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Felix Leiter was on duty. He gave a thin managerial smile and said, ‘Good morning, Mr Hazard. Can I help you?’ Leiter’s eyes were looking beyond Bond, over his right shoulder. Mr Hendriks materialized at the desk before Bond could answer.
Bond said, ‘Good morning.’
Mr Hendriks replied with his little Germanic bow. He said to Leiter, ‘The telephone operator is saying that there is a long-distance call from my office in Havana. Where is the most private place to take it, pliss?’
‘Not in your bedroom, sir?’
‘Is not sufficiently private.’
Bond guessed that he too had bowled out the microphone.
Leiter looked helpful. He came out from behind his desk. ‘Just over here, sir. The lobby telephone. This box is soundproof.’
Mr Hendriks looked stonily at him. ‘And the machine. That also is soundproof?’
Leiter looked politely puzzled. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir. It is co
‘Is no matter. Show me, pliss.’ Mr Hendriks followed Leiter to the far corner of the lobby and was shown into the booth. He carefully closed the leather-padded door and picked up the receiver and talked into it. Then he stood waiting, watching Leiter come back across the marble floor and speak deferentially to Bond. ‘You were saying, sir?’
‘It’s my lavatory. Something wrong with the ballcock. Is there anywhere else?’
‘I’m so sorry, sir. I’ll have the house engineer look at it at once. Yes, certainly. There’s the lobby toilet. The decoration isn’t completed and it’s not officially in use, but it’s in perfectly good working order.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And there’s a co
Bond nodded his thanks and turned away. In the booth, Hendriks was talking. His eyes were fixed on Bond with a terrible intensity. Bond felt the skin crawl at the base of his stomach. This was it all right! He sat down and picked up an old Wall Street Journal. Surreptitiously he tore a small piece out of the centre of page one. It could have been a tear at the cross-fold. He held the paper up at page two and watched Hendriks through the little hole.
Hendriks watched the back of the paper and talked and listened. He suddenly put down the receiver and came out of the booth. His face gleamed with sweat. He took out a clean white handkerchief and ran it over his face and neck and walked rapidly off down the corridor.
Nick Nicholson, as neat as a pin, came across the lobby and, with a courtly smile and a bow for Bond, took up his place behind the desk. It was 8.30. Five minutes later, Felix Leiter came out from the i
Bond smiled thinly. ‘Forewarned is forearmed, Felix. I knew it already. Hendriks has been told to rub me. Our old friend at K.G.B. headquarters, Semichastny, has got it in for me. I’ll tell you why one of these days.’ He told Leiter of the Mary Goodnight episode of the early hours. Leiter listened gloomily. Bond concluded, ‘So there’s no object in getting out now. We shall hear all the dope and probably their plans for me at this meeting at ten. Then they’ve got this excursion business afterwards. Personally I guess the shooting match’ll take place somewhere out in the country where there are no witnesses. Now, if you and Nick could work out something that’d upset the Away Engagement, I’ll make myself responsible for the home pitch.’
Leiter looked thoughtful. Some of the cloud lifted from his face. He said, ‘I know the plans for this afternoon. Off on this miniature train through the cane fields, picnic, then the boat out of Green Island Harbour, deep-sea fishing and all that. I’ve reco
Time passed and James Bond still sat there, occasionally smoking half-way through a Royal Blend and then absent-mindedly stubbing it out in the bed-table ash-tray. An observer would have made nothing of his thoughts. The pulse in his left temple was beating a little fast. There was some tension, but perhaps only the concentration applied to his thinking, in the slightly pursed lips, but the brooding, blue-grey eyes that saw nothing were relaxed, almost sleepy. It would have been impossible to guess that James Bond was contemplating the possibility of his own death later that day, feeling the soft-nosed bullets tearing into him, seeing his body jerking on the ground, his mouth perhaps screaming. Those were certainly part of his thoughts, but the twitching right hand was evidence that, in much of the whirring film of his thoughts, the enemy’s fire was not going unanswered – perhaps had even been anticipated.
James Bond gave a deep relaxed sigh. His eyes came back into focus. He looked at his watch. It said 9.50. He got up, ran both hands down his lean face with a scrubbing motion, and went out and along the corridor to the conference room.
12 | IN A GLASS, VERY DARKLY
The set-up was the same. Bond’s travel literature was on the buffet table where he had left it. He went through into the conference room. It had only been cursorily tidied. Scaramanga had probably said it was not to be entered by the staff. The chairs were roughly in position, but the ash-trays had not been emptied. There were no stains on the carpet and no signs of the carpet having been washed. It had probably been a single shot through the heart. With Scaramanga’s soft-nosed bullets, the internal damage would be devastating, but the fragments of the bullet would stay in the body and there would be no bleeding. Bond went round the table, ostentatiously positioning the chairs more accurately. He identified the one where Ruby Rotkopf must have sat, across the table from Scaramanga, because it had a cracked leg. He dutifully examined the windows and looked behind the curtains, doing his job. Scaramanga came into the room followed by Mr Hendriks. He said roughly, ‘Okay, Mr Hazard. Lock both doors like yesterday. No one to come in. Right?’