The James Bond Anthology

Bond glanced at his watch. He strolled back. To the left, not yet screened by the young oleanders and crotons that had been planted for this eventual purpose, were the kitchens and laundry and staff quarters, the usual back quarters of a luxury hotel, and music, the heartbeat thump of Jamaican calypso, came from their direction – presumably the Kingston combo rehearsing. Bond walked round and under the portico into the main lobby. Scaramanga was at the desk talking to the manager. When he heard Bond’s footsteps on the marble, he turned and looked and gave Bond a curt nod. He was dressed as on the previous day, and the high white cravat suited the elegance of the hall. He said ‘Okay, then’ to the manager and, to Bond, ‘Let’s go take a look at the conference room.’

Bond followed him through the restaurant door and then through another door to the right that opened into a lobby, one of whose walls was taken up with the glasses and plates of a buffet. Beyond this was another door. Scaramanga led the way through into what would one day perhaps be a card room or writing-room. Now there was nothing but a round table in the centre of a wine-red carpet and seven white leatherette arm-chairs with scratch pads and pencils in front of them. The chair facing the door, presumably Scaramanga’s, had a white telephone in front of it.

Bond went round the room and examined the windows and the curtains and glanced at the wall brackets of the lighting. He said, ‘The brackets could be bugged. And of course there’s the telephone. Like me to go over it?’

Scaramanga looked at Bond stonily. He said, ‘No need to. It’s bugged all right. By me. Got to have a record of what’s said.’

Bond said, ‘All right, then. Where do you want me to be?’

‘Outside the door. Sitting reading a magazine or something. There’ll be the general meeting this afternoon around four. Tomorrow there’ll mebbe be one or two smaller meetings, mebbe just me and one of the guys. I want all these meetings not to be disturbed. Got it?’

‘Seems simple enough. Now, isn’t it about time you told me the names of these men and more or less who they represent and which ones, if any, you’re expecting trouble from?’

Scaramanga said, ‘Take a chair and a paper and pencil.’ He strolled up and down the room. ‘First there’s Mr Hendriks. Dutchman. Represents the European money, mostly Swiss. You needn’t bother with him. He’s not the arguing type. Then there’s Sam Binion from Detroit.’

‘The Purple Gang?’

Scaramanga stopped in his stride and looked hard at Bond. ‘These are all respectable guys, Mister Whoosis.’

‘Hazard is the name.’

‘All right. Hazard, then. But respectable, you understand. Don’t go getting the notion that this is another Appalachian. These are all solid business men. Get me? This Sam Binion, for instance. He’s in real estate. He and his friends are worth mebbe twenty million bucks. See what I mean? Then there’s Leroy Gengerella. Miami. Owns Gengerella Enterprises. Big shot in the entertainment world. He may cut up rough. Guys in that line of business like quick profits and a quick turnover. And Ruby Rotkopf, the hotel man from Vegas. He’ll ask the difficult questions because he’ll already know most of the answers from experience. Hal Garfinkel from Chicago. He’s in Labour Relations, like me. Represents a lot of Teamster Union funds. He shouldn’t be any trouble. Those unions have got so much money they don’t know where to put it. That makes five. Last comes Louie Paradise from Phoenix, Arizona. Owns Paradise Slots, the biggest people in the one-armed bandit business. Got casino interests too. I can’t figure which way he’ll bet. That’s the lot.’

‘And who do you represent, Mr Scaramanga?’

‘Caribbean money.’

‘Cuban?’

‘I said Caribbean. Cuba’s in the Caribbean, isn’t it?’

‘Castro or Batista?’

The frown was back. Scaramanga’s right hand balled into a fist. ‘I told you not to rile me, Mister. So don’t go prying into my affairs or you’ll get hurt. And that’s for sure.’ As if he could hardly control himself longer, the big man turned on his heel and strode brusquely out of the room.

James Bond smiled. He turned back to the list in front of him. A strong reek of high gangsterdom rose from the paper. But the name he was most interested in was Mr Hendriks who represented ‘European money’. If that was his real name, and he was a Dutchman, so, James Bond reflected, was he.

He tore off three sheets of paper to efface the impression of his pencil and walked out and along into the lobby. A bulky man was approaching the desk from the entrance. He was sweating mightily in his unseasonable woollen-looking suit. He might have been anybody – an Antwerp diamond merchant, a German dentist, a Swiss bank manager. The pale, square-jowled face was totally anonymous. He put a heavy brief-case on the desk and said in a thick Central European accent, ‘I am Mr Hendriks. I think it is that you have a room for me, isn’t it?’

8 | PASS THE CANAPÉS!