by L. J. Martin
Armand Ahmeti and Edvin Gashi are reported, by Sammy, to be number one and two in the Albanian Vegas hierarchy. And they have two dozen or more soldiers, a half-dozen of whom Pax has provided me with dossiers full of pictures and background info.
It's interesting how loyalties change. I was at odds with the Castiano family, and am now in bed with them, so to speak. A classic case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It'll be interesting to see if things have now leveled out and we know who the enemy actually is.
Not that Sammy is a friend, but he is a potential payday, and he is the enemy of my enemy, and that's close enough for the job at hand.
When I get back to the Castiano compound after the long drive and listening to a dozen country albums, some Katie Perry, and the total repertoire of the queen of the blues' Mamie Smith, who has the distinction of being the first African-American to record a vocal blues song, it's very late. The rusty old gal has a mystical quality about her voice and helped keep me awake. Someone did a great job of cleaning up recordings from 1920.
It's one thirty AM when I pull in the driveway and I'm pleased to see that Tony is waiting up for me. He offers to cook me something but I grabbed a burger on the way, so I pass. Not only did the plane make me feel like a potentate, but the guest room I'm ushered into is equally regal. Tony informs me he's already set the bedside alarm for five thirty AM as I'm to meet with Sammy for breakfast and to go over the plans at six.
Five thirty comes pretty damned early, but I shower and shave—I hate to go into an op unshaven as the thought of some mortician shaving me gives me the willies—and dress in jungle camo as I suspect I'll be doing some recon from out in the vineyards. Skip is flying into Paso in the late afternoon and Pax will charter over if I can't get Sammy to send a plane for him, should I decide I'll need him. And I'm sure I will.
Sammy is a detail guy, and we go over the plans…hide, hair, bones and all. He also fills me in on his former ranch manager who stayed on to work for the Albanians and still lives in a foreman's house on the easterly of the two sections of Castiano Winery. Only four hundred or so acres are developed to Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, while one-sixty is planted with apples. By the Google Earth pics, I've looked at the apples and the vineyards are mature. Sammy had plans to get into hard cider as well as wine. The balance of the property is covered with scattered oak and grazing land.
Sammy talked about the place with reverence and it's clear it tore a chunk out of his fat heart when he had to give it up.
I'm enjoying the ride up the coast through Malibu, inland past Oxnard, the coast again from Ventura to a few miles north of Santa Barbara, and then slightly inland at Gaviota Pass, past the quaint town of Solvang, on to Santa Maria, the five cities touching the coast again, then inland again to San Luis Obispo, past Atascadero and finally roll into Paso Robles. The Pacific I've passed is quiet, slow heaves of ocean dotted with floating kelp and occasional seabirds floating while others skim the water close enough that if they dropped their feet they’d be wet. Far out there's a bank of clouds, and it portends a change in the weather. I was kind of wishing I were riding the Harley, but the possible change in weather is changing my thinking. I'm on Highway 101 all the way until, almost through Paso Robles, I turn east onto Highway 46 where Castiano Winery resides, one of the largest of two dozen wineries flanking both sides of the highway.
I'm a wine fan, nothing like a great Cab Sav or Malbec with a thick steak, but I'm no snob. Many ten-buck bottles I've enjoyed more than one some snob has paid a Franklin for. However, I'm looking forward to taking a tour of the Castiano operation. Some wineries have rodent problems and I plan to clean the rats out of this one if they get in my way.
I made a drive-by of the place, impressed with a stone gate and rose-bush-lined wide driveway leading to a tasting room of the same stone that formed the wide-arched entry gate. There's a stylish twenty-foot-wide sign announcing "Wine tasting and tours." A half-dozen cars and an RV are in the lot, I presume partaking of the goodies and being softened up so they’ll overpay for some vino. A hundred yards beyond the tasting room is the winery itself. I drive a half-mile beyond the gate and spot a service road and what I know from Sammy is the vineyard manager's residence. It’s a simple stucco with a composition roof, probably three bedrooms and one bath for Enrico Ramos and his wife and three kids. Bikes and trikes and a plastic kiddy pool litter the yard. My contact, hopefully, at Castiano.
I return on the far side of Highway 46 and pull off on a crown in the road where I dig my binocs out of the center console and can see over the vineyards, now flush with bright green spring growth.
The winery building is at least a half-acre in size, and stone too, at least on the side facing the road. It backs up to a bank rising about thirty feet, and is partly dug into the hill. I know from studying the plans that they've dug a cave into the hill—what's a winery without a cave—where they age wine in scorched French oak.
Next to the winery building is a crushing pad with a ramp where trucks can dump the harvest. The fruit travels via conveyors into a stemmer crusher and the juice moves on via stainless steel piping into thousand-gallon stainless fermentation tanks. Then maceration takes place and the mixture of juice and skins are heated to release color from the skins in the case of red wines. The pressing of the mixture releases pure red juice, which still needs to be filtered.
On the west side of the building are two three-sided six foot high bins of concrete block, each containing a few tons of material. Diatomaceous earth makes up one huge pile, used for filtering; bentonite clay another, used for fining or giving the solids in the wine something to cling to so they'll sink to the bottom of the fining barrels or tanks. Only after some additions does the wine go to oak barrels to be aged. On top of the rise three hundred yards to the west are a half-dozen cottages which must house farm labor. Not fancy, but clean and neat.
In the distance, with only a tile roof visible from the highway, is a residence and guest house surrounded by large California sycamore trees. I know the residence to be at least seven thousand square feet, two stories in its middle section with two one-story wings jutting out at forty-five degree angles, and a guest house on the far side of a large swimming pool and Jacuzzi. The guesthouse I know from the plans to be a two bedroom affair, two in-bath suites separated by great room, kitchen, and dining room.
I can understand why Sammy was remorseful.
After a cursory drive-by, a u-turn, another drive-by and stop with the binocs, I move on up the highway back toward Paso Robles. Wanting to kill a little time as the same van going back and forth might attract attention, I go to a drive-thru and get a fish sandwich and a cup of coffee, then return and again drive past the main entrance a half-mile to the drive leading to the Ramos residence. I pull the van off the road and raise the hood so it appears that I have car trouble, then hoof it the two hundred yards to the house.
Mrs. Ramos is a pleasant, rotund little woman with bright black eyes and a pair of kids peering out, one on each side of flaring hips wrapped in a stained apron. She has flour on her hands, and brushes them as she smiles at me.
"Is Mr. Ramos in?" I ask.
"Señor Ramos...garage," she says, and points to the side of the house. It's obvious to me her English is limited. I smile and nod and walk the way she's pointed. A white pickup, new with Castiano Winery and a bunch of purple grapes emblazoned on the door, is parked in the house driveway in front of a single-car garage door, but beyond is a thirty by sixty foot shop building and two guys are working on a tractor-pulled spray rig with high booms that would cover at least three rows on either side of the rig. So I head that way.
"Mr. Ramos," I call out as I approach, as either of them could be.
A solid-looking Hispanic, six inches shorter than me but equally as wide, and with callused and scarred hands that look like they started with a shovel handle when he was about nine, steps forward and offers one of those stubby hands.
He's a gentle shaker but I g
et the impression he could crush rocks if he had the urge.
"Sí," he says.
"You got a moment? I need to talk."
He nods and we walk thirty feet to the shade of a fruitless mulberry, leaving the other guy to his work.
"I'm Dick Strong, a friend of Mr. Castiano," I say, by way of introduction.
"Señor Sammy, he called me," he says. "But he said Mike somebody was coming?"
I ignore that, and continue. "He's worried about Mrs. Castiano. He thinks she may be here, held against her will. Have you seen her...and another young blonde woman?"
"I no see, but I think maybe...."
"Maybe?"
"Maybe she here."
"She, or two ladies?"
He shrugs.
"So," I ask, "why do you think she might be here?"
"Cars come and go late at night. When no workers. Food is taken to the aging cave and no one allowed to the deep storage."
"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.
Chapter Fourteen
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.
