Live and Let Die: A James Bond Novel (12 page)

Bond shrugged his shoulders. If anyone came, it would be through the doors. He would just have to stay awake.

Solitaire called for him. The room smelled of Balmain’s ‘Vent Vert’. She was leaning on her elbow and looking down at him from the upper berth.

I he bedclothes were pulled up round her shoulder. Bond guessed that she was naked. Her black hair fell away from her head in a dark cascade. With only the reading-lamp on behind her, her face was in shadow. Bond climbed up the little aluminium ladder and leant towards her. She reached towards him and suddenly the bedclothes fell away from her shoulders. x

‘Damn you,’ said Bond. ‘You…’

She put her hand over his mouth.

‘ “Allumeuse” is the nice word for it,’ she said. ‘It is fun for me to be able to tease such a strong silent man. You burn with such an angry, flame. It is the only game I have to play with you and I shan’t be able to play it for long. How many days until your hand is well again?’

Bond bit hard into the soft hand over his mouth. She gave a little scream.

‘Not many,’ said Bond. ‘And then one day when you’re playing your little game you’ll suddenly find yourself pinned down like a butterfly.’

She put her arms round him and they kissed, long and passionately.

Finally she sank back among the pillows.

‘Hurry up and get well,’ she said. ‘I’m tired of my game already.’ ,

Bond climbed down to the floor and pulled her curtains across the berth.

‘Try and get some sleep now,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a long day tomorrow.’

She murmured something and he heard her turn over. She switched off the light.

Bond verified that the wedges were in place under the doors. Then he took off his coat and tie and lay down on the bottom berth. He turned off his own light and lay thinking of Solitaire and listening to the steady gallop of the wheels beneath his head and the comfortable small noises in the room, the gentle rattles and squeaks and murmurs in the coachwork that bring sleep so quickly on a train at night-time.

It was

eleven o’clock

and the train was on the long stretch between

Columbia

and

Savannah

,

Georgia

. There were another six hours or so to Jacksonville, another six hours of darkness during which The Big Man would almost certainly have instructed his agent to make some move, while the whole train was asleep and while a man could use the corridors without interference.

The great train snaked on through the dark, pounding out the miles through the empty plains and mingy hamlets of

Georgia

, the ‘

Peach

State

‘, the angry moan of its four-toned wind-horn soughing over the wide savannah and the long shaft of its single searchlight ripping the black calico of the night.

Bond turned on his light again and read for a while, but his thoughts were too insistent and he soon gave up and switched the light off. Instead, he thought of Solitaire and of the future and of the more immediate prospects of

Jacksonville

and

St. Petersburg

and of seeing Leiter again.

Much later, around one o’clock in the morning, he was dozing and on the edge of sleep, when a soft metallic noise quite close to his head brought him wide awake with his hand on his gun.

There was someone at the passage door and the lock was being softly tried.

Bond was immediately on the floor and moving silently on his bare feet. He gently pulled the wedge away from under the door to the next compartment and as gently pulled the bolt and opened the door. He crossed the next compartment and softly began to open the door to the corridor.

There was a deafening click as the bolt came back. He tore the door open and threw himself into the corridor, only to see a flying figure already nearing the forward end of the car.

If his two hands had been free he could have shot the man, but to open the doors he had to tuck his gun into the waistband of his trousers. Bond knew that pursuit would be hopeless. There were too many empty compartments into which the man could dodge and quietly close the door. Bond had worked all this out beforehand. He knew his only chance would be surprise and either a quick shot or the man’s surrender.

He walked a few steps to Compartment H. A tiny diamond of paper protruded into the corridor.

He went back and into their room, locking the doors behind him. He softly turned on his reading light. Solitaire was still asleep. The rest of the paper, a single sheet, lay on the carpet against the passage door. He picked it up and sat on the edge of his bed.

It was a sheet of cheap ruled notepaper. It was covered with irregular lines of writing in rough capitals, in red ink.

Bond handled it gingerly, without much hope that it would yield any prints. These people weren’t like that.

Oh Witch

[he read] do not slay me, Spare me. His is the body.

The divine drummer declares that

When he rises with the dawn

He will sound his drums for

YOU in the morning

Very early, very early, very early, very early.

Oh Witch that slays the children of men before they

are fully matured

Oh Witch that slays the children of men before they

are fully matured

The divine drummer declares that

When he rises with the dawn

He will sound his drums for

YOU in the morning

Very early, very early, very early, very early.

   We are addressing

YOU And YOU will understand.

Bond lay down on his bed and thought. Then he folded the paper and put it in his pocket-book. He lay on his back and looked at nothing, waiting for daybreak.

Live and Let Die

CHAPTER XII

THE

EVERGLADES

IT was around

five o’clock

in the morning when they slipped off the train at

Jacksonville

.

It was still dark and the naked platforms of the great

Florida

junction were sparsely lit. The entrance to the subway was only a few yards from Car 245 and there was no sign of life on the sleeping train as they dived down the steps. Bond had told the attendant to keep the door of their compartment locked after they had gone and the blinds drawn and he thought there was quite a chance they would not be missed until the train reached

St. Petersburg

.

They came out of the subway into the booking-hall. Bond verified that the next express for St. Petersburg would be the Silver Meteor, the sister train of the Phantom, due at about nine o’clock, and he booked two Pullman seats on it. Then he took Solitaire’s arm and they walked out of the station into the warm dark street.

There were two or three all-night diners to choose from and they pushed through the door that announced ‘Good Eats’ in the brightest neon. It was the usual sleazy food-machine — two tired waitresses behind a zinc counter loaded with cigarettes and candy and paper-backs and comics. There was a big coffee percolator and a row of butane gas-rings. A door marked ‘Restroom’ concealed its dreadful secrets next to a door marked ‘Private’ which was probably the back entrance. A group of overalled men at one of the dozen stained crueted tables looked up briefly as they came in and then resumed their low conversation. Relief crews for the Diesels, Bond guessed.

There were four narrow booths on the right of the entrance and Bond and Solitaire slipped into one of them. They looked dully at the stained menu card.

After a time, one of the waitresses sauntered over and stood leaning against the partition, running her eyes over Solitaire’s clothes.

‘Orange juice, coffee, scrambled eggs, twice,’ said Bond briefly.

‘Kay,’ said the girl. Her shoes lethargically scuffed the floor as she sauntered away.

‘The scrambled eggs’ll be cooked with milk,’ said Bond. ‘But one can’t eat boiled eggs in

America

. They look so disgusting without their shells, mixed up in a tea-cup the way they do them here. God knows where they learned the trick. From

Germany

, I suppose. And bad American coffee’s the worst in the world, worse even than in

England

. I suppose they can’t do much harm to the orange juice. After all we are in

Florida

now.’ He suddenly felt depressed by the thought of their four-hour wait in this unwashed, dog-eared atmosphere.

‘Everybody’s making easy money in

America

these days,’ said Solitaire. ‘That’s always bad for the customer. All they want is to strip a quick dollar off you and toss you out. Wait till you get down to the coast. At this time of the year,

Florida

’s the biggest sucker-trap on earth. On the East Coast they fleece the millionaires. Where we’re going they just take it off the little man. Serves him right, of course. He goes there to die. He can’t take it with him.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ said Bond, ‘what sort of a place are we going to?’

‘Everybody’s nearly dead in

St. Petersburg

,’ explained Solitaire. ‘It’s the Great American Graveyard. When the bank clerk or the post-office worker or the railroad conductor reaches sixty he collects his pension or his annuity and goes to

St. Petersburg

to get a few years’ sunshine before he dies. It’s called “The Sunshine City”. The weather’s so good that the evening paper there, The Independent, is given away free any day the sun hasn’t shone by edition time. It only happens three or four times a year and it’s a fine advertisement. Everybody goes to bed around

nine o’clock

in the evening and during the day the old folks play shuffleboard and bridge, herds of them. There’s a couple of baseball teams down there, the “Kids” and the “Kubs”, all over seventy-five! Then they play bowls, but most of the time they sit squashed together in droves on things called “Sidewalk Davenports”, rows of benches up and down the sidewalks of the main streets. They just sit in the sun and gossip and doze. It’s a terrifying sight, all these old people with their spectacles and hearing-aids and clicking false-teeth.’

‘Sounds pretty grim,’ said Bond. ‘Why the hell did Mr. Big choose this place to operate from?’

‘It’s perfect for him,’ said Solitaire seriously. ‘There’s practically no crime, except cheating at bridge and Canasta. So there’s a very small police force. There’s quite a big Coastguard Station but it’s mainly concerned with smuggling between

Tampa

and

Cuba

, and sponge-fishing out of season at Tarpon Springs. I don’t really know what he does there except that he’s got a big agent called “The Robber”. Something to do with

Cuba

, I expect,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘Probably mixed up with Communism. I believe

Cuba

conies under

Harlem

and runs red agents all through the

Caribbean

.

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘

St. Petersburg

is probably the most innocent town in

America

. Everything’s very “folksy” and “gracious”. It’s true there’s a place called “The Res-torium”, a hospital for alcoholics. But very old ones, I suppose,’ she laughed, ‘and I expect they’re past doing anyone any harm. You’ll love it,’ she smiled maliciously at Bond. ‘You’ll probably want to settle down there for life and be an “Oldster” too. That’s the great word down there… “oldster”.’

‘God forbid,’ said Bond fervently. ‘It sounds rather like

Bournemouth

or Torquay. But a million times worse. I hope we don’t get into a shooting match with “The Robber” and his friends. We’d probably hurry a few hundred oldsters off to the cemetery with heart-failure. But isn’t there anyone young in this place?’

‘Oh yes,’ laughed Solitaire. ‘Plenty of them. All the local inhabitants who take the money off the oldsters, for instance. The people who own the motels and the trailer-camps. You could make plenty of money running the bingo tournaments. I’ll be your “barker” — the girl outside who gets the suckers in. Dear Mr. Bond,’ she reached over and pressed his hand, ‘will you settle down with me and grow old gracefully in

St. Petersburg

?’

Bond sat back and looked at her critically. ‘I want a long time of disgraceful living with you first,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’m probably better at that. But it suits me that they go to bed at nine down there.’

Her eyes smiled back at him. She took her hand away from his as their breakfast arrived. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You go to bed at nine. Then I shall slip out by the back door and go on the tiles with the Kids and the Kubs.’

The breakfast was as bad as Bond had prophesied.

When they had paid they wandered over to the station waiting-room.

The sun had risen and the light swarmed in dusty bars into the vaulted, empty hall. They sat together in a corner and until the Silver Meteor came in Bond plied her with questions about The Big Man and all she could tell him about his operations.

Occasionally he made a note of a date or a name but there was little she could add to what he knew. She had an apartment to herself in the same

Harlem

block as Mr. Big and she had been kept virtually a prisoner there for the past year. She had two tough negresses as ‘companions’ and was never allowed out without a guard.

From time to time Mr. Big would have her brought over to the room where Bond had seen him. There she would be told to divine whether some man or woman, generally bound to the chair, was lying or not. She varied her replies according to whether she sensed these people were good or evil. She knew that her verdict might often be a death sentence but she felt indifferent to the fate of those she judged to be evil. Very few of them were white.

Bond jotted down the dates and details of all these occasions.

Everything she told him added to the picture of a very powerful and active man, ruthless and cruel, commanding a huge network of operations.

All she knew of the gold coins was that she had several times had to question men on how many they had passed and the price they had been paid for them. Very often, she said, they were lying on both counts.

Bond was careful to divulge-very little of what he himself knew or guessed. His growing warmth towards Solitaire and his desire for her body were in a compartment which had no communicating door with his professional life.

The Silver Meteor came in on time and they were both relieved to be on their way again and to get away from the dreary world of the big junction.

The train sped on down through

Florida

, through the forests and swamps, stark and bewitched with Spanish moss, and through the mile upon mile of citrus groves.

All through the centre of the state the moss lent a dead, spectral feeling to the landscape. Even the little townships through which they passed had a grey skeletal aspect with their dried-up, sun-sucked clapboard houses. Only the citrus groves laden with fruit looked green and alive. Everything else seemed baked and desiccated with the heat.

Looking out at the gloomy silent withered forests, Bond thought that nothing could be living in them except bats and scorpions, horned toads and black widow spiders.

They had lunch and then suddenly the train was running along the

Gulf of Mexico

, through the mangrove swamps and palm groves, endless motels and caravan sites, and Bond caught the smell of the other

Florida

, the

Florida

of the advertisements, the land of ‘Miss Orange Blossom I954′.

They left the train at

Clearwater

, the last station before

St. Petersburg

. Bond took a cab and gave the address on

Treasure Island

, half an hour’s drive away. It was

two o’clock

and the sun blazed down out of a cloudless sky. Solitaire insisted on taking off her hat and veil. ‘It’s sticking to my face,’ she said. ‘Hardly a soul has ever seen me down here.’

A big negro with a face pitted with ancient smallpox was held up in his cab at the same time as they were checked at the intersection of Park Street and Central Avenue, where the Avenue runs on to the long Treasure Island causeway across the shallow waters of Boca Ciega Bay.

When the negro saw Solitaire’s profile his mouth fell open. He pulled his cab into the kerb and dived into a drugstore. He called a

St. Petersburg

number.

‘Dis is Poxy,’ he said urgently into the mouthpiece. ‘Gimme da Robber’n step on it. Dat you, Robber? Lissen, Da Big Man muss be n’town. Whaddya mean yuh jes talked wit him ‘n

New York

? Ah jes seen his gal ‘n a Clear-water cab, one of da Stassen Company’s. Headin’ over da Causeway. Sho Ahm sartin. Cross ma heart. Couldn mistake dat eyeful. Wid a man ‘n a blue suit, grey Stetson. Seemed like a scar down his face. Whaddya mean, follow ‘em? Ah jes couldn believe yuh wouldn tell me da Big Man wuz ‘n town ef he wuz. Thought mebbe Ahd better check ‘n make sho. Okay, okay. Ah’ll ketch da cab when he comes back over da Causeway, else at

Clearwater

. Okay, okay. Keep yo shirt on. Ah ain’t done nuthen wrong.’

The man called ‘The Robber’ was through to

New York

in five minutes. He had been warned about Bond but he couldn’t understand where Solitaire tied in to the picture. When he had finished talking to The Big Man he still didn’t know, but his instructions were quite definite.

He rang off and sat for a while drumming his fingers on his desk. Ten Grand for the job. He’d need two men. That would leave eight Grand for him. He licked his lips and called a poolroom in a downtown bar in

Tampa

.

Bond paid off the cab at The Everglades, a group of neat white-and-yellow clapboard cottages set on three sides of a square of Bahama grass which ran fifty yards down to a bone-white beach and then to the sea. From there, the whole