He had to listen. Play the sergeant’s game. Buy time.

“Ya’ll used to call him Weasel,” Bloch said. “That help?”

Matthew set the eraser end of the pencil down on the pad; his hands were rock steady. “I haven’t seen the Weaze in ages. He checks in every so often and lets me know he’s alive.”

“He check in last week? He drop in, Stark?”

Bloch’s tone was smug, knowing. If he’d been within reach, Stark would have strangled him. But that, too, was Phillip Bloch: he always managed to stay just out of reach.

“Why should I tell you, Bloch?”

“I know about the calls, sir.” The sarcasm wasn’t as subtle now. “You can quit protecting him; the sonofabitch tipped you off. Now I gotta deal with you, and no use pretending I don’t, that right?”

Matthew maintained rigid control. “Ninety-nine percent of the time Weaze talks bullshit. I know that.”

“Forget it, Stark. I know, you hear me?” There was that curt, terrible laugh again. “I fucking know. Whatever Raymond told you, you ain’t treating it like bullshit. I suggest you start doing so, right now.”

“Let me talk to Weasel,” Matthew said stonily.

“I don’t give warnings twice. Remember that.”

Bloch hung up.

Stark slammed down the receiver, but there was no satisfaction in that, so, lunging to his feet, he picked up the whole damn phone and hurled it to the floor. Fellow reporters glanced up, saw it was Matthew Stark, and resumed working, looking nervous.

Feldie simply said, “Jesus Christ.”

Without a word, Matthew picked the phone up off the floor and set it back on the desk. It wasn’t broken. Given the often volatile nature of reporters, newsrooms were generally equipped with sturdy telephones.

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” Feldie asked. “No.”

“I’m your editor-”

“I know what you are, Feldie, and I respect that.” He looked at her, trying to get some warmth back into him. “But the answer’s still no.”

She sighed, hesitating as she pushed her glasses up on top of her head, but finally she nodded. “Okay-for now. You play this the way you have to. I’ll cut you some slack.”

“Thanks. Look, I need a favor.”

“Jesus, I don’t believe you. What?”

“A ticket to Antwerp.”

“What do you think this is, the fucking Post?”

“I’ll be at Kennedy Airport tonight. I’m heading for New York right now.” He gave her a strained smile as he slung his jacket over one shoulder. “Want me to say thanks again?”

“Twice in one morning? I don’t think I could stand it. Get out of here, Stark. Bring me back a story.”

Hendrik de Geer vomited once more into the sharp, cold wind. He made no sound as his guts twisted in agony. There was nothing left anymore to come up. He had filled the harbor with his jenever and his bile. Dutch gin, now just another of his enemies. When he was younger, he could stay drunk for days when he chose to, and there was never any vomiting or pain. Oblivion had come more easily then. Once he’d thought it was because he had less to forget, but now he knew that to be untrue. Another lie he’d told himself. It was because he’d had more years ahead of him, and he’d fancied that he’d have plenty of time to make up for the bad he’d done. When he’d envisioned himself as an old man, he assumed he would look back at his youth and see himself as well-intentioned but, at times, in over his head. Outmatched. But the good he’d done would outweigh the bad. He’d been convinced of that.

No longer. Now he had few years ahead, many behind. There was little time left to make up for the bad. He had no delusions. They were gone, with the laughter of his friends, with their trust. Perhaps he’d meant well then, as now. Perhaps not. What difference did it make? Only consequences mattered.

There was no more gin.

He collapsed on the deck and slept, in the wind.

It was late afternoon before Matthew caught up with Juliana Fall. He’d taken the shuttle into LaGuardia, then hustled a cab straight to the Upper West Side. The doorman at the Beresford said she wasn’t in. Had he seen a woman in a raccoon coat and red vinyl boots leave? Yes, he had, but that wasn’t Juliana Fall.

No, it wasn’t. It was J.J. Pepper.

She was sitting at the baby grand in the Club Aquarian, playing Mose Allison, her hair tinted pink, her emerald velvet dress something out of an old Greta Garbo movie. The long bell sleeves were trimmed in mink. She had her shoes on, and her red lips were pursed in concentration.

Stark walked past Len Wetherall at the bar and right up onto the stage. Juliana didn’t look up. She seemed unaware of his approach, of anything but what she was doing. The dim light caught the gleam of perspiration on her forehead and upper lip, and he could see the hair matted at the nape of her neck, where it was still more blond than pink. The effect was outrageously sexy. But Matthew told himself he couldn’t care.

She finished her tune and took a breath, ready to begin the next, but Stark tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped and nearly fell off the bench. He felt himself going for her, but she caught her balance before he could help and looked around, dazed.

As she focused on him, the clouds disappeared from her dark eyes. She brushed away the glistening drops of sweat on her upper lip and didn’t smile. “Stark-what do you want?”

“If I’m going to get tossed,” he said in a grinding, tight voice, still hearing Weasel’s panicked cry, “I want to make it worthwhile.”

Her hand dropped to the middle of her gaudy rhinestone necklace, but she looked more excited than nervous. Not so glazed, not at all bored. She gave him a half smile that made his heart race. “What’re you going to do,” she said in that liquid voice, “torture me for information?”

Jesus, he thought. “Don’t tempt me.”

She lifted her round shoulders in a little shrug and picked up a glass of water off the piano, took a sip, deliberate and unintimidated, and set the glass back down. Pink-haired, purple-haired or pale blond, Matthew thought, the woman was breathtaking-and irritating as hell. He had to rock her.

He stared down at her, a hard, ugly stare that had no discernible effect on her. She just blinked at him.

“The name Peperkamp keeps turning up,” he told her. “Catharina Peperkamp Fall, J.J. Pepper-got that from Peperkamp, didn’t you? Now I’m on my way to Antwerp to check out another goddamn Peperkamp. Johannes Peperkamp. I’ll wager anything you want that he’s related to you. And you know what else? He’s a diamond cutter. Imagine. Think he knows something about the world’s largest uncut diamond?”

He watched her swallow and turn white under the apple-blossom cheeks. The regal calm had vanished, but he had to admire her control. She didn’t try to get away, and she didn’t yell for Len Wetherall. She said, “Johannes Peperkamp is my uncle.”

“Lo and behold, the lady does know something.”

“He’s an old man.” One pale, slender hand reached back and gripped the keyboard, as if anchoring her in a world she knew and wanted to believe in. “Leave him alone.”

“I’m not going to leave anybody alone, including you, sweet cheeks. An old buddy just may get killed because you think this is a goddamn game, like painting your hair pink and wearing funny clothes. Well, darling, it’s not a game.”

Juliana was shaking all over now, white-faced, angry, humiliated. Stark fought the impulse to lift her into his arms. He wanted to kiss her, to make the shaking stop. But he didn’t relent. He wasn’t going to let Weasel go down because some bored piano player wouldn’t talk; she was, however, hanging in there better than most people did when he got going.

“Tell me more about your uncle,” he said.

“No.”

Straight up and to the point. He liked that.

“You’re crazy,” she said.