"You've got to be kidding me," muttered Chief Randy Lockwood of the Winter Falls Police Department. "Why is he coming here?"
Mayor Dotty Blanchette sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Because Mr. Know-It-All went to the Abbey School and it's his fortieth graduation reunion."
"I don't think you're supposed to call the President of the United States that kind of name."
"Just stating a fact. And, anyway, he's the lame-duck President of the United States."
Lockwood sighed. "When exactly?"
"Ten days. Advance team arrives in a week. Apparently it's the annual grudge game scheduled between Winter Falls High and the Abbey School and he's been invited to drop the puck. A photo op, I guess. I'm supposed to be his escort since his wife is off in Thailand or somewhere, trying to save twelve-year-old hookers from AIDS or something."
"He was hockey, right, not football?" Randy asked. "I barely remember him."
"Yeah, he was captain of the Abbey School hockey team. The only reason they made him captain was because his old man bought the hockey rink for the school," said Dotty. "He got into Andover, but the Abbey had a better hockey team so he spent four years there before he legacy'd his way into Yale. Thought he was God's gift to women, too, which he was, of course. Handsome as hell and all sorts of charisma. He could smile a girl into bed. Not me, though. Too charming by a long shot."
"Women can be so cruel." Lockwood grinned.
"Water under the bridge," she said. "The good old days. Best forgotten."
"How's he getting here?" Randy asked. "When his dad came up in the summers he always took a float plane. The lake is frozen, so that's out."
"In their great wisdom the Secret Service hasn't seen fit to tell me a goddamn thing at this point," said Dotty. She leaned forward in her big, old, leather swivel chair and took a long sip from her stainless-steel Starbucks cup. The coffee was obviously cold and old and she winced as she sucked down the bitter brew. "Sometimes I think I'm pickled in caffeine," she said. "It's the only thing keeping me alive. Not easy running this town, even in the winter, let alone without presidents tripping over their own feet."
"I think it would be a good job," said Lockwood with a twinkle in his eye. "All those perks-chain of office, getting to ride in one of Mark Horrigan's Cadillacs at the head of the Trout Parade every year."
"Speaking of Horrigan, did you ever find his kid?"
"Vanished into the clear blue," said Randy. "Word is his dad sent him down to his mother's place in Florida."
"Going to go after him?"
"Why rock the boat?" Randy shrugged. "He'll get into trouble down there soon enough. Let them handle it." He got up from his seat in front of Mayor Dotty's desk. City Hall was in the old Municipal Building and through Dotty's arched windows he could see across the square to the parked cars on Main Street. Time to give out a few parking tickets to swell the town's treasury. "Besides," he said, smiling, "I've got more important things to think about than Tommy Horrigan. I've got to look after the GD President of the United States."
29
The first person to see Aix-les-Bains for what it was worth was probably a Roman centurion on his way into Gaul from Italy to conquer the unruly barbarians. When he mustered out of the army he returned to the pretty lakeside spot, built a pool over the hot springs, called it Aquae Grantianae and a tradition was born.
Located under the shadow of Mont Revard by the shores of Lake Bourget, the largest body of fresh water in France, the little town of Aix-les-Bains has been soothing the arthritic joints of its wealthy patrons for the last two thousand years. It came into particular favor in the 1880s after a visit from Queen Victoria of England. She decided she liked it so much Her Royal Majesty attempted to buy it from the French government. They graciously declined and then built a casino and a racetrack to further fleece the charming resort's guests, renaming the hot springs Royale-les-Bains.
Special trains arrived from Paris full of high society who came to paddle on the plage. Steamers churned their way across the English Channel, filled with the straw hat- and-tennis set, intent on whiling away the hot summer months in the refreshing Alpine air as wives cheated on husbands, husbands on wives and best friends on each other while Clara Butt sang "The Keys of Heaven" on the gramophone. It was la belle epoque, and as with all epoques, it faded away like an old soldier, the gilt in the ceilings beginning to peel, the marble floors cracking and the pipes carrying the hot springwater making a terrible clanking noise and sounding much like the joints of the patrons it had once serviced. The small and ancient town hidden away in the mountains was virtually forgotten, which was exactly why Mr. Richard Pyx, the document provider, lived there. That and the town's proximity to his numbered bank accounts less than a hundred miles away in Geneva, Switzerland.
Peggy Blackstock awoke as the first pink rays of the sun rose over the mountains and craggy hills that marked the edge of the French Alps of the Haute Savoie. She had made her way to the backseat of the Prague rental Mercedes somewhere along the way and Holliday was now sitting in the front with Philpot, who was still behind the wheel.
"Good morning," the chubby man said brightly as she sat up, blinking and looking around. "Almost there."
"Where is there?" Peggy yawned. She stared out the window. They were on a high mountain road. To the left banks of heavy forest tilted upward; below, in the reaching light she could see the geometric outlines of a town nestled at the far end of a long, wide lake.
"Aix-les-Bains," answered Philpot. A narrow gravel road appeared on the left and Philpot took it, guiding the old Mercedes up between the scruffy pines, the road winding around outcroppings of rock until they reached a broad, flat meadow on a small plateau. Directly ahead of them was a classic French country house right out of Toujours Provence: a rectangular building of old whitewashed stone, a few deep windows and a steep-pitched tile roof. At the end of the lane a roughly constructed carport with a green, rippled fiberglass roof sagged against the side of the house. Under it, gleaming in deep, dark blue was an expensive two-seater Mercedes SLK 230.
"Whoever this guy is, he must do pretty well for himself." Holliday grunted, spotting the car.
"Pretty well indeed," Philpot agreed. "The war on terrorism declared by our recent leader had much the same effect as Woodrow Wilson declaring war on alcohol. It's always been the same way: one way or the other war is good for business. There's a great deal of demand for Rich's skills these days."
"Rich?" Holliday asked.
"Richard Arbruthnot Pyx. It's too absurd to be anything but his real name." Philpot laughed.
There was a wooden sign over the door, a name chiseled out in neat letters: LE VIEUX FOUR.
"The Old Kiln," Philpot translated, without being asked. He pulled their Mercedes in behind the sports car and switched off the engine, the old diesel dying with a shudder and a cough. They climbed out into the cool of early morning, Holliday and Peggy stretching and yawning, Philpot lighting a cigarette. Pyx must have had some kind of early warning system because he was already waiting at the door, a broad smile on his friendly face. He certainly didn't look like a forger to Peggy. In fact, he looked more like a rock star on vacation than anything else. He was tall, slightly stooped, wearing jeans and a white shirt with the tails hanging out. There were sandals on his bare feet. He had thick, tousled, dark hair and two days' growth of beard, and behind round, slightly tinted glasses a pair of extraordinarily intelligent brown eyes. He looked to be somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties.
"Paddy!" Pyx said happily. "Brought me some business, have you? Or just stopping in for a pain au chocolat and a cup of my excellent coffee?" On top of the good looks he had an Irish accent like Colin Farrell's.