No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You To Read - Let's Read James Bond

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chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Thanks a lot! As funny as lovely books are, it's good to get into something actually made with some kind of care.

Moonraker actually caught some flak when it was released for being entirely in Britain. While today it's a look at post-war British culture that now only exists in the minds of Brexit supporters, contemporary audiences found it as dull as if the last Daniel Craig movie took place entirely in Bangor.

Out of the pre-1969 era, only the Flamingo, Tropicana, Caesar's Palace, and Circus Circus are still open.

# ? Jan 25, 2019 17:19

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 18:08

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chitoryu12 posted:

In McCarran Airport, there are slot machines everywhere. Even the baggage claim area has banks of them, all run by their own professional gaming organization. Vegas is literally trying to take your money from the moment you set foot in it.

No wonder NCR can't get poo poo done.

# ? Jan 25, 2019 18:43

Midjack: Dec 24, 2007

Flying over the Pacific west of LA to get to Las Vegas is the long way from the east coast!

# ? Jan 25, 2019 19:35

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Midjack posted:

Flying over the Pacific west of LA to get to Las Vegas is the long way from the east coast!

The plane was a transfer from New York. LAX is right on the water so a plane taking off to the west would have to make a 180 degree turn back around.

# ? Jan 25, 2019 21:44

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

chitoryu12 posted:

The plane was a transfer from New York. LAX is right on the water so a plane taking off to the west would have to make a 180 degree turn back around.

Yeah, that was the days before there were dozens of cheap daily flights direct to Vegas to attract the suckers. McCarran was still a relatively small airport at that point (although already starting to expand).

# ? Jan 25, 2019 22:16

Midjack: Dec 24, 2007

chitoryu12 posted:

The plane was a transfer from New York. LAX is right on the water so a plane taking off to the west would have to make a 180 degree turn back around.

Yeah, I didn't consider that it would have connected through LA in that era. :cheerdoge:

# ? Jan 26, 2019 01:25

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Chapter 16: 'The Tiara'

quote:

Bond had lunch in the air-conditioned �Sunburst Room� beside the big kidney-shaped swimming pool (LIFESAVER: BOBBY BILBO��POOL SCOURED DAILY BY HYDRO-JET, said a sign) and having decided that only about one per cent of the customers were fit to wear bathing suits, walked very slowly through the heat across the twenty yards of baked lawn that separated his building from the central establishment, took off his clothes and threw himself naked on his bed.

There were six buildings containing the bedrooms of The Tiara and they were named after jewels. Bond was on the ground floor of �The Turquoise�. Its motif was egg-shell blue with furnishing materials of dark blue and white. His room was extremely comfortable and equipped with expensive and well-designed modern furniture of a silvery wood that might have been birch. There was a radio beside his bed and a television set with a seventeen-inch screen beside the broad window. Outside the window there was a small enclosed breakfast patio. It was very quiet and there was no sound from the thermostat-controlled air-conditioning and Bond was almost instantly asleep.

The Tiara is a fictional casino for the book. Considering all the stuff they passed from south to north when Cureo was naming casinos, it should be on the far north end around where the Stratosphere is, slightly past the official "end" of the Strip.

quote:

He slept for four hours, and during this time the wire-recorder, concealed in the base of the bedside table, wasted several hundred feet of wire on dead silence.

When he awoke it was seven. The wire-recorder noted that he picked up the telephone and asked for Miss Tiffany Case and after a pause said, �Would you please tell her that Mr James Bond called� and put back the receiver. It then picked up the noise of Bond moving about the room, the hiss of the shower and, at 7.30, the click of his key in the lock as he went out and shut the door.

Half an hour later the recorder heard a knock on his door and then, after a pause, the noise of the door opening. A man dressed like a waiter, with a basket of fruit bearing a note saying, �With the Compliments of the Management�, came into the room and walked quickly over to the bedside table. He undid two screws, removed the reel of fine wire on the recorder�s turntable, replaced it with a fresh reel, put the basket of fruit on the dressing table and went out and closed the door.

And then for several hours the recorder whirred silently on, recording nothing.

I actually don't know of any credible evidence that the Vegas of the 1950s actively spied on every guest that came its way, and that would be a tremendous effort even with the lower number of tourists back then in addition to falling afoul of wiretapping laws. The bigger privacy concerns today are in regards to the 2017 mass shooting causing hotels to begin regular searches of guests' rooms regardless of what's occurring at the time, including accusations of security services lacking official credentials who were filming rooms, rifling through guests' belongings, and confiscating "contraband" like soldering irons.

quote:

Bond sat at the long bar of the Tiara and sipped a Vodka Martini and examined the great gambling room with a professional eye.

The first thing he noticed was that Las Vegas seemed to have invented a new school of functional architecture, �The Gilded Mousetrap School� he thought it might be called, whose main purpose was to channel the customer-mouse into the central gambling trap whether he wanted the cheese or not.

There were only two entrances, one from the street outside, and one from the bedroom buildings and the swimming pool. Once you had come in through either of these, whether you wanted to buy a paper or cigarettes at the news stand, have a drink or a meal in one of the two restaurants, get your hair cut or have a massage in the �Health Club�, or just visit the lavatories, there was no way of reaching your objective without passing between the banks of slot machines and gambling tables. And when you were trapped in the vortex of the whirring machines, amongst which there sounded always, from somewhere, the intoxicating silvery cascade of coins into a metal cup, or occasionally the golden cry of �Jackpot!� from one of the change-girls, you were lost. Besieged by the excited back-chat from the three big crap tables, the seductive whirl of the two roulette wheels, and the clank of silver dollars across the green pools of the blackjack tables, it would be a mouse of steel who could get through without a tentative nibble at this delicious chunk of lucky cheese.

But, reflected Bond, it could only be a trap for peculiarly insensitive mice��mice who would be tempted by the coarsest cheese. It was an inelegant trap, obvious and vulgar, and the noise of the machines had a horrible mechanical ugliness which beat at the brain. It was like the steady clanking of the engines of some old iron freighter on its way to the knacker�s yard, unoiled, uncared for, condemned.

And the gamblers stood and tore at the handles of the machines as if they hated what they were doing. And, once they had seen their fate in the small glass window, they didn�t wait for the wheels to stop spinning but rammed in another coin and reached up a right arm that knew exactly where to go. Crank-clatter-ting. Crank-clatter-ting.

This is still how the casinos are to this day. Ever notice the utter lack of windows and clocks? Unless you make a conscious effort to check, there's no way to tell the time of day or how long you've been spending inside. Casinos are often the size of city blocks, a maze of passageways that require 3 or 4 different maps depending on the size of the building and number of floors. Signage is often inadequate for the area, leading to you drunkenly stumbling around in vain trying to find an exit or the way back to your room. You arrive just in time to see the sun coming up, having thought it wasn't much past midnight. You've won nothing.

quote:

And, when there was the occasional silvery waterfall, the metal cup would overflow with coins and the gambler would have to go down on her knees to scrabble about under the machines for a rolling coin. For, as Leiter had said, they were mostly women, elderly women of the prosperous housewife class, and the droves of them stood at the banks of machines like hens in an egg battery, conditioned by the delicious coolness of the room and the music of the spinning wheels, to go on laying it on the line until their wad was gone.

Then, as Bond watched, a change-girl�s voice bawled �Jackpot!� and some of the women raised their heads and the picture changed. Now they reminded Bond of Dr Pavlov�s dogs, the saliva drooling down from their jaws at the treacherous bell that brought no dinner, and he shuddered at the thought of the empty eyes of these women and their skins and their wet half-open mouths and their bruised hands.

Only a few slot machines in Vegas use coins instead of cards and tickets any more, but it's still absolutely the realm of elderly women (and a few elderly men). They line every wall of the casino that doesn't have doors or hallway entrances, all occupied by identical old ladies with a cigarette and a drink.

quote:

Bond turned his back on the scene and sipped at his Martini, listening with half his mind to the music from the famous-name band at the end of the room next to the half-dozen shops. Over one of the shops there was a pale blue neon sign which said �The House of Diamonds�. Bond beckoned to the barman. �Mr Spang been around tonight?�

�Ain�t seen him,� said the barman. �Mostly comes in after the first show. Around eleven. You know him?�

�Not personally.�

Bond paid his check and drifted over to the blackjack tables. He stopped at the centre one. This one would be his. At exactly five minutes past ten. He glanced at his watch. Eight-thirty.

The table was a small, flat kidney of green baize. Eight players sat on high stools facing the dealer, who stood with his stomach against the edge of the table and dealt two cards into the eight numbered spaces on the cloth in front of the stakes. The stakes were mostly five or ten silver dollars, or counters worth twenty. The dealer was a man of about forty. He had a pleasant half-smile on his face. He wore the dealer�s uniform��white shirt buttoned at the wrists, a thin black Western gambler�s tie, a green eyeshade, black trousers. The front of the trousers was protected from rubbing against the table by a small green baize apron. �Jake� was embroidered in one corner.

The dealer dealt and handled the stakes with unruffled smoothness. There was no talk at the table except when a player ordered a �courtesy� drink or cigarettes from one of the waitresses in black silk pyjamas who circulated in the central space inside the ring of tables. From this central space, the run of the play was watched over by two tough lynx-eyed pit-bosses with guns at their waists.

The game was quick and efficient and dull. It was as dull and mechanical as the slot machines. Bond watched for a while and then moved away towards the doors marked �Smoking Room� and �Powder Room� on the far side of the Casino. On his way he passed four �Sheriffs� in smart grey Western uniform. The legs of their trousers were tucked into half-Wellingtons. These men were standing about unobtrusively, looking at nothing but seeing everything. At each hip they carried a gun in an open holster and the polished brass of fifty cartridges shone at their belts.

Plenty of protection around, thought Bond, as he pushed his way through the swing door of the �Smoking Room�. Inside, on the tiled wall, was a notice which said, �Stand up Closer. It�s Shorter than you Think�. Western humour! Bond wondered if he dared include it in his next written report to M. He decided it would not appeal. He went out and walked back through the tables to the door beneath a neon sign which said �The Opal Room�.

The low circular restaurant in pink and white and grey was half full. The �Hostess� swept over and piloted him to a corner table. She bent over to arrange the flowers in the middle of the table and to show him that her fine bosom was at least half real, gave him a gracious smile and went away. After ten minutes, a waitress with a tray appeared and put a roll on his plate and a square of butter. She also set down a dish containing olives and some celery lined with orange cheese. Then a second and older waitress bustled over and gave him the menu and said �Be right with you.�

Twenty minutes after he had sat down, Bond was able to order a dozen cherrystone clams and a steak, and, since he expected a further long pause, a second Vodka dry Martini. �The wine waiter will be right over,� said the waitress primly and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

�Long on courtesy and short on service,� reflected Bond, and resigned himself to the gracious ritual.

At least the food is good. Cherrystone clams are relatively large quahogs common on the East Coast but not native to the West. Clams are a delicacy now, but they likely would have been even more expensive in the middle of the Mojave. Despite this, seeing them here isn't really surprising; the 1950s is when you first started to see the industrialization of food and food transport start climbing toward its modern peak, ensuring that you could find seafood even hundreds or thousands of miles from where it was caught as long as you were willing to pay for it.

quote:

During the excellent dinner that finally materialized, Bond wondered about the evening ahead and about how he could force the pace of his assignment. He was thoroughly bored with his role as a probationary crook who was about to be paid off for his first trial job and might then, if he found favour in the eyes of Mr Spang, be given regular work with the rest of the teenage adults who made up the gang. It irked him not to have the initiative��to be ordered to Saratoga and then to this hideous sucker-trap at the say-so of a handful of big-time hoodlums. Here he was, eating their dinner and sleeping in their bed, while they watched him, James Bond, and weighed him up and debated whether his hand was steady enough, his appearance trustworthy enough and his health adequate to some sleazy job in one of their rackets.

Bond munched his steak as if it was Mr Seraffimo Spang�s fingers and cursed the day he had taken on this idiotic role. But then he paused and went on eating more calmly. What the hell was he worrying about? This was a big assignment which so far had gone well. And now he had penetrated right to the end of the pipeline, right into the parlour of Mr Seraffimo Spang who, with his brother in London, and with the mysterious A B C, ran the biggest smuggling operation in the world. What did Bond�s feelings matter? It was only a moment of self-disgust, a touch of nausea brought on by being a stranger who had spent too many days too close to these sordidly powerful American gangs, too close to the gunpowder-scented �gracious life� of gangland aristocracy.

The truth of the matter, Bond decided over coffee, was that he felt homesick for his real identity. He shrugged his shoulders. To hell with the Spangs and the hood-ridden town of Las Vegas. He looked at his watch. It was just ten o�clock. He lit a cigarette and got to his feet and walked slowly across the room and out into the Casino.

In retrospect, this is the longest Bond has spent directly exposed to danger and crime. In Royale-les-Eaux, the overt bad guys were 5 people (two of whom blew themselves up as soon as they made an effort at their jobs). When dealing with Mr. Big, he was hunted but still an outsider who could return to a place of relative safety with allies like Leiter. On the Moonraker project, he didn't even know he was working directly for the villain until the very end of the assignment and spent most of it hunting for clues. With the Spangs, however, he's undercover. Every single person he deals with is a potential threat to him and he's very limited in how much he can even be seen around any friends without blowing his cover and getting buried alive.

quote:

There were two ways of playing the rest of the game, by lying low and waiting for something to happen��or by forcing the pace so that something had to happen.

# ? Jan 28, 2019 17:36

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

Me thinks Bond has a little too much pride.

# ? Jan 28, 2019 20:31

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

He really is the worst secret agent

# ? Jan 28, 2019 20:36

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

Help miss flight attendant do I put my fake job on the form or the secret one?

# ? Jan 29, 2019 18:02

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Chapter 17: 'Thanks for the ride'

quote:

The scene in the big gambling room had changed. It was much quieter. The orchestra had gone, and so had the droves of women, and there were only a few players at the tables. There were two or three �shills� at the roulette, attractive girls in smart evening dresses who had been given fifty dollars with which to warm up the dead tables, and there was a very drunk man clinging on to the high surrounding wall of one of the crap tables and shouting exhortations to the dice.

And something else had changed. The dealer at the centre blackjack table nearest the bar was Tiffany Case.

So that was her job at The Tiara.

And then Bond saw that all the blackjack dealers were pretty women and that they were all dressed in the same smart Western outfit in grey and black��short grey skirt with a wide black metal-studded belt, grey blouse with a black handkerchief round the neck, a grey sombrero hanging down the back by a black cord, black half-Wellingtons over flesh-coloured nylons.

Bond looked at his watch again and moved slowly into the room. So Tiffany was going to false-deal him to win five thousand dollars. And of course they had chosen the moment when she had just come on duty and the first show of the big-name revue was still running in The Platinum Room. He would be alone with her at the table. No witnesses in case she muffed a deal from the bottom of the pack.

I'm starting to get the feeling that Spang has a thing about the wild west.

quote:

At exactly 10.5 Bond strolled easily up to the table and sat down facing her.

�Good evening.�

�Hi.� She gave him a thin, correct smile.

�What�s the maximum?�

�A Grand.�

As Bond slapped the ten 100-dollar notes down across the betting line, the pit-boss strolled over and stood beside Tiffany Case. He barely glanced at Bond. �Mebbe the guy would like a new deck, Miss Tiffany,� he said. He handed her a fresh pack.

The girl stripped the cover off it and handed him the used cards.

The pit-boss stood back a few paces and appeared to lose interest.

The girl snapped the pack with a fluid motion of the hands, broke it and put the two halves flat on the table and executed what appeared to be a faultless Scarne shuffle. But Bond saw that the two halves did not quite marry and that when she lifted the pack off the table and carried out an innocent reshuffle she would be getting the two halves of the pack back into their original order. She repeated the manoeuvre again and put the pack down in front of Bond in an invitation to cut. Bond cut the cards and watched with approval as she carried out the difficult single-handed Annulment, one of the hardest gambits in card-sharping.

So the �new� deck was fixed and the only result of all this fair-play routine was to get all the cards back into the order in which they were arranged when they left the wrappers. But it was brilliant manipulation and Bond was full of admiration for the assurance of the girl�s hands.

He looked up into her grey eyes. Was there a hint of complicity in them, a hint of amusement at the odd game they were playing across the narrow green board?

She dealt him two cards and then gave two to herself. Suddenly Bond realized that he would have to be careful. He must play the exactly conventional game or he might upset the whole sequence in which the cards had been prepared.

Printed across the table were the words �The Dealer Must Draw on Sixteen and Stand on Seventeen�. They would presumably have given him fool-proof winning cards, but just in case there was another player or a kibitzer, they would have to make his winning seem a natural run of luck and not, for instance, just deal him twenty-one each time and seventeens to the girl.

Bond is dealt a Jack and a 10, with Tiffany dealing herself a 16 and busting with a King. The pit boss almost immediately shows up with a $1000 plaque. The next round has Bond win with a 17, then again with a 19. The final round stalls with both being dealt a 20, but he wins and finally makes his pay for the job.

quote:

And that was that. The pit-boss didn�t even bother to hand the girl the fourth plaque, but tossed it across the table to Bond with an expression on his face that was very like a sneer.

�Jee-sus,� said one of the new players, as Bond pocketed the plaque and stood up.

Bond looked across the table at the girl. �Thank you,� he said. �You deal beautifully.�

�I�ll say!� said the player who had spoken.

Tiffany Case looked hard at Bond. �You�re welcome,� she said. She held his eyes for a fraction of a second and then looked down at her cards, shuffled them thoroughly, and handed them to one of the new players for a cut.

Bond turned his back on the table and moved off round the room, thinking of her, and occasionally glancing across at the straight, imperious little figure in the exciting Western uniform. Others obviously found her as attractive as Bond did, for soon there were eight men sitting at her table and others standing watching her.

Bond felt a pang of jealousy. He walked over to the bar and ordered himself a Bourbon and branch-water to celebrate the five thousand dollars in his pocket.

The barman produced a corked bottle of water and put it beside Bond�s �Old Grandad�.

�Where does this come from?� asked Bond, remembering what Felix Leiter had said.

�Over by Boulder Dam,� said the barman seriously. �Comes in by truck every day. Don�t worry,� he added. �It�s the real stuff.�

Bond threw a silver dollar on the bar. �I�m sure it is,� he said with equal seriousness. �Keep the change.�

Shady Tree had told Bond under no circumstances to go back to the tables after winning his pay, so he heads to the roulette wheel and puts his entire $5000 wad on red. Keep in mind that this is about $47,200 in modern money.

quote:

The croupier sat up straighter in his chair and squinted sideways at Bond. He tossed the four plaques one by one down on to the Red, catching them there with his stick. He counted out Bond�s notes, pushed them through a slot in the table, took a fifth plaque from the rack of counters beside him and tossed this down to join the others. Bond saw his knee go up under the table. The pit-boss heard the buzzer and strolled over to the table just as the croupier spun the wheel.

Bond took out a cigarette and lit it. His hand was steady. He felt a wonderful sense of freedom at having at last taken the initiative from these people. He knew he was going to win. He hardly glanced at the wheel as it slowed down and the little ivory ball rattled into its slot.

�Thirty-six. Red. High and Even.�

The stick-man raked in a few losing counters and silver dollars and tossed some money down the table to the winners. Then he took a thin plaque as big as a prayer-book out of his rack and put it softly down beside Bond.

�Black,� said Bond. The man threw a single plaque for five thousand dollars down on to Black and raked in Bond�s stake from the Red.

There was a buzz of conversation round the table and several more people drifted up and stood watching. Bond felt the curious eyes on him, but he only looked across the table into the eyes of the pit-boss. They were as hostile as an adder�s, and yet somehow scared.

Bond smiled blandly at him as the wheel whirred and there was the whizz of the little ball as it set off on its journey. �Seventeen. Black. Low and Odd,� said the stick-man. There was a sigh from the crowd and hungry eyes watched the big plaque being slipped out of the rack and placed in front of Bond.

Once more, thought Bond. But not this turn.

�I�ll stay away,� he said to the croupier. The man glanced up at Bond and then reached out with his rake and pulled in Bond�s stake and handed it to him.

And then there was another man inside the pit, standing beside the pit-boss, and he was looking at Bond with bright, hard eyes like camera lenses, and the fat cigar exactly in the centre of his red lips was pointing straight at Bond like a gun. The big square body in the midnight-blue tuxedo was quite motionless and a sort of tense quietness exuded from it. It was a tiger watching the tethered donkey and yet sensing danger. The face was ivory pale, but there was a likeness to the brother in London in the very straight, angry black brows and the short cliff of wiry hair cut en brosse, and in the ruthless jut of the jaw.

The wheel whirred again and the two pairs of eyes bent to watch it.

It fell into one of the two green slots in the wheel and Bond�s heart lifted at the escape he had had.

�Double Zero,� said the stick-man, raking in all the money on the table.

Now for the last throw, thought Bond��and then out of here with twenty thousand dollars of the Spang money. He looked across at his employer. The two camera lenses and the cigar were still trained on him, but the pale face was expressionless.

Bond wins one last round. Nobody says anything, but he just walked away with the equivalent of almost $189,000 in mobster money on an improbable stroke of luck.

quote:

Bond put his hand over the four fat plaques in his coat pocket and shouldered his way out of the crowd behind him and walked straight across the long room to the cashier�s desk. �Three bills of five thousand and five of ones,� he said to the man with the green eyeshade behind the bars. The man took Bond�s four plaques and counted out the bills and Bond put them in his pocket and walked over to the reception desk. �Air mail envelope, please,� he said. He moved to a writing-desk beside the wall and sat down and put the three big bills in the envelope and wrote on the front �Personal. The Managing Director, Universal Export, Regents Park, London, N.W.1, England.� Then he bought stamps at the desk and slipped the envelope down the slot marked �U.S. Mail� and hoped that there, in the most sacrosanct repository in America, it would be safe.

Yes, $1000 and $5000 bills actually existed! They went all the way up to $100,000 gold certificates and $10,000 federal reserve notes, but all of them ended printing in 1945 and were almost exclusively used by banks, government institutions, and casinos for large transactions. In 1969, Nixon ordered any bills above $100 to cease circulation in an effort to combat counterfeiting and organized crime exactly like Bond is dealing with. While the bills are still legal tender, their rarity makes them more valuable than their face value and the advent of electronic transactions has made them obsolete anyway.

quote:

Bond glanced at his watch. It said five minutes to midnight. He surveyed the big room for the last time, noted that a new dealer had taken over at Tiffany Case�s table, and that there was no sign of Mr Spang, and then he walked out through the glass door into the hot stuffy night and over the lawns to the Turquoise building and let himself into his room and locked the door behind him.

# ? Jan 29, 2019 18:19

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

I can't understand the thoughts going through Bonds head here. His job is to make Spang like him so he can incriminate the whole ring. Why go against orders and effectively steal x 4 your payment in eye sight which is going to piss him off.

# ? Jan 30, 2019 01:01

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

MonsterEnvy posted:

I can't understand the thoughts going through Bonds head here. His job is to make Spang like him so he can incriminate the whole ring. Why go against orders and effectively steal x 4 your payment in eye sight which is going to piss him off.

I think he�s getting tired of the slow and methodical progression of his infiltration and has decided to just throw a wrench in everything to make something big happen.

# ? Jan 30, 2019 01:08

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

he is a drunken, impatient, barely competent dick

# ? Jan 30, 2019 01:11

Astroman: Apr 8, 2001

To be fair, a few month ago he just saved his nation's capital, 1 million people including the Queen and Churchill, from nuclear annihilation and maybe prevented WWIII. Now he's tangling with small time crooks who fix horses and smuggle the dangerous drug Marihuana across state lines.

You can see how he might feel a bit bored and petulant.

BTW thanks for this thread. I read all the Fleming Bond books over a year a couple years ago. Wish I'd had this then as I'd read but it's fun revisiting!

# ? Jan 30, 2019 02:38

Fish Noise: Jul 25, 2012; IT'S ME, BURROWS!

IT WAS ME ALL ALONG, BURROWS!

sebmojo posted:

he is a drunken, impatient, barely competent dick

In some ways, he really does seem more like bumbling bond parodies than the film bonds everyone's familiar with.

# ? Jan 30, 2019 04:12

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Fleming did base a lot off of his real experiences. I�m sure he met plenty of spies who were basically impatient alcoholics that would intentionally stir up poo poo to see what would happen. The entire plot of Casino Royale was inspired by him witnessing a major agent plopping down a ridiculous amount of money in a casino just to intimidate an rear end in a top hat gambler.

# ? Jan 30, 2019 05:15

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Fish Noise posted:

In some ways, he really does seem more like bumbling bond parodies than the film bonds everyone's familiar with.

Bond's good at what he's good at, but a lot of what he's good at is hand to hand combat and killing people. He doesn't like killing people, but when he has to, he''s good at it and ruthless about it. And in a crisis, he's top notch. Not a better man in a stressful situation. What he's not good at, though, is patience. Even when its his benefit to slow down and wait, he won't do it. It's not in his nature, and that impulsivity is what gets him into trouble.

# ? Jan 30, 2019 05:36

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

quote:

�How d'ya make out?�

It was the next evening and Ernie Cureo�s cab was rolling slowly along the Strip towards downtown Las Vegas. Bond had got tired of waiting for something to happen, and he had called up the Pinkerton man and suggested they get together for a talk.

�Not bad,� said Bond. �Took some money off them at roulette, but I don�t suppose that�ll worry our friend. They tell me he�s got plenty to spare.�

Ernie Cureo snorted. �I�ll say,� he said. �That guy�s so loaded with the stuff he don�t need to wear spectacles when he�s out driving. Has the windshields of his Cadillacs ground to his eye-doctor�s prescription.�

Bond laughed. �What�s he spend it on besides that?� he asked.

�He�s daft,� said the driver. �He�s crazy about the Old West. Bought himself a whole ghost town way out on Highway 95. He�s shored the place up��wooden sidewalks, a fancy saloon, clapboard hotel where he rooms the boys, even the old railroad station. Way back in �05 or thereabouts, this dump��Spectreville it�s called seeing how it�s right alongside the Spectre range��was a rarin� silver camp. For around three years they dug millions out of those mountains and a spur line took the stuff into Rhyolite, mebbe fifty miles away. That�s another famous ghost town. Tourist centre now. Got a house made out of whisky bottles. Used to be the railhead where the stuff got shipped to the coast. Well, Spang bought himself one of the old locos, one of the old �Highland Lights� if y�ever heard of the engine, and one of the first Pullman state coaches, and he keeps them there in the station at Spectreville and week-ends he takes his pals for a run into Rhyolite and back. Drives the train himself. Champagne and caviar, orchestra, girls��the works. Must be something. But I never seen it. Ya can�t get near the place. Yessir,� the driver let down the side window and spat emphatically into the road, �that�s how Mister Spang spends his money. Daft, like I said.�

So that explained it, thought Bond. That was why he had heard nothing from Mr Spang or his friends all through the day. Friday, and they would all be out at the boss�s place playing trains, while he had swum and slept and hung about the Tiara all day waiting for something to happen. It was true that he had caught an occasional eye shifting away from his, and there had always been a servant of some sort, or one of the uniformed sheriffs, hanging about in his neighbourhood, rather elaborately doing nothing in particular, but otherwise Bond might have been just any one of the hotel guests.

Yeah, we actually get something more goofy than the movie! I kinda wish we had gotten to see this put to celluloid instead of Blofeld's oil rig.

Bond reminisces about seeing Seraffimo Spang earlier that morning. He had gone to get a haircut at the casino barber shop, where Spang just so happened to be receiving a manicure.

quote:

Perhaps, with the changing elevation of the chair, the girl�s hand slipped, but there was suddenly a muffled roar and the man in the purple dressing-gown sprang out of his chair, tore the towels off his face and plunged a finger into his mouth. Then he took it out and bent quickly down and slapped the girl hard across the cheek so that she was knocked off her stool and the enamel bowl of instruments went flying across the room. The man straightened himself and turned a furious face on the barber.

�Fire that bitch,� he snarled. He put the hurt finger back in his mouth and his slippers crunched amongst the scattered instruments as he strode blindly out of the door and disappeared.

�Yes, Sir, Mr Spang,� said the barber in a stunned voice. He started to bawl-out the sobbing girl. Bond turned his head and said quietly, �Stop that.� He got up from his chair and unwrapped the towel from round his neck.

The barber gave him a surprised glance. Then he said quickly, �Yes, Sir, Mister,� and bent to help the girl gather up her instruments.

While Bond paid for his haircut he heard the kneeling girl say plaintively: �It weren�t my fault, Mister Lucian. He was nervous today. His hands were trembling. Honest they were. Ain�t never seen him like that before. Tension, sort of.�

And Bond had had a moment of pleasure at the thought of Mr Spang�s tension.

I'm sure Spang's anger over getting so much of his money taken by Bond will have absolutely no consequences!

quote:

Ernie Cureo�s voice broke sharply in on his thoughts. �We got ourselves a tail, Mister,� he said out of the corner of his mouth. �Two of �em. Fore an� aft. Don�t look back. See that black Chevvy sedan in front? With the two guys. They got two driving mirrors and they been watching us and keeping step for quite a whiles. Back of us there�s a little red sex-ship. Old sports model Jag with a rumble seat. Two more guys. With golf clubs in the back. But it just happens I know them guys. Detroit Purple Mob. Coupla lavender boys. You know, pansies. Golf ain�t their game. The only irons they can handle are in their pockets. Just swivel y�eyes round as if you was admiring the scenery. Watch their gunhands while I try �em out. Ready?�

Goddammit Bond.

quote:

Bond did as he was told. The driver put his foot on the accelerator and simultaneously turned off the ignition switch. The exhaust let go like an 88 millimetre and Bond saw the two right hands dive into the two brightly-coloured sports jackets. Bond casually turned his head back. �You�re right,� he said. He paused. �Better let me out, Ernie. I don�t want to get you into trouble.�

�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.

We get some later hints, but the car is likely a 1934 Jaguar S.S.I. The company was originally founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922 as a motorcycle sidecar manufacturer, then turned into SS Cars Limited, and finally renamed Jaguar in 1945.

The Jaguar S.S. was a sporty, cramped two-seater. A rumble seat is a fold-out seat in the trunk for fitting another person or two with absolutely no concern for their safety.

quote:

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?�

I like how Fleming is still afraid to actually write down swear words stronger than "bitch" but certainly wants to use them.

quote:

�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.

For all of Bond's incompetency elsewhere, it takes a hell of a shot to knock out a car with a tiny little .25 with the sights ground off.

quote:

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.�

Bond slips behind the wheel and sends the car back onto the road. As Bond looks for the Jaguar, Ernie tells him to drive to the Passion Pit drive-in theater near the intersection with US Route 95 to hide out.

quote:

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.

This is so goddamn 50s.

quote:

�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.

# ? Jan 30, 2019 14:51

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Is it just me, or do all of book-Bond's car chases end poorly for him?

# ? Jan 30, 2019 16:18

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Darth Walrus posted:

Is it just me, or do all of book-Bond's car chases end poorly for him?

He wasn't the one to crash this time! He just didn't pick a very good hiding place.

# ? Jan 30, 2019 16:49

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

So according to the Fleming's Bond website, "passion pit" was actually just a 1950s slang term for a drive-in theater (for obvious reasons). The location off the Boulder Highway close to Route 95 was the Skyway Drive-In, which closed in the 1980s and is now home to the Boulder Station hotel and casino at 4111 Boulder Highway.

# ? Jan 30, 2019 16:51

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

ernie got written as a total badass, must have been happy about that.

# ? Jan 30, 2019 19:22

Ytlaya: Nov 13, 2005

I read one of the original James Bond books at one point as a teenager, and all I remember about it is a very detailed description of a woman's boobs.

# ? Jan 30, 2019 19:29

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

It's kind of a shame Spang was not adapted to film, it would have been fun to see a villain go full cowboy.

# ? Jan 31, 2019 03:27

Traveller: Jan 6, 2012; WHIM AND FOPPERY

And this was about the time I tossed this book away. Metaphorically, since I was reading it online, but still. Once more Bond gets a friendly to pay for his own dumb ideas.

# ? Jan 31, 2019 05:07

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

that's unfair: bond suggested letting him off, dude was totally :black101:

for mafia death chase

e: vv oh yeah, true

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jan 31, 2019

# ? Jan 31, 2019 05:37

Traveller: Jan 6, 2012; WHIM AND FOPPERY

But it wouldn't have gotten to the death chase if Bond had just stuck to the plan instead of mucking things up just because he was bored.

# ? Jan 31, 2019 05:42

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Chapter 19: Spectreville

quote:

The 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 is absolutely unbelievable here. "I made him so mad he wants to assassinate me and killed a car full of goons he sent after me. Clearly this will make him offer me a job instead of running me over with a steam train."

After 2 hours of driving, rehearsing conversations in his head with Spang along the way, Bond feels the car slow down. He sees a high wire fence and a sign with a spotlight illuminating it, indicating the Spectreville city limits. There's a post with a speaker and button next to the gate.

quote:

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�.

The Stutz Bearcat is a classic American sports car produced from 1912 until 1934 in different models; Stutz stopped all car production a year later and filed for bankruptcy in 1937.

quote:

�Out, Limey,� said the driver. The three men climbed stiffly out of the car and on to the raised wooden sidewalk. Bond bent to massage a leg that had gone to sleep, watching the feet of the two men.

�Come on, sissy,� said McGonigle, giving him a nudge with his loosely held gun. Bond slowly straightened himself, measuring inches. He limped heavily as he followed the man to the door of the saloon. He paused as the swing doors flapped back into his face. He felt the prod of Frasso�s gun from behind.

Now! Bond straightened himself and leapt through the still-swinging door. McGonigle�s back was just in front of him and, beyond, there was a brightly lit empty bar-room in which an automatic piano was playing to itself.

Bond�s hands shot out and caught the man above the elbows. He lifted him off his feet and swung him round and into the swing doors and into Frasso, who was half-way through them. The whole clapboard house trembled as the two bodies met and Frasso fell back through the doors and crashed on to the sidewalk.

Bond has done this every single time he's been captured. It has never once gone well for him.

quote:

McGonigle catapulted back and twisted to face Bond. There was a rising gun in his hand. Bond�s left caught him on the shoulder. At the same time his open right hand slapped down hard on the gun. McGonigle went back on his heels against the door jamb. The gun clattered to the floor.

The snout of Frasso�s revolver appeared through the swing doors. It weaved quickly round towards Bond, like an aiming snake. As its blue-and-yellow tongue licked out, Bond, his blood singing with the battle, dived for the ground and for the gun at McGonigle�s feet. He got his hand on it and fired two quick shots upwards from the floor before McGonigle stamped on his firing hand and landed on top of him. As Bond went down, he caught a glimpse of Frasso�s gun arced up between the swing doors, pumping bullets into the ceiling. And this time the crash of the body on the planking outside sounded final.

Then McGonigle�s hands were at him and Bond was kneeling on the ground with his head down, trying to protect his eyes. The gun was still on the floor within reach of the first free hand.

For seconds they fought silently, like animals, and then Bond got to one knee and gave a great heave of his shoulders and lashed upwards at the glimpse of a face and the weight came off him and he rose to a crouch. As he did so, McGonigle�s knee came up like a piston under Bond�s chin and knocked him to his feet with a snap of the teeth that shook his skull.

Bond had no time to clear his head before the gangster gave a thick grunt and came for him head downwards with both arms flailing.

Bond twisted to protect his stomach and the gangster�s head hit him in the ribs and the two fists crashed into his body.

Bond�s breath whistled through his teeth with the pain, but he kept focus on McGonigle�s head below him and, with a twist of the body that put all his shoulder behind his hand, he whipped in a hard left, and, as the gangster�s head came up, he lashed out with his right to the chin.

The impact of the two blows straightened McGonigle and rocked him back on his feet. Bond was on him like a panther, crowding him and raining in blows to the body until the gangster began to sag. Bond grabbed at one weaving wrist and dived for an ankle and yanked it away from the floor. Then he put out all his strength, made almost a full turn to gather momentum, and slung the body sideways into the room.

There was a first twanging crash as the flying figure hit the upright pianola and then, with an explosion of metallic discords and breaking wood, the dying instrument toppled over and, with McGonigle spread-eagled across it, thundered to the floor.

Amidst the diminishing crescendo of echoes, Bond stood in the centre of the room, his legs braced with the last effort and the breath rasping in his throat. Slowly he lifted one bruised hand and ran it through his dripping hair.

�Cut.�

Huh. He actually won this one.

quote:

It was a girl�s voice and it came from the direction of the bar.

Bond shook himself and turned slowly round.

Four people had come into the saloon. They were standing in line with their backs to the mahogany-and-brass bar behind which ranks of gleaming bottles rose to the ceiling. Bond had no idea how long they had been there.

A step in front of the other three stood the leading citizen of Spectreville, resplendent, motionless, dominant.

Mr Spang was dressed in full Western costume down to the long silver spurs on his polished black boots. The costume, and the broad leather chaps that covered his legs, were in black, picked out and embellished with silver. The big, quiet hands rested on the ivory butts of two long-barrelled revolvers which protruded from a holster down each thigh, and the broad black belt from which they hung was ribbed with ammunition.

Mr Spang should have looked ridiculous, but he didn�t. His big head was thrust slightly forward and his eyes were cold, fierce slits.

On Mr Spang�s right, with her hands on her hips, was Tiffany Case. In a Western dress of white and gold, she looked like something out of Annie Get Your Gun. She stood and watched Bond. Her eyes were shining. Her full red lips were slightly parted and she was panting as if she had been kissed.

The other half of the quartette was the two men in black hoods from Saratoga. Each of them held a .38 Police Positive trained on Bond�s heaving stomach.

Yee haw.

quote:

Bond slowly took out a handkerchief and wiped his face with it. He was feeling light-headed and the scene in the brilliantly lit saloon, with its brass fittings and its homely advertisements for long-vanished beers and whiskies, was suddenly macabre.

Mr Spang broke the silence. �Bring him over.� The hard jaws that operated the sharp thin lips separated and cut off each word as cleanly as a meat-slice. �And tell someone to call Detroit and tell the boys they�re suffering from delusions of adequacy up there. And tell �em to send down two more. And tell �em they got to be better than the last lot. And tell someone else to clean up this mess. �Kay?�

There was a faint jingle of spurs on the wooden floor as Mr Spang left the room. With a last look at Bond, a look that held some message that was more than the obvious warning, the girl followed him.

The two men came up to Bond and the big one said �You heard.� Bond walked slowly after the girl and the two men lined up behind him.

There was a door behind the bar. Bond pushed through it and found himself in a station waiting-room with benches and old-fashioned notices about trains and warning you not to spit on the floor. �Right,� said one of the men and Bond turned through a sawn-off swing-door and on to a plank station platform.

And then Bond stopped in his tracks and hardly noticed a sharp prod in the ribs from a gun barrel.

It was probably the most beautiful train in the world. The engine was one of the old locomotives of the �Highland Light� class of around 1870 which Bond had heard called the handsomest steam locomotives ever built. Its polished brass handrails and the fluted sand-dome and heavy warning bell above the long gleaming barrel of the boiler glittered under the hissing gaslights of the station. A wisp of steam came from the towering balloon smoke-stack of the old wood-burner. The great sweeping cow-catcher was topped by three massive brass lights��a bulging pilot beam at the base of the smoke-stack and two storm lanterns below. Above the two tall driving wheels, in fine early Victorian gold capitals, was written �The Cannonball�, and the name was repeated along the side of the black-and-gold painted tender, piled with birch logs, behind the tall, square driver�s cabin.

Coupled to the tender was a maroon coloured state Pullman. Its arched windows above the narrow mahogany panels were picked out in cream. An oval plaque amidships said �The Sierra Belle�. Above the windows and below the slightly jutting barrel roof �Tonopah and Tidewater R.R.� was written in cream capitals on dark blue.

The Highland Light is one of the famous 4-4-0 steam trains that just about everyone recognizes as the "old west steam engine". They were designed by William Mason, who took the belief that locomotives should be beautiful works of art rather than just utilitarian transport. They were unique in lacking ornamentation in a time when the Neoclassical style was in vogue, using the natural shapes of the engine and minimalist color.

quote:

�Guess you never seen nuthen like that, Limey,� said one of the guards proudly. �Now git goin�. � His voice was muffled by the black silk hood.

Bond walked slowly across and stepped up on to the brass-railed observation platform with the shining brakeman�s wheel in the centre. For the first time in his life he saw the point of being a millionaire and suddenly, and also for the first time, he thought that there might be more to this man Spang than he had reckoned with.

The interior of the Pullman glittered with Victorian luxury. The light from small crystal chandeliers in the roof shone back from polished mahogany walls and winked off silver fittings and cut-glass vases and lamp-stands. The carpets and swagged curtains were wine-red and the domed ceiling, broken at intervals by oval-framed paintings of garlanded cherubs and wreathed flowers against a background of sky and clouds, was cream, as were the slats of the drawn venetian blinds.

First came a small dining-room with the remains of a supper for two��a basket of fruit and an open bottle of champagne in a silver bucket��and then a narrow corridor from which three doors led, Bond assumed, to the bedrooms and lavatory. Bond was still thinking about this arrangement as, with the guards at his heels, he pushed open the door into the state room.

At the far end of the state room, with his back to a small open fireplace flanked by bookshelves gleaming richly with gold tooled leather bindings, stood Mr Spang. In a red leather armchair near a small writing-desk half way down the car Tiffany Case sat bolt upright. Bond didn�t care for the way she was holding her cigarette. It was nervous and artificial. It looked frightened.

Bond took a few steps down the car to a comfortable chair. He turned it round to face them both and sat down and crossed one knee over the other. He took out his cigarette case and lit a cigarette and swallowed a deep lungful of smoke and let the smoke come out between his teeth with a long relaxed hiss.

Mr Spang had an unlighted cigar jutting from the exact centre of his mouth. He took it out. �Stay here, Wint. Kidd, get along and do what I said.� The strong teeth bit the words off like inches of celery. �Now you,� his eyes glittered angrily at Bond, �who are you and what�s going on?�

Before he starts, Bond puts his balls right at the front and demands a drink before talking. Spang unhappily lets him get another bourbon and branch from Wint. Having gone through his story in his head over and over on the car ride, Bond starts talking about how it's his right to gamble and not his fault if he won and why didn't they just call down to his room if they wanted to talk instead of shooting at him and--

quote:

The black-and-white face against the coloured books didn�t yield. �You don�t get the message, feller,� Mr Spang said softly. �Mebbe I better bring you up to date. Gotta coded signal yesterday from London.� His hand went to the breast pocket of his black Western shirt and he slowly pulled out a piece of paper, holding Bond�s eyes with his.

Bond knew the piece of paper was bad news, really bad news, just as surely as you do when you read the word �deeply� at the beginning of a telegram.

�This is from a good friend in London,� said Mr Spang. He slowly released Bond�s eyes and looked down at the piece of paper. �It says �Reliably informed Peter Franks held by police on unspecified charge. Endeavour at all costs hold substitute carrier ascertain if operations endangered eliminate him and report�. �

There was silence in the car. Mr Spang�s eyes rose from the paper and glittered redly down on Bond. �Well, Mister Whosis, this looks like a good year for something horrible to happen to you.�

You didn't even keep the real Franks hidden????

quote:

Bond knew he was for it and part of his mind slowly digested the knowledge, wondering how it was going to be done. But at the same time another part told him that he had discovered what he wanted to know, what he had come to America to find out. The two Spangs did represent the beginning and the end of the diamond pipeline. At this moment, he had completed the job he had set out to do. He knew the answers. Now, somehow, he must get the answers back to M.

Bond reached down for his drink. The ice rattled hollowly as he took the last deep swallow and put the glass down. He looked candidly up at Mr Spang. �I took the job from Peter Franks. He didn�t like the look of it and I needed the money.�

�Don�t give me that crap,� said Mr Spang flatly. �You�re a cop or a private eye of some sort and I�m going to find out who you are, and who you work for, and what you know��what you were doing in the Acme Baths alongside that crooked jock; why you carry a gun and where you learnt to handle it; how come you�re tied in with Pinkertons in the shape of that phoney cab-driver. Things like that. You look like an eye and you behave like one and,� he turned with sudden anger on Tiffany Case, �how you fell for him, you silly bitch, I just can�t figure.�

�The hell you can�t,� flared Tiffany Case. �I get handed the guy by A B C and he acts okay. You think maybe I should have told A B C to try again. Not me, brother. I know my place in this outfit. And don�t think you can push me around. And for all you know this guy may be telling the truth.� Her angry eyes swept over Bond and he caught the glint of fear, fear for him, behind them.

�Well, we�re going to find out,� said Mr Spang, �and go on finding out until the guy croaks, and if he thinks he can take it, he�s got another think coming.� He looked over Bond�s head at the guard. �Wint, get Kidd and come back with the boots.�

The boots?

Bond sat silent, gathering his strength and his courage. It would be a waste of time to argue with Mr Spang or to try to escape, fifty miles out in the desert. He had got out of worse jams. So long as they didn�t intend to kill him yet. So long as he gave nothing away. There was Ernie Cureo and there was Felix Leiter. There might just possibly be Tiffany Case. He looked across at her. Her head was bent. She was looking carefully at her fingernails.

Bond heard the two guards come up behind him.

�Take him out on the platform,� said Mr Spang. Bond saw the corner of his tongue come out and slightly touch the thin lips. �Brooklyn stomping. Eighty percenter. �Kay?�

�Okay, Boss.� It was the voice belonging to Wint. It sounded greedy.

The two hooded men came up and sat down side by side on a dark red chaise longue that ran down the car opposite Bond. They put football boots down on the thick carpet beside them and started to unlace their shoes.

# ? Jan 31, 2019 15:56

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

Well Spang saw through pretty much everything.

Also looking up images of Spang this is a pretty good one.

# ? Feb 1, 2019 07:27

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

MonsterEnvy posted:

Well Spang saw through pretty much everything.

Also looking up images of Spang this is a pretty good one.

I like that Wint or Kidd is a cat in a mask.

(I take it one of them has a badly-fixed harelip but hell, leave me my happy dreams.)

# ? Feb 1, 2019 09:13

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Chapter 20: Flames Coming Out of the Top

quote:

The black frogman�s suit fitted tightly. It hurt everywhere. Why the hell hadn�t Strangways made certain the Admiralty got his measurements right? And it was very dark under the sea and the currents were strong, pulling him against the coral. He would have to swim hard against them. But now something had got him by the arm. What the hell ...?

�James. For Chrissake. James.� She took her mouth away from his ear. This time she pinched the naked bloodstained arm as hard as she could and at last Bond�s eyes opened between their puffed lids and he looked up at her from the wooden floor and gave a shuddering sigh.

She tugged at him, terrified that he would slip away from her again. He seemed to understand and he rolled over and struggled on to hands and knees, his head hanging down towards the ground like a wounded animal.

One thing Fleming is really good at is dealing with loss of consciousness.

quote:

�Can you walk?�

�Wait.� The thick whisper coming through the cracked lips sounded strange to him. Perhaps she hadn�t understood. �Wait,� he said again, and his mind started exploring his body to see what was left of it. He could feel his feet and his hands. He could move his head from side to side. He could see the bars of moonlight on the floor. He had been able to hear her. It ought to be all right, but he just didn�t want to move. His will-power had gone. He just wanted to sleep. Or even to die. Anything to lessen the pain that was in him and all over him, stabbing, hammering, grinding him��and to kill the memory of the four boots thudding into him, and the grunts coming from the two hooded figures.

Directly he thought of the two men and of Mr Spang, the will to live came into Bond in a flood and he said �Okay.� And then again �Okay� so that she would be sure to understand.

�We�re in the waiting room,� whispered the girl. �We must get to the end of the station. Left, outside the door. Do you hear me, James?� She reached out and brushed the damp, sticky hair away from his forehead.

�Have to crawl,� said Bond. �Follow you.�

The girl got to her feet and pushed open the door. Bond gritted his teeth and crawled out on to the moonlit platform and when he saw the dark patch on the ground, rage and revenge gave him strength and he got clumsily to his feet, shaking his head to keep the red-black waves from drowning him and, with Tiffany Case�s arm round him, he limped along the wooden boards to where they sloped down towards the ground beside the gleaming rails.

And there, in the single-line siding, was a railroad handcar.

Bond stopped and gazed at it. �Petrol?� he said vaguely.

Tiffany Case gestured towards a row of cans against the station wall. �Just filled her up,� she whispered back. �It�s what they use for inspecting the line. And I can work it. And I shifted the points. Hurry. Get aboard,� she giggled breathlessly. �Next stop Rhyolite.�

�My God, you�re a girl,� whispered Bond. �But there�ll be a hell of a noise when we start that thing. Wait. Got an idea. Got some matches?� Half his pain had fallen away from him. The breath came fast through his teeth as he turned away from her and focused on the silent, tinder-dry buildings.

Tiffany tosses Bond her lighter, and he begins tipping the gas cans over and splashing fuel all over the room. He lights a bit of scrap newspaper on fire, then leaps onto the handcar and throws the tinder at the pile of cans as Tiffany puts the handcar in gear.

quote:

Bond turned and looked back at the great bloom of flame they had left behind them. He could almost hear the dry boards crackling and the shouts of the sleepers as they dashed from their rooms. If only it would get Wint and Kidd and catch the paint on the Pullman and fire the wood in the tender of The Cannonball and finish off the gangster�s box of toys!

But he and the girl had their own problems. What time was it? Bond gulped down the cool night air and tried to get his mind to work again. The moon was low. Four o�clock? Bond hunched his way painfully up the platform to the two bucket seats and somehow scrambled over and got down beside the girl.

He put an arm round her shoulders, and she turned and smiled into his eyes. She raised her voice above the noise of the engine and the hammer of the iron wheels on the rails. �That was quite an exit. Like something out of an old Buster Keaton film. How d�you feel?� She surveyed the battered face. �You look terrible.�

�Nothing broken,� said Bond. �Suppose that�s what�s meant by an eighty percenter.� He grinned painfully. �It�s better being kicked than being shot.�

The girl�s face cringed. �I just had to sit there and pretend that I didn�t care. Spang stayed and listened and watched me. Then they checked up on the ropes and slung you into the waiting room and everyone went happily to bed. I waited an hour in my room and then I got busy. The worst part was trying to wake you up.�

Bond tightened his arm round her shoulders. �I�ll tell you what I think of you when it doesn�t hurt so much. But what about you, Tiffany? You�ll be in a jam if they catch up with us. And who are those two men in the hoods, Wint and Kidd? What are they going to do about all this? I wouldn�t mind seeing a little more of those two.�

The girl glanced sideways at the grim curl of the bruised lips. �Never seen them without those hoods on,� she said truthfully. �They�re supposed to be from Detroit. Strictly bad news. They do the strong-arm work and special undercover jobs. They�ll all be after us now. But don�t you worry about me.� She looked up at him again and her eyes were shining and happy. �First thing is to get this crate to Rhyolite. Then we�ll have to find a car somewhere and get over the state border into California. I�ve got plenty of money. Then we�ll get you to a doctor and buy you a bath and a shirt and think again. I got your gun. One of the help brought it over when they�d finished picking up the pieces of those two guys you wrassled with in the Pink Garter. I collected it after Spang had gone to bed.� She unbuttoned her shirt and dug into the waistband of her slacks.

Bond took the Beretta, feeling the warmth of her on the metal. He flicked out the magazine. Three rounds left. And one in the breach. He replaced the magazine, put the gun on safe and tucked it into the top of his trousers. For the first time he realized that his coat was gone. One of his shirt sleeves hung in tatters. He tore it off and threw it away. He felt for the cigarette case in his right-hand hip pocket It was gone. But in the left-hand pocket there was still his passport and note-case. He pulled them out. By the light of the moon he could see that they were cracked and dented. He felt for his money in the note-case. It was still there. He put the things back in his pocket.

The handcar they've got is one of the gas-powered ones, with just a brake lever and throttle, so unfortunately we don't get the image of Bond and Tiffany angrily cranking away at the levers. For almost an hour, the handcar travels down the track. On their right is the Spectre mountains, and on the left the endless desert. Having been through this part of the Mojave, that's exactly what it looks like everywhere.

Suddenly, Bond feels or hears something unusual from the rails. He turns and can just barely see the red glimmer of the Cannonball steam engine behind them in the distance, coming from the flaming ruins of Spectreville.

quote:

�What can she do?� asked Bond.

�Maybe sixty.�

�How far to Rhyolite?�

�Around thirty.�

Bond worked on the figures for a moment in silence. �It�s going to be a near thing. Can�t tell how far away he is. Can you get anything more out of this?�

�Not a scrap,� she said grimly. �Even if my name was Casey Jones instead of Case.�

�We�ll be all right,� said Bond. �You keep her rolling. Maybe he�ll blow up or something.�

�Oh, sure,� she said. �Or maybe the spring�ll run down and he�s left the key of his engine at home in his pants pocket.�

I want an entire book series about Tiffany Case.

For 15 more minutes they continue in silence. The Cannonball closes to no more than 5 miles away, close enough for Bond to see the pilot light and sparks from the smokestack. And then the handcar's engine starts sputtering.

quote:

�Oh, dear little engine,� she said plaintively. �Beautiful, clever little engine. Please be kind.�

�Put-put. Put-put. Hiss. Put. Hiss ...� And suddenly they were free-wheeling along in silence. Twenty-five, said the speedometer. Twenty ... fifteen ... ten ... five. A last savage twist at the accelerator and a kick from Tiffany Case at the engine-housing and they had stopped.

�� said Bond, once.

It's okay, Fleming. You can say bad words. We're all adults here.

quote:

He got painfully out on to the side of the track and limped to the petrol tank at the rear, pulling his bloodstained handkerchief out of his trouser pocket. He unscrewed the filler cap and lowered the handkerchief down so that it must reach the bottom of the tank. He pulled it out and felt it and sniffed it. Dry as a bone.

�That�s that,� he said to the girl. �Now just let�s think hard.� He looked all round. No cover to the left, and two miles at least to the road. On the right the mountains, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. They might get there and hide up. But for how long? It looked the best chance. The ground beneath his feet was shaking. He looked down the line at the glaring, implacable eye. How far? Two miles? Would Spang see the handcar in time? Would he be able to stop? Might he be derailed? But then Bond remembered the great jutting cow-catcher that would sweep the light car out of the way like a bale of straw.

�Come on, Tiffany,� he called. �We�ve got to take to the hills.�

Where was she? He limped round the car. She was running back down the track in front. She came up panting. �There�s a branch line just ahead,� she gasped. �If we can push the thing there and you can work the old points, he might miss us.�

�My God,� said Bond slowly. Then, with awe in his voice. �There�s something better than that. Give me a hand,� and he bent down and gritted his teeth against the pain and started pushing.

Bond and Tiffany push the handcar past the junction, then both grab hold of the old rusty switch and pull it until the Cannonball is set to be redirected onto the branch line. As the train roars toward them, Bond shoves Tiffany behind the handcar and takes up a duelist's stance with his little Beretta against the train.

quote:

�Phut.� Something whipped into the ground beside him and there was a pinpoint flash from the cabin.

�B-o-i-n-g-g-g.� There was another flash and the bullet hit the rail and whined off into the night.

�Crack. Crack. Crack.� Now he could hear the gun above the roar of the engine. Something sang sharply in his ear.

Bond held his fire. Only four bullets and he knew when they would go.

And then, twenty yards away, the flying engine thundered into the curve and took the siding with a lurch that sent logs hurtling towards Bond off the top of the tender.

There was a shrill scream of metal as the flanges on the six-feet-tall driving wheels ground into the bend, a swift impression of smoke and flame and pounding machinery, and then a glimpse into the cabin and of the black-and-silver figure of Spang, spreadeagled, clinging to the side of the cabin with one hand and with the other hand outflung to the long iron handle of the throttle lever.

Bond�s gun shouted its four words. There was a lightning impression of a white face jerked up towards the sky and then the great black-and-gold engine was past and hurtling towards the shadowy wall of the Spectre Mountains, the beam of its pilot-light scything at the darkness ahead and its automatic warning-bell clanging sadly on, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.

Bond slowly tucked the Beretta into his trousers and stood looking after the coffin of Mr Spang, and the trail of smoke drifted over his head and for a moment put out the moon.

Tiffany Case came running to him and they stood side by side and watched the flaming banner from the tall smoke-stack and listened to the mountains throw back the echo of the charging locomotive. The girl clutched his arm as the engine gave a sudden swerve and vanished behind a spur of rock. And now there was only a faraway drumming in the mountains and a red glow that flickered off the crags as The Cannonball tore on down the cutting into the belly of the rock.

And suddenly there was a great tongue of fire and a terrible iron crash as if a battleship had run on a reef. And then a muffled clanging that seemed to come from under their feet. And, finally, a deep distant boom from the bowels of the earth and a barrage of miscellaneous echoes.

And then, with the noise gone, a steady, singing silence.

.25 ACP: the most powerful cartridge known to man.

Over the next 90 minutes, Bond and Tiffany painfully cross the desert to Highway 95 two miles away, Bond collapsing from delirium by the time they make it. Only Tiffany's guidance helped him make it.

quote:

And now she was cradling his head against her and talking softly to him and wiping the sweat off his face with the corner of her shirt.

And every now and then she paused to look up and down the dead-straight concrete road whose horizons were already shimmering in the heat waves of early morning.

An hour later she jumped to her feet and tucked in her shirt and went and stood in the middle of the road. A low black car was coming out of the dancing haze which hid the distant valley of Las Vegas.

It rolled to a stop just in front of her and a hawk-like face under an untidy mop of straw-coloured hair stuck itself out of the window. Keen grey eyes briefly looked her over. They glanced at the prostrate figure of the man in the dust beside the road and came back to her.

Then, in a friendly Texan drawl, the driver said, �Felix Leiter, Mam. At your service. And what may I do for you on this beautiful morning?�

# ? Feb 1, 2019 16:02

Somebody Awful: Nov 27, 2011; BORN TO DIE
HAIG IS A FUCK
Kill Em All 1917
I am trench man
410,757,864,530 SHELLS FIRED

Bond's marksmanship continues to strain plausibility.

chitoryu12 posted:

I want an entire book series about Tiffany Case.

# ? Feb 1, 2019 18:46

Midjack: Dec 24, 2007

A better use of the gun would have been to jam it into the switch when it was between positions so the engine derailed right there.

# ? Feb 1, 2019 19:59

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Just found this delightful chart:

One unit of alcohol is actually less than one drink, as it's 10 milliliters of pure alcohol. This is equal to half a pint of 4% ABV beer. An average glass of wine is 1.4 to 2.4 units of alcohol depending on the strength and size of the glass. A single 1.5 oz. shot of 40-50% ABV liquor is about 1 unit.

chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Feb 1, 2019

# ? Feb 1, 2019 21:13

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

Sperglord Actual posted:

Bond's marksmanship continues to strain plausibility.

Well he might not have killed Spang with the shots just prevented him from stopping the train. Though no matter the case I doubt Spang survived the train exploding.

# ? Feb 1, 2019 21:56

Small Strange Bird: Sep 22, 2006; Merci, chaton!

sebmojo posted:

he is a drunken, impatient, barely competent dick

Book Bond is so much like Sterling Archer the latter barely seems like a parody at times. March into a mission using your real name, get drunk, piss off the bad guy for no reason, get captured and have the poo poo beaten out of you, somehow stumble to victory because despite everything else, you're actually very good at violence.

# ? Feb 3, 2019 22:20

Up Circle: Apr 3, 2008

I watched some (all?) of diamonds are forever last night. It is not like the book. Wint and Kidd show up a lot more than I remembered from seeing it as a kid. Sean Connery is fat and old.

# ? Feb 3, 2019 23:09

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

Payndz posted:

Book Bond is so much like Sterling Archer the latter barely seems like a parody at times. March into a mission using your real name, get drunk, piss off the bad guy for no reason, get captured and have the poo poo beaten out of you, somehow stumble to victory because despite everything else, you're actually very good at violence.

Well in this case it was more Bond being lucky enough that Tiffney decided to backstab her boss and save him, and then being lucky enough that his trolley ran out of gas at a track switch.

# ? Feb 4, 2019 03:15

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 27, 2024 18:08

chitoryu12: Apr 24, 2014

Chapter 21: 'Nothing propinks like propinquity'

quote:

�... And when I get into town I call my friend Ernie Cureo. James knows him. And his wife is having hysterics and Ernie�s in the hospital. So I go right along and he tells me the score and I figure that James may need some reinforcements. So I jump on my coal-black mare and gallop through the night and when I get near to Spectreville I see the light in the sky. Mr Spang�s having himself a barbecue, I figure. And the gate in the fence is open so I decide to join the feast. Well, believe me or believe me not, there�s not a soul in the place except a guy with a busted leg and multiple contusions, who�s crawling down the road trying to get away. And he looks to me mighty like a young hood called Frasso from Detroit Ernie Cureo tells me was one of the guys that took James. The fellow�s in no state to deny this and I more or less get the picture and I figure that Rhyolite�s my next stop. So I tell the kid he�ll soon be having plenty of company from the Fire Department and I take him to the gate and leave him there and then after a while there�s a girl standing in the middle of the desert looking as if she�s been fired out of a cannon and here we all are. And now you tell.�

So it�s not all part of a dream and I am lying in the back of the Studillac and this is Tiffany�s lap under my head and that is Felix and we are going hell for leather down the road to safety, a doctor, a bath, some food and drink and an endless amount of sleep. Bond moved and he felt Tiffany�s hand in his hair to tell it was all real and just like he hoped, and he lay still again and said nothing and held each moment to him and listened to their voices and the zip of the tyres on the road.

At the end of Tiffany�s story, Felix Leiter gave a reverent whistle. �Jeese, Mam,� he said. �The two of you sure seem to have busted a hole in the Spangled Mob. What in hell�s going to happen now? There are plenty of other hornets in the nest and just sittin� around buzzin� isn�t goin� to be their way. They�ll want some action.�

Seraffimo Spang may be in the great ghost town in the sky, but there's still Shady Tree and Wint & Kidd here and Jack Spang back in London. At the rate they're going, Leiter expects to get them in Los Angeles by lunch; the Syndicate will likely try to use their connections to put a bunch of fake APBs out on Bond and Tiffany, so he suggests they get a flight back to New York and from there to London as soon as Bond can walk into the airport.

Tiffany is finally starting to catch on that Bond isn't actually a crook, but Leiter just says to ask him herself.

quote:

Bond smiled to himself and in the long silence that followed he dropped off into an uneasy sleep which lasted until they were half way across California and had pulled up outside a white wicket gate that said �Otis Fairplay, M.D�.

And then, a mass of surgical tape and, streaked with mercurochrome, washed and shaved and with a huge breakfast inside him, he was back in the car and back in the world and Tiffany Case had withdrawn into her old ironical and uncompromising manner and Bond was making himself useful by watching for speed cops as Leiter kept the car in the eighties down the endless dazzling road towards the distant cloudline that hid the High Sierras.

Then they were rolling easily along Sunset Boulevard between the palm trees and the emerald lawns, the dust-streaked Studillac looking incongruous among the glistening Corvettes and Jaguars, and finally, towards evening, they were sitting in the dark, cool bar of the Beverley Hills Hotel, and there were new suitcases in the lobby and brand new Hollywood clothes and even Bond�s battle-scarred face didn�t mean they hadn�t all just finished work at the studios.

There was a telephone on the table beside their Martinis. Felix Leiter finished talking to New York for the fourth time since their arrival.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmylCJhL-5Q

The Beverly Hills Hotel opened in 1912, but it wasn't until the late 40s (especially 1948) that it was heavily renovated and turned into the famous pink building it is today. When Bond visits it, it was known as a favorite haunt of celebrities, politicians, and royalty. A lot of movies were shot there and it was used as the cover for the Eagles' Hotel California.

quote:

�Well that�s fixed,� he said, putting back the receiver. �My pals at the office have got you on the Elizabeth. Been delayed by a strike at the docks. Sails tomorrow night at eight. They�ll meet you in the morning at La Guardia with the tickets and you�ll go on board any time in the afternoon. They picked up the rest of your things at the Astor, James. One small case and your famous golf clubs. And Washington�s obliged with a passport for Tiffany. There�ll be a man from the State Department at the airport. You�ll both have some forms to sign. Got one of my old pals at the C.I.A. to work it. The middays have made a big splash with the story��Ghost Town goes West� and so on��but they don�t seem to have found our friend Spang yet and your names don�t figure. My boys say there�s no call out for you with the cops, but one of our undercover men says the gangs are looking for you and your description�s been circulated. Ten Grand attached. So it�s as well you�re skipping quick. Better go aboard separately. Cover up as much as you can and go down to your cabins and stay there. All hell�s going to bust loose when they get to the bottom of that old mine. That�ll make leastwise three corpses to nothing and they don�t like that kind of score.�

�Pinkertons seem to have quite a machine,� said Bond with admiration. �But I�ll be glad when we�re both out of here. I used to think your gangsters were just a bunch of Italian greaseballs who filled themselves up with pizza pie and beer all the week and on Saturdays knocked off a garage or a drug store so as to pay their way at the races. But they�ve certainly got plenty of violence on the payroll.�

Tiffany Case laughed derisively. �You ought to get your head examined,� she said flatly. �If we make the Lizzie all in one piece, it�ll be a miracle. That�s how good they are. Thanks to Captain Hook here we�ve got a chance, but it�s not more than that. Greaseballs!'

Someone please write a story about Tiffany Case.

quote:

Felix Leiter chuckled. �Come on, lovebirds,� he said, looking at his watch. �We ought to get going. I�ve got to get back to Vegas tonight and start looking for the skeleton of our old dumb friend �Shy Smile�. And you�ve got your plane to catch. You can go on fighting at twenty thousand feet. Get a better perspective from there. May even decide to make up and be friends. You know how they say.� He beckoned to the waiter. �Nothing propinks like propinquity.�

Leiter drove them out to the airport and dropped them there. Bond felt a lump in his throat when the lanky figure limped off to his car after being warmly embraced by Tiffany Case.

�You got yourself a good pal there,� said the girl as they watched Leiter slam the door and heard the deep boom of the exhaust as he accelerated away on his long drive back into the desert.

'Yes,� said Bond. �Felix is all right.�

There was the glint of moonlight on the steel hook as Leiter waved a last goodbye and then there was the dust settling on the road and the iron voice of the loudspeakers saying �Trans-World Airlines, Flight 93, now loading at Gate No. 5 for Chicago and New York. All aboard, please�, and they pushed their way through the glass doors and took the first steps of their long journey half way across the world to London.

The new Super-G Constellation roared over the darkened continent and Bond lay in his comfortable bunk waiting for sleep to carry away his aching body and thinking of Tiffany, asleep in the bunk below, and of where he stood with his assignment.

The Lockheed L-1049G Super Constellation was introduced to the market in 1951 as a competitor to the Douglas DC-6. The Super Constellation series was one of the top transatlantic airliners of the mid-1950s, along with being just plain cooler than a Douglas.

quote:

He thought of the lovely face cradled on the open hand below him, innocent and defenceless in sleep, the scorn gone from the level grey eyes and the ironical droop from the corners of the passionate mouth, and Bond knew that he was very near to being in love with her. And what about her? How strong was this masculine protest that had been born on that night in San Francisco when the men had broken into her room and taken her? Would the child and the woman ever come out from behind the barricade she had started to build that night against all the men in the world? Would she ever come out of the shell that had hardened with each year of solitude and withdrawal?

Bond remembered moments in the last twenty-four hours when he had known the answer, moments when a warm passionate girl had looked out happily from behind the mask of the toughie from the gangs, the smuggler, the shill, the blackjack dealer, and had said: �Take me by the hand. Open the door and we will walk away together into the sunshine. Don�t worry. I will keep step with you. I have always been in step with the thought of you, but you didn�t come, and I have spent my life listening to a different drummer.�

Yes, he thought. It will be all right. That side of it. But was he prepared for the consequences? Once he had taken her by the hand it would be for ever. He would be in the role of the healer, the analyst, to whom the patient had transferred her love and trust on her way out of the illness. There would be no cruelty equal to dropping her hand once he had taken it in his. Was he ready for all that that meant in his life and his career?

Bond stirred in his bunk and put the problem away. It was too early for that. He was going too fast. Wait and see. One thing at a time. And he obstinately shelved the issue and shifted his thoughts to M and to the job which still had to be finished before he could spend time worrying about his private life.

He's absolutely right to be in love. Tiffany Case is so far the best Bond Girl in the books and honestly even more competent than Bond at everything but marksmanship.

Bond ruminates on the nature of the Syndicate and comes to the conclusion that Jack Spang and "ABC" are the real heads behind the smuggling racket, as Seraffimo only handled the receiving end of things and everyone else seems disposable. There's nothing implicating the House of Diamonds or Jack Spang, so the only evidence he really has to go on is the London phone number Tiffany used to contact ABC. He resolves to just hand the case over to M and Vallance at the Special Branch when he gets back to London.

quote:

Just ten hours after leaving Los Angeles they roared over La Guardia and turned out at sea for the long run in.

It was eight o�clock on Sunday morning and there were few people about at the airport, but an official stopped them as they were walking in off the tarmac and led them to a side entrance where there were two young men waiting, one from Pinkertons and one from the State Department. While they chatted about the flight, their luggage was brought round and they were taken to a side door and out to where a smart maroon Pontiac was waiting, its engine purring and the blinds in the rear pulled down.

And then there were some empty hours in the apartment belonging to the Pinkerton man until, at around four in the afternoon, but with a quarter of an hour between them, they were climbing up the covered gangway into the great safe, black British belly of the Queen Elizabeth and were at last in their cabins on M deck with their doors locked against the world.

The RMS Queen Elizabeth appeared in a Bond film, but in a rather different state:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq95sPcNVCU

The ocean liner was launched in 1938, named after the Queen Consort (later Queen Mother) Elizabeth, the mother of the more famous Queen Elizabeth II still ruling England. She actually started out pressed into service as a troop transport in World War II and didn't start operating as a passenger liner until 1946. When airliners started becoming the predominant method of crossing the Atlantic in the 1960s, she was retired and changed hands between several buyers.

Her final owner was Tung Chao Yung, a Hong Kong shipping magnate who planned on converting her into a floating university. Shortly before the refurbishment was completed, the ship mysteriously caught fire (likely to have been deliberate arson, possibly insurance fraud or a conflict between Tung and the unions) and partially sank into the harbor. The Man with the Golden Gun was filmed as the charred wreck was being broken up for scrap, and in the 1990s the final half of the wreck on the sea floor was buried.

Because the Queen Elizabeth was in private hands at the time the film adaptation of this novel was made, the SS Canberra was used instead.

quote:

But, as first Tiffany Case and then James Bond went into the mouth of the gangway, a dockhand from Anastasia�s Longshoreman�s Union had walked swiftly to a phone booth in the customs shed.

And three hours later two American businessmen were dropped at the dockside by a black sedan and were just in time to get through Immigration and Customs and up the gangway before the loudspeakers began calling for all visitors to leave the ship please.

And one of the businessmen was youngish, with a pretty face and a glimpse of prematurely white hair under the Stetson with the waterproof cover, and the name on the brief-case he was carrying was B. Kitteridge.

And the other was a big, fattish man with a nervous glare in the small eyes behind the bi-focals, and he was sweating profusely and constantly wiping his face round with a big handkerchief.

And the name on the label of his grip was W. Winter, and below the name, in red ink, was written: �MY BLOOD GROUP IS F�.

# ? Feb 4, 2019 16:46

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You To Read - Let's Read James Bond

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