Cut And Run. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ terrific.”

      He’d have believed she’d been to Yakutsk just as well. “Bring me back a sheep?”

      “Postcards.”

      Where’d she pick up postcards? Not in New Zealand, for damn sure. “You ready to play?”

      She gave him a wide smile, and this time there was relief in it. “Sure.”

      “Then get in there. Later you can tell me about New Zealand.”

      “Be glad to.”

      The glint in her eyes told him she was having a grand time lying to him. But inside, the late afternoon crowd and the baby grand piano were waiting, and she seemed glad to see them both.

      

      The Dutchman smoked a cigar as he stood alone on the park side of Central Park West at Eighty-first Street. Across from him on one corner was the sprawling Museum of Natural History, on the other, the prestigious Beresford. From his vantage point, he could review the two entrances to the Beresford on Eighty-first Street as well as the one on Central Park West. Doormen in green uniforms with gold braid were posted at each entrance. They didn’t worry Hendrik de Geer, if he needed to, he could get past them. For now, he was only observing.

      He saw the woman in the raccoon coat step out of a yellow cab on Eighty-first, a wide, busy street that cut through the park. She said something to one of the doormen and was permitted to go inside. Her hair was pinkish blond. At first Hendrik had assumed it was a trick of the sunlight, but he soon realized he was mistaken and that, indeed, her hair was pink. She had left the Beresford a few hours earlier. He’d waited for her, smoking in the cold. He had to see her once more, to be sure.

      He was sure now. She was Juliana Fall. He had seen her smile and her eyes. She could be no one else.

      All at once the cigar tasted bitter. It was a Havana, his only extravagance. Johannes Peperkamp had given Hendrik his first cigar when he was still just a boy, and he’d choked on the smoke and vomited, embarrassing himself in front of the older friend he’d so badly wanted to impress. Hendrik had long since stopped worrying about trying to impress anyone. All that interested him was survival. His judgment of character and his ability to size up a situation were quick and accurate, and over the years those abilities had helped him stay alive. As he grew older, he found himself becoming increasingly dependent on his instincts. He could rely no longer upon the physical strength or the quickness of youth—or with his whitening blond hair and age-toughened, wrinkling skin, on its appearance. What he had was experience. Instincts.

      His instincts now were telling him to run. He would need only to disappear, as he had many times in the past. It was a particular skill of his. He could do it.

      He threw down the cigar and stamped it out with the heel of his boot. Then he turned around and walked through the stone gate into the park. My instincts, he thought, be damned.

      

      Juliana Fall, aka J.J. Pepper, let the hot water of the shower rinse the last remnants of the pink mousse from her hair, and it felt as if a part of herself were being sucked down the drain. You’re not J.J.! Yes, but wasn’t J.J. real? Hadn’t Len kissed J.J. on the cheek and hadn’t the crowd at the Club Aquarian applauded J.J.?

      J.J. existed. She was an aberration, perhaps, but she did exist. She had even taken over an entire bedroom in Juliana’s sprawling, elegant apartment. It was decorated twenties-style, and the closet and drawers brimmed with vintage clothes and jewelry from between the two World Wars. J.J. fare. Juliana seldom was seen in anything but the latest designs from the collections of top designers.

      Stepping out of the shower, Juliana wrapped herself in a giant soft white bathsheet and towel-dried her hair. In the mirror, she looked like herself again—blond-haired, paleskinned, every bit the world-famous concert pianist. But her mind hummed with the chords of Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, and Eubie Blake. Her autumn European tour—she hadn’t stepped foot in New Zealand—was to have driven J.J. Pepper from her system, exorcised her, because J.J. was not a part of her but something that had possessed her.

      At least that was what she’d told herself. But twenty-four hours back from Paris and still suffering jet lag, she was dressed in a thirties green satin dress and off to the Aquarian. She’d expected, hoped, dreaded Len would tell her to get lost. He hadn’t. He’d told her to play. And, by God, had she!

      She’d had a good time.

      A hell of a good time.

      J.J. Pepper was back, and Juliana Fall didn’t know what to do about her. Tell Len the truth? Tell herself the truth? That she, Juliana Fall, was the pink-haired, free-spirited, jazz-playing J.J. Pepper?

      She went into her own bedroom and put on a simple white Calvin Klein shirt, a straight black wool skirt, and a raspberry wool jacket. J.J.’s raspberry boots would have matched the outfit, but she chose instead her black Italian boots and passed over the raccoon coat for her black cashmere. She was having dinner tonight with Shuji, and if there was one thing Eric Shuji Shizumi would never understand, it was J.J. Pepper. Shuji was a phenomenal pianist, a wild, intense, impatient genius who exhausted audiences with his thrilling performances. He was forty-eight, and in his long career, he’d taken on only one student: Juliana Fall.

      “And if he finds out about J.J.,” she said aloud as she waited for the elevator, “he’ll lop off your head with one of his authentic Japanese short swords.”

      He’d threatened to do the same for transgressions far less serious than playing jazz incognito in a SoHo nightclub.

      Halfway to the lobby, she remembered she was still wearing J.J.’s gaudy rhinestone ring, which she snatched off, dropped into her handbag, and tried to forget.

      

      The Dutchman had walked across Central Park, ignoring the falling temperature and the lightly falling snow. Children on the plastic things they now used for sleds laughed as they passed him; he ignored them, too. He crossed Fifth Avenue and continued along East Seventy-ninth to Madison and up several more blocks, until he came to a little bake shop with white-trimmed windowpanes. Inside, the display of Dutch wooden shoes filled with chocolates and tiny gifts made it look as if St. Nicholas had already been there. Sint Nicolaas. Hendrik hadn’t thought of him in years.

      Catharina’s Bake Shop the sign read in simple delft-blue letters. The Dutchman lingered in front of the window. Small round tables covered with delft-blue cloths were crowded with customers, laughing, happy customers indulging themselves with hot chocolate, silver pots of coffee, china pots of tea, fat cream puffs, perfect tarts and trays of scones, tiny sandwiches, assorted jams and cheeses. Glass cases were stocked with good things to take home, and smiling white-aproned waitresses bustled among the customers.

      For the first time in more than forty years, Hendrik de Geer felt himself swelling with nostalgia. He had to blink away hot tears—him! A couple hurried past him, and when they opened the door, he heard the tinkle of a little bell and smelled cinnamon, nutmeg, anise, butter, and fresh coffee. It was almost more than he could bear. They were the smells of his youth, and he choked with emotion, unable to hold back the memories.

      He didn’t venture inside. He shoved his cold hands into the pockets of his cheap overcoat and stared through the window, watching a couple torture themselves over which cake to choose. The chocolate or the buttercream? If only his choices were that trivial.

      A woman appeared behind the glass case, and for a moment СКАЧАТЬ