Read Bond 04 - Diamonds Are Forever for Free Online Page A

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    Bond had had no picture in his mind of the Miss Case who was to shadow him to America. He had taken for granted that it would be some tough, well-used slattern with dead eyes – a hard, sullen woman who had ‘gone the route’ and whose body was no longer of any interest to the gang she worked for. This girl was tough all right, tough of manner, but whatever might be the history of her body, the skin had shone with life under the light.
    What was her first name? Bond got up again and walked over to the gramophone. There was a Pan-American Airways label attached to the grip. It said ‘Miss T. Case’. T? Bond walked back to his chair. Teresa? Tess? Thelma? Trudy? Tilly? None of them seemed to fit. Surely not Trixie, or Tony or Tommy.
    He was still playing with the problem when she appeared quietly in the doorway of the bedroom and stood with one elbow resting high up against the door-jamb and her head bent sideways on to her hand. She looked down at him reflectively.
    Bond got unhurriedly to his feet and looked back at her.
    She was dressed to go out except for her hat, a small black affair that swung from her free hand. She wore a smart black tailor-made over a deep olive-green shirt buttoned at the neck, golden-tan nylons and black, square-toed crocodile shoes that looked very expensive. There was a slim gold wrist-watch on a black strap at one wrist and a heavy gold chain bracelet at the other. One large baguette-cut diamond flared on the third finger of her right hand and a flat pearl ear-ring in twisted gold showed on her right ear where the heavy pale gold hair fell away from it.
    She was very beautiful in a devil-may-care way, as if she kept her looks for herself and didn’t mind what men thought of them, and there was an ironical tilt to the finely drawn eyebrows above the wide, level, rather scornful grey eyes that seemed to say, ‘Sure. Come and try. But brother, you’d better be tops.’
    The eyes themselves had the rare quality of chatoyance. When jewels have chatoyance the colour in the lustre changes with movement in the light, and the colour of this girl’s eyes seemed to vary between a light grey and a deep grey-blue.
    Her skin was lightly tanned and without make-up except for a deep red on the lips, which were full and soft and rather moody so as to give the effect of what is called ‘a sinful mouth’. But not, thought Bond, one that often sinned – if one was to judge by the level eyes and the hint of authority and tension behind them.
    The eyes now looked impersonally into his.
    ‘So you’re Peter Franks,’ she said and the voice was low and attractive, but with a touch of condescension.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And I’ve been wondering what T stands for.’
    She thought for a moment. ‘I guess you can find out at the desk,’ she said. ‘It stands for Tiffany.’ She walked over to the gramophone and stopped the record in the middle of ‘Je n’en connais pas la fin’. She turned round. ‘But it’s not in the public domain,’ she added coldly.
    Bond shrugged his shoulders and moved over to the window-sill and leant easily against it with his ankles crossed.
    His nonchalance seemed to irritate her. She sat down in front of the writing-desk. ‘Now then,’ she said, and her voice had an edge to it, ‘let’s get down to business. In the first place, why did you take on this job?’
    ‘Somebody died.’
    ‘Oh.’ She looked at him sharply. ‘They told me your line was stealing.’ She paused. ‘Hot blood or cold blood?’
    ‘Hot blood. A fight.’
    ‘So you want to get out?’
    ‘That’s about it. And the money.’
    She changed the subject. ‘Got a wooden leg? False teeth?’
    ‘No. Everything’s real.’
    She frowned. ‘I’m always telling them to find me a man with a wooden leg. Well, have you got any hobbies or anything? Any ideas about where you’re going to carry the stones?’
    ‘No,’ said Bond. ‘I play cards and golf. But I thought the handles of