THE BADDEST VILLAINS - James Bond Edition. Ian Fleming

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СКАЧАТЬ find out what all these people like to eat and what they’re afraid of, and if you spend all your time with them you can make friends.’ She looked up at him. ‘You miss a lot not knowing about these things.’

      ‘I’m afraid I do,’ said Bond truthfully. ‘I expect they’re much nicer and more interesting than humans.’

      ‘I don’t know about that,’ said the girl thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know many human people. Most of the ones I have met have been hateful. But I suppose they can be interesting too.’ She paused. ‘I hadn’t ever really thought of liking them like I like the animals. Except for Nanny, of course. Until …’ She broke off with a shy laugh. ‘Well, anyway we all lived happily together until I was fifteen and Nanny died and then things got difficult. There was a man called Mander. A horrible man. He was the white overseer for the people who own the property. He kept coming to see me. He wanted me to move up to his house near Port Maria. I hated him and I used to hide when I heard his horse coming through the cane. One night he came on foot and I didn’t hear him. He was drunk. He came into the cellar and fought with me because I wouldn’t do what he wanted me to do. You know, the things people in love do.’

      ‘Yes, I know.’

      ‘I tried to kill him with my knife, but he was very strong and he hit me as hard as he could in the face and broke my nose. He knocked me unconscious and then I think he did things to me. I mean I know he did. Next day I wanted to kill myself when I saw my face and when I found what he had done. I thought I would have a baby. I would certainly have killed myself if I’d had a baby by that man. Anyway, I didn’t, so that was that. I went to the doctor and he did what he could for my nose and didn’t charge me anything. I didn’t tell him about the rest. I was too ashamed. The man didn’t come back. I waited and did nothing until the next cane-cutting. I’d got my plan. I was waiting for the Black Widow spiders to come in for shelter. One day they came. I caught the biggest of the females and shut her in a box with nothing to eat. They’re the bad ones, the females. Then I waited for a dark night without any moon. I took the box with the spider in it and walked and walked until I came to the man’s house. It was very dark and I was frightened of the duppies I might meet on the road but I didn’t see any. I waited in his garden in the bushes and watched him go up to bed. Then I climbed a tree and got on to his balcony. I waited there until I heard him snoring and then I crept through the window. He was lying naked on the bed under the mosquito net. I lifted the edge and opened the box and shook the spider out on to his stomach. Then I went away and came home.’

      ‘God Almighty!’ said Bond reverently. ‘What happened to him?’

      She said happily, ‘He took a week to die. It must have hurt terribly. They do, you know. The obeahmen say there’s nothing like it.’ She paused. When Bond made no comment, she said anxiously, ‘You don’t think I did wrong, do you?’

      ‘It’s not a thing to make a habit of,’ said Bond mildly. ‘But I can’t say I blame you the way it was. So what happened then?’

      ‘Well then I just settled down again,’ her voice was matter -of -fact. ‘I had to concentrate on getting enough food, and of course all I wanted to do was save up money to get my nose made good again.’ She said persuasively, ‘It really was quite a pretty nose before. Do you think the doctors can put it back to how it was?’

      ‘They can make it any shape you like,’ said Bond definitely. ‘What did you make money at?’

      ‘It was the encyclopedia. It told me that people collect seashells. That one could sell the rare ones. I talked to the local schoolmaster, without telling him my secret of course, and he found out that there’s an American magazine called Nautilus for shell collectors. I had just enough money to subscribe to it and I began looking for the shells that people said they wanted in the advertisements. I wrote to a dealer in Miami and he started buying from me. It was thrilling. Of course I made some awful mistakes to begin with. I thought people would like the prettiest shells, but they don’t. Very often they want the ugliest. And then when I found rare ones I cleaned them and polished them to make them look better. That’s wrong too. They want shells just as they come out of the sea, with the animal in and all. So I got some formalin from the doctor and put it into the live shells to stop them smelling and sent them off to this man in Miami. I only got it right about a year ago and I’ve already made fifteen pounds. I’d worked out that now I knew how they wanted them, and if I was lucky, I ought to make at least fifty pounds a year. Then in ten years I would be able to go to America and have the operation. And then,’ she giggled delightedly, ‘I had a terrific stroke of luck. I went over to Crab Key. I’d been there before, but this was just before Christmas, and I found these purple shells. They didn’t look very exciting, but I sent one or two to Miami and the man wrote back at once and said he could take as many as I could get at five dollars each for the whole ones. He said that I must keep the place where they live a dead secret as otherwise we’d what he called “spoil the market” and the price would get cheaper. It’s just like having one’s private gold mine. Now I may be able to save up the money in five years. That’s why I was so suspicious of you when I found you on my beach. I thought you’d come to steal my shells.’

      ‘You gave me a bit of a shock. I thought you must be Doctor No’s girl friend.’

      ‘Thanks very much.’

      ‘But when you’ve had the operation, what are you going to do then? You can’t go on living alone in a cellar all your life.’

      ‘I thought I’d be a call girl.’ She said it as she might have said ‘nurse’ or ‘secretary’.

      ‘Oh, what do you mean by that?’ Perhaps she had picked up the expression without understanding it.

      ‘One of those girls who has a beautiful flat and lovely clothes. You know what I mean,’ she said impatiently. ‘People ring them up and come and make love to them and pay them for it. They get a hundred dollars for each time in New York. That’s where I thought I’d start. Of course,’ she admitted, ‘I might have to do it for less to begin with. Until I learned to do it really well. How much do you pay the untrained ones?’

      Bond laughed. ‘I really can’t remember. It’s quite a long time since I had one.’

      She sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose you can have as many women as you want for nothing. I suppose it’s only the ugly men that pay. But that can’t be helped. Any kind of job in the big towns must be dreadful. At least you can earn much more being a call girl. Then I can come back to Jamaica and buy Beau Desert. I’d be rich enough to find a nice husband and have some children. Now that I’ve found these Venus shells I’ve worked out that I might be back in Jamaica by the time I’m thirty. Won’t that be lovely?’

      ‘I like the last part of the plan. But I’m not so sure of the first. Anyway, where did you find out about these call girls? Were they under C in the encyclopedia?’

      ‘Of course not. Don’t be silly. There was a big case about them in New York about two years ago. There was a rich playboy called Jelke. He had a whole string of girls. There was a lot about the case in the Gleaner. They gave all the prices and everything. And anyway, there are thousands of those sort of girls in Kingston, only of course not such good ones. They only get about five shillings and they have nowhere to go and do it except the bush. My nanny told me about them. She said I mustn’t grow up like them or I’d be very unhappy. I can see that for only five shillings. But for a hundred dollars …!’

      Bond said, ‘You wouldn’t be able to keep all of that. You’d have to have a sort of manager to get the men, and then you’d have to bribe the police to leave you alone. And you could easily go to prison if something went wrong. I really don’t think you’d like the work. СКАЧАТЬ