“No.”
“Was he the one who told you I’m a detective?”
“No. One of the sheriff’s deputies let that slip to Shelly after you’d gone. The deputy didn’t say you were working for Alex, but the implication was that you are and that you told the police why he hired you. I’d like to have that same information.”
“Why?”
“Because my brother is headstrong and inclined to act at times without good judgment.”
“And you think hiring a private detective is a lack of good judgment?”
“If his reason involves family matters, yes.”
“What sort of family matters?”
“Any sort. Alex may not value our privacy, but my mother and I do. If he has hired you to poke around in our affairs, we have the right to know about it.”
Sure, I thought, and you’re going to know about it pretty soon. But not from me. “Look, Mr. Cappellani,” I said carefully, “I’m sorry, but if I am working for your brother, and he didn’t want to discuss the matter with anyone, then I’m afraid I can’t discuss it either. You value your privacy and I value the ethics of my profession; I can’t breach a confidence.”
His mouth tightened a little. “You’ve already breached confidence, it seems, by talking to the police.”
“That’s not quite the same thing. Whatever I might have said to the police, it was in the interest of helping to get to the bottom of the attack.”
“Are you saying whatever Alex hired you to do has a bearing on what happened last night?”
“No, sir, that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t know what has a bearing on the attack last night. I’m bound by law to inform the police of anything, anything at all, that might be related to a felonious act; but I’m not bound to inform anybody else without the consent of my clients. I don’t mean that to sound tough and unsympathetic to your feelings. It’s just that I have to run my business my way, as you have to run your business your way.”
He kept looking at me, frowning, and it got pretty quiet in there. But then, abruptly, his mouth loosened and his face smoothed, and he said, “All right, you’ve made your position clear.” He stood up, turned toward the divider.
I said, relenting a little, “Mr. Cappellani?”
He pivoted to face me again.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about your brother’s motives,” I said. “And I don’t think it’ll be long, either, before he decides to confide in your and your mother.”
That got me another long, searching look. “I’ll accept that,” he said finally. And then he gave me a faint smile. “You’re an interesting man. It’s not often you meet someone with convictions these days.”
There was nothing I could say to that.
Leo said, “I didn’t intend to come on like a hardnose, or to seem ungrateful for all you did at the winery, and I apologize. The past fourteen hours have been bewildering, is all.”
“Sure. I understand.”
He nodded, and turned again, and went across the office and out through the door.
I thought as he closed it after him: you’re a pretty interesting man yourself, brother. The difference between him and Alex was like night and day. Leo was one of these complex types you can never quite get a handle on, with hidden qualities and changeable moods and what seemed to be a strong sense of family pride and of personal conviction; and Alex was easygoing, extroverted, not particularly proud, not particularly dogmatic. I wondered if Alex favored his father, as Leo appeared to favor his mother.
The coffee water had come to a boil. I made a cup of instant and then dragged my old portable typewriter in front of me and began to type up my report on Jason Booker. I was half through it, hunting and pecking with my forefingers, when the telephone rang.
I hauled up the receiver and identified myself, and a woman’s voice said, “This is Shelly Jackson.”
Neither the name nor the voice registered immediately. “Shelly Jackson?” I said.
“How soon they forget. Last night, at the winery.”
“Oh— Shelly. Excuse the blank reaction; I never did get your last name. Are you still up in the Valley?”
“No. I’m back here at the winery offices. So you’re a private detective, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’ve never met a private eye before,” she said. “How about getting together for lunch today?”
“Sure, all right. But I thought you didn’t lik cops.”
“I don’t. You know The Boar’s Head, on Vallejo?”
“I know it.”
“One o’clock okay with you?”
“Fine.”
“See you then, big man.”
I replaced the handset. Well, I thought — and wondered why she wanted to have lunch with me. Because she was curious, as Leo was, why a private detective had been up at the winery to see Alex? Probably. But then again, maybe she had something else on her mind.
I locked up the office and went to find out.
5
The Boar’s Head was a popular restaurant and tavern at Vallejo and Sansome, not far from the Embarcadero and the ugly elevated freeway that spoiled the view of the waterfront piers, the Ferry Building, the Bay beyond. The area used to be industrial and was dotted with old brick warehouses that, in recent years, had been converted into office buildings. One of those ex-warehouses, a block and a half away on Vallejo, housed the San Francisco offices of the Cappellani Winery.
The place was modeled after a British pub: black-beamed ceiling, heavy wood tables and chairs and booths; walls decorated with boar heads and dart boards and old English hunting prints. The bartenders and waiters all wore derby hats and dispensed Guinness stout and English beer and ale, along with thick meat and poultry sandwiches from a long chefs table up front.
Most of the lunch crowd had already gone by the time I came in at five of one, but it was still far from empty. I looked around for Shelly, did not see her; I did, however, notice two other people I knew — Logan Dockstetter and Philip Brand — sitting in a booth toward the rear and having what appeared to be an argument. I sat down in another booth diagonally across from them, where I could see the entrance. Neither of them noticed me. They were too wrapped up in whatever it was they were arguing about, Brand making angry gesticulations and Dockstetter stiff-backed and glaring.
The waiter appeared beside me, and I ordered a pint of Bass ale, and he went away again. Brand and Dockstetter were still going at each other across the aisleway, not making much effort to keep their voices down. Because of that, and because there was no one else carrying on a conversation in the immediate vicinity, I could hear most of what they were arguing about.
“I tell you, Logan,” Brand was saying in his deep, precise voice, “we damned well are in trouble. I ought to know, for God’s sake I’m the accountant.”
“You’re also a silly pessimist,” Dockstetter said.
“You’re the one who’s silly. You won’t admit what is staring you in the face. Sales are down, we’ve had complaints about the quality of our estate-bottled varietals, we’ve had a miserable harvest. And now God knows what more complications there might be with Alex.”
“Alex? What happened to him last night has nothing to do with the winery.”
“How do you know that? None of us knows what the attack on him has to do with.” Brand made another waving gesture. “The point is, we’re in trouble and the sooner we all admit it, the sooner something can be done about it.”
“Such as what?”
“Such as getting rid of Paul Rosten and Jason Booker, to begin with. Rosten has turned into an incompetent winemaker; he’s old-fashioned and ultra-conservative and he’s gotten careless. I don’t know why Mrs. Cappellani keeps him on, unless it’s because he’s been with the family for so long. Or because he’s been sleeping with her all these years.”