Bond 02 - Live and Let Die (8 page)

It was very civilized in the warm restaurant. Their waiter seemed glad to see them and pointed out various celebrities, but when Leiter slipped in a question about Mr Big the waiter seemed not to hear. He kept away from them until they called for their bill.

Leiter repeated the question.

‘Sorry, Sah,’ said the waiter briefly. ‘Ah cain’t recall a gemmun of dat name.’

By the time they left the restaurant it was ten-thirty and the Avenue was almost deserted. They took a cab to the Savoy Ballroom, had a Scotch-and-soda, and watched the dancers.

‘Most modern dances were invented here,’ said Leiter. ‘That’s how good it is. The Lindy Hop, Truckin’, the Susie Q, the Shag. All started on that floor. Every big American band you’ve ever heard of is proud that it once played here – Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Noble Sissle, Fletcher Henderson. It’s the Mecca of jazz and jive.’

They had a table near the rail round the huge floor. Bond was spellbound. He found many of the girls very beautiful. The music hammered its way into his pulse until he almost forgot what he was there for.

‘Gets you, doesn’t it?’ said Leiter at last. ‘I could stay here all night. Better move along. We’ll miss out Small’s Paradise. Much the same as this, but not quite in the same class. Think I’ll take you to “Yeah Man“, back on Seventh. After that we must get moving to one of Mr Big’s own joints. Trouble is, they don’t open till midnight. I’ll pay a visit to the washroom while you get the check. See if I can get a line on where we’re likely to find him tonight. We don’t want to have to go to all his places.’

Bond paid the check and met Leiter downstairs in the narrow entrance hall.

Leiter drew him outside and they walked up the street looking for a cab.

‘Cost me twenty bucks,’ said Leiter, ‘but the word is he’ll be at The Boneyard. Small place on Lenox Avenue. Quite close to his headquarters. Hottest strip in town. Girl called G-G Sumatra. We’ll have another drink at “Yeah Man“ and hear the piano. Move on at about twelve-thirty.’

The big switchboard, now only a few blocks away, was almost quiet. The two men had been checked in and out of Sugar Ray’s, Ma Frazier’s and the Savoy Ballroom. Midnight had them entering ‘Yeah Man’. At twelve-thirty the final call came and then the board was silent.

Mr Big spoke on the house-phone. First to the head waiter.

‘Two white men coming in in five minutes. Give them the Z table.’

‘Yes, Sir, Boss,’ said the head waiter. He hurried across the dance floor to a table away on the right, obscured from most of the room by a wide pillar. It was next to the Service entrance but with a good view of the floor and the band opposite.

It was occupied by a party of four, two men and two girls.

‘Sorry folks,’ said the head waiter. ‘Been a mistake. Table’s reserved. Newspaper men from downtown.’

One of the men began to argue.

‘Move, Bud,’ said the head waiter crisply. ‘Lofty, show these folks to table F. Drinks is on the house. Sam,’ he beckoned to another waiter, ‘clear the table. Two covers.’ The party of four moved docilely away, mollified by the prospect of free liquor. The head waiter put a Reserved sign on table Z, surveyed it and returned to his post at his table-plan on the high desk beside the curtained entrance.

Meanwhile Mr Big had made two more calls on the house-phone. One to the Master of Ceremonies.

‘Lights out at the end of G-G’s act.’

‘Yes, Sir, Boss,’ said the MC with alacrity.

The other call was to four men who were playing craps in the basement. It was a long call, and very detailed.

A
T TWELVE
forty-five Bond and Leiter paid off their cab and walked in under the sign which announced ‘The Boneyard’ in violet and green neon.

The thudding rhythm and the sour-sweet smell rocked them as they pushed through the heavy curtains inside the swing door. The eyes of the hat-check girls glowed and beckoned.

‘Have you reserved, Sir?’ asked the head waiter.

‘No,’ said Leiter. ‘We don’t mind sitting at the bar.’

The head waiter consulted his table-plan. He seemed to decide. He put his pencil firmly through a space at the end of the card.

‘Party hasn’t shown. Guess Ah cain’t hold their res’vation all night. This way, please.’ He held his card high over his head and led them round the small crowded dance floor. He pulled out one of the two chairs and removed the ‘Reserved’ sign.

‘Sam,’ he called a waiter over. ‘Look after these gemmums order.’ He moved away.

They ordered Scotch-and-soda and chicken sandwiches.

Bond sniffed. ‘Marihuana,’ he commented.

‘Most of the real hep-cats smoke reefers,’ explained Leiter. ‘Wouldn’t be allowed most places.’

Bond looked round. The music had stopped. The small four-piece band, clarinet, double-bass, electric guitar and drums, was moving out of the corner opposite. The dozen or so couples were walking and jiving to their tables and the crimson light was turned off under the glass dance floor. Instead, pencil-thin lights in the roof came on and hit coloured glass witchballs, larger than footballs, that hung at intervals round the wall. They were of different hues, golden, blue, green, violet, red. As the beams of light hit them, they glowed like coloured suns. The walls, varnished black, mirrored their reflections as did the sweat on the ebony faces of the men. Sometimes a man sitting between two lights showed cheeks of different colour, green on one side, perhaps, and red on the other. The lighting made it impossible to distinguish features unless they were only a few feet away. Some of the lights turned the girls’ lipstick black, others lit their whole faces in a warm glow on one side and gave the other profile the luminosity of a drowned corpse.

The whole scene was macabre and livid, as if El Greco had done a painting by moonlight of an exhumed graveyard in a burning town.

It was not a large room, perhaps sixty foot square. There were about fifty tables and the customers were packed in like black olives in a jar. It was hot and the air was thick with smoke and the sweet, feral smell of two hundred negro bodies. The noise was terrific – an undertone of the jabber of negroes enjoying themselves without restraint, punctuated by sharp bursts of noise, shouts and high giggles, as loud voices called to each other across the room.

‘Sweet Jeessus, look who’s hyar …’

‘Where you been keepin yoself, baby …’

‘Gawd’s troof. It’s Pinkus … Hi Pinkus …’

‘Cmon over …’

‘Lemme be … Lemme be, I’se telling ya …’ (The noise of a slap.)

‘Where’s G-G. Cmon G-G. Strut yo stuff …’

From time to time a man or girl would erupt on to the dance floor and start a wild solo jive. Friends would clap the rhythm. There would be a burst of catcalls and whistles. If it was a girl, there would be cries of ‘Strip, strip, strip,’ ‘Get hot, baby!’ ‘Shake it, shake it,’ and the MC would come out and clear the floor amidst groans and shouts of derision.

The sweat began to bead on Bond’s forehead. Leiter leant over and cupped his hands. ‘Three exits. Front. Service behind us. Behind the band.’ Bond nodded. At that moment he felt it didn’t matter. This was nothing new to Leiter, but for Bond it was a close-up of the raw material on which The Big Man worked, the clay in his hands. The evening was gradually putting flesh on the dossiers he had read in London and New York. If the evening ended now, without any closer sight of Mr Big himself, Bond still felt his education in the case would be almost complete. He took a deep draught of his whisky. There was a burst of applause. The MC had come out on to the dance floor, a tall negro in immaculate tails with a red carnation in his button hole. He stood, holding up his hands. A single white spotlight caught him. The rest of the room went dark.

There was silence.

‘Folks,’ announced the MC with a broad flash of gold and white teeth. ‘This is it.’

There was excited clapping.

He turned to the left of the floor, directly across from Leiter and Bond.

He flung out his right hand. Another spot came on.

‘Mistah Jungles Japhet ’n his drums.’

A crash of applause, catcalls, whistles.

Four grinning negroes in flame-coloured shirts and peg-top white trousers were revealed, squatting astride four tapering barrels with rawhide membranes. The drums were of different sizes. The negroes were all gaunt and stringy. The one sitting astride the bass drum rose briefly and shook clasped hands at the spectators.

‘Voodoo drummers from Haiti,’ whispered Leiter.

There was silence. With the tips of their fingers the drummers began a slow, broken beat, a soft rumba shuffle.

‘And now, friends,’ announced the MC, still turned towards the drums, ‘G-G …’ he paused, ‘
SUMATRA
.’

The last word was a yell. He began to clap. There was pandemonium in the room, a frenzy of applause. The door behind the drums burst open and two huge negroes, naked except for gold loincloths, ran out on to the floor carrying between them, her arms round their necks, a tiny figure, swathed completely in black ostrich feathers, a black domino across her eyes.

They put her down in the middle of the floor. They bowed down on either side of her until their foreheads met the ground. She took two paces forward. With the spotlight off them, the two negroes melted away into the shadows and through the door.

The MC had disappeared. There was absolute silence save for the soft thud of the drums.

The girl put her hand up to her throat and the cloak of black feathers came away from the front of her body and spread out into a five-foot black fan. She swirled it slowly behind her until it stood up like a peacock’s tail. She was naked except for a brief vee of black lace and a black sequin star in the centre of each breast and the thin black domino across her eyes. Her body was small, hard, bronze, beautiful. It was slightly oiled and glinted in the white light.

The audience was silent. The drums began to step up the tempo. The bass drum kept its beat dead on the timing of the human pulse.

The girl’s naked stomach started slowly to revolve in time with the rhythm. She swept the black feathers across and behind her again, and her hips started to grind in time with the bass drum. The upper part of her body was motionless. The black feathers swirled again, and now her feet were shifting and her shoulders. The drums beat louder. Each part of her body seemed to be keeping a different time. Her lips were bared slightly from her teeth. Her nostrils began to flare. Her eyes glinted hotly through the diamond slits. It was a sexy, pug-like face – 
chienne
was the only word Bond could think of.

The drums thudded faster, a complexity of interlaced rhythms. The girl tossed the big fan off the floor, held her arms up above her head. Her whole body began to shiver. Her belly moved faster. Round and round, in and out. Her legs straddled. Her hips began to revolve in a wide circle. Suddenly she plucked the sequin star off her right breast and threw it into the audience. The first noise came from the spectators, a quiet growl. Then they were silent again. She plucked off the other star. Again the growl and then silence. The drums began to crash and roll. Sweat poured off the drummers. Their hands fluttered like grey flannel on the pale membranes. Their eyes were bulging, distant. Their heads were slightly bent to one side as if they were listening. They hardly glanced at the girl. The audience panted softly, liquid eyes bulging and rolling.

The sweat was shining all over her now. Her breasts and stomach glistened with it. She broke into great shuddering jerks. Her mouth opened and she screamed softly. Her hands snaked down to her sides and suddenly she had torn away the strip of lace. She threw it into the audience. There was nothing now but a single black G-string. The drums went into a hurricane of sexual rhythm. She screamed softly again and then, her arms stretched before her as a balance, she started to lower her body down to the floor and up again. Faster and faster. Bond could hear the audience panting and grunting like pigs at the trough. He felt his own hands gripping the tablecloth. His mouth was dry.

The audience began to shout at her. ‘Cmon, G-G. Take it away, Baby. Cmon. Grind Baby, grind.’

She sank to her knees and as the rhythm slowly died so she too went into a last series of juddering spasms, mewing softly.

The drums came down to a slow tom-tom beat and shuffle. The audience howled for her body. Harsh obscenities came from different corners of the room.

The MC came on to the floor. A spot went on him.

‘Okay, folks, okay.’ The sweat was pouring off his chin. He spread his arms in surrender.

‘Da G-G
AGREES
!’

There was a delighted howl from the audience. Now she would be quite naked. ‘Take it off, G-G. Show yoself Baby. Cmon, cmon.’

The drums growled and stuttered softly.

‘But, mah friends,’ yelled the MC, ‘she stipperlates – With da lights
OUT
!’

There was a frustrated groan from the audience. The whole room was plunged in darkness.

Must be an old gag, thought Bond to himself.

Suddenly all his senses were alert.

The howling of the mob was disappearing, rapidly. At the same time he felt cold air on his face. He felt as if he was sinking.

‘Hey,’ shouted Leiter. His voice was close but it sounded hollow.

Christ! thought Bond.

Something snapped shut above his head. He put his hand out behind him. It touched a moving wall a foot from his back.

‘Lights,’ said a voice, quietly.

At the same time both his arms were gripped. He was pressed down in his chair.

Opposite him, still at the table, sat Leiter, a huge negro grasping his elbows. They were in a tiny square cell. To right and left were two more negroes in plain clothes with guns trained on them.

There was the sharp hiss of a hydraulic garage lift and the table settled quietly to the floor. Bond glanced up. There was the faint join of a broad trap-door a few feet above their heads. No sound came through it.

One of the negroes grinned.

‘Take it easy, folks. Enjoy da ride?’