The M.S. Conspiracy

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic

Chapter 13 After Dark, My Sweet


When you're a dick your head's the most sensitive part, and mine had been taking a beating ever since I'd started working on this case. I'd developed a ringing in my ears and it seemed like I'd developed double vision. Turned out it was just Veronica. She was standing at my office door just oozing sex. Great. Bad enough I had blood stains on my carpet. I hadn't seen cleavage like that since Robert Parker had been my plumber, a job he was good at. He'd snaked my toilet and replaced my old scale with a hundred point one. I'd seen more crack than a Nick Nolte Oscar party. I wonder whatever happened to that old sink jockey.

I had to shake the cobwebs from my head before I could talk to Veronica. I really needed to dust my office once in a while. I'd just hung up the phone with Avril Cadavril, who wanted me to return to the morgue. She could wait. Veronica was my client, and, aside from that, I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was breathtaking, like sticking your head into a fermenting tank of sauvignon blanc. I so badly wanted to be the sugar to her yeast. But I'd already been converted to alcohol.

Veronica was staring down at the blood stain that Larry Anosmia, M.S. had left on my carpet. "What's this? Is that blood? Or did you dump Turley Zin on your carpet?"

"No, that's blood. But I did use the Turley to stain my Haynes." My head trauma was worse than I thought. "What is all this about Veronica? You hired me to just get you into the M.S. exam. Now two girls are dead, I'm a suspect in one of the cases, I've had my prostate examined without my consent, and somebody just got shot in my office. It's like I'm attending the Wine Bloggers Conference. Only they've all passed their prostate exams and become Certified Assholes. What's going on, Veronica? It's time you started telling me the truth."

"It's pretty complicated, HoseMaster, and the more I tell you the more dangerous it gets for you. This is much bigger than this cheap little jug-wine town of yours."

"Yeah, I know, take me to your liter."

"What my friends and I are on to is a threat to the very existence of the wine business, the kind of conspiracy that may end wine as we know it. But we've been unable to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the conspiracy, the very chambers where this horrible plot was hatched. But, believe me, HoseMaster, if you can't get me into that M.S. interview, if I can't get in front of those bastards and wave my bodacious Titratable Acidity-Titratable Acidities to pass their idiotic exams, the evil that is the M.S. program will fatally infect the wine business like the H1N1 Virus in a room full of asthmatics. These are evil people, HoseMaster, and they'll stop at nothing to accomplish their ultimate goal."

Veronica's chest was heaving with her excitement and anger. Her green eyes were ablaze; her passion had given her entire body a glow. I'd never seen a more beautiful woman, or a more dangerous one. And I'd met Karen MacNeil in a dark alley with a bottle of Fife.

"Veronica, my Gorgeous Girl, I'm not afraid of anybody with an M.S. It's just an imaginary title, like Certified Wine Educator, or Ph.D's that call themselves 'Doctor,' or Biggest Loser, which encompasses both. And it's going to be easier if you tell me what you know, if you trust me so that I can help you. I feel like I'm completely in the dark, uninformed, clueless, like I'm a wine judge at the California State Fair. And I'm a little tired of getting hit in the head every time I see a midget. Tell me what you know, Doll, or I'm done with this whole affair."

Tears were forming in Veronica's eyes, like she'd been pulling her own nose hairs. Sure, I was being rough on her, a woman who'd just recently seen two of her sisters murdered, but that's how I swing. I'd been thrown suddenly into a sinister conspiracy that had nothing to do with me any longer. I'd quit the wine business, used my old tastevin for an ashtray, sick of the hypocrites and sleazebags that append letters to the ends of their names like they're penile enhancements, and now Veronica had suckered me back into it. I didn't feel any obligation to help her, though I wouldn't mind riding my Sterling tram all the way up to her wine cave. But I wasn't about to risk my worthless life to help foil a conspiracy I wasn't even sure existed.

"OK, HoseMaster, I guess I have to trust you. What I'm going to tell you will sound crazy, unbelievable, but I swear it's all true."

And then the lights went out and we were pitched into total blackness.

The M.S. Conspiracy

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic

Chapter 12 With a Madman Behind Me

I woke up thinking that the sound of the gun firing had reminded me of the sound made by a 1975 Salon Champagne opened by an incompetent M.S., its precious contents spewing into the white napkin he had wrapped around the bottle like a llama horking at an innocent bystander at the zoo, at the first anniversary dinner my first wife and I shared at a snooty restaurant in Los Angeles, if that isn't redundant. But then I remembered that Salon didn't produce a Champagne in 1975, and that I didn't make it to a first anniversary with my first wife. In that vintage, Salon didn't need a cage, and neither did I. I'd been spewing into white napkins ever since.


I checked myself for gunshot wounds. Luckily, I hadn't been shot since I was a sommelier and refused to put Rancho Zabaco on my wine list. But that had been worth it. This was a stupid case that had somehow turned violent and deadly. Once again I wondered why I'd ever become a private dick. I'd had everything when I was a sommelier. A ten-year-old car, a drinking problem, a liver the size of a Wurlitzer organ, bad breath, a luxurious apartment above a crack dealer and prestige. What sort of a fool gives that up to be a private dick? No wonder everyone wanted to earn an M.S. There's real glamour in it, the glamour of imaginary accomplishment, the glamour of knowing the bottom of a spitbucket better than your partner's face, the glamour of free trips to romantic far-off lands with other drunks and losers, the glamour of knowing about obscure varieties of grapes and boring the crap out of everyone extolling their virtues, the glamour of wearing a brightly polished tastevin around your neck like you're Sammy Davis, Jr in whiteface. I'd given that prestigious life up for the life of a dick. Why? I guess because people like dicks. Women, especially, like dicks. Where would the world be without dicks? It's a dick world. I like saying dick.


I had a lump on the back of my head the size of Lance Armstrong's remaining testicle. Great. Someone had whacked me on the back of the head again. Only this time the gun had gone off. The jerk hadn't had the safety on, apparently, and the gun's impact with my beleaguered head had caused it to inadvertently discharge like a guy with P.E. at a Women in Wine conference. I was getting tired of this. I'd had my head banged around recently like I was an NFL lineman, and I wasn't excited about the idea of spending my last days drooling like a Saint Bernard and calling everybody Deacon. This case was getting to me.


I was alone in my office. I must have been out for a while. Damn. I'd missed the midget running. I could have used the laugh. And Tiny was gone too, though the floor was still warm where he'd been posing as Fugly's divan, warm enough to have made a fine Madeira, though if I wanted oxidized wines I could shop at Trader Joe's. Larry Anosmia, M.S. was gone too, but there was blood where he'd been standing. Seems the bullet had grazed him, maybe even caught him. I thought about calling Chief of Police Jokes, but I had a feeling I shouldn't. She was probably still comforting Veronica.


But who had hit me? It couldn't have been Fugly, Mr. Teebagger, I'd been hit from behind. The only explanation was that there had been another person in my office when I'd arrived, someone hidden in the coat closet slightly behind me and to my right, someone who'd been hiding there in order to assault me and who'd used my rant at Anosmia as the opportunity to sneak up behind me and use my head as a gong. Whoever it was had been nervous, an amateur, and no doubt part of the M.S. Conspiracy. Though accidentally shooting Anosmia wasn't going to score many points. Except with anyone who'd ever dealt with an M.S. before. They'd give him 100. With a bullet.


When the phone rang it scared the Temecula out of me. I was getting jumpier than a wine writer with ethics--well, if there were any they'd be jumpy. I didn't recognize the voice on the other end of the call at first, but then I realized it was Avril Cadavril, Butcher/Coroner.


"HoseMaster, I think you'd better get back here to the morgue. I've got something for you."


I was pretty sure she meant a drawer.

The M.S. Conspiracy

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic

Chapter 11 Bullet From Nowhere


Lately I'd been in more cavities than Mike Tyson's dentist. I was holding the three slips of paper in my hand, Veronica gently weeping in the background, and thinking, Well, I always wanted to be a crack detective. Be careful what you wish for. We like to think that the Universe is benevolent but I've always found that it's a vicious practical joker. Turns out God is an old Jewish man named Allen Funt. Lorna had found that out. She'd come to Healdsburg to get a couple of letters behind her name, pursuing her dream of becoming an M.S., and that's what the ol' Practical Joker had given her. A Murder Suppository. Smile, You're on Candid Chimera.


But somehow the killer had made a mistake and put Lorna's message in my dumpster and mine in hers. That seemed like an honest mistake. I have a nice ass. And that was certainly Lorna's strong suit. So the difference was strong suit and hirsute, but apparently in haste to escape, Lorna's murderer hadn't noticed. It didn't matter. But how many damn sisters did Veronica have?


Avril Cadavril was replacing the morgue sheets over the dead girls. Veronica was still crying a bit, her nose running all over Jessica's uniform. Something seemed to be going on between Jessica and Veronica, a strange chemistry had developed that was making me uncomfortable. But grief can do that to people. I'd had my share of grief, sunk to the sort of depths that only slime and wine bloggers can survive, and it had made me do all kinds of foolish things. Slow dancing with Robert Lawrence Balzer at the Wine Spectator Experience. Proposing marriage to Kevin Zraly (he said Yes, you're my Window on the World!). A menage a trois with Paul Prudhomme. But this felt somehow different. While the three ladies were distracted, I once again slipped out.


My entire investigation seemed to be going around in circles. All Veronica had hired me to do was to get her an interview for an M.S., get her into the exams that were scheduled for a few days from now. I'd been distracted by a midget, Tiny, Allen Funt and a couple of dead girls. I hadn't even been able to contact the thugs that ran the M.S. program. I'd been coldcocked in Les Mars Hotel and busted in a public rest room. So, all in all, the same old routine.


When I opened the door to my office I found I had visitors. Fugly the midget was sitting on my couch. Wait, I don't have a couch. Fugly was sitting on Tiny's lap, his Jimmy Buffett shirt made Tiny look like he'd been upholstered in a Roman vomitorium. And standing next to them was an unfamiliar character, but he smelled like a sommelier. You know, cheap suit that had just come back from the dry cleaner. He probably should have taken it out of the plastic before he put it on. But that's an M.S. for you, more plastic than anything else. But I was more concerned about Fugly. He was pointing a gun at me. Just once I'd like to meet a midget who wasn't sitting on a fat guy and packing a piece.


"I hear you're looking for me," the Man from Glad said.


"I don't even know who you are. But I can guess. You're a Master Sommelier, one of the examiners. Yeah, I'm lookin' for you. I just finished conducting exams on two of your candidates. Turns out they both passed. They both passed notes. Who are you? What's your name? What the hell are you doing in my office with Fat Man and Little Boy? I've seen enough dead bombshells for one day."


"You're right, HoseMaster, I am a Master Sommelier. My name is Larry Anosmia. Our friend Tiny here said that you were looking for me, for the M.S. judges. And it seems you've been busy knocking off all of our leading candidates. Just what is it that you want?"


I lunged for the pompous prick, but I stopped when I heard Fugly cock his gun. "I didn't kill those two women, but I think you know who did. And call off your midget before I pour cocktail sauce on him and throw him in the Cyrus dumpster for Tiny. Tiny loves a shrimp cocktail."


Anosmia turned to the midget and said, "It's OK, Mr. Teebagger, you can put away the gun. We're not here to cause any trouble for the HoseMaster." Fugly, or Mr. Teebagger as it turns out, put his gun away. "Now, HoseMaster, what is it you want from us?"


I strolled past Tiny and Mr. Teebagger and sat down behind my desk. Anosmia hadn't moved, he was just casually standing there in the way that sommeliers do, smirking like I'd just ordered a bottle of Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon from a poor vintage. Any of them.


"I have a client. Her name is Veronica. She knows a lot about wine and she hired me to get her into your exams next week for M.S. That's all I wanted to do, get her an invite."


"Well, HoseMaster, you didn't have to kill a couple of candidates to make an opening for her. This Veronica, I'm sure she didn't hire you for that."


I just stared. "I don't know who murdered those girls, but it wasn't me. And what killed them was their idiotic desire to line your pockets with money so you'd give them two letters after their names, two letters they thought would help them be somebody in the wine business, two letters they thought might validate their passion for wine, make people admire them, come to them for wine advice. Two letters that proved they know about wine. Shit. It's all shit. All it got them was an early trip to the Jim Jones Tasting Room, a permanent position at Copia, a reviewer's job at Wine and Spirits Magazine...Death. But you and the rest of your M.S. poseurs, the fake Gucci bags of wine connoisseurs, the counterfeit Rolexes of the wine world--hell, an M.S. is just fake tits for wine lovers--you'll just keep on taking money for your meaningless letters, your bogus degree, your manufactured status. The whole thing is a scam, and an ugly one, and now it's cost two lovely women their lives and I'm going to find out what's going on and I'm going to take you and all your fucking M.S. midgets down..."


I think I heard the gun go off.

The M.S. Conspiracy

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic

Chapter 10 Queer Patterns

When you're a dick you can get put in some pretty crappy places. I wasn't that surprised that Tiny knew about the paper in my pooper, Tiny makes a living knowing everything, but when had it been put there without my knowing? It had to have been recently; I'd only just given myself my monthly prostate exam--I was a quart low, must be in need of a ring job. The only time that made sense was after Fugly the midget knocked me out in the Les Mars Hotel. But had Fugly done it? It was the nearest cavity for him, sure, but he'd have had to undo my pants, lower my Depends, slip off the fishnet stockings, remove my sheer black nylon panties, push aside my thong, insert the note, then put it all back before I came to. And midgets have a notorious fear of Depends, for obvious reasons.

I carefully unfolded the note that had previously been residing in my ex-wives' Divorce Lawyers Hospitality Suite. It contained a simple message. I'd halfway hoped for a fortune, you know, like "Hey, it's dark in here," or "If you can read this you're following too close." But all it said was, "Here's your M.S. certificate, Shithead!" I wondered what that was about. And then suddenly I knew.

I left Tiny still scrounging for foie gras in the Cyrus dumpster and headed over to the Healdsburg Coroner's Office where Lorna and Veronica's sister should be dressing up the slabs by now. Healdsburg doesn't see a lot of murders, not usually anyway, yet the town has a Medical Examiner. Medical Examiner isn't her full-time job, by day she's a butcher at Big John's market. Stuffs a mean pork loin. Her name is Avril Cadavril.

Avril was getting ready to examine Veronica's sister. Maybe it's me, but drawing those lines all over her and labeling the different cuts seemed a little cold. I will admit, the chuck looked pretty good though, worth way more than two bucks.


"Hello, Avril, is that the girl from the Hotel Healdsburg?"


"Yup," Avril responded. I'd sort of forgotten how unattractive Avril was. Two hundred pounds of sausage stuffed into one casing. But years of being a butcher, having more blood on your hands than Donald Rumsfeld, will take their toll. But, I guess, she knew the steaks when she took the job.

"Have you checked her anus yet?" This is what life comes down to. The joy of childhood turns to the acne-covered ache of adolescence followed by the uncertainties and badly chosen sexual adventures of young adulthood which finally lead to following a real passion--wine; you follow that passion to a small town in wine country thinking you'll finally realize part of your dreams and you end up an illustrated meat dummy with a dick standing over you asking, "Have you checked her anus yet?" God's great plan.

"No, Hosemaster, I haven't. You're the only asshole I've looked at all day."

I slipped on a pair of surgical gloves, quickly put my hands to my ears, fingers splayed, and said in my best Bullwinkle voice, "Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" and gently explored Veronica's sister's Alaskan pipeline. Sure enough, there was a slip of paper.

"Well," I said to Avril, "look what I found."

"Inspected by No. 28?" Hey, it was a butcher joke.

"Not exactly. But, you know, Avril, I'm just trying to help you not be so behind in your work." The paper read exactly like the one that had been put into my Wine Spectator office, "Here's your M.S. certificate, shithead!"

"What do you suppose that means?" Avril asked me.

"Don't know, babe, but I'll do the suppositorying around here, if you don't mind. Where's the other woman's body, the one from Les Mars?"

"Sure," said Avril, "now I guess women are from Les Mars and men are from Anus. She's over here."

Avril walked over to an adjacent gurney and removed the white sheet that was covering Lorna like she was a Forest Lawn toreador and I was an adoring crowd. "Did you check her anus?"

This is what life comes down to. The wonder of childhood turns to the weekly beatings of adolescence followed by the wearing of women's undergarments in young adulthood which finally lead to discovering the joy of substance abuse--wine; you follow that passion to a hick town in wine country only to end up covered in a white tablecloth on a gurney with a dick standing over you asking, "Did you check her anus?" Praise the Lord.

I already knew the answer by the way Avril was staring at me, like she was a brand new shoe and I was a great big turd. I carefully turned Lorna on her side and began to check her Nigerian hijacker runway. As I felt around for the expected Surprise in Every Backdoor Box, the door to the morgue suddenly opened, and when I looked over my shoulder to see who it was I was shocked to see Veronica and Jessica bursting in. Thank goodness they hadn't arrived a few minutes sooner when I was paying a booty call on Veronica's sister.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Hoseprober?"

"Looking for clues, Jessica. I think I've found something."

"What? Your breath mints?"

"No, Chief," I said as I removed the expected slip of paper from Lorna's Year End Review of Wines, "this." I unfolded the note. But, to my surprise, it didn't say "Here's your M.S. Certificate, shithead." The look on my face got Jessica's attention. I'd gone as white as a picture of wine judges.

I handed the paper to Jessica. "'You're next, HoseMaster,'" she read, "'unless you keep your nose out of strange bungholes.' What's this about, Hosepucker?"

I was about to tell her when Veronica screamed. I hadn't heard a scream like that since the last time I'd has sex with Avril. A loud, piercing, girly scream. Avril looked at me. She remembered when I'd screamed like that.

"What, Veronica," Jessica asked, grabbing Veronica by her shoulders and holding her tightly to her chest, turning her head away from the gorgeous dead girls, "what is it?"

Veronica was crying maniacally, gasping for breath, but she managed to point at Lorna, lying there so peacefully, my bad fortune cookie, my Pez dispenser of Death, and say, "She's my sister!"

The M.S. Conspiracy

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic


Chapter 9 Losers Live Longer



When you're a dick things often get sticky. I'm not comfortable around women crying, it makes my scalp itch and my fingers long for the feel of a throat. Veronica had become hysterical at the sight of her sister dead in the tub. Her sobbing had triggered the same in Jessica and it sounded like a reunion of Charlie Sheen ex-wives in the room. I'd had enough. I needed to start pounding the mean streets of Healdsburg. OK, they're not so much mean as they are sassy. I needed to start flatfooting the sassy streets of my town searching for the midget, or for Veronica's friends, or maybe for a reason to keep doing this stupid job. Seeing two lives cut short in their prime was a reminder, a reminder that none of us knows when we'll take our last breath, that our lives, no matter how miserable, no matter how low we've sunk, whether pedophile or wine blogger, have value. OK, wine bloggers not so much. When are they going to make them register so you know when one moves in next door to you?


I left Jessica and Veronica in the room with the sommelier float, hold the ice cream, and decided it was time to pay a visit to the M.S. bigwigs. I knew they were in town, but I wasn't sure where they were staying. Somewhere cheap. Those guys spend money like it's First Growth Bordeaux--only after they've kept it for 50 years. More than likely they were staying somewhere for free, a winery, or one of Huckleberry Jackson's guest houses. They'd be there a week and you'd have to use a pressure hose to get the smell of smarmy off the walls. I had no idea where the M.S. thugs were hanging their fake credibility for a week, but I knew someone who would--Tiny. Nothing happens in Healdsburg that Tiny doesn't know about. Tiny was the publisher and gossip columnist for our local rag, the Healdsburg Herald-Flatulence, and I knew where he was most likely to be. Dumpster diving behind Cyrus.


Sure enough, Tiny, all 550 pounds of him, was shoulder deep in the dumpster behind Cyrus, Healdsburg's finest restaurant, proud recipient of two Michelin puffs. I'd met those two puffs at the bar in Cyrus, oddly enough, but that's another story. I greeted Tiny with our usual salutation.


"Hey, Tiny, what's shakin', aside from your proctologist?"


"Don't bother me now, HoseMaster," Tiny replied, "I'm getting my prix fix."


"I've just got one question for you, Tiny. Where are those M.S. clowns staying?"


"Oh, I heard you were looking for them. This have something to do with that dead babe they found like residual sugar in Zinfandel? You know, sweet but pruney."


"No, no, I just want to talk to them about getting a client of mine into their exams."


"What client? You mean that gorgeous blonde that was in your office this morning? Man, HoseMaster, she was stacked like the barrel room at Clos du Bois."


"Look, Tiny, all I want from you is where those chumps are staying. Do you know or don't you?"


"Oh, man, caviar!" Tiny lived for these gourmet moments. When I'd first met him he was rather svelte. Now he was so big he couldn't fit through the front door of his apartment. What he really needed was to lose a lot of weight, and soon, or he'd lose everything, his job, his reputation, his thong, and then losing the pounds wouldn't help, it would just make him a homeless svelter. He was devouring the caviar rapaciously; then he quickly spat it out. "Nah, that's not caviar. Mouse turds. Though they do taste of the ocean."


I was getting the feeling that Tiny didn't want to tell me where the M.S.-creants were residing. "Come on, Tiny, I don't have all day. I need to ask those guys some questions."


"Just leave it alone, HoseMaster. Don't forget, losers live longer."


"What's that supposed to mean? I'm not going to leave anything alone. I'm already in this up to my nozzle. You know, this whole thing has started to stink, Tiny, and I'm beginning to think you know something about it. Now, are you going to tell me where they are, or aren't you?"


"OK, sure, HoseMaster, I'll tell you where to look. It's somewhere dark and humid, a place a lot of wine has passed through, a lonely place no one would ever want to explore."


"They're staying in the wine caves at Bella?"


"No," Tiny said, returning to his foraging. "Bend over, shine a flashlight up your ass, maybe they're staying there."


I looked. They weren't. But I wouldn't have been surprised. There was something else up there though. A note, folded and neatly inserted. Great, I thought, just perfect, story of my life. Other guys find a mysterious message in a bottle, I get a message in a butthole.

The M.S. Conspiracy

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic


Chapter 8 The Wounded and the Slain


I've been a dick for years. Many would argue my whole life. But I'd never seen two dead bodies in one day. I felt like I was at a reunion of my ex-wives. First, there was Lorna at Les Mars Hotel, her neck broken like the Three-Tier Distribution system. Now I was looking at another young lady, apparently in town to take the M.S. exam, dead in her bathtub in the Hotel Healdsburg. It might have been an accident--most accidents take place in the bathroom, unless you count the ones I'd had in my bed as a kid that had been intended for the bathroom, though now, as an adult, I usually had a different three sheets to the wind--but for all of the corks floating in the tub with her. Which Jessica was putting into a trash bag.

"Maybe you should let me take a look at those corks, Jess, they might be clues."

Jessica shot me a sarcastic look, and, well, she was a crack shot. Which reminded me of my view of the victim. "Clues? I don't know, Hoseapalooza, I think you're barking up the wrong Quercus suber."

Wow, I thought, a cork joke. Maybe Jessica knew more about wine than she was letting on. "Just let me look through them."

Chief Jokes handed me the bag of corks. It was an impressive collection. Corks from many of the finest wines in the world. Chave, Rayas, Margaux, Leroy, Opus One... Opus One? How did that cork get in there? Man, I'd forgotten that turds float sometimes.

"Every one of these corks is from a great bottle of wine."

"So? She's been studying for her M.S., Hosedope, you don't exactly learn anything about wine drinking the slop they serve by the glass. They're probably all the corks she'd collected from her M.S. study group."

Everyone studying for an M.S. would form a group with other M.S. candidates, pool their resources, and get together weekly to taste wines from all over the world. Maybe Lorna and our still unknown victim had been in the same study group. That was an intriguing possibility. Which, among other things, meant that there were probably a few more members of that group around. Yet more sorry souls who had traded in their young lives for a longshot chance in the sommelier sweepstakes, trying to win an M.S. as if it were the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes Grand Prize and Ed McMahon would show up at their house and award them a gigantic cartoon tastevin, only Ed McMahon was dead, floating in his own bathtub gin of disappointment. I needed to find out who the victim was.

The victim's body, and a lovely body at that, like the silky smooth body of a fine Vosne-Romanee, though the only Romanees I'd been able to afford had come not from Vosne but from Safeway, had been discovered by a Hotel Healdsburg maid. The room was supposed to have been empty; it hadn't been registered to anyone. The last people to have occupied it were an elderly couple from Albuquerque who'd been in town celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. A much slower death. There were no clothes to be found anywhere in the room, no purse, not a single clue to the victim's identity. But Jessica had known she was an M.S. candidate. That's what she'd told me in the square when she'd gotten the call. It wasn't like her to jump to conclusions. She usually limped to them. But I decided to let her think I hadn't noticed. And, besides, the corks sort of proved her point. But how had she known?

"Sure was a lovely young woman," I said.

"Yeah, Hoselimp, you've got a real eye for the dead girls. Married several, didn't you?"

"I have an idea for how we can ID her. May I use your cellphone?"

I dialed Veronica's number from memory. 1-800-38D2436. I'd found a way to commit it to mammary. When she answered I asked her to come to the Hotel Healdsburg right away. She asked why, but I wanted to surprise her, see if I could tell anything by the look on her face. It was a bad idea.

When Veronica walked into the hotel bathroom she let out the kind of blood-curdling scream I hadn't heard since I'd asked Jessica to our high school prom. OK, I didn't mean to scream, it just came out of me. Veronica rushed over to the dead girl, her tears flowing like Korbel Brut at a low-rent wedding, her beautiful face contorted in agony, like she'd just judged the under $12 Chardonnay category at the Livermore Valley Harvest Fair, and plunged her arms into the cold water and around the lifeless sommelier, if lifeless sommelier isn't redundant. Jessica and I stood by silently respectful.

"Oh, God," Veronica cried, turning her lovely face to stare angrily at me, "she's my sister."

The M.S. Conspiracy

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic

Chapter 7 Murder's a Bad Habit


People always ask me what it's like going from being a sommelier to being a private detective--public dick to private dick. It's like you hang up your overcoat and give up being an exhibitionist. You stop scaring young girls by whipping out your wine knowledge and hoping they'll gasp in admiration. And I never even bothered with an M.S., that just exacerbates the flashing. When you think about it, an M.S. credential and a penis have a lot in common. With either one you take every chance you get to show it to people. It serves as proof you are what you say you are--a man or a wine expert. At the least provocation you whip it out and wave it around for anyone to see. And they react, they've heard about the M.S. exam, they look at what you're displaying to them and they instantly understand it's hard. And, gosh, not everyone has one, so it must be some sort of achievement. Isn't it?

I was lucky. I got out of the sommelier business in the nick of time. Before the M.S. goons and grifters muscled their way into the wine business, hired for the meaningless letters after their names by wine-clueless restaurant owners and delusional chefs (OK, "delusional chefs" is redundant, but I'm making a point here). Where once it took years and years of experience to qualify as wine knowledgeable, now it just took serious memorization, a checkbook, and putting all the right things on the tip of your tongue, many of them attached to the examiners. I've got nothing against the freaks and appellation-flashers who want the letters after their names, the letters that strike fear in the hearts of the wine ignorant everywhere, they go into it with high hopes and dreams of prestige borrowed from hundreds of years of wine snobbery. Only to find out that the magic letters come with a price. Lorna had paid the price, her neck broken like the screwtop on a cheap bottle of Australian shiraz you opened because you like the taste of manipulated wine, it reminds you of your life, the way you try to make it taste good despite the lousy ingredients. It was starting to feel like the M.S. dons were beginning to get nervous for some reason. The question was why. And maybe Jessica Jokes was thinking the same thing and that was why she was going to take the M.S. exam. Put her own life at risk. Maybe I'd underestimated her. Maybe I was still in love with her. No, I'd given up women for something better. Lubricants.


I had put all of that wine business buffonery and pretense behind me when I became a private dick; it was just a distant scene I occasionally glimpsed in my rearview mirror. And speaking of rearview, how did Veronica fit into all of this? She'd need a wide screen, that's for sure, she had a rearview only Cinemascope could do justice to. But she'd showed me a bit more wine knowledge than I'd expected. Had she set me up with Lorna, or had her friends, or was she just another dreamer longing to be a sommelier? And how was I going to get her into the M.S. exams without Jessica knowing I was involved?


I was thinking about Veronica when I felt a buzzing in my pants. This was odd since I don't own a cellphone. Odd, but pleasant. I'd owned a really cheap device for a while, a kind of Blackberry knockoff. A Dingleberry, but I'd gotten rid of it. It hardly ever dingled.

"Hey, Hoseapoppin', come with me." It was Chief Jokes yelling at me across the square. "I just got a call. Another M.S. candidate just turned up dead. Drowned in the tub. Let's hope it was an accident."

She, whoever she was, was still in the tub, face down, her gorgeous butt looking eerily like Harvey Steiman without a bow tie. But this was no accident. In the tub with her, bobbing around like pieces of her shattered dreams, were corks. Hundred of corks. Someone had made cork soup, with sommelier stock.

The M.S. Conspiracy

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic

Chapter 6 Anything Goes


After lunch I decided to tail Veronica. Which is the very definition of coals to Newcastle. She needed tail like Robert Mondavi needed a heat lamp. So I decided to follow her instead. This was a distinct pleasure. Watching her from behind was like watching a latex lava lamp. Veronica had missed her calling. She could have been a coffee grinder at Starbucks. I'd certainly pay to explore her grounds.

I was hoping that she'd lead me to her friends, but I didn't really expect her to. But it was a lovely day for a stroll, and I'd had worse jobs than following a gorgeous blonde pulling a trailer with two lovely lug boxes. I was so fixated on Veronica that I nearly missed spotting Fugly, the midget who'd held a gun on me in the late Lorna's room. So I was wrong; it turns out it was a lovely day for a troll. And I didn't think Fugly had spotted me at all, if you don't count the easily Wine Away-ed urine stains on my fly that the sight of his gun had caused to mysteriously appear. What was really strange was that the little guy appeared to also be tailing Miss Veronica. Why would Fugly want to know what Veronica was up to? What could be so important that he'd run the risk of following her too closely and end up getting bitch slapped by her buns? Which is better than having midget skid marks.

Veronica was taking her time, just wasting a day window shopping in the cutesy little boutiques Healdsburg was overpopulated with. Fugly was trying to look inconspicous by hiding behind fire hydrants and trash receptacles. Nothing more invisible than a midget humping a fire hydrant. Veronica seemed completely oblivious to her two tails. Or so I thought. I looked away for a moment and she ducked into a public restroom. Well, that made sense. You call it. Head or tails?

She was in there for a long time. But she was a woman, and that didn't seem out of the ordinary. So Fugly and I waited. And waited. This was getting weird. I was thinking about going in after her, hell, I'd been in lots of Ladies Rooms before, usually with a drill and a minicam, but if I went in after her Fugly would undoubtedly see me. I was weighing my options when Fugly disappeared. I scanned the Square, I looked behind every trash can, fire hydrant and Labrador retriever but that fucking midget had vanished like a Murphy-Goode Social Media Consultant.

I casually walked over to the Ladies Room where I'd seen Veronica enter. I waited for the appropriate moment when no one was looking and I walked in. The stalls were emptier than Charlie Olken's arguments for the 100 point scale. Where the hell had Veronica gone? I don't mean where had she gone, I know where she peed, but where the hell was she? Now I'd lost her and the midget. I guess I'm not much of a tail. But maybe that comes from having a rather small coccyx.

"Hey, Hosefitter, you want to explain to me what you're doing in the Ladies Room?" It was Chief Jokes. This wasn't our first time together in a public toilet, we'd met at IHOP once, but that's another story.

"I'm looking for a client." Yeah, I know, that didn't come out right.

"Number one or number two?" I guess I had that coming.

"Were you following me, Jessica?"

"No, Hosepimple, don't flatter yourself. Even cops have to take a wiz now and then. Mind if I tinkle on the taxpayer's money?"

"You always do."

"Oh, in case you didn't know," Jessica said as she locked the door to her stall, "I'm going to take the M.S. exam next week."

The M.S. Conspiracy

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic


Chapter 5 Warped Women


When you're a dick it's all about knowing where your head is supposed to be, and mine was several inches up the wrong wine cave--my own. I was supposed to be trying to help the beautiful Veronica get into the M.S. Society but instead I'd been initiated into the Skull and Boners Club. I'd had this case but a few hours and already there was a midget, the cops and a dead body involved. But at least I knew the M.S. Society had an opening now. I'd never seen Lorna's.

I decided that before I tried to get Veronica into the M.S. exam, I needed to find out more about her, and more about the Master Sommelier organization. Something about the whole thing was eating at me. Or so I thought. Turned out I'd picked up some ticks. Ticks on dicks. What am I, fucking Dr. Seuss? One thing I was sure about, Veronica wasn't from Healdsburg. She was talent brought in from somewhere else, talent that seems to have been meant to lure me into this morass. And, from my point of view, the morass the better. I needed to find out just who my client was, where she was from, who her "friends" were.

I strolled around the corner from Les Mars to Willi's to have a glass of wine to calm my nerves. I'd been married, so I was used to it, but it still wasn't easy to see a beautiful woman in a bed just laying there not moving. I pulled up a stool at Willi's and ordered a tall, cold one in honor of Veronica. The bartender gave me a glass of La Crema Chardonnay. Ugh. Just wasn't my day. It smelled of pears, maybe peaches, and definitely hypocrisy.

I kept thinking about that whack on the head I'd been given. I had a knot on my skull about the size of Dan Berger's brain--so, walnut-sized--that kept throbbing like Steve Heimoff at the Mr. Universe pageant. Fugly, that midget with a message, didn't give it to me, so who did? Veronica's friends? The M.S. goons? A pissed-off Les Mars maid? Or was there someone who'd been staying with Lorna? An angry ex-boyfriend? Whose best friend was a midget. Something wasn't adding up. Why was Heimoff at a Mr. Universe pageant? Trying for that 100 point score?

"Hello."

Now what? I was lost in reverie, which is just north of Geyserville, in other words, nowhere, but it seemed someone was addressing me. Probably "Return to Sender."

It was Veronica. She acted a little surprised to see me. She was looking at me like she expected me to be in jail, which is how most women look at me. But I'd never been behind bars, except the ones covering my eyes in all those Internet photos. Her gaze didn't exactly make me feel comfortable, but I didn't let on. I was too busy staring at Veronica's breasts and wondering if they had names. The word "Jeroboam" kept jumping into my head. How many splits in a Jeroboam? In her case, one glistening split.

"What are you doing here, Hosemaster?" she asked me in an innocent tone of voice reminiscent of Sarah Palin talking about death panels as if they were were her panty shields.

"Recuperating from a nasty blow to my Melon."

"Well, it could have been worse."

"How's that?" I bit.

"Your Melon could have been mistaken for your Pinot Blanc and then where would you be?"

"I don't know," I said, "Clone College?" I was making an incredibly stupid joke that I wasn't sure even the midget would get, one of my probable brain damage jokes, but I was impressed that Veronica was aware that much of the Pinot Blanc planted in California had turned out to be Melon. Maybe she could actually pass the M.S. exam if I could get her an interview. But why did she want to? She could clearly make a lot more money than a sommelier. As Lorna might have, come to think of it.

"Buy a girl lunch?"

"Sure," I said, " you're the one paying for my time."

"Well," Veronica said, "I like a guy willing to play with his clock. What should I order?"

"Have what I've been having all day," I suggested.

"What's that?" she bit.

"Red Herring."

"The M.S. Conspiracy"

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic

Chapter 4 Some Look Better--Dead


It seems like I'm always the dick that gets caught in the zipper. I'm alone in a ritzy hotel room with a sexy brunette who's deader than a Matt Kramer opinion and the Chief of Police walks in. She doesn't say anything at first, she's just surveying the room, taking it all in, like I wished Lorna had. My head was still pounding and I kept hearing a high-pitched noise that sounded like Julia Child having an orgasm. I knew enough not to talk or move until Chief Jokes was done checking out the crime scene. Besides, I love Chief Jokes, I always have. I just wanted to watch her for a while.

Jessica Jokes and I had gone to high school together, so, of course, I'm quite a bit older. Jessica had always been an overachiever. She had been Head Cheerleader, Prom Queen, Valedictorian, and a semi-professional sword swallower. She'd started out on pocket knives and worked her way up. I'd been in love with her since the eleventh grade, but she wouldn't give me the time of day.

"Hey, Jessica," I said when I thought she was done eyeballing Lorna, "you have any idea what time it is?"

"None of your fucking business." See.

Jessica gave me a contemptuous glance, and then slowly walked over to where Lorna lay on the cushy Les Mars mattress. Jessica flipped back the bedspread, squatted down, the pants of her cop uniform clinging tightly to her pear-shaped buttocks like Saran Wrap on a new French oak barrel, and examined the mattress tag. "Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law," she read out loud. "Well, at least they weren't scofflaws."

"Did you happen to see a really ugly midget leaving the hotel when you arrived, Chief?"

"I'm going to ask the questions here, HoseMaster. What the hell are you doing in Les Mars Hotel with a dead M.S. candidate?" Just like high school, Jessica had done her homework. Though it turned out the hotel was filled to capacity with candidates for M.S., the exams were coming up. Where did these morons get the money to stay at Les Mars? This whole thing was starting to stink. Or else someone's intestinal cuvee was having sulfur issues, and it wasn't the Prom Queen with a badge.

"So you don't think I killed her?"

"You?" she said scornfully. "You can see that someone broke her neck, and a wimp like you can barely unscrew a Stelvin much less unscrew a woman's neck."

"OK, you're close. But I wasn't trying to unscrew her." The patter was getting a little snappy for my taste, like it had been written by some amateur comedy writer.

"You didn't answer my question, Hoseapoppin.' What are you doing with her, who is she and what the hell did you have for lunch?"

So I told Jessica the whole story, beginning with Veronica and ending with the ugly midget, exit stage left. Jessica seemed intrigued by the midget, thought he might be an ex-cop in a small town, but then she remembered this was a murder investigation. She had called Healdsburg Forensics, which was a winery lab rat with a tape measure, a bad yeast infection and a refractometer. Lorna was dead at 17 Brix. Not very sweet.

"So," Jessica mused, "give me one good reason why I shouldn't arrest you, Hosescum."

The thought of her putting me in handcuffs got me kind of hot and didn't help my sulfur emergency, but I needed Veronica's money, I wanted to find Fugly, and whoever had hit me on my Melon I wanted to kick square in the Baga. "Because, Chief Jokes, this case is somehow about wine, about the thugs at the M.S. Society, and I know a lot about wine and you don't. You're going to need me. I can get to these guys, I know how they think, I know how they take advantage of the young people who come to them, I know how they make shit up about wine in order to steal their money. And Veronica is somehow part of this and she trusts me. You know I'm not leaving town, I'll be around if you want to arrest me later. Just give me some time."

"Bite me, Hosebanger."

"Not give me the time, give me some time. Sheesh. To work on this case." Man, she'd become hardnosed since she'd become Chief of Police. Her nose was harder than a Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet. I could see the gears working as she thought about letting me go. She knew I was right, but she didn't want to admit it.

"So, if the midget didn't snap her neck, and my little Hosepussy didn't snap the victim's neck, who did?"

I finally got up from the floor of the Les Mars hotel room, my cheap suit covered in "Service Animal" fur and the stink of money. I walked over to take one last look at Lorna, shoving aside the Forensics guy, who for some reason had his pruning shears out, looked down at her young, beautiful, deathly still face, a face that had puckered and spit more times than a Congressional page, a face that had turned more than a few heads and ended up with a turned head of its own, and oddly, she looked more beautiful than when I had met her in the Healdsburg Square. But, then, I'd learned, some look better dead. I swore that I'd find the midget, whoever had murdered Lorna and the sonofabitch who clobbered my Melon.

"I don't know who killed her, Chief, but I do know one thing."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Your ass got a lot bigger since high school."

"The M.S. Conspiracy"

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic

Chapter 3 The Big Midget Murders

I was having this fantastic wet dream about Jancis Robinson where she was slowly decanting me over a candle when I woke up. I felt warm wax in my pants. My head was pounding and felt like it had swollen to the size of Robert Parker's ego. I was having trouble focusing. My beard had Velcroed to the expensive carpet. My mouth tasted like I'd sucked down a glass of Madiran and chased it with a cotton ball. Hell, I felt like most Les Mars guests when they wake up.

The last thing I clearly remembered was the feel of the drunk brunette's breast as I led her into her hotel room. So where was she? Who was she? And did Jancis drink what she'd decanted?


"Finally with us again, HoseMaster?" I wasn't sure if there was someone in the room or that voice in my head was back, the voice that usually told me to do insane things like carve the names of First Growths on stray cats. I managed to lift myself off the carpet, slowly and painfully, shake the cobwebs off, I mean literally, hell, don't they vacuum at Les Mars, and when I lifted my eyes I was looking at the business end of gun. That made me focus.


"Did you hit me with that?"


He laughed. Like I'd asked a particularly stupid question. Like I was an interviewer for Mutineer Magazine, wine journalism's answer to Highlights for Children. When I looked up at him I knew why he'd laughed. He was a midget. And an ugly one. Reminded me of one of the Seven Dwarves, I think it was Fugly. He'd have to have been standing on fifty-seven Healdsburg phone books to have coldcocked me. And that would have meant he knew I was coming.


"What were you doing with Lorna?" Fugly asked me in his best Munchkin voice.


"Lorna doin'? My favorite cookie!" Even with a blow to the head I was quick. It's a gift. So when Fugly hit me with the gun I was hoping I'd be even quicker, like I'd hoped to be with Lorna, finish with her before she passed out. From the pleasure, of course.


"I'm not kidding around here, Hoseboy. If you think I am, maybe you should see what happened to your little M.S. whore."


I diplomatically didn't mention that "M.S. whore" was redundant, but Fugly didn't notice. I stood up and looked in the direction he pointed, at the bed. Lorna was in it, naked, gorgeous, dead. Two out of three ain't bad. I couldn't take my eyes off her. She'd come from somewhere all the way to my little burg of Healds to become an M.S. and ended up deader than Merlot by-the-glass. Such a shame. I kind of like Merlot, the way it smells like a bad joke.


As I walked over to the bed I heard the midget take off for the door. Now I started to laugh. Midgets running--a guaranteed laugh. Every time. I let Fugly go. He had a gun and a head start and it's sort of unseemly to chase a Little Person. Besides, it wouldn't be hard to find out who he was, I mean, how many ugly midgets could there be in Healdsburg? Just his other six buddies. I was more interested in Lorna, who she was, how she tied into all this, whether she knew Veronica, how she'd gotten mixed up with the scum at M.S., whether I'd been set up.


That's when the Chief of the Healdsburg police walked in. Speaking of midgets.


To be Continued

The M.S. Conspiracy

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic

Chapter 2 An Expensive Place to Die


Veronica had walked out of my office in her K-J shoes (very big heels) and left me her phone number, a wad of cash for expenses, mostly a big stack of Fred Franzias (two dollar bills), and a bulge in my pants that made it look like I was packing a Rabbit corkscrew. She was certainly a woman who'd make your hare stand on end. Now, like Alice in Wonderland, I was looking for the nearest Rabbit hole.

I decided to wander into Healdsburg proper and troll for some tourist tang of the poon variety. It was early October and the town was crawling with out-of-towners, folks from all over the United States here to taste the local fare. They wander from tasting room to tasting room, girls in sheer cotton dresses that leave nothing to the imagination when the sun shines through and reveals their terroir--their plush hillside vineyards, their volcanic soils, the extent of their pruning. Most of them were ripe and needed to be harvested. The wines they tasted made them feel sexy, the sheer sensual joy of sipping a Sonoma County Pinot Noir leaves them yearning for the touch of a man's hands on their free run juice, the feel of his lips on their gross lees, the tug of his desire bringing them to a long, sensual finish. It was almost too easy to pluck one. Like finding a crappy bottle of wine at Trader Joe's; it's easy, just reach out and grab the nearest one.

It was a lovely fall day and I was feeling flush with the cash Veronica has bestowed on me for "Expenses." If Meaningless Sex isn't filed under Expenses, what is? I figured all I'd need to harvest a tourist was half dozen oysters at Willi's washed down with whatever their cheapest Sauvignon Blanc by-the-glass was and then my lucky foot of Rabbit was going to be very happy. Though I'd rather have Muscadet with my oysters. Nothing like really ripe Melon.

I had fallen into a rather relaxed and contemplative mood, thinking about what Veronica had said in our meeting, wondering just who she'd meant by "my friends," I'd have to look into that, when a rather comely brunette stumbled into the spot next to me on the bench in Healdsburg Square. She was clutching a wine glass that had more lipstick around its rim than David Letterman's Late Night schtick. This was almost too good to be true.

"Hi," she said. She was. Her breath smelled like a Harvest Fair judge.

"Hello," I said. "Nice day. Are you enjoying your wine country visit?"

She didn't seem to hear me. Seems like she'd tasted a lot of wine and hadn't bothered to put anything in that flat stomach of hers. She was just sitting there, staring off into the distance with the kind of blank look on her face I hadn't seen since the last Wine Bloggers Conference. It gave me a chance to look her over. She was really quite beautiful, late 20's I'd guess, long flowing brunette hair that wouldn't be out of place on a male wrestler, and a body that was tight like a recently bottled Syrah. I could feel my Rabbit coming out of its lair.

"I think I'm going to be sick," she said, the words rather slurred but the meaning crystal clear.

"No one told you not to go into the Ferrari-Carano tasting room?" Not much of a wisecrack, but neither was she.

"Can you help me get back to my hotel?" OK, this really was too good to be true.

"Sure. Where are you staying? Is your boyfriend there?"

"Boyfriend? Do I look like I have a boyfriend? No, I'm staying by myself at Les Mars." Les Mars was the priciest hotel in Healdsburg, the damn wallpaper was hundred dollar bills, what was a young woman doing staying there all by herself? There were some alarms going off in my head but I was thinking with my Rabbit and ignored them. Not a good idea. Like ignoring frost warnings in April, you can quickly find yourself deflowered.

"OK, I'll walk you there." It was just one long block to Les Mars and the whole way I was sure she was going to puke tasting room crackers all over my gumshoes, but she managed to keep everything down, but my Rabbit, and in a few minutes I found myself helping her unlock the door of her Les Mars room, one hand inserting the key into the door, the other hand lodged securely under her generous left breast to hold her up. I'd gotten my Melon for the day after all.

The door swung open and I led her in. That's the last thing I remember. Someone clobbered my Melon with a blunt object. As I fell to the floor I remember thinking, "I hope I don't pee myself." And, "Urine big trouble."


To Be Continued

"The M.S. Conspiracy"

A HoseMaster of Wine Pulp Fiction Classic

Chapter 1 Strange Path


I'm a dick. A private dick, but a dick nonetheless. I make a living as a dick, if you call digging through people's trash for private information about them living. You should see what people put in their garbage. It's disgusting. You can tell a lot about a person sifting through their garbage. You see everything that fills their rotten insides, all the filth and refuse they fill their lives with. In fact, life is like a garbage pail, you fill it with useless and stomach-turning stuff and then pay people to haul it away. But not before the putrefying smell of it sickens everyone. I'm the dick who gets paid to sift through life's disgusting garbage. Which is how I got involved in the worst case of my career, a case that nearly got me killed, a case that led me to depths of inhumanity I didn't know existed, which is like Sean Hannity discovering a whole new level of stupid. I thought I knew about garbage, about conspiracy, about evil. But then I got involved with a group that changed me, that filled me with a loathing for people I'd never felt before. Where do I begin?

I don't know how these people find me. I've got a rundown shithole of an office in the sleepy little wine country town of Healdsburg, a town so dull the main hobby is going down to the local hospital to watch folks having contractions. And those are at the proctology ward. Healdsburg is a tourist town now. Once upon a time it served the farmers in the community, now it serves expensive wines and fancy meals. Healdsburg has more tasting rooms than Dick Cheney has condos in Hell, but I like it here. The landscape is beautiful, and when the urge hits me it's the easiest thing in the world to find a drunken tourist in a see-through cotton dress to come home with me and learn how to spit. I see it as a public service.


I'd just wrapped up my recent case involving the Illuminatti, the Freemasons and the Osmond Family, having successfully foiled their plans to prove Michael Jackson was married and had fathered several children and primates and that the titles to his greatest hits were actually an anagram of "Diana Ross is Mary Magdalene's daughter with Thomas Jefferson," when she walked into my Healdsburg office. She smelled dangerous with a pinch of crazy, but I like that smell. It's like Ann Coulter farted on Lou Dobbs--you get the same smell in a good vintage of Silver Oak. But she was gorgeous--blonde and busty with the kind of legs you get in Tokaji Essensia--long and oily. I've seen puttonyos before, and she was way more than five.


"Are you the HoseMaster?" she asked.

"Sure," I said, "how can I help you?"

"I'm told that you know people in the wine business, important people." I was having trouble looking her in the eye. I hadn't seen jugs stacked that high since I bought my wine at a gas station.

"Yeah, I know some important people. Who is it you're looking to meet? And don't say James Laube. I killed him two weeks ago. It was self-defense. He threw his 100 point scale at me--it was banged up, utterly useless, but it damn near killed me. So I plugged him. Just heard they're giving me a James Beard Award for it."

"No, you misunderstand." She sat down across from me and when she crossed those legs I'm pretty sure I got a glimpse of the Sacramento Delta and most of its tributaries, but it was hot enough to be Lodi. "I want to hire you to help me join the secret society of M.S."

I'd heard those evil bastards were going to be in Healdsburg. Recruiting. Their rituals, their "tests," were secret, and they were very careful about who they allowed to pass, who they allowed to join their putrid ranks. But I'd heard stories, horrifying stories, stories that revolved around ritual disemboweling, waterboarding, and Evan Goldstein lectures. Why would this babe want to be an M.S.?

"From what I know, Ma'am..."

"Call me Veronica."

"From what I know, Veronica, the Master Sommeliers don't like women, don't really want women in their ranks, make the whole thing a nightmare for a woman to join. And that's if I can even get you in the door. Do you have the faintest idea what it's like to be an M.S.? Do you really know what evil those people are capable of?"

"I know more about it than you can even imagine, HoseMaster. I have no fear of them, I know exactly who they are and what they stand for. Now, can you help me or not?"

"Oh, I can help you alright, but it comes with a price."

"My friends and I are willing to pay any price to penetrate the M.S. society. Name it."

I paused, took another sip of my Merry Edwards Sauvignon Blanc, noting the lovely Musque fragrance. Or was that Veronica? "Let's just say I want to dredge the Sacramento Delta when all this is through."

"You're a strange one, HoseMaster," Veronica said, leaning over my desk and giving me a view of the Cote Blonde and Cote Brune, making me think of Guigal and his Bodacious La-La's, "but I like you."


To Be Continued

Or Not.