Bond took out a cigarette and lit it. His hand was steady. He felt a wonderful sense of freedom at having at last taken the initiative from these people. He knew he was going to win. He hardly glanced at the wheel as it slowed down and the little ivory ball rattled into its slot.
“Thirty-six. Red. High and Even.”
The stick-man raked in a few losing counters and silver dollars and tossed some money down the table to the winners. Then he took a thin plaque as big as a prayer-book out of his rack and put it softly down beside Bond.
“Black,” said Bond. The man threw a single plaque for five thousand dollars down on to Black and raked in Bond’s stake from the Red.
There was a buzz of conversation round the table and several more people drifted up and stood watching. Bond felt the curious eyes on him, but he only looked across the table into the eyes of the pit-boss. They were as hostile as an adder’s, and yet somehow scared.
Bond smiled blandly at him as the wheel whirred and there was the whizz of the little ball as it set off on its journey.
“Seventeen. Black. Low and Odd,” said the stick-man. There was a sigh from the crowd and hungry eyes watched the big plaque being slipped out of. the rack and placed in front of Bond.
Once more, thought Bond. But not this turn.
“I’ll stay away,” he said to the croupier. The man glanced up at Bond and then reached out with his rake and pulled in Bond’s stake and handed it to him.
And then there was another man inside the pit, standing be
“side the pit-boss, and he was looking at Bond with bright, hard eyes like camera lenses, and the fat cigar exactly in the centre of his red lips was pointing straight at Bond like a gun. The big square body in the midnight-blue tuxedo was quite motionless and a sort of tense quietness exuded from it. It was a tiger watching the tethered donkey and yet sensing danger. The face was ivory pale, but there was a likeness to the brother in London in the very straight, angry black brows and the short cliff of wiry hair cut en brosse, and in the ruthless jut of the jaw.
The wheel whirred again and the two pairs of eyes bent to watch it.
It fell into one of the two green slots in the wheel and Bond’s heart lifted at the escape he had had.
“Double Zero,” said the stick-man, raking in all the money on the table.
Now for the last throw, thought Bond-and then out of here with twenty thousand dollars of the Spang money. He looked across at his employer. The two camera lenses and the cigar were still trained on him, but the pale face was expressionless.
“Red.” He handed a 5000-dollar plaque to the croupier and watched it slither down the table.
Would the last coup be asking too much of the wheel? No, decided Bond with certitude. It would not.
“Five. Red. Low and Odd,” said the croupier obediently.
“I’ll take the stake,” said Bond. “And thanks for the ride.”
“Come again,” said the stick-man unemotionally.
Bond put his hand over the four fat plaques in his coat pocket and shouldered his way out of the crowd behind him and walked straight across the long room to the cashier’s desk. “Three bills of five thousand and five of ones,” he said to the man with the green eyeshade behind the bars. The man took Bond’s four plaques and counted out the bills and Bond put them in his pocket and walked over to the reception desk. “Air mail envelope, please,” he said. He moved to a writing-desk beside the wall and sat down and put the three big bills in the envelope and wrote on the front ‘Personal. The Managing Director, Universal Export, Regents Park, London, N.W.1 England.’ Then he bought stamps at the desk and slipped the envelope down the slot marked ‘US Mail’ and hoped that there, in the most sacrosanct repository in America, it would be safe.