Vintage (7 page)

—
B
RUNO
T
ANNENBAUM,
T
WENTY
R
ECIPES FOR
L
OVE

B
runo's head throbbed. Actually, it shrieked. Had he been able to peel back his scalp and dump crushed ice directly onto the aching gray matter of his brain, he would have gladly done so.

Slats of light cut through the blinds, burning his eyes when he cracked them behind crusted lashes. He swung his legs over the edge of his mother's couch and pushed himself to a standing position. His brain screamed and the room spun counterclockwise as he lurched to the kitchen.

Ma had left for work but she'd left a pair of
brötchen
in the kitchen that were still soft in the center and some clear, gelatinous slices of
sülze
she'd made herself from the head of a calf. He ate the simple sandwiches, drank some cold coffee and started to recall shards of the prior evening.

He remembered tossing back an alarming amount of vodka with dinner at the Black Samovar, and then there were memories of strobe lights, neon and Polish techno music at a North Side club, followed by a march to an all-night taco stand with Aleksei, arms around each other as they sang Russian drinking songs. Bruno didn't remember how he got home, though he expected Yuri had a hand in the process.

Now, with the rolls and coffee stabilizing his hangover, he began to recall the task at hand. Something about a business plan began to emerge out of the fog. Yes, that was it . . . he was to provide evidence of his stability to Anna, which he would do simultaneously with announcing his . . . disengagement . . . from the newspaper. True, his request for funding had been denied by Aleksei, but his friend had provided him with some impressive-sounding terms like
page views
and
pay-per-clicks.
While this didn't make Bruno an expert, he'd never let that stop him from writing with authority before.

Tonight's parent-teacher conference should allow him some time alone with Anna. He'd task the girls with making dinner to distract them. He went to the living room and rolled a clean page onto the platen of the patched-together Smith-Corona and
waited for inspiration. After a few moments he typed:
A Plan for the Growth of Tannenbaum Consulting
.

He skipped a few lines. He waited again.

He typed:
Executive Summary
.

A line skipped, a long pause.

Nothing.

Writing a business plan, it seemed, was no easier than writing a novel. Frustrated, he watched the rays of window light creep across the carpet as the sun worked its way across the sky. Slowly he hammered on the keys.

Humans tell stories. It's what we do. It is the song of our existence, the engine of our souls. This will never change. However, the “how” of telling stories is always evolving. From the silver-tongued balladeer crooning, to revelers sated and huddled by their fires after a feast in the great hall, to the young woman on the train with her smartphone seeking respite from the drudge of her commute, the channels have shifted, though this has in no way lessened our shared need for the well-told story, the voice of the bard. The mode and method of sharing of our tales has evolved, and now so, too, must I, Bruno Tannenbaum. That is why I've decided to start a consulting service for the food, wine and restaurant industry, one based on the latest advances in technology . . .

He wrote in fits and starts until he'd managed a full page, after which he reread what he'd written. It was flowery gibberish.
Damn!
He was losing confidence. He paced the room, striving to channel his more businesslike sensibilities, and he accidentally kicked at the pile of dirty clothes from the night before, sending a small key chain tumbling out of his jeans pocket and across the carpet. And then he suddenly remembered the wine
locker. How could he have forgotten?
Oh, what a cruel master is vodka!

Invigorated, he abandoned the business plan, showered, dressed and went out to catch a bus. Chicago River Wine Storage lay not along the river, but the less-than-pristine Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Still, this was where the well-heeled stored their surplus vino. He entered the warehouse with visions of uncovering classic vintages of Margaux or maybe some ancient Rieslings that had the rich and slightly oily quality they acquired with age.

It took a moment for his head to adjust to the pressure as the door of the facility sucked shut behind him. The place was sealed, and a symphony of whirring fans and coolers kept air moving and temperatures constant. A slightly bored but nicely dressed young fellow was cleaning glasses at the tasting bar. He looked up and alarm crossed his features.

“Hello, uh, Mr. Tannenbaum . . .”

Bruno vaguely recalled the man's face and also a series of image fragments from an auction he'd crashed here a good six months prior . . . blue blazers, open bar, a short, sequined cocktail dress revealing a vista of silky thigh, a stumble and fall, broken glass . . . that made him realize he must have performed some sort of transgression on his last visit.

“I'm, uh, not supposed to pour for you. I'm sorry, but the owners . . .”

Bruno merely proffered his key and grinned. The man took it, punched numbers into a computer and then sighed.

“Well. Looks like you're on the list.”

Bruno snatched the key and whistled as he entered the warehouse, feeling the pressure on his eardrums as the door closed behind him. “Aleksei, you're a gem,” he whispered as he eyed the rows of lockers stretched out before him.

The lockers near the front were smallish, no larger than broom closets. He checked the number on the key chain: 168. He had a ways to go.

The place was dark, with a few pale fluorescent lamps buzzing and flickering in the rafters. There was a scuffle in the shadows and he paused and squinted down an aisle looking for its source, likely one of the notoriously oversized rats one found near the canal. He felt out of place, as if he were being watched, perhaps by the security cameras mounted in the rafters. He imagined the treasures that were hidden in these lockers. Bottles in their hundreds of thousands, and worth a fortune. It made him feel small. Humble. And thirsty.

He found his row and was pleased to see that it was a hallway with doors spaced farther apart indicating rooms large enough to hold dozens, if not hundreds, of cases. Door 164, 165, 166, 167 . . . his pulse quickened. He mumbled a quick prayer to Bacchus before slipping the key in the dead-bolt lock. He twisted, pushed.

It was a small, plain room with a wooden barrel fashioned into a table in the center, half-empty wine racks along the walls and an open filing cabinet filled with packing supplies. A fan whirred above the door, a single ribbon of plastic wagging from the grille. There were a number of empty boxes and also foam shipping containers. He picked up a clipboard with an inventory list from a shelf and whistled through his teeth, noting the quality of the producers.

Then a collection of translucent brownish bottles on the bottom row of the nearest rack caught his attention. At first he thought that they were cheap brown glass, but as he bent and plucked one, reading the dusty, yellowed label, his hand began to tremble. It was a '63 Château d'Yquem. The glass was clear, but the wine was the color of maple syrup, which, for perhaps this
particular wine only, is a good thing. He cradled the bottle to his chest like one of his daughters when they were infants and drew a ragged breath that ended in a sentimental sob of joy.

A Chateau d'Yquem is a Saunternes, which begins its life as a sweet white wine and turns all manner of miraculous earthen hues. It's made from rotten grapes, but it's a special rot of the kind they have in France, which also does wonderful things to their breads, cheeses and cured meats, not to mention their wines. Bruno loved Sauternes because, like him, they never followed the rules. In a world where red wines are king, sweetness is considered bourgeois, clarity and color stability are marks of character, d'Yquems are the antithesis of all of these traits. They are paradoxes. Like a working-class gourmet food writer who is broke, loves expensive wines and lives on his mother's couch.

Bruno set the bottle gently down and retrieved its neighbor from the lower shelf. Another d'Yquem . . . this one a '64.
Holy mother of God!
It was a flight, six bottles in all! He set them next to each other and rubbed his hands. Were they poorly handled and spoiled? Or was at least one of them drinkable still?

They were doubtless worth a fortune together, but given his streak of bad luck, he deserved a taste, didn't he? Hadn't Aleksei said he could have some for himself? He fished in his pockets until he found the silver corkscrew Aleksei had given him and he twisted it into the cork of the '63, which was alarmingly soft.

“Don't be vinegar, don't be vinegar, don't be vinegar,” he whispered as he prepared to pull. He grabbed a dusty glass from a shelf, then tugged the cork out. It was more of a slurp than a pop, and for a moment he was concerned about the seal. But when he poured the gold-brown liquid and breathed in the layers of confection, citrus, honey and vanilla that rolled from the glass he knew he was in for a life-altering experience. He seized
the stem of the glass, so certain of the coming bliss that he didn't hear the scuff of shoes on concrete behind him.

He was actually laughing out loud as he raised and tipped the glass, and the amber elixir was almost to his lips when his headache was reawakened with a skull-rattling thump before everything turned completely dark.

*      *      *

It was hard to say how much time had passed when Bruno awoke, his cheek pressed to the cold floor. The pain in his head no longer radiated from the center of his being as it had from the hangover: it now had a locus . . . a bloody knot at his hairline, which he fondled gingerly. He scanned the floor as he wiggled his toes to make sure he still had feeling in his extremities.

Objects came into focus. Shards from a broken wineglass were scattered across the floor. He stared at a puddle of d'Yquem—such a waste! He half considered licking it off of the cement, but he settled for a sniff . . . traces of honey.

It seemed pointless to get up, so he lay with his face on the floor for a long time. That's when he noticed a dark object under the filing cabinet where the lowest drawer had been yanked out. He crawled over and reached beneath the cabinet, feeling something soft. He pulled it out; it was a blue bandanna tied in a knot. He worked the knot out and unwrapped it to find a single cork with a wax cap on one end and indistinguishable scribbling on the sides. He couldn't discern anything about it other than that it was very old and the color of the stains indicated a red wine. He tucked it into his pocket and pushed himself off of the floor.

The assailant hadn't taken everything. The d'Yquems were gone, and there were a few other blank spaces on the shelves that hadn't been there before. There was no telling the total value of
what was missing, but it was certainly a substantial sum. However, something told Bruno there was more to it than simple greed. There were several smashed bottles, one of the racks was overturned and drawers had been completely removed from the filing cabinet. It seemed like the intruder had been looking for something else. Something he hadn't found.

Bruno pieced together the label of one of the broken bottles—it was an old Burgundy, and there were several others like it on the shelves. He took out his little black notebook and tried to focus long enough to scribble down the name of the producer and the date. Despite the massive headache, he was feeling somewhat writerly. This, after all, was the stuff of spy novels.

Bruno walked unsteadily back into the front of the warehouse. The man behind the bar noted his uneasy gait.

“Tap into something good back there, Mr. Tannenbaum?”

“You might say that,” Bruno mumbled.
Fucking smart-ass
. He staggered toward the door, the whole world threatening to spin on him. Then he paused in the threshold. He felt blood leaking from his right temple and he dabbed it facing away from the attendant. “Did my friend perchance leave already?”

“The guy with the accent? Scar on his jaw?”

“Um . . . yes. That's him.”

“Yeah, maybe twenty minutes ago. Didn't look too happy. You say anything to piss him off?”

“Evidently.”

“Hey, you want me to call you a cab or something?”

Bruno shook his head and plunged into the afternoon sunlight.

*      *      *

Morton Cohen had various talents, chief among them being his mental catalog of wine labels and vintages as well as his ability
to patch cuts with alacrity in the corner of a boxing ring. Bruno was in need of both of these skills at the moment, so he caught the Pink Line out to Fifty-fourth and Cermak in Cicero, where Morty had a small, cluttered shop that was hard to define. In addition to random antiques, coins and stamps, he also bought and sold rare wines and cigars, both authentic as well as quality fakes.

When Bruno stumbled into the store, Morty leapt from his stool at the end of the counter, where he was in the process of applying forged labels to bare Burgundy bottles that were likely filled by wines he'd made in his garage from grape concentrate that he ordered from the Lodi Valley in California. Morty spotted the bloody welt in Bruno's hairline, as he was accustomed to searching for such things. He was a sort of cut-rate surgeon, willing to give free stitches in exchange for some tidbit of information he could use in the seedier levels of the pawn trade.

“Jesus, what happened to you?” Morty asked around the stump of an unlit cigar as he proffered his stool and slipped into the back room for his first-aid kit.

“I fell.”

Morty returned to attend to Bruno. He was a short gnome of a man who had to look up as he worked on Bruno sitting on the stool. He had large white eyebrows and glasses propped up on a spotted, bald scalp that gleamed in the dim light. He wore a strange and permanent grin through which he was able to talk without losing his grip on the cigar stump.