the world’s largest and most mysterious uncut diamond was the Minstrel’s Rough…that the Peperkamps had been in the diamond business for four hundred years…that she was the last of the Peperkamps-and hadn’t given him straight answers to his questions. He’d put all the pieces together.

He’d figure out she had the Minstrel.

Which, of course, she did.

Could someone else put those same pieces together and arrive at the same conclusion? Was someone else after the Minstrel?

Who?

She catapulted herself-not to the piano to escape this time-but to J.J.’s room, J.J.’s closet. She had to get out. She had to be someone else for a while, to be with people, to sort this mess out.

Her eyes fell on a midcalf black wool skirt with a slit up the back and a low-cut red silk blouse that had been very, very daring fifty years ago. She immediately saw it dressed up with lots of rhinestones, black seamed stockings, red shoes…and lavender-tinted hair.

She pushed the Washington reporter’s dark gaze from her mind and got started.

Juliana Fall was a liar, and she didn’t know Rachel Stein was dead. She was also one very attractive woman, and as he hung around the glittering Beresford lobby, Matthew thought more about her vibrant eyes than her skirting of the truth. He’d expected the Juliana Fall he’d met Saturday night to live in a building like the Beresford. The one he’d met this afternoon could have lived anywhere, the Beresford or some hole in the Bronx. The dust, the clutter, the sassy ponytail had surprised him. They didn’t fit his stereotype of the world-class pianist. Hell, he thought, she was probably up there sharpening her pencils or playing some piece written while Napoleon was trouncing Europe.

Napoleon, she’d say, who’s he?

Maybe he wasn’t being fair. Whatever she knew or didn’t know, it was plain enough to Matthew that Ms. Pianist wasn’t in any funk, as her eminent teacher had suggested.

The lady was just flat-out bored.

For the first time in years, Stark felt like having a cigarette. He’d quit smoking after Vietnam, figuring he had a full quota of poisons in his system, but right now he just didn’t give a damn. The tough, cynical, scarred, smart, heroic, tarnished Matthew Stark. He’d had his picture on the covers of Time and Newsweek; he’d appeared on network television and PBS specials. He was supposed to know more than your average Joe Six-Pack. Be more.

What a lot of bullshit that was. He was trying to coax information out of a gorgeous space cadet of a piano player whose big excitement for the day probably was feeding her goldfish. Who the hell wouldn’t be bored banging on a piano all day in that great, fancy, lonely apartment? Concerts added a little interest, he supposed, but she couldn’t give one every day, and they too had to get old after a while. Things like that generally did. Preserving a reputation was damn tedious. Making one was the fun part.

The uniformed doorman came over and asked if he could help. Matthew said no thanks. The doorman then politely suggested he be on his way. Matthew shrugged and didn’t argue. The guy had his job to do.

He went and stood outside, across the street at the bus stop in front of the Museum of Natural History. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, but his instincts told him-damn reliable instincts they’d been too, once-that he’d just given Juliana Fall something to nibble on besides some piece written by a guy in a white wig.

His description of Rachel Stein and Weaze’s nutso talk about the world’s largest uncut diamond had clicked with her-and she’d lied about both. Matthew wanted to know why, and he wanted to know what she was going to do about it. If anything. She might just sit upstairs talking to her goldfish and playing the piano and forget he’d even been there.

But he remembered the scared, interested, comprehending look in those deep dark green eyes, and he didn’t think she would. His questions had chased away the vagueness and boredom he’d seen in her eyes when she’d pulled the door open for him. Ahh, he thought, nothing like an adventure to kick up the spirit.

He’d give her an hour.

Word was getting around that J.J. Pepper was back. Between four and six, when she liked to play, the Club Aquarian would start to fill up, and people wouldn’t just eat and gab. They’d listen, which Len Wetherall could appreciate. J.J. was good-and a hell of a sight to watch, looser than she had been in the spring and summer. New Zealand or wherever the hell she’d been had done her some good. Or coming back had.

Len settled back against the bar, sipping a cup of black coffee and having a look at the postcards she’d just handed him. He figured she got them from some New Zealand tourist office in town. They weren’t made out, of course; no postmark, nothing like that. Merrie, his wife, had said quit worrying about damn New Zealand and focus on the hair-it was lavender today-if he wanted to know what game J.J. Pepper was playing. But he wasn’t sure he did. It could just ruin everything. Not so much for him, maybe, but for her.

She was at the baby grand, warming up with a couple of slow and easy tunes. It was early, not crowded, but that wouldn’t last. Right now, she looked as if she’d been made for the place. Her low-cut blouse was the same shade of red as the single rose on each table, the only touch of color in the gray and black decor. Nearly everyone had a clear view of her on the round platform stage, carpeted in gray, just eight inches off the floor. It stood between the dining room on one side and the high-tech bar on the other, and behind it were semiprivate seating areas, with low black lacquer tables and gray suede half-circle sofas. From every corner, you could hear J.J. Pepper’s rich, ringing sounds-and see that damned lavender hair.

Fifteen minutes after J.J. had gotten started, a dark-haired man came in alone and asked who the lady at the piano was. He just gave a curt nod when he was told. Len didn’t like that. The guy had a serious, cut-the-bullshit face, and he didn’t take off his black leather jacket when he slid onto a stool at the far end of the bar. He ordered a beer and turned around so he could see the stage.

Len didn’t like that, either.

J.J. was into her piece-she never called them tunes-and hadn’t spotted him. She’d moved into some hotter stuff, was really getting into it. Her lavender hair was coming out of its pins, and a big lock flopped down her forehead. She was grinning and biting her lip, and for a second Len held his breath, thinking she was going to let out a hoot.

The guy down at the other end of the bar just sipped on his beer and watched, tight-lipped.

Al, the bartender, started to whoop and slap the bar, his version of clapping, and Len turned back to see what the excitement was all about.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

He couldn’t believe it. J.J. had kicked off her red shoes and every now and then she’d slam out some high notes with her right foot.

“Babe’s getting the moves down,” Al said. “What’d we ever do around here without her?”

Len grinned. “Damned if I know.”

When she finished, J.J. bounced up off the bench, smiling and sweating like the world had just been lifted off her shoulders, her blouse and skirt askew. She straightened them up, not very well, and stuck stray hairs back up in their pins as she trotted up to the bar. Al had her usual Saratoga water with a twist of lime waiting. Len didn’t touch the stuff himself. Regular water was fine with him.

She drank down half the glass and wiped her mouth with a cocktail napkin, her eyes glittering. “It’s good to be back.”

“No Club Aquarian in New Zealand, huh?”

She was beaming. “Nope.”

Len slid the postcards across the bar to her. “No slides of you up on a mountain?”

“It’s hard to take pictures of yourself.”

She turned her back to the bar and looked around, checking out what there was of an early crowd. When her eyes fell on the guy sitting alone, her smile vanished and her cheeks went white, the too-red blush she used suddenly looking false and garish, not so fun anymore.

“Something wrong, babe?” Len asked, cool.

She shook her head and put her cold glass to each of her cheeks, the condensation on the glass running the pancake makeup. But some of her natural color returned. Her lavender-tinted hair looked as stiff as she did. She said tightly, “It’s nothing I can’t handle myself.”

Still in her silk-stockinged feet, she took her mineral water down to the end of the bar and jumped onto the stool next to the dude in the black leather jacket. He was a tough-looking bastard, and Len didn’t especially want to mess with him, but he would if he had to. At night he had a bouncer, but during the day he was his own bouncer. He was damn good at it.

All he needed was a reason.

Matthew held back a grin as Juliana turned to him and blinked her sparkling gold eyelids at him, pursed her very red, very kissable lips, and said, her liquid voice frozen into pointy icicles, “You followed me.”

“That’s right, I did.” He motioned for another beer. She was still breathing hard from having pelted out those high notes with her feet. She had her toes curled around the bottom rung of the stool; they were the kind of toes he could too easily imagine trailing up his calves in the middle of the night. He wasn’t sure he liked the effect that Juliana Fall-or whoever she was-was having on him. “Hard to lose that purple hair in a crowd.”

“How dare you,” she said, so pissed off she was gritting her teeth.

“‘How dare you’ is what cool, sophisticated, world-famous concert pianists say. Hot little jazz pianists who play with their feet say, ‘fuck you.’”

“Of all the sneaky, arrogant-” She sucked in a breath and let it out. “Damn you.”

Matthew grinned. “That’s better. I like the gold eyelids, by the way. They set off the purple hair. Very regal looking.”

He sipped his fresh beer, watching her breathe in through her nose. He’d have been embarrassed as hell getting caught with purple hair, but she seemed more furious than anything else, which was okay with him. He liked it that she was willing to take him on. He scared the shit out of most people. He’d spotted her strutting out of the Beresford with that crazy hair and had recognized her immediately-he’d been paying more attention to that cute little shape of hers than he’d realized. At first he thought she’d seen him from her living room window and had donned her silly disguise to get past him, but her arrival at the Club Aquarian squelched that theory. The purple hair and old clothes and raccoon coat, and, Jesus, the red vinyl boots were for real.

He gave her a long look, trying not to appear too entertained. If he pissed her off too much, he might not get anything out of her at all. Her blouse was low-cut for Juliana Fall, but on J.J. Pepper it looked just right-crooked, a peek of one pale breast and white, lace-trimmed bra showing. Very sexy and very disconcerting.

“I take it I’ve stumbled on a little secret of yours,” he said.

She didn’t say a word. Ahh, what a clever bastard you are, Stark thought sarcastically. Won’t Feldie be impressed with this major discovery. And, shit, he couldn’t wait to tell Weasel. Wouldn’t he be proud of what his buddy Matt had turned up?

“From what I gather,” he went on, “Len Wetherall doesn’t know about Juliana Fall. He assumes you’re really J.J. Pepper.”

“I am really J.J. Pepper.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know about Juliana Fall. Right?”

“Shhh!”

“My, my, Shuji?”

Her eyes shut, then opened, and she shook her head. “He doesn’t know.”

“Aha.”

This time the eyes narrowed, deep and vivid and fierce. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“This is a hell of a story, you know. ‘Internationally acclaimed concert pianist dyes hair purple and bangs out jazz in SoHo nightclub with silk-stockinged toes.’ Wow.”

“It’s not dye, it’s mousse.”

“Mousse, then.”

“And the feet-I’ve never done that before.”

“All the better. Feldie’d love it.”

Feldie would bounce his ass off the paper if he turned in a story like that.

Juliana gripped her glass, and for a second he thought she was going to throw her water at him. Instead she set the glass down hard. He could see her fighting to maintain her composure. He admired the struggle, admired her control. He knew he was giving her a hard time. But, he thought, remembering her fight with Shuji, her ego was strong enough to handle anything he dished out. And if she slipped, even just a little, she might tell him something he could use. Not about J.J. Pepper. If dressing up weird and playing jazz alleviated her boredom, gave her something to worry about besides the morning reviews, that was fine with him. Maybe it was her version of living life on the edge. He wanted to know her connection, however tenuous, to Sam Ryder, to the tiny, tragically dead Rachel Stein, to the Dutchman Hendrik de Geer, to the diamond one or all or none were after.

“Are you going to do the story?” she asked tightly, but the fierceness was still there.

Hell, yes, he thought, that would drive in the last nail on the coffin lid of my reputation. “Maybe.”

“You’re lying. You’re just trying to make me talk about something I’ve already told you I know nothing about. You’re trying to blackmail me, aren’t you?”

“I think of it as a deal.”

“Bullshit,” she said.

Down the bar, Len Wetherall slid to his feet, as graceful and big as Stark remembered him from when he was with the Knicks. Getting slam-dunked by a six-foot-nine, two-hundred-forty-pound ex-basketball superstar not known for his even temper was not Matthew’s idea of a graceful exit. He tried to look a bit less menacing to Juliana, not that his menacing looks were having any discernible effect.

“Look,” he said, “I’m not interested in hurting you. A buddy of mine is in some trouble. To help him, I need your cooperation.”

“Or you’ll do the story-or just give it to someone else on the Gazette who’d do it?”

She gave him an I-dare-you-fucker look, but this time she was the one bluffing. He had her scared. She didn’t want her secret to get out.

He sighed. “No, I won’t do the story, and I won’t give it to anyone who would. I’ve never been one for blackmail. And I frankly don’t care if you can play piano with one hand and one foot tied behind your back. My editor doesn’t care, my readers don’t care, and probably ninety-nine percent of the people in the world don’t care. Ninety-nine percent of the people in your world may care, but they don’t read the Washington Gazette.”

Her mouth drew in in a straight line, and she looked away. This time he didn’t care if she felt bad. If she couldn’t stand the truth, then she’d better get the hell out while she was still young enough to do something else with her life.

“Talk to me, Juliana,” he said.

The softness of his voice surprised him, and her, he would have guessed, but before he could find out for certain, a giant hand clamped down on his shoulder and lifted him up off the stool. Matthew looked up into the deep brown eyes of Len Wetherall. It wasn’t only Wetherall’s size his colleagues had respected, but also his tenacity and his intelligence-not to mention his temper.

“The lady doesn’t want to talk,” the former basketball superstar said, his tone misleadingly mild.

Juliana sipped her water and didn’t bother even glancing around. Matthew considered hinting he’d tell Wetherall what she’d been up to at Lincoln Center on Saturday night if she didn’t help him out, but he doubted that would do any good. First, he’d just told her he’d been bluffing. Second, if he did tell, Wetherall would just toss them both. Third, no matter what he did, he assumed he was out the door anyway.

“You finish your beer?” Wetherall asked.

“All set. I’ll need the check-”

“It’s on the house.”

“Thanks, but I pay my way.”

Matthew pulled out his wallet and dropped a ten on the bar. Len let go, and Stark tried to give Juliana a look that told her what he thought of her chickenshit attitude, but she wouldn’t meet his eye. He gave up and headed for the door.

On his way out, he glanced back and saw that Juliana had swung around on her bar stool and was watching him leave. He expected a look of apology for getting him thrown out, even an indication that she appreciated his not telling her boss how she’d wowed the Lincoln Center crowd on Saturday night without once banging out any notes with her feet and now was willing to talk.

But all she gave him was a cocky little smirk. Even with Len Wetherall hovering over her. Matthew was hard-pressed not to march back in there and haul her ass off the stool.

The little pissant was enjoying herself.

Juliana’s feeling of victory didn’t last. Len leaned back against the bar next to her and said idly, “Dude called you Juliana.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Is one of the Js in J.J. short for Juliana?”

“No. J.J.’s not short for anything.”

“Right.”

She’d finished her water and was anxious to get back to the piano. It would feel good to drop back into another world. Sometimes it felt as if she were parachuting into a new world, just floating, seeing everything around her, never really landing. Other times it felt as if she were freefalling and wouldn’t be able to get her chute open in time, that even if she did, it would be too late. She’d tried a few times to explain this feeling to Shuji, but he couldn’t understand it. His approach was much more matter-of-fact and controlled. He said he never left this world and neither did she, so quit talking nonsense. Maybe that was one reason she liked jazz. It required precision and technique, but not that same level of predictable control.

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

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

“I couldn’t agree with you more.”

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

“You want to talk?” Len asked gently.

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

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

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

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

“LZ,” Len said, without hesitation.

She looked up at him, blank.

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

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

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

“What’s it about?”

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

She hadn’t known. “I see.”

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

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

She nodded, thanking him, and did.