The Downtown Deal (15 page)

"So,
what is so important?" Olivera asked.

"What
I want to know, Mr Olivera, is … what's the deal with the wine?"

I
tasted the drink. It was very good Scotch, probably single malt.

"The
wine? Do you mean …"

"I
mean the château whatever-it-is. What is it and why do you want it so
badly?"

"Jack,
this, uh, this is not really —"

"Don't
tell me it's none of my business. There have been two murders, and I'm
investigating one of them. This wine is right in the middle of the whole dirty
mess. That makes it my business."

I
could see him gathering his thoughts. "What do you know about it so
far?"

"Very
little. I know it's expensive, and that you want it. That's about it."

"Did
Mr Blake tell you anything about it?"

I
sipped the whiskey again. It was really good stuff. "He didn't seem to
know much more about it than I did. He told me some nobleman from France gave
it to him a little while back."

"But
he did not tell you anything about its value?"

"He
said he thought it was worth some money, but I got the idea that he really
didn't know how much. I don't think he's a wine drinker at all, to tell you the
truth."

Olivera
said, "Did either of the Farrow brothers seem to know about it?"

"I'm
supposed to be the one asking the questions here. What do the Farrows have to
do with this?"

He
appeared to be very relaxed on his end of the couch, but he put his ankle up on
his knee to get that last little ounce of comfort. "I am only trying to
find out exactly what you have been told about this wine, Jack. I want to make
sure you have not been misled."

"I
told you, I know very little about it."

"Well,
what did the Farrows tell you?"

"That
they wanted to steal it out of Sandra Blake's house thirty-six hours after her
murder. Colby told me it was French wine, and that I wouldn't know anything
about it. He was right on both counts."

He
uncrossed his leg, putting his foot back down on the thick, pale yellow carpeting.
Then, in a very compact set of motions, clasped and unclasped his hands several
times, fairly rapidly.

"It's
Château Mouton-Rothschild, 1945. Do you know what that means?"

"Surprise
me."

He
leaned a little farther back into the couch, crossing his legs again. I sensed
a speech coming up, almost a professorial-type lecture. As he clasped his hands
together for good, I knew I wasn't going to be disappointed.

His
dark, liquid eyes widened in excitement, as he began: "During the Second
World War, the Nazis took over all the vineyards in France and the other
countries they conquered. They did not really want to get into the wine
business. Not while they were fighting a war on two fronts, anyway."

He
looked at me for some acknowledgement of what he was saying, some assurance
that I was paying attention. I slowly moved my head up and down, then focused
my eyes directly into his. That seemed to satisfy him.

He
went on. "But most of those vineyards had great stocks on hand, so the
Nazis just looted those stocks and drank from them. When the war ended, the
Rothschilds returned and immediately resumed management of their winery in time
for the 1945 vintage. Because they had been out of the business for several
years, they wanted to do something special for their first release. So they
decided to call the Mouton '45 the 'Liberation Vintage' to celebrate victory in
the war. Does that mean anything to you?"

"What
do you think?"

I almost
caught him rolling his eyes, but he restrained himself at the last
split-second. "Well, I'll tell you what it means. The weather conditions
in France that year came together perfectly to produce one of the greatest
grapes in history. And the Liberation Vintage Château Mouton is one of the
greatest wines in the history of the world."

I
glimpsed Calzado. He was preoccupied during this history lesson with looking
out the window and fiddling with his cufflinks. I said, "Okay, so it's a
great wine. So what?"

"So
what? I will tell you so what. The Rothschilds released the wine in 1945, on
schedule,
but
in a limited number. Without doubt, this was due to lack
of time. Remember, the war had just ended, and it took them a lot of time just
to get the winery up and running to their satisfaction. In any event, they
produced only about twelve thousand cases altogether, including fewer than
three hundred fifty cases of magnums, a very small number."

I
drank a little more whiskey, this time to keep my eyes from glazing over.
Olivera continued, "Not only that, for that one year only, they issued some,
but not all, of these cases with a special liberation label on the bottles.
Blake told me his case contained magnums, and that the Baron told him all six
bore these extremely rare labels."

I
said, "Why would he tell you something like that? I mean, how did he know
of your great interest in wine?"

"Sandra
told me about the wine at first. She said she had it in her house. When I began
speaking with Blake about the land deal, I mentioned it, and that's when he
told me. He gave me the complete story of how Baron Rothschild gave him the
wine, the whole thing."

I
tried to get a handle on this. "So it's those labels that make this wine
so rare?"

He sat
up straight, then began gesturing with his hands, something he'd tried not to
do up till now. I knew he was getting more excited. "Not just the labels.
As I have said, the wine itself is superior. And they didn't make too much of
it. Back in those days, you could have walked into a liquor store and purchased
a bottle of Mouton '45, but it would have cost you around twenty dollars, a
fortune at that time for a bottle of wine at the retail level."

He
then raised an index finger and said, "One more thing. Every winery keeps
a few dozen cases of each vintage in its own stockpile. Which means that from
1945 until the time the Baron gave it to Blake a little over a year ago, it was
kept under the most perfect, most pristine conditions. I also know that Blake
kept it under proper storage from the moment he received it." Now, as his
excitement reached a new level, he modulated his voice upward. He couldn't help
it. "Jack, this is a find that wine collectors like myself only dream of.
A case of Château Mouton Liberation Vintage, straight from the winery itself!
It is nothing less than the Holy Grail of wine."

He'd
gotten pretty worked up over this. I gave him a moment to come back down to
earth, then I asked, "What's it worth?"

He exhaled,
then slowly settled back into the couch. He looked up toward the ceiling, as if
trying to calculate a figure in his mind. Then, he tossed that strategy aside,
saying,
 
"Well, this case is
worth much more because they are magnum bottles."

"What
are those?"

"They
are the larger size bottles, kind of like the one-point-five liter bottles you
see today." I didn't know what he was talking about, but I nodded again
like I did know, then let him go on. "Wine ages differently in the magnums
than it does in the standard size bottles, causing it to deliver a more … a
more extravagant taste. Because these bottles were kept under such ideal
conditions, that would add greatly to its value."

"So,
I ask you again, what's it worth?"

Again,
another look at the ceiling, and again, his eyes returned to looking at me,
only much more expressively. "Not long ago, a case of Mouton '45 magnums
was auctioned off for more than a couple of hundred thousand dollars. But what
you must understand, Jack, is that these wines that sell at auction have been
floating around for years, from one collector to another."

"Okay,"
I said. "So they float around."

"Well,
you would think that most collectors keep their wine under proper conditions,
but there's really no way of knowing, is there? Blake's case came directly from
the winery! And this can be proven. That is as good as it gets. You never see
this kind of thing anywhere. The wine is guaranteed to be perfect in every way.
So its value goes off the chart, as you say."

"If
it was so valuable, why would Sandra Blake just keep it lying around on the
floor of her wine storage area?"

"She
didn't really know what she had, and no one knew she had it. No one but myself,
and of course Blake and the Farrows, since she was dating Ryan Farrow. In fact,
I don't believe anyone knew that Blake had it in the first place. There was no
news in the wine world that Baron Rothschild had given away a case of Mouton
'45 magnums. It was, you see, just one of those things that no one was aware of.
There was no great attempt to keep it secret, but Blake didn't think it was
anything special, so he just never told anyone about it."

"How
do you know it's for real? I mean, how do you know Blake's story is true? Have
you seen the actual bottles?"

"When
Sandra told me about it, I asked to see it. She showed me the sealed case. It
was nailed shut, exactly as they did it in 1945. I did not ask her to open it.
When I returned to Miami, I telephoned the winery in France. After many
attempts over a period of several weeks, I finally was able to speak personally
with Baron Rothschild, who confirmed that he had sent Blake a case of Mouton
'45 magnums as a gift. When he told me that, my knees became weak. Do you
understand?"

"Not
really. But they're your knees."

I was
about to ask him something else, but he beat me to it. "Now I have a
question for you, Jack. Do you know where the wine is?" Without losing his
winning smile, his wide black eyes narrowed now, until all that was visible
were dark, gleaming slits.

I felt
like a wide receiver who's just caught a long pass, with nothing but daylight
between him and the end zone, and then is suddenly tackled from behind. I tried
not to show my surprise, but I'm sure I failed. Olivera's eyes were too sharp,
too perceptive to slide that one by him.

"The
answer is no. But the bigger question is, why would you think
I
know
where it is?"

"You
prevented Ryan Farrow from picking it up at Sandra's house. And it is not there
now."

I
polished off the remaining Scotch in my glass. "I didn't know the Farrows
at the time, but I knew neither one of them lived there. They could've been
thieves, burglars."

"But
they identified themselves to you, didn't they?"

"Yes,
eventually. But I didn't think it was right to let them take things out of a
house where a murder had been committed just a short time before."

"You
didn't realize they were only trying to rescue the wine? To keep it from being
stolen? To put it in a safe place?"

"You
mean like maybe a nice, safe little spot in Miami?"

"Very
funny, Jack. You know what I mean."

I'd
had about all of this I could take. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Now
listen, I didn't know anything about that wine. All I know about it is what you
just told me. I did know, however, that it didn't belong to the Farrows, and I
wasn't going to let them take it or anything else out of that house." Calzado
suddenly turned his attention away from the window. He moved a little forward
in the loveseat, like a cat about to spring. I kept him in my peripheral
vision.

"And
you did not take it?"

I
waved that one off.

Olivera
said, "You are certain."

"Why
would I take it? Like I said, I didn't know about its value, or anything else
until just now. So I left it there, with the rest of Sandra Blake's belongings.
For that matter, Blake might have it at his house. It did belong to him, you
know. Or maybe the police took it as some sort of evidence or something."
I didn't like having the tables turned on me like this, so I shot back,
"And speaking of Sandra Blake, did she know about all of this? Did you
happen to tell her that the wine was so valuable?"

A
knock at the door signaled the arrival of their lunch. Calzado rose and opened
the door. The white-jacketed room service guy wheeled the cart over to a table
across the room, which he began to set up as a dining table. This took a few
minutes, during which time, Olivera remained silent. When it was all done,
Calzado signed for it, and the guy left. Olivera sprang up from the couch.

"Jack,
I am afraid we must end our meeting. Our lunch has arrived, and I must meet
with the mayor in less than two hours."

He
held out his hand. What could I do but reluctantly shake it and leave?

I
went back home and researched the wine on the Internet. It
was just like Olivera had said, extremely rare and coveted by collectors, who
had no trouble calling it the top wine of the twentieth century, if not of all
time. One website actually had a photo of a 1945 bottle. The standard label was
there, but above it was a smaller, added label with a "V", presumably
for victory, in its center, along with some French words. That thin piece of
printed paper, not even original art, was part of what got Olivera and so many
others all worked up over this stuff. I didn't get it at all.

I put
it all aside, took a nap, then left around nine-thirty for the Bootlegger to
see Martine. When she finished, I followed her to her apartment, where we
relaxed over a couple of drinks in the dim light of her living room. Irma
Thomas music drifted around softly in the background. My sip of Dalmore warmed
my insides as it slid down my throat. Martine nestled into the crook of my arm
around her shoulder. At long last, the world was as it was supposed to be.