Ian Fleming. The Spy Who Loved Me. James Bond #10

The eggs were ready and I heaped them out, still very soft, onto a flat dish and added the bacon round the sides. I put the pile of toast from the Toastmaster on another plate, together with a slab of butter still in its paper, and put the whole lot on a tray. I was glad to see that plenty of dust rose to the top when I poured boiling water over the coffee, and I hoped it would choke them. Then I carried the tray out from behind the bar and, feeling more respectable in my apron, took it over to where the thin man was sitting.

As I put it down, I heard the back door open and then slam shut. There had been no click of a lock. I looked quickly round. Sluggsy’s hands were empty. My heart began to beat wildly. Sluggsy came over to the table. I was taking things off the tray. He looked the meal over and came swiftly behind me and seized me round the waist, nuzzling his ghastly face into my neck. “Just like mother made ’em, baby. Howsabout you and me shacking up together? If you can— like you can cook, you’re the gal of my dreams. What say, bimbo? Is it a deal?”

I had my hand on the coffee pot, and he was just going to get the boiling contents slung over my shoulder. Horror saw my intention. He said sharply, “Leave her be, Sluggsy. I said later.” The words came out like a whiplash, and at once Sluggsy let me go. The thin man said, “Ya nearly got ya eyeballs fried. Ya want to watch this dame. Quit foolin’ around and sit down. We’re on a job.”

Sluggsy’s face showed bravado, but also obedience. “Have a heart, pal! I want a piece of this baby. But now!” But he pulled out a chair and sat down, and I moved quickly away.

The big radio and TV was on a pedestal near the back door. It had been playing softly all this time, although I had been quite unconscious of it. I went to the machine and fiddled with the dials, putting the volume up. The two men were talking to each other quietly and there was the clatter of cutlery. Now or never! I measured my distance to the door handle and dived to the left.

Nine: Then I Began to Scream

I HEARD a single bullet crash into the metal frame of the door, and then, with my hand cushioning the ice-pick so it didn’t stick into me, I was running hell for leather across the wet grass. Mercifully the rain had let up, but the grass was soaking and slippery under my hopeless flat soles, and I knew 1 wasn’t making enough speed. I heard a door crash open behind me, and Sluggsy’s voice shouted, “Hold it, or you’re cold turkey!” I began to weave, but then the shots came, carefully, evenly spaced, and bees whipped past me and slapped into the grass. Another ten yards and I would be at the corner of the cabins and out of the light. I dodged and zigzagged, my skin quivering as it waited for the bullet. A window in the last cabin tinkled with broken glass, and I was round the corner. As I dived into the soaking wood I heard a car start up. What was that for?

It was terrible going. The dripping pines were thick together, their branches overlapping, and they tore at the arms crossed over my face. It was black as pitch and I couldn’t see a yard ahead. And then suddenly I could, and I sobbed as I realized what the car was for, for now its blazing headlights were holding me from the edge of the trees. As I tried to dodge the searching eyes, I heard the engine rev to aim the car and immediately they had me again. There was no room for maneuver and I just had to make headway in whatever direction the trees allowed me. When would the shooting start up again? I was a bare thirty yards inside the forest. It would be any minute now! My breath was sobbing out of my throat. My clothes had begun to tear, and I could feel bruises coming on my feet. I knew I couldn’t hold out much longer. I would just have to find the thickest tree and try and lose the lights for a minute and crawl in under the tree and hide. But why no bullets? I stumbled away to the right, found brief darkness, and dived to my knees among the soaking pine needles. There was a tree like any other, its branches sweeping the ground, and I crawled in under them and up against the trunk and waited for the rasping of my breath to quieten down.

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