The Vintage Caper (4 page)

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 the 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 unexpected 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.

The weather in Paris was hesitating somewhere between the end of winter and the beginning of spring, and as Sam walked up the Boulevard Saint-Germain he saw that the girls were of two minds about what to wear. Some were still swathed in scarves and coats and gloves; others, in defiance of the chilly breeze coming off the Seine, wore cropped jackets and short skirts. But no matter how they were dressed, they all seemed to have adopted a particular style of walking. Sam had come to think of this as a mark of the true Parisian girl: a brisk strut, head held high, bag slung from one shoulder, and—the crucial touch—arms folded in such a way that the bosom was not merely supported but emphasized, a kind of
soutien-gorge
vivant
, or living bra. Pleasantly distracted, Sam almost forgot to turn in to the street that led down to the river and the Musée d’Orsay.

There was, as always, too much to take in. Sam had decided to confine himself to the upper level, where Impressionists rubbed shoulders with their Neo-Impressionist colleagues. Even so, even without paying his respects to the sculpture or the extraordinary Art Nouveau collection, more than two hours slipped by before he thought of looking at his watch. With a mental tip of his hat to Monet and Manet, to Degas and Renoir, he left the museum and headed across the river, toward the Louvre and lunch.

The French have a talent for restaurants of all sizes, and a special genius for huge spaces. La Coupole, for instance, which opened in 1927 as “the largest dining room in Paris,” manages despite its vastness to retain a human scale. The Café Marly, although smaller, is still, by most restaurant standards, enormous. But it has been designed so that there are quiet corners and pockets of intimacy, and there is never a feeling that you are eating in a canteen as big as a ballroom. Best of all, there is the long, covered terrace with its view of the glass pyramid, and it was here that Sam settled himself at a small table.

Returning to Paris after a long absence, there is always a temptation to plunge in and taste everything. Call it greed, or the result of deprivation, but food in Paris is so varied, so seductive, and so artfully presented that it seems a shame not to have a dozen of Brittany’s best oysters, some herb-flavored lamb from Sisteron, and two or three cheeses before attacking the desserts. But in a fit of moderation, remembering that dinner was still to come, Sam made do with a modest portion of Sevruga caviar and some chilled vodka while he watched the world go by.

Over coffee, he did his tourist’s duty and wrote his ration of postcards for the day: one to Elena, telling her he was busy looking for clues; one to Bookman
(The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful);
and one to Alice, a housekeeper at the Chateau Marmont who had never ventured outside Los Angeles, but who traveled vicariously through Sam whenever he went away. He reminded himself to buy a miniature Eiffel Tower for her collection of souvenirs.

As a tentative Parisian sun broke through to brighten up the sky, he left the crowds of the Louvre for the orderly precision of the Tuileries, pausing to admire the long and extraordinary view through the gardens, along the Champs-Elysées, and all the way to the Arc de Triomphe. So far, the pleasures of the day had more than lived up to his expectations. By the time he reached the Place Vendôme he was in an expansive mood, induced by lunch and good humor—dangerously expansive, when shopping at Charvet.

Haberdashers to the gentry for more than 150 years, Charvet appealed to Sam’s fondness for the understated extravagance of custom-made shirts. It was more than just a simple matter of comfort, style, and fit that he loved. It was also the whole ritual, itself an essential part of the process: the browsing over fabrics, the unhurried discussion of cuffs, collars, and cut, the certain knowledge that he would get
exactly
what he wanted. And, as a bonus, there were the stately surroundings in which these deliberations took place.

Charvet’s premises—one could hardly describe them as a shop—occupy several floors of one of the most distinguished addresses in Paris: 28 Place Vendôme. No sooner was Sam inside than a figure hovering in a silky vantage point among the ties and scarves and handkerchiefs came forward to greet him. It was Joseph, who had initiated Sam some years ago into the arcane delights of single-needle stitching and genuine mother-of-pearl buttons. Together, they took the small elevator up to the fabric room on the second floor, and there, among thousands of bolts of poplin, Sea Island cotton, linen, flannel, batiste, and silk, Sam spent the rest of the afternoon. Each of the dozen shirts he eventually ordered would, like wine, be marked with its vintage, a tiny label sewn into the inner seam that identified the year in which it was made.

During his walk back to the hotel, Sam’s thoughts turned to the man he was about to see. Axel Schroeder had for many years been one of the world’s most successful thieves. Jewels, paintings, bearer bonds, antiques: he had stolen—or, as he preferred to put it, arranged a change of ownership for—them all. Not for himself, he was quick to point out, being a man of simple tastes, but for his acquisitive clients. Schroeder and Sam had met when they found themselves working on different aspects of the same job. A certain mutual respect had developed, and professional courtesy had since ensured that each kept well away from the other’s projects. Schroeder held valid passports from three different countries, and Sam suspected that his fingerprints had been changed more than once by cosmetic surgery. He was a careful man.

Sam found him waiting in the bar of the Montalembert, a glass of champagne on the table in front of him. Slim, with a skier’s tan, dressed in a pale-gray pin-striped suit of a slightly old-fashioned cut, his thinning silver hair perfectly barbered, and his nails gleaming from a recent manicure, he looked more like a retired captain of industry than the grand old man of larceny.

“Good to see you again, you old crook,” said Sam as they shook hands.

Schroeder smiled. “My dear boy,” he said, “flattery will get you nowhere. Have they come to their senses in Los Angeles and kicked you out?” He signaled to the waiter. “A glass of champagne for my friend, please. And make sure you put it on his bill.”

Being the well-informed man that he was, Schroeder was aware that Sam had retired from a life of crime and was now fully on the legal side of the law. Not surprisingly, this tended to inhibit their conversation. For several minutes it was as if the two men were playing invisible poker, dealing pleasantries back and forth while Schroeder waited for Sam to show his hand.

“This isn’t like you, Axel,” Sam said. “We’ve been chatting for ten minutes and you haven’t even asked me what I’m doing over here.”

Schroeder sipped his champagne before replying. “You know me, Sam. I never like to pry. Curiosity can be very unhealthy.” He took a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his lips. “But since you mention it—what
does
bring you to Paris? Shopping? A girl? A decent meal after all those cheeseburgers?”

Sam gave Schroeder an account of the robbery, watching him closely for any change of expression, but there was nothing. The old man stayed silent, nodding from time to time, his face inscrutable. When Sam tried to establish exactly what, if anything, Schroeder knew, even his most oblique questions were met with smiling nonanswers. A frustrating half hour passed before Sam was ready to call it a day. As they got up to leave, he tried one last long shot.

“Axel, we go back a long way. You can trust me to keep you out of it. Who hired you?”

Schroeder’s face was a study in baffled innocence. He frowned and shook his head. “My dear boy, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You always say that.”

“Yes, I always say that.” He grinned, and clapped Sam on the shoulder. “But for old times’ sake, I’ll make a few inquiries. I’ll let you know if anything turns up.”

Sam watched through the window as Schroeder ducked into the back of a waiting Mercedes. As the car pulled away, Sam could see that he had his cell phone to his ear. Was the old rogue pretending to know nothing? Or was he pretending to know a lot more than he was prepared to reveal? There would be plenty of time to think about that over dinner.