And then, a mass of surgical tape and streaked with mercuro-chrome, washed and shaved and with a huge breakfast inside him, he was back in the car and back in the world and Tiffany Case had withdrawn into her old ironical and uncompromising manner and Bond was making himself useful by watching for speed cops as Leiter kept the car in the eighties down the endless dazzling road towards the distant cloudline that hid the High Sierras.
Then they were rolling easily along Sunset Boulevard between the palm trees and the emerald lawns, the dust-streaked Studillac looking incongruous among the glistening Corvettes and Jaguars, and finally, towards evening, they were sitting in the dark, cool bar of the Beverley Hills Hotel, and there were new suitcases in the lobby and brand new Hollywood clothes and even Bond’s battle-scarred face didn’t mean they hadn’t all just finished work at the studios.
There was a telephone on the table beside their Martinis. Felix Leiter finished talking to New York for the fourth time since their arrival.
“Well that’s fixed,” he said, putting back the receiver. “My pals at the office have got you on the Elizabeth. Been delayed by a strike at the docks. Sails tomorrow night at eight. They’ll meet you in the morning at La Guardia with the tickets and you’ll go on board any time in the afternoon. They picked up the rest of your things at the Astor, James. One small case and your famous golf clubs. And Washington’s obliged with a passport for Tiffany. There’ll be a man from the State Department at the airport. You’ll both have some forms to sign. Got one of my old pals at the CIA to work it. The middays have made a big splash with the story-‘Ghost Town goes West’ and so on-but they don’t seem to have found our friend Spang yet and your names don’t figure. My boys say there’s no call out for you with the cops, but one of our undercover men says the gangs are looking for you and your description’s been circulated. Ten Grand attached. So it’s as well you’re skipping quick. Better go aboard separately. Cover up as much as you can and go down to your cabins and stay there. All hell’s going to bust loose when they get to the bottom of that old mine. That’ll make leastwise three corpses to nothing and they don’t like that kind of score.”
“Pinkertons seem to have quite a machine,” said Bond with admiration. “But I’ll be glad when we’re both out of here. I used to think your gangsters were just a bunch of Italian grease-balls who filled themselves up with pizza pie and beer all the week and on Saturdays knocked off a garage or a drug store so as to pay their way at the races. But they’ve certainly got plenty of violence on the payroll.”
Tiffany Case laughed derisively. “You ought to get your head examined,” she said flatly. “If we make the Lizzie all in one piece, it’ll be a miracle. That’s how good they are. Thanks to Captain Hook here we’ve got a chance, but it’s not more than that. Greaseballs!”
Felix Leiter chuckled. “Come on, lovebirds,” he said, looking at his watch. “We ought to get going. I’ve got to get back to Vegas tonight and start looking for the skeleton of our old dumb friend Shy Smile. And you’ve got your plane to catch. You can go on fighting at twenty thousand feet. Get a better perspective from there. May even decide to make up and be friends. You know how they say.” He beckoned to the waiter. “Nothing pro-pinks like propinquity.”
Leiter drove them out to the airport and dropped them there. Bond felt a lump in his throat when the lanky figure limped off to his car after being warmly embraced by Tiffany Case.
“You got yourself a good pal there,” said the girl as they watched Leiter slam the door and heard the deep boom of the exhaust as he accelerated away on his long drive back into the desert.
“Yes,” said Bond. “Felix is all right.”
There was the glint of moonlight on the steel hook as Leiter waved a last goodbye and then there was the dust settling on the road and the iron voice of the loudspeakers saying “Trans-World Airlines, Flight 93, now loading at Gate No5 for Chicago and New York. All aboard, please,” and they pushed their way through the glass doors and took the first steps of their long journey half way across the world to London.