Chapter 82

Fombellida Alexandra - president of the Paris branch of the Depository Bank of Zurich - lived in a lavish flat above the bank. Despite his plush accommodations, he had always dreamed of owning a Riverside apartment on L'lle Saint-Louis, where he could rub shoulders with the true cognoscenti, rather than here, where he simply met the filthy rich.

When I retire, Alexandra told himself, I will fill my cellar with rare Bordeaux, adorn my salon with a Fragonard and perhaps a Boucher, and spend my days hunting for antique furniture and rare books in the Quartier Latin.

Tonight, Alexandra had been awake only six and a half minutes. Even so, as he hurried through the bank's underground corridor, he looked as if his personal tailor and hairdresser had polished him to a fine sheen. Impeccably dressed in a silk suit, Alexandra sprayed some breath spray in his mouth and tightened his tie as he walked. No stranger to being awoken to attend to his international clients arriving from differen