Bond 04 - Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming Read Free Book Online

better than you can.” Don’t worry. I’ll be a credit to you. But just relax and stop being so businesslike for a minute. I’d like to see you again. Could we meet in New York if everything goes all right?’ Bond felt treacherous as he said the words. He liked this girl. He wanted to make friends with her. But it would be a question of using friendship to get further up the pipeline.
    She looked thoughtfully at him for a moment and her eyes gradually lost their darkness. Her sharply compressed lips relaxed and parted a little. There was a hint of a stammer in her voice as she answered him.
    ‘I, I ... that is,’ she brusquely turned away from him. ‘Hell,’ she said, but the word sounded artificial. ‘I’ve got nothing on Friday night. Guess we might have dinner. “21” Club on 52nd. All the cab drivers know it. Eight o’clock. If the job goes off okay. Suit you?’ She turned back towards him and looked at his mouth and not his eyes.
    ‘Fine,’ said Bond. He thought it was time to get out before he made a mistake. ‘Now,’ he said efficiently. ‘Is there anything else?’
    ‘No,’ she said, and then sharply, as if she had just remembered something. ‘What’s the time?’
    Bond looked at his watch. ‘Ten to six.’
    ‘I’ve got to get busy,’ she said. With a movement of dismissal she walked towards the door. Bond followed her. With her hand on the key she turned. She looked at him, and there was confidence and almost warmth in her eyes. ‘You’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘Just keep away from me in the plane. Don’t panic if anything goes wrong. If you work out okay,’ the patronizing note came back to her voice, ‘I’ll try and get you some more of the same sort of jobs.’
    ‘Thanks,’ said Bond. ‘I’d appreciate that. I’d enjoy working with you.’
    With a slight shrug of the shoulders, she opened the door and Bond walked out into the corridor.
    He turned. ‘See you at this “21” place of yours,’ he said. He wanted to say more, to find an excuse to stay with her, with this lonely girl who played the gramophone and gazed at herself in the mirror.
    But now her expression was remote. He might have been a complete stranger. ‘Sure,’ she said indifferently. She looked at him once more and then she closed the door slowly but firmly in his face.
    As Bond walked away down the long corridor to the lift, the girl stood just inside the door and listened until his footsteps had vanished. Then, with brooding eyes, she walked slowly over to the gramophone and switched it on. She picked up the Feyer record and searched for the groove she wanted. She put the record on the machine and found the place with the needle. The tune was ‘Je n’en connais pas la fin’. She stood listening to it and wondering about the man who had suddenly, out of the blue, found his way into her life. God, she thought to herself with sudden angry despair, another damn crook. Couldn’t she ever get away from them? But when the record stopped her face was happy, and she hummed the tune as she powdered her nose and got ready to go out.
    Out on the street she paused and looked at her watch. Ten minutes past six. Five minutes to go. She walked across Trafalgar Square to Charing Cross Station, arranging in her mind what she was going to say. Then she went into the station and into one of the call-boxes she always used.
    It was just 6.15 when she dialled the Welbeck number. After the usual two rings she heard the click of the automatic recorder taking the call. For twenty seconds she heard nothing but the sharp hiss of a needle on wax. Then the neutral voice that was her unknown master said the one word ‘Speak’. And then there was silence again except for the hiss of the recorder.
    She had long got over being flustered by the abrupt, disembodied command. She spoke rapidly but distinctly into the black mouthpiece. ‘Case to A B C. I repeat. Case to A B C.’ She paused. ‘Carrier is satisfactory. Says real