DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER BY IAN FLEMING

He glanced at his two cards. A knave and a ten. He looked up at the girl and shook his head. She turned up sixteen and drew a card, busting herself with a king. She had a rack beside her which contained only silver dollars and counters for twenty, but the pit-boss was quickly at her side with a 1000-dollar plaque. She took it and tossed it over to Bond. He put it over the line and pocketed his notes. She flipped out two more cards to him and two to herself. Bond had seventeen and again shook his head. She had twelve and drew a three and then a nine-twenty-four and bust again. Again the pit-boss stepped up with a plaque. Bond slipped it into his pocket and left his original stake. This time he had nineteen and she turned up a ten and seven on which, by the rule, she had to stand. Another plaque went into Bond’s pocket.

The wide doors at the far end of the room had opened and a stream of people were milling into the gambling room from the dinner revue. Soon they would be round the tables. This was his last play. After this he must get up from the table and leave her. She was looking at him impatiently. He picked up the two cards that she had given him. Twenty. And she also turned up two tens. Bond smiled at the refinement. She quickly dealt him two more cards just as three more players came up to the table and hitched themselves up on the stools. He had nineteen and she had sixteen.

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.”

He stood with his back to the bar, and the glass in his hand, deciding his next move. So now he had been paid off, and Shady Tree had told him on no account to go back to the tables.

Bond finished his drink and walked straight across the room to the nearest roulette table. There was only a sprinkling of gamblers at it, playing small.

“What’s the maximum here?” he said to the stick-man, an elderly balding individual with dead eyes who was just picking the ivory ball out of the wheel.

“Five Grand,” said the man indifferently.

Bond took the four plaques and the ten 100-dollar notes out of his pocket and put them beside the croupier. “On Red.”

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.

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