Tainted Tokay (15 page)

Epilogue

A
fter a heat wave in July, the weather throughout Médoc was rainy and windy. Finally, at the end of summer, the storms gave way to brilliant skies. In Listrac, the harvest took place under a vermillion sun. Full of sugar, the grapes were healthy and abundant. The Blanchard family's vats wer
e quickly full.

The family's legal issues, however, clouded Florence's days. She managed to keep her chin up through the whole process, even when Didier moved on to someone else, and she won the case. Florence didn't lose her château or her stake in the business. And Jules eventually decided to sell her
his interest.

Inspector Barbaroux, by order of the examining magistrate of Bordeaux, brought Alexandrine de La Palussière's stepfather in for questioning on suspicion of assault. Because Alexandrine would have had to press charges years earlier, the man couldn't be charged with rape. Still, he faced the prospect of a long prison sentence, and Alexandrine was feeling vindicated. After questioning, her stepfather drove out to his property in Latresne, cleaned one of his hunting rifles, and shot himse
lf in the head.

Chloé reappeared, and Alexandrine parted ways with Virgile. It was better, after all, to keep their relationship on a professional level. Virgile wasn't too heartbroken, as he was still smitten with Margaux Cooker and probably always would be. But she was in New York, and he was sure Mr. Cooker would never allow it. Virgile consoled himself with a young Chilean hired for the Mouton-Roth
schild harvest.

That year's
Cooker Guide
surpassed all expectations. Some five hundred thousand copies were sold, and it was published in seventeen languages. This was hardly the only bright spot in Claude Nithard's life. One of his writing protégés won the Renaudot Prize, and his daughter, Anaïs, granted him the status of grandfather with the birth of a boy. She had considered naming him Victor, but the new grandfather persuaded her to choose
another name.

For his part, the Bordeaux winemaker added the French ambassador to Hungary to the list of friends he cultivated over vintage bottles of wine and cigars. During a stay in Paris, the ambassador invited Benjamin to La Table d'Eugène, an intimate Michelin-starred restaurant in Montmartre, where the menu was seasonal and dishes could take hours to prepare. Sipping a 2006 Perrier Jouët Belle Epoque, Benjamin learned that Consuela Chavez had recovered the faculty of speech and was working in Paris again. Her bad habits were getting the better of her, and the ambassador predicted a long downhill slide for the once-ravishing woman. Zoltán was awaiting trial in a correctional facility near Budapest. Meanwhile, the vintner impersonators had been apprehended a few days after Vik
tor and Attila.

On the Rue Eugène Sue, tiny flakes were clinging to the bare trees and the sloped roofs of the eighteenth arrondissement. Benjamin looked up and saw that the snow was coming down faster now. He remembered the bitterly cold days he had spent here not so long ago. Still, Montmartre could be so lovely when it was dr
essed in white.

Thank you for reading
Tainted Tokay
.

We
love feedback.

Read on to discover a Paris art world mystery by another
French author.

Sneak Preview of The Collector

Prologue

I
n the sparsely furnished room, the air thick with smells of alcohol, sweat, and stale cooking fat, the girl whimpered as he pinned her down with his leg and blindly groped for something beside the bed. He fumbled until he found it: a terr
a-cotta figure.

The man smiled faintly while he caressed the cold almond eyes and prominent nose with fingers that were long and thin, like an artist's. He tensed when he couldn't find the metal ring in the sculpture's nostrils, then relaxed when he made contact. He brushed his hands over the cold emeralds and along the notches on the right side of the figure, like ritual markings that bridged the gap between him and his sculpture, his
Tattooed Man
, which stood erect on
the dirt floor.

Still fondling the object, he turned his attention to the girl, who was crying now. He pulled himself upright and clutched at her. The iron bed screeched and banged against the wall as he tried to heave himself onto her. She kicked and swatted at him. Just as she struck his face, which already had three long, perfectly symmetrical scars, he released his hold and collapsed on top of her, convulsing, and mumblin
g incoherently.

~ ~ ~

S
he waited, suspended in silence under the mass of flesh. A few seconds went by before she realized what had happened and pushed the dead weight off her. She rushed out of the house and
into the night.

When the body was discovered half an hour later, the scul
pture was gone.

1

“T
he collectio
n is this way.”

His tone was dry and not particularly welcoming. Standing before her in the parlor, he gave her the chills. His gray reptilian eyes showed no emotion, and his long face seemed cut from ivory. His right hand was sunk deep in the pocket of his night-blue blazer and refused to budge—not eve
n to greet her.

George Gaudin had been Edmond Magni's personal assistant until a week ago, when, somewhere in Peru, Magni had mysteriously dropped dead—for the second time in
Marion's life.

The first time, her mother was the one to announce the news. “He died in a plane crash,” she had told Marion. It was a lie. In truth, her husband had abandoned his family and his given name, Jean Spicer, and had assumed
a new identity.

From the age of three, Marion had gotten by without him, believing all those years that her father was dead, without so much as a photo to cling to. Not a single picture of him could be found in their home. And every time she asked her mother to share a story, an anecdote, a memory, the woman would retreat into a silence or fly into a fit that could only be remedied if she isolated herself in her bed
room and slept.

Marion stopped as
king questions.

Now, thirty-three years later, out of the blue, an executor had informed her that her father hadn't been dead all those years. He had just made a new life for himself, and she would be inheriting—among other things—one of the greatest collections of pre-Columbian art in the world, valued at over forty million euros. Of course, the inheritance had certain stipulations. Nothing came that e
asy for Marion.

Gaudin crept to the other end of the room and gestured for her to follow. She had hoped to linger in the immense space. Perhaps it would rouse the memory of a scent, an image, a feeling of déjà-vu—anything to fill the void. But she couldn't find the slightest perso
nal connection.

She hadn't seen so many in one place since watching
Barry Lyndon
in a Stanley Kubrick retrospective. She surveyed the Louis XV-style furniture with its Rococo curves, the brocade fabrics, the brass, the redwood marquetry, the Boulle-work drawers, the Venetian mirrors, and the chandeliers dripping pendants o
f rock crystal.

A world so unlike her hu
mble childhood.

“This way.”

The assistant's directive dripped
with arrogance.

Without any further formalities, he disappeared behind a copper-colored silk wall hanging. She followed and discovered a reinforced door that opened to a narrow staircase. She hurried down the steps just as the door closed behind her. It made surprisingly little noise, consider
ing its weight.

Marion stopped at the bottom of the stairs. The space was cold and devoid of light, sound, colors, and smells. She peered into the darkness. It seemed like an unknown abyss, and she had the disturbing sensation that she was
being watched.

Gaudin flicked on the lights. A shiver traveled up Marion's spine, and she gasped. In the faint illumination provided by the bulbs, literally hundreds of clay sculptures and vessels took shape. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were lined with odd-looking creatures. Some had hollow eyes, stunted bodies, and swollen arms and legs. Many looked sickly and tormented. They stared at her with
lifeless eyes.

Marion's mouth went dry, and her legs began to shake. Eventually she inched closer and examined the sculptures one by one. She knew that some of the pieces were pre-Incan portrait vases. She had never cared for these indigenous works. And in such large numbers, she found them disturbing. Certainly there was nothing aesthetically pleasing about the frozen assembly of cripples
in this place.

A second room was equally disquieting, filled as it was with oversized phalluses and female genitalia in every possible position and depiction—pimple-covered erections, clitoris-shaped noses, pumas copulating with toads, skeletal women being sodomized. By the looks of it, Magni had relished the world of sexual obsession. Marion just stared at the impassive expressions on the faces of the silen
t participants.

“Thousands of years, and these bodies are still here for us to see and touch. Isn't that fascinating?” Gaudin said f
rom behind her.

Marion didn't respond. She could barely breathe. This space was a shrine to her father's obscenity, negotiated at the cost of gutted tombs and stolen memories. And for what? A dark and irrational desire to claim ownership over the souls of the dead? An attempt to give them a second life? Or to extend his own? Was he afraid of something?
Or of someone?

Gaudin appeared to take her silence as an invitation to continue. He picked up a female figure and weighed i
t in his hands.

“Here we have the likeness of a poor woman condemned for her sexual transgressions. Her mind and body are withered away,” he said in a clearly feigned tone of compassion. “Debauchery, depravity—this is how she's
immortalized.”

“That's your opinion,” Marion replied harshly. “We don't know enough about these early civilizations to make such judgments. And we certainly don't know anyth
ing about her.”

“Does it matter? These objects are loved for the imagery they arouse, not necessarily for their
raison d'être
, which no longer exist
s in any case.”

“Whose fault is that? If they hadn't been stolen and hidden away from the world like this, maybe we'd know a bit more about the people who
created them.”

“A woman of morals,” Gaudin snickered. “I can't believe Magni entrusted his collection with som
eone so naïve.”

He started to walk away before she could respond. “Let's go. The tour isn't over yet. I wager you'll be convinced by
the end of it.”

Her jaw clenched, Marion followed him into
the last room.

“Here we are. The Holy of Holies,” the assistant said with feverish eyes. “Here we have the most beautiful pieces
in the world.”

Marion's tension dissolved as she gazed at the room while her tour guide swooped from one breathtaking piece to the next. The floor was covered with intricate lapis lazuli inlays. Soft lights in the showcases illuminated gold metalwork here and a shimmering serpentine mask there. The collection, nearly thirty pieces altogether, was shockingly beautiful. This was nothing like the wild assortment in the first two rooms. Perhaps Magni had become more selective
over the years.

“But why? Why such a radical chan
ge?” she asked.

“Because all connoisseurs' tastes evolve when they no longer give into the
same impulses.”

“He could have sold his less valuable pieces. Why did
he keep them?”

“They made him who he was. They were his questions, his answers, his qualms. They were his memories. They kept him on track. Having them around reminded him of why he
was different.”

“Different?”

“He wasn't like other collectors. Most are in it for the prestige, or they're trying to forget where they came from—some are people with no families of note who want to create a new kind of lineage through their
acquisitions.”

“And what was he after?” she asked as she approached a mask with both shaman and jaguar
-like features.

“You have to get closer, much closer. Probe the object, smell it, imagine what lies beneath,” Gaudin whispe
red in her ear.

She swiftly slid
away from him.

“Look at it. Such expression, such power in the design. This jade—a mineral harder than steel—was sculpted with ancient tools. Ca
n you imagine?”

“You haven't answered my question. What was
Magni's goal?”

“His goal? Ah yes, his goal,” Gaudin repeated indifferently. “I could tell you that he wanted to know everything, that he wanted to examine continuities and variations in style. Hmm, what else? That he had a need to replace something that he lost, maybe something that wasn't there in the first place. Mademoiselle, collecting is a form of lust. There's a burning desire. It's not something you can explain in
so many words.”

So Magni was no different from other collectors. Marion sighed and turned her attention to Gaudin. He was patronizing her. She couldn't quite figure him out. Although ghostlike and guarded upstairs, he was an entirely different animal underground. The basement aroused him. Now he was animated, and his body language was exaggerated. He was scary, like the figures in the first room. It was as if the sculptures and their protector were fused together. It made her think of Indonesian headhunters harnessing their enemy's life force through p
reserved heads.

“Let's go back upstairs,” she suggested abruptly. “I have to show you some photographs. They're in th
e living room.”

“Wha
t photographs?”

“The three sculptures I
need to find.”

“Three?” he said with a hint of worry in his voice, as if the number were more important than the sculptu
res themselves.

“You are well aware of the provisions of the wil
l, aren't you?”

“The estate attorney mentioned something, yes, but he didn't spe
cify a number.”

“Three, eight, ten. What's the difference? Either way, I'm in a bind. No sculptures, n
o inheritance.”

~ ~ ~

G
audin sat down on a caramel-colored velvet couch. Behind him was a pink marble fireplace with a fluted surround. There wasn't the trace of an ember
in the hearth.

“He hated the sound of wood crackling in a fireplace
,” Gaudin said.

“He must have been the only person
in the world.”

“I never li
ked it either.”

Ignoring his reply, she picked up her bag, which had been lying on the floor next to a large parquet table, handed him the three photos, and sat down in a chair across from him. It was as plush as the cushion lining a jewelry box. She exhaled at last. Gaudin could act cross if he wanted; it was more comfortable up here. But the instant she looked over at him she was struck by his alarmed state. His forehead was covered with sweat as he stared at the pho
tos in his lap.

“What is it?” she asked, shifti
ng in her seat.

Gaudin slowly straightened up, and she caught a not-so-reassuring glimm
er in his eyes.

“What?
” she insisted.

“I didn't know he was looking for them,” h
e finally said.

Marion got up from her chair and moved t
o a closer one.

“Do you r
ecognize them?”

He nodded.

“They're exceptional pieces from northern Peru.” Gaudin cleared his throat before adding, “Very rare, from the Piura region. And they still have their emerald ornamentation. Tomb raiders usually sell the ge
ms separately.”

“So you've seen them before? Do you know w
here they are?”

“They were put up for auction three years ago. I
t was in June.”

“Why didn't Magni acqu
ire them then?”

“He's the one
who sold them.”

“I don't understand.” Marion stood up and started pacing in front of the couch. “I was told that I needed to lay my hands on three sculptures. The attorney didn't say that Magni once owned them. I thought you said he saved everything, that he never let go of a sin
gle sculpture.”

“That's true.”

“Except for these three. He could have sold others withou
t you knowing.”

“Those were
the only ones.”

“So why'd
he sell them?”

Gaudin didn't respond. Avoiding eye contact, he crossed and uncr
ossed his legs.

“Which auctioneer handled the sale?” Marion finally asked, he
r voice rising.

“I d
on't remember.”

“Of cou
rse you don't.”

Marion sat down again and thought for
a few moments.

“Do you happen to know wh
o bought them?”

“The buyers remained anonymous. They can do tha
t at auctions.”

“Do you think I'm new to this? Of course they can, but when you want something, you find it,” she said, staring at the personal assistant until he
looked at her.

“You have no idea who bought th
em?” she asked.

“No.”

“When did Magni initially
purchase them?”

“In January of
the same year.”

“What? He didn't keep them very long—barely six months. That's strange, isn't it, for someone so attached to
his artifacts?”

Obviously, Magni wasn't exactly the man Gaudin was making
him out to be.

“And who sold them to
h
im
?” she asked.

“I don't know.”

“Good God, you were his perso
nal assistant.”

“Do you think that made me privy to all his secrets?” he answered in a voice so sharp, Marion was forced to release her glare
and look away.

I'll never get anywhere with this dude, she thought. And I still don't know anything about my father. Where did his money come from? Did he work? Did he have any friends? The estate attorney had mentioned a stormy relationship with a woman that had lasted ten years. That's all he could say. And this assistant wasn't going to be of any help—he was more of a clam, and maybe even
a scared clam.