“Forget it,” she said. “I’ve never heard of you, and I don’t care if I haven’t.”

“You going to check me out or leave me standing out here all afternoon?”

She shut the door and considered just going back to her work. He would hear the Chopin and get the message. But she went to the phone in the living room. Curiosity, she supposed. She tapped out the number for the Gazette printed on his card. The switchboard routed her call to Alice Feldon, who verified that Matthew Stark worked for her. “If you want to call it work,” she added, half under her breath.

“Would you mind describing him?”

“Why?”

“He’s outside my door, and I’m not sure I want to let him in.”

“I see. I guess I can understand that. Who are you?”

“My name’s Juliana Fall. I-”

“Stark’s pianist. I’ll be damned.”

Stark’s pianist. My God. What was going on here?

“He’s about five-eleven, dark, scarred face, wears a black leather jacket and Gokey boots, and-”

“That’s him. Thank you.”

“Wait-put him on, will you?”

“I’ll have him call you,” she said, and hung up.

She unlatched the chain-lock and let Stark open the door himself. “You’ve been confirmed.”

“Sounds ominous.”

He walked into the living room. Juliana followed. It was a huge room that overlooked Central Park, now a Currier and Ives Christmas card under the light covering of snow. She saw him eyeing the place, as if he didn’t expect the dust on the windowsills, the marble fireplace, the piano, the hodgepodge of expensive furniture, the books, magazines, photographs, clippings, letters, awards and junk stacked everywhere. For the first time since her return from Paris, she noticed it herself. And the two big Persian carpets needed vacuuming.

“Goldfish, huh?” he said, walking over to the tank and taking a look. Then he glanced back at her. “Nice place you have here. No cleaning lady?”

“I’ve been away for a while and haven’t taken the time to cleanup and-well, I do have someone come in to clean, but she hasn’t been in yet. She doesn’t come on a regular basis. It’s hard to concentrate with the vacuum running and someone flitting around with a dustcloth. To be honest, a little dust doesn’t bother me.”

“I’ll bet.”

She felt his eyes on her and was aware her ponytail was coming loose and she probably looked a little vague. She usually did this time of the day, after hours of practice. It took a while for her to pull herself out of her heightened state of concentration.

“What do you do when you throw parties?” he went on. “Just shove all the stuff under the couch and turn the lights down low so nobody’ll notice the dust?”

She ignored his dry tone. “I don’t throw parties.”

“You just attend them.”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“La-di-da.”

Her elastic band was at the end of her ponytail. She pulled it out, letting her hair flop down, and noticed his eyes widen slightly. She wouldn’t have noticed at all if she hadn’t been looking. So, she thought, he’s paying attention. A reporter’s eye for detail, she supposed. Nothing more than that.

“Mr. Stark,” she said coolly, “did you want to ask me something or did you just want to insult me?”

He looked at her, a touch of the warm, dark brown coming into his black-seeming eyes. “I’m sorry.” There was an abruptness to his words, and she suspected they were ones he didn’t say very often. “It’s obvious from the looks of this place, and of you, that you work hard at what you do. I didn’t expect that.”

“You thought I just woke up one morning and knew how to play the piano?”

He grinned. “Something like that.”

“Well, I didn’t.” She decided to leave it at that. “What do you want to ask me?”

“I’m half working on a story,” he said, walking over to the dusty Steinway. A dozen or so nubby pencils were scattered on the floor under the piano and her chair. He picked one up. It was two inches long. “Some life still in it, I guess.”

“I do all my markings in pencil. I don’t take time to re-sharpen my pencils when I’m working, so I start with about a dozen and throw them on the floor when they get dull. I hate dull pencils.”

“Nothing worse.”

Despite his wry tone, he was as fascinated as he was amused, Juliana could tell. “When I run out, I gather them up and sharpen all of them at once. It saves time. Look, I can’t dress up what I do or how I do it. If my methods, this place, shatter your image of what a concert pianist ought to be like, then so be it. How can you be half working on something?”

“In the immortal words of Alice Feldon, by being a lazy shit.” He started to put the stubby pencil on the piano rack but stopped himself and dropped it back on the floor. “Wouldn’t want to get mixed up. Aren’t the Dutch supposed to be tidy?”

Juliana frowned at him. “How do you know I’m Dutch?”

“Research,” he said.

“What kind of research? I thought you weren’t a music reporter. If this is a formal interview-”

“It isn’t. Relax, okay?” He looked at her, his eyes dropping to Beethoven glowering on her front. She felt like an idiot. “Mind if we go sit down?”

She sighed. “As you wish.”

He sat on the couch, amidst several musty books on Chopin and Mozart, while she lifted a huge stack of newspapers and magazines and letters off a wingback chair. “Four months of mail-and I forgot to stop the paper before I left.” Only, she thought, because she’d just started having it delivered. She’d wondered if reading the morning paper would help her feel more in touch with the world. Or maybe it was just one more thing to do in the morning before practicing. “I haven’t gone through it yet.”

“So I see. Need a hand?”

“No.”

She said it too quickly. She knew it, and she could see, so did he. She didn’t want him getting too close. He was so different from the men she knew. Sitting down, she gave him a quick, sweeping look, taking in the scarred face, the strong dark hands, the boots that looked as if they’d been worn a long time and would be worn even longer. Shuji, she thought, wouldn’t like him.

“Go ahead and ask your questions,” she said.

Stark crossed a foot over his knee and held it by the ankle. He looked totally at ease, and suddenly Juliana wondered what would get this man worked up. What would make him angry? What would make him laugh?

“I was at Lincoln Center Saturday night to see a Dutchman, Hendrik de Geer,” Stark said. “Do you know him?”

Juliana laughed incredulously. “Is there any particular reason I should?” she asked, hearing her own sarcasm.

Stark didn’t react. “Sam Ryder didn’t mention him?”

“No, should he have?”

“I don’t know, I’m fishing. De Geer and Ryder were supposed to have gotten together at the concert.”

“Is your half-story about Senator Ryder?”

“Maybe.”

She looked at him thoughtfully, her lips pulled in slightly in concentration. “You don’t like him, do you?”

“I don’t like many people. You’ve never heard the name Hendrik de Geer?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“I guess that might not be saying much. You’d never heard of Sam Ryder, either.”

Juliana sat up very straight, stiff and insulted. “Are you always this hostile to people you interview, Mr. Stark?”

“Call me Matthew, all right?” He gave something that passed for a smile. “How come you didn’t go to Vermont?”

“I’ve been on tour since September, and I have some pieces I want to add to my repertoire. Vermont’s not going anywhere.”

“I guess not. You put in long hours?”

“Right now I am, eight a day minimum. To get back in shape.”

“Then you’re following Shuji’s advice.”

“He’s often right about this sort of thing.”

“That piss you off?”

She couldn’t resist a grin and madly wondered what this intense, remote man would think of J.J. Pepper. “Sometimes. But tell me more about this Hendrik de Geer. Is it just because he’s Dutch that you thought I might have known him?”