Bond 04 - Diamonds Are Forever (20 page)

‘Shucks,’ said the driver disgustedly. ‘They can’t do nuthen to me. Ya pay for any damage to the cab, and I’ll try and shake ’em. Okay?’

Bond took a 1000-dollar bill out of his note-case and leant over and stuffed it into the pocket of the driver’s shirt. ‘There’s a Grand to go on with,’ he said. ‘And thanks, Ernie. Let’s see what you can do.’

Bond slipped his Beretta out of the holster and cradled it in his hand. This, he thought to himself, was just what he had been waiting for.

‘Okay, feller,’ said the driver cheerfully. ‘I been looking for a chance to take a poke at the gang. I don’t like being leant on and they been leaning on me and some of my friends for too long. Hold tight. Let’s go.’

It was a straight stretch of road with not much traffic about. The distant tops of the mountains were yellow in the setting sun and the street was beginning to get blue with the fifteen minutes of dusk when you can’t make up your mind whether to switch on your lights.

They were riding easily along at forty with the low-slung Jaguar right on their tail and the black sedan a block ahead of them. Suddenly, so that Bond pitched forward, Ernie Cureo put his brakes full on and dry-skidded to a stop with a scream of his tyres. There was a shattering splinter of metal and glass as the Jaguar hit their fenders. The cab lurched forward against its brakes and then the driver jammed it into gear and, with a horrible tearing of iron, freed himself from the smashed radiator of the car behind and accelerated away down the road.

‘That’s —ed them proper,’ said Ernie Cureo with satisfaction. ‘How they making out?’

‘Bust radiator grill,’ said Bond, watching out of the rear window. ‘Both front wings flattened. Fender hanging off. Windshield starred, maybe broken.’ He lost the car in the dusk and turned round. ‘They’re out on the road trying to pull the front wings off the tyres. They may be able to go before long, but it was a good start. Got any more like that?’

‘Not so easy now,’ grunted the driver. ‘War’s been declared. Watch it. Better get down. The Chevvy’s pulled up at the side of the road. They may try some shootin’. Here we go.’

Bond felt the car surge forward. Ernie Cureo was half lying along the front seat, driving with one hand and with his eyes watching the road ahead from just above the dash.

There was a clang and two sharp cracks as they flashed past the Chevrolet. A handful of safety glass showered round Bond. Ernie Cureo swore and the car gave a swerve and then got back on its course.

Bond knelt on the back seat and knocked out the glass of the rear window with the butt of his gun. The Chevrolet was coming after them, its eyes blazing.

‘Hold it,’ said Cureo with an odd muffled voice. ‘Goin’ to do a sharp turn and stop under cover of the next block. Give y’a a clear shot as they come round after us.’

Bond braced himself as the tyres screamed and the car lurched on two wheels and then righted itself and stopped. Then he was out of the door and crouching with his gun up. The lights of the Chevrolet tore into the side road and there was a squeal of tortured rubber as it made the turn on the wrong side. Now, thought Bond, before he can straighten up.

Crack – a pause. Crack. Crack. Crack. Four bullets, at twenty yards, dead on the target.

The Chevrolet didn’t straighten up. It went over the kerb on the other side of the road, hit a tree broadside, bounced off it and smashed into a lamp standard and turned completely round and slowly toppled over on its side.

As Bond watched it, waiting for the echoes of the smashing metal to stop ringing in his ears, flames started to bleed slowly from the chromium mouth of the car. Someone was scrabbling at a window, trying to get out. At any moment the flames would find the vacuum pump and run the whole length of the chassis to the tank. And then it would be too late for the man inside.

Bond had started across the road when there was a groan from the front seat of the cab and he turned round to see Ernie Cureo slip from under the wheel to the floor. Bond forgot the burning car as he tore open the door of the cab and leant over the driver. There was blood everywhere and the whole of the driver’s left arm was soaked in it. Bond somehow hauled him into a sitting position on the seat and the driver’s eyes opened. ‘Oh, brother,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Get me out of here, Mister, and drive like hell. Next thing that Jag’ll be after us. Then get me to a medic.’

‘Okay, Ernie,’ said Bond slipping behind the wheel. ‘I’ll take care of it.’ He rammed the car into gear and moved fast off down the road and away from the blazing pyre and the frightened people who had materialized out of the dusk and were standing watching the flames, their hands up to their mouths.

‘Keep goin’, ’ muttered Ernie Cureo. ‘This’ll get y’out near the Boulder Dam road. See anything in the mirror?’

‘There’s a low-slung car with a spotlight coming after us fast,’ said Bond. ‘Could be the Jag. About two blocks away now.’ He stamped on the accelerator and the cab hissed through the deserted side street.

‘Keep goin’,’ said Ernie Cureo. ‘We gotta hide up some place and let them lose us. Tell ya what. There’s a “Passion Pit” just where this comes out on 95. Drive-in Movie. Here we come. Slow. Sharp right. See those lights. Get in there quick. Right. Straight over the sand and between those cars. Off lights. Easy. Stop.’

The cab came to rest in the back row of half a dozen ranks of cars lined up to face the concrete screen that soared up into the sky and on which a huge man was just saying something to a huge girl.

Bond turned and looked back down the lanes of metal standards, like parking meters, from which speakers could be connected with your car to pick up the sound. As he watched, one or two cars drove in and ranged themselves in the rear rank. Nothing low enough for a Jaguar. But it was dark now and difficult to see and he stayed slewed round in his seat, his eyes on the entrance.

An attendant came up, a pretty girl, dressed as a pageboy, with a tray slung round her neck. ‘That’ll be a dollar,’ she said, glancing into the car to see there was not a third customer on the floor of the cab. She had pick-ups coiled over her right arm and she took one off, plugged it into the nearest standard and hung the small speaker through the window on Bond’s side. The huge man and woman on the screen started talking heatedly.

‘Coco-Cola, cigarettes, candy?’ asked the girl taking the note Bond handed her.

‘No, thanks,’ said Bond.

‘You’re welcome,’ said the girl and sauntered off towards the other late arrivals.

‘Mister, for Chrissake willya switch off that crap?’ pleaded Ernie Cureo through his teeth. ‘And keep watching. We’ll give ’em a whiles more. Then get me to a doc. Dig out the slug.’ His voice was weak and now that the girl had gone he was half lying with his head against the door.

‘Won’t be long, Ernie. Try and stick it.’ Bond fiddled with the speaker, found the switch and silenced the wrangling voices. The huge man on the screen looked as if he was going to hit the woman and her mouth gaped in a noiseless scream.

Bond turned and strained his eyes across the dark expanse behind them. Still nothing. He glanced at the neighbouring cars. Two faces glued together. A shapeless huddle on a back seat. Two prim, rapt, elderly faces staring upwards. The glint of light on an upturned bottle.

And then a wave of musky after-shave lotion came up to his nose and a dark figure rose up from the ground and a gun was in his face, and a voice on the other side of the car beside Ernie Cureo whispered softly, ‘Okay, fellers. Take it easy.’

Bond looked into the suety face beside him. The eyes were smiling and cold. The wet lips parted and whispered, ‘Out, Limey, or your pal’s cold turkey. My friend has a silencer. You and we’re goin’ for a ride.’

Bond turned his head and saw the black sausage of metal against the back of Ernie Cureo’s neck. He made up his mind. ‘Okay, Ernie,’ he said, ‘better one than two. I’ll go with them. I’ll soon be back to get you to the doc. Take care of yourself.’

‘Funny guy,’ said suet-face. He opened the door, keeping his gun trained on Bond’s face.

‘Sorry, friend,’ said Ernie Cureo in a tired voice. ‘I guess ...’ but then there was a sharp thud as the gun hit him behind the ear and he slumped forward and was silent.

Bond gritted his teeth and his muscles lumped under his coat. He wondered if he could reach the Beretta. He glanced from one gun to the other, measuring, adding up odds. The four eyes above the two guns were greedy, longing for an excuse to kill him. The two mouths were smiling, wanting him to try something. He felt his blood cooling. He gave it another minute and then, with his hands in sight, he stepped slowly out of the car with murder tucked away in the back of his mind.

‘Go ahead to the gate,’ said suet-face softly. ‘Look natural. I got you covered.’ His gun had disappeared, but his hand was in his pocket. The other man joined them and his right hand was at the waist-band of his trousers. He ranged himself on Bond’s other side.

The three men walked swiftly towards the entrance and the moon rising over the mountains straddled their long shadows in front of them across the white sandy floor.

T
HE RED
Jaguar was outside the entrance, up against the wall of the enclosure. Bond let them take his gun and climbed in beside the driver.

‘No funny tricks if you want to keep your head on straight,’ said suet-face, climbing into the rumble seat beside the golf clubs. ‘There’s a gun on you.’

‘Nice little car you once had,’ said Bond. The shattered windshield had been lowered flat and a piece of chrome from the radiator stuck up like a pennant between the two wingless front tyres. ‘Where are we going in the remains?’

‘You’ll see,’ said the driver, a bony man with a cruel mouth and sideburns. He swung the car out on to the road and accelerated back towards the town, and they were soon in amongst the jungle of neon and then through it and going fast down a two-lane highway that ribboned away across the moonlit desert towards the mountains.

There was a big sign which said ‘95’ and Bond remembered what Ernie Cureo had told him and knew that he was on his way to Spectreville. He hunched down in his seat to protect his eyes from the dust and flies and thought about the immediate future and how to revenge his friend.

So these men and the other two in the Chevrolet had been sent to bring him to Mr Spang. Why had four men been necessary? Surely they were a rather heavy-weight answer to Bond’s defiance of his orders in the Casino?

The car lapped up the dead-straight road with the needle of the speedometer wavering around eighty. The telegraph poles shifted by with the click of a metronome.

Bond suddenly felt that he didn’t know quite enough of the answers.

Was he completely exposed as an enemy of the Spangled Mob? He could argue himself out of the game of roulette on the grounds that he hadn’t understood his orders, and if he had been a bit troublesome when the four men came for him, he could at least pretend that he had thought it was a tail from a rival mob. ‘If you wanted me, why didn’t you just call me in my room?’ Bond could hear himself saying in an injured tone of voice.

At least he had shown that he was tough enough for any job Mr Spang might offer him. And in any case, Bond reassured himself, he was just about to achieve his main objective – to get to the end of the pipeline and somehow link Seraffimo Spang with his brother in London.

Bond crouched, his eyes on the luminous dials in front of him, and concentrated on the interview ahead and on wondering how much useful evidence about the pipeline he could possibly extract from it. Later, he thought about Ernie Cureo and the revenge he owed him.

It was not in his make-up to worry about how he himself was going to get away once he had achieved these two objectives. His own safety gave him no concern. He still had no respect for these people. Only contempt and dislike.

Bond was still rehearsing imaginary conversations with Mr Spang when, after two hours’ driving, he felt the speed of the car coming down. He lifted his head above the dashboard. They were coasting up to a section of high wire fence with a gate in it and a big notice lit up by their single spotlight. It said:
SPECTREVILLE
.
CITY LIMITS
.
DO NOT ENTER
.
DANGEROUS DOGS
. The car drew up below the notice and beside an iron post embedded in concrete. On the post there was a bellpush and a small iron grill and, written in red:
RING AND STATE YOUR BUSINESS
.

Without leaving the wheel, sideburns reached out and pressed the button. There was a pause and then a metallic voice said ‘Yes?’

‘Frasso and McGonigle,’ said the driver, loudly.

‘Okay,’ said the voice. There was a sharp click. The high wire gate slowly opened. They drove through and over an iron strip in the narrow dirt road beyond. Bond looked back over his shoulder and saw the gate close behind them. He also noticed with pleasure that the face of, presumably, McGonigle, was plastered with dust and the blood of dead flies.

The dirt road continued for about a mile across the brutal, stony surface of the desert in which an occasional clump of gesticulating cactus was the only vegetation. Then there was a glow ahead and they rounded a spur of mountain and went down a hill and into a brightly lit straggling assembly of about twenty buildings. Beyond, the moon glinted on a single railway track which lanced off, straight as a die, towards the distant horizon.

They drew up among the grey clapboard houses and shops marked ‘drugs’, ‘barber’, ‘farmers bank’ and ‘wells fargo’, under a hissing gaslight outside a two-storey building which said in faded gold, ‘pink garter saloon’, and underneath, ‘Beers and Wines’.

From behind the traditional sawn-off swing-doors, yellow light streamed out on to the street and on to the sleek black and silver of a 1920 Stutz Bearcat roadster at the kerb. There was the sweet nasal twang of a honkey-tonk piano playing ‘I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now’, slightly flat. The music reminded Bond of sawdust floors, nursed drinks and girls’ legs in the widest mesh stockings. The whole scene was like something out of an exceptionally well-mounted ‘Western’.