by Ian Fleming
The voice was soft and even, without expression. There was a slight mixture of accents, American and French, but the English was almost pedantically accurate, without a trace of slang.
Bond remained silent. He assumed that Moscow had signalled his description.
‘It is necessary for you to reply, Mister Bond. The fate of both of you depends upon your doing so. I have confidence in the sources of my information. I know much more than I have said. I shall easily detect a lie.’
Bond believed him. He chose a story he could support and which would cover the facts.
‘There are English gold coins circulating in America. Edward IV Rose Nobles,’ he said. ‘Some have been sold in Harlem. The American Treasury asked for assistance in tracing them since they must come from a British source. I came up to Harlem to see for myself, with a representative of the American Treasury, who I hope is now safely on his way back to his hotel.’
‘Mr Leiter is a representative of the Central Intelligence Agency, not of the Treasury,’ said Mr Big without emotion. ‘His position at this moment is extremely precarious.’
He paused and seemed to reflect. He looked past Bond.
‘Tee-Hee.’
‘Yassuh, Boss.’
‘Tie Mr Bond to his chair.’
Bond half rose to his feet.
‘Don’t move, Mister Bond,’ said the voice softly. ‘You have a bare chance of survival if you stay where you are.’
Bond looked at The Big Man, at the golden, impassive eyes.
He lowered himself back into his chair. Immediately a broad strap was passed round his body and buckled tight. Two short straps went round his wrists and tied them to the leather and metal arms. Two more went round his ankles. He could hurl himself and the chair to the floor, but otherwise he was powerless.
Mr Big pressed down a switch on the intercom.
‘Send in Miss Solitaire,’ he said and centred the switch again.
There was a moment’s pause and then a section of the bookcase to the right of the desk swung open.
One of the most beautiful women Bond had ever seen came slowly in and closed the door behind her. She stood just inside the room and stood looking at Bond, taking him in slowly inch by inch, from his head to his feet. When she had completed her detailed inspection, she turned to Mr Big.
‘Yes?’ she inquired flatly.
Mr Big had not moved his head. He addressed Bond.
‘This is an extraordinary woman, Mister Bond,’ he said in the same quiet, soft voice, ‘and I am going to marry her because she is unique. I found her in a cabaret in Haiti, where she was born. She was doing a telepathic act which I could not understand. I looked into it and I still could not understand. There was nothing to understand. It was telepathy.’
Mr Big paused.
‘I tell you this to warn you. She is my inquisitor. Torture is messy and inconclusive. People tell you what will ease the pain. With this girl it is not necessary to use clumsy methods. She can divine the truth in people. That is why she is to be my wife. She is too valuable to remain at liberty. And,’ he continued blandly, ‘it will be interesting to see our children.’
Mr Big turned towards her and gazed at her impassively.
‘For the time being she is difficult. She will have nothing to do with men. That is why, in Haiti, she was called “Solitaire.”’
‘Draw up a chair,’ he said quietly to her. ‘Tell me if this man lies. Keep clear of the gun,’ he added.
The girl said nothing but took a chair similar to Bond’s from beside the wall and pushed it towards him. She sat down, almost touching his right knee. She looked into his eyes.
Her face was pale, with the pallor of white families that have lived long in the tropics. But it contained no trace of the usual exhaustion which the tropics impart to the skin and hair. The eyes were blue, alight and disdainful, but, as they gazed into his with a touch of humour, he realized they contained some message for him personally. It quickly vanished as his own eyes answered. Her hair was blue-black and fell heavily to her shoulders. She had high cheekbones and a wide, sensual mouth which held a hint of cruelty. Her jawline was delicate and finely cut. It showed decision and an iron will which were repeated in the straight, pointed nose. Part of the beauty of the face lay in its lack of compromise. It was a face born to command. The face of the daughter of a French Colonial slave-owner.
She wore a long evening dress of heavy white matt silk whose classical line was broken by the deep folds which fell from her shoulders and revealed the upper half of her breasts. She wore diamond earrings, square-cut in broken bands, and a thin diamond bracelet on her left wrist. She wore no rings. Her nails were short and without enamel.
She watched his eyes on her and nonchalantly drew her forearms together in her lap so that the valley between her breasts deepened.
The message was unmistakable and an answering warmth must have showed on Bond’s cold, drawn face, for suddenly The Big Man picked up the small ivory whip from the desk beside him and lashed across at her, the thong whistling through the air and landing with a cruel bite across her shoulders.
Bond winced even more than she did. Her eyes blazed for an instant and then went opaque.
‘Sit up,’ said The Big Man softly, ‘you forget yourself.’
She sat slowly more upright. She had a pack of cards in her hands and she started to shuffle them. Then, out of bravado perhaps, she sent him yet another message — of complicity and of more than complicity.
Between her hands, she faced the knave of hearts. Then the queen of spades. She held the two halves of the pack in her lap so that the two court cards looked at each other. She brought the two halves of the pack together until they kissed. Then she riffled the cards and shuffled them again.
At no moment of this dumb show did she look at Bond, and it was all over in an instant. But Bond felt a glow of excitement and a quickening of the pulse. He had a friend in the enemy’s camp.
‘Are you ready, Solitaire?’ asked The Big Man.
‘Yes, the cards are ready,’ said the girl, in a low, cool voice.
‘Mister Bond, look into the eyes of this girl and repeat the reason for your presence here which you gave me just now.’
Bond looked into her eyes. There was no message. They were not focused on his. They looked through him.
He repeated what he had said.
For a moment he felt an uncanny thrill. Could this girl tell? If she could tell, would she speak for him or against him?
For a moment there was dead silence in the room. Bond tried to look indifferent. He gazed up at the ceiling — then back at her.
Her eyes came back into focus. She turned away from him and looked at Mr Big.
‘He speaks the truth,’ she said coldly.
Chapter 8
No Sensayuma
Mr Big reflected for a moment. He seemed to decide. He pressed a switch on the intercom.
‘Blabbermouth?’
‘Yassuh, Boss.’
‘You’re holding that American, Leiter.’
‘Yassuh.’
‘Hurt him considerably. Ride him down to Bellevue Hospital and dump him nearby. Got that?’
‘Yassuh.’
‘Don’t be seen.’
‘Nossuh.’
Mr Big centred the switch.
‘God damn your bloody eyes,’ said Bond viciously. ‘The CIA won’t let you get away with this!’
‘You forget, Mister Bond. They have no jurisdiction in America. The American Secret Service has no power in America — only abroad. And the FBI are no friends of theirs. Tee-Hee, come here.’
‘Yassuh, Boss.’ Tee-Hee came and stood beside the desk.
Mr Big looked across at Bond.
‘Which finger do you use least, Mister Bond?’
Bond was startled by the question. His mind raced.
‘On reflection, I expect you will say the little finger of the left hand,’ continued the soft voice. ‘Tee-Hee, break the little finger
of Mr Bond’s left hand.’
The negro showed the reason for his nickname.
‘Hee-hee,’ he gave a falsetto giggle. ‘Hee-hee.’
He walked jauntily over to Bond. Bond clutched madly at the arms of his chair. Sweat started to break out on his forehead. He tried to imagine the pain so that he could control it.
The negro slowly unhinged the little finger of Bond’s left hand, immovably bound to the arm of his chair.
He held the tip between finger and thumb and very deliberately started to bend it back, giggling inanely to himself.
Bond rolled and heaved, trying to upset the chair, but Tee-Hee put his other hand on the chair-back and held it there. The sweat poured off Bond’s face. His teeth started to bare in an involuntary rictus. Through the increasing pain he could just see the girl’s eyes wide upon him, her red lips slightly parted.
The finger stood upright, away from the hand. Started to bend slowly backwards towards his wrist. Suddenly it gave. There was a sharp crack.
‘That will do,’ said Mr Big.
Tee-Hee released the mangled finger with reluctance.
Bond uttered a soft animal groan and fainted.
‘Da guy ain’t got no sensayuma,’ commented Tee-Hee.
Solitaire sat limply back in her chair and closed her eyes.
‘Did he have a gun?’ asked Mr Big.
‘Yassuh.’ Tee-Hee took Bond’s Beretta out of his pocket and slipped it across the desk. The Big Man picked it up and looked at it expertly. He weighed it in his hand, testing the feel of the skeleton grip. Then he pumped the shells out on to the desk, verified that he had also emptied the chamber and slid it over towards Bond.
‘Wake him up,’ he said, looking at his watch. It said three o’clock.
Tee-Hee went behind Bond’s chair and dug his nails into the lobes of Bond’s ears.
Bond groaned and lifted his head.
His eyes focused on Mr Big and he uttered a string of obscenities.
‘Be thankful you’re not dead,’ said Mr Big without emotion. ‘Any pain is preferable to death. Here is your gun. I have the shells. Tee-Hee, give it back to him.’
Tee-Hee took it off the desk and slipped it back into Bond’s holster.
‘I will explain to you briefly,’ continued The Big Man, ‘why it is that you are not dead; why you have been permitted to enjoy the sensation of pain instead of adding to the pollution of the Harlem River from the folds of what is jocularly known as a cement overcoat.’
He paused for a moment and then spoke.
‘Mister Bond, I suffer from boredom. I am a prey to what the early Christians called “accidie,” the deadly lethargy that envelops those who are sated, those who have no more desires. I am absolutely pre-eminent in my chosen profession, trusted by those who occasionally employ my talents, feared and instantly obeyed by those whom I myself employ. I have, literally, no more worlds to conquer within my chosen orbit. Alas, it is too late in my life to change that orbit for another one, and since power is the goal of all ambition, it is unlikely that I could possibly acquire more power in another sphere than I already possess in this one.’
Bond listened with part of his mind. With the other half he was already planning. He sensed the presence of Solitaire, but he kept his eyes off her. He gazed steadily across the table at the great grey face with its unwinking golden eyes.
The soft voice continued.
‘Mister Bond, I take pleasure now only in artistry, in the polish and finesse which I can bring to my operations. It has become almost a mania with me to impart an absolute rightness, a high elegance, to the execution of my affairs. Each day, Mister Bond, I try and set myself still higher standards of subtlety and technical polish so that each of my proceedings may be a work of art, bearing my signature as clearly as the creations of, let us say, Benvenuto Cellini. I am content, for the time being, to be my only judge, but I sincerely believe, Mister Bond, that the approach to perfection which I am steadily achieving in my operations will ultimately win recognition in the history of our times.’
Mr Big paused. Bond saw that his great yellow eyes were wide, as if he saw visions. He’s a raving megalomaniac, thought Bond. And all the more dangerous because of it. The fault in most criminal minds was that greed was their only impulse. A dedicated mind was quite another matter. This man was no gangster. He was a menace. Bond was fascinated and slightly awestruck.
‘I accept anonymity for two reasons,’ continued the low voice. ‘Because the nature of my operations demands it and because I admire the self-negation of the anonymous artist. If you will allow the conceit, I see myself sometimes as one of those great Egyptian fresco painters who devoted their lives to producing masterpieces in the tombs of kings, knowing that no living eye would ever see them.’
The great eyes closed for a moment.
‘However, let us return to the particular. The reason, Mister Bond, why I have not killed you this morning is because it would give me no aesthetic pleasure to blow a hole in your stomach. With this engine,’ he gestured towards the gun trained on Bond through the desk drawer, ‘I have already blown many holes in many stomachs, so I am quite satisfied that my little mechanical toy is a sound technical achievement. Moreover, as no doubt you rightly surmise, it would be a nuisance for me to have a lot of busybodies around here asking questions about the disappearance of yourself and your friend Mr Leiter. Not more than a nuisance; but for various reasons I wish to concentrate on other matters at the present time.
‘So,’ Mr Big looked at his watch, ‘I decided to leave my card upon each of you and to give you one more solemn warning. You must leave the country today, and Mr Leiter must transfer to another assignment. I have quite enough to bother me without having a lot of agents from Europe added to the considerable strength of local busybodies with which I have to contend.
‘That is all,’ he concluded. ‘If I see you again, you will die in a manner as ingenious and appropriate as I can devise on that day.
‘Tee-Hee, take Mr Bond to the garage. Tell two of the men to take him to Central Park and throw him in the ornamental water. He may be damaged but not killed if he resists. Understood?’
‘Yassuh, Boss,’ said Tee-Hee, giggling in a high falsetto.
He undid Bond’s ankles, then his wrists. He took Bond’s injured hand and twisted it right up his back. Then with his other hand he undid the strap round his waist. He yanked Bond to his feet.
‘Giddap,’ said Tee-Hee.
Bond gazed once more into the great grey face.
‘Those who deserve to die,’ he paused, ‘die the death they deserve. Write that down,’ he added. ‘It’s an original thought.’
Then he glanced at Solitaire. Her eyes were bent on the hands in her lap. She didn’t look up.
‘Git goin,’’ said Tee-Hee. He turned Bond round towards the wall and pushed him forward, twisting Bond’s wrist up his back until his forearm was almost dislocated. Bond uttered a realistic groan and his footsteps faltered. He wanted Tee-Hee to believe that he was cowed and docile. He wanted the torturing grip to ease just a little on his left arm. As it was, any sudden movement would only result in his arm being broken.
Tee-Hee reached over Bond’s shoulder and pressed on one of the books in the serried shelves. A large section opened on a central pivot. Bond was pushed through and the negro kicked the heavy section back into place. It closed with a double click. From the thickness of the door, Bond guessed it would be sound-proof. They were faced by a short carpeted passage ending in some stairs that led downwards. Bond groaned.
‘You’re breaking my arm,’ he said. ‘Look out. I’m going to faint.’
He stumbled again, trying to measure exactly the negro’s position behind him. He remembered Leiter’s injunction: ‘Shins, groin, stomach, throat. Hit ’em anywhere else and you’ll just break your hand.’
‘Shut yo mouf,’ said the negro, but he pulled Bond’s hand an inch or two down his back.
This was all Bond needed.
/> They were half way down the passage with only a few feet more to the top of the stairs. Bond faltered again, so that the negro’s body bumped into his. This gave him all the range and direction he needed.
He bent a little and his right hand, straight and flat as a board, whipped round and inwards. He felt it thud hard into the target. The negro screamed shrilly like a wounded rabbit. Bond felt his left arm come free. He whirled round, pulling out his empty gun with his right hand. The negro was bent double, his hands between his legs, uttering little panting screams. Bond whipped the gun down hard on the back of the woolly skull. It gave back a dull klonk as if he had hammered on a door, but the negro groaned and fell forward on his knees, throwing out his hands for support. Bond got behind him and, with all the force he could put behind the steel-capped shoe, he gave one mighty kick below the lavender-coloured seat of the negro’s pants.
A final short scream was driven out of the man as he sailed the few feet to the stairs. His head hit the side of the iron banisters and then, a twisting wheel of arms and legs, he disappeared over the edge, down into the well. There was a short crash as he caromed off some obstacle, then a pause, then a mingled thud and crack as he hit the ground. Then silence.
Bond wiped the sweat out of his eyes and stood listening. He thrust his wounded left hand into his coat. It was throbbing with pain and swollen to almost twice its normal size. Holding his gun in his right hand, he walked to the head of the stairs and slowly down, moving softly on the balls of his feet.
There was only one floor between him and the spread-eagled body below. When he reached the landing, he stopped again and listened. Quite close, he could hear the high-pitched whine of some form of fast wireless transmitter. He verified that it came from behind one of the two doors on the landing. This must be Mr Big’s communications centre. He longed to carry out a quick raid. But his gun was empty and he had no idea how many men he would find in the room. It could only have been the earphones on their ears that had prevented the operators from hearing the sounds of Tee-Hee’s fall. He crept on down.
Tee-Hee was either dead or dying. He lay spread-eagled on his back. His striped tie lay across his face like a squashed adder. Bond felt no remorse. He frisked the body for a gun and found one stuck in the waistband of the lavender trousers, now stained with blood. It was a Colt .38 Detective Special with a sawn barrel. All chambers were loaded. Bond slipped the useless Beretta back in its holster. He nestled the big gun into his palm and smiled grimly.