by L. J. Martin
"That's in the back of the aging cave?"
"Sí."
"Guards?"
"Two, always at the back of the cave. One outside. He leaves at night after the guests depart."
"There's a room at the back of the cave?"
"A big room. Doors big enough to drive into and a man size door. Something strange goes on."
"Okay, Enrico...May I call you Enrico?"
"Sí." He's silent for a moment, then adds, "Señor Sammy, he very good to us. New owners not so much. But I work them. I need job."
"I won't be back, Enrico. My van is out on the road. Tell anyone who asks that I had car trouble and asked for help. Otherwise, you've never seen me."
He nods and looks very worried, so I add, "Stay clear of the winery tonight, in fact it would be a good night to visit relatives somewhere else."
He nods again. Then he smiles and suggests. "Two ways into cave. The new owners have us dig another way in and out. No guard there."
"Where?"
"Pump house on top of hill. Ladder from inside goes down to room in back. We use old three-foot culvert for walls. Don't tell I told, por favor."
"Thanks, amigo."
"Señora Castiano a good woman. She kind to mi esposa. Be careful."
"Go to town tonight."
"Sí."
I shake again, and head back to the van. It was well worth the stop.
Now for a little closer recon, and a look at this new cave access, if I can get to it without being seen.
14
My buddy Skip is coming in on a 5:10 PM flight, so I don't have a lot of time. I find a two track off a side road which leads to within a hundred yards of the back property line of the Castiano property, and work my way there, parking in a small copse of scrub oaks. I carry a number of magnetic signs hidden in the side panels of the van, but none of them point to a good reason the van might be parked in a fairly open field, so I choose a Paladin Pest Control pair and affix them to the sides of the van. Maybe they'll think I'm exterminating ground squirrels. I figured a 'have gun will travel' approach a good one for a pest control guy.
I've noticed that most the farm workers are in jeans and blue denim work shirts, and I have jeans and don them, over an ankle holster with a small Ruger .380 therein. I don't want to be seen carrying a long arm, but also have no interest in being defense-naked. My shirt, however, doesn't look like farm worker, but is rather a black pullover. My boots look military, because they are...but hell, lots of guys wear camo boots these days.
It's a full half-mile through the vineyards and a corner of the apples to the pump house I'm particularly interested in. Another of the spray rigs, like the one Enrico was overhauling, is running through the vineyards, but I'm sure the driver will have little if any interest in me, so I charge forward down a lane with Zinfandel on one side and Cab Sav on the other, until I reach the apple orchard then duck into it and make my way through trees only a couple of feet taller than my six two. I've given the main house and its guesthouse a wide berth.
The apples are not normal tree shape but have been trimmed to be flat on either side, I presume for mechanical harvest. I have to duck to move from row to row, but am soon in sight of the green metal roof of the small ten by ten metal building that Enrico has said houses not only pumping and electrical equipment but an access to the cave below. I boldly cross the twenty feet from orchard to building.
The damn door has a hardened padlock, and this damn fool left his lock pick set in the van. Seldom are outbuildings on farms locked, so although it's a bad thing I can't get in, it may be a good thing as it means there's something to hide.
Okay, plan two.
There's a fresh new set of vehicles in the parking lot of the tasting room, a half-dozen cars and two pickups pulling travel trailers.
So I boldly charge forward.
I have to sidle through a protective row of rose bushes, and am surprised when a no-neck is parked in a canvas backed chair just inside a row of grape vines, and he challenges me as soon as I step out of the roses.
"Hey, pardner, what the hell are you doing?" He unlimbers from the chair. His loose shirt is un-tucked, but it's obvious he's carrying by the lump on his right hip.
I do my best sheepish tourist imitation, and stammer. "I was on a tour and had to take a leak."
"Nobody wanders away from the tour. Get your ass back there."
"Yes, sir," I say. "Sorry."
"Get back there."
So I jog the hundred yards to the tasting room, past the concrete wall bins of material and the main winery building. Just as I reach the parking lot, a group of eight are leaving with a sweet little strawberry blonde college-age girl leading a tour, so I give them all a smile and join right in taking up a position at the back of the pack. I glance back up to the hill where the no-neck has returned to his chair, and give him a wave and a smile. I get a glare in return and no wave...rude bastard.
It's a nice group of folks I'm tagging along with, and the cutest little college-age button-nose leading the pack, and explaining the wine-making process. She's giving me more than one come-hither glance, but as she looks to be about seventeen and as I'm a little preoccupied, I ignore her. As she fills her tight red blouse nicely and wears those skin-tight, reveal every nook and cranny, skinny jeans that compliment a perfectly protruding gluteus maximus, I'm showing some real will power. We get past the stemmer and leaf remover, the crusher, the various tanks, and finally to where the oak barrels are filled. Each of us gets a taste from glass gizmo that’s dipped into a barrel and watch as a special forklift moves barrels back onto racks in the cave. For the first time I crowd to the head of the group, which stops only about twenty feet into the cave.
At the end, about sixty feet, I see another no-neck, also in a canvas seat director's chair. He's carefully eying our group, but seems relaxed. He's next to the double truck-wide doors Enrico described, and on his far side is a people pass-through door. The double doors have a large hasp, but no lock thereon, and the pass through door has only a bedroom type lock, I presume, as I can see the tiny hole for the tool to turn and unlock an accidentally locked door. Lousy security.
When the tour is over we retire to the tasting room, but I fade to the back of the group and don't follow. Instead I disappear around the side of the building, on the far side away from the view of the outside guard. Slipping into the rose bushes, I'm out the other side and into a vineyard.
But this time I'm going to make a close pass by the big house and guesthouse.
At least that's my plan, until I hear the dogs barking.
Another fine plan goes awry.
So I stay over two hundred yards from the house and hustle back to the van.
It takes me over a half hour to get through the vineyards and back to where I'm sure I've left the van.
I'm more than just a little surprised to wander out of the vineyard to see a sheriff's patrol car parked next to my van, and a deputy with a flashlight peering into one of the two rear door windows.
"Can I help you," I yell from a hundred feet away.
He's careful, and turns with a hand on the semi-auto on his hip.
"What's going on here?" he asks, his tone demanding.
"Sightseeing, checking out the vineyards."
"You're on private property."
I get close and extend my hand, which he doesn’t accept, showing him a stupid smile and reading his name tag. "Sorry, Officer Brownley, I didn't see any signs."
"You in the pest control business?"
"Sure enough. I'm thinking of moving over this way. I was looking for thrips or spider mites to see if I could stir up some business."
He's quiet for a moment, then, as my hand is still extended, finally takes it and shakes. "Believe it or not folks steal lots of grapes right off the vine."
"Probably not until they ripen up some," I say, with a laugh.
"No, probably not. You got a name?"
I'm thinking about which driver's license I have in my wallet,
then remember. "Dick Strong, from Nevada. Looking to move to Paso Robles."
"Got a driver’s license?" he asks.
I flip it out and am happy to see I've remembered which one I'm carrying. He eyeballs it quickly and doesn't even ask me to remove it. Then he adds, "Welcome to Paso. Good luck with stirring up some business. Should be lots of work around."
"Thanks," I say, and head for the driver's seat.
"Follow the same tracks out. Folks don't want new ruts cut into their ground."
"You bet. Thanks officer."
I'm not sure he's convinced that my intentions were honorable, but at least I'm on my way to pick up Skip, and not on my way to the hoosegow. I hate to attract the attention of the law, particularly in sight of someplace where I'm about to break the law, but que sera.
It's about time to pick up Skip, and I hope he's straight and sober.
15
The Paso Robles Municipal Airport is not hard to find if you take Airport Road as a hint. It's east of Paso as is Castiano Winery, and just a couple of miles north of Highway 46.
I'm waiting at the curb as I know Skip, and Skip doesn't travel with checked baggage unless he's going to be gone for several months. And it's not like the boy is hard to spot in a crowd, at six-foot-five and somewhere between two-sixty and two-eighty he literally stands above the crowd. Skip's blonde, and if you looked up Viking in the dictionary you're likely to see his picture. He is bearded, but it's nicely trimmed and his hair's cut, so I hope and pray he's on a good streak—off the booze and not looking for help in a one-gram vial. Even more than Pax and me, he came out of desert storm with lots of nightmares, the worst of which was chasing a Haji into a mud hut and chucking a grenade into a back room rather than going in balls out and taking a few rounds from an AK47. The bad news was the bad guy got away out a back door, the far worse news was a one year old and three year old who were sleeping in the room didn't get away. Skip's still haunted. Anyone would be.
But he's a great guy, and one of us, and as such we'd do about anything for each other.
He opens the slider on the side of the van, throws in his carry-on size duffle, jumps into the passenger seat, then extends a ham size hand which I take reluctantly as I know he carries rock crushers on the end of each Popeye forearm.
"What's the gig?" he asks without bothering with howdy or how the hell are you.
"Some very bad boys have absconded with a lady I used to work for and another lady from down Malibu way."
He gives me a suspicious glance. "Are we recovering a lost love or is this real work?"
"Sammy Castiano, one of our employers, owes some boys from Vegas, some Albanian boys who bury those who don't pay up. They snatched Sammy's wife...his seventy year old wife...and say they'll send her back in small packages in..." I glance at my watch, "in sixty hours or so if he doesn't come through with fifteen mil." I pull away from the curb and head back to the highway.
"And he's paying us to get her back?"
"That's the rumor. And do you remember me telling you I'd worked for Tammy Houston, the country singer?"
"Yeah, and I remember that didn't work out too well for you."
"Yeah, it didn't. However she called me and wanted me to come back to work as someone was taking pot shots at her. When I showed up, she'd been snatched by these same Albanian boys. It seems the pot shots were to get her out of her guarded condo and out to the boondocks in Malibu."
"How does all this tie together?"
"It's a little weird. Castiano loaned Tammy's manager some dough and he didn't pay it back. The Albanians probably figured that Tammy, who Forbes Magazine said was knocking down five mil a month, could pay and might even loan Castiano the money to pay back the major dough he owed. The best we can figure, Castiano got way upside down on some road-building project…. He owns an engineering contracting company. Anyway, they snatched his old lady and Tammy and I guess have told the manager, a creep named Coogan, to cough up the dough. Tammy has it, but the manager can't get his hands on it. Anyway, let's spring the ladies then let them sort it all out without the women travelling home in small packages."
"How bad are these Albanians?"
"Zero inhibitions. Tons of aggression. Bad, bad, bad boys, or so Pax reports."
"So, if they go down, so be it."
"So be it."
We drive a while before I ask. "So, you doin' okay? You off the sauce and the nose candy?"
"Yeah." He says, and that's enough for me.
I head back into town so I can find a quiet spot to go over the details with Skip. So far it doesn't look to be too tough, so I don't bother to call Pax for additional backup. Pax's strong suit is the sniper rifle, and the layout is such the only really long range shots would have to be across Highway 46, which is not a particular problem, particularly at night, but the California Highway Patrol and the county sheriff's deputies patrol the highway. No reason to irritate folks unless absolutely necessary, and a .308 cutting the air overhead could be a minor irritation.
After I brief Skip we make another drive by the winery and give him a firsthand view of the layout. Then we have to kill some time as I don't plan to go into a well-guarded facility in daylight. Let's give these boys a chance to suck on a bottle and get heavy eyes.
Skip suggests a few beers to kill some time and I don’t know if he’s kidding or not…he knows I never drink when going into an op. He laughs it off, and I’m glad he does.
Since he hasn’t seen the place, we re-sign the van with Pacific Plumbing signs and I hide out in the back—where there’s a cot, sink, and small 12-volt refrigerator—and take a nap while he does a tour with the promise he won’t partake more than a sip at the tasting bar. It’s a little crowded in back of the van with the Harley taking up more than its share, but I manage.
Skip catches the last tour of the day—making note of the same things I saw—then we head back into town, and, with nothing else to do, catch a movie at the local multiplex. We’re out at nine and then go to supper at a local buffet. He eats like a horse, as usual, and I snack as my stomach is always full of worms before an op, and tonight is no different.
Finally, at midnight, we strip the signs off the van, again becoming vanilla plain, and suit up in Kevlar vests, black pants, and long sleeve black pullovers. Skip wears night vision goggles on a Kevlar helmet, just in case we need that advantage. I slip on a black knit cap. We go light with the arms, each of us with a 40 mm Glock and a backup ankle pistol—mine a lightweight 5 shot Ruger .38 and Skip with a small Ruger .380 semi-automatic—a belt loop with a can of mace, and a sap. We don’t go with the full battle rattle belt as I hope silence is the answer to this op, but I do clip a pair of flash grenades onto my web belt. We both have Motorola radios with ear buds, set on channel 07 for luck. Skip is entrusted with a small pair of bolt cutters, not enough to handle a hardened lock but enough to snip the chain on normal cuffs. We also each have several cable ties, which will serve as restraints should we need them.
I work my way back to the rear of the property only this time don’t leave the van in the copse of oak trees, but rather kill the lights and drive right down between the vineyards to the edge of the apple orchard. I get the van reversed and headed out in case we have to make a quick getaway. If we’re able to spring the ladies—if they’re actually there—then I can’t imagine hustling them through a half mile of vineyards back to the van. No telling what kind of condition they’re in. As it is we’re only a couple of hundred yards from the pump building that is supposed to house the vertical culvert that’s a secret access to the room at the back of the aging cave.
We work our way through the apples and this time I have my lock pick kit at hand. It’s a decent hardened lock—too much for the bolt cutters—and takes me almost fifteen minutes to pick.
I’m wondering if the guard is still posted outside overlooking the parking lot and tasting area, but there’s no real reason to move to the slope and take a look. Why risk being seen?
Then I f
ind it’s not necessary to take a look, as just as I get the lock to spring, Skip taps me on the shoulder and whispers. “Guard, looks like he’s on patrol.”
I spot him and he’s walking on top the slope, a path that will take him only a few feet from where we crouch behind the pump building. Skip eyes him via the night goggles and reports, “Combat shotgun, side arm.” The question is, will he check the door.
If it were an access to where I had the goods hidden, I would check the door.
We’ll see.
Just as he gets within twenty feet of us, the sky opens up and the storm that the clouds promised arrives. I smile as he spins on a heel and begins to jog back the way he came, the rain beating down on him and already forming puddles. It’s a deluge.
The weather gods are with us.
We slip into the building and in a corner is a three-foot diameter vertical culvert just as Enrico described, and a ladder inside disappears into the darkness. With the ladder taking up six inches, it’s a tight fit for Skip, so I suggest he hang back and make sure the guard doesn’t stumble in and catch us in the hole. We’d be a hard target to miss stuffed into a three-foot pipe.
I descend over twenty feet before I hit bottom, and my pen light shows a door, not fancy, just cut out of the side of the culvert with hinges welded on so it will swing aside. There is a quarter-inch gap around the door and I realize there’s just a smidgen of light coming from whatever is beyond.
Then I hear voices. “Change the fucking channel, Vito. I’m tired of this shit.”
And then a female voice, slightly slurred, “Yeah, asshole, change the fucking channel.”
The voice sounds like Margo Castiano, her sweet gentle own self.
A second male voice, I presume Vito, snarls, “Shut the fuck up you dried up old bitch. I hope your old man don’t pay up so I can cut your sloppy tits off and feed them to the hogs.”
“Eat shit, asshole,” Margo replies, her voice again slurred. She may have floppy tits, but she’s got big balls.
So, there’s more than one of them.
