The Vintage Caper

camera back in his pocket and notebook in hand.
    “Aha!” said Vial. “There he is, your colleague, hard at work. A busy bee, non? I hope he has found something to interest him?”
    “Fabulous,” said Sam. “Absolutely fabulous. A quite extraordinary collection.”
    “But you should see the whites,” said Sophie. “The Burgundies! The Yquem! Monsieur Vial has given me the education of a lifetime.”
    Vial preened.
    “I can’t wait to see them,” said Sam. “But I feel we’ve taken up too much of Monsieur Vial’s time already today. Can I ask a big favor? Can we come back?”
    “Of course.” Vial fished in his pocket and brought out a card. “Here is the number of my portable . Oh, I remind myself—Monsieur Reboul called from Corsica to make sure you have everything you need.”
    After a prolonged exchange of effusive thanks from Sophie and Sam and charmingly modest disclaimers from Vial, they left the twilight of the cellar and emerged blinking into the late-afternoon sun.
    They said little on their way back to the hotel, both digesting what they had seen during the past two and a half hours.
    “Philippe said he’d meet us here,” Sophie said as they came to the hotel driveway. “He can’t wait to hear what we found. He says it’s like a roman policier —you know, a police story.”
    Sam stopped abruptly. “Does he have any contacts with the police down here? Solid contacts? Cops he meets for a drink now and then?”
    “I’m sure. They all do, the journalists. Look, he’s here already.” She pointed to Philippe’s black scooter, half-hidden in the shrubbery that lined the drive. “Why do you ask about the police?”
    “It’s just a thought, but I’m beginning to feel we may need them.”

Seventeen

    Philippe was on the phone, pacing around the lobby, his free hand going back and forth, up and down, side to side, as if conducting an invisible symphony orchestra. He was dressed, as usual, in military hand-me-downs, the pride of place going to a vintage combat jacket with hell on wheels stenciled across the back in dripping, blood-red capital letters. Seeing Sophie and Sam, he terminated his call with an instant dismissal, barely having time to mutter “Au’voir” before the phone was back in his pocket. Sam had often noticed that the French, who like nothing better than to talk, have a brusque, almost brutal way of ending their phone conversations. No lingering farewells for them; odd, for such a loquacious race.
    “Alors? Alors?” Philippe was feverish with curiosity, and after kissing Sophie with a perfunctory peck on each cheek, turned to Sam. “What did you find?”
    “Plenty,” said Sam. “I’ll explain everything, but first I need to get some stuff from my room. Can you find us a table in the bar? I won’t be long.”
    When he joined them five minutes later, it was with an armful of papers—his notes, Reboul’s dossier, and a slim folder with material he’d brought over from L.A. He dropped everything on the table and placed his camera on top of the pile.
    Philippe had put himself in charge of refreshments. “Sophie tells me you like rosé,” he said, taking a bottle of Tavel from the ice bucket and filling their glasses. “Voilà , Domaine de la Mordorée.” He made a bouquet out of his fingertips and kissed them. “Don’t let it stop you talking.”
    “Thanks. OK, we’ll take the good news first: we were looking for six wines from specific years, and I’ve seen them. They’re all there, and thanks to Sophie I was able to get photographs of them.” Sam tapped the camera. “But don’t get too excited. It is good news, but it’s nothing more than a start. The problem is that there were more than a hundred thousand bottles produced of each of the wines, except Yquem. And even there, production was around eighty thousand. So there’s no shortage of wine around from those vintages, and Reboul’s bottles could have been picked up quite legitimately over the years. OK? Now, if Vial keeps his records as well as he keeps the cellar, there should be receipts for everything. But that’s where we have another problem: we can’t ask to see those receipts without giving the game away. Also, we should never forget that Reboul didn’t get rich by being stupid. If he’s our guy, you can bet your life he will have organized dummy paperwork to hide behind, something that would give him the chance of saying he bought the wine in good faith. Liechtenstein,