The Vintage Caper Page 4

  “I’ve taken on the Roth case.”

  “So I heard. I had someone brief me on it before I came over. Getting anywhere?”

  “My only discovery so far is that Mr. Roth is a pain in the ass. Also, he’s dishonest-or trying to be. The wine’s insured for 2.3 million, and he’s claiming it’s worth three. Which it probably is; but it wasn’t insured for three. Apart from that, all I know is that it was a pro job. I’m going to check with the auction houses tomorrow, but my bet is that the wine wasn’t stolen for resale. It was for a private cellar.”

  Bookman nodded. “Makes sense. You don’t see bottles like that every day. They’d be too easily traced.” He held out his glass for a refill. “You don’t think Roth fixed it himself, for the insurance money?”

  “No. You read that piece in the L.A. Times? Roth is the kind of guy who has to show off what he’s got. Having his cellar stripped makes him look like a loser.” Sam twirled the bottle in the icy water before filling his own glass. “So that’s where I am right now. How about you? What have your boys come up with? Any Mexican caretakers?”

  Bookman’s laugh came out as more of a snort of derision. “Forget it. What do we have in this country-twelve million illegals? Probably more than half of them in California, and none of them on any computer. Believe me, that guy is either safely over the border or dead in a dumpster.” There was a pause while Bookman made sure his second glass tasted as delightful as the first. “Do you want to hear the good news? We found the ambulance.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “No plates, no prints. Wiped clean, totally clean. Those guys knew what they were doing. So far, it’s a dead end, and meanwhile we have a couple of other things on our plate.” He ticked them off one by one on his meaty fingers. “The governor’s having Tony Blair to tea in his tent. Red-alert security operation. We’ve just had a celebrity suicide that’s beginning to look more like a celebrity murder. Some moron with a rifle is using cars on the Santa Monica Freeway for target practice. This month’s homicides are up, so we have the mayor on our case. And so it goes; business as usual. A few bottles of wine disappearing doesn’t come anywhere near the top of the list.” Bookman heaved his great shoulders in an apologetic shrug. “We’ll do what we can to help, but you’re pretty much on your own with this one.”

  As the level in the bottle went down, the conversation moved on to the more agreeable subjects of food, wine, and the Lakers, and the next hour passed enjoyably enough. But once Bookman had gone, Sam had to acknowledge that the investigation had hardly got off to a flying start. And, as his friend had said, he was on his own with this one.

  Six

  Despite what one reads in detective novels, very few crimes are solved by guesswork or hunch. Unspectacular though it might be, a patient, methodical gathering of information has caught and convicted many more crooks than the blinding flash of revelation. With that in mind, Sam settled down to the essential business of due diligence.

  He started by checking with the well-known names: Sotheby’s and Christie’s, The Henry Wine Group, Sokolin, Acker Merrall & Condit, and the others. None of them had recently bought or been offered anything on the list of stolen wines.

  He tried the smaller auction houses. He tried Robert Chadderdon and other specialty importers. He consulted Wine-Searcher, hoping to come across (among the twenty million searches made every year) someone who was seeking the particular wines and vintages in Roth’s collection. But whomever he called and wherever he looked, the result was the same: a blank.

  As the days turned into weeks, his research was interrupted more and more frequently by calls from an irate Danny Roth, demanding progress reports. News of the robbery had leaked out to the Los Angeles wine community, and Roth’s ego was bruised and suffering. Instead of deference and admiration, he was receiving sympathy-some of it actually genuine. Even more irritating were the cold calls from cellar security specialists offering their services. Schadenfreude, the revenge of the envious, was rife. It seemed to Roth that hardly a day went by without someone he knew mentioning the robbery with thinly disguised satisfaction. Bastards.

  After enduring one especially venomous morning tirade from Roth, Sam decided to go for a swim to clear his head. As he was coming back through the garden from the hotel pool, his attention was caught by a most fetching pair of legs, and, having a connoisseur’s eye for such things, he stopped to admire them. And when the owner of the legs turned around, Sam saw that it was Kate Simmons, lovelier than ever and now, to the dismay of many Los Angeles bachelors, happily married to a banker.

  Smiling, she looked him up and down: wet, tousled hair and an old Ritz Hotel bathrobe dating from his days in Paris. “Well, Sam. As dapper as ever, I see. How are you?”

  Looking at her, he felt like an uncle meeting up with a favorite niece. He was having avuncular moments quite often these days. He put it down to getting older. “Kate, what are you doing here? Got time for a cup of coffee? Glass of champagne? It’s great to see you.”

  Still smiling, she brushed a thick strand of dark-brown hair away from her brow with the back of her hand, a gesture Sam remembered she always made when she was considering what to say. But before she had a chance to speak, Sam took her arm and steered her toward a table in the shade. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I was just thinking about you, wondering how you were.” He pulled back a chair for her.

  “Sam, you haven’t changed at all. Still full of it.” But she laughed and sat down anyway.

  Over coffee, she told him about her work in movie P.R., which had brought her to the Chateau for a meeting with an implausibly well-preserved female star who was preparing to promote her latest film. This involved flying by private jet to premieres in New York, London, and Paris with her hairdresser, her nutritionist, her bodyguard, eight suitcases of clothes, and her husband of the moment. As Kate put it: traveling light, Hollywood style (“without even a psychiatrist in attendance”). Sam was happy to see that she seemed to regard this nonsense with a healthy lack of respect.

  When it was Sam’s turn to report on the state of his life, he told Kate about the Roth job, and was surprised to find that she was already familiar with some of the details. Her husband Richard, who was himself a wine collector in a small way, had been following the case.

  “Most of the wine nuts in America will have seen the piece in the L.A. Times,” said Kate. “One of them might have set it up. Or maybe Roth did it himself. Why not? Stranger things have happened in L.A. ”

  This seemed to be the prevailing theory. “Well, it’s possible,” said Sam, “although he’s putting on a pretty convincing act of being the victim. But that could be all it is, just an act. At any rate, I guess I can’t leave him off the suspect list.” He shrugged. “Come to think of it, he is the suspect list.”

  “Have you looked anyplace else?”

  “Such as where?”

  “I don’t know. Europe? Hong Kong? Russia? America ’s not the only country that has crooks who like a good bottle of wine.” Kate finished her coffee and looked at her watch. “I’d better go.” She leaned over and kissed Sam on the cheek. “Come over and have dinner with us soon. You’ve never met Richard. You’d like him.”

  “Too painful. I’d spend the whole evening wondering why you didn’t marry me.”

  Despite herself, Kate had to smile. Shaking her head, she looked at him for a long moment before putting on her sunglasses. “You big dope. You never asked me.”

  Then she was gone, turning as she left the garden to wave good-bye.

  Back in his suite, Sam thought how fortunate he was to remain on good terms with nearly all of the women in his life. Apart from one or two dramatic exceptions-the six-foot Ukrainian model in Moscow, the homicidal rancher’s daughter in Buenos Aires, and, of course, Elena-there had been no recriminations in any of his relationships. Probably, he concluded, because they had the good sense never to take him too seriously.

  As he sat at his desk and looked once again at th
e list of stolen wines, his mind went back to Kate’s comment. Of course, she was right: America wasn’t the only country that produced wine-loving criminals. But where to start looking?

  He got up and went across the room to his library, a long run of floor-to-ceiling bookcases, stopping in front of the section where he kept his wine books. There, in various stages of wear and tear, were Penning-Rowsell’s The Wines of Bordeaux, Lichine’s Encyclopedia of Wines and Spirits, Forest ’s Monseigneur Le Vin, the current year’s Guide Hachette des Vins, Broadbent’s Wine Tasting, Johnson’s Wine, Olney’s Yquem, Lynch’s Adventures on the Wine Route, Healy’s Stay Me with Flagons, and a score of others collected over the years. Trailing his fingers along the spines of the books, he came to a battered copy of Duijker’s The Great Wine Chateaux of Bordeaux and took it back to his desk, making a detour on the way to pour himself a pre-lunch glass of Chablis.

  It was always a pleasure to open this book. In contrast to the ornamental and sometimes comical prose so often used by wine writers striving for effect, the text was simply written and thoroughly researched. Facts took precedence over literary flourishes. And, as a visual bonus, there were photographs in full color of more than eighty châteaus, their caves, their vines, their cellar masters, and, in some cases, their tweed-suited, long-faced, elegant proprietors. For a lover of fine Bordeaux, it would be difficult to think of a more evocative volume.

  With the list of stolen wines as his guide, Sam leafed through the pages: Lafite, Latour, Figeac, Pétrus, Margaux-famous names, legendary wines, handsome châteaus. He had always meant to explore the immaculate vineyards of Bordeaux, an area that he once heard described as a masterpiece of gardening on the grand scale. To his regret, he had never taken the time to make the trip. And it was this regret, as much as the demands of the investigation, that helped him come to a decision. He closed the book with a snap and called Elena Morales.

  Her voice was slightly muffled when she answered, a sign that Sam knew well. “You uncivilized woman-you’re eating lunch at your desk again. You’ll get terrible indigestion.”

  “Thanks, Sam. You really know how to cheer a girl up. As it happens, I’m too busy to go out. How about you? Getting anywhere?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. I’ve done just about all the desk research I can do. I’m sending you a report with all the details, but don’t hold your breath. I haven’t come up with anything. So I’ve decided to do some fieldwork.”

  “Where’s the field?”

  “Elena, here’s a basic rule of investigation: to arrive at an understanding of the crime, go back to the beginning. And in this case, the beginning is where the wine came from. The beginning is Bordeaux.” There was silence from the other end of the line. “I thought I’d go via Paris. There’s a guy there I need to see.”

  “Great idea, Sam, except for one thing: expenses.”

  “Elena, you have to speculate to accumulate.”

  “Listen, I know how you travel. Are you expecting us to pick up the tab for first-class airfares, fancy hotels, fancy restaurants…” Her voice tailed off with a sigh. “Where are you going to stay in Paris?”

  “The Montalembert. Remember the Montalembert?”

  “Spare me the nostalgia, Sam. We are not picking up your expenses.”

  “Let’s be reasonable about this. If I find the wine, you reimburse me. If I don’t find it, you don’t owe me a cent. Do we have a deal?”

  There was no answer from Elena.

  “I’ll take that as an enthusiastic yes,” said Sam. “Oh, and there’s one other thing. I’m going to need a fixer in Bordeaux, someone with local contacts who speaks English. I guess your Paris office can help with that. Sure you don’t want to come with me?”

  Thinking of Paris and looking at the plate of cottage cheese and salad on her desk, Elena thought there was nothing she’d like more. “Bon voyage, Sam. Send me a postcard.”

  It was nearly two years since Sam had been to Paris, and it was with a keen sense of anticipation that he made his arrangements. With hotel and flights booked, he fixed a meeting with an old sparring partner, Axel Schroeder; reserved a table for one at the Cigale Récamier; and made an appointment to drop by and see Joseph, the salesman who looked after him at Charvet.

  An e-mail from Elena-its tone rather chilly, Sam thought-gave him some news from Knox’s people in Paris. They recommended a Bordeaux-based agent who specialized in wine insurance, a Madame Costes. She was well connected locally, spoke good English, and, according to the Paris office, she was très sérieuse. Sam had learned enough about the French to know that anyone described as serious would be competent, trustworthy, and dull. In a brief exchange of e-mails, he sent Madame Costes his flight details, and she confirmed that she would meet him at Bordeaux ’s Mérignac airport.

  Sam’s final act before starting to pack was to call Roth’s office.

  “He’s taking a meeting,” said Cecilia Volpé. “Can I have him call you back?”

  “Just tell him that I’m following a couple of leads, and I’m going to France for a few days.”

  “Cool,” said Cecilia. “I love Paris.”

  “Me, too,” said Sam. “Tell Mr. Roth I’ll be in touch.”

  Seven

  Waiting his turn to go through security at LAX on his way to Paris, Sam watched, with mounting sympathy, the plight of the man in front of him. He was short, plump, and jolly-looking. From the sound of his accent, he was German. He had made the mistake of smiling at the security agent and attempting a joke: “Today off with the shoes, tomorrow the underpants, eh?” The stone-faced security agent stared at him in silence. And then, clearly suspecting the poor German of trying to smuggle a potentially dangerous sense of humor onto the aircraft, ordered him to step aside and wait for the supervisor.

  Shoeless and beltless, his arms raised in the crucifix position while the electronic wand was passed over his body, Sam reflected on the joys of modern travel. Overcrowded, often grubby airports, surly personnel, a better than average chance of delays, and, before every flight, the tedium and humiliation of the security check. No wonder the first thing most passengers wanted when they finally reached the plane was a drink.

  The first-class cabin, a cocoon of peace after the bedlam of the terminal, came as a blessed relief. Sam accepted a glass of champagne, slipped off his shoes, and glanced at the menu. As usual, there were optimistic attempts to replicate dishes one might find in an earthbound restaurant, and today sauces were very much in favor. There were noisettes of lamb in a sweet spice sauce, pan-seared monkfish with a sage sauce, a vegetable pancake served over a basil cream sauce, smoked salmon cannelloni with a balsamic sauce. The menu writer, a prince of deception, made it all sound delicious. The reality, as Sam knew from past experience, would be dry and disappointing, the sauces wrinkled in shock from a blast of sudden heat, the vegetables tasting anonymous.

  Why was it that airlines tried to conjure up haute cuisine with no more than the impossibly limited facilities of a cramped galley and a microwave? It never worked. He decided to stick to bread and cheese and good red wine, but even this was less than he had hoped for. The label on the bottle was impressive, the pedigree irreproachable, the vintage excellent. But somehow wine never tastes as it should when drunk at thirty thousand feet. With altitude, it seems to lose weight. The turbulence of flying affects the balance and flavor. In the words of an eminent critic, “After the hurly-burly of takeoff and landing, takeoff and landing, wine never has enough time to regain its composure.” Sam tried one glass, switched to water, swallowed a sleeping pill instead of dessert, and didn’t wake up until early morning, when the plane was beginning its descent over the English Channel.

  It always felt good to be back in Paris. As his cab made its way down the Boulevard Raspail toward Saint-Germain, Sam was struck once again by the beautiful proportions established by Haussmann in the mid-nineteenth century-the generous width of the principal streets, the human-sized buildings, the magnificent gardens, and the un
expected pocket parks. Then there was the Seine and the graceful swoops of its bridges, the abundance of trees and heroic monuments, the long and majestic vistas. All these combined to make Paris one of the great walking cities of the world. And it was, by big-city standards, clean. No piles of garbage bags, no gutters choked with food wrappers and Styrofoam and crushed cigarette packets; a welcome absence of urban squalor.

  Nearly two years had gone by since his last visit-a long and lovely weekend with Elena Morales-but Sam found the Montalembert to be its usual charming self. Tucked away off the Rue du Bac, the hotel is small, chic, and friendly. The younger, less grand ladies of the fashion world descend on it each year during the collections. Authors, their agents, and publishers haunt the bar, looking intense over their whisky as they brood about their royalties and the current state of French literature. Pretty girls flutter in and out. The antique dealers and gallery owners of the quartier drop by to celebrate a sale with a glass of champagne. People feel at home here.

  Much of this, of course, is due to the staff, but it is helped also by the informal way the ground-floor area of the hotel has been laid out. In a relatively small space, a bar, a small restaurant, and a tiny library with its own wood-burning fireplace are separated not by walls but by different levels of light: brighter in the restaurant, dimmer in the library. Business lunches in the front, romantic assignations in the back.

  Sam checked in, tantalized by the smell of coffee coming from the restaurant. After a quick shower and shave, he went down for café crème and a croissant, and went over his plans for the morning and afternoon. He was treating himself to a day off-a day of being a tourist-and it pleased him to think that his chosen destinations could be easily reached on foot: a visit to the Musée d’Orsay; a walk across the Pont Royal to the Louvre for a quick bite at the Café Marly; and a stroll through the Jardin des Tuileries on the way to the Place Vendôme and his appointment at Charvet.