The other man sat quiet while Tiffy came out from behind the counter. She came over to the table and placed the tin tray with the bottles and glasses in front of Bond. She didn’t look at Scaramanga. Scaramanga uttered a harsh bark of laughter. He reached inside his coat and took out an alligator-skin billfold. He extracted a hundred-dollar bill and threw it on the table. ‘No hard feelings, cool cat. You’d be okay if you didn’t always keep your legs together. Go buy yourself some more birds with that. I like to have smiling people around me.’
Tiffy picked up the note. She said, ‘Thanks, Mister. You’d be surprised what I’m going to spend your money on.’ She gave him a long, hard look and turned on her heel.
Scaramanga shrugged. He reached for a bottle of beer and a glass and both men poured and drank. Scaramanga took out an expensive cigar case, selected a pencil-thin cheroot and lit it with a match. He let the smoke dribble out between his lips and inhaled the thin stream up his nostrils. He did this several times with the same mouthful of smoke until the smoke was dissipated. All the while he stared across the table at Bond, seeming to weigh up something in his mind. He said, ‘Care to earn yourself a grand – a thousand bucks?’
Bond said, ‘Possibly.’ He paused and added, ‘Probably.’ What he meant was, ‘Of course! If it means staying close to you, my friend.’
Scaramanga smoked a while in silence. A car stopped outside and two laughing men came quickly up the steps. When they came through the bead curtains, working-class Jamaicans, they stopped laughing and went quietly over to the counter and began whispering to Tiffy. Then they both slapped a pound note on the counter and, making a wide detour away from the white men, disappeared through the curtains at the back of the room. Their laughter began again as Bond heard their footsteps on the stairs.
Scaramanga hadn’t taken his eyes from Bond’s face. Now he said, keeping his voice low, ‘I got myself a problem. Some partners of mine, they’ve taken an interest in this Negril development. Far end of the property. Place called Bloody Bay. Know it?’
‘I’ve seen it on the map. Just short of Green Island Harbour.’
‘Right. So I’ve got some shares in the business. So we start building a hotel and get the first storey finished and the main living-rooms and restaurant and so on. So then the tourist boom slackens off – Americans get frightened of being so close to Cuba or some such crap. And the banks get difficult and money begins to run short. Follow me?’
‘So you’re a stale bull of the place?’
‘Right. So I came over a few days ago and I’m staying at the Thunderbird and I’ve got a half-dozen of the main stockholders to fly in for a meeting on the spot. Sort of look the place over and get our heads together and figure what to do next. Now, I want to give these guys a good time so I’ve got a smart combo over from Kingston, calypso singers, limbo, plenty of girls – all that jazz. And there’s swimming and one of the features of the place is a small-scale railway that used to handle the sugar cane. Runs to Green Island Harbour where I gotta forty-foot Chris-Craft Roamer. Deep-sea fishing. That’ll be another outing. Get me? Give the fellers a real good time.’
‘So that they’ll get all enthusiastic and buy out your share of the stock?’
Scaramanga frowned angrily. ‘I’m not paying you a grand to get the wrong ideas. Or any ideas for the matter of that.’
‘What for then?’
For a moment or two Scaramanga went through his smoking routine, the little pillars of smoke vanishing again and again into the black nostrils. It seemed to calm him. His forehead cleared. He said, ‘Some of these men are kind of rough. We’re all stockholders, of course, but that don’t necessarily mean we’re friends. Understand? I’ll be wanting to hold some meetings, private meetings, with mebbe only two or three guys at a time, sort of sounding out the different interests. Could be that some of the other guys, the ones not invited to a particular meeting, might get it into their heads to bug a meeting or try and get wise to what goes on in one way or another. So it jes’ occurs to me that you being live to security and such, that you could act as a kind of guard at these meetings, clean the room for mikes, stay outside the door and see that no one comes nosing around, see that when I want to be private I git private. D’you get the photo?’
Bond had to laugh. He said, ‘So you want to hire me as a kind of personal bodyguard. Is that it?’
The frown was back. ‘And what’s so funny about that, Mister? It’s good money, ain’t it? Three, mebbe four days in a luxury joint like the Thunderbird. A thousand bucks at the end of it? What’s so screwy about that proposition, eh?’ Scaramanga mashed out the butt of his cigar against the underside of the table. A shower of sparks fell. He let them lie.
Bond scratched the back of his head as if reflecting. Which he was – furiously. He knew that he hadn’t heard the full story. He also knew that it was odd, to say the least of it, for this man to hire a complete stranger to do this job for him. The job itself stood up, but only just. It made sense that Scaramanga would not want to hire a local man, an ex-policeman for instance, even if one could be found. Such a man might have friends in the hotel business who would be interested in the speculative side of the Negril development. And, of course, on the plus side, Bond would be achieving what he had never thought possible – he would have got right inside Scaramanga’s guard. Or would he? There was the strong smell of a trap. But, assuming that Bond had not, by some obscure bit of ill luck, been blown, he couldn’t for the life of him see what the trap could be. Well, clearly, he must make the gamble. In so many respects it was a chance in a million.
Bond lit a cigarette. He said, ‘I was only laughing at the idea of a man of your particular skills wanting protection. But it all sounds great fun. Of course I’ll come along. When do we start? I’ve got a car at the bottom of the road.’
Scaramanga thrust out an inside wrist and looked at a thin gold watch on a two-coloured gold bracelet. He said, ‘6.32. My car’ll be outside.’ He got up. ‘Let’s go. But don’t forget one thing, Mister Whoosis. I rile mighty easy. Get me?’
Bond said easily, ‘I saw how annoyed you got with those inoffensive birds.’ He stood up. ‘I don’t see any reason why either of us should get riled.’
Scaramanga said indifferently, ‘Okay, then.’ He walked to the back of the room and picked up his suitcase, new-looking but cheap, strode to the exit and clashed through the bead curtain and down the steps.
Bond went quickly over to the counter. ‘Goodbye, Tiffy. Hope I’ll be coming by again one day. If anyone should ask after me, say I’m at the Thunderbird Hotel at Bloody Bay.’
Tiffy reached out a hand and timidly touched his sleeve. ‘Go careful over there, Mister Mark. There’s gangster money in that place. And watch out for yourself.’ She jerked her head towards the exit: ‘That’s the worstest man I ever heard tell of.’ She leaned forward and whispered, ‘That’s a thousand pound worth of ganja he’s got in that bag. Rasta left it for him this morning. So I smelled the bag.’ She drew quickly back.
Bond said, ‘Thanks, Tiffy. See Mother Edna puts a good hex on him. I’ll tell you why some day. I hope.’Bye!’ He went quickly out and down into the street where a red Thunderbird convertible was waiting, its exhaust making a noise like an expensive motor-boat. The chauffeur was a Jamaican, smartly dressed, with a peaked cap. A red pennant on the wireless aerial said ‘The Thunderbird Hotel’ in gold. Scaramanga was sitting beside the chauffeur. He said impatiently, ‘Get in the back. Lift you down to your car. Then follow along. It gets a good road after a while.’