The James Bond Anthology

11 | BALLCOCK, AND OTHER, TROUBLE

Scaramanga walked to the door and turned the lights on. He was naked save for his shorts and the holster below his left arm. The golden gun remained trained on Bond as he moved.

Bond looked at him incredulously, then to the carpet inside the door. The wedges were still there, undisturbed. He could not possibly have got through the window unaided. Then he saw that his clothes cupboard stood open and that light showed through into the next room. It was the simplest of secret doors – just the whole of the back of the cupboard, impossible to detect from Bond’s side of the wall and, on the other, probably, in appearance, a locked communicating door.

Scaramanga came back into the centre of the room and stood looking at them both. His mouth and eyes sneered. He said, ‘I didn’t see this piece of tail in the line-up. Where you been keeping it, buster? And why d’you have to hide it away in the bathroom? Like doing it under the shower?’

Bond said, ‘We’re engaged to be married. She works in the British High Commissioner’s Office in Kingston. Cypher clerk. She found out where I was staying from that place you and I met. She came out to tell me that my mother’s in hospital in London. Had a bad fall. Her name’s Mary Goodnight. What’s wrong with that and what do you mean coming busting into my room in the middle of the night waving a gun about? And kindly keep your foul tongue to yourself.’ Bond was pleased with his bluster and decided to take the next step towards Mary Goodnight’s freedom. He dropped his hands to his sides and turned to the girl. ‘Put your hands down, Mary. Mr Scaramanga must have thought there were burglars about when he heard that window bang. Now, I’ll get some clothes on and take you out to your car. You’ve got a long drive back to Kingston. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay here for the rest of the night? I’m sure Mr Scaramanga could find us a spare room.’ He turned back to Mr Scaramanga. ‘It’s all right, Mr Scaramanga, I’ll pay for it.’

Mary Goodnight chipped in. She had dropped her hands. She picked up her small bag from the bed where she had thrown it, opened it and began busying herself with her hair in a fussy, feminine way. She chattered, falling in well with Bond’s bland piece of very British ‘Now-look-here-my man-manship’. ‘No, honestly, darling, I really think I’d better go. I’d be in terrible trouble if I was late at the office and the Prime Minister, Sir Alexander Bustamante, you know he’s just had his eightieth birthday, well he’s coming to lunch and you know His Excellency always likes me to do the flowers and arrange the place cards and as a matter of fact,’ she turned charmingly towards Mr Scaramanga, ‘it’s quite a day for me. The party was going to make up thirteen so His Excellency has asked me to be the fourteenth. Isn’t that marvellous? But heaven knows what I’m going to look like after tonight. The roads really are terrible in parts aren’t they, Mr – er – Scramble. But there it is. And I do apologize for causing all this disturbance and keeping you from your beauty sleep.’ She went towards him like the Queen Mother opening a bazaar, her hand outstretched. ‘Now you run along off back to bed again and my fiancé’ (Thank God she hadn’t said James! The girl was inspired!) ‘’ll see me safely off the premises. Goodbye, Mr, er…’

James Bond was proud of her. It was almost pure Joyce Grenfell. But Scaramanga wasn’t going to be taken by any double talk, limey or otherwise. She almost had Bond covered from Scaramanga. He moved swiftly aside. He said, ‘Hold it, lady. And you, mister, stand where you are.’ Mary Goodnight let her hand drop to her side. She looked inquiringly at Scaramanga as if he had just rejected the cucumber sandwiches. Really! These Americans! The Golden Gun didn’t go for polite conversation. It held dead steady between the two of them. Scaramanga said to Bond, ‘Okay, I’ll buy it. Put her through the window again. Then I’ve got something to say to you.’ He waved his gun at the girl. ‘Okay, bimbo. Get going. And don’t come trespassing on other people’s lands again. Right? And you can tell His friggin’ Excellency where to shove his place cards. His writ don’t run over the Thunderbird. Mine does. Got the photo? Okay. Don’t bust your stays getting through the window.’

Mary Goodnight said icily, ‘Very good, Mr, er…I will deliver your message. I’m sure the High Commissioner will take more careful note than he has done of your presence on the island. And the Jamaican Government also.’

Bond reached out and took her arm. She was on the edge of overplaying her role. He said, ‘Come on, Mary. And please tell mother that I’ll be through here in a day or two and I’ll be telephoning her from Kingston.’ He led her to the window and helped, or rather bundled her out. She gave a brief wave and ran off across the lawn. Bond came away from the window with considerable relief. He hadn’t expected the ghastly mess to sort itself out so painlessly.

He went and sat down on his bed. He sat on the pillow. He was reassured to feel the hard shape of his gun against his thighs. He looked across at Scaramanga. The man had put his gun back in the shoulder holster. He leant up against the clothes cupboard and ran his finger reflectively along the black line of his moustache. He said, ‘High Commissioner’s Office. That also houses the local representative of your famous Secret Service. I suppose, Mister Hazard, that your real name wouldn’t be James Bond? You showed quite a turn of speed with the gun tonight. I seem to have read somewhere that this man Bond fancies himself with the hardware. I also have information to the effect that he’s somewhere in the Caribbean and that he’s looking for me. Funny coincidence department, eh?’

Bond laughed easily. ‘I thought the Secret Service packed up at the end of the war. Anyway, ’fraid I can’t change my identity to suit your book. All you’ve got to do in the morning is ring up Frome and ask for Mr Tony Hugill, the boss up there, and check on my story. And can you explain how this Bond chap could possibly have tracked you down to a brothel in Sav’ La Mar? And what does he want from you anyway?’

Scaramanga contemplated him silently for a while. Then he said, ‘Guess he may be lookin’ for a shootin’ lesson. Be glad to oblige him. But you’ve got something about Number 3½. That’s what I figgered when I hired you. But coincidence doesn’t come in that size. Mebbe I should have thought again. I said from the first I smelled cops. That girl may be your fiancée or she may not, but that ploy with the shower bath. That’s an old hood’s trick. Probably a Secret Service one too. Unless, that is, you were screwin’ her.’ He raised one eyebrow.

‘I was. Anything wrong with that? What have you been doing with the Chinese girl? Playing mah-jongg?’ Bond got to his feet. He stitched impatience and outrage on his face in equal quantities. ‘Now look here, Mr Scaramanga. I’ve had just about enough of this. Just stop leaning on me. You go around waving that damned gun of yours and acting like God Almighty and insinuating a lot of tommy-rot about the Secret Service and you expect me to kneel down and lick your boots. Well, my friend, you’ve come to the wrong address. If you’re dissatisfied with the job I’m doing, just hand over the thousand dollars and I’ll be on my way. Who in hell d’you think you are anyway?’

Scaramanga smiled his thin, cruel smile. ‘You may be getting wise to that sooner than you think, shamus.’ He shrugged. ‘Okay, okay. But just you remember this, mister. If it turns out you’re not who you say you are, I’ll blow you to bits. Get me? And I’ll start with the little bits and go on to the bigger ones. Just so it lasts a heck of a long time. Right? Now you’d better get some shut-eye. I’ve got a meeting with Mr Hendriks at ten in the conference room. And I don’t want to be disturbed. After that the whole party goes on an excursion on the railroad I was tellin’ you about. It’ll be your job to see that that gets properly organized. Talk to the manager first thing. Right? Okay, then. Be seeing ya.’ Scaramanga walked into the clothes cupboard, brushed Bond’s suit aside and disappeared. There came a decisive click from the next room. Bond got to his feet. He said ‘Phew!’ at the top of his voice and walked off into the bathroom to wash the last two hours away in the shower.

He awoke at 6.30, by arrangement with that curious extrasensory alarm clock that some people keep in their heads and that always seems to know the exact time. He put on his bathing trunks and went out to the beach and did his long swim again. When at 7.15 he saw Scaramanga come out of the East Wing followed by the boy carrying his towel, he made for the shore. He listened for the twanging thump of the trampoline and then, keeping well out of sight of it, entered the hotel by the main entrance and moved quickly down the corridor to his room. He listened at his window to make sure the man was still exercising, then he took the master key Nick Nicholson had given him and slipped across the corridor to No. 20 and was quickly inside. He left the door on the latch. Yes, there was his target, lying on the dressing-table. He strode across the room, picked up the gun and slipped out the round in the cylinder that would next come up for firing. He put the gun down exactly as he had found it, got back to the door, listened, and then was out and across the corridor and into his own room. He went back to the window and listened. Yes, Scaramanga was still at it. It was an amateurish ploy that Bond had executed, but it might gain him just that fraction of a second that, he felt it in his bones, was going to be life or death for him in the next twenty-four hours. In his mind, he smelled that slight whiff of smoke that indicated that his cover was smouldering at the edges. At any moment ‘Mark Hazard of the Transworld Consortium’ might go up in flames like some clumsy effigy on Guy Fawkes Night and James Bond would stand there, revealed, with nothing between him and a possible force of six other gunmen but his own quick hand and the Walther PPK. So every shade of odds that he could shift to his side of the board would be worthwhile. Undismayed by the prospect, in fact rather excited by it, he ordered a large breakfast, consumed it with relish and after pulling the connecting pin out of the ballcock in his lavatory he went along to the manager’s office.

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 connected directly with the operator.’

‘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 connecting door with my office. Leave it for ten minutes while I run back the tape of what this bastard’s saying. I heard the call was coming through. Don’t like the sound of it. May be your worry.’ He gave a little bow and waved Bond towards the central table with magazines on it. ‘If you’ll just take a seat for a few moments, sir, and then I’ll take care of you.’

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 inner office. He said something to Nicholson and came over to Bond. There was a pale, pinched look round his mouth. He said, ‘And now, if you’ll follow me, sir.’ He led the way across the lobby, unlocked the men’s room door, followed Bond in and locked the door behind him. They stood among the carpentry work by the wash-basins. Leiter said tensely, ‘I guess you’ve had it, James. They were talking Russian, but your name and number kept on cropping up. Guess you’d better get out of here just as quickly as that old jalopy of yours’ll carry you.’

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 reconnoitred the route for it all.’ He raised the thumb of his left hand and pinged the end of his steel hook thoughtfully. ‘Ye-e-e-s. It’s going to mean some quick action and a heap of luck and I’ll have to get the hell up to Frome for some supplies from your friend Hugill. Will he hand over some gear on your say-so? Okay, then. Come into my office and write him a note. It’s only a half-hour’s drive and Nick can hold the front desk for that time. Come on.’ He opened a side door and went through into his office. He beckoned Bond to follow and shut the door behind him. At Leiter’s dictation, Bond took down the note to the manager of the WISCO sugar estates and then went out and along to his room. He took a strong nip of straight bourbon and sat on the edge of his bed and looked unseeingly out of the window and across the lawn to the sea’s horizon. Like a dozing hound chasing a rabbit in its dreams, or like the audience at an athletics meeting that lifts a leg to help the high-jumper over the bar, every now and then, his right hand twitched involuntarily. In his mind’s eye, in a variety of imagined circumstances, it was leaping for his gun.

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.