Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle Read Free Book Online

we’re broke, is that it?”
    “They won’t be there. We’ll have the bank to ourselves for six, maybe eight hours.”
    The General leaned back, smiling. This was the part he always liked, when they were hooked and waiting. He took a drink and wiped his moustache carefully with the back of his hand. “Now,” he said, “imagine that it is Saturday night in Isle-sur-Sorgue, the weekend of the
Foire des Antiquaires
.” He wagged a finger at the attentive faces. “It happens next year to fall on the fourteenth of July—the town
en fête
, hundreds of antique dealers, their cash tucked up for the night in the Caissed’Epargne.” He paused for an instant. “A shitload of
fric
, my friends. All for us.”
    There was the carrot, out on the table. The men were quiet as the General told them how they could take it.
    Some time before midnight on the Saturday, while the town was celebrating, they would slip into the river and up the drain tunnel. The July weather would be perfect for a quick paddle. Fernand would use his
plastique
to blow through the floor of the strong room. Among the fireworks of the fête, nobody would think twice about another muffled thump. Blowing the strongboxes was nothing, a few pops. And then they would have an entertaining night among the contents.
    Fernand rubbed the scar on his cheek, the scar that still itched after all these years. “What about the alarm system?
Normalement
, it would be linked to the
gendarmerie
.”
    The General was enjoying himself, letting out the details one by one.
“Beh oui.”
He shrugged. “It is. But they haven’t wired the strong room floor—only the two doors. One leads into the bank, and the other out to the back, into a little park.”
    The men smoked and thought about money, and the General cut himself a slice of pizza. Next to him, Jojo fidgeted impatiently. Getting into the bank was the part he knew about; getting out and getting away, that was the big problem.
    “Alors,”
the General went on, “we have amused ourselves in the strong room, cleaned out all the boxes. It is now Sunday morning, and there is the market. The town is packed; the cars are stuck like nuts in nougat. But, as agreeable as it is in the strong room, we must leave.”
    The General eased his stomach away from the table,belched, and picked a shred of anchovy from his teeth with a matchstick. “There are two little inconveniences.” He held up a stubby finger. “The first is that some time between noon and one o’clock every Sunday there is a security check. I’ve watched it four Sundays in a row. Two cops, just routine, but they always come as the market is finishing, count the flowerpots on the bank steps, and go home to lunch. Anyway, we need to be out well before noon. And
évidemment
, we can’t leave the way we came in. Even in July, it would look odd to see men coming out of the river waving bundles of five hundred–franc notes.” He paused for a drink. “No, the way out is through the back, into the park.”
    Jojo’s glass stopped halfway to his mouth. “Through the door?”
    “Of course through the door.” The General raised two fingers. “
Voilà le deuxième problème
. Because, as we know, the door is wired.”
    “And the alarm will go off,” Bachir said. “And we’ll be back in the
pissoir
for ten years. No thanks.”
    The General smiled. “You haven’t changed,
mon vieux—
still the happy optimist. But you’re forgetting something. We have time to get away. Not much—two or three minutes, maybe more if the traffic’s as bad as it usually is on market day.”
    Claude’s moon face crumpled with the effort of thought. “But if the traffic’s that bad …”
    “It will be bad,” said the General. “Bad for a car. But we won’t be using a car. Who wants some pizza? It’s good.”
    Jean the pickpocket made his longest speech of the morning. “
Merde
to the pizza. How do we get away?”
    “Simple. By
vélo
.” The General brought up his left