LACKING VIRTUES (34 page)

He clung to her tightly, disturbed by the thought. He knew it would be better to keep his mind clear of such distractions.

As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw that one entire wall was lined with bottles stored individually in little cubby holes and protected by a mesh wire door.

The expensive stuff.

Another wall was dedicated to crates and boxes from elite vineyards, like the case of Château d’Yquem Nicole was sitting on. He could make out names of wines he knew, expensive wines, and a lot more names he didn’t know.

The third wall apparently Henri’s. Double bottles were housed in wooden crates marked only with the year. One crate was marked 1961. The wine in there, he thought, was older than both of them. But 1961 seemed pretty recent when you were in a house built before the French Revolution.

He hopped up on the stack of cases beside Nicole, put his arm around her and pulled her close. She nestled her head against his chest. While he stroked her hair, he looked up. He could see most everything now. There were heating ducts overhead, modern ducts. Some were part of the climate control system for the wine cellar, but most of them branched off to other destinations. 

He knew in seconds everything he needed to know. Not only was the basement navigable; the manor had an updated heating system. With a little time alone down here, he could devise a way of eavesdropping on the Wednesday night meetings regardless of the rooms in which they were held. If the ducts he was looking at right now went where he hoped they did, he might not even have to leave the wine cellar.

They selected their lunch wine, a 1964 LaFite Rothschild, and left the cellar arm in arm.

The lights were still on in the basement, the bright lights that had come on when he opened the cellar door. On their way up the narrow steps, he saw a switch. He reached up and closed the basement door. The lights went out and they were plunged in darkness. He flicked the switch. The lights came back on even though the door remained closed. Good to know exactly what everything did.

“Scare you?” he said.

Nicole laughed. “Terribly.” She squeezed his arm. “Do you suppose I could have my panties back?”

He drew a momentary blank, then remembered they were in his pocket. He handed them to her and glanced at the inside part of the basement door lock while she stepped into them.

Very good. It was the type of lock with a little knob on the inside, not another keyhole. Easy to operate when you were in a hurry.

Outside again, they walked hand-in-hand toward the back of the manor. “Are you hungry yet?” she asked.

“Ravenous. And thirsty for this. You have that effect on me. Shall we do our picnic?”

“We shall. But not with Henri and Isabelle, all right? Let’s be by ourselves. I’m enjoying it too much.”

“Fine. So am I. Do you have a place in mind?”

“Of course, Steven. I’ve already choreographed the rest of our lives, starting this instant. At the south end of the property is a little stream with ponds and lilies. It looks like something Monet would have painted. Maybe he did, who knows? I used to go there when I was a little girl and felt sad. I wonder how it will make me feel when I’m happy.”

“We’ll find out,” said Steven, holding her close.

She said, “I’ll run in the kitchen and get the picnic.”

He gave her the keys, reminding himself he mustn’t forget to take them back: there were still imprints to be made in the wax of the little key duplication kit he had brought with him.

The chestnut trees all around him sighed in the breeze. Puffy white clouds scudded across the sky, moving rapidly. For a moment, as he let himself down on a wrought-iron bench, the sun dimmed.

Nicole was right. You had to be precise about the harvest of the wine grapes. A storm was coming, he could feel it. It might hit tonight, it might unleash a devastating bombardment of hail. If Henri and Isabelle had waited, they might have lost the fruits of a season’s hard work.

Nicole disappeared into the manor, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He had to be precise, too. He had to know when the time was right, then go for his scoop no matter what.

He didn’t particularly want to come back here this Wednesday. He knew he had a bad habit of relaxing after each success – and today had been a success. But he had to come back. The time for
his
harvest was at hand. If he procrastinated, he risked losing everything he and Sophie had set out to do.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chuckie Stafford watched the last of his uncle’s employees drive off down the pot-holed dirt road toward the exit gate.

Not a bad Monday, he thought. Three big jobs completed, two new jobs in the hopper. And one of these two was another cash deal it took him about five minutes to arrange.

So what was this shit his uncle kept giving him about the cement business being tough? Chuckie this, Chuckie that, Chuckie you don’t know nothing, so how do you expect me to take a vacation?

That had been bullshit, too, just to get him thinking it was a major responsibility to run a piss-ant little operation like this. Just to keep him scared while big shot Uncle Joey DiStefano got a tan on his dick in the Virgin Islands.

He took a Budweiser out of the fridge, opened the twist-off cap and sky-hooked it at the waste basket beside his desk. Bad shot. The cap skittered under some shelves. He could almost hear Joey screaming at him to go get it.

Fuck you, Uncle, Chuckie thought.

He entered the check he had gotten for the day’s first job in the computer – $3,249.26, including tax, all nice and legal. He put his copy of the invoice, which was stamped “paid,” in the folder for September.

Now for the fun part, the tax-free part. He took out the roll of bills he had harvested on the second and third jobs and counted them again. Forty-two $100 dollar bills and change, all gravy.

Uncle Joey had the business figured out, he’d give him that. But you didn’t have to be a genius to make it work. When Joey got back from the Bahamas, or wherever the fuck he was, Chuckie would have more cash in the safe than his uncle would have made. That’s how he would prove he was Joey’s equal in business, not just a dago punk with a WASP name. 

In the safe. He’d better put it there now before he started thinking about all the things he could do with it.

He did, grabbed another beer on his way back to the desk and hit the waste basket dead center with his lid shot. He stopped in his tracks when he saw an older model Bonneville drive in through the wire gate.

This was bullshit, the office was closed. Well, maybe, maybe not. Depends on what they wanted. He’d better listen. Sometimes those big cash jobs came in after hours right off the street.

The car stopped out front. He played it cool, went to the john, took a leak and combed his hair. When he returned, a pair of city cops were standing at the door.

City cops, the guys you treated politely, the guys you paid off, the guys you needed if you were going to make money in a small business these days.

Chuckie opened the door. “Officers, good evening. Come in. My uncle, Mr. DiStefano, the owner, is away for a couple of weeks. Anything I can help you with?”

“Maybe,” the older one said. He was a pink-faced Irish type with a gut and veins in his nose. Chuckie wondered if guys like that ever got laid.

“You off duty, officers? How about a beer?”

“Thank you but no,” the younger one said. “I’m Officer King, this is Sergeant Elliot. We would like to ask you some questions regarding a job you did in early August.”

“Hey, you don’t wanna ask me, you wanna ask my uncle. Like I said, he’s the one who owns the joint. I wasn’t working for him in August anyway.”

“Your name, please,” Elliot said, as if he hadn’t heard.

Chuckie guessed he’d better answer. “Stafford. Charles R. Stafford.”

King said, “Mr. Stafford, what’s the tattoo there on your arm?”

Chuckie smiled. He pulled the sleeve of his T-shirt all the way up and turned his muscled bicep toward Elliot.

“What is it?” Elliot asked.

“You blind? It’s a girl and pony show, forget the dog. Like it?”

“On stage,” Elliot said. “On you it looks like shit.”

Chuckie shrugged his shoulders. What did these guys know?

King said, “Why, Mr. Stafford, did you tell us you were not working for your Uncle in August when, in fact, you were?”

“What are you talking about? I said I wasn’t working for him so I wasn’t. I wasn’t even in the state, okay?”

Elliot said, “Where were you, then, hotshot? We’ll check it out.”

King raised his hand. “Let me handle this, Stan. We know you were working for your uncle in August, Mr. Stafford. People we’ve spoken with saw you.”

“Oh, yeah? So how did they know it was me?”

“Your tattoo was described to us in detail. You must have had your sleeves rolled up on the day we’re interested in.”

“Hey, just a minute. I – ”

“Let me finish, Mr. Stafford. I understand it’s not much fun having to answer questions, especially at dinner time. Maybe it will help you to know that you and Mr. DiStefano are not the subjects of our investigation. You are not implicated in any wrong-doing.”

“But if you continue to lie to us, punk,” Elliot said, “that could change real fast.”

“Yes, it could, Mr. Stafford.”

Chuckie went for another beer and sat on the edge of his desk. He dropped the cap straight down into the basket, no way to miss. “So what d’you wanna know?”

“Let’s start again,” King said. “Were you working for your uncle in August?”

“Yeah, every goddamn day except Sundays.”

“So you
were
present when your trucks poured hundreds of yards of concrete down the coal chute of a tool and die shop just north of Pacific Street in Wallingford?”

Oh, shit, Chuckie thought. They’d somehow found out about the undeclared forty large in cash. What the fuck was he supposed to say? How could Uncle Joey just fly off to Cancun, or wherever the fuck he was, and leave him to deal with shit like this?

“Mr. Stafford. We’re waiting for your answer. You were at the – ”

“Yeah, goddammit, I was there. I told my uncle it seemed fishy, pouring some basement full of concrete. But it was all legit. The guy who ordered the job had some city inspector on his ass, told him his shop was sinking and they’d condemn it if he didn’t get it fixed. Insurance had already paid him for repairs by the time we got the job. All he cared about was getting the work done fast. What’s the problem, officers? You think someone’s down in that hole?”

“We don’t know,” King said. “We’re trying to find out. Do you remember the name of the man who ordered the job?”

“Hey, I pour a lot of cement, got a lot of customers. I don’t remember. I swear, that’s the truth. I don’t fucking remember.”

Elliot took an invoice form out of the tray on the desk. “DiStefano Sand and Gravel,” he read. “That you?”