Tainted Tokay Read Free Page A

move her swollen lips. Her face was puffy and bruised, her eyes fleeting.
    â€œDon’t speak, child. The doctors will take good care of you.” The nurse wheeled her away, down the bright ly lit hallway.
    â€œDid you see that? Her nose is probably broken, and the bone above her eye looks smashed. Whoever did this had it in for her, ” Virgile said.
    â€œHas she told you anything yet?”
    â€œNo. She just wanted me to tell you not to worry and to go ahead and take that trip to Budapest, as you and Mrs. Cooke r had planned.”
    â€œI can’t do that.”
    â€œListen, boss, it’s not every day that your publisher pays for a cruise on the Danube. ‘The Blue Da nube’ and all.”
    â€œThat, son, would be ‘On the Beautiful Blue Danube’ or, in the original German, ‘An der schönen blauen Donau.’”
    â€œWhatever. I know for a fact that Mrs. Cooker is packed and waiting. Go. Live it up. I’ll make sure Alexandrine is okay, and I’ll cover the wo rk at the lab.”
    Benjamin wouldn’t leave. They sat in silence for a good hour, but Alexandrine had not yet reappeared.
    â€œBoss, getting her X-rayed will probably take forever, and who knows what they’ll need to do after that. You should go. You’ve got some papers to sign at the office and bags to pack.”
    â€œI feel terrible about this, Virgile.”
    â€œNo worries, boss,” Virgile said, mustering a smile . “I got this.”
    â€œYou’ll have your work cut out for you while I’m gone. Keep me posted o n Alexandrine.”
    Benjamin left the emergency room more slowly than he had come in. He said a silent prayer for Alexandrine’s recovery and got back in his car to drive to the Cooker & Co. office. If he couldn’t be in Bordeaux over the next couple of weeks, at least he could make things a little easier for his assistant.

4
    B enjamin had met Claude Nithard many years earlier, before he had even finished his first Cooker Guide . Although he was already a leading wine expert, Benjamin didn’t consider himself a writer. The publishing-house executive had taken the winemaker under his wing and given him both guidance and support. Since then, the Cooker Guide had succeeded well beyond expectation, and the two men had become good friends. Two or three times a year, they would go to Lutétia in Paris and share an epicurean feast. Three saints would invariably join them—Saint Julien, Saint Estèphe, and Saint Émilion. They would spend a few hours in heaven and leave the restaurant in a serene stat e of communion.
    This year, Claude had called Benjamin a few hours before the newest edition of the Cooker Guide was scheduled to go to press. He wanted to do something more spectacular than going to the Lutétia, as he was celebrating not only the updated Cooker Guide , but also a milestone birthday. Claude asked Benjamin and Elisabeth to join his girlfriend and him on a Danube River cruise.
    â€œWe’ll visit the Tokaji winemaking region,” he had told Benjamin. “It was my girlfriend’s idea. She’s already making the arrangements with my secretary. The publishing house will tre at, of course.”
    A romantic cruise on the Danube: as soon as Claude made the offer, Benjamin was envisioning himself gliding through the waters, his glass in hand and his preferred cigar between his lips. They’d board in Vienna and cruise to Budapest, where they’d take in the city’s smoky cafés, Turkish baths, quaint hotels, and baroque character. And finally they’d get on the legendary Bartók Béla and travel by rail to Bald Mountain, which, ironically, was covered with for ests and vines.
    Claude claimed to know little about Hungary, except for having played an interminable game of chess in the well-known Széchenji baths of Budapest. The winemaker enthusiastically offered to be the ad hoc guide, knowing, as