Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle Read Free Book Online Page A

hand and smacked it with his right. “In two minuteswe’ll be through the traffic and out of town while the cops are still sitting on their klaxons.” He gave his moustache a satisfied tug. “It works.”
    He held up his hands to stop the babel of questions and did some more explaining. Each of them would take into the strong room his
tenue de vélo—
the shoes and shorts and caps and brightly coloured, multipocketed jerseys that all serious cyclists wear. Their pockets would be bulging, but a cyclist’s pockets are often bulging. Who would suspect that the bulges were bank notes? Who would even bother to look? With thousands of cyclists out on the road every Sunday, they would be anonymous. They would disappear. It was the perfect disguise, one of the most common sights of summer. And it was fast.
    “Mais attention.”
The General wagged a warning finger. “There is one detail: you must be
en forme—
fit enough to ride twenty or thirty kilometres at top speed without puking over the handlebars. But that’s nothing, just training.” He waved a hand airily. “We have months for that. One hundred kilometres every Sunday and you’ll be ready for the Tour de France.”
    The pastis was finished, and the General went behind the bar for another bottle while the men round the table looked at each other, then started to talk. He’d let them chew it over, commit themselves before he suggested the split he’d worked out.
    “General?” One of the Borel brothers was grinning. “When was the last time you did one hundred kilometres?”
    “The other day. The way I always do—in a car. God made some arses for saddles, but not mine. Let me ask you a question.” The General unscrewed the cap and pushed the bottle across the table. “When was the lasttime you had some money in your pocket? Some real money?”
    “A shitload of
fric
,” said Jojo.
    Borel said nothing.
    The General reached over and patted his cheek. “Drink up,” he said. “One day it’ll be champagne.”

4
    S imon left the hotel early to do battle with the Parisian rush-hour traffic, the kamikaze pilots in their Renault 5s, wired on caffeine and determined to assert French superiority over anyone foolish enough to be driving a car with foreign plates. He had chosen the most relaxed of his three cars for the trip, the Congo-black Porsche convertible with a top speed of 160. It was, as he knew, a ridiculous machine to have in London, where it rarely got out of second gear—an advertising man’s toy. But out on the autoroute he could let it go, and with luck and a heavy foot on the accelerator he should be down in the south in six hours.
    The cars gave way to trucks as he cleared Paris andleft the jam of the
périphérique
behind him, and he nudged the speed up to 120. The phone, which in London would be almost continuously beeping to announce news of a client crisis or a changed meeting, was silent. He pressed the call button to see if he could reach Liz. No Service. There was nothing to do except drive and think.
    Unattached, healthy, and paper-rich with agency shares, he was in a position that many people would envy. As long as the business prospered, he would never be short of a few hundred thousand pounds, despite Caroline’s unlimited enthusiasm for spending money. He remembered the time when her American Express card had been stolen. He hadn’t reported the loss for weeks; the thief had been spending less than she normally did. Although she was going to be a continuing source of trouble and expense, she could always be paid off.
    His business life was less straightforward. The challenge of building an agency was over. It was built, and now it had to be maintained and fed constantly with new clients. A five million–pound account, which in the early days would have been the excuse for euphoric celebration, was now just another bone to toss to the City. The excitement had gone, to be replaced by well-rewarded drudgery.
    And then there was New