The James Bond Anthology

Mr Krest slowly shook his head. He said sorrowfully: ‘Feller, you sure were born yesterday. Money, that’s all it takes. You want a panda? You buy it from some goddam zoo that can’t afford central heating for its reptile house or wants to build a new block for its tigers or something. The sea-shell? You find a man that’s got one and you offer him so much goddam money that even if he cries for a week he sells it to you. Sometimes you have a little trouble with Governments. Some goddam animal is protected or something. All right. Give you an example. I arrive at your island yesterday. I want a black parrot from Praslin Island. I want a giant tortoise from Aldabra. I want the complete range of your local cowries and I want this fish we’re after. The first two are protected by law. Last evening I pay a call on your Governor after making certain inquiries in the town. Excellency, I says, I understand you want to build a public swimming-pool to teach the local kids to swim. Okay. The Krest Foundation will put up the money. How much? Five thousand, ten thousand? Okay, so it’s ten thousand. Here’s my cheque. And I write it out there and then. Just one little thing, Excellency, I says, holding on to the cheque. It happens I want a specimen of this black parrot you have here and one of these Aldabra tortoises. I understand they’re protected by law. Mind if I take one of each back to America for the Smithsonian? Well, there’s a bit of a palaver, but seeing it’s the Smithsonian and seeing I’ve still got hold of the cheque, in the end we shake hands on the deal and everyone’s happy. Right? Well, on the way back I stop in the town to arrange with your nice Mr Abendana, the merchant feller, to have the parrot and tortoise collected and held for me, and I get talking about the cowries. Well, it so happens that this Mr Abendana has been collecting the dam’ things since he was a child. He shows them to me. Beautifully kept – each one in its bit of cotton wool. Fine condition and several of those Isabella and Mappa ones I was asked particularly to watch out for. Sorry, he couldn’t think of selling. They meant so much to him and so on. Crap! I just look at Mr Abendana and I say, how much? No no. He couldn’t think of it. Crap again! I take out my cheque-book and write a cheque for five thousand dollars and push it under his nose. He looks at it. Five thousand dollars! He can’t stand it. He folds the cheque and puts it in his pocket and then the dam’ sissy breaks down and weeps! Would you believe it?’ Mr Krest opened his palms in disbelief. ‘Over a few goddam sea-shells. So I just tell him to take it easy, and I pick up the trays of sea-shells and get the hell out of there before the crazy so-and-so shoots himself from remorse.’

Mr Krest sat back, well pleased with himself. ‘Well, what d’you say to that, fellers? Twenty-four hours in the island and I’ve already knocked off three-quarters of my list. Pretty smart, eh, Jim?’

Bond said: ‘You’ll probably get a medal when you get home. What about this fish?’

Mr Krest got up from the table and rummaged in a drawer of his desk. He brought back a typewritten sheet. ‘Here you are.’ He read out: ‘ “Hildebrand Rarity. Caught by Professor Hildebrand of the University of the Witwatersrand in a net off Chagrin Island in the Seychelles group, April 1925” . ’ Mr Krest looked up. ‘And then there’s a lot of scientific crap. I got them to put it into plain English, and here’s the translation.’ He turned back to the paper. ‘ “This appears to be a unique member of the squirrel-fish family. The only specimen known, named the ‘Hildebrand Rarity’ after its discoverer, is six inches long. The colour is a bright pink with black transverse stripes. The anal, ventral and dorsal fins are pink. The tail fin is black. Eyes, large and dark blue. If found, care should be taken in handling this fish because all fins are even more sharply spiked than is usual with the rest of this family. Professor Hildebrand records that he found the specimen in three feet of water on the edge of the south-western reef” . ’ Mr Krest threw the paper down on the table. ‘Well, there you are, fellers. We’re travelling about a thousand miles at a cost of several thousand dollars to try and find a goddam six-inch fish. And two years ago the Revenue people had the gall to suggest that my Foundation was a phoney!’

Liz Krest broke in eagerly: ‘But that’s just it, Milt, isn’t it? It’s really rather important to bring back plenty of specimens and things this time. Weren’t those horrible tax people talking about disallowing the yacht and the expenses and so on for the last five years if we didn’t show an outstanding scientific achievement? Wasn’t that the way they put it?’