by Lisa King
“You’re looking at a libel suit if you print a single word that implicates me in any way. I’ll even charge you with extortion. Felix will back me up a hundred percent.”
“So he’s in on the scam, too, huh?” Zeppo said. “Don’t worry, we won’t print it in the mag—too much legal hassle. We’ll tell your father.”
Travis’s eyes widened. “Hey, don’t do that,” he said, his threatening tone gone. “It would really upset him. It might kill him—his health isn’t good.”
“I bet your wife is clueless, too,” Zeppo said. “She probably thinks you’re just a great businessman.”
Jean saw fear and defeat in Travis’s eyes. “No. You can’t tell her. If she finds out, I’m finished.” He ran a hand through his mop of hair. “You don’t understand how it is. When everything crashed I had a huge mortgage and two girls in private school. This place barely generated half what I was earning at the dot-com. What was I supposed to do? Move my family to a trailer in Pacifica?”
“Your father lived on the income from this shop and gave money to charity,” Jean said.
Travis made a dismissive gesture. “Yeah, and he’s got a house he bought for nothing in the sixties and three kids who went to public schools. I’m living on a different planet. Look, I’m not putting Night Train into those bottles. I’ve worked in this shop since high school, so I know as much about wine as my old man. I always give them something that tastes like what they paid for. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the people who come in here don’t know the difference. If someone complains, I tell them it must have been a bad bottle and give them one of the real thing or something equivalent. It’s only happened a few times.” He pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. “Once with Wingo.”
“Here’s the deal,” Zeppo said. “We won’t bother you again if you tell us where you were that night, and if your story checks out.”
Travis looked hard at Zeppo, then at Jean. “OK. I was over at Felix’s place in the Richmond working on a batch of counterfeit bottles. My wife thought I was at a tasting in St. Helena. We worked until around one A.M., then had a few drinks at a bar down the street from his house, the Cock and Bull. Afterward we went back to his place and I slept on the sofa.”
“What’s Felix’s full name?” Zeppo asked.
“Felix Ursini.”
“He looks more like a boxer than a wine geek,” Zeppo said.
“He was in the fight game for a while, but he got smart and got out.”
“What were you making at his place?” Jean asked.
“Whipping up a batch of Marcassin Chardonnay, the 2003 Sonoma Coast Marcassin Vineyard. I can sell it for $400 a bottle. I’ve got my own special blend. The result might fool even you.”
“Not a chance,” Jean said. “That’s one of my favorite wines.”
Travis leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Now, I hope we’re all on the same page here. I’ve told you what you want to know, so I expect you to leave me in peace.”
“If your story checks out, no problem,” Zeppo said. “Let’s talk to Felix.”
They went back to the store and waited while a welldressed older man bought a bottle of Bollinger Champagne. Jean observed Felix as he worked. His white polo shirt was snug across a muscular chest, his khaki slacks tight around his thighs. He had strong Mediterranean features, close-cropped dark curly hair, and a scar through his right eyebrow.
As soon as the customer left, Travis went behind the counter and clapped Felix on the shoulder. “Felix,” he said, “tell these lovely people where I was the night Wingo died.”
Felix narrowed his muddy brown eyes. “At a tasting up valley, with me.”
“Now tell them where I really was. I’ll explain later.”
Felix looked them over for a moment. “At my house and the local bar, all night.” He grinned. “We were working on my stamp collection.”
Travis spread his hands and smiled at Jean and Zeppo. “I rest my case.”
“Thanks for your time, Travis,” Zeppo said. “I hope you won’t hear from us again.”
They left the shop and walked toward the parking garage. “How many of those pricy bottles do you think were fakes?” Zeppo asked.
“Impossible to say without opening them,” Jean said.
“What’s Marcassin? I never heard of it.”
“It means ‘wild pig.’ The owner-winemaker makes really kick-ass Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Hell, everything she makes is kick-ass. And he’s right—it sells for hundreds of dollars.”
Zeppo shook his head. “I can’t believe a bottle of wine could be worth that much.”
“You would if you tasted it,” Jean said. “What did you think of Travis?”
Zeppo leaned toward her, frowning solemnly. “Reaching out and going forward, I hope we’ll all be on the same page at the end of the day.”
Jean laughed. “Besides that.”
“I think he’s a sleaze, but that guy Felix is another story. He looks dangerous.”
“Travis may be a sleaze, but I can’t see him committing murder. Why would he? Martin wasn’t threatening to shut down his operation—he was just costing him money. And the man’s a wimp. You saw how fast he folded when you mentioned his wife.”
“Felix could have done it on his own,” Zeppo said. “We’ll look into it. Although I’d hate to fuck things up for Travis’s wife and kids. They’ll figure out Dad’s a dick soon enough.”
They passed the Fault Line, a new California grill Jean hadn’t been to, and Zeppo paused to read a menu posted in the front window. “Hey, this looks good. You want to eat here?”
“Sure.” Jean looked the menu over as well. “But it’s expensive.”
“I’ll buy you dinner in honor of our partnership.”
Jean thought about it. Three businessmen exited the restaurant and she caught the seductive aroma of grilling meat. “Let’s do it,” she said.
The big, hushed restaurant was a sea of beige—walls, carpets, tablecloths, and upholstery were all the same neutral shade. The waiters even wore beige aprons. The lighting was subdued, the classical music soft. “This place looks like a sensory deprivation chamber,” Jean said.
“It sure doesn’t smell like one,” Zeppo said.
The maître d’ seated them in a booth, and Jean read the impressive wine list with professional interest. The list of wines by the glass was extensive; she looked behind the bar and saw a large Cruvinet, a machine that could keep dozens of open bottles fresh using nitrogen. Wine Digest’s readers should know about this place; she made a mental note to pitch a profile to Kyle.
Zeppo told her to order for him, and she asked for two glasses of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Jean loved its clean, crisp, grassy flavors.
“Hey, this is great,” Zeppo said as he sipped his. “I usually only drink red.”
“I’m broadening your horizons. We’ll have red with dinner.”
Zeppo ordered filet mignon with scalloped potatoes and porcini mushrooms. Jean wanted something that would suit a fine Cab, so she ordered lamb with polenta and beets. She chose a Napa Cabernet and soon was in ecstasy, eating perfectly cooked lamb loin and drinking fine red wine.
Zeppo seemed to be enjoying his meal as much as she was. He held his glass up. “I love this wine, Jeannie. You’ll have to get me more like this to try.”
“Sure. Full-bodied reds are my favorite, too.”
They spent a pleasant hour and a half talking about wine, Zeppo asking questions and Jean holding forth on the differences between California Cab and Bordeaux. As they walked to the car Jean had to loosen her belt a notch. Hanging out with Zeppo would make her fat if she weren’t careful.
“What now?” Jean asked. “It’s too early to go to the nightclub.”
“Let’s go to your place. We can send the email to Setrakian and you can change clothes. You’ve got red wine on your sweater, by the way.”
Jean looked. “Shit. That always happens. It’s not easy having a shelf right there.”
Zeppo st
arted to say something, but stopped himself. “No comment.”
CHAPTER 15
Jean’s building was on a steep hill above the 24th Street business district. Miraculously, they found a parking place half a block away. She retrieved her mail and led Zeppo up two flights of stairs to her studio apartment.
Like many San Franciscans, Jean had sacrificed space for a good view, and she could see a sliver of the bay in the distance out the front window. The apartment itself was less than scenic. Clean laundry filled the window seat. Against one wall stood a table where a sewing machine was barely visible beneath a pile of fabric, patterns, and notions. A dressmaker’s form stood nearby. Books and magazines were stacked here and there. The bed wasn’t made and a large heap of shoes blocked the open closet door. Dust covered the few exposed surfaces.
Zeppo glanced around the room. “Why, Jeannie. You’re a slob.”
“There are worse flaws.” She flipped through the mail.
“Oh sure. It’s just interesting.”
“If you want to sit down, move something.”
“I’m fine.” He examined her sewing area. “You make your own clothes?”
“Most of them. I’m hard to fit.”
“I can imagine.” He ran his hands over the dressmaker’s form. “Ah, perfection,” he said with a sigh.
“Enjoy yourself. That’s as close as you’ll ever get.”
Chuckling, he wandered over to the bulletin board above her desk and looked at her collection of photos. “You travel a lot, huh?”
“Whenever I can afford it, which isn’t often enough. I get to travel for my job sometimes. A few months ago I went to Bordeaux.”
“Does Peter go with you? He’s not in any of these pictures.”
“I prefer going alone. You meet more interesting people that way.”
Zeppo pulled down a large photo. “Is this the whole Applequist clan?”
She glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah. Dad’s seventieth birthday.”
“That’s quite a crowd.”
“I have five older siblings, all married, with a total of fourteen kids.”
“Jeez. What are they, Mormons or Catholics or something?”
“Baptists. Similar principle.”
“Do all the sisters have bodies like yours?”
“They did until they started having babies.”
“You look out of place with all these happy breeders.”
“I feel out of place. I’m the official black sheep.”
“Me too.”
Jean cleared magazines off the desk chair, sat down, and booted up her computer. She pressed the message button on her phone and Peter’s voice asked her to call him at work. “What’s Setrakian’s email address?” she asked Zeppo.
“I emailed it to you earlier today.”
“Here it is. OK, what do I say?”
“Tell him you’d like to come up sometime this week.”
“What about a photo? I don’t have anything scanned in.”
“Open the attachment on my email.”
“If it’s Pamela Anderson, he’ll know we’re lying.” Jean opened the image—a photo of her in the salon of the Walrus with a wine glass in her hand, wearing shorts and a red parka.
Jean looked up at him. “How do you happen to have a photo of me?”
“I won’t tell,” he said. “You’d get too conceited.”
Jean typed what she hoped was a gushing, starstruck note explaining that she was a tourist from Indiana who planned to drive up to Sonoma this week and wanted to stop by Setrakian’s studio. Zeppo read it over and she sent it.
“You know what?” Zeppo said. “We’ll be halfway there, so why don’t we go up to Mendocino and see Hugh Rivenbark? I don’t consider him a suspect, but maybe he’ll have some ideas. He knew Martin pretty well.”
“That’s a good idea. Let’s do it.”
“We might have to stay overnight—that’s a three-hour drive. We can take my car.”
“Great. I love your car.” Jean thought about eating in restaurants for two days—she’d need some exercise. “Can the Jag take a bike rack? We might have time for a ride.”
“Oh sure. I had a rack made for it. That would be fun, Jeannie. I’ve never been there, but I hear it’s great cycling.”
“My friend Roman and I go up there a lot to ride.” She stood up.
“Shouldn’t you call Peter?”
“Oh yeah.” She sat back down and dialed his number. “Hi, Peter. What’s up?”
“Diane told me about the blue box,” he said, clearly upset. “It’s unbelievable.”
“Believe it. Martin was even worse than I thought.”
“I only handled his personal affairs, so I didn’t know much about the business. It really blows me away.”
“I hope you understand why she wants to keep things quiet,” she said.
“I understand, but I don’t agree. I think she should tell the police everything.”
“You’re not going to spill the beans, are you?”
Peter sighed. “No, I’ll respect her wishes. Why don’t you come over? I’ll make dinner and we can talk about this mess. I’ll rent a film noir.”
“I already ate. Anyway, I can’t come right now. We’re going to see a suspect.”
“Who?” he demanded. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“It’s a nightclub owner and it’s perfectly safe. We’ll be in a public place.”
“How about coming over after that?”
“OK, but it may be late. I’ll call you.”
“This is crazy, Jean. Some of those people on Martin’s list might be desperate, and the killer certainly is.”
“Peter, I don’t want to argue. See you later.” Jean hung up and turned to Zeppo. “Diane told him about the blue box and he’s all hot and bothered, but says he won’t go to the cops.”
“Will he keep his word?”
“Of course. But he’s worried we’ll bumble around until someone kills us, too.”
“He’s got no reason to have confidence in me, but he must know you’re not helpless.” Zeppo gestured at the bulletin board. “I mean, some of these places you’ve been look pretty rugged. This one with the giraffe has to be Africa.”
“Kenya.”
“And where’s this one with the far-out mosques or whatever they are?”
“That’s Registan Square in Samarkand.”
“Wow. Did you ever get into trouble, going alone?”
“A couple of times, but nothing serious.” That wasn’t strictly true. Once she’d hidden for two hours in a Mayan tomb while a couple of drunk Australians she’d brushed off in a bar searched for her; she’d been saved from rape or worse by the timely arrival of a Japanese tour group. In Medan, on Sumatra, she’d been chased by a stonethrowing mob of Muslim fundamentalists because of her immodest shorts and T-shirt. That time an Agence France-Presse reporter in a rented car had rescued her. But usually she got out of scrapes by herself. The thrill of a little danger was one of the things that made traveling alone so much fun.
“Then Peter ought to trust you not to screw up,” Zeppo said.
“He’s just overprotective.”
“Well, I’ll do my best to make sure that neither of us gets hurt.” Zeppo glanced at his watch. “OK, go ahead and get changed. I assume you’ve got something skimpy and black.”
“Everyone else will be wearing black.” Jean looked through her closet with a critical eye. It had to be sexy enough to charm puffed-up, self-important bouncers and cool enough to get Zeppo in, too. She pulled out a designer dress she’d bought for next to nothing because it had a broken zipper, which she’d repaired easily. The short, slinky dress had a deep V-neck, and best of all it was red, her favorite color. As an afterthought, Jean dug in her jumble of shoes for a pair of black peep-toe sling-backs with three-inch heels she’d bought on sale and never worn. She changed in the bathroom, adding a pair of silver hoop earrings and a squirt of Opium perfume.
“Wow,” Zep
po said when she emerged. “That should get us inside. I’ve never seen you in heels before.”
“You may never see it again. These are fucking uncomfortable.”
“They look great. You’ll just have to suffer. Got any makeup?”
“I’ll do mascara, but no lipstick. I hate the way it sticks to wine glasses.”
When Jean was dolled up to his satisfaction, she put on a short black jacket and they drove to Zeppo’s apartment. Jean pawed through his neat drawers and closet, coming up with black jeans, a lightweight crewneck sweater, also black, and dark loafers.
Jean looked him over when he came out of the bathroom. His hair was cut too short and the braces were a disaster, but he would do. “Push the sleeves up,” she told him. “That’s better.”
They decided to avoid crowded Union Street and take side streets back toward Van Ness. Jean drove through the residential neighborhood and noticed Zeppo turning to look behind them every few seconds. “What’s up?” she asked.
“I think someone’s following us.”
“For real?” She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Which car?”
“That dark green one three cars back. He’s been with us at least since my house. Let’s make sure.” Jean made a few turns at random.
“He’s still there,” Zeppo said. “It’s too dark to see his face.”
They passed through a bright streetlight, the green car just a few yards behind them now. “Wait a minute,” Zeppo said as their tail drove through the pool of light. “Shit. It’s Felix.”
“Now what?”
“We could lose him. I’ve seen it done in movies.”
Jean wasn’t sure what they should do, but she knew who to ask. “Look, Zeppo, I’m going to drive out to the main drag and park. Let’s talk this over.”
She drove across Van Ness and pulled into a bus stop off Union. Felix cruised by once. When she didn’t see him again, she assumed he’d found a nearby spot to watch from.
“I think we need professional advice,” Jean said. “I’m going to call my friend Roman. But before I do, you should know something. I told him about the blue box.”
Zeppo frowned. “How come, Jeannie?”
“He’s one of my best friends, he’s really smart, and he can keep a secret. I want his advice on all this.”