Grand Cru Heist (7 page)

“Let’s just say that I work in wine, but more with collectors and enlightened connoisseurs.”

“I had noted that vinegar is not your cup of tea and that you don’t wipe your mouth with your sleeve when you eat.”

“I get it from my father. When I was a teenager, he let me taste great wines like Château Haut-Brion, Romanée-Conti, Pétrus, Cheval Blanc, and even Ruster Ausbruch.”

A man who knew that intriguingly sweet, refreshing, and elegant Austrian wine could not be all bad. Morton—or rather Welling—was starting to look just a bit better. Cooker put his glass of fifty-year-old Macallan to his nose and listened to the man, who was going on about the wines he had sampled during his formative years.

The list was long. For each estate, Welling supplied the vintage without any hesitation. He had an infallible memory. “1961 Margaux, 1967 Yquem, 1955 Mission Haut-Brion, 1959 Lafite-Rothschild, 1982 Pétrus, 1983 Montrachet.”

Cooker’s eyes glistened as Welling enumerated the mythic vintages. He was having a hard time concealing his jealousy. They ended up finding a shared memory, a 1961 Hermitage La Chapelle.

“It was as dark as ink, but what fruit!” Welling said.

“I remember aromas of cooked prunes,” Cooker said, excited to be recalling these sensations.

Welling became more animated, and his sentences were sharper. A rebellious lock of hair on his forehead made him look mischievous and even a little precious. His signet ring shone in the glow of Cooker’s desk lamp. Dusk was spreading across the city.

“You deliberately left the Loire wines off your inventory. That would certainly bring us back to the reason for today’s visit, would it not? Didn’t we say we’d share a Bonnezeaux when we were at Château d’Artigny?” Cooker asked, winking to look sly.

“I always honor my promises, Benjamin.”

And like a magician, Welling slid his hand into the inside pocket of his gabardine and pulled out a bottle of the golden liquid.

“Les Deux Allées, Château de Fesles, 1995. How’s that for you, grand master?”

“A lesser bottle would have done the trick. I like that you keep your word. That’s a sign of integrity. Speaking of which, I’m curious about what you did when you left La Tortinière after learning that your companion, or should I say, your plaything, had taken off.”

The Englishman looked down, cleared his throat twice, swallowed a mouthful of Macallan, and held his glass in the palms of his hands, as if he were trying to warm it.

“That is exactly why I am here.”

Welling stood and started pacing without looking at Cooker. He told his story from start to finish without omitting any details, which seemed to give some credence to what could have appeared unseemly.

Yes, that night, he was supposed to go to Bordeaux. The girl had been a prostitute, but she had wounded his ego by leaving him, and he didn’t feel like driving all the way to Bordeaux right away. So he drove his Morgan to Tours. He parked not far from the police station and took a long walk along the Quai d’Orléans. He ended up in the Jardin François Premier. From there, he went into a sordid cabaret, where strippers were putting on such a pathetic show, he had no choice but to down five or maybe six brandies. That was when one of the other customers came up to the bar and started looking for trouble. They called him damned Rosbeef and son of a bitch. They slapped him around. Afterward? He did not really remember. He woke up groggy in front of some townhouse, with blood on his face and a sore back.

Cooker felt like lighting a cigar but decided to play with his pen instead. He did a sketch of Welling in blue ink. Sketching was a skill that dated back three decades to the one year he had spent at art school in Paris. When his visitor fell silent, he encouraged him.

“And then?”

“Then I wanted to go back to my car, but I couldn’t remember where I had parked it. So I paced up and down the street along the river until I was exhausted. I was devastated. That’s when I saw them locked in an embrace on the embankment. He was kissing her neck, and she was responding. I just stood there. I didn’t curse or threaten. I tried to yell, but nothing came out. I was speechless. I was trembling. I was freezing to death.”

The winemaker was concentrating on getting Welling’s slightly protruding chin just right, when he noticed that the man was shaking. His monologue was not as smooth anymore.

“Then, after giving me one of her looks—you remember Oksana’s looks, right?—she said to the guy, ‘Let’s get out of here. There’s another drunk.’ I can still hear them laughing as they made their way down the steps toward the river. They started to run and disappeared under the bridge.”

Welling was now looking out the window. Cooker knew his back was turned because he was hiding his tears.

“Was it the boy Gaétan, the hotel concierge?”

“I couldn’t tell, really. I barely saw them.”

“What about his size and his hair?” Cooker pressed, growing just a little annoyed by the show of emotion.

“Yes, I think it was him.”

“And then?”

“And then? Two men approached me. One was small, and the other one was brawny, I would say. They asked me if I knew the girl. They had a thick Central European accent.”

“What did you tell them?” Cooker asked.

“I shook my head.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I was afraid for her. Or for me.”

“They took off down the stairs and disappeared under the bridge.”

“What did you do then?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you hear screams?”

“Nothing, Benjamin, I swear.”

“I’m not the one you should be swearing to. It should be the police. And quickly. You know you’re a major suspect, right?”

Welling finally turned around. He wiped his tears on his sleeve and mumbled, “First, I had to confide in you. You are the only friend I have in this country.”

The winemaker did not like being a confidant in this way. He set aside the pad where he had drawn the very touching Welling, who did not look at all like that dashing Morton from La Tortinière. He then poured some more whisky in Welling’s glass.

“1946. Can you imagine, Benjamin, that’s the year I was born.”

“Should I believe you?”

Welling showed him an old, dog-eared passport with a picture of a man wearing glasses. Next to it was his very British pedigree: James Cornelius John Welling. Date of birth: 15 August 1946. Place of birth: Canterbury, Kent.

Now that the Englishman had revealed his real name and shared his memory of all those fine wines, Cooker liked him again.

“So, should we open that Fesles?” Welling asked, as if to test Cooker’s trust.

“No, tomorrow evening, at the same time, once you’ve told the police everything.”

9

Virgile resigned himself to completing the task assigned to him. The job was painstaking, enormous, and thankless, but he could not disobey Benjamin Cooker. With the boss back, excitement was returning to the lab on the Cours du Chapeau-Rouge and the offices on the Allées de Tourny. Virgile retired to a small room to make a systematic list of wine auctions, beginning with those in Bordeaux’s Chartrons neighborhood. He called the heads of Dubourg, Cazaux, Dubern, Bricadieu, Courau, and Le Blay. They were all overly courteous and gave him a list of the stocks they would be auctioning. He did the same with Mr. Poulin and Mr. Le Fur in Paris. He also consulted Tajan et Artus Associés, along with Catherine Charbonneaux, who was one of Cooker’s friends. In his zeal, he made the rounds of France’s other wine auctions, estate by estate, château by château. He did not think he would get through it in a day. The man who assigned him the tireless task did, however, refrain from harassing his “secretary.” Gratitude was not the least of Cooker’s qualities.

The next day, Virgile set a thick stack of papers on Cooker’s desk, like a bearer of bad news expecting to be shot.

“No stocks of Angélus anywhere?” Cooker asked.

“Just six bottles by Mr. Galateau in Limoges, twelve at Sabourin in Châtellerault, and two cases of six with Besh in Cannes. Nothing to get excited about,” Virgile responded, reading disappointment on the winemaker’s face.

But Cooker paused as he went over the list. He put on his reading glasses and underlined one item twice. Then, after a long sigh, he smiled at his assistant and said, “Tell Jacqueline to call in an offer on the 1961 Pape Clément for, say, a hundred euros a bottle. Add the case of six 1985 Mazis-Chambertin for, well, two hundred euros, give or take fifty. Okay?”

“You got it, boss.”

“At least your work wasn’t a total waste of time.”

Virgile scowled, took his papers, and started walking away. He was not wearing the kind and attractive expression that had worked so well on Elisabeth Cooker the day he had arrived at Grangebelle for his job interview.

“What’s bothering you, Virgile? A heartbreak?”

“Just a break, that’s all.”

The winemaker did not want to pry. He knew he could put his foot in his mouth. He decided to stand up and survey the activity on the Allées de Tourny, where carnival workers were taking down a merry-go-round. Having second thoughts, he moved closer to his assistant.

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“It’s my little sister, Raphaëlle. She—”

Virgile stared at the empty carousel that no longer had its wooden horses. His eyes filled with tears. Cooker put a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

“What is it?”

“She’s got cancer. Colon cancer. It doesn’t look good.”

Virgile started sobbing. “Tell me she’s not going to die.”

“Virgile, I can’t tell you what you want to hear. I will pray for her.”

“Like that will help.”

“Would you rather resign yourself to her dying?”

“That’s not what I mean, Mr. Cooker.”

The two men looked at each other. The telephone rang twice, and Cooker ignored it. His secretary knocked on the door.

“Just a minute Jacqueline, please.”

At that moment, nothing was more pressing than the needs of his distressed assistant. This worthy son of a winemaker with such an earnest look seemed ready to collapse. Cooker knew that at twenty-five, death was not a looming prospect, but instead a far-off eventuality.

“Come on, Virgile. I think we have better things to do than pour out our feelings to each other. I don’t think Raphaëlle would like that. Actually, I’m sure she wouldn’t.”

After a long silence and a gesture of tenderness that could have been that of a father to a son, the winemaker added, “I have hope for her.”

Virgile dried his cheeks, the way he must have on winter mornings when he walked to school in Montravel, and the cold wind stung his eyes until he cried. He looked like a little boy again. The same little boy who used his sleeve to wipe blood from his nose when he fought like a devil in the schoolyard with a bully who cheated at marbles. Virgile always said that in the Lanssien family, there was “no sniveling, even when you bury your mom and pop.” How many times had his father called him a pussy when he crawled into his mother’s arms to cry? Would he cry on his father’s grave one day? This was the same father who had not seen Raphaëlle since she had taken up with a divorced man who was fifteen years older than she.

§ § §

When Cooker and his assistant left 46 Allées de Tourny, the merry-go-round had been completely dismantled. Shy rays of sunlight were trying to revive a city mired in winter. One could barely make out Lormont through the thick fog that refused to lift off the Garonne, rusting its pontoons and barges. The two men slipped into the convertible that was parked on the quays. The tramway had opened up recently in this part of town and now reigned over public transportation in Bordeaux. Virgile took it frequently, but Cooker refused. “Perhaps one day,” he had said without an ounce of conviction.

“Head to Saint-Macaire” was all that Cooker said. For once, he refrained from turning on the radio or playing one of the opera openings that exasperated Virgile.

“Mission?”

“Château Fayard.”

“Isn’t Jacques-Charles de Musset one of your favorites in the upcoming guide?”

“Exactly. It’s a small estate, just over seventeen acres and about a dozen barrels of a dry white every year. Beyond reproach,” Cooker said.

“Yes, I tasted a few samples at the lab,” Virgile added.

“And?”

“Sweet.”

“Virgile, what is this hip language you’re using? Sweet. You don’t call a dry white wine “sweet.” That’s like saying a wine is “good.” If it’s not good, there’s no reason to talk about it, and if it’s good you drink it and
describe
it.”

Cooker was getting worked up, as only he knew how to do. He could throw a fit at a moment’s notice and then get over it just as quickly. Truth be told, Cooker was just trying to divert Virgile from his sad thoughts, and he wondered if his assistant was fooled by the tactic.

“In Fayard, there are vines that are over sixty years old, with yields of—”

“Around five hundred and twenty gallons every two and a half acres. And the vines are fertilized with horse crap.”

“How do you know that, Virgile?”

“Four years ago, I harvested there. It was, well, let’s just say it was more than good.”

“Well then, say it was outstanding.” Cooker saw his assistant smile for the first time that day.

Layers of fog covered the river as the elegant Château Fayard rose from the rows of vines that winter had transformed into sad, bony skeletons.

Virgile dug up his memories from the harvest and shared them with Cooker. The laughter among the grapevines, T-shirts splotched with red, hands stiff from intensive use of pruning sheers, and backs stooped from days of going from row to row, heads down and cutters in hand.

Virgile seemed very happy to see Jacques-Charles de Musset again. Of course, he remembered Virgile. He even remembered that the young man had followed around a Swedish girl named Ingrid. She had aquamarine eyes and hair as golden as Semillon grapes. It was one of a thousand flirtations that had no tomorrows. It was just the way of the harvest: hard work, schoolboy pranks, girls in tank tops, boys in their prime, juicy clusters of grapes, sweet lips, and uncalled-for gestures covered up by the laughter of old-timers who made sure nobody dawdled. That was four years ago, the year Raphaëlle fled Montravel to live her life in Périgueux. Virgile loved his sister. And to think that…

“No, that is very kind of you, but we have other plans. Another time, perhaps. Thank you for the case.”

Cooker said good-bye to the head of Fayard with a firm, friendly handshake that Virgile clumsily tried to imitate. His heart was not in it. That was too bad, because he had fond memories of the Saint Macaire harvest, mixed with a few regrets. Why had he not bedded that beautiful Ingrid?

As they drove back to Bordeaux, Cooker tried to find out more about the pretty Scandinavian who had captivated his assistant. Virgile refused to answer his questions and remained silent, looking out over the dark waters of the Garonne.

On the way, Cooker made a sharp turn to the right. The tires screeched, and Virgile gave his driver the evil eye. Cooker did not blink as he stepped on the clutch and changed gears. A few minutes later, the Mercedes stopped at the Place du Verdelais. There was not a soul on the walkways, which looked like they belonged in an old spa town where people went to treat melancholy as much as rheumatism. The village looked dead. What inhabitants remained must be working or napping this afternoon. All around the square, abandoned shops had bygone signs. The only hotel had given up. A gigantic basilica seemed to crush the houses that pushed against its base. A golden Mother Mary perched on the steeple overlooked the whole. Cooker thought about Montbazon.

Virgile buried his chin in his jacket. A cold wind whisked brightly colored papers off the ground. They announced a raffle in Saint Maixent: “Win a wide-screen TV, ten fat ducks, two stag legs, and other prizes. Do not litter.”

“What are we doing here?” Virgile grumbled.

The winemaker did not respond and walked toward the basilica. Virgile followed in silence.

The smell of melted wax floated in the dark air. The walls were covered with ex-votos dedicated to Our Lady of Verdelais, known for miraculous healing and miraculous good works. Cooker made the sign of the cross and walked down the central aisle, illuminated by a few flickering candles, past a woman who was praying.

As he knelt at the front of the church, Cooker recalled the Angélus devotion. He wondered how many times the homage to the Blessed Mother and the Annunciation had been recited in this ancient place. How many times had the Angélus bell rung at six in the morning, noon and six in the evening? It was a ritual followed in Catholic churches all over the world.

Cooker thought Virgile would be lurking somewhere in the back of the church. And, in fact, his assistant was hovering like a naughty imp near a confessional that had probably not seen a sinner in decades. From this observation point, Virgile watched his boss’s somewhat abstruse actions. He seemed impressed with Cooker’s devotion, although he himself did not believe in God anymore than he believed in himself. Nobody had taught him how, not even his mother, who had been raised by nuns.

Cooker buried his face in his hands for a long time and then stood up and lit a votive candle. Virgile, still huddled near the old confessional, stared at the flame. He shivered. He must be thinking about Raphaëlle, perhaps saying a clumsy prayer, begging the plaster Lady of Verdelais statue, which was dressed like some Oriental doll as she looked down on him from her pedestal. The church bells broke the frozen silence. Cooker made the sign of the cross again and joined Virgile on the square outside the church. The young man’s eyes were red.

“I don’t believe in that stuff, sir.”

“You’re lying. I saw you praying near the confessional.”

“I wasn’t praying. I was crying.”

“It’s the same thing,” Cooker said. “You cry when you think God has abandoned you. Even Christ experienced doubt on the cross. You have no reason to doubt, or you might as well just change jobs, my dear Virgile.”

“Never.”

“Show the same faith in the unknown as you have in things related to wine.”

This was one of the occasions when student and teacher dared to explore the meandering path of religious belief. They talked for what seemed like hours about philosophy and theology while following the stations of the cross that rose above the Garonne Valley. The two pilgrims braved the west wind and the light rain that seeped into their bones, and for a while, they forgot their ages, their health, their ambitions, and perhaps even their own convictions. Then the Verdelais church bells struck five.

“Oh dear,” Cooker said. “I forgot to call Hubert de Boüard. Come on, let’s go to Saint-Émilion.”