Colombo looked puzzled. He said: “If you were ready to walk into the trap, why did you try and escape from my men this afternoon? I had sent them to fetch you and bring you to my ship, and it would all have been much more friendly. Now I have lost a good man and you might easily have had your skull broken. I do not understand.”
“I didn’t like the look of those three men. I know killers when I see them. I thought you might be thinking of doing something stupid. You should have used the girl. The men were unnecessary.”
Colombo shook his head. “Lisl was willing to find out more about you, but nothing else. She will now be just as angry with me as you are. Life is very difficult. I like to be friends with everyone, and now I have made two enemies in one afternoon. It is too bad.” Colombo looked genuinely sorry for himself. He cut a thick slice of sausage, impatiently tore the rind off it with his teeth and began to eat. While his mouth was still full he took a glass of champagne and washed the sausage down with it. He said, shaking his head reproachfully at Bond: “It is always the same, when I am worried I have to eat. But the food that I eat when I am worried I cannot digest. And now you have worried me. You say that we could have met and talked things over – that I need not have taken all this trouble.” He spread his hands helplessly. “How was I to know that? By saying that, you put the blood of Mario on my hands. I did not tell him to take a short cut through that place.” Colombo pounded the table. Now he shouted angrily at Bond. “I do not agree that this was all my fault. It was your fault. Yours only. You had agreed to kill me. How does one arrange a friendly meeting with one’s murderer? Eh? Just tell me that.” Colombo snatched up a long roll of bread and stuffed it into his mouth, his eyes furious.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Colombo threw the remains of the roll on the table and got to his feet, holding Bond’s eyes locked in his. He walked sideways, still gazing fixedly at Bond, to a chest of drawers, felt for the knob of the top drawer, opened it, groped and lifted out what Bond recognized as a tape-recorder playback machine. Still looking accusingly at Bond, he brought the machine over to the table. He sat down and pressed a switch.
When Bond heard the voice he picked up his glass of whisky and looked into it. The tinny voice said: “Exact. Now, before I give you the informations, like good commercials we make the terms. Yes?” The voice went on: “Ten thousand dollars American . . . There is no telling where you get these informations from. Even if you are beaten . . . The head of this machina is a bad man. He is to be destrutto – killed.” Bond waited for his own voice to break through the restaurant noises. There had been a long pause while he thought about the last condition. What was it he had said? His voice came out of the machine, answering him. “I cannot promise that. You must see that. All I can say is that if the man tries to destroy me, I will destroy him.”
Colombo switched off the machine. Bond swallowed down his whisky. Now he could look up at Colombo. He said defensively: “That doesn’t make me a murderer.”
Colombo looked at him sorrowfully. “To me it does. Coming from an Englishman. I worked for the English during the War. In the Resistance. I have the King’s Medal.” He put his hand in his pocket and threw the silver Freedom medal with the red, white and blue striped ribbon on to the table. “You see?”
Bond obstinately held Colombo’s eyes. He said: “And the rest of the stuff on that tape? You long ago stopped working for the English. Now you work against them, for money.”