Flambé in Armagnac (4 page)

“And the baron? Still just as…”

Virgile saw no harm in confiding more. A second cup of coffee might even take the chill off. His boss could wait.

“Spry? Yes, he doesn’t seem as old as his years.”

“Oh, widowhood is not his problem! When La Riquette died, he got over it pretty quickly.”

“La Riquette?”

“Yes, Mrs. Riquet…de Lauze. Forgive the nickname. At the Castayracs, we called them La Riquette and the Robber Baron, if you understand what I mean.”

“I see,” Virgile said, all smiles.

“But you’re going to think I’m a gossip.”

“It’s only gossip if it’s speculation and rumor. As far as I’m concerned, you’re giving me the facts.”

“That’s what my father thinks. Maybe you’ll meet him tonight. He spends most of his time hunting these days.”

“Wood pigeons?”

“No, woodcocks. They’re more challenging, but he’s still limber for his age.”

Evelyne got up to make another pot of coffee and stoke the wood-burning stove, whose flames were dying down.

“Did you see the sons?”

“One of them, I think. A young man, kind of shy with pale eyes. He didn’t come to meet us.”

“That had to be Valmont. He still lives there.”

“What’s the other one like?”

“Alban? He’s a Castayrac through and through. A bit standoffish, a loudmouth, ambitious, thinks he’s hot stuff. He’s really his father’s son. He married well to the only daughter of the Nadaillac family. They claim they’re descendants of D’Artagnan, the fourth musketeer. It’s been five years now, and there’s still no bun in the oven. Folks say the bride won’t have anything to do with her husband.”

“Maybe they just need a little time. Children don’t always happen right away.” Virgile felt a little self-conscious saying this. What did he know about marriage?

“I doubt that it has anything to do with timing, Mr. Virgile. The Castayracs behave in bed the same way they do at a banquet. As soon as they’re served, they’re looking at their neighbor’s plate, if you know what I mean. That would be enough to make any bride turn her back to her husband at night.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Virgile said, discreetly glancing at his watch. His coffee was getting cold, and he was losing interest in the conversation.

“I’ve taken up too much of your time with all my stories,” Evelyne said. Still, it was clear that she wanted him to stay. She took another tack, changing the conversation to the baron’s business. “Do you think, after all that’s happened, that he’ll end up being chairman?”

“Chairman of what?”

“Chairman of the committee, of course!”

“You mean the Armagnac Promotion Committee?”

“He’s been wanting that plum for so long. Imagine—the baron heading an organization that has such an influential say in producing and regulating all our eau-de-vie. And to think that his main rival is Aymeric de Nadaillac, his own son’s father-in-law.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t seem to be very fond of the Castayracs.”

“It’s ancient history, Mr. Virgile. The day isn’t long enough to tell you all that I know.”

The woman in the floral apron rose from her chair. Virgile thought her eyes looked misty. Not wanting to embarrass her by staring, he looked away. On a side table, he spotted a badly framed photograph: two rows of proud-looking and powerfully built young men.

“That’s the Cazaubon rugby team, and that one there, on the left, is my son, my little Joachim!”

“Little! He looks quite athletic to me. I used to play too.”

“Really, what team?”

“Bergerac.”

“So you and Joachim have something in common. I can’t wait for you to meet him. Joachim just loves the sport and his teammates.” Evelyne’s eyes were shining with pride. “They threw him a big birthday party last August.”

“You don’t say. My birthday’s in August too.”

“No kidding. What day?”

“August 31.”

“I can’t believe it. Joachim’s birthday is August 31. This is unbelievable. The same sport, the same birthday…”

“Yes, it is quite a coincidence, isn’t it? You could call us brothers in spirit.” Virgile hoped she wouldn’t try to find something else that he shared with her son. He really needed to leave. He stood, thanked her for the coffee, grabbed his coat, and headed to the door.

“You forgot your key again, Mr. Virgile!”

Virgile slapped his cheek. “I’m such a nitwit. You’d think I’d remember this time. Thank you.”

Evelyne Cantarel took his arm and pulled him toward her. “Your being here is a sign from heaven,” she said. “May I give you a hug?”

5

At Château Blanzac, the baron’s welcome was even cooler than it was the day before. Castayrac was dressed for business in a well-cut three-piece suit made from fine dark wool, and although Benjamin told him that Virgile and he needed to interview him at length and go through the rubble of the destroyed wine cellar, the baron made it clear that he had more important things to do.

Jean-Charles de Castayrac intended to reduce this meeting to a simple formality. The man was pressed for time, and he left no doubt that his attire was not for the benefit of his honored guest, even if Benjamin was the most famous winemaker in France. The board of directors of the Armagnac Promotion Committee was convening at Eauze that very afternoon, and the election of its new chairman was on the agenda. The matter would be decided during a lunch preceding the meeting at a fine restaurant named Pépita’s. Benjamin Cooker would not make him late.

Benjamin sent Virgile to the wine cellar and proceeded with his questions. “How many casks, Mr. Castayrac, would you estimate that you lost?”

Castayrac paced the room, hands behind his back, chafing at each of Benjamin’s inquiries regarding his exact losses. “I already told you, Mr. Cooker. We lost thirty-six.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Absolutely. And I lost all those demijohns, most of which I inherited from my ancestors. They were famous eau-de-vies, highly prized by collectors. Their alcohol content was between forty and fifty percent. Some dated back to 1869. Napoleon III loved them. Do you realize how valuable they were?”

“A real treasure,” the winemaker agreed.

“You can say that again, Mr. Cooker!”

“How many of those demijohns did you have in your reserves?”

“I could not say precisely, but more than sixty at the very least.”

“Had they all been duly declared?”

“Francisco took care of those details.”

“That’s putting a lot of trust in him,” Benjamin said. He wrote some numbers in his spiral notebook.

“As I said, Mr. Vasquez was considered a member of the family. I never doubted his word.”

“Yes, but unfortunately the only thing we have to go on is your word, since your books were destroyed. Moreover, I’ve been doing this work for quite a while, and this is the first time I’ve heard of a vineyard owner leaving all his records in his wine cellar.”

“How could I have known that my wine cellar—and my office, along with it—would go up in smoke? What are you insinuating, Mr. Cooker?”

“I’m not insinuating anything. I’m just trying to gather information and understand what happened. Failing your cooperation, I shall be forced to proceed with the investigation as I see fit.”

Benjamin put down his notebook and scanned the library shelves. Castayrac struck him as a man who liked to collect books and show them off but didn’t read very much. He felt the baron’s eyes on him. The man was standing in front of the fireplace, which was filled with gray ashes. He hadn’t even bothered to light a fire for the winemaker and his assistant.

“If we take a safe and pragmatic approach, sir, we can say that you lost 14,400 liters of Armagnac in casks and six hundred in ten-liter demijohns. In all, then, that gives us fifteen thousand liters, a good round number.”

“That must be pretty close,” the baron said brusquely.

The Labradors were barking in the courtyard. But there was nothing but silence in the dark and bitterly cold library, where the two men were challenging each other without making eye contact. Finally, Benjamin said, “At this stage of the assessment, we need to allow for evaporation, the amount taken by the angels.” He raised his eyes.

“Of course,” Castayrac responded, a half-smile on his dry lips.

“I will have to apply the formula devised by the Directorate-General of Customs and Indirect Taxes: six percent per year.”

“Do you want to ruin me?” the baron said, raising his voice.

“If you had been able to give me a precise accounting of the different reserves and which vintages they came from, we might have come up with a better estimate. But as it stands, Mr. Castayrac, it’s a guessing game, and we’ll have to agree on a figure based more or less on what we believe you lost in this terrible fire.”

“Good God!” Castayrac responded.

Before he could say anything else, a man with a thin face, short hair, and steel-blue eyes walked into the library, a cigarillo between his fingers. The baron frowned, but went ahead with an introduction. “Allow me, Mr. Cooker, to introduce my older son, Alban.”

“It’s a pleasure,” the baron’s son said, extending his hand.

Castayrac hadn’t bothered to shake his hand the day before, when he arrived at Blanzac. Benjamin wondered if this warmer greeting meant that the son didn’t resent his presence as much as the father. But then again, maybe it only meant that his mother had taught him his manners.

“Father, you’ll come down with pneumonia sooner or later if you don’t start heating this château.”

“Must I remind you, Alban, that the boiler is broken, and I don’t have the finances to get a new one?”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t make a fire in the fireplace.” Alban started filling the firebox with old vine stocks.

“That’s enough! I’ve seen enough flames lately.”

“As you wish, but you can’t allow yourself to get sick if you ever want to lead that committee.”

Alban de Castayrac turned to Benjamin. “I believe my father-in-law is going to run, too, and he has a good chance of winning.”

“Get out!” the baron shouted.

The older Castayrac son gave Benjamin a sly look before leaving the room. “So long, Mr. Cooker. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

The winemaker had hardly expected such animosity between the father and his son. He didn’t have much sympathy for either of them. Caught forever in the framed photograph on the pedestal table, Castayrac’s deceased wife, wearing her self-righteous expression, seemed to be chastising her husband.

The widower had enshrouded himself in an obstinate silence. Benjamin cleared his throat, played with the cap of his pen, and finally picked up his notebook to scribble some words, which he underlined twice.

Then the taciturn baron peered at his watch.

“I’m already late for my lunch,” he said, suggesting that Benjamin return later in the afternoon.

“At cocktail hour,” he said unctuously.

Summarily dismissed, Benjamin pulled up the collar of his Loden. Cocktail hour at this château would no doubt be as cold as the baron’s library. He headed for the burned-out wine cellar, where Virgile was still looking for clues in the ashes. His clothes were smudged from searching through the oak staves that the fire had not completely incinerated.

“I counted exactly nineteen demijohns, boss. I found the necks and have something to show for it.” With a grimace, he opened his right hand. A bloody gash ran along his palm.

“Holy smoke, you have to disinfect that right away. Are you vaccinated against tetanus?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“You think so, or you’re sure?” Benjamin asked.

A figure stepped out from behind the garage housing the old DS. Benjamin recognized the young man from the day before. He had a flask of Armagnac in one hand, and in the other he had a white handkerchief. He went to Virgile and without waiting for consent doused the wound with eau-de-vie. Virgile let out a howl. His caregiver smiled as he held him firmly by the wrist.

“Don’t be a sissy, Virgile,” Benjamin said. He turned to the country medic. “You’re Valmont, aren’t you?”

The young man nodded while pouring more antiseptic on the wound. He carefully folded the handkerchief to make a compress and applied it to Virgile’s hand. Virgile grimaced again. His eyes were brimming with tears.

“It’s nothing. Don’t make such a fuss!” Valmont de Castayrac ordered in a coarse tone.

His features were rough, his eyes pale, and his lips thick. The second son of the estate completely ignored Benjamin’s questions and answered only Virgile’s. Even then he was noncommittal. “I don’t know anything,” he said. “The day of the fire, I was hunting for woodcock in the Fatsillières Forest. When I got back, the cellar was blazing.”

“You were hunting on Christmas Eve?” Virgile asked.

“Yes, people around here think nothing of hunting the day before Christmas. If we bag something, it winds up on the table the next day. Now let me go look for some gauze and adhesive tape. I’ll be right back.”

Valmont hurried toward the house. Benjamin, meanwhile, figured this was an opportunity to get a closer look at the DS. He was a car collector at heart and had quickly identified the model: a 1957 Citroën DS-19 with a gearshift on the steering wheel. The four-cylinder engine had stood the test of time with its inimitable aerodynamics. Benjamin would have gladly offered to buy it from the baron, who could have used the money. He tried to recall the name of the Italian who had designed the body of this astonishingly futuristic jewel, but his memory failed him.

When Benjamin returned from the garage, Virgile’s hand was bandaged. He was absorbed in counting the iron hoops from the fire-ravaged casks. Valmont was at his side, helping him with the metal scraps and heaps of wood.

“Tell me, Valmont, is the DS in the garage one of the first models?” Benjamin asked, trying to sound naïve.

“Exactly! A 1957. It’s a collector’s piece. The most beautiful car Flaminio Bertoni ever designed.”

“I see you are a connoisseur,” the winemaker said.

“Well, let’s say it’s a hobby.”

At that moment, Benjamin Cooker realized that he would never own the Castayracs’ navy-blue DS. “Drop it, Dad!” his daughter Margaux would have told him. “Not even in your dreams!”

Oddly, the disappointment whetted his appetite. He asked Virgile to take a break and join him for a Gascon lunch at Pépita’s, whose foie gras ravioli was said to be excellent.

“Your 280 SL isn’t bad, either,” said Valmont, who had walked out with them to Benjamin’s Mercedes.

Surprised by the remark, the winemaker was quick to respond. “I assure you, young man, it’s not for sale!”

Valmont de Castayrac was just as quick to reply. “And neither is the DS-19.” Having already given Virgile his handkerchief, Valmont pulled a wadded tissue from his pocket and wiped his dripping nose.

Put in his place and feeling glum, Benjamin felt for his keys and handed them to his assistant, who declined the offer.

“If it’s okay with you, boss, with my hand and all, I’d prefer that you take the wheel.”

“Oh, of course, Virgile.”

As they passed through the estate’s rusty gate, Benjamin glimpsed the silhouette in the rearview mirror of the true and only caretaker of Château Blanzac. The younger and crafty Castayrac could read minds. It would be wise to be careful around him.