of his stalling.
Finally, he said cautiously, “She thinks I’m going to help her. I don’t know what she’ll do when she finds out I have no intention of doing so. If I turn in de Geer—well, it’s unthinkable. At the moment all she can do is make accusations. She has no proof of a direct connection between me and de Geer. However, if she goes to the press with this, and they decide to investigate, anything could happen. They could even end up on your doorstep, Sergeant. Ryder hesitated. “I’m not sure it’s wise to say where you are—for your sake.”
“Oh, hell, Sammy, don’t deny me my fun. Wouldn’t it be a sight?” Bloch snorted. “A bunch of reporters’ coffins all lined up, ready to go in the ground, for messing with old Phil Bloch. Look, I want you to let me worry about Rachel Stein.”
“She’s not your problem, Sergeant. Don’t get involved. Let me handle things on this end.”
“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
