Carla Neggers - Cut and Run

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.”