Bond 02 - Live and Let Die (18 page)

As they turned across Treasure Island Causeway an ambulance passed them, its bell clanging.

More trouble, thought Bond. Don’t seem to be able to move without running into it.

They crossed St Petersburg by Central Avenue and turned right down the road he and Leiter had taken the day before. Bond’s suspicions seemed to be confirmed when he found the hospital was only a couple of blocks from Ourobouros Inc.

Bond paid off the cab and ran up the steps of the impressive building. There was a reception desk in the spacious entrance hall. A pretty nurse sat at the desk reading the ads in the
St Petersburg Times
.

‘Dr Roberts?’ inquired Bond.

‘Dr which?’ asked the girl looking at him with approval.

‘Dr Roberts, Emergency ward,’ said Bond impatiently. ‘Patient called Leiter, Felix Leiter. Brought in this morning.’

‘No doctor called Roberts here,’ said the girl. She ran a finger down a list on the desk. ‘And no patient called Leiter. Just a moment and I’ll call the ward. What did you say your name was?’

‘Bryce,’ said Bond. ‘John Bryce.’ He started to sweat profusely although it was quite cool in the hall. He wiped his wet hands on his trousers, fighting to keep from panic. The damn girl just didn’t know her job. Too pretty to be a nurse. Ought to have someone competent on the desk. He ground his teeth as she talked cheerfully into the telephone.

She put down the receiver. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Bryce. Must be some mistake. No cases during the night and they’ve never heard of a Dr Roberts or a Mr Leiter. Sure you’ve got the right hospital?’

Bond turned away without answering her. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he made for the exit.

The girl made a face at his back and picked up her paper.

Mercifully, a cab was just drawing up with some other visitors. Bond took it and told the driver to get him back quick to The Everglades. All he knew was that they had got Leiter and had wanted to draw Bond away from the cottage. Bond couldn’t make it out, but he knew that suddenly everything was going bad on them and that the initiative was back in the hands of Mr Big and his machine.

Mrs Stuyvesant hurried out when she saw him leave the cab.

‘Your poor friend,’ she said without sympathy. ‘Really he should be more careful.’

‘Yes, Mrs Stuyvesant. What is it?’ said Bond impatiently.

‘The ambulance came just after you left.’ The woman’s eyes were gleaming with the bad news. ‘Seems Mr Leiter was in an accident with his car. They had to carry him to the cottage on a stretcher. Such a nice coloured man was in charge. He said Mr Leiter would be quite all right but he mustn’t be disturbed on any account. Poor boy! Face all covered with bandages. They said they’d make him comfortable and a doctor would be coming later. If there’s anything I can…’

Bond didn’t wait for more. He ran down the lawn to the cottage and dashed through the lobby into Leiter’s room.

There was the shape of a body on Leiter’s bed. It was covered with a sheet. Over the face, the sheet seemed to be motionless. Bond gritted his teeth as he leant over the bed. Was there a tiny flutter of movement?

Bond snatched the shroud down from the face. There was no face. Just something wrapped round and round with dirty bandages, like a white wasps’ nest.

He softly pulled the sheet down further. More bandages, still more roughly wound, with wet blood seeping through. Then the top of a sack which covered the lower half of the body. Everything soaked in blood.

There was a piece of paper protruding from a gap in the bandages where the mouth should have been.

Bond pulled it away and leant down. There was the faintest whisper of breath against his cheek. He snatched up the bedside telephone. It took minutes before he could make Tampa understand. Then the urgency in his voice got through. They would get to him in twenty minutes.

He put down the receiver and looked vaguely at the paper in his hand. It was a rough piece of white wrapping paper. Scrawled in pencil in ragged block letters were the words:

And underneath in brackets:

With the movements of a sleep-walker, Bond put the piece of paper down on the bedside table. Then he turned back to the body on the bed. He hardly dared touch it for fear that the tiny fluttering breath would suddenly cease. But he had to find out something. His fingers worked softly at the bandages on top of the head. Soon he uncovered some of the strands of hair. The hair was wet and he put his fingers to his mouth. There was a salt taste. He pulled out some strands of hair and looked closely at them. There was no more doubt.

He saw again the pale straw-coloured mop that used to hang down in disarray over the right eye, grey and humorous, and below it the wry, hawk-like face of the Texan with whom he had shared so many adventures. He thought of him for a moment, as he had been. Then he tucked the lock of hair back into the bandages and sat on the edge of the other bed and quietly watched over the body of his friend and wondered how much of it could be saved.

When the two detectives and the police surgeon arrived he told them all he knew in a quiet flat voice. Acting on what Bond had already told them on the telephone they had sent a squad car down to The Robber’s place and they waited for a report while the surgeon worked next door.

He was finished first. He came back into the sitting-room looking anxious. Bond jumped to his feet. The police surgeon slumped into a chair and looked up at him.

‘I think he’ll live,’ he said. ‘But it’s fifty-fifty. They certainly did a job on the poor guy. One arm gone. Half the left leg. Face in a mess, but only superficial. Darned if I know what did it. Only thing I can think of is an animal or a big fish. Something’s been tearing at him. Know a bit more when I can get him to the hospital. There’ll be traces left from the teeth of whatever it was. Ambulance should be along any time.’

They sat in gloomy silence. The telephone rang intermittently. New York, Washington. The St Petersburg Police Department wanted to know what the hell was going on down at the wharf and were told to keep out of the case. It was a Federal job. Finally, from a call-box, there was the lieutenant in charge of the squad car reporting.

They had been over The Robber’s place with a toothcomb. Nothing but tanks of fish and bait and cases of coral and shells. The Robber and two men who were down there in charge of the pumps and the water-heating had been taken in custody and grilled for an hour. Their alibis had been checked and found to be solid as the Empire State. The Robber had angrily demanded his mouthpiece and when the lawyer had finally been allowed to get to them they had been automatically sprung. No charge and no evidence to base one on. Dead-ends everywhere except that Leiter’s car had been found the other side of the yacht basin, a mile away from the wharf. A mass of fingerprints, but none that fitted the three men. Any suggestions?

‘Keep with it,’ said the senior man in the cottage who had introduced himself as Captain Franks. ‘Be along presently. Washington says we’ve got to get these men if it’s the last thing we do. Two top operatives flying down tonight. Time to get co-operation from the Police. I’ll tell ’em to get their stoolies working in Tampa. This isn’t only a St Petersburg job. ’Bye now.’

It was three o’clock. The police ambulance came and left again with the surgeon and the body that was so near to death. The two men left. They promised to keep in touch. They were anxious to know Bond’s plans. Bond was evasive. Said he’d have to talk to Washington. Meanwhile, could he have Leiter’s car? Yes, it would be brought round directly Records had finished with it.

When they had gone, Bond sat lost in thought. They had made sandwiches from the well-stocked pantry and Bond now finished these and had a stiff drink.

The telephone rang. Long-distance. Bond found himself speaking to the head of Leiter’s Section of the Central Intelligence Agency. The gist of it was that they’d be very glad if Bond would move on to Jamaica at once. All very polite. They had spoken to London, who had agreed. When should they tell London that Bond would arrive in Jamaica?

Bond knew there was a Transcarib plane via Nassau due out next day. He said he’d be taking it. Any other news? Oh yes, said the C.I.A. The gentleman from Harlem and his girl friend had left by plane for Havana, Cuba, during the night. Private charter from a little place up the East coast called Vero Beach. Papers were in order and charter company was such a small one the F.B.I. had not bothered to include them when they put the watch on all airports. Arrival had been reported by the C.I.A. man in Cuba. Yes, too bad. Yes, the
Secatur
was still there. No sailing date. Well, too bad about Leiter. Fine man. Hope he makes out. So Bond would be in Jamaica tomorrow? Okay. Sorry things been so hectic. ’Bye.

Bond thought for a while, then he picked up the telephone and spoke briefly to a man at the Eastern Garden Aquarium at Miami and consulted him about buying a live shark to keep in an ornamental lagoon.

‘Only place I ever heard of is right near you now, Mr Bryce,’ said the helpful voice. ‘“Ourobouros Worm and Bait.” They got sharks. Big ones. Do business with foreign zoos and suchlike. White, Tiger, even Hammerheads. They’ll be glad to help you. Costs a lot to feed ’em. You’re welcome. Any time you’re passing. ’Bye.’

Bond took out his gun and cleaned it, waiting for the night.

A
ROUND SIX
Bond packed his bag and paid the check. Mrs Stuyvesant was glad to see the last of him. The Everglades hadn’t experienced such alarums since the last hurricane.

Leiter’s car was back on the Boulevard and he drove it over to the town. He visited a hardware store and made various purchases. Then he had the biggest steak, rare, with French fries, he had ever seen. It was a small grill called Pete’s, dark and friendly. He drank a quarter of a pint of Old Grandad with the steak and had two cups of very strong coffee. With all this under his belt he began to feel more sanguine.

He spun out the meal and the drinks until nine o’clock. Then he studied a map of the city and took the car and made a wide detour that brought him within a block of The Robber’s wharf from the south. He ran the car down to the sea and got out.

It was a bright moonlit night and the buildings and warehouses threw great blocks of indigo shadow. The whole section seemed deserted and there was no sound except the quiet lapping of the small waves against the sea-wall and water gurgling under the empty wharves.

The top of the low sea-wall was about three feet wide. It was in shadow for the hundred yards or more that separated him from the long black outline of the Ourobouros warehouse.

Bond climbed on to it and walked carefully and silently along between the buildings and the sea. As he got nearer a steady, high-pitched whine became louder, and by the time he dropped down on the wide cement parking space at the back of the building it was a muted scream. Bond had expected something of the sort. The noise came from the air-pumps and heating systems which he knew would be necessary to keep the fish healthy through the chill of the night hours. He had also relied on the fact that most of the roof would certainly be of glass to admit sunlight during the day. Also that there would be good ventilation.

He was not disappointed. The whole of the south wall of the warehouse, from just above the level of his head, was of plate glass, and through it he could see the moonlight shining down through half an acre of glass roofing. High up above him, and well out of reach, broad windows were open to the night air. There was, as he and Leiter had expected, a small door low down, but it was locked and bolted and leaded wires near the hinges suggested some form of burglar-alarm.

Bond was not interested in the door. Following his hunch, he had come equipped for an entry through glass. He cast about for something that would raise him an extra two feet. In a land where litter and junk are so much a part of the landscape he soon found what he wanted. It was a discarded heavy gauge tyre. He rolled it to the wall of the warehouse away from the door and took off his shoes.

He put bricks against the bottom edges of the tyre to hold it steady and hoisted himself up. The steady scream of the pumps gave him protection and he at once set to work with a small glass-cutter which he had bought, together with a hunk of putty, on his way to dinner. When he had cut down the two vertical sides of one of the yard-square panes, he pressed the putty against the centre of the glass and worked it to a protruding knob. He then went to work on the lateral edges of the pane.

While he worked he gazed through into the moonlit vistas of the huge repository. The endless rows of tanks stood on wooden trestles with narrow passages between. Down the centre of the building there was a wider passage. Under the trestles Bond could see long tanks and trays let into the floor. Just below him, broad racks covered with regiments of sea-shells jutted out from the walls. Most of the tanks were dark but in some a tiny strip of electric light glimmered spectrally and glinted on little fountains of bubbles rising from the weeds and sand. There was a light metal runway suspended from the roof over each row of tanks and Bond guessed that any individual tank could be lifted out and brought to the exit for shipment or to extract sick fish for quarantine. It was a window into a queer world and into a queer business. It was odd to think of all the worms and eels and fish stirring quietly in the night, the thousands of gills sighing and the multitude of antennae waving and pointing and transmitting their tiny radar signals to the dozing nerve-centres.

After a quarter of an hour’s meticulous work there was a slight cracking noise and the pane came away attached to the putty knob in his hand.

He climbed down and put the pane carefully on the ground away from the tyre. Then he stuffed his shoes inside his shirt. With only one good hand they might be vital weapons. He listened. There was no sound but the unfaltering whine of the pumps. He looked up to see if by chance there were any clouds about to cross the moon but the sky was empty save for its canopy of brightly burning stars. He got back on top of the tyre and with an easy heave half of his body was through the wide hole he had made.