“You don’t sound too good, Matt. Everything all right?”

“Just listen. A man named Otis Raymond was found dead this morning on a beach on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. They say he committed suicide.” Bullshit, Stark thought. Bloch had killed him, and Bloch had put him there because he knew it’d hit the wires and Stark would find out and come after him. Finally. “He was a Vietnam vet. There won’t be an investigation. I want you to arrange for his body to be brought back to his family in Valdosta, Georgia. Wire them the money for funeral expenses. Got that?”

“Raymond, the Gulf, Valdosta.”

“You know my iron box? Inside are some medals.” You keep ’em for me, Matt, okay, ’case one day I feel like wearing them again, like maybe I deserve ’em. “Get them to Valdosta, too. They go to his parents.”

“Matthew, Jesus-”

“Do it, Dave.”

“If it’s what you want, but, Matt, are you sure his family can handle it?”

Matthew had met the Raymonds once, when he’d delivered Otis to them half-dead from drugs and alcohol and nightmares. They were hard people, weather-beaten and uneducated, and to this day they wouldn’t be able to find Montana on a map, much less Vietnam. But they’d loved their son. They hadn’t known what to do with him when he was a restless kid, and they hadn’t known what to do with him when Stark had dumped him on their front steps. But their impotence and his weaknesses didn’t matter anymore. Otis was dead.

“Yeah,” Matthew said, “they’ll handle it.”

Twenty-Three

J uliana stopped at a pay phone at Washington National Airport and got the Palm Beach number of Abraham Stein from Florida information. She had called her apartment from Albany, getting her message machine, and she’d known then that Bloch had Aunt Willie, too. Or Aunt Willie was after him. She’d considered calling her father but had rejected the idea, simply because she couldn’t bear to hear the terror in his voice, to lie to him and tell him she was fine and everything would be all right. Instead she’d flown straight to Washington and taken a cab to Capitol Hill, hoping, praying Ryder would be in his office, that he could be compelled to help her. The impulse was there-still-to try the Gazette and his house for Matthew. She ignored it. Even if she found him, he would only ditch her again.

She dialed the Palm Beach number. When Abraham Stein answered, she remembered his sister had just died, and she felt like an intruder. But she was running out of options.

“Hello, Mr. Stein, this is Juliana Fall,” she said, not knowing where else to begin. “I’m Catharina Peperkamp’s daughter, and I need your help. I don’t have time to explain everything, but-”

Abraham Stein didn’t hesitate. “Just tell me what you need.”

“I need you to meet me at the Tallahassee airport in four hours.”

“I’ll be there.”

“And-and I’ll need the quickest transportation you can arrange to Senator Ryder’s fishing camp on the Dead Lakes. If you could rent a car, that would be fine, I’m sure.”

“Not to worry, Juliana.”

“I can explain then.”

“You can tell me whatever you want to tell me. But you don’t need to explain.”

When she’d hung up, she didn’t move for a moment, and suddenly she swore and snatched up the phone again, dropping a quarter into the slot. She got the number for the Washington Gazette from information. Her call was routed to Alice Feldon. She quickly identified herself, asking for Matthew.

“He’s not here,” the editor said. “You mind telling me what the hell’s going on?”

“Has he been in?”

“Yes. He left a few minutes ago. His buddy Otis Raymond is dead.”

Juliana doubled over, falling against the wall. If the Weaze ends up on a board because you wouldn’t talk, count on seeing me again. “Did Matthew say where he was going?”

“No, but if you have any idea, I’d like to know.”

“Thank you,” Juliana said hollowly.

“Wait a second-”

She didn’t. Her flight for Tallahassee had been announced.

Matthew intercepted Sam Ryder as the young, good-looking senator left his townhouse, where he’d stopped briefly on his way from his office to his club. He planned to spend the rest of the afternoon playing tennis, to lose himself in the sweat of physical exercise and competition. Whatever happened to Juliana Fall-whatever she chose to do-wasn’t his responsibility. He could have earned himself points by calling Bloch and telling him she was on her way, but he’d resisted. He was proud of himself for that act of will.

But now his heart thumped wildly in his chest as he looked at Stark, leaning insolently against the wrought-iron rail on the bottom step in front of the senator’s townhouse. “Thought you’d end up slithering back here,” Stark said.

Only once before had Ryder seen Matthew Stark’s eyes so black and distant. “I’m not in the mood for your insults, Matthew. If you’ll excuse me-”

“No excusing you, Sam. Not anymore.”

Ryder straightened up, perspiring heavily. “What do you want?”

“You’re going to take me to Bloch and help me stop him.”

“I can’t possibly-”

“You can and you will, buddy. You know as well as I do the sonofabitch is going to pull up, cut his losses, and disappear. He’ll kill Catharina Fall and Wilhelmina Peperkamp and Juliana Fall if he can catch her, and he’ll dump their bodies on some beach the way he dumped Weasel’s.”

Horrified, Ryder grabbed the rail. “Weasel? My God, Matthew, are you serious? Otis is…” He couldn’t say it.

“Otis is dead. This time he did manage to die trying to save your sorry ass.”

“I never asked him-”

“That doesn’t make you less responsible. Bloch killed him, and you’re part of it.”

“How-”

“Blew his goddamn brains out. I’m going to find out why, Senator, and I’m going to find out exactly how you’re tied into it, and I’m going to see to it you take the fall this time.”

“Stark, for God’s sake, calm down. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, I know Weasel was a friend of yours. I tried to help him out, remember, when he got out of the army, but he went his own way. I’m sorry he’d dead.”

“Sorry doesn’t cover it, Golden Boy. You fucked up twenty years ago, and I let it go. I won’t this time.”

Ryder was panting, trying to catch his breath. “I didn’t want anything to happen to Otis!”

Stark’s gaze was unrelenting. “You didn’t want anything to happen to your father, either, but it did.” He pulled himself off the rail and stood up straight, feeling hollow and old and angry. “Let’s go. You’ve got your own private plane. We’ll take it.”

“No, I won’t do it.”

“I’m carrying a Colt and a SIG-Sauer. Commercial airlines are pretty touchy about folks taking weapons aboard their planes. I need a ride, Sam-and even if I didn’t, I’m not letting you off this time.”

Ryder gulped for air. “You can’t coerce me, Matthew.”

“I can talk, buddy. I can talk about Weasel, Rachel Stein, Hendrik de Geer, Phillip Bloch-and I can talk about Vietnam. My editor’s on my ass for a story. I’ll give her one.”

Ryder gripped the rail; he was shaking and sweating and hating himself for his terror, but hating Matthew Stark more, blaming him. “Matthew, be reasonable.”

“I am being reasonable. If I weren’t, I’d have beaten you to a pulp by now. Coming?”

His legs feeling weak beneath him, Ryder stumbled down the steps, and Matthew moved smoothly in beside him, cool, remote, steady. Ryder tried to straighten up, tried to be as strong. But terror and indecision ate away at his muscles, and he despised Matthew for his control, his capableness-for his insistence on blaming Ryder for things that weren’t his fault. Didn’t he understand? Damn him, didn’t he understand?

“Don’t blame me for this, Matthew. It’s Bloch…I couldn’t refuse him. He’d already set up at my fishing camp when he contacted me. There wasn’t anything I could do. He demanded money, thousands and thousands of dollars, and I did what I could, but then he wanted more. Rachel Stein came to me in the midst of all this, she’d seen me with the Dutchman, and I found out about the Minstrel, thought there’d be a possibility I could get it for Bloch and get him out of my camp and stop him from bothering me. But I tell you, Matthew-believe me!-I didn’t want anything bad to come of this.”