by Peter Mayle
As she moved on to what she called the major part of the book-the world’s finest private cellars-Reboul’s interest increased. He asked who else besides himself would be approached. It was a question that Sophie had anticipated, and without hesitation she reeled off the names of a handful of English aristocrats, some well-known American industrialists, Hong Kong’s richest man, a reclusive Scottish widow who lived in a castle on thirty thousand acres of the Highlands, and two or three of the better-known families in Bordeaux and Burgundy.
Sophie was warming to her task, and Reboul was clearly warming to Sophie as she leaned toward him to emphasize the point she was about to make. Candidates for the book, she said, had to satisfy three requirements. First, they had to be people with sufficient taste and money to have put together a truly remarkable collection of wines. Second, they had to be interesting for reasons other than their love of wine-people who had, in Sophie’s words, a life beyond the cellar. And third, the cellars themselves had to be, in one way or another, out of the ordinary. She cited two examples of what she meant: the English earl who kept his wines in a towering Victorian folly, complete with humidity-controlled elevator, at the end of his garden; and the American who had put aside an entire floor of his Park Avenue triplex for his collection. Without having seen the cellars of the Palais du Pharo, she said, she couldn’t imagine that they were anything short of extraordinary.
Reboul nodded. “Indeed they are. And quite large. In fact, Monsieur Vial, my cellar master, keeps a small bicycle down there to get from one end to the other.” He raised a hand, and the young man materialized to refill their glasses. “It is an interesting project, and most charmingly explained.” He inclined his head toward Sophie. “But tell me a little about the-how can I put it?-the nuts and bolts. How does one prepare such a book?”
It was Sam’s turn. The very best people would be commissioned, he assured Reboul. The text would be assigned to an internationally respected wine writer-Hugh Johnson came to mind, obviously-perhaps with a foreword by Robert Parker; the photographs were to be taken by Halliwell or Duchamp, both of whom were generally regarded as masters. The overall appearance of the book would be supervised by Ettore Pozzuolo, a design genius and publishing legend. In other words, no expense would be spared. This was going to be nothing short of a bible for wine lovers. Here, Sam corrected himself. It would be the bible for wine lovers, and there were millions of these throughout the world. Naturally, said Sam, Reboul would be given full approval of the text and photographs used, with Madame Costes acting as the liaison between writer, photographer, and the Palais du Pharo. She would at all times be available for consultation.
Reboul pulled at the lobe of one leathery ear as he thought. He was aware that he was being flattered, but that never worried him. It was, he thought, not a bad idea, not bad at all. It was the kind of book that he himself would find interesting. And as long as his right of content approval was written into an agreement, there could be no embarrassing surprises when the book was published. It would be yet another testament to his success-the tycoon with a palate of gold. And not least of the attractions was the prospect of many cozy editorial meetings with the enchanting Madame Costes, who was looking at him so hopefully.
He made up his mind. “Very well,” he said. “I agree. Not for personal publicity, of course, but because I am always looking for opportunities to beat the drum for France and everything French. It’s a hobby of mine. I suppose I’m an old-fashioned patriot.” He paused to let this noble sentiment sink in before continuing. “Now then. As my secretary told you, I leave early tomorrow morning for a few days in Corsica. But you have no need of me at this stage. The man you should see is Monsieur Vial. He has been in charge of my cellar for almost thirty years. There are several thousand bottles, and I sometimes think he knows each one of them personally. There is nobody better to give you the guided tour.” Reboul nodded, and said again, “Yes, Vial is the man you must see.”
As he was speaking, Sophie’s expression had turned from hope to delight. She leaned forward to put her hand on Reboul’s arm. “Thank you,” she said. “You won’t regret it, I promise you.”
Reboul patted her hand. “I’m sure I won’t, my dear.” He looked across at the ever-hovering young man. “Dominique will make the arrangements for you to meet Vial tomorrow. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment. Dominique will take you back to your hotel.”
On their way out, they almost bumped into Reboul’s next appointment, a tall, sleek girl wearing large, dark sunglasses-in case the sun should magically reappear for an encore-and leaving in her wake a drift of scent.
“Shalimar,” said Sophie with a disapproving sniff, “and far too much of it.”
Standing on the steps outside the entrance waiting for the car, Sam put his arm around Sophie’s shoulder and squeezed. “You were sensational,” he said. “I thought for a moment you were going to sit on his lap.”
Sophie laughed. “I think he thought so too. He’s quite the ladies’ man.” She pursed her lips. “Although perhaps a little short.”
“Not a problem, believe me. If he stood on his wallet he’d be taller than both of us put together.”
A long, gleaming black Peugeot pulled up in front of the steps, and Dominique leaped out to open the rear doors.
“Just down the road, please,” said Sam. “The Sofitel.”
As they reached the end of the drive, the car stopped next to the statue of Empress Eugénie. Dominique lowered his window, stretched out a hand, and pressed a button that was concealed in a fold of Eugénie’s marble robes. The electric gates swung open. With a murmured “Merci, madame,” Dominique turned onto the boulevard, and, minutes later, they were back at the hotel.
“I don’t know about you,” said Sam to Sophie, as the car pulled away, “but I think we’ve earned another drink. I’ll race you to the bar.”
As they crossed the lobby, a large, disheveled figure hurried over to intercept them, his eyebrows raised, his shoulders hunched, his hands spread wide. A human semaphore, fresh from the Salon d’Erotisme.
“Alors? Alors? How did it go?”
Sam gave two thumbs up. “Sophie was fantastic. We’ve got a date to visit the cellar tomorrow morning. How about you? Did you have an erotic afternoon?”
The big man grinned. “You would be amazed. Many novelties-you should see what they do with latex nowadays. For instance-”
“Philippe! Enough.” Sophie was shaking her head all the way to the bar.
Over drinks, they brought Philippe up to date. It had been a promising start, they all agreed, but tomorrow would be key, and there was a lot of ground to cover. From Reboul’s description, his cellar was gigantic, a bicycle ride from one end to the other. Not only that. They would be looking for a mere five hundred bottles among thousands. It was going to be a long day.
Sam finished his drink and stood up. “I think I’d better go and make a few calls. The folks in L.A. will be wanting to know what’s going on, and it’s best to get them before lunch. But I’m sure you two have a lot of family gossip to catch up on.”
Philippe looked disappointed. “Don’t you want to hear about the Salon d’Erotisme?”
“With a passion,” said Sam. “But not tonight.”
It was eleven a.m. in Los Angeles, and Elena Morales was beginning to wonder if she might find any entries in the Yellow Pages under “Human Disposal.” Danny Roth’s calls-whether snide, abusive, or threatening-were getting her down to the extent that she was having frequent daydreams about arranging for his extermination. Added to that was her irritation at Sam’s prolonged silence and the frustration of not knowing what, if any, progress was being made in France. And so when her secretary announced that Mr. Levitt was on the line, she was ready to bite his head off.
“Yes, Sam. What is it?” The tone of her voice was several degrees below freezing.
“One of the many things I love about you,” said Sam, “is your telephone manner. Now listen.”
It took him five minutes to go through all the events leading up to the meeting with Reboul and the next day’s visit to his cellar. Elena let him finish before she spoke.
“So your underworld buddy Axel Schroeder told you that it was Roth who organized the robbery?”
“That’s right.”
“But you didn’t believe him. And you don’t know if this Reboul guy has the wine?”
“That’s right.”
“And if he does, how are you going to prove it?”
“I’m working on that.” Silence from the other end. “Elena, you sound less than excited.”
“I had the Paris office send over Sophie Costes’ C.V.”
“And?”
“There’s a photograph. It’s not exactly how you described her.” Sam could almost feel the chill coming down the line. “Good night, Sam.” The phone went dead before he had a chance to reply.
Fifteen
Sam was up early, still at odds with himself about the previous night’s phone call. He should have called Elena back and explained. No, he shouldn’t. To hell with it. If she wanted to jump to conclusions, let her jump. He paced up and down, feeling a strong sense of déjà vu. This was how their fights had often started in the old days: suspicion from her, pigheadedness from him. It had made for a stormy relationship-but, it must be said, for some spectacular reconciliations. He shrugged the memories away and turned his attention to the Reboul dossier that Philippe had left with him.
Sam’s French was far from fluent, but as he plodded through the articles he managed to pick up the gist of much that had been written. One recurring theme-no matter what role Reboul was playing, whether newspaper czar or pirate of the Mediterranean-was the greatness of France and all things French. Culture, language, cuisine, wines, châteaus, couture, French women, French soccer players, and on and on. Even the TGV high-speed trains, although Reboul admitted never actually having traveled on one, were given a ringing endorsement. And somehow he made it sound as though he had played a vital part in the creation of it all.
Reboul’s only concession to the possibility that France might be less than an earthly paradise was his disdainful opinion of the fonctionnaires, that gray army of bureaucrats that infests every area of French life. Here was a hobbyhorse he mounted in public each spring when he gave his income-tax press conference, to mark what he called the fête des fiscs, or the festival of the tax man. Not content with simply telling the world how much tax he had paid, he translated the figure into its equivalent in fonctionnaires’ salaries. This provided an appropriate starting point for his annual rant against the idleness, incompetence, and waste of the bureaucracy, which always went down extremely well with the popular press. But that was it-a single blot on the otherwise perfect French landscape.
Reboul was an oddity among billionaires. Most of them preferred to spend their lives ducking in and out of the havens of Nassau or Geneva or Monaco, on constant alert in case the tax laws should change. Sam couldn’t help but like a man who was prepared to pay the price to live in the country he so obviously loved. With a nod of approval, he closed the file and went down to meet Sophie in the lobby.
• • •
Florian Vial was waiting for them in front of the main entrance to the Palais du Pharo. Had they not known that he was in charge of Reboul’s cellar, they would have taken him for a professor, or perhaps a poet fallen on good times. Despite the mild spring temperature, he was dressed for the chill of the cellar in a suit of thick, bottle-green corduroy. Wrapped several times around his neck, in the complicated French fashion, was a long black scarf. A hint of plum-colored shirt showed beneath his jacket. His hair, worn long and brushed straight back, was the same mixture of salt and pepper as his beard, which had been clipped into a neat triangle. Pale-blue eyes peered out through round, rimless spectacles. There was a definite air of the nineteenth century about him. All he needed was an oversized fedora and a cloak, and he could have been a subject for Toulouse-Lautrec, a boulevardier on his way to pay a call on his mistress.
He bent over to kiss Sophie’s hand, brushing her fingers with his whiskers. “Enchanté, madame. Enchanté.” Turning to Sam, he shook hands with a vigorous pumping motion. “Très heureux, monsieur,” he said, and then stepped back, raising both hands in the air. “Mais pardonnez-moi. I forget. Monsieur Reboul tells me that you prefer English. This is no problem for me. My English is fluid.” His eyes twinkling, he beamed at Sophie and Sam. “Shall we commence?”
With Vial leading the way, they went through a series of ornate rooms-Vial described them as salons-until they came to a vast kitchen. Unlike the salons, which had been allowed to retain their rather pompous period décor of chandeliers and gilt and swags and tassels, the kitchen was a study in modernity: stainless steel, polished granite, and recessed lighting. The only hint of bygone culinary tradition was an overhead cast-iron rack that held thirty or forty polished copper pans. Vial waved at the massive stove-a Le Cornu, with enough burners, hot plates, and ovens to service a banquet-and said, with considerable satisfaction, “The chef at Passédat, who is a friend of the patron, comes here often. He would kill to have such a kitchen.”
They passed through to a second, less glamorous kitchen, a large room lined with storage closets, deep freezes, and dishwashers. In the corner were two doors. Vial opened the larger of the two and looked back over his shoulder. “The stairs are very narrow. Attention! As you say-slowly does it.”
The stairs were not only narrow, but steep, and wound around in a tight spiral before coming to an end in front of a door of painted steel. Vial pressed some numbers on the electronic keypad that was set into the wall and opened the door. Turning on the lights, he stood aside to watch the reaction of his guests, a smile on his face. This was obviously a moment he relished.
Sophie and Sam stayed rooted to the threshold, stunned into silence. Stretching away in front of them for a good two hundred yards was a broad, flagstone passageway with a barely perceptible downward slope. The ceiling was a series of lofty, graceful vaults constructed of old brickwork that the effects of time had softened to a pale, dusty pink. Leading off on either side were smaller passages, their entrances marked by square, head-high brick columns. To the left of the door, propped against a barrel, was Vial’s bicycle, an elderly Solex. The air smelled as the air in a cellar should smell: faintly humid, faintly musty.
Vial was the first to break the silence. “Alors? What do you think? Will it fit into your book?” He was smiling as he stroked his moustache with the back of an index finger, the picture of a man who knows that he is about to receive a compliment.
“Very, very impressive,” said Sophie. “Even in Bordeaux, one would never find a cellar this large, not in a private house. It’s magnificent, Sam, don’t you think?”
“Perfect,” said Sam. “Just great for the book.” He grinned at Vial. “The only problem is you need a map to find your way around.”
Vial almost burst with self-satisfaction. “But of course I have such a map! Mais oui! We must go down to my office, and I will show you how to get as you say from A to B.”
They set off down the flagstone pathway, with Vial settling into his role as tour guide. “Here everything is streets, you know, like in a town. We are actually on the main street.” He pointed out a small blue and white enamel sign, placed at eye level on the first column they came to, marked Boulevard du Palais. “And off to each side,” Vial continued, “are other streets, some big, some small.” He stopped and raised a finger. “But the name of each street tells us who lives there.” A wag of the finger. “I speak of bottles, of course.” He beckoned them off to the side and into one of the passages. Another blue and white sign announced this as the Rue de Champagne.
And there it was, champagne in glorious abundance, filling racks on either side of a narrow gravel pathway: Krug, Roederer, Bollinger, Perrier-Jouët, Clicquot, Dom Pérignon, Taittinger, Ruinart-in bottles, magnums, Jeroboams, Rehoboams, Methuselahs, and even Nebuc
hadnezzars. Vial gazed at the display with the fondness of a doting parent before leading them out and down to the next street, the Rue de Meursault, followed in quick succession by the Rue de Montrachet, the Rue de Corton-Charlemagne, the Avenue de Chablis, the Allée de Pouilly-Fuissé, and the Impasse d’Yquem. This side of the main boulevard, Vial explained, was devoted to white wine; the opposite side to reds.
It took them almost an hour to travel the length of the cellar, stopping as they did to pay their respects here and there-to the great red Burgundies, for instance, in the Rue du Côte d’Or, and the legendary trio of Latour, Lafite, and Margaux in the Rue des Merveilles. By the time they had reached Vial’s office they felt curiously light-headed, as if they had been tasting rather than just looking.
“Let me ask you a question,” said Sam. “I didn’t see a Rue de Chianti. Do you have any Italian wines?”
Vial looked at Sam as though he had insulted his mother. When he’d finished shaking his head and clicking his tongue, he allowed himself to speak. “No, no, no, absolutely not. Every bottle here is French, as Monsieur Reboul has insisted. Only the best. Although…” Vial seemed of two minds about what he was going to say. “Entre nous, and not for the book, over there you will see a few cases from your California. Monsieur Reboul has a winery, as you say, in the Valley of Napa. He amuses himself. It’s a hobby.” And, judging from Vial’s expression, not a hobby that he viewed with great enthusiasm.
At the very end of the cellar, a patriotic golf cart, painted in the blue, white, and red of the French tricolore, was parked in a corner, next to a giant pair of doors. At the touch of a button, these swung open to reveal the long driveway that led down to Eugénie’s wistful statue and the gates to the property.
