The James Bond Anthology

‘Everybody’s nearly dead in St Petersburg,’ explained Solitaire. ‘It’s the Great American Graveyard. When the bank clerk or the post-office worker or the railroad conductor reaches sixty he collects his pension or his annuity and goes to St Petersburg to get a few years’ sunshine before he dies. It’s called “The Sunshine City” The weather’s so good that the evening paper there, The Independent, is given away free any day the sun hasn’t shone by edition time. It only happens three or four times a year and it’s a fine advertisement. Everybody goes to bed around nine o’clock in the evening and during the day the old folks play shuffleboard and bridge, herds of them. There’s a couple of baseball teams down there, the “Kids“ and the “Kubs“, all over seventy-five! Then they play bowls, but most of the time they sit squashed together in droves on things called “Sidewalk Davenports“, rows of benches up and down the sidewalks of the main streets. They just sit in the sun and gossip and doze. It’s a terrifying sight, all these old people with their spectacles and hearing-aids and clicking false-teeth.’

‘Sounds pretty grim,’ said Bond. ‘Why the hell did Mr Big choose this place to operate from?’

‘It’s perfect for him,’ said Solitaire seriously. ‘There’s practically no crime, except cheating at bridge and Canasta. So there’s a very small police force. There’s quite a big Coastguard Station but it’s mainly concerned with smuggling between Tampa and Cuba, and sponge-fishing out of season at Tarpon Springs. I don’t really know what he does there except that he’s got a big agent called “The Robber” Something to do with Cuba, I expect,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘Probably mixed up with Communism. I believe Cuba comes under Harlem and runs red agents all through the Caribbean.

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘St Petersburg is probably the most innocent town in America. Everything’s very “folksy” and “gracious”. It’s true there’s a place called “The Restorium”, a hospital for alcoholics. But very old ones, I suppose,’ she laughed, ‘and I expect they’re past doing anyone any harm. You’ll love it,’ she smiled maliciously at Bond. ‘You’ll probably want to settle down there for life and be an “Oldster” too. That’s the great word down there …“oldster”.’

‘God forbid,’ said Bond fervently. ‘It sounds rather like Bournemouth or Torquay. But a million times worse. I hope we don’t get into a shooting match with “The Robber” and his friends. We’d probably hurry a few hundred oldsters off to the cemetery with heart-failure. But isn’t there anyone young in this place?’

‘Oh yes,’ laughed Solitaire. ‘Plenty of them. All the local inhabitants who take the money off the oldsters, for instance. The people who own the motels and the trailer-camps. You could make plenty of money running the bingo tournaments. I’ll be your “barker” – the girl outside who gets the suckers in. Dear Mr Bond,’ she reached over and pressed his hand, ‘will you settle down with me and grow old gracefully in St Petersburg?’

Bond sat back and looked at her critically. ‘I want a long time of disgraceful living with you first,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’m probably better at that. But it suits me that they go to bed at nine down there.’

Her eyes smiled back at him. She took her hand away from his as their breakfast arrived. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You go to bed at nine. Then I shall slip out by the back door and go on the tiles with the Kids and the Kubs.’

The breakfast was as bad as Bond had prophesied.

When they had paid they wandered over to the station waiting-room.

The sun had risen and the light swarmed in dusty bars into the vaulted, empty hall. They sat together in a corner and until the Silver Meteor came in Bond plied her with questions about The Big Man and all she could tell him about his operations.

Occasionally he made a note of a date or a name but there was little she could add to what he knew. She had an apartment to herself in the same Harlem block as Mr Big and she had been kept virtually a prisoner there for the past year. She had two tough negresses as ‘companions’ and was never allowed out without a guard.

From time to time Mr Big would have her brought over to the room where Bond had seen him. There she would be told to divine whether some man or woman, generally bound to the chair, was lying or not. She varied her replies according to whether she sensed these people were good or evil. She knew that her verdict might often be a death sentence but she felt indifferent to the fate of those she judged to be evil. Very few of them were white.

Bond jotted down the dates and details of all these occasions.

Everything she told him added to the picture of a very powerful and active man, ruthless and cruel, commanding a huge network of operations.

All she knew of the gold coins was that she had several times had to question men on how many they had passed and the price they had been paid for them. Very often, she said, they were lying on both counts.