Cut and Run

by Carla Neggers

  “Juliana.” He spoke her name without anger, but his gaze was dark and distant, and she knew there would be no middle ground between them. “I’ll let it go for now, but lies don’t work with me. Remember that.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Just remember.”

  He walked past her to the foyer, and she was surprised at how softly the door closed behind him. For a minute she didn’t move. She took a huge gulp of air and flopped back in the chair, exhaling at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “Jesus. Next time—well, the hell there’ll be a next time!”

  But something told her there would be. Whatever was between her and Matthew Stark felt very unfinished. And he was the kind of man who finished things. He was also the kind of man, she thought uncomfortably, who would push and dig and ask questions until he learned that the world’s largest and most mysterious uncut diamond was the Minstrel’s Rough…that the Peperkamps had been in the diamond business for four hundred years…that she was the last of the Peperkamps—and hadn’t given him straight answers to his questions. He’d put all the pieces together.

  He’d figure out she had the Minstrel.

  Which, of course, she did.

  Could someone else put those same pieces together and arrive at the same conclusion? Was someone else after the Minstrel?

  Who?

  She catapulted herself—not to the piano to escape this time—but to J.J.’s room, J.J.’s closet. She had to get out. She had to be someone else for a while, to be with people, to sort this mess out.

  Her eyes fell on a midcalf black wool skirt with a slit up the back and a low-cut red silk blouse that had been very, very daring fifty years ago. She immediately saw it dressed up with lots of rhinestones, black seamed stockings, red shoes…and lavender-tinted hair.

  She pushed the Washington reporter’s dark gaze from her mind and got started.

  Juliana Fall was a liar, and she didn’t know Rachel Stein was dead. She was also one very attractive woman, and as he hung around the glittering Beresford lobby, Matthew thought more about her vibrant eyes than her skirting of the truth. He’d expected the Juliana Fall he’d met Saturday night to live in a building like the Beresford. The one he’d met this afternoon could have lived anywhere, the Beresford or some hole in the Bronx. The dust, the clutter, the sassy ponytail had surprised him. They didn’t fit his stereotype of the world-class pianist. Hell, he thought, she was probably up there sharpening her pencils or playing some piece written while Napoleon was trouncing Europe.

  Napoleon, she’d say, who’s he?

  Maybe he wasn’t being fair. Whatever she knew or didn’t know, it was plain enough to Matthew that Ms. Pianist wasn’t in any funk, as her eminent teacher had suggested.

  The lady was just flat-out bored.

  For the first time in years, Stark felt like having a cigarette. He’d quit smoking after Vietnam, figuring he had a full quota of poisons in his system, but right now he just didn’t give a damn. The tough, cynical, scarred, smart, heroic, tarnished Matthew Stark. He’d had his picture on the covers of Time and Newsweek; he’d appeared on network television and PBS specials. He was supposed to know more than your average Joe Six-Pack. Be more.

  What a lot of bullshit that was. He was trying to coax information out of a gorgeous space cadet of a piano player whose big excitement for the day probably was feeding her goldfish. Who the hell wouldn’t be bored banging on a piano all day in that great, fancy, lonely apartment? Concerts added a little interest, he supposed, but she couldn’t give one every day, and they too had to get old after a while. Things like that generally did. Preserving a reputation was damn tedious. Making one was the fun part.

  The uniformed doorman came over and asked if he could help. Matthew said no thanks. The doorman then politely suggested he be on his way. Matthew shrugged and didn’t argue. The guy had his job to do.

  He went and stood outside, across the street at the bus stop in front of the Museum of Natural History. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, but his instincts told him—damn reliable instincts they’d been too, once—that he’d just given Juliana Fall something to nibble on besides some piece written by a guy in a white wig.

  His description of Rachel Stein and Weaze’s nutso talk about the world’s largest uncut diamond had clicked with her—and she’d lied about both. Matthew wanted to know why, and he wanted to know what she was going to do about it. If anything. She might just sit upstairs talking to her goldfish and playing the piano and forget he’d even been there.

  But he remembered the scared, interested, comprehending look in those deep dark green eyes, and he didn’t think she would. His questions had chased away the vagueness and boredom he’d seen in her eyes when she’d pulled the door open for him. Ahh, he thought, nothing like an adventure to kick up the spirit.

  He’d give her an hour.

  Word was getting around that J.J. Pepper was back. Between four and six, when she liked to play, the Club Aquarian would start to fill up, and people wouldn’t just eat and gab. They’d listen, which Len Wetherall could appreciate. J.J. was good—and a hell of a sight to watch, looser than she had been in the spring and summer. New Zealand or wherever the hell she’d been had done her some good. Or coming back had.

  Len settled back against the bar, sipping a cup of black coffee and having a look at the postcards she’d just handed him. He figured she got them from some New Zealand tourist office in town. They weren’t made out, of course; no postmark, nothing like that. Merrie, his wife, had said quit worrying about damn New Zealand and focus on the hair—it was lavender today—if he wanted to know what game J.J. Pepper was playing. But he wasn’t sure he did. It could just ruin everything. Not so much for him, maybe, but for her.

  She was at the baby grand, warming up with a couple of slow and easy tunes. It was early, not crowded, but that wouldn’t last. Right now, she looked as if she’d been made for the place. Her low-cut blouse was the same shade of red as the single rose on each table, the only touch of color in the gray and black decor. Nearly everyone had a clear view of her on the round platform stage, carpeted in gray, just eight inches off the floor. It stood between the dining room on one side and the high-tech bar on the other, and behind it were semiprivate seating areas, with low black lacquer tables and gray suede half-circle sofas. From every corner, you could hear J.J. Pepper’s rich, ringing sounds—and see that damned lavender hair.

  Fifteen minutes after J.J. had gotten started, a dark-haired man came in alone and asked who the lady at the piano was. He just gave a curt nod when he was told. Len didn’t like that. The guy had a serious, cut-the-bullshit face, and he didn’t take off his black leather jacket when he slid onto a stool at the far end of the bar. He ordered a beer and turned around so he could see the stage.

  Len didn’t like that, either.

  J.J. was into her piece—she never called them tunes—and hadn’t spotted him. She’d moved into some hotter stuff, was really getting into it. Her lavender hair was coming out of its pins, and a big lock flopped down her forehead. She was grinning and biting her lip, and for a second Len held his breath, thinking she was going to let out a hoot.

  The guy down at the other end of the bar just sipped on his beer and watched, tight-lipped.

  Al, the bartender, started to whoop and slap the bar, his version of clapping, and Len turned back to see what the excitement was all about.

  “Holy shit,” he breathed.

  He couldn’t believe it. J.J. had kicked off her red shoes and every now and then she’d slam out some high notes with her right foot.

  “Babe’s getting the moves down,” Al said. “What’d we ever do around here without her?”

  Len grinned. “Damned if I know.”

  When she finished, J.J. bounced up off the bench, smiling and sweating like the world had just been lifted off her shoulders, her blouse and skirt askew. She straightened them up, not very well, and stuck stray hairs back up in their pins as she trotted up to the
bar. Al had her usual Saratoga water with a twist of lime waiting. Len didn’t touch the stuff himself. Regular water was fine with him.

  She drank down half the glass and wiped her mouth with a cocktail napkin, her eyes glittering. “It’s good to be back.”

  “No Club Aquarian in New Zealand, huh?”

  She was beaming. “Nope.”

  Len slid the postcards across the bar to her. “No slides of you up on a mountain?”

  “It’s hard to take pictures of yourself.”

  She turned her back to the bar and looked around, checking out what there was of an early crowd. When her eyes fell on the guy sitting alone, her smile vanished and her cheeks went white, the too-red blush she used suddenly looking false and garish, not so fun anymore.

  “Something wrong, babe?” Len asked, cool.

  She shook her head and put her cold glass to each of her cheeks, the condensation on the glass running the pancake makeup. But some of her natural color returned. Her lavender-tinted hair looked as stiff as she did. She said tightly, “It’s nothing I can’t handle myself.”

  Still in her silk-stockinged feet, she took her mineral water down to the end of the bar and jumped onto the stool next to the dude in the black leather jacket. He was a tough-looking bastard, and Len didn’t especially want to mess with him, but he would if he had to. At night he had a bouncer, but during the day he was his own bouncer. He was damn good at it.

  All he needed was a reason.

  Matthew held back a grin as Juliana turned to him and blinked her sparkling gold eyelids at him, pursed her very red, very kissable lips, and said, her liquid voice frozen into pointy icicles, “You followed me.”

  “That’s right, I did.” He motioned for another beer. She was still breathing hard from having pelted out those high notes with her feet. She had her toes curled around the bottom rung of the stool; they were the kind of toes he could too easily imagine trailing up his calves in the middle of the night. He wasn’t sure he liked the effect that Juliana Fall—or whoever she was—was having on him. “Hard to lose that purple hair in a crowd.”

  “How dare you,” she said, so pissed off she was gritting her teeth.

  “‘How dare you’ is what cool, sophisticated, world-famous concert pianists say. Hot little jazz pianists who play with their feet say, ‘fuck you.’”

  “Of all the sneaky, arrogant—” She sucked in a breath and let it out. “Damn you.”

  Matthew grinned. “That’s better. I like the gold eyelids, by the way. They set off the purple hair. Very regal looking.”

  He sipped his fresh beer, watching her breathe in through her nose. He’d have been embarrassed as hell getting caught with purple hair, but she seemed more furious than anything else, which was okay with him. He liked it that she was willing to take him on. He scared the shit out of most people. He’d spotted her strutting out of the Beresford with that crazy hair and had recognized her immediately—he’d been paying more attention to that cute little shape of hers than he’d realized. At first he thought she’d seen him from her living room window and had donned her silly disguise to get past him, but her arrival at the Club Aquarian squelched that theory. The purple hair and old clothes and raccoon coat, and, Jesus, the red vinyl boots were for real.

  He gave her a long look, trying not to appear too entertained. If he pissed her off too much, he might not get anything out of her at all. Her blouse was low-cut for Juliana Fall, but on J.J. Pepper it looked just right—crooked, a peek of one pale breast and white, lace-trimmed bra showing. Very sexy and very disconcerting.

  “I take it I’ve stumbled on a little secret of yours,” he said.

  She didn’t say a word. Ahh, what a clever bastard you are, Stark thought sarcastically. Won’t Feldie be impressed with this major discovery. And, shit, he couldn’t wait to tell Weasel. Wouldn’t he be proud of what his buddy Matt had turned up?

  “From what I gather,” he went on, “Len Wetherall doesn’t know about Juliana Fall. He assumes you’re really J.J. Pepper.”

  “I am really J.J. Pepper.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t know about Juliana Fall. Right?”

  “Shhh!”

  “My, my, Shuji?”

  Her eyes shut, then opened, and she shook her head. “He doesn’t know.”

  “Aha.”

  This time the eyes narrowed, deep and vivid and fierce. “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “This is a hell of a story, you know. ‘Internationally acclaimed concert pianist dyes hair purple and bangs out jazz in SoHo nightclub with silk-stockinged toes.’ Wow.”

  “It’s not dye, it’s mousse.”

  “Mousse, then.”

  “And the feet—I’ve never done that before.”

  “All the better. Feldie’d love it.”

  Feldie would bounce his ass off the paper if he turned in a story like that.

  Juliana gripped her glass, and for a second he thought she was going to throw her water at him. Instead she set the glass down hard. He could see her fighting to maintain her composure. He admired the struggle, admired her control. He knew he was giving her a hard time. But, he thought, remembering her fight with Shuji, her ego was strong enough to handle anything he dished out. And if she slipped, even just a little, she might tell him something he could use. Not about J.J. Pepper. If dressing up weird and playing jazz alleviated her boredom, gave her something to worry about besides the morning reviews, that was fine with him. Maybe it was her version of living life on the edge. He wanted to know her connection, however tenuous, to Sam Ryder, to the tiny, tragically dead Rachel Stein, to the Dutchman Hendrik de Geer, to the diamond one or all or none were after.

  “Are you going to do the story?” she asked tightly, but the fierceness was still there.

  Hell, yes, he thought, that would drive in the last nail on the coffin lid of my reputation. “Maybe.”

  “You’re lying. You’re just trying to make me talk about something I’ve already told you I know nothing about. You’re trying to blackmail me, aren’t you?”

  “I think of it as a deal.”

  “Bullshit,” she said.

  Down the bar, Len Wetherall slid to his feet, as graceful and big as Stark remembered him from when he was with the Knicks. Getting slam-dunked by a six-foot-nine, two-hundred-forty-pound ex–basketball superstar not known for his even temper was not Matthew’s idea of a graceful exit. He tried to look a bit less menacing to Juliana, not that his menacing looks were having any discernible effect.

  “Look,” he said, “I’m not interested in hurting you. A buddy of mine is in some trouble. To help him, I need your cooperation.”

  “Or you’ll do the story—or just give it to someone else on the Gazette who’d do it?”

  She gave him an I-dare-you-fucker look, but this time she was the one bluffing. He had her scared. She didn’t want her secret to get out.

  He sighed. “No, I won’t do the story, and I won’t give it to anyone who would. I’ve never been one for blackmail. And I frankly don’t care if you can play piano with one hand and one foot tied behind your back. My editor doesn’t care, my readers don’t care, and probably ninety-nine percent of the people in the world don’t care. Ninety-nine percent of the people in your world may care, but they don’t read the Washington Gazette.”

  Her mouth drew in in a straight line, and she looked away. This time he didn’t care if she felt bad. If she couldn’t stand the truth, then she’d better get the hell out while she was still young enough to do something else with her life.

  “Talk to me, Juliana,” he said.

  The softness of his voice surprised him, and her, he would have guessed, but before he could find out for certain, a giant hand clamped down on his shoulder and lifted him up off the stool. Matthew looked up into the deep brown eyes of Len Wetherall. It wasn’t only Wetherall’s size his colleagues had respected, but also his tenacity and his intelligence—not to mention his temper.

  “The lady doesn’t want to tal
k,” the former basketball superstar said, his tone misleadingly mild.

  Juliana sipped her water and didn’t bother even glancing around. Matthew considered hinting he’d tell Wetherall what she’d been up to at Lincoln Center on Saturday night if she didn’t help him out, but he doubted that would do any good. First, he’d just told her he’d been bluffing. Second, if he did tell, Wetherall would just toss them both. Third, no matter what he did, he assumed he was out the door anyway.

  “You finish your beer?” Wetherall asked.

  “All set. I’ll need the check—”

  “It’s on the house.”

  “Thanks, but I pay my way.”

  Matthew pulled out his wallet and dropped a ten on the bar. Len let go, and Stark tried to give Juliana a look that told her what he thought of her chickenshit attitude, but she wouldn’t meet his eye. He gave up and headed for the door.

  On his way out, he glanced back and saw that Juliana had swung around on her bar stool and was watching him leave. He expected a look of apology for getting him thrown out, even an indication that she appreciated his not telling her boss how she’d wowed the Lincoln Center crowd on Saturday night without once banging out any notes with her feet and now was willing to talk.

  But all she gave him was a cocky little smirk. Even with Len Wetherall hovering over her. Matthew was hard-pressed not to march back in there and haul her ass off the stool.

  The little pissant was enjoying herself.

  Juliana’s feeling of victory didn’t last. Len leaned back against the bar next to her and said idly, “Dude called you Juliana.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Is one of the Js in J.J. short for Juliana?”

  “No. J.J.’s not short for anything.”

  “Right.”

  She’d finished her water and was anxious to get back to the piano. It would feel good to drop back into another world. Sometimes it felt as if she were parachuting into a new world, just floating, seeing everything around her, never really landing. Other times it felt as if she were freefalling and wouldn’t be able to get her chute open in time, that even if she did, it would be too late. She’d tried a few times to explain this feeling to Shuji, but he couldn’t understand it. His approach was much more matter-of-fact and controlled. He said he never left this world and neither did she, so quit talking nonsense. Maybe that was one reason she liked jazz. It required precision and technique, but not that same level of predictable control.