Free Cut and Run by Carla Neggers

to begin with, you wouldn’t have to worry about guys like me.”
    Ryder didn’t say a word.
    â€œGot that, Senator? ”
    â€œI should hang up,” Ryder said stiffly.
    â€œYeah, but you won’t. Not until you tell me what you’re doing to get hold of the diamond.”
    â€œSergeant, one day—”
    â€œOne day you’re going to see me in hell, but that’s about all, Lieutenant. Talk.”
    â€œYou leave me no choice.”
    â€œThat’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
    R achel 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.
    â€œWell, 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