The James Bond Anthology

A pelican, grey with a pale yellow head, was hunched on one of the mooring posts at the end of the jetty. He let them get very close, then reluctantly gave a few heavy beats of his wings and planed down towards the water. The two men stood and watched him flying slowly along just above the surface of the harbour. Suddenly he crashed clumsily down, his long bill snaking out and down in front of him. It came up clutching a small fish which he moodily swallowed. Then the heavy bird got up again and went on fishing, flying mostly into the sun so that its big shadow would give no warning. When Bond and Leiter turned to walk back down the jetty it gave up fishing and glided back to its post. It settled with a clatter of wings and resumed its thoughtful consideration of the late afternoon.

The man was still bent over his gun, wiping the mechanism with an oily rag.

‘Good afternoon,’ said Leiter. ‘You the manager of this wharf?’

‘Yep,’ said the man without looking up.

‘Wondered if there was any chance of mooring my boat here. Basin’s pretty crowded.’

‘Nope.’

Leiter took out his notecase. ‘Would twenty talk?’

‘Nope.’ The man gave a rattling hawk in his throat and spat directly between Bond and Leiter.

‘Hey,’ said Leiter. ‘You want to watch your manners.’

The man deliberated. He looked up at Leiter. He had small, close-set eyes as cruel as a painless dentist’s.

‘What’s a name of your boat?’

‘The Sybil,’ said Leiter.

‘Ain’t no sich boat in the Basin,’ said the man. He clicked the breech shut on his rifle. It lay casually on his lap pointing down the approach to the warehouse, away from the sea.

‘You’re blind,’ said Leiter. ‘Been there a week. Sixty-foot twin-screw Diesel. White with a green awning. Rigged for fishing.’

The rifle started to move lazily in a low arc. The man’s left hand was at the trigger, his right just in front of the trigger-guard, pivoting the gun.

They stood still.

The man sat lazily looking down at the breech, his chair still tilted against the small door with the yellow Yale lock.

The gun slowly traversed Leiter’s stomach, then Bond’s. The two men stood like statues, not risking a move of the hand. The gun stopped pivoting. It was pointing down the wharf. The Robber looked briefly up, narrowed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The pelican gave a faint squawk and they heard its heavy body crash into the water. The echo of the shot boomed across the harbour.

‘What the hell d’you do that for?’ asked Bond furiously.

‘Practice,’ said the man, pumping another bullet into the breech.

‘Guess there’s a branch of the A.S.P.C.A. in this town,’ said Leiter. ‘Let’s get along there and report this guy.’

‘Want to be prosecuted for trespass?’ asked The Robber, getting slowly up and shifting the gun under his arm. ‘This is private property. Now,’ he spat the words out, ‘git the hell out of here.’ He turned and yanked the chair away from the door, opened the door with a key and turned with one foot on the threshold. ‘You both got guns,’ he said. ‘I kin smell ’em. You come aroun’ here again and you follow the boid ’n I plead self-defence. I’ve had a bellyful of you lousy dicks aroun’ here lately breathin’ down my neck. Sybil my ass!’ He turned contemptuously through the door and slammed it so that the frame rattled.

They looked at each other. Leiter grinned ruefully and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Round One to The Robber,’ he said.

They moved off down the dusty sideroad. The sun was setting and the sea behind them was a pool of blood. When they got to the main road, Bond looked back. A big arc light had come on over the door and the approach to the warehouse was stripped of shadows.

‘No good trying anything from the front,’ said Bond. ‘But there’s never been a warehouse with only one entrance.’

‘Just what I was thinking,’ said Leiter. ‘We’ll save that for the next visit.’

They got into the car and drove slowly home across Central Avenue.

On their way home Leiter asked a string of questions about Solitaire. Finally he said casually: ‘By the way, hope I fixed the rooms like you want them.’

‘Couldn’t be better,’ said Bond cheerfully.

‘Fine,’ said Leiter. ‘Just occurred to me you two might be hyphenating.’

‘You read too much Winchell,’ said Bond.

‘It’s just a delicate way of putting it,’ said Leiter. ‘Don’t forget the walls of those cottages are pretty thin. I use my ears for hearing with – not for collecting lipstick.’

Bond grabbed for a handkerchief. ‘You lousy, goddam sleuth,’ he said furiously.

Leiter watched him scrubbing at himself out of the corner of his eye. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked innocently. ‘I wasn’t for a moment suggesting the colour of your ears was anything but a natural red. However…’ He put a wealth of meaning into the word.

‘If you find yourself dead in your bed tonight,’ laughed Bond, ‘you’ll know who did it.’

They were still chaffing each other when they arrived at The Everglades and they were laughing when the grim Mrs Stuyvesant greeted them on the lawn.