Bond 07 - Goldfinger (24 page)

Bond slowly relaxed. It didn’t matter who she was or what she was up to. He measured the distance, planned each stride – the trajectory of the final spring, left hand to her neck, right to the gun. Now!

Bond’s chest skidded over the hump of the buttocks and thudded into the small of the girl’s back. The impact emptied the breath out of her with a soft grunt. The fingers of Bond’s left hand flew to the throat and found the carotid artery. His right hand was on the waist of the rifle’s stock. He prised the fingers away, felt that the safety catch was on and reached the rifle far to one side.

Bond eased the weight of his chest off the girl’s back and moved his fingers away from her neck. He closed them softly over her mouth. Beneath him, he felt the body heave, the lungs labouring for breath. She was still out. Carefully Bond gathered the two hands behind the girl’s back and held them with his right. Beneath him the buttocks began to squirm. The legs jerked. Bond pinned the legs to the ground with his stomach and thighs, noting the strong muscles bunched under him. Now the breath was rasping through his fingers. Teeth gnawed at his hand. Bond inched carefully forwards along the girl. He got his mouth through her hair to her ear. He whispered urgently, ‘Tilly, for Christ’s sake. Stay still! This is me, Bond. I’m a friend. This is vital. Something you don’t know about. Will you stay still and listen?’

The teeth stopped reaching for his fingers. The body relaxed and lay soft under his. After a time, the head nodded once. Bond slid off her. He lay beside her, still holding her hands prisoned behind her back. He whispered, ‘Get your breath. But tell me, were you after Goldfinger?’

The pale face glanced sideways and away. The girl whispered fiercely into the ground, ‘I was going to kill him.’

Some girl Goldfinger had put in the family way. Bond let go her hands. She brought them up and rested her head on them. Her whole body shuddered with exhaustion and released nerves. The shoulders began to shake softly. Bond reached out a hand and smoothed her hair, quietly, rhythmically. His eyes carefully went over the peaceful, unchanged scene below. Unchanged? There was something. The radar thing on the cowl of the chimney. It wasn’t going round any more. It had stopped with its oblong mouth pointing in their direction. The fact had no significance for Bond. Now the girl wasn’t crying any more. Bond nuzzled his mouth close to her ear. Her hair smelled of jasmine. He whispered, ‘Don’t worry. I’m after him too. And I’m going to damage him far worse than you could have done. I’ve been sent after him by London. They want him. What did he do to you?’

She whispered, almost to herself, ‘He killed my sister. You knew her – Jill Masterton.’

Bond said fiercely, ‘What happened?’

‘He has a woman once a month. Jill told me this when she first took the job. He hypnotizes them. Then he – he paints them gold.’

‘Christ! Why?’

‘I don’t know. Jill told me he’s mad about gold. I suppose he sort of thinks he’s – that he’s sort of possessing gold. You know – marrying it. He gets some Korean servant to paint them. The man has to leave their backbones unpainted. Jill couldn’t explain that. I found out it’s so they wouldn’t die. If their bodies were completely covered with gold paint, the pores of the skin wouldn’t be able to breathe. Then they’d die. Afterwards, they’re washed down by the Korean with resin or something. Goldfinger gives them a thousand dollars and sends them away.’

Bond saw the dreadful Oddjob with his pot of gold paint, Goldfinger’s eyes gloating over the glistening statue, the fierce possession. ‘What happened to Jill?’

‘She cabled me to come. She was in an emergency ward in a hospital in Miami. Goldfinger had thrown her out. She was dying. The doctors didn’t know what was the matter. She told me what had happened to her – what he had done to her. She died the same night.’ The girl’s voice was dry – matter of fact. ‘When I got back to England I went to Train, the skin specialist. He told me this business about the pores of the skin. It had happened to some cabaret girl who had to pose as a silver statue. He showed me details of the case and the autopsy. Then I knew what had happened to Jill. Goldfinger had had her painted all over. He had murdered her. It must have been out of revenge for – for going with you.’ There was a pause. The girl said dully, ‘She told me about you. She – she liked you. She told me if ever I met you I was to give you this ring.’

Bond closed his eyes tight, fighting with a wave of mental nausea. More death! More blood on his hands. This time, as the result of a careless gesture, a piece of bravado that had led to twenty-four hours of ecstasy with a beautiful girl who had taken his fancy and, in the end, rather more than his fancy. And this petty sideswipe at Goldfinger’s ego had been returned by Goldfinger a thousand, a millionfold. ‘She left my employ’ – the flat words in the sunshine at Sandwich two days before. How Goldfinger must have enjoyed saying that! Bond’s fingernails dug into the palms of his hands. By God, he’d pin this murder on Goldfinger if it was the last act of his life. As for himself ...? Bond knew the answer. This death he would not be able to excuse as being part of his job. This death he would have to live with.

The girl was pulling at her finger – at the Claddagh ring, the entwined hands round the gold heart. She put her knuckle to her mouth. The ring came off. She held it up for Bond to take. The tiny gold circle, silhouetted against the trunk of the tree, glittered in the moonlight.

The noise in Bond’s ear was something between a hiss and a shrill whistle. There was a dry, twanging thud. The aluminium feathers of the steel arrow trembled like a humming bird’s wings in front of Bond’s eyes. The shaft of the arrow straightened. The gold ring tinkled down the shaft until it reached the bark of the tree.

Slowly, almost incuriously, Bond turned his head.

Ten yards away – half in moonlight, half in shadow – the black melon-headed figure crouched, its legs widely straddled in the judo stance. The left arm, thrust forward against the glinting semicircle of the bow, was straight as a duellist’s. The right hand, holding the feathers of the second arrow, was rigid against the right cheek. Behind the head, the taut right elbow lanced back in frozen suspense. The silver tip of the second arrow pointed exactly between the two pale raised profiles.

Bond breathed the words, ‘Don’t move an inch.’ Aloud he said, ‘Hullo, Oddjob. Damned good shot.’

Oddjob jerked the tip of the arrow upwards.

Bond got to his feet, shielding the girl. He said softly out of the corner of his mouth, ‘He mustn’t see the rifle.’ He said to Oddjob, speaking casually, peaceably, ‘Nice place Mr Goldfinger has here. Want to have a word with him sometime. Perhaps it’s a bit late tonight. You might tell him I’ll be along tomorrow.’ Bond said to the girl, ‘Come on, darling. We’ve had our walk in the woods. Time to get back to the hotel.’ He took a step away from Oddjob towards the fence.

Oddjob stamped his forward foot. The point of the second arrow swung to the centre of Bond’s stomach.

‘Oargn.’ Oddjob jerked his head sideways and downwards towards the house.

‘Oh, you think he’d like to see us now? All right. You don’t think we’ll be disturbing him? Come on, darling.’ Bond led the way to the left of the tree, away from the rifle that lay in the shadowed grass.

As they went slowly down the hill, Bond talked softly to the girl, briefing her. ‘You’re my girl friend. I brought you out from England. Seem surprised and interested by our little adventure. We’re in a tough spot. Don’t try any tricks.’ Bond jerked back his head. ‘This man’s a killer.’

The girl said angrily, ‘If only you hadn’t interfered.’

‘Same to you,’ said Bond shortly. He took it back. ‘I’m sorry, Tilly. Didn’t mean that. But I don’t think you could have got away with it.’

‘I had my plans. I’d have been over the frontier by midnight.’

Bond didn’t answer. Something had caught his eye. On top of the tall chimney, the oblong mouth of the radar-thing was revolving again. It was that that had spotted them – heard them. It must be some kind of sonic detector. What a bag of tricks this man was! Bond hadn’t meant to underestimate Goldfinger. Had he managed to do so – decisively? Perhaps, if he had had his gun ...? No. Bond knew that even his split-second draw wouldn’t have beaten the Korean – wouldn’t do so now. There was a total deadliness about this man. Whether Bond had been armed or unarmed, it would have been a man fighting a tank.

They reached the courtyard. As they did so, the back door of the house opened. Two more Koreans, who might have been the servants from Reculver, ran out towards them through the warm splash of electric light. They carried ugly-looking polished sticks. ‘Stop!’ Both men wore the savage, empty grin that men from Station J, who had been in Japanese prison camps, had described to Bond. ‘We search. No trouble or ...’ The man who had spoken, cut the air with a whistling lash of his stick. ‘Hands up!’

Bond put his hands slowly up. He said to the girl, ‘Don’t react ... whatever they do.’

Oddjob came forward and stood, menacingly, watching the search. The search was expert. Bond coldly watched the hands on the girl, the grinning faces.

‘Okay. Come!’

They were herded through the open door and along a stone-flagged passage to the narrow entrance hall at the front of the house. The house smelled as Bond had imagined it would – musty and fragrant and summery. There were white-panelled doors. Oddjob knocked on one of them.

‘Yes?’

Oddjob opened the door. They were prodded through.

Goldfinger sat at a big desk. It was neatly encumbered with important-looking papers. The desk was flanked by grey metal filing cabinets. Beside the desk, within reach of Goldfinger’s hand, stood a short-wave wireless set on a low table. There was an operator’s keyboard and a machine that ticked busily and looked like a barograph. Bond guessed that this had something to do with the detector that had intercepted them.

Goldfinger wore his purple velvet smoking-jacket over an open-necked white silk shirt. The open neck showed a tuft of orange chest-hair. He sat very erect in a high-backed chair. He hardly glanced at the girl. The big china-blue eyes were fixed on Bond. They showed no surprise. They held no expression except a piercing hardness.

Bond blustered, ‘Look here, Goldfinger. What the hell’s all this about? You put the police on to me over that ten thousand dollars and I got on your tracks with my girl friend here, Miss Soames. I’ve come to find out what the hell you mean by it. We climbed the fence – I know it’s trespassing, but I wanted to catch you before you moved on somewhere else. Then this ape of yours came along and damned near killed one of us with his bow and arrow. Two more of your bloody Koreans held us up and searched us. What the hell’s going on? If you can’t give me a civil answer and full apologies I’ll put the police on you.’

Goldfinger’s flat, hard stare didn’t flicker. He might not have heard Bond’s angry-gentleman’s outburst. The finely chiselled lips parted. He said, ‘Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” Miami, Sandwich and now Geneva. I propose to wring the truth out of you.’ Goldfinger’s eyes slid slowly past Bond’s head. ‘Oddjob. The Pressure Room.’

PART THREE
ENEMY ACTION

B
OND’S
REACTION
was automatic. There was no reason behind it. He took one quick step forward and hurled himself across the desk at Goldfinger. His body, launched in a shallow dive, hit the top of the desk and ploughed through the litter of papers. There was a heavy thud as the top of his head crashed into Goldfinger’s breastbone. The momentum of the blow rocked Goldfinger in his chair. Bond kicked back at the edge of the desk, got a purchase and rammed forward again. As the chair toppled backwards and the two bodies went down in the splintering woodwork, Bond’s fingers got to the throat and his thumbs went into its base and downwards with every ounce of his force.

Then the whole house fell on Bond, a baulk of timber hit him at the base of the neck and he rolled sluggishly off Goldfinger on to the floor and lay still.

The vortex of light through which Bond was whirling slowly flattened into a disc, a yellow moon, and then into a burning Cyclops eye. Something was written round the fiery eyeball. It was a message, an important message for him. He must read it. Carefully, one by one, Bond spelled out the tiny letters. The message said:
SOCIÉTÉ ANONYME MAZDA
. What was its significance? A hard bolt of water hit Bond in the face. The water stung his eyes and filled his mouth. He retched desperately and tried to move. He couldn’t. His eyes cleared, and his brain. There was a throbbing pain at the back of his neck. He was staring up into a big enamelled light bowl with one powerful bulb. He was on some sort of a table and his wrists and ankles were bound to its edges. He felt with his fingers. He felt polished metal.

A voice, Goldfinger’s voice, flat, uninterested, said, ‘Now we can begin.’

Bond turned his head towards the voice. His eyes were dazzled by the light. He squeezed them hard and opened them. Goldfinger was sitting in a canvas chair. He had taken off his jacket and was in his shirt sleeves. There were red marks round the base of his throat. On a folding table beside him were various tools and metal instruments and a control panel. On the other side of the table Tilly Masterton sat in another chair. She was strapped to it by her wrists and ankles. She sat bolt upright as if she was in school. She looked incredibly beautiful, but shocked, remote. Her eyes gazed vacantly at Bond. She was either drugged or hypnotized.