Carla Neggers - Cut and Run

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, Hendrik, you made your choice.”

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

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

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

“It was her choice.”

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

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

For a long time, neither man spoke.

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

“Not always, Hendrik.”

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

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

“You must get me the Minstrel.”

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

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

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

“I hope so,” Hendrik said.

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

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

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

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

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

How could I have let this happen?

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