“You made me nervous. Clicking away at that dam lighter trying to get your cigarette to work. I bet you put the wrong end of that Parliament in your mouth and lit the filter.”
She gave a short laugh. “You must have got eyes in your ears,” she admitted. “Dam nearly did just that. Okay. We’ll call it quits.” She finished her Martini. “Come on. You’re not much of a spender. I want another of these. I’m beginning to enjoy myself. And how about ordering dinner? Or d’you hope I’ll pass out before you get around to it?”
Bond beckoned to the maitre d’hotel. He gave the order, and the wine waiter, who came from Brooklyn but wore a striped jacket and a green apron and had a silver chain with a tasting-cup round his neck, went off for the Clicquot Rose.
“If I have a son,” said Bond, “I’ll give him just one piece of advice when he comes of age. I’ll say ‘Spend your money how you like, but don’t buy yourself anything that eats’.”
“Hell’n” Marier,” said the girl. “I must say this really is life with a small 1. Can’t you tell me something nice about my dress or something instead of grumbling the whole time about how expensive I am? You know what they say. ‘If you don’t like my peaches, why do you shake my tree?'”
“I haven’t started to shake it yet. You won’t let me get my arms round the trunk.”
She laughed and looked with approval at Bond. “Why Heavens to Betsy, Mistah Bond,” she said. “Yo all sure do say the purtiest things to a gal.”
“And as for the frock,” Bond continued, “it’s a dream, and you know it is. I love black velvet, especially against a sunburnt skin, and I’m glad you don’t wear too much jewellery, and I’m glad you don’t paint your fingernails. Altogether, I bet you’re the prettiest smuggler in New York tonight. Who are you smuggling with tomorrow?”
She picked up her third Martini and looked at it. Then very slowly, in three swallows, she drank it down. She put down the glass and took a Parliament out of the box beside her plate and bent towards the flame of Bond’s lighter. The valley between her breasts opened for him. She looked up at him through the smoke of her cigarette, and suddenly her eyes widened and then slowly narrowed again. “I like you,” they said. “All is possible between us. But don’t be impatient. And be kind. I don’t want to be hurt any more.”
And then the waiter came with the caviar, and suddenly the noise of the restaurant burst into the warm, silent room-within-a-room which they had built for themselves, and the spell was broken.
“What am I doing tomorrow?” repeated Tiffany Case in the voice one puts on in front of waiters. “Why, I’m going to sashay off to Las Vegas. Taking the 20th Century to Chicago and then the Superchief to Los Angeles. It’s a long way round, but I’ve had enough flying for a few days. What about you?”
The waiter had gone. For a while they ate their caviar in silence. There was no need to answer the question immediately. Bond suddenly felt they had all the time in the world. They both knew the answer to the big question. For the answers to small ones there was no hurry.
Bond sat back. The wine waiter brought the champagne and Bond tasted it. It was ice cold and seemed to have a faint taste of strawberries. It was delicious.
“I’m going up to Saratoga,” he said. “I’m to back a horse that’s to make me some money.”
“I suppose it’s a fix,” said Tiffany Case sourly. She drank
.some of the champagne. Her mood had changed again. She shrugged her shoulders. “You seem to have made quite a hit with Shady this morning,” she said indifferently. “He wants to put you to work for the mob.”
Bond looked down into the pink pool of champagne. He could feel the fog of treachery creeping up between him and this girl he liked. He closed his mind to it. He must get on with tricking her.