The Sauvignon Secret wcm-6

by Ellen Crosby

  “Allen,” Quinn’s voice was sharp. “Knock it off, will you? This isn’t a singles’ bar. Stop trying to put a move on her already, goddammit.”

  Cantor tore his gaze from me. “Just appreciating a beautiful woman, buddy. Nothing wrong with looking.”

  He’d done more than that. He’d mentally undressed me.

  “Keep it that way,” Quinn said.

  “Nice to see you, too, Quinn. What do you want? I haven’t got all day.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where you working these days, buddy?” He emphasized buddy. “Who are you making wine for?”

  Cantor stood up. “Screw you, Santori. I was just trying to do you a favor because you asked. I don’t need to take your crap. I’m out of here.”

  “No.” I reached for his arm. “Please, don’t go. Both of you, can you please not do this right now?”

  Allen Cantor looked down at my hand on his arm and sat down. “What do you want? Lucie, isn’t it?”

  I removed my hand and nodded. “Yes. Quinn, are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” He jerked his head in a nod and looked out at the ocean. “I’m just frickin’ fine.”

  He sat, too, but I could feel his leg shaking violently under the table. I nudged him with my knee and he stopped. Cantor noticed.

  “Maybe we could all use some coffee,” I said. “I’ll get it.”

  “I’d like a beer,” Cantor said. “And some eggs.”

  “I’ll take care of this.” Quinn dug in his pocket for his wallet. “That was the deal. Beer and breakfast in return for information, if you’ve got it.”

  There was an edge in his voice when he got in that last faint taunt and I glared at him. “That would be great,” I said.

  He walked across to the restaurant. Cantor looked at me again, steadily.

  “I heard about Nic,” he said. “Sorry for Quinn’s loss, but she was trouble for him from the day he put the ring on her finger. You his girl now?”

  He meant Nicole Martin Santori, Quinn’s ex-wife, a raven-haired beauty I’d met briefly once, long after they’d split and shortly before she was killed by a jealous lover. Allen, as I recalled, had also been one of her paramours and now that I knew him, the two of them getting together seemed as inevitable as night following day.

  I gave him a brittle smile. “I’m not anybody’s ‘girl.’ ”

  He didn’t flinch. “You should be.”

  Quinn set down the beer and some fries. He went back for coffees for the two of us and sat down again next to me. “Talking about the weather, are we? Your eggs and sausage will be ready in a couple of minutes.”

  I opened the coffee and found that Quinn had already put cream and sugar in mine.

  “We’d like some help,” I said to Cantor.

  “Information about a winemaker who used to work in Napa. Outside Calistoga,” Quinn added.

  “I don’t know much about that anymore,” Cantor said. “Don’t keep in touch with many people … I think that’s my order over there.”

  He got up and walked across to the restaurant counter, picking up a bottle of ketchup. After drowning whatever was on his plate, he joined us again.

  “What makes you think I’ll know this dude?” he asked through a mouthful of eggs. “It is a guy, isn’t it?”

  I wondered how regular his meals were these days and what he did now for a living. Then I wondered why I was wondering.

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  He looked from Quinn to me. “I get it. He’s dirty, isn’t he?”

  “I … no. I mean, we don’t know,” I said. “He might be someone who changed his identity, is all.”

  “Or it might just be blowing smoke and someone got their wires crossed.” Quinn shrugged. “Set Lucie up for something they want to know, asked her for a favor.”

  That was shrewd, making me the damsel in distress and being purposely vague about my anonymous favor. The two of them exchanged more testosterone-laced looks.

  Cantor took a long swallow of beer. “Who is it?”

  “Teddy Fargo. Owned a vineyard called Rose Hill up in Calistoga,” Quinn said.

  “Rose Hill.” Cantor slapped a hand down on the table so hard it made his plate jump and shook his head, flashing a knowing smile. “Well, I’ll be damned. Small world isn’t it, Quinny? You know who owns it now, don’t you?”

  Quinn glanced sideways at me. “Brooke.”

  “Yup.” He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and set it on the table. “You keep in touch with her?”

  “Nope. You?”

  “You must be kidding. But I do keep an eye on her. Graduated top of her class from Davis. She’s a smart winemaker, did it right, starting small. She wants to control everything. Not let anyone pull the wool over her eyes, the way I did with her old man.” He paused, a shadow crossing his face that could have been remorse, or maybe regret. Then it was gone and his eyes glittered. “So you haven’t seen her, then?”

  “I said no, didn’t I?” Now Quinn was the one who sounded edgy.

  “Well, well,” Cantor said. “Are you in for a surprise. She turned out to be quite a beauty. Guess she got all her mother’s looks. A knockout, man.”

  “Is that so?”

  Cantor drank some more beer. “You ought to pay her a visit. You know she always had a thing for you.”

  “I didn’t notice.” A slow flush stained Quinn’s face. “I was married, remember?”

  “Could we get back to Teddy Fargo?” I brought my hand down hard on the table and Cantor’s plate jumped a little. “Before you two wander any further down memory lane and someone kills somebody.”

  They both gave me an astonished look, and Cantor burst out laughing.

  “I like you,” he said and licked his lips.

  “Moving on.” I held up a finger to silence Quinn before he could open his mouth. “Teddy Fargo.”

  “I don’t know him personally. But I heard about him.”

  “Heard how?” Quinn asked.

  “The guy was a good winemaker, really smart. He used to be a chemist or something like that before he got into wine.” Cantor rattled off the facts so easily that I knew he still kept up with what was going on in Napa and Sonoma more than he had let on. “He had kind of a boutique winery. Only made a couple thousand cases a year and sold it all in his tasting room.”

  He paused.

  “And?” Quinn said.

  Cantor picked up his beer glass and stared into it, waving it back and forth.

  “Want another one, Allen?”

  “I wouldn’t say no.”

  Quinn got him a second beer. “So what else about Fargo?”

  “Just a rumor.”

  “Goddammit, Allen, stop messing with us.”

  “Quinn,” I said. “Please. Don’t.”

  Cantor drank his beer, but I noticed his hand shook and he sloshed some liquid on the table. He wiped it with his fist.

  “He had a little operation up in the hills behind his winery. Grew some stuff up there and apparently had the knowledge and background to get some very fine results, if you know what I mean.”

  “Are you talking about roses?” I asked. “As in exotic roses?”

  Even Quinn flashed me a look of surprise.

  Cantor laughed. “I’m talking about marijuana, honey. Supposedly the guy had quite a booming business. Growing it, selling it. He’s lucky he never got busted. I figured that’s why he sold his place all of a sudden and split town. Rumor is that he torched the evidence before he took off. No one’s seen him or heard of him since. He vanished.”

  I felt like I’d been sucker punched. So Charles had been barking up the wrong tree, after all. Even if Teddy Fargo were Theo Graf—and who knew, now?—the reason he disappeared had to do with drug dealing and probably fleeing the law, not some ancient grudge that had to do with the Mandrake Society.

  Quinn reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet again. He threw a twenty-dollar bill on the table.

  “Thanks, Allen,” he said. �
�Get yourself something else to eat. Or a couple of beers. I think we’re done here.”

  He stood up and waited for me.

  “That wasn’t the information you were looking for,” Cantor said to me as I got up. “Was it?”

  “No,” I said, “it wasn’t.”

  Chapter 14

  As reunions go, this one spiraled downhill and out of control before anyone realized what happened. When Quinn threw that twenty on the table, it was like tossing a live grenade into the middle of an edgy truce no one really wanted. It would take no more than the tiniest flick of a finger, the wrong look, a perceived insult, to blow it all to smithereens.

  Cantor, predictably, told Quinn to take his money and shove it, but by then Quinn had disappeared into the growing crowd on the Boardwalk, as though it had suddenly become intolerable to breathe the same air as his ex-boss for one more second. Cantor stood up and came around the table so fast that I wasn’t sure if he was going to go after Quinn to jam the money in his pocket because he was embarrassed, or roundhouse him because he was furious.

  “Let him go. Please?” I grabbed his arm and held on. “He did this for me.”

  Cantor’s eyes fastened on my face and he was breathing hard, but at least I had his attention.

  I let go of his arm. “Thank you for coming today.”

  “It was worth it just to meet you, angel.” He took my cane from me and leaned it against the table. “You don’t need that right now. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you are gorgeous.”

  I had no intention of falling for Allen Cantor’s patented and probably well-used chat-up line, even if he was turning the full wattage of his dangerous charm on me.

  “Allen, don’t—” If Quinn came back to find out what was taking me so long and saw Cantor standing this close to me, his body language making it obvious what was happening …

  “He’s a lucky bastard, you know that?” He kept right on devouring me with those wolfish eyes. “Bet he doesn’t appreciate you the way someone as beautiful as you ought to be appreciated. Quinn never was any good with women. If you were mine, darling, you’d be on a pedestal. I’d give you everything you wanted, things you never dreamed of.”

  His hands slipped easily around my waist. Before I knew what he was doing, they had moved up under my breasts. He wasn’t talking about chocolates and flowers, or even diamonds.

  “He does appreciate me.” I felt breathless, light-headed. “Take your hands off. Now.”

  He lifted a hand and deliberately traced his finger along the contour of my cheek. “You’ve slept with him. I figured as much.”

  My face burned. “That’s none of your business.”

  “I wasn’t asking. I know you did.” He drew me closer and whispered into my hair, “Ever read the Kama Sutra? I have. Spend a night with me, baby. I promise it would be amazing.”

  “No.” I jerked out of his grasp, reaching for my cane and wielding it like a club. “Come near me one more time and I’ll amaze you.”

  I heard his taunting you-know-you-want-to laugh as I walked away, mocking me.

  Quinn was sitting in the Porsche when I got to the parking lot, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and staring straight ahead at nothing. His sharp-edged profile glinted with anger and he acted deaf, dumb, and blind to my presence.

  He wasn’t the only one who was mad. “Thanks for leaving me back there with Casanova.” I jerked open the passenger door. “You couldn’t have waited?”

  He clenched and unclenched his fists. “I … no. I think I could have killed him. I’m sorry. He make a pass at you? Then I really would have lost it.”

  I’d never heard Quinn like this before. For the first time, I was scared of what he might be capable of doing, things I’d never suspected. The anger drained out of me like he’d pulled a plug.

  “He was just being a macho ass. I bet he’s like that with every woman he meets.” I slid into the passenger seat. “By now he’s probably working on getting the phone number of the cute girl who poured his beer at the restaurant, or asking her to have his baby. Besides, I can handle guys like him, especially ones who’ve had a few drinks. You should know that by now.”

  “He asked you to have his baby?” He sounded stunned.

  “I said no.”

  It took him a second to get the joke and give me a weak grin. “What’d you do? Threaten to turn him into a eunuch with your cane?”

  “Close enough. Wish I’d thought to use the word ‘eunuch.’”

  He burst out laughing. “Damn, I’m sorry I missed that. I’d have sold tickets.”

  I grinned. “Over my dead body. Do you think we can get out of here, please?”

  He started the car. I reached over and turned on the radio. The Stones again. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” Quinn turned it up loud and we roared out of the parking lot.

  I had to yell over the music. “Where are we going now?”

  He beat his palms on the steering wheel like he was playing backup on the drums. “HalfMoon Bay,” he yelled back. “Taking the Pacific Coast Highway. You’re gonna love it.”

  My hair whipped in my eyes and I brushed it away.

  “Harmony’s got a scarf in the glove compartment,” he said. “Or there’s a Giants baseball cap in back.”

  I took a look at the scarf, a vintage Emilio Pucci kaleidoscope design of swirling water-and-sky colors. It looked like something Marilyn Monroe or Grace Kelly would have worn, with oversized sunglasses, about fifty years ago. I folded it and put it back in the glove compartment.

  “Pretty.” I reached around back for the cap, pulling down the sun visor and opening the mirror.

  “Suits you.” He smiled as I adjusted the cap and tucked in a strand of hair.

  If Quinn could have ordered up a day to dazzle me, along with the breathtaking scenery of the coast road, it would have been this one. The highway wound in and out of one pretty little bay after another, the Pacific flashing cobalt and turquoise, whitecaps crashing onto a rocky shoreline dotted with drifts of wildflowers. In some places, the heathery Santa Cruz Mountains telescoped out into the ocean, and the serpentine road cut inland so deeply that it looked like we were driving straight into the mountains. Then the highway would make a corkscrew turn and we’d wrap around another bend where the outside edge of the road fell away to a vertigo-inducing drop off a jagged cliff to the ocean below.

  South of Half Moon Bay, the road curled away from the water and became farmland.

  “Now where are we going?” I asked.

  “The Miramar Beach Restaurant. Local landmark, been around for decades. Good food and it sits right on the edge of the water. I don’t know about you, but I’m famished,” he said. “After lunch we can head into town and check out Mel Racine’s bank.”

  “Great.”

  “Maybe you could call the real estate agency and set up an appointment. See if he’s available in about an hour or so.”

  “See if who’s available? Did you already call? You did, didn’t you? What happened?”

  He shrugged, looking sheepish. “I might have tried to pry some information out of them. It’s possible I kind of pissed off one half of O’Hara and Romano Estate Agents.”

  “Oh, brother. The old Santori charm.” I pulled out my phone. “Got a phone number?”

  He handed me his wallet. “On that folded piece of paper. Why don’t you ask for O’Hara?”

  “Why don’t you let me make the call and stop micromanaging?”

  Connor O’Hara had a gentle Irish lilt and an opening in his schedule for one thirty. We agreed to meet at the bank.

  “You didn’t even have to work for that.” Quinn parked in front of the restaurant, sounding disappointed. “My luck, I got the hard-assed partner. You got the pushover.”

  “Says you. Or maybe I’m just naturally charming. Unlike some people.”

  The sand-colored Miramar was a comfortable, rambling old place with a long row of picture windows that looked out on the rocky coastline and the Pacific a few fe
et away. Inside, a gray-haired pianist with a ponytail played Broadway show tunes near the bar, and the restaurant bustled with the business of a lunchtime crowd. A hostess seated us by an ocean-view window and left oversized menus.

  “This place is wonderful,” I said. “And if that was your idea of flirting with the hostess to show me up for what I said about your lack of charm, she looked like she thought you had some weird eye tic.”

  Quinn pulled his sunglasses down off his head and put them on. The sun, streaming through the window, was so dazzlingly bright that I did the same. I could see my reflection in his.

  “She was being discreet,” he said. “I think she likes me.”

  “Give the waitress a big tip and keep the glasses on. Then they’ll all like you.”

  A cute redhead showed up with a water pitcher and breadbasket and told us about the specials. I chose Seafood Louie with more Dungeness crab; Quinn took the fish and chips. We both decided to have sweet iced tea.

  “This used to be a Prohibition roadhouse,” Quinn said after she left. “Half Moon Bay was a great place for rumrunners to bring their illegal hooch ashore. The, uh, bordello was upstairs.”

  “Bordello?”

  “Yup. Don’t look like that. It’s not a bordello now.”

  “I kind of figured,” I said. “And I was just free-associating when you said ‘bordello.’ Made me think of Allen Cantor.”

  “What about him?”

  “Not him exactly, what he said about Teddy Fargo. We’re no nearer to knowing if he’s Theo Graf,” I said. “And if he is, it sounds like the reason he’s on the lam is his little drug business. Which has nothing to do with the Mandrake Society and the deaths of Mel Racine and Paul Noble.”

  Quinn shrugged. “So end of story. You can still ask Brookie about the black roses, if you want to. But the drug dealing—selling and cultivating marijuana is a felony in California—is a lot more credible explanation for why the guy took off than Charles’s cock-eyed idea about a forty-year-old vendetta.”

  Brookie. Allen said she’d had a mad crush on Quinn and that she was a knockout. I stifled envious feelings and said, “Then tell me why two members of the Mandrake Society died with those wine-glasses next to their bodies within a couple of weeks of each other.”