She hadn’t thought then to ask him how he’d known. It was all a joke to her-an adventure. How many concert pianists had crazy uncles passing them uncut diamonds backstage? But now she wondered if she should get in touch with her uncle and tell him about Matthew Stark, ask him about Rachel Stein, Hendrik de Geer. Uncle Johannes might talk where her mother clearly wouldn’t.

“Len, does the name Matthew Stark mean anything to you?”

“LZ,” Len said, without hesitation.

She looked up at him, blank.

“Hell, babe, where you been?” Len laughed. “You telling me you’ve never heard of LZ? Don’t you ever go to the movies?”

“Rarely,” she said. It was the truth. “LZ’s a movie?”

“Yeah, and a book-author’s Matt Stark. Book came out six or seven years ago, the movie a year or two later. It got best picture and best director, as I recall. The book was a bestseller.”

“What’s it about?”

“Jesus, I don’t believe you. It’s about Vietnam chopper pilots. LZ stands for landing zone.” He looked at her. “You know, where helicopters land.”

She hadn’t known. “I see.”

Unfortunately, now she did see. She’d made a fool of herself. Stark must think she was a hopeless dingbat. How could she explain? When his book had been a best-seller and his movie a hit, she hadn’t had time to read books or go to movies. She had played piano. She had studied music history, music theory, music composition. Her friends were musicians and her enemies were musicians. Her world was music, and it consumed her. Lately, that had begun to change. She had the New York Times delivered, even if she didn’t always read it, and she was trying harder to keep track of what was going on in the world. But she had some catching up to do. She still had to find out who the Matthew Starks were. If he’d written LZ recently, she might have recognized his name. But seven years ago? Not a chance.

“That the guy I just tossed?” Len asked. “Matt Stark?” He laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned, don’t you pick ’em. Go on and get your butt back to the piano, babe. Play.”

She nodded, thanking him, and did.

Eight

U nited States Senator Samuel Ryder, Jr., was backpedaling as fast as he could.

Plausible deniability. That was what was required now.

He stared into the flames of the fire he’d built in the cozy study of his Georgetown townhouse and tried to think of ways he could distance himself from Phillip Bloch and Hendrik de Geer.

“Jesus,” one of his aides had said, handing him a copy of the Monday morning paper, “can you believe you luck? Talk about your providential accidents. You get to look like a nice guy on the front page of the Times and get her off your back at the same time. This lady was a no-win situation.”

Yes, indeed. What luck.

Which one had done it, he wondered. Bloch? De Geer? Each had so much to lose. Each was capable of giving a tiny old woman a little shove. Or having someone else do it.

Each had learned of her threat from him.

It’s not your fault! Rachel Stein had known the risks before she came to him.

Her death might have been accidental. Indeed, as his aide had said, providential.

He wished he’d hear from de Geer. There’d been nothing since their meeting outside Lincoln Center, while Rachel Stein was dying-or before? After, perhaps? Could he kill a woman and then smoke a cigar? The man was a lowlife. He could do anything. But if he came up with the Minstrel, then-at last-Sam Ryder could put an end to his relationship with Phillip Bloch, be free of him once and for all.

And if not?

Plausible deniability. That was what would be needed. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know. I didn’t do anything! Yes, those were the words he needed to be able to say, with credibility. Just in case.

His telephone rang. He tried to ignore it, but the damn ringing persisted. He was alone in the house, mercifully so. Cursing, he snatched up the receiver. “Yes?”

“Lieutenant.”

Bloch. “What is it? I asked you not to call here-”

“Cut the bullshit, Sam. How’re you coming with the diamond?”

Ryder stiffened, remembering the Dutchman’s warning reiterated in the car on Saturday. De Geer would cooperate, he said, on one condition: Ryder was not to mention the Minstrel, Rachel Stein, or the Peperkamps to Bloch. “If you do,” he’d said, “I will kill you.”

“Sergeant,” Ryder said carefully, “I’ve made careful plans, and I cannot have you interfering. You could ruin everything. Please, just let me handle things on my end. Look-look, I’m taking a chance, all right? Guessing. This stone might not even exist, and if I can’t come up with it, I don’t want you to blame me. I’ve told you as much as I have out of courtesy.” And if de Geer finds out… He refused to consider the possibilities. He was a U.S. senator. De Geer couldn’t touch him.

“Bullshit, Lieutenant,” Bloch said, laughing at him. “You told me because you knew if you didn’t I’d come up there and wring your fucking neck. But did I say I wanted to interfere? Just want to ask you a couple of questions, that’s all. Tell me some more about Stein’s connection to de Geer.”

“What more is there to tell? He betrayed her family and the people who were hiding her.”

“Those’re the ones I’m interested in. You say Stein told you de Geer pretended to be helping them while they were in hiding, bribing the Germans with diamonds. Where’d he get the diamonds?”

“From a stash the Peperkamps had, I believe. They were careful to keep diamonds that would be used for war purposes out of Nazi hands and offered them only to Germans who wanted them for their personal use, and-” A cold shiver ran up his spine and he stopped, hearing the dead silence on the other end of the receiver.

“What’s that name again, Sammy? Peperkamp?”

Damn. Oh, dammit to hell, Ryder thought. Well, it wasn’t his fault. Bloch had manipulated him into talking, into dropping the name Peperkamp. In any case, there was nothing the sergeant could do with this knowledge. So what if he knew their name?

“Don’t tell de Geer I told you,” he said.

“Sure, Sammy. No problem. You think they’ve got this diamond?”

Ryder said nothing, wishing only that he could be warm and safe and away, far away, from the fear that had gripped him since Phillip Bloch had called three months ago and said he was setting up a temporary camp at Ryder’s isolated fishing camp in northwest Florida. There had been nothing Ryder could do about it then or now. Bloch would do as he pleased. The only way to get rid of him-my only chance!-was through the Minstrel. It would provide Bloch the means to get a permanent camp, out of Ryder’s life. But first he had to get the Minstrel, and to do that, he had to deal with Hendrik de Geer.

“It’s about all that makes sense,” Bloch said.

Of course it was. The Minstrel’s Rough had to be in Peperkamp hands-if it existed. Rachel Stein decidedly did not believe it did. “It’s said Hendrik used the Minstrel as collateral to help us,” she’d told him in her desperate attempt to get the senator’s backing to go after the Dutchman. “But that’s nonsense. Where would he get his hands on such a stone? The Minstrel’s a myth. Hendrik de Geer has always been out for himself, and he’d promise anyone anything to save himself.”

In his own desperation, Ryder had seized on the Minstrel and decided it had to exist. It had to. And that the Dutchman could get it for him-could be made to get it for him. It was a gamble-an insane gamble, perhaps. But it had to work.

If only he knew where de Geer was now.

“I will come with the stone,” the Dutchman had said. “Wait. Do nothing and talk to no one. Otherwise you will answer to me.”

The cold shiver had developed into a cold sweat, and Ryder leaned in toward the fire. Who frightened him more? Block? De Geer? Lowlifes! His only chance was to play them off against each other.