The Sauvignon Secret

Chapter 12

By the time we left Scoma’s, the lunchtime crowd had thinned to a few remaining tables of diners, mostly couples lingering over coffee as we had done. It looked like the staff was beginning to set up for dinner.

Outside on the pier, the breeze had picked up and the sun had sunk lower in the sky. The light held an end-of-day tinge and our shadows were long and soft.

“What time is it?” I asked.

Quinn glanced at his watch. “Going on quarter to five.”

“I should get back to the hotel, to Pépé.”

“My car’s in the lot down the road,” he said. “I could drive you. Or you could catch the five o’clock ferry, if you want. It’d probably be faster, with all the weekend traffic heading into San Francisco.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking the ferry,” I said. “Save you a trip into town through traffic, and then driving back here again.”

“Yeah, you’ll enjoy that, especially at this hour. There’s some fog, but you might get a view of the Golden Gate again.”

“Then that settles it,” I said. “Walk me to the pier?”

“Sure.”

He took my hand and we threaded our way single-file through the slow-moving crowds that clogged the sidewalk and lingered in front of the art galleries and pretty shops that lined Bridgeway. When we got to the ferry landing, Quinn handed me a ticket.

“I bought two round-trip tickets this morning. Kind of figured you’d want to take the boat back to San Francisco.”

My mouth dropped open. “How’d you know … you had this all planned out, didn’t you?”

“Who, me?” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You don’t want to miss your boat. It’s leaving soon.”

“There are so many ways I could respond to that.”

He grinned and brushed his finger across my lips. “I’ll call you about tomorrow after I talk to Allen.”

“You sure about doing this, Quinn?”

“Yup.” But his voice had tightened. “Off you go. Enjoy the view. Keep my jacket, you’ll need it.”

“Thanks.”

I stayed on deck and watched him as the ferry pulled away from the pier. The wind gusted and nipped at his clothes, but he just stood there with his hands in his pockets and waited until the boat had left the harbor. I watched until he was so small I could barely tell when he turned and started up Bridgeway to his car.

The Golden Gate glowed vivid orange against the soft dark folds of the Marin Headlands and the sky looked like it was on fire. I found a sheltered spot on the deck where I watched the bridge drift in and out of view through wisps of mist—a tower or a section of the suspension cables or part of the deck—until finally the thickening fog swallowed all of it up for good. The breeze, now sharp as needles, was cold so I went into the cabin and watched the looming San Francisco skyline grow larger.

If Allen Cantor agreed to talk to us tomorrow, I might learn more about Teddy Fargo and who he really was or was not. The more I thought about it, the more I felt sure the answers I needed were here in California.

They just weren’t to the questions Charles had asked.

When I got back to the hotel, Pépé was in his room, ready to take me to the Top of the Mark, with its 360-degree glass-walled view of the city, for a martini, or two, as he’d promised. A waiter led us to a window table overlooking the Bay with a view of the TransAmerica building. On the other side of the room, Pépé told me, you could see the Golden Gate and the Pacific.

The city lights made hard-edged boundaries between the land and water, burnishing the coastline so it gleamed like polished copper before fading into blackness farther up the Bay. Pépé handed me the one-hundred-martini menu and told me stories about how the Top of the Mark had been a popular hangout for soldiers and sailors shipping off to the Pacific Theater during World War II, pointing out the widows’ corner overlooking the Golden Gate on the other side of the room, where wives and girlfriends had watched as ships sailed under the bridge until their loved ones disappeared from sight. We finally chose our drinks and decided to order hors d’oeuvres. Then we sat there, mostly without talking, drinking our martinis and listening to the pianist play songs that Pépé remembered from the war years.

When he swung into “In the Mood,” Pépé asked how my day went with Quinn.

“Fine,” I said. “We had lunch in Sausalito.”

“And you also went to the Buena Vista?”

“Yes. For Irish coffee. In fact, I’ve had so much alcohol today, my liver is probably starting to pickle.” I yawned.

“Your head is dropping into your glass, ma belle,” he said. “We should go.”

At the elevator he said to me, “I know you came to California to humor Charles’s request about black roses, but I wonder if you would have done it if Quinn weren’t here as well.”

“You mean I’m using Charles’s errand as an excuse for seeing Quinn?” I said.

“Aren’t you?”

“I’m also supposed to be buying wine for Mick.”

“Also engineered by Charles,” he said. “But that’s beside the point.”

“Okay,” I said. “I suppose I am.”

“I thought so,” he said, sounding satisfied as the elevator door slid open and we stepped inside.

He kissed me good night at the adjoining door to our rooms, and for a while I heard him moving about in his own room as I got ready for bed. Then the light went out on his side of the door and I lay down and closed my eyes.

Only once in my life have I lived in a city—Washington, D.C., years ago—so I’d forgotten that there is always light and motion and noise, no matter what the hour. After a while, I threw off the duvet and got out of bed, opening the curtains to the enormous picture window and letting in a flood of glittering, spangling light. In Atoka the view out my bedroom window is of moon-washed mountains, the dark lacy outline of the forest, my rose garden, and the stars; the only sounds come from nature—the serenade of the cicadas and tree frogs with an occasional hooting owl or the cry of a fox.

I pulled up the desk chair and sat next to the window for a long time, thinking about Quinn and my life back home and where things were going with us. After a while I remembered his promise to call after he talked to Allen Cantor. I found my phone in my purse, still turned to silent mode from the restaurant, and saw the missed call just before midnight.

“Sorry it’s so late. I’m sure you’re asleep by now. I got hold of Allen.” His voice was terse and matter-of-fact. “He says he’ll see us tomorrow. We’ve got to do some driving so I’ll pick you up at seven thirty outside the hotel.”

It was just after three in the morning. Quinn would be waiting for me in less than four and a half hours. I pulled the curtains shut and climbed back into bed. But my mind kept racing with edgy, just-out-of-reach thoughts.

I didn’t fall asleep until nearly dawn.

I woke to what sounded like drums pounding. Pale streaks of daylight filtered through the cracks of the curtains and striped my bed. I threw back the duvet, grabbed my cane, and went over to the connecting door to Pépé’s room. He stood there, immaculate in a double-breasted cream-colored linen suit, his gray hair slicked back with water, ready to take on the world. I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror above the dresser before I opened the door. My hair was wild-looking and stuck out in weird clumps, and my eyes looked like two bruises, since I’d forgotten to take off my mascara before I went to bed.

“What time is it?” I felt breathless.

“Good morning, chérie,” he said. “It’s seven o’clock. The limousine taking me to the Bohemian Grove is waiting downstairs. I wanted to say goodbye before I left. Sorry to wake you up.”

I’d set my phone alarm for six thirty. When had I shut it off?

“Seven? Dammit to hell. I’m late.”

“Order anything you like for breakfast.” Pépé seemed to have decided to ignore my train-wrecked appearance and unvarnished language. “I’ll see you tomorrow evening in Calistoga at Robert’s. He’s giving us his guesthouse, so we’ll have a place of our own.”

Meaning I wouldn’t terrify Robert Sanábria if he saw me slipping into the bathroom first thing in the morning looking like I did just now.

“I’m sorry, Pépé, I didn’t mean to bite your head off. I’ll be there tomorrow. Quinn’s coming in half an hour and I overslept. I’ll get something to eat on the road.”

“There is coffee in the pot in my room. Help yourself. You look like you could use a cup. Or perhaps the whole pot,” he said. “Where are you and Quinn going?”

“I don’t know. He promised to show me around.”

It happened to be the truth and I was glad I didn’t have to lie to my grandfather. For now I didn’t want him knowing about meeting Allen Cantor to check up on Teddy Fargo, going behind Charles’s back to see what else I could learn about this mission he’d sent me on.

“Will you and Quinn visit Rose Hill Vineyard today or tomorrow?” he asked.

“Probably tomorrow.”

“Thank you for doing this,” he said. “I spoke to Juliette last night. Charles isn’t doing well. She’s upset.”

He sounded upset, too. I wondered who had called whom.

“Not well.” I repeated his words. “Mentally? Or physically?”

“Both, I think.”

Our eyes met. “Are you talking about him or her?”

“Why, Charles, of course.”

“And Juliette?”

He sighed. “Yes, perhaps her, too.”

“What’s wrong, Pépé?”

He looked away. “I don’t know. Something happened to Juliette and she’s changed. I can’t explain it. Lately she’s so high-strung. It takes so little to set her off.”

Just how often did they talk to each other?

“How long has that been going on?” I kept my voice noncommittal.

“A while.” He fiddled with his perfectly knotted tie. “I never knew her to be melancholy, or moody like this before.”

“You can’t fix her problems. Or her marriage.”

“I know that.” His voice was sharp. “All I could do was tell her everything would be all right.”

“Do you believe that?”

“No,” he said, “I don’t.”

“Me, neither.”

After he left, I realized I’d forgotten to wish him good luck on his talk in Monte Rio.

Quinn called my cell when I was in the shower. I grabbed it off the sink ledge while I was still dripping wet, just before it went to voice mail.

“I’m gonna be late,” he said. “Traffic on the bridge.”

“Don’t rush.” I swiped a towel and tried to dry the phone. “Overslept, did you?”

“Absolutely not. I just don’t want you to rush.”

I heard him chuckle. “I’ll call you when I’m about ten minutes away. What are you doing? Taking a shower?”

“How could I be taking a shower and talking to you?”

“Took you too long to answer. Splish-splash go back to taking your bath,” he said and disconnected.

He picked me up just before eight in a black Porsche with the top down.

“Nice wheels,” I said as he leaned over to open the door for me.

“They’re Harmony’s,” he said. “I’m car-sitting, too.”

I felt an unwelcome flash of jealousy. “Harmony?”

He glanced over at me and smiled. “Friend of my mother’s. She’s like an aunt to me. A child of the sixties. Flower power, hippies, Summer of Love, the whole enchilada. I think her real name is Penelope. She’s an artist … hence the houseboat in Sausalito.”

“And the Porsche?”

“She likes cool cars that go fast.”

“I’d love to meet her.”

“She’s in Italy at the moment. Been gone since June. Went to Stonehenge for the summer solstice and did that Druid jumping-around stuff they do.”

“Don’t be such a cynic. It’s not jumping around. They dance and celebrate summer and light bonfires,” I said. “What’s in Italy?”

“Good food, great wine … and Italian men.”

“Then I’d really love to meet her.”

He grinned. “Yeah, I bet you would.”

We were zipping down vertigo-inducing streets—Quinn somehow timed it so he hit all the green lights—with the wind riffing my hair and cutting in behind my sunglasses. Since yesterday I’d been trying to put my finger on what felt so different about San Francisco—aside from its obvious unique geography—why it was unlike anyplace on the East Coast or even all the European cities I knew.

As we drove past Union Square, with its startling tropical palm trees amid skyscrapers, and continued down Mason Street, Quinn rattled off names of the bubbling ethnic stew of neighborhoods, waving an arm to indicate roughly where they were—the Tender-loin, Japantown, Little Saigon—and I finally realized what it was: that despite the old-world roots and history of the city, it looked east to Asia, not west to Europe. Now I understood why Quinn loved it, why he belonged here. It was the perfect foil for his personality; San Francisco still thrummed with the gold rush brashness that grew it big, and the Russian roulette edginess of being built on earthquake fault lines where everyone knew it was a matter of when, not if. Even yesterday, I’d felt an odd little shifting when I’d been in the hotel, finally realizing that it wasn’t traffic thundering along Nob Hill.

Quinn caught me staring at him and said, “What?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just that I like San Francisco.”

He grinned and reached over to squeeze my hand. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, honey. There’s a map of California in the glove compartment. Get it out and I’ll give you a geography lesson.”

I found the map, opened it, and refolded it to show San Francisco and the Bay Area.

“The marine layer’s pretty intense this morning,” he said. “So we’ll head up the Bay side of the Peninsula and go by Sunnyvale, Cupertino—that’s Silicon Valley to you. Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, is beautiful, but it takes longer and it’s dangerous in the fog.”

“Where are we going now?” I asked.

“Santa Cruz.” He reached over and stabbed the map. “Sits at the top of Monterey Bay. Beautiful little town—fabulous beaches for surfing, very laid back, very mellow. You’re gonna love it.”

“What’s in Santa Cruz?”

“You mean who is in Santa Cruz.” He corrected me. “Allen Cantor. We’re meeting him on the Boardwalk. His choice.”

“You tell him why you want to see him?”

“Nope. Just that I wanted to ask him a few questions.” We exchanged sideways glances. “He didn’t even ask what they were. Allen owes me and he knows it.”

“I wonder if he knows anything about Teddy Fargo,” I said.

“If there’s anything to know,” Quinn said, “he does.”

The traffic was heavier as we picked up 101, the Bayshore Freeway, and left San Francisco behind. Quinn punched a button on the satellite radio. I read the display. Sixties on Six. Probably one of Harmony’s presets. Right now it was adrenaline-pumping rush-hour stuff, slipping from Jefferson Airplane into the Rolling Stones.

“I found out about Mel Racine.” He had to raise his voice above Mick Jagger and the traffic so I could hear him.

“What did you find out?” I shouted back.

“Had a series of car dealerships near Santa Cruz. Then he moved up the coast to Half Moon Bay.” His finger skittered over the map again. “See, right there? The bank he bought to turn into a wine storage vault is up for sale.”

“Oh, yeah?” I studied the map. “By the time we leave Santa Cruz, won’t the marine layer have burned off enough that we can take the coast road north to San Francisco? Looks like it goes right through Half Moon Bay. Maybe we could stop and check out that bank.”

He turned to me and grinned, singing in a loud, off-key voice, imitating Mick and telling me he didn’t get no satisfaction.

“’Cause I try … and I try,” he said, leering at me.

“I guess that’s a yes.”

He nodded and kept singing as we wove through traffic. Usually I would have joined in. But this morning as the Porsche dodged in and out of the pea-soup marine layer, I couldn’t stop wondering what was in store for us when we got to Santa Cruz and, later, Half Moon Bay.