Текст книги "The James Bond Anthology"

Автор книги: Ian Fleming

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Текущая страница: 168 (всего у книги 190 страниц)

8 | PASS THE CANAPÉS!

The cars began rolling up. Scaramanga was in evidence. He switched a careful smile of welcome on and off. No hands were shaken. The host was greeted either as ‘Pistol’ or ‘Mr S’ except by Mr Hendriks, who called him nothing.

Bond stood within earshot of the desk and fitted the names to the men. In general appearance they were all much of a muchness. Dark-faced, clean-shaven, around five feet six, hard-eyed above thinly smiling mouths, curt of speech to the manager. They all held firmly on to their brief-cases when the bell boys tried to add them to the luggage on the rubber-tyred barrows. They dispersed to their rooms along the East Wing. Bond took out his list and added hat-check notations to each one except Hendriks who was clearly etched in Bond’s memory. Gengerella became ‘Italian origin, mean, pursed mouth’; Rotkopf, ‘Thick neck, totally bald, Jew’; Binion, ‘bat ears, scar down left cheek, limp’; Garfinkel, ‘the toughest. Bad teeth, gun under right armpit’; and, finally, Paradise, ‘Showman type, cocky, false smile, diamond ring’ .

Scaramanga came up. ‘What you writing?’

‘Just notes to remember them by.’

‘Gimme.’ Scaramanga held out a demanding hand.

Bond gave him the list.

Scaramanga ran his eyes down it. He handed it back. ‘Fair enough. But you needn’t have mentioned the only gun you noticed. They’ll all be protected. Except Hendriks, I guess. These kinda guys are nervous when they move abroad.’

‘What of?’

Scaramanga shrugged. ‘Mebbe the natives.’

‘The last people who worried about the natives were the redcoats, perhaps a hundred and fifty years ago.’

‘Who cares? See you in the bar around twelve. I’ll be introducing you as my Personal Assistant.’

‘That’ll be fine.’

Scaramanga’s brows came together. Bond strolled off in the direction of his bedroom. He proposed to needle this man, and go on needling until it came to a fight. For the time being the other man would probably take it because it seemed he needed Bond. But there would come a moment, probably on an occasion when there were witnesses, when his vanity would be so sharply pricked that he would draw. Then Bond would have a small edge, for it would be he who had thrown down the glove. The tactic was a crude one, but Bond could think of no other.

Bond verified that his room had been searched at some time during the morning – and by an expert. He always used a Hoffritz safety razor patterned on the old-fashioned heavy-toothed Gillette type. His American friend Felix Leiter had once bought him one in New York to prove that they were the best, and Bond had stayed with them. The handle of a safety razor is a reasonably sophisticated hideout for the minor tools of espionage – codes, microdot developers, cyanide and other pills. That morning Bond had set a minute nick on the screw base of the handle in line with the ‘Z’ of the maker’s name engraved on the shaft. The nick was now a millimetre to the right of the ‘Z’. None of his other little traps, handkerchiefs with indelible dots in particular places arranged in a certain order, the angle of his suitcase with the wall of the wardrobe, the semi-extracted lining of the breast pocket of his spare suit, the particular symmetry of certain dents in his tube of Maclean’s toothpaste, had been bungled or disturbed. They all might have been by a meticulous servant, a trained valet. But Jamaican servants, for all their charm and willingness, are not of this calibre. No. Between nine and ten, when Bond was doing his rounds and was well away from the hotel, his room had received a thorough going-over by someone who knew his business.

Bond was pleased. It was good to know that the fight was well and truly joined. If he found a chance of making a foray into No. 20, he hoped that he would do better. He took a shower. Afterwards, as he brushed his hair, he looked at himself in the mirror with inquiry. He was feeling a hundred per cent fit, but he remembered the dull, lacklustre eyes that had looked back at him when he shaved after first entering The Park – the tense, preoccupied expression on his face. Now the grey-blue eyes looked back at him from the tanned face with the brilliant glint of suppressed excitement and accurate focus of the old days. He smiled ironically back at the introspective scrutiny that so many people make of themselves before a race, a contest of wits, a trial of some sort. He had no excuses. He was ready to go.

The bar was through a brass-studded leather door opposite the lobby to the conference room. It was – in the fashion – a mock-English public-house saloon bar with luxury accessories. The scrubbed wooden chairs and benches had foam-rubber squabs in red leather. Behind the bar, the tankards were of silver, or simulated silver, instead of pewter. The hunting prints, copper and brass hunting horns, muskets and powder horns, on the walls could have come from the Parker Galleries in London. Instead of tankards of beer, bottles of champagne in antique coolers stood on the tables and, instead of yokels, the hoods stood around in what looked like Brooks Brothers ‘tropical’ attire and carefully sipped their drinks while ‘Mine Host’ leant against the polished mahogany bar and twirled his golden gun round and round on the first finger of his right hand like the snide poker cheat out of an old Western.

As the door closed behind Bond with a pressurised sigh, the golden gun halted in mid-whirl and sighted on Bond’s stomach. ‘Fellers,’ said Scaramanga, mock boisterous, ‘meet my Personal Assistant, Mr Mark Hazard, from London, England. He’s come along to make things run smoothly over this week-end. Mark, come over and meet the gang and pass round the canapés.’ He lowered the gun and shoved it into his waistband.

James Bond stitched a Personal Assistant smile on his face and walked up to the bar. Perhaps because he was an Englishman, there was a round of handshaking. The red-coated barman asked him what he would have and he said, ‘Some pink gin. Plenty of bitters. Beefeater’s.’ There was desultory talk about the relative merits of gins. Everyone else seemed to be drinking champagne except Mr Hendriks who stood away from the group and nursed a Schweppes Bitter Lemon. Bond moved among the men. He made small talk about their flight, the weather in the States, the beauties of Jamaica. He wanted to fit the voices to the names. He gravitated towards Mr Hendriks. ‘Seems we’re the only two Europeans here. Gather you’re from Holland. Often passed through. Never stayed there long. Beautiful country.’

The very pale blue eyes regarded Bond unenthusiastically. ‘Sank you.’

‘What part do you come from?’

‘Den Haag.’

‘Have you lived there long?’

‘Many, many years.’

‘Beautiful town.’

‘Sank you.’

‘Is this your first visit to Jamaica?’

‘No.’

‘How do you like it?’

‘It is a beautiful place.’

Bond nearly said, ‘Sank you.’ He smiled encouragingly at Mr Hendriks as much as to say, ‘I’ve made all the running so far. Now you say something.’

Mr Hendriks looked past Bond’s right ear at nothing. The pressure of the silence built up. Mr Hendriks shifted his weight from one foot to the other and finally broke down. His eyes shifted and looked thoughtfully at Bond. ‘And you. You are from London, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Do you know it?’

‘I have been there, yes.’

‘Where do you usually stay?’

There was hesitation. ‘With friends.’

‘That must be convenient.’

‘Pliss?’

‘I mean it’s pleasant to have friends in a foreign town. Hotels are so much alike.’

‘I have not found this. Excuse pliss.’ With a Germanic bob of the head Mr Hendriks moved decisively away from Bond and went up to Scaramanga, who was still lounging in solitary splendour at the bar. Mr Hendriks said something. His words acted like a command on the other man. Mr Scaramanga straightened himself and followed Mr Hendriks into a far corner of the room. He stood and listened with deference as Mr Hendriks talked rapidly in a low tone.

Bond, joining the other men, was interested. It was his guess that no other man in the room could have buttonholed Scaramanga with so much authority. He noticed that many fleeting glances were cast in the direction of the couple apart. For Bond’s money, this was either the Mafia or K.G.B. Probably even the other five wouldn’t know which, but they would certainly recognize the secret smell of ‘The Machine’ which Mr Hendriks exuded so strongly.

Luncheon was announced. The Jamaican head waiter hovered between two richly prepared tables. There were place cards. Bond found that, while Scaramanga was host at one of them, he himself was at the head of the other table between Mr Paradise and Mr Rotkopf. As he expected, Mr Paradise was the better value of the two and, as they went through the conventional shrimp cocktail, steak, fruit salad of the Americanized hotel abroad, Bond cheerfully got himself involved in an argument about the odds at roulette when there are one zero or two. Mr Rotkopf’s only contribution was to say, through a mouthful of steak and French fries, that he had once tried three zeros at the Black Cat Casino in Miami but that the experiment had failed. Mr Paradise said that so it should have. ‘You got to let the suckers win sometimes, Ruby, or they won’t come back. Sure, you can squeeze the juice out of them, but you oughta leave them the pips. Like with my slots. I tell the customers, don’t be too greedy. Don’t set’ em at thirty per cent for the house. Set’ em at twenty. You ever heard of Mr J. B. Morgan turning down a net profit of twenty per cent? Hell, no! So why try and be smarter than guys like that?’

Mr Rotkopf said sourly, ‘You got to make big profits to put against a bum steer like this.’ He waved a hand. ‘If you ask me,’ he held up a bit of steak on his fork, ‘you’re eating the only money you’re going to see out of this dump at this minute.’

Mr Paradise leaned across the table and said softly, ‘You know something?’

Mr Rotkopf said, ‘I always told my money that the bindweed would get this place. The dam’ fools wouldn’t listen. And look where we are in three years! Second mortgage nearly run out and we’ve only got one storey up. What I say is …’

The argument went off into the realms of high finance. At the next-door table there was not even this amount of animation. Scaramanga was a man of few words. There were clearly none available for social occasions. Opposite him, Mr Hendriks exuded a silence as thick as Gouda cheese. The three hoods addressed an occasional glum sentence to anyone who would listen. James Bond wondered how Scaramanga was going to electrify this unpromising company into ‘having a good time’.

Luncheon broke up and the company dispersed to their rooms. James Bond wandered round to the back of the hotel and found a discarded shingle on a rubbish dump. It was blazing hot under the afternoon sun, but the Doctor’s wind was blowing in from the sea. For all its air-conditioning, there was something grim about the impersonal grey and white of Bond’s bedroom. Bond walked along the shore, took off his coat and tie and sat in the shade of a bush of sea grapes and watched the fiddler crabs about their minuscule business in the sand while he whittled two chunky wedges out of the Jamaican cedar. Then he closed his eyes and thought about Mary Goodnight. She would now be having her siesta in some villa on the outskirts of Kingston. It would probably be high up in the Blue Mountains for the coolness. In Bond’s imagination, she would be lying on her bed under a mosquito net. Because of the heat, she would have nothing on, and one could see only an ivory and gold shape through the fabric of the net. But one would know that there were small beads of sweat on her upper lip and between her breasts and the fringes of the golden hair would be damp. Bond took off his clothes and lifted up the corner of the mosquito net, not wanting to wake her until he had fitted himself against her thighs. But she turned, in half sleep, towards him and held out her arms. ‘James …’

Under the sea-grape bush, a hundred and twenty miles away from the scene of the dream, James Bond’s head came up with a jerk. He looked quickly, guiltily, at his watch. 3.30. He went off to his room and had a cold shower, verified that his cedar wedges would do what they were meant to do, and strolled down the corridor to the lobby.

The manager with the neat suit and neat face came out from behind his desk. ‘Er, Mr Hazard.’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t think you’ve met my assistant, Mr Travis.’

‘No, I don’t think I have.’

‘Would you care to step into the office for a moment and shake him by the hand?’

‘Later perhaps. We’ve got this conference on in a few minutes.’

The neat man came a step closer. He said quietly, ‘He particularly wants to meet you, Mr – er – Bond.’

Bond cursed himself. This was always happening in his particular trade. You were looking in the dark for a beetle with red wings. Your eyes were focused for that particular pattern on the bark of the tree. You didn’t notice the moth with cryptic colouring that crouched quietly near by, itself like a piece of the bark, itself just as important to the collector. The focus of your eyes was too narrow. Your mind was too concentrated. You were using 1 x 100 magnification and your 1 x 10 was not in focus. Bond looked at the man with the recognition that exists between crooks, between homosexuals, between secret agents. It is the look common to men bound by secrecy – by common trouble. ‘Better make it quick.’

The neat man stepped behind his desk and opened a door. Bond went in and the neat man closed the door behind them. A tall, slim man was standing at a filing cabinet. He turned. He had a lean, bronzed Texan face under an unruly mop of straight, fair hair, and, instead of a right hand, a bright steel hook. Bond stopped in his tracks. His face split into a smile broader than he had smiled for what? Was it three years or four? He said, ‘You goddamned, lousy crook. What in hell are you doing here?’ He went up to the man and hit him hard on the biceps of the left arm.

The grin was slightly more creased than Bond remembered, but it was just as friendly and ironical. Mr Travis said, ‘The name is Leiter, Mr Felix Leiter. Temporary accountant on loan from Morgan Guarantee Trust to the Thunderbird Hotel. We’re just checking up on your credit rating, Mr Hazard. Would you kindly, in your royal parlance, extract your finger, and give me some evidence that you are who you claim to be?’

9 | MINUTES OF THE MEETING

James Bond, almost light-headed with pleasure, picked up a handful of travel literature from the front desk, said ‘Hi!’ to Mr Gengerella, who didn’t reply, and followed him into the conference room lobby. They were the last to show. Scaramanga, beside the open door to the conference room, looked pointedly at his watch and said to Bond, ‘Okay, feller. Lock the door when we’re all settled and don’t let anyone in even if the hotel catches fire.’ He turned to the barman behind the loaded buffet. ‘Get lost, Joe. I’ll call for you later.’ He said to the room, ‘Right. We’re all set. Let’s go.’ He led the way into the conference room and the six men followed. Bond stood by the door and noted the seating order round the table. He closed the door and locked it and quickly also locked the exit from the lobby. Then he picked up a champagne glass from the buffet, pulled over a chair and sited the chair very close to the door of the conference room. He placed the bowl of the champagne glass as near as possible to a hinge of the door and, holding the glass by the stem, put his left ear up against its base. Through the crude amplifier, what had been the rumble of a voice became Mr Hendriks speaking, ‘…and so it is that I will now report from my superiors in Europe …’ The voice paused and Bond heard another noise, the creak of a chair. Like lightning he pulled the chair back a few feet, opened one of the travel folders on his lap and raised the glass to his lips. The door jerked open and Scaramanga stood in the opening, twirling his pass key on a chain. He examined the innocent figure on the chair. He said, ‘Okay, feller. Just checking,’ and kicked the door shut. Bond noisily locked it and took up his place again. Mr Hendriks said, ‘I have one most important message for our Chairman. It is from a sure source. There is a man that is called James Bond that is looking for him in this territory. This is a man who is from the British Secret Service. I have no informations or descriptions of this man but it seems that he is highly rated by my superiors. Mr Scaramanga, have you heard of this man?’

Scaramanga snorted. ‘Hell, no! And should I care? I eat one of their famous secret agents for breakfast from time to time. Only ten days ago, I disposed of one of them who came nosing after me. Man called Ross. His body is now very slowly sinking to the bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad – place called La Brea. The oil company, the Trinidad Lake Asphalt people, will obtain an interesting barrel of crude one of these days. Next question, please, Mr Hendriks.’

‘Next I am wishing to know what is the policy of The Group in the matter of cane sabotage. At our meeting six months ago in Havana, against my minority vote, it was decided, in exchange for certain favours, to come to the aid of Fidel Castro and assist in maintaining and indeed increasing the world price of sugar to offset the damage caused by Hurricane Flora. Since this time there have been very numerous fires in the cane fields of Jamaica and Trinidad. In this connection, it has come to the ears of my superiors that individual members of The Group, notably,’ there was the rustle of paper, ‘Messrs Gengerella, Rotkopf and Binion, in addition to our Chairman, have engaged in extensive purchasing of July sugar futures for the benefit of private gain …’

There came an angry murmur from round the table. ‘Why shouldn’t we …? Why shouldn’t they …?’ The voice of Gengerella dominated the others. He shouted, ‘Who in hell said we weren’t to make money? Isn’t that one of the objects of The Group? I ask you again, Mr Hendriks, as I asked you six months ago, who in hell is it among your so-called “superiors” who wants to keep the price of raw sugar down? For my money, the most interested party in such a gambit would be Soviet Russia. They’re selling goods to Cuba, including, let me say, the recently abortive shipment of missiles to fire against my homeland, in exchange for raw sugar. They’re sharp traders, the Reds. In their double-dealing way, even from a friend and ally, they would want more sugar for fewer goods. Yes? I suppose’, the voice sneered, ‘one of your superiors, Mr Hendriks, would not by any chance be in the Kremlin?’

The voice of Scaramanga cut through the ensuing hubbub. ‘Fellers! Fellers!’ A reluctant silence fell. ‘When we formed the Co-operative, it was agreed that the first object was to co-operate with one another. Okay, then. Mr Hendriks. Let me put you more fully in the picture. So far as the total finances of The Group are concerned, we have a fine situation coming up. As an investment group, we have good bets and bad bets. Sugar is a good bet and we should ride that bet even though certain members of The Group have chosen not to be on the horse. Get me? Now hear me through. There are six ships controlled by The Group at this moment riding at anchor outside New York and other U.S. harbours. These ships are loaded with raw sugar. These ships, Mr Hendriks, will not dock and unload until sugar futures, July futures, have risen another ten cents. In Washington, the Department of Agriculture and the Sugar Lobby know this. They know that we have them by the balls. Meantimes the liquor lobby is leaning on them – let alone Russia. The price of molasses is going up with sugar and the rum barons are kicking up hell and want our ships let in before there’s a real shortage and the price goes through the roof. But there’s another side to it. We’re having to pay our crews and our charter bills and so on, and squatting ships are dead ships, dead losses. So something’s going to give. In the business, the situation we’ve developed is called the Floating Crop Game – our ships lying offshore, lined up against the Government of the United States. All right. So now four of us stand to win or lose ten million bucks or so – us and our backers. And we’ve got this little business of the Thunderbird on the red side of the sheet. So what do you think, Mr Hendriks? Of course we burn the crops where we can get away with it. I got a good man in with the Rastafaris – that’s a beat sect here that grows beards and smokes ganja and mostly lives on a bit of land outside Kingston called the Dungle – the Dunghill – and believes it owes allegiance to the King of Ethiopia, this King Zog or what-have-you, and that that’s their rightful home. So I’ve got a man in there, a man who wants the ganja for them, and I keep him supplied in exchange for plenty fires and troubles on the cane lands. So all right, Mr Hendriks. You just tell your superiors that what goes up must come down and that applies to the price of sugar like anything else. Okay?’

Mr Hendriks said, ‘I will pass on your saying, Mr Scaramanga. It will not cause pleasure. Now there is this business of the hotel. How is she standing, if you pliss? I think we are all wishing to know the true situation, isn’t it?’

There was a growl of assent.

Mr Scaramanga went off into a long dissertation which was only of passing interest to Bond. Felix Leiter would in any case be getting it all on the tape in a drawer of his filing cabinet. He had reassured Bond on this score. The neat American, Leiter had explained, filling him in with the essentials, was in fact a certain Mr Nick Nicholson of the C.I.A. His particular concern was Mr Hendriks who, as Bond had suspected, was a top man of the K.G.B. The K.G.B. favours oblique control – a man in Geneva being the Resident Director for Italy, for instance – and Mr Hendriks at The Hague was in fact Resident Director for the Caribbean and in charge of the Havana centre. Leiter was still working for Pinkertons, but was also on the reserve of the C.I.A. who had drafted him for this particular assignment because of his knowledge, gained in the past mostly with James Bond, of Jamaica. His job was to get a breakdown of The Group and find out what they were up to. They were all well-known hoods who would normally have been the concern of the F.B.I., but Gengerella was a Capo Mafiosi and this was the first time the Mafia had been found consorting with the K.G.B. – a most disturbing partnership which must at all costs be quickly broken up, by physical elimination if need be. Nick Nicholson, whose ‘front’ name was Mr Stanley Jones, was an electronics expert. He had traced the main lead to Scaramanga’s recording device under the floor of the central switch room and had bled off the microphone cable to his own tape recorder in the filing cabinet. So Bond had not much to worry about. He was listening to satisfy his own curiosity and to fill in on anything that might transpire in the lobby or out of range of the bug in the telephone on the conference room table. Bond had explained his own presence. Leiter had given a long low whistle of respectful apprehension. Bond had agreed to keep well clear of the other two men and to paddle his own canoe, but they had arranged an emergency meeting place and a postal ‘drop’ in the uncompleted and ‘Out of Order’ men’s room off the lobby. Nicholson had given him a pass key for this place and all other rooms and then Bond had had to hurry off to his meeting. James Bond was immensely reassured by finding these unexpected reinforcements. He had worked with Leiter on some of his most hazardous assignments. There was no man like him when the chips were down. Although Leiter had only a steel hook instead of a right arm – a memento of one of those assignments – he was one of the finest left-handed one-armed shots in the States and the hook itself could be a devastating weapon at close quarters.

Scaramanga was finishing his exposition. ‘So the net of it is, gentlemen, that we need to find ten million bucks. The interests I represent, which are the majority interests, suggest that this sum should be provided by a Note issue, bearing interest at ten per cent and repayable in ten years, such an issue to have priority over all other loans.’

The voice of Mr Rotkopf broke in angrily. ‘The hell it will! Not on your life, Mister. What about the seven per cent second mortgage put up by me and my friends only a year back? What do you think I’d get if I went back to Vegas with that kind of parley? The old heave-ho! And at that I’m being optimistic.’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Ruby. It’s that or close. What do you other fellers have to say?’

Hendriks said, ‘Ten per cent on a first charge is good pizzness. My friends and I will take one million dollars. On the understanding, it is natural, that the conditions of the issue are, how shall I say, more substantial, less open to misunderstandings, than the second mortgage of Mr Rotkopf and his friends.’

‘Of course. And I and my friends will also take a million. Sam?’

Mr Binion said reluctantly, ‘Okay, okay. Count us in for the same. But by golly this has got to be the last touch.’

‘Mr Gengerella?’

‘It sounds a good bet. I’ll take the rest.’

The voices of Mr Garfinkel and Mr Paradise broke in excitedly, Garfinkel in the lead. ‘Like hell you will! I’m taking a million.’

‘And so am I,’ shouted Mr Paradise. ‘Cut the cake equally. But dammit. Let’s be fair to Ruby. Ruby, you oughta have first pick. How much do you want? You can have it off the top.’

‘I don’t want a damned cent of your phoney Notes. As soon as I get back, I’m going to reach for the best damned lawyers in the States – all of them. You think you can scrub a mortgage just by saying so, you’ve all got another think coming.’

There was silence. The voice of Scaramanga was soft and deadly. ‘You’re making a big mistake, Ruby. You’ve just got yourself a nice fat tax-loss to put against your Vegas interests. And don’t forget that when we formed this Group we all took an oath. None of us was to operate against the interests of the others. Is that your last word?’

‘It dam’ is.’

‘Would this help you change your mind? They’ve got a slogan for it in Cuba – Rapido! Seguro! Economico! This is how the system operates.’

The scream of terror and the explosion were simultaneous. A chair crashed to the floor and there was a moment’s silence. Then someone coughed nervously. Mr Gengerella said calmly, ‘I think that was the correct solution of an embarrassing conflict of interests. Ruby’s friends in Vegas like a quiet life. I doubt if they will even complain. It is better to be a live owner of some finely engraved paper than to be a dead holder of a second mortgage. Put them in for a million, Pistol. I think you behaved with speed and correctness. Now then, can you clean this up?’

‘Sure, sure.’ Mr Scaramanga’s voice was relaxed, happy. ‘Ruby’s left here to go back to Vegas. Never heard of again. We don’t know nuthen’. I’ve got some hungry crocs out back there in the river. They’ll give him free transportation to where he’s going – and his baggage if it’s good leather. I shall need some help tonight. What about you, Sam? And you, Louie?’

The voice of Mr Paradise pleaded. ‘Count me out, Pistol. I’m a good Catholic.’

Mr Hendriks said, ‘I will take his place. I am not a Catholic person.’

‘So be it then. Well, fellers, any other business? If not, we’ll break up the meeting and have a drink.’

Hal Garfinkel said nervously, ‘Just a minute, Pistol. What about that guy outside the door? That limey feller? What’s he going to say about the fireworks and all?’

Mr Scaramanga’s chuckle was like the dry chuckle of a gekko. ‘Just don’t you worry your tiny head about the limey, Hal. He’ll be looked after when the week-end’s over. Picked him up in a bordello in a village nearby. Place where I go get my weed and a bit of black tail. Got only temporary staff here to see you fellers have a good time over the week-end. He’s the temporariest of the lot. Those crocs have a big appetite. Ruby’ll be the main dish, but they’ll need a dessert. Jes’ you leave him to me. For all I know he may be this James Bond man Mr Hendriks has told us about. I should worry. I don’t like limeys. Like some good yankee once said, “For every Britisher that dies, there’s a song in my heart.” Remember the guy? Around the time of the Israeli war against them. I dig that viewpoint. Stuck-up bastards. Stuffed shirts. When the time comes, I’m going to let the stuffing out of this one. Jes’ you leave him to me. Or let’s jes’ say leave him to this.’

Bond smiled a thin smile. He could imagine the golden gun being produced and twirled round the finger and stuck back in the waistband. He got up and moved his chair away from the door and poured champagne into the useful glass and leant against the buffet and studied the latest hand-out from the Jamaica Tourist Board.

The click of Scaramanga’s pass key sounded in the lock. Scaramanga looked at Bond from the doorway. He ran a finger along the small moustache. ‘Okay, feller. I guess that’s enough of the house champagne. Cut along to the manager and tell him Mr Ruby Rotkopf’ll be checking out tonight. I’ll fix the details. And say a major fuse blew during the meeting and I’m going to seal off this room and find out why we’re having so much bad workmanship around the place.’Kay? Then drinks and dinner and bring on the dancing girls. Got the photo?’

James Bond said that he had. He weaved slightly as he went to the lobby door and unlocked it. ‘E. & O.E. – Errors and omissions excepted’ as the financial prospectuses say, he thought that he had indeed now ‘got the photo’. And it was an exceptionally clear print in black and white without ‘fuzz’.