DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER BY IAN FLEMING

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. Beseiged 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, un-oiled, 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.

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.

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.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *