Carla Neggers - Cut and Run

“Yes. She called to tell me about Rachel Stein.”

“Did she also tell you-”

“Our conversation was a private one, Juliana. Now go call her. You may use my phone, but be quick about it. Calls are expensive.”

With Aunt Willie looking on, Juliana dialed her parents’ Park Avenue home. As expected, she got the housekeeper, who promised to relay to Catharina and Adrian Fall that their daughter was out of town and had called to say hello.

“You didn’t tell her where you were,” Wilhelmina pointed out when Juliana hung up.

“I’m thirty years old. Aunt Willie, aren’t you even curious as to why I’m here?”

She swept the lunch into a paper bag. “You’ll tell me soon enough. Come, let’s go to Antwerp.”

“But how do you know I’m going-”

“Juliana, I’m not a fool.” The old Dutchwoman put on her wool coat and tucked the lunch bag under her arm. Juliana followed her out of the apartment, putting her own coat back on. “I like the raccoon,” Wilhelmina said. “I’m used to you in your cashmere and silk.”

“You’ve only seen me a few times.”

“So?”

Juliana gave up.

Naturally Aunt Willie didn’t drive. They took the underground tram to Central Station, where trains to Antwerp were frequent and on time. Juliana had always enjoyed her trips to The Netherlands. A crowded nation with one of the highest standards of living in the world, it depended on a modern, well-run system of mass transportation. Even Aunt Willie had no complaints. They found a seat on the train, and she insisted Juliana go in first so she could sit by the window for the view.

“It’s good that you’re here,” Aunt Willie said. “We can see about your uncle together.”

Juliana was instantly alert-even, given the events of the last few days, afraid. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”

“Sit down and don’t fall to pieces on me.”

Stiff and insulted, Juliana sat down, but her heart was pounding painfully. She thought about the unanswered phone calls to Uncle Johannes. If Matthew Start could get his name and be on his way to Antwerp, so could others.

But how? Who? Why?

Crazily, she thought of Shuji. Would he say she was in a full-fledged funk?

“Good,” Aunt Willie said, satisfied. “I was afraid you were going to do something silly like faint. I’ve always considered playing the piano a frivolous career, but perhaps your training has prepared you better for life than I’d anticipated.”

“What about Uncle Johannes?” Juliana asked.

Wilhelmina nodded and said stoically, “Johannes is missing.”

Someone at the exclusive Diamantclub at 62 Pelikaanstraat gave Matthew the address of Johannes Peperkamp’s shop and pointed him in the direction of Schupstraat. As he walked down the busy, gray streets of the diamond district, he appreciated the chilly breeze and the bright sun, both of which helped him to chase off the fatigue that gnawed at his eyes and muscles. He hadn’t slept on the flight over. He couldn’t relax in the air unless he was doing the flying, but even if he’d been at his townhouse in Georgetown, he doubted he’d have slept.

He wasn’t thrilled with himself for the way he’d treated Juliana. She was a musician, and she had different priorities. Whatever happened to the Weaze, it wasn’t her fault, even if she was holding back information-which, goddamnit, he knew she was. But Weaze could have gotten out the day he’d shown up in Washington. He could have let Sam Ryder sink in his own shit (as Otis Raymond had so effectively put it), instead of risking himself to try and pull Ryder out. Stark sometimes forgot Otis had a mind of his own. He was a trained, experienced combat soldier who knew how to assess danger. Matthew was no longer his helicopter pilot; he no longer had to feel responsible for SP-4 Otis Raymond.

But he did.

Dammit, he thought, you just don’t want anything to happen to the little jackass.

In the dreary, gray building on Schupstraat, a thickset, middle-aged security guard told Matthew in heavily accented English that he was very, very sorry, but he had bad news to relate about Johannes Peperkamp.

Stark automatically clicked into this distanced journalist/distanced soldier mode. He’d never met Johannes Peperkamp. He’s Juliana’s uncle. So what. You’re just the fact collector.

He asked in a steady voice, “What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you,” the guard said, “but Mr. Peperkamp has died. We got the news just a few minutes ago.” He pronounced just shoost. Thumping his broad chest, he continued, “Bad heart. He was an old man, you know. He died in Amsterdam.” Stark pushed away the image of Juliana’s gooped-up beautiful eyes, shining with concern for her uncle and with determination to protect him from a relentless American reporter. He had to stay focused on his job. “When?”

“We don’t know how long he’s dead. A day or two, no more.”

Matthew held his frustration in check: had he come to the wrong fucking city? He asked neutrally, “When did he go to Amsterdam?”

“Day before yesterday. He leaves in the afternoon with another man, but they don’t say when they will be back. I don’t know if they went to Amsterdam together.”

“Did you see the man?”

“Yes.”

“Can you describe him for me?”

The guard regarded Matthew with sudden suspicion. “Why?”

“I’m a friend of the Peperkamp family,” Matthew said quickly. “I know his niece, Juliana Fall.”

“Ahh, the pianist. Yes, the man with Mr. Peperkamp was perhaps sixty-five or seventy, fair; he spoke Dutch, I remember. I don’t recall any name.”

“Hendrik de Geer?”

“It’s possible. As I say, I don’t recall.”

It had to be, Stark thought. The elusive Dutchman…and another link to the Peperkamps. “Do you know if Mr. Peperkamp was working on or aware of any information on an uncut diamond called the Minstrel’s Rough?”

The guard smiled, indulging the ignorant American. “The Minstrel does not exist, in my opinion. It’s a myth.” The smile turned supercilious. “No one here treats it seriously.”

I’ll bet the hell they would, Stark thought, if someone had the fast track on it. Then, guiltily, he remembered Juliana’s fierce protectiveness toward her uncle. Here he’d been screaming at her about his buddy ending up dead, and her uncle was the one being zipped up in a body bag.

“Has anyone told the family?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

After some persuasion, Matthew was able to get the old diamond cutter’s home address, but he had little hope of finding anything useful there. Still, he thought, he might as well finish the job and have a look. Anything to delay his having to look into the pale, beautiful face of Juliana Fall and see what happened to it after she found out the fun was over, her adventure over before it got started, her uncle dead.

Aunt Willie insisted that Juliana eat. “You’re too skinny,” she said. Exhausted as she was from her mad dash out of New York-it was always so much harder to fly west to east than east to west-Juliana had to admit the cheese sandwich and hot tea tasted good. They helped fill that dead, empty spot inside her that kept reminding her she was in Europe chasing after a reporter who undoubtedly wouldn’t take kindly to being chased. What would Matthew Stark do if he found out she had the Minstrel’s Rough? What would any of them do? Her mother and Aunt Willie didn’t know. She’d kept her promise to her uncle that she wouldn’t tell them.

Aunt Willie seemed to have no dead, empty spot to hold her back. She ate her lunch calmly, without comment, but held onto the cookies. Juliana decided she must be waiting for an emergency. An earthquake or a nuclear attack. Wilhelmina Peperkamp’s natural competence had a way of making the people around her-and even her own sister across an ocean-feel inadequate. But Juliana dealt on a regular basis with some of the most ambitious and competitive people in the world, and she was more fascinated by her aunt’s manner than intimidated.