Chapter 13
Even though I had the door closed, I could hear the hubub outside in the outer office where Maxine Lavolta was loudly lamenting what had just happened to her at the start of what had otherwise promised to be a dull Monday on the job. It was also her last. I opened the humidor and took out one of Dad's strong black cigars and tossed one at Tulio, then lit one myself, leaned back in Dad's swivel chair and said, "All right now, Tulio, let's make it fast. I know just the essential facts about the wine business, but if I'm going to do anything at all for Dad, it's going to be to sell the bottles of his vino with the Venturi name on them. I've got to depend on you, the foreman, to get me a good yield and to make sure that I can get a fair price when I try to sell that vino."
"Of course, padrone." He gave me a sickly grin which showed that his teeth were actually as bad as I had first thought them to be out there by the shade tree when I had stopped him from taking the skin off poor Jane Wilson's naked back. "This year, I do not think it is as good as it could be."
"Now let's hear your reasons why, Tulio."
He shrugged. "Who knows, Signor padrone? Much of it is God. We haven't had as much rain as we should have had by now. And then we'd plant only half the acres with the good grapes. Do you not know this?"
"Charlie Karogian told me as much on Saturday when I got to town," I answered him. "And apparently there's quite a mortgage on the land. How did that happen?"
"Well, Signor padrone, when old Jacopo died, things were in very bad shape. Your father-with all respect to you, Signor padrone-had not been well for some years. But he wouldn't take time off from his business, not he. He bought more bottling equipment, labels, he spent much money. And the money from the vino, it didn't come in. So he went to the bank and he put a mortgage on the land, that is all."
"Well, that's possible. I'm going to have to spend some time with Charlie and read up on what's been happening. You've been here two years, then. I still don't understand what got you out of bed at four in the morning to track down that cute little girl. I didn't find any jackknife or plastic bag, and didn't see any vines cut either."
"I couldn't sleep, Signor padrone, so I went for a walk, and I heard a noise and there was this girl. The light wasn't too good, and it seemed to me that she was cutting something."
"Her story is quite different, Tulio," I broke in. "She claims you offered to help her friend who has a few acres of grapes by giving her some advice and maybe showing her a cutting or two. I haven't any objection to that, so long as we don't give away Dad's prize cuttings. Now where are they?"
"There is a little greenhouse downstairs, Signor padrone, in the basement of this building. He has kept them in a safe, and they are in moist earth and they are watered frequently so that they will not die."
As I said before, I had just about ignored the elemental processes of growing grapes and turning them into wine. Oh, sure, I knew the theory all right, but I'd never actually worked in the vineyard with any great interest, except maybe during the summer vacation or two just to keep in condition. But things were different now. I was the Owner carrying on Dad's name. And I had better learn as much as I could as fast as I could or the Venturi name wouldn't stand for vino, it would stand for mud. From Don Foster's treatment of me, I could see that there were probably plenty of bigwigs in Fresno who would be happy if I followed in my father's footsteps six feet under. And I wasn't going to give them the chance to be pallbearers at my funeral just yet.
So I took a puff at my cigar and I stared hard at Tulio and I said, "Let's go down and see the safe, I suppose you have the combination."
"Si, Signor padrone. And of course your father too, naturally."
"And that's all?"
"That is true. And of course, before I came, old Jacopo."
I knew what Luther Burbank had done about grafting fruits and vegetables to produce finer crops and healthier stocks of plants. The vintners from the old country usually bring along cuttings from their finest vines and graft them on the new vines in good soil in California. And if everything goes well for them, and there's enough sun and rain at the right times, and a little luck, then they can sometimes bring out a great wine which does an honor to them and their vineyard. I guess Dad's dream was to have his wine cited in some of the famous restaurant industry magazines, or to be mentioned in magazines like Holiday. Well, it was up to me to carry out his plans and realize his dreams for him. And nobody whether it be Tulio or that sadistic socialite Don Foster, was going to stand in my way once I got going.
We left the office and walked out into the hall all the way down to the end and down the stairs to this safe. I noticed that Maxine Lavolta had already left, and the other people in the office were staring at me with a new respect. And apparently nobody had called the cops yet. Somehow the word must have got around even to Maxine that I was the new big boss and that there was no court of appeals. Besides, maybe she had even liked what she had got. But that didn't concern me now.
Tulio went into a little room which had a door he had to unlock, and there was the safe, and he twirled the dial and opened it. There was a special soft diffused light in the ceiling, not the glaring kind you often find in factories or plants. I could see that there was a long metal tray filled with earth, and green shoots and vines. Tulio pulled out the tray, and then he scowled. "This is not good, Signor padrone!" he exclaimed.
"What's the matter?"
"Some one has taken two of the best cuttings of the Pinot Chardonnay. It was only Friday afternoon that I counted them last, and there were a dozen. Now there are only ten."
It didn't make sense. If only he and Dad had the combination of this safe, how could anybody steal two cuttings? I looked at him skeptically. "Well, somebody must have opened this safe if it wasn't you. And I'm sure it wasn't Dad. He was much too sick to have got out of bed and come down here, from what Doc Franklin tells me. Perhaps you didn't count them right, Tulio."
He swore down on a stack of Bibles that he had made an accurate check. He even went over to a little desk near the safe, opened it and took out a little ledger book and showed me my own father's handwriting. Some of these cuttings had already been used, and grafts had already been made and then cuttings had been taken from the developments of those grafts. And they had been tested, and now according to this ledger, there were a dozen and they were supposed to be the best cuttings that one could get if one wanted to produce a really superb Pinot.
I put the ledger back in the desk, and then I went back upstairs to Dad's office. Tulio followed me, silent and a little worried. I guess he knew what I was thinking. I was thinking that he might have decided to help himself to a couple of cuttings and one day start his own little vineyard. Things like that had been done before. But what I was more concerned about was lifting the mortgage off the Venturi land. First of all, I had to find out where the mortgage was, and how friendly the banker holding it happened to be. There is a cute trick known as foreclosing, and you don't have to play the music to "East Lynne" to know what's going to happen if you're getting ready for a harvest and all of a sudden somebody like a sheriff walks onto your property and shows you a document telling you that the holder of the mortgage has decided he wants it now and you haven't got it and so goodbye.
I asked Tulio if Dad had had a secretary. He nodded, and gestured toward the plump though pretty girl with glasses and the much too tight dress. "That's Dora Corlani. She takes dictation and she types pretty good. Lots of times, your father-may the saints keep him beside them always!-liked to do his own letters, you understand, Signor padrone."
"Well, I'll give her a trial. I've got a few friends in San Francisco I might send some letters to. Have Dora come in. And you get back to the vineyard, and I want a full report by the end of the week as to when you think we're going to hit harvest time and what you think our yield is going to be. Maybe this afternoon I'll find out about that mortgage and go talk to the guy holding it."
"I can tell you who has it, Signor padrone," Tulio Verduga said. He was a good deal more respectful than he had been out in the vineyard at four in the morning. And he looked a little worried, too. That was fine. I didn't like him, but I didn't have any real reason to fire him just yet. But I was going to watch him like a hawk from now on in.
"Who does, then?"
"It is the Overland Trust and Savings, Signor padrone. There is a Signor Philip Young who is a vice-president there who did business with your father, Signor padrone."
"Thanks. I'll look him up this afternoon too. Now get Dora in here. I'd better arrange to make out a check for Maxine. Who has the records on the payroll?"
"Dora does, Signor padrone." Tulio Verduga walked out of Dad's office and beckoned to the scared plump girl with the glasses and the tight black dress, which was absolutely the wrong color for her rather tawny skin and doll-like fluffy chestnut hair. She pointed to herself in pantomime, and my foreman nodded and beckoned to her again and then gestured towards me standing in the door. I guess poor Dora felt as if she were being summoned to the scaffold, after seeing what Maxine Lavolta had just got on the bare. She came forward, steno pad in hand, blinking her eyes very rapidly behind black tortoise shell glasses, and when she got up close I could see that she was blushing. She had big brown eyes, a straight little nose, and a very soft and tremulous mouth. She had also a pair of juicy melon-like titties spaced very closely together, and a really stunning bottom which the tight dress called attention to all the more disconcertingly. She had good full thighs and rather plump calves, but she had just the hint of a double chin, just like that sonofabitch, Don Poster. I think that maybe a week or two working out in the vineyard or maybe passing up Mrs. See's wonderful but fattening candies for about a month might have slimmed Dora down to a very voluptuous shape. But as it was, she was still interesting enough to give me a twinge in my balls.
I gestured her into the office, closed the door and nodded to Tulio as I did, and then I went back behind my desk, sat down, with a fresh cigar out of Dad's humidor and started to dictate.
Dora Corlani didn't really look too Italian, but she certainly looked sexy. She crossed her legs, and she had on beige-colored nylons, and the skirt went up to about midthigh and I could just catch a glimpse of the tab of the garterbelt or the pantie girdle which was holding her hose up. She caught me looking once or twice, and she turned scarlet and stared very nervously at her book and made some flourishes with her pencil.
"Don't be afraid, Dora, I won't spank you the way I did Maxine, unless you deserve it," I joked.
"Oh! My goodness, I-I never saw anything like that before in all my life, Mr. V-Venturi," she stammered. "But she had it coming if you want to know something. She's the worst gossip in the office, and she's lazy too, and she snitches on everybody-that is she did, to your-to your father."
"It looks as if you're doing a little snitching to the new boss yourself, Dora baby."
"Oh no, sir, I mean-I wouldn't want you to get the wrong impression." In her nervousness Dora Corlani uncrossed her legs and then crossed them again the other way with the left leg uppermost. Her skirt slid even higher, and now I could see not only the tab of the supporter but also a tiny glimpse of very soft tawny skin. It reminded me of Madge Fryburg, and that in turn reminded my prick to stiffen with longing. Fortunately the desk hid my erection from my blushing new amanuensis.
"Well, then correct my wrong impression if that's what I'm getting, Dora," I twitted her.
"Mr. Venturi, I don't like to say it, but I've been working here about five years and I loved your father. He was such a wonderful man, so honest and full of life and he wanted his wine to be liked by people everywhere."
"Thanks, Dora. That's exactly what I'm going to try to do while I'm here so as to carry on his dream." I found myself telling her.
"But nobody likes that foreman Mr. Verduga. He's always sneaking around the girls in the office here and trying to get them to come out to his little house. I know what he wants. Only Maxine went there. I know she did. She's such a sneak."
This was an interesting bit of gossip which might have some bearing on the missing cuttings. I thought it over while I puffed at my cigar and considered Dora's shapely thighs and calves. Then I started to dictate, and before I knew it it was time for lunch.
"You've done a good job, Dora," I told her when she read back my letters to me without a single mistake. "They tell me you are in charge of payroll. If that's the case, you'd better make out Maxine's last check, plus a week instead of notice. And while you're at it, put down ten dollars a week more for yourself. But you're going to earn it, I can promise you that."
"Oh, Mr. Venturi-I mean-that's wonderful-oh, Mr. Venturi-I could kiss you!" To my astonishment, bespectacled plump chestnut-haired Dora Corlani sprang up from her chair, walked around the desk, flung her arms around me and gave me an exceptionally eager kiss right on the mouth. Her big bombers mashed against my chest as she did so, and I felt my fingers flex. It was the old animal instinct working on me again, and I very nearly grabbed hold of that juicy bottom of hers. It would have been much more interesting to spank than Maxine's. Maybe I would get the chance.
Ever since my interest in the female bottom, which began during my adolescence, I'll have to admit that I've occasionally read on the sly, quite a few magazines and books dealing with corporal punishment. For example, I have every issue of CORPORAL, and I reminded myself to have my belongings shipped from San Francisco as soon as I could arrange it. I wanted to read those publications over again. I thought I recalled a letter whereby a boss put his new secretary on a kind of spanking probation. At the end of each week, he would review her mistakes out of his own memo pad, and if she had got herself enough demerits, she would have to take the consequences. With a bottom like Dora's, it would be a very interesting little game. And what was more, judging from that kiss, I had a feeling that this cute little bespectacled secretary of mine might even enjoy playing it.