“Bullshit.”
“I need help, Shuji.”
He sighed. “Get in here.”
Shuji’s townhouse combined a Japanese sense of negative space with his flair for the opulent and dramatic. The entire fourth floor was his music studio. Juliana knew; she’d spent countless hours there. A warmth came over her, a nostalgia for those days, their security. She almost cried.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“A car and some cash.”
He managed a small smile. “The New York Times find out what you’ve been up to?”
“No, my mother’s been kidnapped.”
He looked at her, uncertain that she was in fact serious. For almost twenty years he’d listened to her problems, excuses, fears, exaggerations. He knew her better than he knew anyone. Loved her in a way he could love no one else—as, he realized, she did him. She was unpredictable and outrageous, and he knew he was lying to himself if he believed he could ever walk out of her life, J.J. Pepper or not.
He handed her the keys to his Mercedes and all the cash in his wallet. “I presume you’re in too big a hurry to answer any questions.”
“Later,” she said, throwing her arms around him as she felt the tears hot on her cheeks, and then she fled.
It must be a man, Shuji told himself, heading back upstairs to practice. Now at least he could. Since their argument he’d been able to do little more than stare at the keyboard, something, of course, he would never admit to her. He hadn’t understood what happened to her. J.J. Pepper, dyed hair, turbans, outrageous clothes. Jazz. He shuddered. Yet now, while he still didn’t understand, he did know it wasn’t something he needed to address. It was Juliana’s problem—something she had to confront and decide what to do about on her own. If she wanted his counsel, she would ask for it. The student-teacher relationship they had had for so long was over. It was one of those things that had been ending for a long time, gradually fading, not like a sunset into the night, but like the colors of dawn into a bright, beautiful day. Yes, that was how he would think of it.
They’d become friends, he thought with satisfaction.
Equals.
The cabdriver obviously felt vindicated when he pulled up in front of Catharina’s Bake Shop and the place was crawling with police. Blue lights were flashing, in contrast to the festive holiday lights lining the street. Stark passed him a twenty and didn’t wait for change as he got out, dropping his mask in place. Inside he was empty and stone cold. He flashed his press credentials and talked to the cop in charge, listening without comment. It seemed to be a simple break-in; they’d found a guy unconscious in the kitchen claiming he was smacked on the head while buying cream puffs. Guy’s name was Peters—Alex Peters. They’d tried to reach the owner.
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—”
“You don’t know that I’m not just trying to get rid of you,” she said. “But, understand me, Matthew Stark, I know you care deeply for Juliana—and nothing must happen to her. She’s the last of the Peperkamps. It’s not you who must trust me—I must trust you.”
“And I’ll bet there aren’t many people you do trust.”
She shrugged impassively. “That is so.”
Matthew quickly told her about the knife and de Geer, and if either surprised her, she didn’t say. She just produced addresses for her niece’s garage and Vermont house—Stark guessed she’d only started mopping the floor after she’d given the place a thorough shake down—and hurried him out the door. She told him to mind the man across the street watching the building.
Stark assured her he could handle the situation.
“You would have survived the occupation, I think,” she said.
From Wilhelmina Peperkamp, Stark knew that was a supreme compliment.
“I will get you the Minstrel,” Catharina said, leaning forward toward Bloch as the car in which they were riding turned into Central Park West. She cradled her broken arm as best she could, but the pain was excruciating. It had already begun to swell badly. Ah, Mamma, she thought with tears in her eyes, I remember your strength. Bloch was in the front seat with one of his men; she was in the back with another. Neither was as young as the man Peters, and neither offered to help with her arm. “There’s no need to involve the others.”
His cold, clear gray eyes fastened to her. “I make the decisions.”
“If you touch my daughter or my sister, I won’t get you the Minstrel.” She blinked past the pain. “I won’t care what you do to me.”
“But you’ll care what I do to them.” He turned back around, still furious with himself for not having pushed it to the limit with de Geer. He should have killed the Dutchman and taken the girl and never minded the crazy, ugly look in de Geer’s eyes. Maybe he still could get the diamond, maybe not. Either way, he had to go through this; he had other matters to consider, namely covering his ass. Without looking back at the baker, he added, “I’m through taking chances.”
Catharina’s heart beat rapidly, and it was difficult to control her breathing. But she refused to faint. They would be at Juliana’s apartment soon. She had to trust that Hendrik had gotten her to safety. Hendrik…once more she was trusting him with her loved ones. What choice did she have?
What choice did you have then?
She looked out at the lights in Central Park. Juliana and Wilhelmina would not be at the apartment. She had to believe that. Still, she said once more, “You’re wasting time, Sergeant Bloch. We can just go now for the Minstrel.”
“Yeah, we could,” came the hard, mean voice. “But we ain’t going to.”
Wilhelmina prepared herself a snack of bread and butter. Not butter, really. Juliana used some kind of low fat, low salt, no cholesterol margarine the old Dutchwoman thought disgusting. She found a piece of semisweet chocolate in the cupboard and broke it up onto the bread. Much more palatable.
The doorman had called up, saying a Hendrik de Geer was downstairs asking to see Wilhelmina Peperkamp. Of course he would know she was there, of course he wouldn’t bother with a fake name or trying to sneak in. He knew her too well. He would know she would let him in, that she had no choice.
The doorbell rang, and she went into the foyer, opening the door. She made herself not react to the sight of him. Stocky, rugged, the same. His blue eyes held hers a moment. Then she gave him a condescending smile as she noticed he was puffing from exertion. “Getting old, Hendrik?”
He replied in Dutch. “You grate on a man’s nerves, Willie.”
He still called her Willie. He’d started it, almost sixty years ago. “I grate on everyone’s nerves. Come in.”
She turned her back to him and went into the living room, pretending not to care what he did. Johannes was dead and now her sister was missing. And Juliana was going for the Minstrel. Nothing useful would be accomplished by looking backward. She must look ahead.
Hendrik had followed her into the room and was looking at Juliana’s fish. “She’s a strange one, isn’t she? Unpredictable, but tough.” He turned to Wilhelmina, who was standing at the piano, not too close. “The Peperkamp in her, I suppose.”
She put down the last of her bread and chocolate, unable to eat.
“You always did have a sweet tooth,” Hendrik said.
“One of my indulgences.”
“That and your flowers.”
She shrugged, but his words made her think of home, her little apartment, her routines. Her plants would probably be dead when she returned home. She’d neglected to have anyone come in to water them while she was away.
Hendrik was looking at her. “We would have had a nice life together, if the war hadn’t come along. We would have kept each other in line.”
“I can’t see you living with me in a little Delftshaven apartment growing begonias.”
“Maybe we wouldn’t have. Maybe we would have had a yacht and be out sailing the seven seas.”
She scoffed. “Always the dreamer.”
“And you, Willie? Haven’t you ever dreamed?”
“Only of what was, never of what might have been. Now enough of this nonsense.” She gave him a hard look. “What do you want here?”
“To take you away,” he said simply.
Her heart leaped stupidly, an echo of the girl she’d been, but she’d learned long ag
o not to rely on anyone to take care of her. She would take care of herself. She always had.
“I’m going after Catharina,” the Dutchman went on. “I promised Johannes nothing would happen to her—or to you and Juliana. I meant what I said.”
“And Johannes didn’t believe you, of course,” Wilhelmina said with a snort. “We’ve all heard your promises before—and believed them. You’ll see to your own skin before anyone else’s.”
“Perhaps I’ve changed.”
She only laughed. Promises meant nothing to her, only actions. Still, a small, rebellious part of her hoped Hendrik wasn’t lying this time, or even kidding himself. He’d always been so optimistic, so filled with high hopes and grand ideas. He thought he could do anything. Wilhelmina had always been attracted to that side of him. When he was young, it had made him seem so alive, so filled with energy and hope that they all had believed he could accomplish the miracles he bragged about. He hadn’t been obnoxious so much as refreshing.
He hadn’t changed. Wilhelmina had no intention of giving him the opportunity to prove himself; she preferred to be master of her own fate. Yet she supposed there was a glimmer of desire to see him this once seize the opportunity, not wait for it or back away from it, but act out of conviction, not necessity.
“Catharina doesn’t have the Minstrel, does she?” he asked, going to the windows over the couch.
Wilhelmina made no answer.
Hendrik glanced at her, smiling. “It’s all right. You don’t need to tell me. If Johannes had given Catharina the Minstrel, she’d have tossed it into the Hudson River. You and I know how she hates it—but Bloch doesn’t. But when he discovers she doesn’t have the stone, he’ll kill her and come for Juliana and you, too, Wilhelmina. He may even come before he knows for sure which of you has it. That’s his way.”
“Let him come. Juliana isn’t here, and I have no fear.”
“You may get your wish,” Hendrik said grimly. He’d been peering out the window down at the street, and now he nodded to Wilhelmina. She came over and stood next to him. Two men were moving quickly toward the entrance. “That’s Bloch and one of his men.”
Cut and Run Page 27