Carla Neggers - Cut and Run

Juliana knew better. He’d stayed behind the bus until they got off and was waiting across the street from the bakeshop when they arrived. Juliana had both horrified and delighted her aunt by waving to him.

“Shouldn’t we call the police?” she’d asked.

“Why? Because there’s a man smoking a cigarette on Madison Avenue?”

“He followed us.”

“That’s true. But even if we could prove it, what would he tell the police? ‘I’m a fan of Juliana Fall’s, she’s so petty.’” She’d lifted a broad palm in dismissal.

They’d decided to let him stand outside in the cold.

Catharina bit her lip, and tears streamed down her pale cheeks when she saw her daughter. “Thank God-oh, thank God. I’ve been so worried!”

She took Juliana’s hand, squeezing it hard, as if to make sure she was really there, and Juliana sat down, her frustration with her mother gone. She felt so guilty. Her mother’s only brother was dead. Juliana hadn’t known her uncle well, although she’d loved him, and she didn’t have any siblings or any cousins on the Peperkamp side of the family. But she was close to her Fall cousins and would hate to lose any of them. She knew so little of death.

“I’m sorry, Mother-for worrying you, for Uncle Johannes. For everything.”

Catharina nodded, accepting the apology as readily as she always did, believing in her daughter, trusting her. Juliana could only wonder what her mother would do when she learned she’d had the Minstrel’s Rough for the last seven years.

She won’t find out, Juliana vowed silently. I won’t tell her. I’ll figure a way out of this so she won’t have to know.

“It’s all right,” Catharina said at last.

“Mother, I…”

But Juliana found herself unable to go on. She couldn’t press her mother for answers now, not with her grief and shock so raw. And did she really have the right to go demand to know what had happened to her mother long before she was born? What about her mother’s right not to tell her daughter certain things about her own life? If I have a child, Juliana thought, would I want her to know everything I’ve done? Aren’t there feelings, events, decisions that I will want to remain private?

“I want you to know how sorry I am about Uncle Johannes,” she said. “I know you didn’t see much of him in recent years, but I also know that didn’t make any difference to how you felt about him. In your own way, you’re a close family. I think I see that now.”

Catharina caught her lower lip and released Juliana’s hand so she could brush away her tears. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Juliana said truthfully.

“Aren’t you working on the Chopin concerto?”

Juliana smiled, rising, and gave her mother a quick hug. “You’re just as impossible as Aunt Willie, just not in the same way. But I do love you, Mum.”

“And I love you, too,” she whispered. Then she sat up straight, inhaling, determined. “Send Aunt Willie in here.”

“Well, Steelman.”

Matthew recognized the voice instantly and sank back against his chair. “Bloch.”

“You don’t take to warnings, do you?”

“You tell me.”

“My man saw you in Antwerp.”

Dammit, Stark thought, how stupid could he have been? He’d never even considered that Bloch would have someone watching Johannes Peperkamp’s shop, his house.

And Juliana?

Dammit to hell. If Bloch had had a man at the Peperkamp house, he’d seen her and the old aunt. How much did the bastard know?

Bloch went on, pleased with himself, “You were picked up at the old man’s house not long after Juliana Fall and Wilhelmina Peperkamp got there. They’re a real Mutt and Jeff, aren’t they? I hear Fall’s quite the looker. What do you think?”

“I think I should have blown your fucking ass to bit when I had the chance.”

“That’s what you get for playing by the rules. But that’s history. I’m concerned with right now. Want me to give you a rundown of what I know?”

“No.”

“I know you were at Lincoln Center the same night as Ryder and the Stein woman, and I know you’ve been to New York to see Juliana Fall and to Antwerp looking for her uncle. And you know why you’ve been to those places, sir? Because your old buddy Specialist Otis Raymond has been snitching to his hero Matthew Stark.”

“Let me talk to Weasel,” Stark said stonily.

“He’s unavailable.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I trusted him, you know, tried to give him a hand. But that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

Stark felt everything inside him turn cold. “If you touch Otis, I’m coming after you, Bloch. I don’t care where the hell you’re hiding, I’ll find you.”

“Stay out of this,” Bloch said, adding with heavy sarcasm, “Steelman.”

“Bloch-”

The sergeant hung up.

Hey, Steelman, we just landed our asses in some serious shit…sir.

That was Otis Raymond. Matthew raked one hand through his hair and tried to regain his sense of balance, of distance. The Weaze had never played by the book or worried about making it out of Vietnam. There was no future for him, not much past, just the present. He’d treated his M-60, standard equipment for a door gunner, with more care than most of the people he knew. But he’d cried like a two-year-old when a low ceiling prevented them from pulling out a stranded platoon and they’d had to go in later, too late, for the casualties. He’d laughed hysterically when he shoved grunts out of the chopper eight or ten feet above the ground, yelling, “Playtime, fellas!” He’d been proud of his medals, of the lives he’d saved; he never said much about the lives he’d taken. Just that one time.

You just do what you gotta do. I figure, my time’s up, it’s up, and they must figure the same. You know? Shit, I guess you don’t. I’m the one does the shooting, huh?

He was right, at least for a time. Toward the end of his first tour, Stark had switched from slicks to gunships, AH-1G Cobras. Snakes, they were nicknamed. He’d wanted a chance to shoot back for a change. It hadn’t made him feel any better. By then, nothing did. The snakes didn’t need door gunners, and he and Otis Raymond were finally split up. It didn’t last. He’d transferred to light observation helicopters, the scouts, and once more Weasel was his gunner. Crazy, stupid, ugly, brave, cocky SP-4 Otis Raymond. He figured one day someone was going to make a movie out of him. The best damn gunner in Vietnam, he’d said of himself more than once. He might have been right. He’d lived, hadn’t he? And somebody had made that movie. But Otis had never read or seen LZ, and Matthew had never gotten around to telling his old buddy that the nutty, heroic loner of a door gunner in both the book and the movie was modeled after SP-4 Otis Raymond.

Matthew felt empty and so goddamn alone.

Catharina’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?