Sam took a reflective sip of his champagne. “There’s something that bothers me about this whole business,” he said, “and that’s motive. If ever there was a man who has everything, it’s Reboul. Success, money, all the trappings. Hot-and-cold-running girlfriends, a private palace, a private jet, a yacht-and, God knows, more than enough wine to last him the rest of his life.” He paused, and looked at Philippe. “Why did he do it? Why take the risk?”
“But, Sam,” said Philippe, shaking his head, “you don’t understand the French.”
It was a gap in Sam’s education that had already been pointed out to him several times over the past few days. “Right. Sophie already told me. So?”
Philippe continued. “Don’t forget that Chauvin was a Frenchman. We invented chauvinism. Some might even mistake this for arrogance.” At this, Philippe paused to flex his eyebrows, as though astonished that anyone could think such a thing of his countrymen. “We are passionate about our country, our culture, our cooking, our patrimoine. And nobody is more passionate than our friend Reboul. He even pays French taxes, for God’s sake. You’ve read the articles in the dossier. He’s always sounding off about the horrors of globalization, the erosion of French values, the tragedy of French assets falling into foreign hands-businesses, property, and, bien sûr, our best wines. To read about all that premier cru Bordeaux sitting in a cellar in Hollywood-Hollywood, of all places!-would be an affront, an outrage, a bone in his throat. And then, of course, we must not forget another factor, a most important factor: the sporting challenge. Mais oui.” Philippe nodded to himself as he took a sip of champagne.
Sophie and Sam looked puzzled. “Well,” said Sam, “I’m not sure if I buy the idea of robbery for purely patriotic reasons, but let’s say you’re right. Where does sport come into it? Is this something else about the Frenchman that I don’t understand?”
Philippe settled back in his chair, very much the professor bringing enlightenment to a promising student. “No, not this time. It’s more to do with being rich than being French. It’s the feeling a man develops, after many years of wealth and power, that he can have anything he wants and do anything he wants. Folie des grandeurs. He can indulge his little fancies. He can take chances. After all, if anything goes wrong, he can be sure that his money will protect him.” Philippe’s eyes went from Sophie to Sam, trying to assess their reactions. “That, I think you will agree, is true in general. Now we come to the particular. Now we come to Reboul.”
A group of young businessmen-with dark suits, short haircuts, and oversized watches-arrived at the next table. Philippe lowered his voice, so that Sophie and Sam had to lean forward to hear him.
“Reboul set up his empire very efficiently. The businesses are run by men he has worked with for a long time. He trusts them, and pays them well. In return, they deliver profits; year in, year out. The Groupe Reboul runs sur les roulettes, like clockwork-it’s well known for that. As for Reboul himself, what does he do with his time? He attends a few board meetings, just to keep an eye on things; he cultivates contacts; he gives interviews; he hosts a few high-level dinners. He has his soccer team and his yacht to play with. But where is the challenge? He’s done it all. He’s won. He’s bored. I’m convinced of it.”
Sam was nodding. He had met a few billionaires in California with the same problem. Some, the fortunate ones, were able to distract themselves with elaborate projects like the Americas Cup; others went from one corporate acquisition to the next, from one wife to the next, highly competitive, often surprisingly insecure, and occasionally extremely weird. Reboul didn’t appear to suffer from insecurity or weirdness. But boredom? Sam could easily imagine a man like him getting bored.
Philippe’s voice dropped even lower. “And so we have a man with unlimited amounts of money, a man with time on his hands, a man who is devoted, as he is always telling us, to France and everything that is French. What could be more amusing than to play this little game, to plan and execute the perfect robbery that would bring a national treasure back to the land it came from? And then perhaps have his friend the chief of police to a dinner washed down with stolen wine. There is the sport. There is the challenge. Voilà.” Philippe rubbed his hands together and reached for the champagne.
Sam had to admit that he’d known of crimes committed for similarly whimsical reasons. Indeed, he had committed one or two of them himself, a thought that lodged in his mind, waiting to be considered later. “Sophie?” he said. “What do you think?”
Sophie was frowning as she looked at her cousin. “I think Philippe has written his article already. But yes, what he says is possible.” She studied the tiny pinpoints of bubbles rising from the bottom of her glass, and shrugged. “So, my two detectives, what do we do about it?”
“Let’s sleep on it,” said Sam. “But first, I’d better call L.A. and bring them up to speed.”
There was a steely, hostile edge to Elena’s voice when she picked up Sam’s call. He had heard that tone in her voice before, when things between them had been going wrong, and it always made him want to duck. She was formidable when roused.
“Elena, don’t bite,” he said. “It’s me. Your man in the field.”
Sam could hear her take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sam, I’m sorry. But I’ve just had the daily earful from Danny Roth. I thought it was him calling back. He’s always doing that. I think he knows it drives me crazy.” Elena followed this with a short but blistering tirade in Spanish, ending with a fusillade of expletives and another deep breath. “I needed that. OK, now tell me what’s happening.”
“The good news is that I’m pretty sure we’ve found the wine. Roth’s fingerprints are on some of the bottles in Reboul’s cellar, and the guy who did the match works for the police down here. So it’s solid evidence.”
“That’s wonderful, Sam. Great work. Congratulations.” But she didn’t sound ready to celebrate just yet. “Tell me I’m wrong, but I get the feeling there’s some bad news as well.”
“Could be. Reboul may have done it, but he’s smart. It’s more than likely he’s covered his tracks with fake invoices and all kinds of paperwork. If that’s what we find he’s done, we can say hello to the lawyers, and I don’t have to tell you what that means: a million bucks in legal fees, and the case tied up for months. Maybe years.”
“Not to mention a lawsuit to decide who pays the legal fees.”
“Exactly. The problem is we won’t know how he’s covered himself until we make a move on him, and then there’s no going back. So I’m beginning to have a few thoughts about plan B.”
“Does it involve homicide and a well-known L.A. entertainment lawyer? Can I come?”
“You know me, Elena. I don’t do homicides. Listen, there’s something I need to know. In a case like this, what’s the bottom line? What do you absolutely have to have in order to avoid paying out that claim?”
“OK. It boils down to three things: discovery, identification, and condition. We have to know the whereabouts of the stolen goods. We need cast-iron confirmation that they are the stolen goods. And we have to be satisfied that they are still in good condition; ideally, the same condition they were in when stolen. There are dozens of supplementary details, but essentially if those three points stack up, then we’re off the hook.”
“And who does all the checking? Is it you or is it Roth?”
“Are you kidding? Would you take Roth’s word for anything? You know that old saying, ‘Good morning, he lied’? Well, that’s Danny Roth. No, the verification is done by us-in this case, by me and a couple of experts-and then we get Roth to sign off on it. And then I push him over a cliff.”