Cut And Run

“Sure, sure. I’ll just keep working my ass off down here and hoping you don’t fuck up. Biggest uncut diamond in the world, you say? Shit-fire, sure, I’ll let you handle it.” Bloch dropped the mock-amiable tone as he sat forward. “Listen, you goddamn asshole, don’t you tell me what the fuck to do. You’re the one who got his stupid butt in a sling, not me. If you weren’t such a stupid fuckup to begin with, you wouldn’t have to worry about guys like me.”

Ryder didn’t say a word.

“Got that, Senator?”

“I should hang up,” Ryder said stiffly.

“Yeah, but you won’t. Not until you tell me what you’re doing to get hold of the diamond.”

“Sergeant, one day—”

“One day you’re going to see me in hell, but that’s about all, Lieutenant. Talk.”

“You leave me no choice.”

“That’s the whole idea, Sammy.”

When Ryder finished, Bloch hung up and leaned back, thinking. He had a few men he could trust. They might not be ready to die for him yet, but they’d do a job or two. He called them in.

The cockroach had made it to the foot of his chair. Bloch sighed at the inevitability of it all. You wait, you’re patient, you act when the situation demands, and everything just works out.

He bent down, picked up the cockroach, and squeezed.

Five

Rachel Stein arrived at Lincoln Center early and waited in the lobby, staring outside at the dusting of snow on the plaza and the glittering holiday lights. She hadn’t seen snow in years. It brought back the past, and she remembered prowling the streets of Amsterdam with her brothers and sisters and cousins, all gone now, all dead. She’d felt so safe there, before the war. Jewish refugees from Germany and the east had begun to flood in, but they’d all told themselves persecution couldn’t happen here, not in Amsterdam. Sometimes if she let her mind drift, she could hear the laughter of all those she’d loved and see their smiles, so bright, so innocent, and the other sounds and images wouldn’t invade, the cries, the prayers, the skeletons. Abraham said he’d blocked out everything. He never cast his mind back prior to the moment he’d planted his two worn shoes on American soil, ready to work hard, making a success of himself. He couldn’t even speak Dutch anymore; he’d forgotten it completely. He said he wanted other people to remember, but not himself.

Rachel might have envied him, if she believed him.

As she stared outside, she watched a fat snowflake float slowly to the ground, as if coming from nowhere, and she imagined herself dead, her body lying in a field, its fluids seeping into the soil, mingling with the water there and then condensing into the air, into clouds, becoming snowflakes. She imagined her friends, her family, all making up parts of a snowflake, together once more. A pleasant warmth spread through her.

All these thoughts of dying! Well, why not? She wasn’t afraid. Not since she was eighteen had she been afraid of death. You live, you die. Everyone did.

“Well, good evening, Miss Stein.”

She turned at the sound of Senator Ryder’s voice and had to smile at his infectious charm. “Don’t you look dashing tonight, Senator,” she said in her soft, hoarse voice. “So handsome!”

He laughed. “Thank you. And you look lovely, as always.”

He was lying, of course. Her simple black dress made her look thinner, even older. Not that she cared. It was a good dress. Forty years ago a slice of bread had seemed such a luxury. Now she had so much: a big house, a housekeeper, a gardener, a grand wardrobe. When she died, her nephews would get rid of the help and sell everything else and invest the profits. They didn’t need anything she had. I must change my will, she thought suddenly. Although she wasn’t a religious woman, she decided she would contact a rabbi when she returned to Palm Beach and ask him to suggest appropriate charities. Her nephews might be annoyed with her, but the “sacrifice” would be good for them, perhaps encourage them to be more generous in life than she’d been, thinking she never had time for it.

Politely taking her arm, Senator Ryder escorted her down the wide aisle to the orchestra seats. She noticed the looks they received from other well-to-do concert-goers who, of course, recognized the handsome senator. She could just imagine what they were thinking. He was single, divorced from a pretty, shy woman who, it was said, couldn’t tolerate the scrutiny of a public life, although what other kind of life she’d expected to have with a member of the Ryder family, Rachel didn’t know. She’d left him shortly after his election to the Senate. No children had been involved. Now Ryder escorted a variety of women, always elegant and always beautiful, to different functions, but Rachel supposed he was never seen with someone like herself, tiny and wrinkled and unwilling to smile just for the sake of smiling.

“I’m glad you came,” the senator said as they took their aisle seats.

“I am, too.”

It was warm in the hall, and Rachel felt tired. Since tea with Catharina, she’d had her doubts about tonight. Perhaps it had been wrong to involve her old friend, wrong to put her in the position of having to avoid her own daughter’s questions. If she’d had a child, Rachel wondered, would she feel the same need to protect her from the past? She felt her spine stiffening. I would kill Hendrik de Geer before I let him touch a child of mine! Or of a friend? Although Juliana Fall wasn’t her daughter, Rachel felt a keen responsibility toward her, and she’d promised Catharina. You’re not like Hendrik, she told herself. If you make a promise, you must do everything in your power to keep it.

Ryder gave her one of his heart-melting smiles. “I assume Mrs. Fall is here?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful. I look forward to meeting her.”

The lights dimmed, and Rachel could feel the senator’s strong shoulder brush up against her. Such an honest face, such a handsome man. She didn’t trust him.

Matthew slouched down in the soft seat, deciding he looked absorbed in the concert rather than bored, but not caring either way. Leave it to Feldie to get him a ticket down in the front with the tuxedos and designer gowns. He hadn’t worn a tuxedo in his life and didn’t intend to start now, but, still, Feldie would have no grounds to gripe. His outfit—deep berry wool jacket, dark gray wool polo shirt, and dark gray wool pants—had cost him more than the Gazette paid him in a week. She wouldn’t, however, be happy about his shoes. He had on his Gokeys.

Sam Ryder was a half-dozen rows down to Stark’s right, but Matthew had taken no pleasure in having instantly spotted the senator among the sold-out crowd. He wasn’t with a Dutchman. He was with a small old woman Matthew didn’t recognize. He and Sam Ryder lived in the same town and once upon a time, at least for a while, had operated in the same social circles. But the junior senator from Florida had always preferred to think that Matthew Stark no longer existed. It was just as well.

Says he’s going after a diamond, goddamn biggest uncut diamond in the fucking world. You believe it?

Weasel talk. Still, this was U.S. Senator Samuel Ryder with whom they were dealing, and, yeah, Stark thought, I believe it.

“Ah, Weaze, my friend,” he thought as the Schubert symphony wore on, “what have you gotten me into this time?”

Juliana shoved her black leather satchel into an out-of-the-way corner of her dressing room and tried to put its contents out of her mind. A 1936 black crepe dress, rose-colored stockings and matching T-strap shoes, a multicolored sequined turban, a Portuguese shawl that used to hang over Grandmother Fall’s piano in her proper Philadelphia home, and a bag of bright makeup. All of it was pure J.J. Pepper. Juliana knew she was taking a chance, but there had been a cancellation and Len had offered her the Club Aquarian stage at eleven. She’d never played for the late-night crowd. How could she refuse? “Oh, Len, I can’t, I’m doing Lincoln Center tonight.” God. She’d told him she’d be thrilled.

But it meant leaving directly from Lincoln Center and making a risky, mad dash down to SoHo.

She had to be crazy.

She’d planned carefully. She’d change into the black dress backstage after the concert and put on her black boots and black cashmere coat. In the cab, she’d pull the turban on over her blond hair, so she wouldn’t have to tint it pink or purple or whatever, and drape Grandmother Fall’s shawl over her coat, to make it look more J.J. Len would recognize cashmere when he saw it, but she’d have to take her chances. Finally, she’d slip into J.J.’s rose-colored shoes and gob on some makeup. She’d already have the stockings on; nobody would see those under the boots.

It was all, she thought, a matter of timing and guts.

But first she had a Beethoven concerto to perform. She breathed deeply, shut her eyes, and focused her energy, and for once the prospect of a memory lapse held no terror for her whatsoever. Forgetting a passage in front of a sold-out Lincoln Center audience, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and one of the world’s great conductors, she thought, was the least of her troubles.

“You’ve lit your candle at both ends,” she said to herself, “and if you don’t watch it, your ass is going to get burned.”

Holding his emotions rigidly in check, Ryder survived the first half of the concert. He had cultivated a taste for classical music, but he’d been relieved to see he wouldn’t have to sit through any difficult modern compositions. Even so, he found himself twitching with impatience. He wanted tonight over and done with—another tactical objective achieved.

During the intermission, he resisted looking around for de Geer, uncertain the Dutchman would actually be inside the concert hall. He smiled only briefly at Rachel Stein, trying to discourage conversation. He realized they had nothing more to say until they met with Catharina Fall, a meeting he was confident wouldn’t last long. He was playing a dangerous game, manipulating Rachel Stein, Phil Bloch, Hendrik de Geer. But what choice did he have? Everything would work out.

“Have you seen Juliana Fall perform?” the old woman at his side asked.

Catharina Fall’s daughter. Her appearance tonight had provided him with a convenient way of getting everyone together with the least possible risk. The women wouldn’t have to see de Geer; the Dutchman could see them, from the lobby, from inside the concert hall, or from outside. It made no difference to Ryder. He was quite confident de Geer wouldn’t want to risk a face-to-face confrontation with either woman. It was all so easy. Providential.

“No,” he replied. “I haven’t had the opportunity, although I understand she’s very good.”

“Phenomenal, I’ve been told. So we must pay attention.”

How could he listen to a piano concerto when all he wanted to do was to move on to the next objective? But he knew he had to wait until the end of the concert. He clenched his teeth and said nothing as the pianist strode out onto the stage.

Then he couldn’t have spoken if he’d wanted to.

Juliana Fall. My God, he thought, how have I missed her?