Текст книги "The James Bond Anthology"

Автор книги: Ian Fleming

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Текущая страница: 166 (всего у книги 190 страниц)

5 | NO. 3½ LOVE LANE

The south coast of Jamaica is not as beautiful as the north, and it is a long 120-mile hack over very mixed road surfaces from Kingston to Savannah La Mar. Mary Goodnight had insisted on coming along, ‘to navigate and help with the punctures’. Bond had not demurred.

Spanish Town, May Pen, Alligator Pond, Black River, Whitehouse Inn, where they had luncheon – the miles unrolled under the fierce sun until, around four in the afternoon, a stretch of good straight road brought them among the spruce little villas, each with its patch of brownish lawn, bougainvillaea, and single bed of canna lilies and crotons, which make up the ‘smart’ suburbs of the modest little coastal township that is, in the vernacular, Sav’ La Mar.

Except for the old quarter on the waterfront, it is not a typically Jamaican town, nor a very attractive one. The villas, built for the senior staff of the Frome sugar estates, are drably respectable, and the small straight streets smack of a most un-Jamaican bout of town planning around the 1920s. Bond stopped at the first garage, took in petrol and put Mary Goodnight into a hired car for the return trip. He had told her nothing of his assignment and she had asked no questions when Bond told her vaguely that it was ‘something to do with Cuba’. Bond said he would keep in touch when he could, and get back to her when his job was done and then, businesslike, she was off back down the dusty road and Bond drove slowly down to the waterfront. He identified Love Lane, a narrow street of broken-down shops and houses that meandered back into the town from the jetty. He circled the area to get the neighbouring geography clear in his mind and parked the car in a deserted area near the spit of sand on which fishing canoes were drawn up on raised stilts. He locked the car and sauntered back and into Love Lane. There were a few people about, poor people of the fisherman class. Bond bought a packet of Royal Blend at a small general store that smelled of spices. He asked where No. 3½ was and got a look of polite curiosity. ‘Further up de street. Mebbe a chain. Big house on de right.’ Bond moved over to the shady side and strolled on. He slit open the packet with his thumbnail and lit a cigarette to help the picture of an idle tourist examining a corner of old Jamaica. There was only one big house on the right. He took some time lighting the cigarette while he examined it.

It must once have had importance, perhaps as the private house of a merchant. It was of two storeys with balconies running all the way round and it was wooden built with silvering shingles, but the gingerbread tracery beneath the eaves was broken in many places and there was hardly a scrap of paint left on the jalousies that closed off all the upstairs windows and most of those below. The patch of ‘yard’ bordering the street was inhabited by a clutch of vulturine-necked chickens that pecked at nothing and three skeletal Jamaican black-and-tan mongrels. They gazed lazily across the street at Bond and scratched and bit at invisible flies. But, in the background, there was one very beautiful lignum vitae tree in full blue blossom. Bond guessed that it was as old as the house – perhaps fifty years. It certainly owned the property by right of strength and adornment. In its delicious black shade a girl in a rocking chair sat reading a magazine. At the range of about thirty yards she looked tidy and pretty. Bond strolled up the opposite side of the street until a corner of the house hid the girl. Then he stopped and examined the house more closely.

Wooden steps ran up to an open front door, over whose lintel, whereas few of the other buildings in the street bore numbers, a big enamelled metal sign announced ‘3½’ in white on dark blue. Of the two broad windows that bracketed the door, the left-hand one was shuttered, but the right-hand one was a single broad sheet of rather dusty glass through which tables and chairs and a serving-counter could be seen. Over the door a swinging sign said ‘Dreamland Cafe’ in sun-bleached letters, and round this window were advertisements for Red Stripe beer, Royal Blend, Four Aces cigarettes and Coca-Cola. A hand-painted sign said ‘SNAX’ and, underneath, ‘Hot Cock Soup Fresh Daily’.

Bond walked across the street and up the steps and parted the bead curtain that hung over the entrance. He walked over to the counter and was inspecting its contents, a plate of dry-looking ginger cakes, a pile of packeted banana crisps, and some sweet jars, when he heard quick steps outside. The girl from the garden came in. The beads clashed softly behind her. She was an octoroon, pretty as, in Bond’s imagination, the word octoroon suggested. She had bold, brown eyes, slightly uptilted at the corners, beneath a fringe of silken black hair. (Bond reflected that there would be Chinese blood somewhere in her past.) She was dressed in a short frock of shocking pink which went well with the coffee and cream of her skin. Her wrists and ankles were tiny. She smiled politely. The eyes flirted. ‘Evenin’. ’

‘Good evening. Could I have a Red Stripe?’

‘Sure.’ She went behind the counter. She gave him a quick glimpse of fine bosoms as she bent to the door of the icebox – a glimpse not dictated by the geography of the place. She nudged the door shut with a knee, deftly uncapped the bottle and put it on the counter beside an almost clean glass. ‘That’ll be one and six.’

Bond paid. She rang the money into the cash register. Bond drew up a stool to the counter and sat down. She rested her arms on the wooden top and looked across at him. ‘Passing through?’

‘More or less. I saw this place was for sale in yesterday’s Gleaner. I thought I’d take a look at it. Nice big house. Does it belong to you?’

She laughed. It was a pity, because she was a pretty girl, but the teeth had been sharpened by munching raw sugar cane. ‘What a hope! I’m sort of, well sort of manager. There’s the café’ (she pronounced it caif) ‘and mebbe you heard we got other attractions.’

Bond looked puzzled. ‘What sort?’

‘Girls. Six bedrooms upstairs. Very clean. It only cost a pound. There’s Sarah up there now. Care to meet up with her?’

‘Not today, thanks. It’s too hot. But do you only have one at a time?’

‘There’s Lindy, but she’s engaged. She’s a big girl. If you like them big, she’ll be free in half an hour.’ She glanced at the kitchen clock on the wall behind her. ‘Around six o’clock. It’ll be cooler then.’

‘I prefer girls like you. What’s your name?’

She giggled. ‘I only do it for love. I told you I just manage the place. They call me Tiffy.’

‘That’s an unusual name. How did you come by it?’

‘My momma had six girls. Called them all after flowers. Violet, Rose, Cherry, Pansy and Lily. Then when I came, she couldn’t think of any more flower names so she called me “Artificial”.’ Tiffy waited for him to laugh. When he didn’t, she went on. ‘When I went to school they all said it was a wrong name and laughed at me and shortened it to Tiffy and that’s how I’ve stayed.’

‘Well, I think it’s a very pretty name. My name’s Mark.’

She flirted. ‘You a saint too?’

‘No one’s ever accused me of it. I’ve been up at Frome doing a job. I like this part of the island and it crossed my mind to find some place to rent. But I want to be closer to the sea than this. I’ll have to look around a bit more. Do you rent rooms by the night?’

She reflected. ‘Sure. Why not. But you may find it a bit noisy. There’s sometimes a customer who’s taken some drinks too many. And there’s not too much plumbing.’ She leaned closer and lowered her voice. ‘But I wouldn’t have advised you to rent the place. The shingles are in bad shape. Cost you mebbe five hunnerd, mebbe a thousand to get the roof done.’

‘It’s nice of you to tell me that. But why’s the place being sold? Trouble with the police?’

‘Not so much. We operate a respectable place. But in the Gleaner, after Mr Brown, that’s my boss, you read that “et ux”?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, seems that means “and his wife”. And Mistress Brown, Mistress Agatha Brown, she was Church of England, but she just done gone to the Catholics. And it seems they don’t hold with places like 3½, not even when they’re decently run. And their church here, just up the street, seems that needs a new roof like here. So Mistress Brown figures to kill two birds with the same stone and she goes on at Mr Brown to close the place down and sell it and with her portion she goin’ fix the roof for the Catholics.’

‘That’s a shame. It seems a nice quiet place. What’s going to happen to you?’

‘Guess I’ll move to Kingston. Live with one of my sisters and mebbe work in one of the big stores – Issa’s mebbe, or Nathan’s. Sav’ La Mar is sort of quiet.’ The brown eyes became introspective. ‘But I’ll sure miss the place. Folks have fun here and Love Lane’s a pretty street. We’re all friends up and down the Lane. It’s got sort of, sort of …’

‘Atmosphere.’

‘Right. That’s what it’s got. Like sort of old Jamaica. Like it must have been in the old days. Everyone’s friends with each other. Help each other when they have trouble.

You’d be surprised how often the girls do it for free if the man’s a good feller, regular customer sort of, and he’s short.’ The brown eyes gazed inquiringly at Bond to see if he understood the strength of the evidence.

‘That’s nice of them. But it can’t be good for business.’

She laughed. ‘This ain’t no business, Mister Mark. Not while I’m running it. This is a public service, like water and electricity and health and education and …’ She broke off and glanced over her shoulder at the clock which said 5.45. ‘Hell! You got me talking so much I’ve forgot Joe and May. It’s their supper.’ She went to the café window and wound it down. At once, from the direction of the lignum vitae tree, two large black birds, slightly smaller than a raven, whirled in, circled the interior of the café amidst a metallic clangour of song unlike the song of any other bird in the world, and untidily landed on the counter within reach of Bond’s hand. They strutted up and down imperiously, eyeing Bond without fear from bold, golden eyes and went through a piercing repertoire of tinny whistles and trills, some of which required them to ruffle themselves up to almost twice their normal size.

Tiffy went back behind the bar, took two pennies out of her purse, rang them up on the register and took two ginger cakes out of the flyblown display case. She broke off bits and fed the two birds, always the smaller of the two, the female, first, and they greedily seized the pieces from her fingers, and, holding the scraps to the wooden counter with a claw, tore them into smaller fragments and devoured them. When it was all over, and Tiffy had chided them both for pecking her fingers, they made small, neat white messes on the counter and looked pleased with themselves. Tiffy took a cloth and cleaned up the messes. She said, ‘We call them kling-klings but learned folk call them Jamaican grackles. They’re very friendly folk. The Doctor Bird, the humming bird with the streamer tail, is the Jamaican national bird, but I like these best. They’re not so beautiful, but they’re the friendliest birds and they’re funny besides. They seem to know it. They’re like naughty black thieves.’ The kling-klings eyed the cake stand and complained stridently that their supper was over. James Bond produced twopence and handed it over. ‘They’re wonderful. Like mechanical toys. Give them a second course from me.’

Tiffy rang up the money and took out two more cakes. ‘Now listen, Joe and May. This nice gemmun’s been nice to Tiffy and he’s now being nice to you. So don’t you peck my fingers and make messes or mebbe he won’t visit us again.’ She was half-way through feeding the birds when she cocked an ear. There was the noise of creaking boards somewhere overhead and then the sound of quiet footsteps treading stairs. All of a sudden Tiffy’s animated face became quiet and tense. She whispered to Bond: ‘That’s Lindy’s man. Important man. He’s a good customer here. But he don’t like me because I won’t go with him. So he can talk rough sometimes. And he don’t like Joe and May because he reckons they make too much noise.’ She shooed the birds in the direction of the open window, but they saw there was half their cake to come and they just fluttered into the air and then down to the counter again. Tiffy appealed to Bond. ‘Be a good friend and just sit quiet whatever he says. He likes to get people mad. And then …’ She stopped. ‘Will you have another Red Stripe, mister?’

Bead curtains swished in the shadowy back of the room.

Bond had been sitting with his chin propped on his right hand. He now dropped the hand to the counter and sat back. The Walther PPK inside the waistband of his trousers to the left of his flat stomach signalled its presence to his skin. The fingers of his right hand curled slightly, ready to receive its butt. He moved his left foot off the rail of the stool on to the floor. He said, ‘That’d be fine.’ He unbuttoned his coat with his left hand and then, with the same hand, took out his handkerchief and wiped his face with it. ‘It always gets extra hot around six before the Undertaker’s Wind has started to blow.’

‘Mister, the undertaker’s right here. You care to feel his wind?’

James Bond turned his head slowly. Dusk had crept into the big room and all he could see was a pale, tall outline. The man was carrying a suitcase. He put it down on the floor and came forward. He must have been wearing rubber-soled shoes for his feet made no sound. Tiffy moved nervously behind the counter and a switch clicked. Half a dozen low-voltage bulbs came to life in rusty brackets around the walls.

Bond said easily, ‘You made me jump.’

Scaramanga came up and leant against the counter. The description in Records was exact, but it had not caught the cat-like menace of the big man, the extreme breadth of the shoulders and the narrow waist, or the cold immobility of the eyes that now examined Bond with an expression of aloof disinterest. He was wearing a well-cut, single-breasted tan suit and ‘co-respondent’ shoes in brown and white. Instead of a tie, he wore a high stock in white silk secured by a gold pin the shape of a miniature pistol. There should have been something theatrical about the get-up but, perhaps because of the man’s fine figure, there wasn’t.

He said, ‘I sometimes make ’em dance. Then I shoot their feet off.’ There was no trace of a foreign accent underneath the American.

Bond said, ‘That sounds rather drastic. What do you do it for?’

‘The last time it was five thousand dollars. Seems like you don’t know who I am. Didn’t the cool cat tell you?’

Bond glanced at Tiffy. She was standing very still, her hands by her sides. The knuckles were white.

Bond said, ‘Why should she? Why would I want to know?’

There was a quick flash of gold. The small black hole looked directly at Bond’s navel. ‘Because of this. What are you doing here, stranger? Kind of a coincidence finding a city slicker at 3½. Or at Sav’ La Mar for the matter of that. Not by any chance from the police? Or any of their friends?’

‘Kamerad!’ Bond raised his hands in mock surrender. He lowered them and turned to Tiffy. ‘Who is this man? A one-man takeover bid for Jamaica? Or a refugee from a circus? Ask him what he’d like to drink. Whoever he is, it was a good act.’ James Bond knew that he had very nearly pulled the trigger of the gun. Hit a gunman in his vanity … He had a quick vision of himself writhing on the floor, his right hand without the power to reach for his own weapon. Tiffy’s pretty face was no longer pretty. It was a taut skull. She stared at James Bond. Her mouth opened but no sound came from the gaping lips. She liked him and she knew he was dead. The kling-klings, Joe and May, smelled the same electricity. With a tremendous din of metallic squawks, they fled for the open window like black thieves escaping into the night.

The explosions from the Colt .45 were deafening. The two birds disintegrated against the violet back-drop of the dusk, the scraps of feathers and pink flesh blasting out of the yellow light of the café into the limbo of the deserted street like shrapnel.

There was a moment of deafening silence. James Bond didn’t move. He sat where he was, waiting for the tension of the deed to relax. It didn’t. With an inarticulate scream, that was half a filthy word, Tiffy took James Bond’s bottle of Red Stripe off the counter and clumsily flung it. There came a distant crash of glass from the back of the room. Then, having made her puny gesture, Tiffy fell to her knees behind the counter and went into sobbing hysterics.

James Bond drank down the rest of his beer and got slowly to his feet. He walked towards Scaramanga and was about to pass him when the man reached out a languid left arm and caught him at the biceps. He held the snout of his gun to his nose, sniffing delicately. The expression in the dead brown eyes was far-away. He said, ‘Mister, there’s something quite extra about the smell of death. Care to try it?’ He held out the glittering gun as if he was offering James Bond a rose.

Bond stood quite still. He said, ‘Mind your manners. Take your hand off me.’

Scaramanga raised his eyebrows. The flat, leaden gaze seemed to take in Bond for the first time.

He released his grip.

James Bond went on round the edge of the counter. When he came opposite the other man, he found the eyes were now looking at him with faint, scornful curiosity. Bond stopped. The sobbing of the girl was the crying of a small dog. Somewhere down the street a ‘Sound System’ – a loudspeaker record player – began braying calypso.

Bond looked the man in the eye. He said, ‘Thanks. I’ve tried it. I recommend the Berlin vintage. 1945.’ He smiled a friendly, only slightly ironical smile. ‘But I expect you were too young to be at that tasting.’

6 | THE EASY GRAND

Bond knelt down beside Tiffy and gave her a couple of sharp slaps on the right cheek. Then on the left. The wet eyes came back into focus. She put her hand up to her face and looked at Bond with surprise. Bond got to his feet. He took a cloth and wetted it at the tap, then leant down and put his arm round her and wiped the cloth gently over her face. Then he lifted her up and handed her her bag that was on a shelf behind the counter. He said, ‘Come on, Tiffy. Make up that pretty face again. Business’ll be warming up soon. The leading lady’s got to look her best.’

Tiffy took the bag and opened it. She looked past Bond and saw Scaramanga for the first time since the shooting. The pretty lips drew back in a snarl. She whispered fiercely so that only Bond could hear, ‘I’m goin’ fix that man, but good. There’s Mother Edna up Orange Hill way. She’s an obeah top woman. I’ll go up there tomorrow. Come a few days, he won’t know what hit him.’ She took out a mirror and began doing up her face. Bond reached into his hip pocket and counted out five one-pound notes. He stuffed them into her open bag.

‘You forget all about it. This’ll buy you a nice canary in a cage to keep you company. Anyway, another pair of klings’ll come along if you put some food out.’ He patted her shoulder and moved away. When he came up with Scaramanga he stopped and said, ‘That may have been a good circus act’ (he used the word again on purpose) ‘but it was rough on the girl. Give her some money.’

Scaramanga said, ‘Shove it,’ out of the corner of his mouth. He said suspiciously, ‘And what’s all this yack about circuses?’ He turned to face Bond. ‘Just stop where you are, Mister, and answer a few questions. Like I said, are you from the police? You’ve sure got the smell of cops around you. If not, what are you doing hereabouts?’

Bond said, ‘People don’t tell me what to do. I tell them.’ He walked on into the middle of the room and sat down at a table. He said, ‘Come and sit down and stop trying to lean on me. I’m unleanable-on.’

Scaramanga shrugged. He took two long strides, picked up one of the metal chairs, twirled it round and thrust it between his legs and sat bassackwards, his left arm lying along the back of the chair. His right arm rested on his thigh, inches from the ivory pistol butt that showed above the waistband of his trousers. Bond recognized that it was a good working position for a gunman, the metal back of the chair acting as a shield for most of the body. This was certainly a most careful and professional man.

Bond, both hands in full view on the table top, said cheerfully, ‘No. I’m not from the police. My name’s Mark Hazard. I’m from a company called “Transworld Consortium”. I’ve been doing a job at Frome, the WISCO sugar place. Know it?’

‘Sure I know it. What you been doing there?’

‘Not so fast, my friend. First of all, who are you and what’s your business?’

‘Scaramanga. Francisco Scaramanga. Labour relations. Ever heard of me?’

Bond frowned. ‘Can’t say I have? Should I have?’

‘Some people who hadn’t are dead.’

‘A lot of people who haven’t heard of me are dead.’ Bond leaned back. He crossed one leg over the other, above the knee, and grasped the ankle in a clubman pose. ‘I do wish you’d stop talking in heroics. For instance, seven hundred million Chinese have certainly heard of neither of us. You must be a frog in a very small pool.’

Scaramanga did not rise to the jibe. He said reflectively, ‘Yeah. I guess you could call the Caribbean a pretty small pool. But there’s good pickin’s to be had from it. “The man with the golden gun.” That’s what they call me in these parts.’

‘It’s a handy tool for solving labour problems. We could do with you up at Frome.’

‘Been having trouble up there?’ Scaramanga looked bored.

‘Too many cane fires.’

‘Was that your business?’

‘Sort of. One of the jobs of my company is insurance investigation.’

‘Security work. I’ve come across guys like you before. Thought I could smell the cop-smell.’ Scaramanga looked satisfied that his guess had been right. ‘Did you get anywhere?’

‘Picked up a few Rastafari. I’d have liked to get rid of the lot of them. But they went crying to their union that they were being discriminated against because of their religion so we had to call a halt. So the fires’ll begin again soon. That’s why I say we could do with a good enforcer up there.’ Bond added blandly, ‘I take it that’s another name for your profession?’

Again Scaramanga dodged the sneer. He said, ‘You carry a gun?’

‘Of course. You don’t go after the Rastas without one.’

‘What kind of a gun?’

‘Walther PPK. 7.65 millimetre.’

‘Yes, that’s a stopper all right.’ Scaramanga turned towards the counter. ‘Hey, cool cat. Couple of Red Stripes, if you’re in business again.’ He turned back and the blank eyes looked hard at Bond. ‘What’s your next job?’

‘Don’t know. I’ll have to contact London and find out if they’ve got any other problems in the area. But I’m in no hurry. I work for them more or less on a freelance basis. Why? Any suggestions?’

The other man sat quiet while Tiffy came out from behind the counter. She came over to the table and placed the tin tray with the bottles and glasses in front of Bond. She didn’t look at Scaramanga. Scaramanga uttered a harsh bark of laughter. He reached inside his coat and took out an alligator-skin billfold. He extracted a hundred-dollar bill and threw it on the table. ‘No hard feelings, cool cat. You’d be okay if you didn’t always keep your legs together. Go buy yourself some more birds with that. I like to have smiling people around me.’

Tiffy picked up the note. She said, ‘Thanks, Mister. You’d be surprised what I’m going to spend your money on.’ She gave him a long, hard look and turned on her heel.

Scaramanga shrugged. He reached for a bottle of beer and a glass and both men poured and drank. Scaramanga took out an expensive cigar case, selected a pencil-thin cheroot and lit it with a match. He let the smoke dribble out between his lips and inhaled the thin stream up his nostrils. He did this several times with the same mouthful of smoke until the smoke was dissipated. All the while he stared across the table at Bond, seeming to weigh up something in his mind. He said, ‘Care to earn yourself a grand – a thousand bucks?’

Bond said, ‘Possibly.’ He paused and added, ‘Probably.’ What he meant was, ‘Of course! If it means staying close to you, my friend.’

Scaramanga smoked a while in silence. A car stopped outside and two laughing men came quickly up the steps. When they came through the bead curtains, working-class Jamaicans, they stopped laughing and went quietly over to the counter and began whispering to Tiffy. Then they both slapped a pound note on the counter and, making a wide detour away from the white men, disappeared through the curtains at the back of the room. Their laughter began again as Bond heard their footsteps on the stairs.

Scaramanga hadn’t taken his eyes from Bond’s face. Now he said, keeping his voice low, ‘I got myself a problem. Some partners of mine, they’ve taken an interest in this Negril development. Far end of the property. Place called Bloody Bay. Know it?’

‘I’ve seen it on the map. Just short of Green Island Harbour.’

‘Right. So I’ve got some shares in the business. So we start building a hotel and get the first storey finished and the main living-rooms and restaurant and so on. So then the tourist boom slackens off – Americans get frightened of being so close to Cuba or some such crap. And the banks get difficult and money begins to run short. Follow me?’

‘So you’re a stale bull of the place?’

‘Right. So I came over a few days ago and I’m staying at the Thunderbird and I’ve got a half-dozen of the main stockholders to fly in for a meeting on the spot. Sort of look the place over and get our heads together and figure what to do next. Now, I want to give these guys a good time so I’ve got a smart combo over from Kingston, calypso singers, limbo, plenty of girls – all that jazz. And there’s swimming and one of the features of the place is a small-scale railway that used to handle the sugar cane. Runs to Green Island Harbour where I gotta forty-foot Chris-Craft Roamer. Deep-sea fishing. That’ll be another outing. Get me? Give the fellers a real good time.’

‘So that they’ll get all enthusiastic and buy out your share of the stock?’

Scaramanga frowned angrily. ‘I’m not paying you a grand to get the wrong ideas. Or any ideas for the matter of that.’

‘What for then?’

For a moment or two Scaramanga went through his smoking routine, the little pillars of smoke vanishing again and again into the black nostrils. It seemed to calm him. His forehead cleared. He said, ‘Some of these men are kind of rough. We’re all stockholders, of course, but that don’t necessarily mean we’re friends. Understand? I’ll be wanting to hold some meetings, private meetings, with mebbe only two or three guys at a time, sort of sounding out the different interests. Could be that some of the other guys, the ones not invited to a particular meeting, might get it into their heads to bug a meeting or try and get wise to what goes on in one way or another. So it jes’ occurs to me that you being live to security and such, that you could act as a kind of guard at these meetings, clean the room for mikes, stay outside the door and see that no one comes nosing around, see that when I want to be private I git private. D’you get the photo?’

Bond had to laugh. He said, ‘So you want to hire me as a kind of personal bodyguard. Is that it?’

The frown was back. ‘And what’s so funny about that, Mister? It’s good money, ain’t it? Three, mebbe four days in a luxury joint like the Thunderbird. A thousand bucks at the end of it? What’s so screwy about that proposition, eh?’ Scaramanga mashed out the butt of his cigar against the underside of the table. A shower of sparks fell. He let them lie.

Bond scratched the back of his head as if reflecting. Which he was – furiously. He knew that he hadn’t heard the full story. He also knew that it was odd, to say the least of it, for this man to hire a complete stranger to do this job for him. The job itself stood up, but only just. It made sense that Scaramanga would not want to hire a local man, an ex-policeman for instance, even if one could be found. Such a man might have friends in the hotel business who would be interested in the speculative side of the Negril development. And, of course, on the plus side, Bond would be achieving what he had never thought possible – he would have got right inside Scaramanga’s guard. Or would he? There was the strong smell of a trap. But, assuming that Bond had not, by some obscure bit of ill luck, been blown, he couldn’t for the life of him see what the trap could be. Well, clearly, he must make the gamble. In so many respects it was a chance in a million.

Bond lit a cigarette. He said, ‘I was only laughing at the idea of a man of your particular skills wanting protection. But it all sounds great fun. Of course I’ll come along. When do we start? I’ve got a car at the bottom of the road.’

Scaramanga thrust out an inside wrist and looked at a thin gold watch on a two-coloured gold bracelet. He said, ‘6.32. My car’ll be outside.’ He got up. ‘Let’s go. But don’t forget one thing, Mister Whoosis. I rile mighty easy. Get me?’

Bond said easily, ‘I saw how annoyed you got with those inoffensive birds.’ He stood up. ‘I don’t see any reason why either of us should get riled.’

Scaramanga said indifferently, ‘Okay, then.’ He walked to the back of the room and picked up his suitcase, new-looking but cheap, strode to the exit and clashed through the bead curtain and down the steps.

Bond went quickly over to the counter. ‘Goodbye, Tiffy. Hope I’ll be coming by again one day. If anyone should ask after me, say I’m at the Thunderbird Hotel at Bloody Bay.’

Tiffy reached out a hand and timidly touched his sleeve. ‘Go careful over there, Mister Mark. There’s gangster money in that place. And watch out for yourself.’ She jerked her head towards the exit: ‘That’s the worstest man I ever heard tell of.’ She leaned forward and whispered, ‘That’s a thousand pound worth of ganja he’s got in that bag. Rasta left it for him this morning. So I smelled the bag.’ She drew quickly back.