Goldfinger

Bond's first view of Mr Goldfinger was startling. At the far corner of the roof, just below the cliff of the hotel, a man was lying back with his legs up on a steamer chair. He was wearing nothing but a yellow satin bikini slip, dark glasses and a pair of wide tin wings under his chin. The wings, which appeared to fit round his neck, stretched out across his shoulders and beyond them and then curved up slightly to rounded tips.

Bond said, "What the hell's he wearing round his neck?'

'You never seen one of those?' Mr Du Pont was surprised. 'That's a gadget to help your tan. Polished tin. Reflects the sun up under your chin and behind the ears - the bits that wouldn't normally catch the sun.'

'Well, well,' said Bond.

When they were a few yards from the reclining figure Mr Du Pont called out cheerfully, in what seemed to Bond an overloud voice, 'Hi there!'

Mr Goldfinger did not stir.

Mr Du Pont said in his normal voice. 'He's very deaf.' They were now at Mr Goldfinger's feet. Mr Du Pont repeated his hail.

Mr Goldfinger sat up sharply. He removed his dark glasses. 'Why, hullo there.' He unhitched the wings from round his neck, put them carefully on the ground beside him and got heavily to his feet. He looked at Bond with slow, inquiring eyes.

'Like you to meet Mr Bond, James Bond. Friend of mine from New York. Countryman of yours. Come down to try and talk me into a bit of business.'

Mr Goldfinger held out a hand. 'Pleased to meet you, Mr Bomb.'

Bond took the hand. It was hard and dry. There was the briefest pressure and it was withdrawn. For an instant Mr Goldfinger's pale, china-blue eyes opened wide and stared hard at Bond. They stared right through his face to the back of his skull. Then the lids drooped, the shutter closed over the X-ray, and Mr Goldfinger took the exposed plate and slipped it away in his filing system.

'So no game today.' The voice was flat, colourless. The words were more of a statement than a question.

'Whaddya mean, no game?' shouted Mr Du Pont boisterously. 'You weren't thinking I'd let you hang on to my money? Got to get it back or I shan't be able to leave this darned hotel,' Mr Du Pont chuckled richly. 'I'll tell Sam to fix the table. James here says he doesn't know much about cards and he'd like to learn the game. That right, James?' He turned to Bond. 'Sure you'll be all right with your paper and the sunshine?'

'I'd be glad of the rest,' said Bond. 'Been travelling too much.'

Again the eyes bored into Bond and then drooped. Til get some clothes on. I had intended to have a golf lesson this afternoon from Mr Armour at the Boca Raton. But cards have priority among my hobbies. My tendency to un-cock the wrists too early with the mid-irons will have to wait.' The eyes rested incuriously on Bond. 'You play golf, Mr Bomb?'

Bond raised his voice. 'Occasionally, when I'm in England.'

'And where do you play?'

'Huntercombe.'

'Ah - a pleasant little course. I have recently joined the Royal St Marks. Sandwich is close to one of my business interests. You know it?'

'I have played there.'

'What is your handicap?'

'Nine.'

'That is a coincidence. So is mine. We must have a game one day.' Mr Goldfinger bent down and picked up his tin wings. He said to Mr Du Pont, 'I will be with you in five minutes.' He walked slowly off towards the stairs.

Bond was amused. This social sniffing at him had been done with just the right casual touch of the tycoon who didn't really care if Bond was alive or dead but, since he was there and alive, might as well place him in an approximate category.

Mr Du Pont gave instructions to a steward in a white coat. Two others were already setting up a card table. Bond walked to the rail that surrounded the roof and looked down into the garden, reflecting on Mr Goldfinger.

He was impressed. Mr Goldfinger was one of the most relaxed men Bond had ever met. It showed in the economy of his movement, of his speech, of his expressions. Mr Gold-finger wasted no effort, yet there was something coiled, compressed, in the immobility of the man.

When Goldfinger had stood up, the first thing that had struck Bond was that everything was out of proportion. Goldfinger was short, not more than five feet tall, and on top of the thick body and blunt, peasant legs, was set almost directly into the shoulders, a huge and it seemed exactly round head. It was as if Goldfinger had been put together with bits of other people's bodies. Nothing seemed to belong. Perhaps, Bond thought, it was to conceal his ugliness that

Goldfinger made such a fetish of sunburn. Without the red-brown camouflage the pale body would be grotesque. The face, under the cliff of crew-cut carroty hair, was as startling, without being as ugly, as the body. It was moon-shaped without being moonlike. The forehead was fine and high and the thin sandy brows were level above the large light blue eyes fringed with pale lashes. The nose was fleshily aquiline between high cheek-bones and cheeks that were more muscular than fat. The mouth was thin and dead straight, but beautifully drawn. The chin and jaws were firm and glinted with health. To sum up, thought Bond, it was the face of a thinker, perhaps a scientist, who was ruthless, sensual, stoical and tough. An odd combination.

What else could he guess? Bond always mistrusted short men. They grew up from childhood with an inferiority complex. All their lives they would strive to be big - bigger than the others who had teased them as a child. Napoleon had been short, and Hitler. It was the short men that caused all the trouble in the world. And what about a misshapen short man with red hair and a bizarre face? That might add up to a really formidable misfit. One could certainly feel the repressions. There was a powerhouse of vitality humming in the man that suggested that if one stuck an electric bulb into Goldfinger's mouth it would light up. Bond smiled at the thought. Into what channels did Goldfinger release his vital force? Into getting rich? Into sex? Into power? Probably into all three. What could his history be? Today he might be an Englishman. What had he been born? Not a Jew - though there might be Jewish blood in him. Not a Latin or anything farther south. Not a Slav. Perhaps a German - no, a Bait! That's where he would have come from. One of the old Baltic provinces. Probably got away to escape the Russians. Goldfinger would have been warned - or his parents had smelled trouble and they had got him out in time. And what had happened then? How had he worked his way up to being one of the richest men in the world? One day it might be interesting to find out. For the time being it would be enough to find out how he won at cards.

'All set?' Mr Du Pont called to Goldfinger who was coming across the roof towards the card table. With his clothes on - a comfortably fitting dark blue suit, a white shirt open at the neck - Goldfinger cut an almost passable figure.

But there was no disguise for the great brown and red football of a head and the flesh-coloured hearing aid plugged into the left ear was net an improvement.

Mr Du Pont sat with his back to the hotel. Goldfinger took the seat opposite and cut the cards. Du Pont won the cut, pushed the other pack over to Goldfinger, tapped them to show they were already shuffled and he couldn't bother to cut, and Goldfinger began the deal.

Bond sauntered over and took a chair at Mr Du Font's elbow. He sat back, relaxed. He made a show of folding his paper to the sports page and watched the deal.

Somehow Bond had expected it, but this was no card-sharp. Goldfinger dealt quickly and efficiently, but with no hint of the Mechanic's Grip, those vital three fingers curled round the long edge of the cards and the index finger at the outside short upper edge - the grip that means you are armed for dealing Bottoms or Seconds. And he wore no signet ring for pricking the cards, no surgical tape round a finger for marking them.