The Vintage Caper

play this little game, to plan and execute the perfect robbery that would bring a national treasure back to the land it came from? And then perhaps have his friend the chief of police to a dinner washed down with stolen wine. There is the sport. There is the challenge. Voilà.” Philippe rubbed his hands together and reached for the champagne.
    Sam had to admit that he’d known of crimes committed for similarly whimsical reasons. Indeed, he had committed one or two of them himself, a thought that lodged in his mind, waiting to be considered later. “Sophie?” he said. “What do you think?”
    Sophie was frowning as she looked at her cousin. “I think Philippe has written his article already. But yes, what he says is possible.” She studied the tiny pinpoints of bubbles rising from the bottom of her glass, and shrugged. “So, my two detectives, what do we do about it?”
    “Let’s sleep on it,” said Sam. “But first, I’d better call L.A. and bring them up to speed.”
    There was a steely, hostile edge to Elena’s voice when she picked up Sam’s call. He had heard that tone in her voice before, when things between them had been going wrong, and it always made him want to duck. She was formidable when roused.
    “Elena, don’t bite,” he said. “It’s me. Your man in the field.”
    Sam could hear her take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sam, I’m sorry. But I’ve just had the daily earful from Danny Roth. I thought it was him calling back. He’s always doing that. I think he knows it drives me crazy.” Elena followed this with a short but blistering tirade in Spanish, ending with a fusillade of expletives and another deep breath. “I needed that. OK, now tell me what’s happening.”
    “The good news is that I’m pretty sure we’ve found the wine. Roth’s fingerprints are on some of the bottles in Reboul’s cellar, and the guy who did the match works for the police down here. So it’s solid evidence.”
    “That’s wonderful, Sam. Great work. Congratulations.” But she didn’t sound ready to celebrate just yet. “Tell me I’m wrong, but I get the feeling there’s some bad news as well.”
    “Could be. Reboul may have done it, but he’s smart. It’s more than likely he’s covered his tracks with fake invoices and all kinds of paperwork. If that’s what we find he’s done, we can say hello to the lawyers, and I don’t have to tell you what that means: a million bucks in legal fees, and the case tied up for months. Maybe years.”
    “Not to mention a lawsuit to decide who pays the legal fees.”
    “Exactly. The problem is we won’t know how he’s covered himself until we make a move on him, and then there’s no going back. So I’m beginning to have a few thoughts about plan B.”
    “Does it involve homicide and a well-known L.A. entertainment lawyer? Can I come?”
    “You know me, Elena. I don’t do homicides. Listen, there’s something I need to know. In a case like this, what’s the bottom line? What do you absolutely have to have in order to avoid paying out that claim?”
    “OK. It boils down to three things: discovery, identification, and condition. We have to know the whereabouts of the stolen goods. We need cast-iron confirmation that they are the stolen goods. And we have to be satisfied that they are still in good condition; ideally, the same condition they were in when stolen. There are dozens of supplementary details, but essentially if those three points stack up, then we’re off the hook.”
    “And who does all the checking? Is it you or is it Roth?”
    “Are you kidding? Would you take Roth’s word for anything? You know that old saying, ‘Good morning, he lied’? Well, that’s Danny Roth. No, the verification is done by us—in this case, by me and a couple of experts—and then we get Roth to sign off on it. And then I push him over a cliff.”
    “Thank you, Ms. Morales. That will be all. I’ll be in touch.”
    “What’s plan B?”
    “Trust me. You don’t want to know about it. Good night, Elena.”
    “Good night, Sam.”

Twenty

    The night was dragging, as if the clocks had slowed down, and Sam’s mind was far too busy to let him sleep. Scotch, normally a sure soporific, had no effect. Even a CNN special on the renaissance of the Nigerian banking system was unable to work its soothing magic. He was wide, wide awake.
    He put on a sweater and went out onto his terrace, hoping the sharp night air would succeed where whisky and