Carla Neggers - Cut and Run

Just then Adrian Fall walked up and introduced himself, but Stark had already guessed who it was, not so much by his resemblance to his daughter-although it was there, in the coloring, the bones, the sensitive mouth-but by his look of terror. Stark knew something of how he felt.

Bloch had struck it rich, Matthew thought bitterly: Juliana and Catharina in one fell swoop. But if Matthew mentioned his name now to the police, Bloch would just dump them the first chance he got. That was the sergeant’s style. No deals, no loose ends. His chief strength, his only weakness.

“Goddamnit,” he muttered. Wilhelmina…

He thanked the cop as he heard Adrian Fall say his wife had called from her shop two hours ago and hustled down the block to the first pay phone he came to. He dropped in some coins and dialed Juliana’s apartment, and Wilhelmina answered on the first ring, saying “Allo.”

“It’s Stark.” He looked up at the milky-dark sky above Manhattan. “A man named Phil Bloch has Juliana and your sister. He’ll come for you next. Then he’s going to find out which one of you has the Minstrel’s Rough. If he gets to you before I do, don’t tell him. Stall him. I’m on my way.”

“Who is this Phil Bloch?”

There wasn’t an ounce of fear in her solid, accented voice. “A real shitkicker, Willie. Lay low.”

He hung up, thinking Ryder, you sonofabitch, you put this in motion. This is all your fucking fault, and if anything happens to the Peperkamps or Weasel, I’m coming after your ass the way I should have twenty years ago.

He flagged a cab and headed back to the Upper West Side. He passed the bakeshop. Adrian Fall was standing outside, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his conservative cashmere overcoat, his handsome patrician face white and gaunt in the harsh light of the police car. Matthew felt for the man. It couldn’t be easy to be in love with a Peperkamp.

Her hands were all right.

It was Juliana’s first coherent thought as she drove north along the Hudson River Parkway, staying within five miles of the posted speed limit. Traffic was heavy. Cars passed her with ski racks on their roofs; there’d been snow in Vermont and the Berkshires during the week and another couple of inches was forecasted. Skiing would be excellent. Juliana didn’t ski. She’d never taken the time to learn and she’d always been afraid for her hands. That wasn’t why she went to Vermont. It wasn’t why she was going now.

The initial shock of pain had subsided, and now she felt a dull throbbing at her side where she’d fallen against the door. She wanted to hear her mother’s voice tell her to drink some warm milk lightly flavored with cocoa and go to bed…her mother, whose pain had to be-

“Oh, God,” she mumbled, hearing again the snapping of her mother’s arm.

Her father would be frantic, but she didn’t dare call him-couldn’t. He would demand that she come home; he had a right to know what was going on. But she couldn’t explain, not now, and she had to live up to her responsibilities. If only she’d known seven years ago that Uncle Johannes wasn’t half-kidding or half-nuts. Her father would blame Aunt Willie, whom he’d never liked. He called her a troublemaker.

Aunt Willie…

If she couldn’t call her father, Juliana felt she at least had to give her aunt some kind of explanation-tell her what had happened at the bakeshop. Matthew… She owed him something, too, although she was no longer sure what.

She began looking for an exit.

The old aunt was having a goddamn cup of tea when Matthew pounded into the apartment. “Get your things,” he told her. “I’m getting you out of here.”

He thought rapidly, where the hell can I stash her? In a hotel. The Plaza. She could complain about how fancy it was, and he’d send Feldie the bill. Jesus. Hey, don’t worry about it, Weasel used to tell him, guys with no sense of humor’re the ones who get aced.

Weasel. Juliana. Catharina Fall.

If only he’d taken Weasel’s tip more seriously and put the screws to Ryder at Lincoln Center when he’d had the chance.

If only. His goddamn life was filled with if onlys.

Wilhelmina got up slowly, dumped out the rest of her lukewarm tea into the sink, and rinsed out her cup. “I will not run,” she told Stark.

“Don’t argue with me. I’ll haul you out of here on my back if I have to.”

She raised her thick eyebrows. “Imagine what the doormen would say. They do have their uses, don’t you think? Mr. Stark, I appreciate your protective impulses, but I cannot permit myself to run to safety while those I love are in danger.” She placed the cup on the counter and turned back to him, her plain face racked with worry. “They’re all I have left.”

He nodded curtly, realizing he had no right to order her around-not that she, like her lovely niece, would pay a damn bit of attention if he did.

“I don’t expect you to take me with you. I’d slow you down, and you seem quite competent. You don’t need me. Just leave, and let me do what I must.”

The telephone rang, and Matthew pounced on it.

“Matthew-”

His stomach twisted together at the strain he heard in her voice. “What happened, where are you?”

“Your damned Phillip Bloch took my mother. I met the Dutchman, Hendrik de Geer. He’s gone after Mother, I think. I don’t know, I-he said we shouldn’t call the police.”

“He’s right. Tell me where you are, Juliana. I’ll come for you.”

“There’s more between you and this Phillip Bloch than you told me, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me now.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No, I’m okay. My mother threw a knife at him. It just knicked his wrist.” She sounded breathless, just skimming along the surface of her emotions, not diving in too deep. “Tell Aunt Willie, won’t you? She always thinks Mother’s such a wimp.”

“Where are you?” he asked again, his voice burlap-rough.

“Does Senator Ryder know Bloch as well?”

“Yes, goddamnit. Where are you?”

“He wants the Minstrel. He’ll come after Aunt Willie, too. He’d have taken me, but I hit his man Peters and then Hendrik de Geer helped me because Mother yelled for him to…” She broke off, her voice choking; she coughed. “Bloch broke my mother’s arm, just snapped it like kindling. He’s a terrible person, isn’t he? I-” She cut herself off. “Matthew, tell Aunt Willie I’m okay.”

Stark gripped the phone. “Juliana, let me come for you-”

“It’s all right,” she said dully. “Really. This isn’t your problem, Matthew. I don’t want you hurt, too.”

“I can handle it. Juliana-”

But it was too late. She’d already hung up.

Aunt Willie was standing next to him. She handed him a set of keys. “They’re to Juliana’s Nazi car,” she said. “She may have another set and be in it herself, but I don’t think so. I found these in her room. She’s gone to Vermont.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know.”

“The Minstrel?” he asked, with a flash of his brownblack eyes. “I’ll be gone to hell. Juliana has it, doesn’t she?”

I don’t even like diamonds. Right, sweetheart.

“Go to Vermont,” Wilhelmina said.

“How do I know you’re not just trying to get rid of me?” He was remembering the cat in Antwerp.

Wilhelmina sighed, a touch of emotion coming into her unremarkable eyes. “You’re in love with Juliana, aren’t you?” she asked, without surprise. “A man like you wouldn’t have many women. He would wait, and when the right one came along, he would know it.”

Every fiber inside him told him the old woman was right, but he only hissed impatiently. “Jesus Christ-”