Текст книги "The James Bond Anthology"

Автор книги: Ian Fleming

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Текущая страница: 101 (всего у книги 190 страниц)

19 | SECRET APPENDIX

‘Mr. Gold,’ Jed Midnight pronounced sonorously, ‘you are undoubtedly the greatest thing in crime since Cain invented murder and used it on Abel.’ He paused and added emphatically, ‘I shall count it an honour to be associated with you in this enterprise.’

‘Thank you, Mr Midnight. And you, Mr Ring?’

Bond was doubtful about Mr Billy Ring. He had scrawled plusses against all the names except Ring and Helmut Springer. To Mr Ring he had allotted a nought, to Springer a minus sign. He had come to his conclusions by watching eyes, mouths, hands, but nothing had been betrayed by The Grinner’s unwavering false smile. The wink in his right eye had been as steady on the pulse-beat as a metronome and he had kept his hands below the table.

Now Billy Ring brought his hands up from below the table and formed a cat’s cradle with them on the green baize in front of him. For a moment he watched the two thumbs twirling, then he raised his nightmare face to Goldfinger’s. The tic in his right eye had stopped. The two rows of teeth began to operate like a ventriloquist’s dummy. ‘Mister –’ he found difficulty with his b’s, m’s and p’s and produced them by bringing his upper lip down over his teeth like a horse does when it takes sugar out of your hand – ‘long time now my friends and I been back in legal. What I mean, the old days of leaving corpses strewn all over the landscape went out with the ’forties. Me and my associates, we do all right with the girls, the hemp, and the racetrack, and when we’re short there’s our good friends the Unions to slip us the odd fin. Ya see, mister –’ The Grinner opened his hands and then put them back into the cradle – ‘we figger the old days are gone. Big Jim Colossimo, Johnny Torrio, Dion O’Bannion, Al Capone – where are those guys today, huh? Mister, they’re pushing up the morning glory by the fence. Mebbe you weren’t around in the days when we used to hide up between fights in Little Bohemia up behind Milwaukee? Well, siree, in those days, people were shooting at each other so fast you’d often need a programme to tell the act from the spectators. So all right, people got tired of it – those that hadn’t already got tired to death, if you get my meaning – and when the ’fifties come along and I take over the team, it’s unanimous that we get out of the fireworks business. And now what, mister? Now you come along and put it to me that me and my friends assist you to let off the biggest fizzbang in history! So what do I figger to say to your proposition, Mister – er – Whoosis? Well, I tell you, mister. Everybody’s got his price, see? – and for a billion dollars it’s a deal. We’ll put away the marbles and bring out the sling-shots. We’re in.’

‘Grinner, you sure take one hell of a long time to say yes,’ commented Mr Midnight sourly.

Goldfinger said cordially, ‘Thank you for your most interesting statement, Mr Ring. I am very happy to welcome you and your associates. Mr Solo?’

Mr Solo prefaced his reply by reaching into his coat pocket and taking out a battery shaver. He switched it on. The room filled with the noise of angry bees. Mr Solo leant his head back and began running the machine thoughtfully up the right side of his face while his uptilted eyes sought decision in the ceiling. Suddenly he switched the razor off, put it down on the table in front of him and jerked his head down and forward like a snake striking. The black gun-muzzles of his eyes pointed threateningly across the table at Goldfinger and moved slowly from feature to feature of the big moon-face. Half Mr Solo’s own face now looked naked. The other half was dark with the Italian swarthiness that comes from an uncontrollable beard growth. Bond guessed that he probably had to shave every three or four hours. Now Mr Solo decided to speak. He spoke in a voice that brought chill into the room. He said softly, ‘Mister, I been watching you. You are a very relaxed man for someone who speaks such big things. Last man I knew was so much relaxed he got himself totally relaxed by a quick burst of the chopper. Okay, okay.’ Mr Solo sat back. He spread open palms in reluctant surrender. ‘So I come in, yes. But mister –’ there was a pause for emphasis – ‘either we get that billion or you get dead. Is okay with you?’

Goldfinger’s lips bent ironically. ‘Thank you, Mr Solo. Your conditions are quite acceptable. I have every wish to stay alive. Mr Helmut Springer?’

Mr Springer’s eyes looked deader than ever. He said pompously, ‘I am still giving the matter my full consideration. Pray consult my colleagues while I deliberate.’

Mr Midnight commented impatiently, ‘Same old Hell. Waits for what he calls inspiration. He’s guided – messages from the Almighty on the angels’ wavelength. I guess he hasn’t heard a human voice in twenty years.’

‘And Mr Strap?’

Mr Jack Strap crinkled his eyes at Goldfinger. He said smoothly, ‘Mister, I figure you know the odds and you surely pay the best since one of our machines at Vegas got the trots and gave continuous jackpots. I guess if we provide the muscles and the guns this caper’ll pay off. You can count me in.’ Mr Strap turned off the charm. His eyes, now frightening again, turned, with Goldfinger’s, to Miss Pussy Galore.

Miss Galore veiled her violet eyes so as not to have to look at either of them. She said indifferently to the room at large, ‘Business ain’t been so brisk in my corner of the woods.’ She tapped with long, silver-painted finger-nails on the gold bar before her. ‘Mind you, I won’t say I’m overdrawn at the bank. Let’s put it I’m just a shade under-deposited. Yup. Sure I’ll come in. Me and my gals got to eat.’

Goldfinger allowed himself a half-smile of sympathy. ‘That is excellent news, Miss Galore. And now,’ he turned to face across the table, ‘Mr Springer, might we ask if you have made up your mind?’

Slowly Mr Springer rose to his feet. He gave the controlled yawn of an opera-goer. He followed the yawn with a small belch. He took out a fine linen handkerchief and patted his lips. His glazed eyes moved round the table and finally rested on Goldfinger. Slowly his head moved from side to side as if he was trying to exercise fibrositis in his neck muscles. He said gravely, like a bank manager refusing a loan, ‘Mr Gold, I fear your proposal would not find favour with my colleagues in Detroit.’ He gave a little bow which included everyone. ‘It only remains for me to thank you for a most interesting occasion. Good afternoon, gentlemen and madam.’ In the chilly silence, Mr Springer tucked his handkerchief carefully into the left-hand cuff of his immaculate pin-stripe, turned and walked softly to the door and let himself out.

The door closed with a sharp click. Bond noticed Goldfinger’s hand slip casually below the table. He guessed that Oddjob was getting his signal. Signal for what?

Mr Midnight said nastily, ‘Glad he’s out. He’s strictly a four-ulcer man. Now then –’ he got up briskly and turned to Bond – ‘how about a little drink?’

They all rose and gathered round the buffet. Bond found himself between Miss Pussy Galore and Tilly Masterton. He offered them champagne. Miss Galore looked at him coldly and said, ‘Move over, Handsome. Us girls want to talk secrets. Don’t we, yummy?’ Miss Masterton blushed and then turned very pale. She whispered adoringly, ‘Oh yes please, Miss Galore.’

Bond smiled sourly at Tilly Masterton and moved down the room.

Jed Midnight had witnessed the snub. He got close to Bond and said earnestly, ‘Mister, if that’s your doll, you better watch her. Pussy gets the girls she wants. She consumes them in bunches – like grapes, if you follow me.’ Mr Midnight sighed wearily. ‘Cheesus how they bore me, the lizzies! You’ll see, she’ll soon have that frail parting her hair three ways in front of the mirror.’

Bond said cheerfully, ‘I’ll watch out. There’s nothing much I can do. She’s an independent sort of a girl.’

‘That so?’ said Mr Midnight with a spark of interest. ‘Well mebbe I can help to break it up.’ He straightened his tie. ‘I could go for that Masterton. She’s sure got natural resources. See you around.’ He grinned at Bond and moved off down the room.

Bond was having a quiet square meal off caviar and champagne and thinking how well Goldfinger had handled the meeting when the door at the end of the room opened and one of the Koreans hurried in and went up to Goldfinger. Goldfinger bent his head to the whispered words. His face became grave. He rapped a fork on his glass of Saratoga Vichy.

‘Gentlemen and madam.’ He looked sadly round the group. ‘I have received bad news. Our friend Mr Helmut Springer has met with an accident. He fell down the stairs. Death was instantaneous.’

‘Ho, ho!’ Mr Ring’s laugh was not a laugh. It was a hole in the face. ‘And what does that Slappy Hapgood, his torpedo, have to say about it?’

Goldfinger said gravely, ‘Alas, Mr Hapgood also fell down the stairs and has succumbed to his injuries.’

Mr Solo looked at Goldfinger with new respect. He said softly, ‘Mister, you better get those stairs fixed before me and my friend Giulio come to use them.’

Goldfinger said seriously, ‘The fault has been located. Repairs will be put in hand at once.’ His face grew thoughtful. ‘I fear these accidents may be misconstrued in Detroit.’

Jed Midnight said cheerfully, ‘Don’t give it a thought, mister. They love funerals up there. And it’ll take a load off their minds. Old Hell wouldn’t have lasted much longer. They been stoking the fires under him these twelve months.’ He appealed to Mr Strap who stood next to him. ‘Am I right, Jacko?’

‘Sure, Jed,’ said Mr Strap sagely. ‘You got the score. Mr Helmut M. Springer had to be hit.’

‘Hit’ – mobese for murder. When Bond at last got to bed that night, he couldn’t wipe the word out of his mind. Oddjob had got the signal, a double ring, and Springer and his guard had got hit. There had been nothing Bond could have done about it – even if he had wanted to, and Mr Helmut Springer meant nothing to him, probably richly deserved to be hit anyway – but now some 59,998 other people were going to get hit unless he, and only he, could do something about it.

When the meeting of paramount hoods had broken up to go about their various duties, Goldfinger had dismissed the girl and kept Bond in the room. He told Bond to take notes and then for more than two hours went over the operation down to the smallest detail. When they came to the doping of the two reservoirs (Bond had to work out an exact timetable to ensure that the people of Fort Knox would all be ‘under’ in good time) Bond had asked for details of the drug and its speed of action.

‘You won’t have to worry about that.’

‘Why not? Everything depends on it.’

‘Mr Bond.’ Goldfinger’s eyes had a faraway, withdrawn look. ‘I will tell you the truth because you will have no opportunity of passing it on. From now, Oddjob will not be more than a yard from your side and his orders will be strict and exact. So I can tell you that the entire population of Fort Knox will be dead or incapacitated by midnight on D – 1. The substance that will be inserted in the water supply, outside the filter plant, will be a highly concentrated form of GB.’

‘You’re mad! You don’t really mean you’re going to kill sixty thousand people!’

‘Why not? American motorists do it every two years.’

Bond stared into Goldfinger’s face in fascinated horror. It couldn’t be true! He couldn’t mean it! He said tensely, ‘What’s this GB?’

‘GB is the most powerful of the Trilone group of nerve poisons. It was perfected by the Wehrmacht in 1943, but never used for fear of reprisals. In fact, it is a more effective instrument of destruction than the hydrogen bomb. Its disadvantage lies in the difficulty of applying it to the populace. The Russians captured the entire German stocks at Dyhernfurth on the Polish frontier. Friends of mine were able to supply me with the necessary quantities. Introduction through the water supply is an ideal method of applying it to a densely populated area.’

Bond said, ‘Goldfinger, you’re a lousy, – bastard.’

‘Don’t be childish. We have work to do.’

Later, when they had got to the problem of transporting the tons of gold out of the town, Bond had had one last try. He said, ‘Goldfinger, you’re not going to get this stuff away. Nobody’s going to get their hundred tons of gold out of the place – let alone five hundred. You’ll find yourself tearing down the Dixie Highway in a truck with a few gold bars loaded with gamma rays and the American Army on your tail. And you’ll have killed sixty thousand people for that? The thing’s farcical. Even if you do get a ton or two away, where the hell do you think you’re going to hide it?’

‘Mr Bond.’ Goldfinger’s patience was infinite. ‘It just happens that a Soviet cruiser of the Sverdlovsk class will be visiting Norfolk, Virginia, on a goodwill cruise at that time. It sails from Norfolk on D + 1. Initially by train and then by transporter convoy, my gold will arrive on board the cruiser by midnight on D-Day. I shall sail in the cruiser for Kronstadt. Everything has been carefully planned, every possible hitch has been foreseen. I have lived with this operation for five years. Now the time has come for the performance. I have tidied up my activities in England and Europe. Such small debris as remains of my former life can go to the scavengers who will shortly be sniffing on my trail. I shall be gone. I shall have emigrated and, Mr Bond, I shall have taken the golden heart of America with me. Naturally’ – Goldfinger was indulgent – ‘this unique performance will not be immaculate. There has not been enough time for rehearsals. I need these clumsy gangsters with their guns and their men, but I could not bring them into the plan until the last moment. They will make mistakes. Conceivably they will have much trouble getting their own loot away. Some will be caught, others killed. I couldn’t care less. These men are amateurs who were needed, so to speak, for the crowd scenes. They are extras, Mr Bond, brought in off the streets. What happens to them after the play is of no interest to me whatsoever. And now, on with the work. I shall need seven copies of all this by nightfall. Where were we ...?’

So in fact, reflected Bond feverishly, this was not only a Goldfinger operation with smersh in the background. smersh had even got the High Praesidium to play. This was Russia versus America with Goldfinger as the spearhead! Was it an act of war to steal something from another country? But who would know that Russia had the gold? No one, if the plan went off as Goldfinger intended. None of the gangsters had an inkling. To them Goldfinger was just another of them, another gangster, slightly larger than life-size. And Goldfinger’s staff, his drivers for the golden convoy to the coast? Bond himself, and Tilly Masterton? Some would be killed, including him and the girl. Some, the Koreans for instance, would no doubt sail in the cruiser. Not a trace would be left, not a witness. It was modern piracy with all the old-time trimmings. Goldfinger was sacking Fort Knox as Bloody Morgan had sacked Panama. There was no difference except that the weapons and the techniques had been brought up to date.

And there was only one man in the whole world who could stop it. But how?

The next day was an unending blizzard of paper-work. Every half-hour a note would come in from Goldfinger’s operations room asking for schedules of this, copies of that, estimates, timetables, lists of stores. Another typewriter was brought in, maps, reference books – anything that Bond requisitioned. But not once did Oddjob relax the extreme care with which he opened the door to Bond’s knock, not once did his watchful eyes wander from Bond’s eyes, hands, feet when he came into the room to bring meals or notes or supplies. There was no question of Bond and the girl being part of the team. They were dangerous slaves and nothing else.

Tilly Masterton was equally reserved. She worked like a machine – quick, willing, accurate, but uncommunicative. She responded with cool politeness to Bond’s early attempts to make friends, share his thoughts with her. By the evening, he had learnt nothing about her except that she had been a successful amateur ice-skater in between secretarial work for Unilevers. Then she had started getting star parts in ice-shows. Her hobby had been indoor pistol and rifle shooting and she had belonged to two marksman clubs. She had few friends. She had never been in love or engaged. She lived by herself in two rooms in Earls Court. She was twenty-four. Yes, she realized that they were in a bad fix. But something would turn up. This Fort Knox business was nonsense. It would certainly go wrong. She thought Miss Pussy Galore was ‘divine’. She somehow seemed to count on her to get her out of this mess. Women, with a sniff, were rather good at things that needed finesse. Instinct told them what to do. Bond was not to worry about her. She would be all right.

Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterton was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and ‘sex equality’. As a result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits – barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. He was sorry for them, but he had no time for them. Bond smiled sourly to himself as he remembered his fantasies about this girl as they sped along the valley of the Loire. Entre Deux Seins indeed!

At the end of the day, there was a final note from Goldfinger:

Five principals and myself will leave La Guardia Airport tomorrow at 11 a.m. in chartered plane flown by my pilots for aerial survey of Grand Slam. You will accompany. Masterton will remain. G.Bond sat on the edge of his bed and looked at the wall. Then he got up and went to the typewriter. He worked for an hour, typing, single-spaced, on both sides of the sheet, exact details of the operation. He folded the sheet, rolled it to a small cylinder about the size of his little finger and sealed it carefully with gum. Next he typed on a slip of paper:

URGENT AND VITAL. REWARD OF FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS IS GUARANTEED WITH NO QUESTIONS ASKED TO THE FINDER WHO DELIVERS THIS MESSAGE UNOPENED TO FELIX LEITER CARE PINKERTON’S DETECTIVE AGENCY, 154 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK CITY. IMMEDIATE CASH ON DELIVERY.

Bond rolled this message round the cylinder, wrote $5000 REWARD in red ink on the outside, and stuck the little package down the centre of three inches of Scotch tape. Then he sat down again on the edge of the bed and carefully strapped the free ends of the Scotch tape down the inside of his thigh.

20 | JOURNEY INTO HOLOCAUST

‘Mister, Flying Control is buzzing us. Wants to know who we are. They say this is restricted air.’

Goldfinger got up from his seat and went forward into the cockpit. Bond watched him pick up the hand microphone. His voice came back clearly over the quiet hum of the ten-seater Executive Beechcraft. ‘Good morning. This is Mr Gold of Paramount Pictures Corporation. We are carrying out an authorized survey of the territory for a forthcoming “A” picture of the famous Confederate raid of 1861 which resulted in the capture of General Sherman at Muldraugh Hill. Yes, that’s right. Cary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor in the lead. What’s that? Clearance? Sure we’ve got clearance. Let me see now’ (Goldfinger consulted nothing) – ‘yes, here it is. Signed by Chief of Special Services at the Pentagon. Sure, the Commanding Officer at the Armoured Centre will have a copy. Okay and thanks. Hope you’ll enjoy the picture. ’Bye.’

Goldfinger wiped the breezy expression off his face, handed over the microphone and came back into the cabin. He braced his legs and stood looking down at his passengers. ‘Well, gentlemen and madam, do you think you’ve seen enough? I think you’ll agree it’s all pretty clear and conforms with your copies of the town plan. I don’t want to go much lower than six thousand. Perhaps we could make one more circuit and be off. Oddjob, get out the refreshments.’

There was a mumble of comment and questions which Goldfinger dealt with one by one. Oddjob got up from Bond’s side and walked down to the rear. Bond followed him and, under his hard, suspicious stare, went into the little lavatory and locked the door.

He sat down calmly and thought. There hadn’t been a chance on the way down to La Guardia. He had sat with Oddjob in the back of an unobtrusive Buick saloon. The doors had been locked on them by the driver and the windows tightly closed. Goldfinger had ridden in front, the partition closed behind him. Oddjob had sat slightly sideways, his horn-ridged hands held ready on his thighs like heavy tools. He had not taken his eyes off Bond until the car had driven round the boundary to the charter hangars and come up alongside the private plane. Sandwiched between Goldfinger and Oddjob, Bond had had no alternative but to climb up the steps into the plane and take his seat with Oddjob beside him. Ten minutes later, the others had arrived. There was no communication with them except an exchange of curt greetings. They were all different now – no smart remarks, no unnecessary talk. These were men who had gone to war. Even Pussy Galore, in a black Dacron macintosh with a black leather belt, looked like some young S.S. guardsman. Once or twice in the plane she had turned and looked at Bond rather thoughtfully. But she hadn’t answered his smile. Perhaps she just couldn’t understand where Bond fitted in, who he was. When they got back to La Guardia there would be the same routine. It was now or never. But where? Among the leaves of lavatory paper? But they might be disturbed too soon or not for weeks. Would the ash-tray be emptied? Possibly not. But one thing would.

There was a rattle at the door-handle. Oddjob was getting restless. Perhaps Bond was setting fire to the plane. Bond called, ‘Coming, ape.’ He got up and lifted the seat. He tore the little package off the inside of his thigh and transferred it to the underside of the fore-edge of the seat. The seat would have to be lifted to get at the Elsan and that would certainly be looked to as soon as the plane got back to the hangar. The $5000 reward stared back at him boldly. Not even the most hasty cleaner could miss it. So long as no one preceded the cleaner. But Bond didn’t think any of the passengers would lift the seat. The little compartment was too cramped to stand comfortably in. He softly put the seat down, ran some water in the basin, washed his face and smoothed his hair and walked out.

Oddjob was waiting angrily. He pushed past Bond, looked carefully round the lavatory and came out again, shutting the door. Bond walked back to his seat. Now the S.O.S. was in the bottle and the bottle had been committed to the waves. Who would be the finder? How soon?

Everyone, down to the pilot and co-pilot, went to the blasted little lavatory before they got back on the ground. As each one came out, Bond expected to feel the cold nose of a gun in his neck, the harsh suspicious words, the crackle of the paper being unfolded. But at last they were back in the Buick and speeding over the Triborough into uptown Manhattan and then down the river on the parkway and in through the well-guarded doors of the warehouse and back to work.

Now it was a race – a race between Goldfinger’s calm, unhurried, efficient machine and the tiny gunpowder trail Bond had lit. What was going on outside? During every hour of the next three days Bond’s imagination followed what might be happening – Leiter telling his chief, the conference, the quick flight down to Washington, the F.B.I. and Hoover, the Army, the President. Leiter insisting that Bond’s conditions be adhered to, that no suspicious moves be made, no inquiries started, that no one moved an inch except according to some master plan that would operate on the day and get the whole gang into the bag so that not one of them escaped. Would they accept Bond’s conditions or would they not dare take the chance? Had they talked across the Atlantic with M.? Had M. insisted that Bond should be somehow pulled out? No, M. would see the point. He would agree that Bond’s life must be disregarded. That nothing must jeopardize the big clean-up. They would have to get the two ‘Japanese’, of course, somehow beat out of them the code message Goldfinger would be waiting for on D – 1.

Was that how it was going, or was it all a shambles? Leiter away on another assignment. ‘Who is this 007? What does it stand for? Some crazy loon. Hi, Smith, check on this, could you? Get down to the warehouse and take a look. Sorry, mister, no five grand for you. Here’s car fare back to La Guardia. Afraid you’ve been hoaxed.’

Or, worse still, had none of these things happened? Was the plane still standing in a corner of the field, unserviced?

Night and day, the torment of thoughts went through Bond’s head while the work got cleared and the hours ticked by and the deadly machine whirred quietly on. D – 1 came and flashed by in a last fever of activity. Then, in the evening, came the note from Goldfinger.

First phase of operation successful. Entrain as planned at midnight. Bring copies of all maps, schedules, operation orders. G.

In close formation, with Bond and Tilly Masterton – he in a white surgeon’s coat, she dressed as a nurse – wedged in the middle, the Goldfinger contingent marched swiftly through the almost empty Concourse of Pennsylvania station and down to the waiting Special. Everyone, including Goldfinger, was wearing the conventional white garb and armbands of a medical field force and the dim platform was crowded with the ghostly waiting figures of the posses from the gangs. The silence and tension was appropriate for an emergency force hurrying to the scene of a disaster, and the stretchers and decontamination suits being loaded into the compartments added drama to the scene. The Superintendent was talking quietly with the senior physicians in the shape of Midnight, Strap, Solo and Ring. Nearby stood Miss Galore with a dozen pale-faced nurses who waited with eyes bent as if they stood beside an open grave. Without make-up, their exotic hair-do’s tucked into dark blue Red Cross caps, they had been well rehearsed. They were giving an excellent performance – dutiful, merciful, dedicated to the relief of human suffering.

When the Superintendent saw Goldfinger and his party approaching he hurried up. ‘Dr Gold?’ his face was grave. ‘I’m afraid the news coming through isn’t too good. Guess it’ll all be in the papers tonight. All trains held at Louisville, no reply from the depot at Fort Knox, But we’ll get you through all right. God Almighty, Doctor! What’s going on down there? People coming through from Louisville are talking about the Russians spraying something from the air. Of course’ – the Superintendent looked keenly at Goldfinger – ‘I’m not believing that kind of stuff. But what is it? Food poisoning?’

Goldfinger’s face was solemn. He said in a kindly voice, ‘My friend, that’s what we’ve got to find out. That’s why we’re being rushed down. If you want me to make a guess, but mark you it’s only a guess, it’s a form of sleeping sickness – trypanosomiasis we call it.’

‘That so?’ the Superintendent was impressed by the sound of the malady. ‘Well, believe you me, Doctor, we’re all mighty proud of you and your folks of the Emergency Force.’ He held out his hand, Goldfinger took it. ‘Best of luck, Doc; and now, if you’ll get your men and the nurses on board, I’ll have this train on its way just as quick as may be.’

‘Thank you, Superintendent. My colleagues and I will not forget your services.’ Goldfinger gave a short bow. His contingent moved on.

‘Board!’

Bond found himself in a Pullman with Tilly Masterton across the aisle and the Koreans and Germans all around them. Goldfinger was in the front of the car talking cheerfully with his satraps. Miss Pussy Galore strolled by. She ignored the upturned face of Tilly Masterton but gave Bond the usual searching glance. There was a banging of doors being closed. Pussy Galore stopped and rested an arm on the back of the seat in front of Bond. She looked down at him. ‘Hullo, Handsome. Long time no see. Uncle doesn’t seem to let you off the lead much.’

Bond said, ‘Hullo, Beautiful. That outfit suits you fine. I’m feeling rather faint. How about doing a bit of nursing?’

The deep violet eyes examined him carefully. She said softly, ‘You know what, Mister Bond? I got a feeling there’s something phoney about you. I got instincts, see? Just what are you and that doll’ – she jerked her head back – ‘doing in this outfit?’

‘We do all the work.’

The train began to move. Pussy Galore straightened herself. She said, ‘Mebbe you do. But if any little thing goes wrong with this caper, for my money it’ll be Handsome who knows why. Get me?’

She didn’t wait for Bond’s answer, but moved on down and joined the Chiefs of Staff meeting.

It was a confused, busy night. Appearances had to be kept up before the inquisitive, sympathetic eyes of the conductors. Last-minute conferences up and down the train had to wear the appearance of serious medical conclaves – no cigar-smoking, no swearing, no spitting. Jealousies and competition between the gangs had to be kept under rigid control. The cold superiority of the Mafia, particularly vis-à-vis Jack Strap and his soft, easy-living crowd from the West, might have led to gunplay if the chiefs hadn’t been ready for trouble and constantly on the look-out for it. All these minor psychological factors had been foreseen by Goldfinger and prepared for. The women from the Cement Mixers were carefully segregated, there was no drinking and the gang chiefs kept their men occupied with further exact briefings, dummy exercises with maps and lengthy discussions about their escape plans with the gold. There was casual spying on each other’s plans and Goldfinger was often called in to judge who should have which routes to the Mexican border, to the desert, to Canada. To Bond it was amazing that a hundred of the toughest crooks in America, on edge with excitement and greed, could be kept as quiet as they were. It was Goldfinger who had achieved the miracle. Apart from the calm, dangerous quality of the man, it was the minuteness of the planning and the confidence he exuded that calmed the battle nerves and created some sort of a team-spirit among the rival mobs.