Bond reported that his own intention was to continue working up the pipeline in the direction of Seraffimo Spang, using as an unconscious agent Tiffany Case, whose background he briefly reported.
Bond sent the cable ‘Collect’ via Western Union, had his fourth shower of the day and went .to Voisin’s where he had two Vodka Martinis, Oeufs Benedict and strawberries. Over dinner he read the racing forecasts for the Saratoga meeting, from which he noted that the joint favourites for The Perpetuities Stakes were Mr C. V. Whitney’s Come Again and Mr William Woodward Jnr’s Pray Action. Shy Smile was not mentioned.
Then Bond walked back to his hotel and went to bed.
Punctually at nine on Sunday morning, a black Studebaker convertible drew up to the sidewalk where Bond was standing beside his suitcase.
When he had thrown his case on to the back seat and climbed in beside Leiter, Leiter reached up to the roof and pulled back a lever. Then he pressed a button on the dash, and, with a thin hydraulic whine, the canvas roof slowly raised itself up into the air and folded itself down and back into a recess between the rear seat and the boot. Then, manipulating the steering wheel gearshift with easy movements of his steel hook, he took the car fast across Central Park.
“It’s about two hundred miles,” said Leiter when they were down on the Hudson River Parkway. “Almost due north up the Hudson. In New York State. Just south of the Adirondacks and not far short of the Canadian border. We’ll take the Taconic Parkway. There’s no hurry, so we’ll go easy. And I don’t want to get a ticket. There’s a fifty-mile speed limit in most of New York State, and the cops are fierce. But I can generally get away from them if I’m in a hurry. They don’t book you if they can’t catch you. Too ashamed to turn up in court and admit something is faster than their Indians.”
“But I thought those Indians could do well over ninety,” said Bond, thinking that his friend had become a bit of a show-off since the old days. “I didn’t know these Studebakers had it in them.”
There was a straight stretch of empty road in front of them. Leiter gave a brief glance in his driving mirror and suddenly rammed the gear lever into second and thrust his foot into the floor. Bond’s head jerked back on his shoulders, and he felt his spine being rammed into the back of the bucket seat. Incredulously, he glanced at the hooded speedometer. Eighty. With a clang Leiter’s hook hit the gear lever into top. The car went on gathering speed. Ninety, ninety-five, six, seven-and then there was a bridge and a converging road and Leiter’s foot was on the brake and the deep roar of the engine gave way to a steady thrumming as they settled down in the seventies and swept easily through the graded curves.
Leiter glanced sideways at Bond and grinned. “Nearly another thirty in hand,” he said proudly. “Not long ago I paid five dollars and put her through the measured mile at Daytona. She clocked a hundred and twenty-seven and that beach surface isn’t any too hot.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” said Bond incredulously. “But what sort of a car is this anyway? Isn’t it a Studebaker?”
“Studillac,” said Leiter. “Studebaker with a Cadillac engine. Special transmission and brakes and rear axle. Conversion job. A small firm near New York turns them out. Only a few, but they’re a damn sight better sports car than those Corvettes and Thunderbirds. And you couldn’t have anything better than this body. Designed by that Frenchman, Raymond Loewy. Best designer in the world. But it’s a bit too advanced for the American market. Studebaker’s never got enough credit for this body. Too unconventional. Like the car? Bet I could give your old Bentley a licking.” Leiter chuckled and reached in his left-hand pocket for a dime as they came to the Henry Hudson Bridge toll.
“Until one of your wheels came off,” said Bond caustically as they accelerated away again. “This sort of hot-rod job’s all right for kids who can’t afford a real motor car.”