Who Gives A Split Read online

  “I’ll see what I can do.” I’d had enough of the family squabble. I’d only come because Max dragged me, and because I thought maybe I’d see my mother, and I could make her nervous. She had more money (even some of it before she married into it) than Ernie Daniels, and she liked to frequent these auctions, making everyone think she’d outbid them.

  My mother loved me to death, but she was terrified of me in public settings. Can you imagine why? I can’t, being the perfect son that I am. Ha! I shrugged the thought off and looked to see if I could find her latest future almost-husband. Ernie had said they might be back on U.S. soil, last he’d heard. She didn’t usually tell me much about her travels, she just made sure I was doing okay. And I was always okay. We had our strange relationship, and it worked for us.

  I broke away from Max and refilled my glass. This was a private event at Vin Rouge. The restaurant didn’t open until five, so I exercised my freedom in milling about and moved into the kitchen.

  I liked the kitchens of finer restaurants. I loved the red tile floors and the thick mats that covered them, keeping anyone from slipping when they were wet. So easy to hose them down at the end of the night, and everything washed down the drains. Stainless steel everywhere. Clean and spotless. The grill and appliances looked as if they’d just been installed. So different from what they looked like at the end of the evening, when everything looked black and greasy, as if they’d never be clean again. I’d been in too many kitchens to think about, but never worked in them. Not technically, anyway. The work I did both for Gotcha and for other entities put me in the weirdest places, and many times it was a restaurant kitchen. It’s amazing how much dirty money is laundered through restaurants.

  I worked my way back behind the dishwashing area and to the office, hoping to find the door open, and hopefully unlocked. Nothing to hide meant no reason to lock the door. I hoped there would be an auction manifest of some kind on the desk. And, of course, no one in the office.

  I moseyed on over to the last door, and as I did, I saw it was open. A light was on, so I pushed the door.

  “Excuse me,” a female voice said, and the door was pushed back.

  Well, crap. I pushed back even harder. “I have to go, is this the gender neutral bathroom?”

  The petite woman stood and the door flew open with gusto. “Really, that’s going to be your line?” Then she looked at me.

  I have no problem flirting with women when the job calls for it, and most flirt right back. I’m handsome that way. “That’s my line.”

  “How many restaurant kitchens do you know have a bathroom?” She stood with her hands on her hips, her feet planted wide.

  “I’m not in a habit of hanging around restaurant kitchens. But if you’d like to give me a tour of a few, we could count them together.” I winked at her, glad she was short, so I could look over her head to see what she was working on. She wasn’t dressed to impress people at an auction. She was dressed to work in the office. But even that attire looked good on her. Off the rack black slacks, a beige silk blouse, and black round-toed pumps. The chick was classy, in a foreign sort of way. She had the same dark skin and hair as her father.

  Her demeanor softened a bit. “You shouldn’t be back here. It’s off limits. And the restaurant is closed.”

  “I’m here for the preview before the wine auction.” I showed her the goblet in my hand. It was still half full of wine.

  “I see. And yet still.” She pointed back toward the kitchen exit.

  “I’m Charles Parks. You are?”

  She took me by the elbow and started walking with me. “I’m walking you back out.”

  I looked down at her. “You have very nice hands. Tell me, do you drink wine?”

  She looked up at me and smiled. “I do.”

  “Do you enjoy the finer rare vintages?” I tilted my glass toward her.

  “On occasion. My father owns this restaurant. Aden Beck.”

  “So you’re…”

  “Adrianna Beck.”

  “My dearest Adrianna Beck, will you join me in a glass of Burgundy and assess a few cases of wine with me?” I thought I might have had her under my spell by then.

  At the swinging door to the kitchen, she hesitated.

  “Please. I’m new to this, and I could use a talented eye. If just for one or two lots I’m considering.” Please, please, please.

  “Fine, but I can’t say anything other than the facts. And I don’t know nearly as much as my father. You should really be asking him.” She walked through the door with me, her arm still on my elbow.

  I wondered what Max’s reaction would be, but couldn’t worry about it. I looked down into Adrianna’s dark eyes. “I’d be embarrassed to ask a seasoned sommelier such novice questions.”

  I took her directly to lot eighteen, in case her father came out and chastised her, and we didn’t get any further. No time to waste.

  As we walked across the restaurant, I asked, “Do the sellers usually attend the auctions?”

  “Sometimes, yes. Sometimes they buy as much as they sell. As a matter of fact, this lot right here, eighteen, he’s here tonight.” She looked around. “At least he was earlier. Haris Nasution. He’s quite extravagant. I always know when he’s at one of my dad’s auctions. He hits on me. He hits on me when he’s not at my father’s auctions, frequenting the restaurant too often.”

  I pulled her in close. “Well, he won’t as long as I have you on my arm.” I grinned my thousand-watt grin.

  She blushed. “I feel safer already. Seriously, he brings me Peruvian chocolates and exotic flowers. I think he wants to charm me with his wealth, because he’s not that good looking, and he thinks I’ll fall for his money. He’s not good at taking no for an answer.”

  “Not good looking?” Now I was interested.

  “Haris is a petite Asian man with a bit of a belly. Like a skinny woman that’s five months pregnant. He dresses well, but he’s about ten years behind current fashion. Not out of fashion exactly, but it’s as if he doesn’t care. You won’t be able to miss him if you see him.”

  “Interesting fellow.” I looked around the room.

  “Not really. He’s rather boring,” she said. “Once he even fell asleep in the middle of dinner with my family. My dad just let him sleep at the dinner table. The rest of my family was mortified. My dad said to let him be. My brother was furious that he could be so rude.”

  “I side with your brother. Is he here tonight?”

  “He’s roaming around here somewhere.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, his name is Rankin and he’s great with wine, he has a photographic palate. He can recall the flavors of wines from months ago.”

  “That is something I’ve never heard of.” I was bored now. She wasn’t telling me anything I could use. “What would Rankin tell me about lot eighteen?”

  She shrugged. “You’d have to ask him. I enjoy wine, but I’m not an oenophile like Rankin and Father.”

  I looked across the room and saw Ernie, but no Max.

  Adrianna was saying something, but it was like white noise in my ears, as I saw Max standing about twenty feet away, leaning against a window, glass of wine in his hand and a smile on his face. He’d watched the entire ordeal. I suppressed a smile of my own. Nothing says good relationship like a man who isn’t jealous.

  I waved him over.

  “Adrianna, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Max. Max Daniels, this is Adrianna Beck. Her father is Aden Beck. She was just telling me all about the man who is selling this lot of wine.” I looked at her crimson face. “Haris Nasution, was it?”

  Mute, she nodded.

  “Yes, that’s it. Very strange chap, apparently.”

  She nodded again. “Nice to meet you both. I’d better get back to the office. I have a lot of paperwork to finish.”

  She scurried back to her hole, the sweet little mouse that she was.

  “Cute little thing,” Max said.

  “She’s okay
,” I agreed. “Not really my type.”

  Max’s hand brushed mine. It was as close as either of us was comfortable with as far as public displays of affection.

  “So, Haris Nasution is his name. Let’s go talk to my dad.”

  And just like that, Adrianna was an afterthought. Max was not the least bit worried that I would do what I had to do for a job, and nothing more. Nothing less either.

  We didn’t have to find Mr. Daniels, he found us. “Mr. Daniels, I have some information for you.”

  “Charles, please, Ernie. I’m not going to ask again.” He made it clear with his clipped words.

  “Ernie, does the name Haris Nasution ring a bell?”

  “Sure, I just saw him.” He looked around as if it had been only moments ago. “He’s got a bit of a reputation.”

  “In what way?”

  “Fancies himself a ladies’ man. He’s a bit flamboyant. New money. Custom Hermes suits. Deep cellar from what I’ve heard, but I’ve never seen it. Drives a Bentley. A bit over the top though, and doesn’t really fit in, but he gets invited because he has access to some very fine wines.”

  Max leaned in close to his dad and said, “He’s the man offering the lot you’re questioning.”

  Ernie started to open his mouth, then closed it. Then he said, “Stay here, I’m going to go someplace private and make a phone call.”

  Max and I milled and chatted and tried our best to fit in. I had an easier time, because I knew about wine. I pretended Max was my bodyguard, so he didn’t have to know what he was talking about. Being an FBI agent, he was fit and wore the bodyguard persona well. Though he did surprise me. I guess you didn’t have to be immersed in viticulture in order to appreciate wine, just be related to people who did nothing but talk about it.

  Ernie was gone for about fifteen minutes, and when he came back he looked like he’d spent a month in Alaska in the winter, ten shades paler.

  “Let’s go outside,” he said.

  We walked outside into the foggy afternoon. It seemed the sun only peeked out for a few hours on any given day. But I’d take this weather over any weather anywhere else.

  “First, Bruno said he didn’t bottle Domaine Anouk Sommer Cote de Nuits in the 1980s. He’d stopped using the label back in seventy-two. He’d named that label after his wife, and when he caught her cheating on him, he burned the remaining labels and put the plates in his safe. He said the plates were accidentally used on about a hundred bottles in 1985, but then he destroyed the plates to make sure the mistake never happened again.” Ernie pointed his finger toward the restaurant. “I told him I’d check my photo and get back to him. Those bottles in there were labeled 1982. They’re definitely counterfeit.”

  “We need to find Mr. Nasution,” I said.

  “That’s the next thing.” Ernie took a deep breath. “When I was in my car on the phone, I saw him leave. He was out by his Bentley talking to another man. At first it looked heated, then I wasn’t sure what was going on. He looked harried when he got in his car, and the other guy stalked off.”

  “Well, shit.” So much for a nice afternoon of wine drinking. “Where was he parked?”

  Ernie walked us over to where Haris’s car was parked, and I looked around. I heard something vibrating, but I couldn’t see anything. Loathed to do so in my new hand-tailored suit, I got down on my hands and knees and looked under the car next to where Haris’s car had been. A cell phone. A semi-crushed cell phone.

  I pulled the hanky from my suit pocket and picked it up. “Think this is evidence?”

  Max looked at me and made a face. “Great. Just great.”

  “Charles, I want you to follow him. I want to know his every move between now and the auction. If he’s counterfeiting, I want to know if he’s working with someone or alone.”

  “Dad, this isn’t your problem. You need to stay out of it, or you’ll be the next one we’re looking for.” Max put his hands up to stop the insanity.

  “Good thing I have a son with the FBI, and his boyfriend is, is, God knows what.” Ernie didn’t seem deterred, but did seem anxious. “There’s a snake amongst us, and that’s not good for me or any of my friends, Max.”

  “Ernie, you need to pick the lots you want to bid on, then go home. Stay as far away from all of this as you can. I’ll take care of everything from here. Max is right, both of you need to distance yourselves. Mimi and I can find out what’s going on. And I’ll also see what’s going on with that lot of counterfeit wine.”

  Ernie had his car keys in his hand. “I’m going home to have some whisky. Wine isn’t enough for this afternoon.”

  “Max, you go with your dad. I’ll talk to you tonight.” We shook hands and gave a half hug, then they left.

  I called Mimi and waited. Then I saw Max turn around, he gave me that look.

  Chapter Three

  Mimi

  Charles sat on the railing next to the beach as I drove up in my Land Rover. I looked around the parking lot, but didn’t see his beloved Porsche Spyder. Odd. He had his suit jacket folded and draped across his lap and didn’t stand as I drove up and parked.

  Charles was the most dapper man I’d ever met, and seeing him in this navy suit with a cerulean shirt and matching socks, I swooned. He’s a tall, athletic looking guy who might have come off the cover of GQ magazine, if GQ had government trained good/bad guys on their covers. His dirty blond hair had recently been cut, but the longer top blew in the ocean breeze. He looked like he was posing for a fashion shoot. Max was one lucky man.

  I wondered whether to tell him about my mom and the stakeout. Best to rip that Band-Aid off quickly.

  I parked a few rows away, figuring there was a reason he didn’t get up when he saw me. We’d worked together long enough, so I knew something was up.

  When I’d left my mom at the office, she and our receptionist, Uta, had been swapping slow cooker recipes. She figured she could load the ingredients, and her new husband Luke could feed himself when he got home, just in case she was still on a stakeout.

  She was really into this idea of being a private investigator. My mother, Lydia, wasn’t that old, only twenty years older than me. Even if I did like to pretend she was an old bitty sometimes, she was pretty hip for a mom. Seeing her dressed in black and in comfy clothes made me smile. But seeing Charles in his finest made me smile bigger. He was so darned handsome.

  When he stood he looked taller than the six feet whatever he was. His build was athletic without being in your face, and he wore his clothes like a runway model. He’d been wearing his blond hair an inch or so longer than usual. I didn’t know if he’d been too busy to get it cut, or if Max liked it that way. Though I didn’t know Charles to do anything because someone else liked it. Charles did what Charles does because Charles liked it, be damned with the rest of the world.

  I made sure I had my gun in the holster and I put on my hoodie to cover it, then I got out and walked over to him. “Am I going to be contaminating any crime scene?”

  He stared at the parking lot asphalt. “I don’t really know.”

  “Are you going to tell me anything, or am I going to have to figure it all out for myself? Because that will be a waste of both of our time.” I walked up and sat next to him.

  “We’re sort of working for Max’s dad. Though I really don’t think I’m going to take his money.” He furrowed his brows.

  Now I knew something was bothering him. Charles didn’t furrow his brows for just anything. He wouldn’t risk the wrinkles.

  “Start at the beginning.”

  He told me about the possible counterfeit wine, how he needed more details on that, and this man, Haris Nasution, and how the man drove off from the auction preview. And then the phone. Basically, we had nothing. Nothing, except a hunch that Mr. Daniels thought something was amiss in wine country. Or rather, in this case, France. Since the wine in question was from the Burgundy region of France.

  I’d soon learn more than I ever wanted to know about French wine, I w
as afraid. Not that I was opposed to wine. Not at all. And since by boyfriend was a recovering alcoholic, I never had to share. That’s probably not the way I should look at it, but wine wasn’t his drink of choice anyway.

  “So, is the phone salvageable?” At least it might be a place to start.

  “I’ve been trying to decide. But I don’t want to mess with it too much, because of fingerprints.” He pulled out a lavender pocket scarf with an object inside.

  “The phone?”

  He nodded.

  “Do we have an address for Haris?”

  “That much I do have.” He pulled his own phone out. “While I was waiting, I was able to obtain some information about Haris’s home and phone. This is definitely his cell phone. Max texted me with the information Ernie gave him. When I called the number, the scarf vibrated, so I’m assuming the phone belongs to Haris.”

  “Let’s get Cortnie working on the phone number right away. She can run the history, and we can see what we can track from there. Maybe we can get it back to the office and salvage pictures, emails, and whatever else.” I was hopeful. Charles was a master at computer forensics autopsies. Is that even a thing? Anyway, he was good.

  Cortnie Criss was our other forensics guru and master at surveillance equipment of all kinds. She wasn’t a partner yet, but it could happen soon.

  “I don’t know if I can pull anything from it, because it’s crushed on the bottom of the phone, but I can try.” He finally stood. “Let’s hit Haris’s house.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “Max has it. I sent him home with Ernie, but he didn’t want to be stuck with him. I saw it in his eyes. I gave him my keys.”

  My words got stuck in my throat. I wanted to give him a hard time, but I was afraid if I did he’d freak out on me. No one, and I do mean no one, ever drove Charles’s car. Granted, this is his Spyder replacement, and he did buy it from Max’s dad, but still. Oh, what the hell.