‘Thought mebbe not, so I’m giving you the mud at 110. If you’re acclimated, you can take 120 or even 130. Lie down there.’
Bond gingerly climbed into the box and lay down, his skin smarting at its first contact with the hot mud. He slowly stretched himself out full length and lowered his head on to the clean towel that had been placed over the kapok pillow.
When he was settled, the negro dug both hands into one of the buckets of fresh mud and proceeded to slap it all over Bond’s body.
The mud was a deep chocolate brown and it felt smooth and heavy and slimy. A smell of hot peat came up to Bond’s nostrils. He watched the shining, blubbery arms of the negro working over the obscene black mound that had once been his body. Had Felix Leiter known what this was going to be like? Bond grinned savagely at the ceiling. If this was one of Felix’s jokes …
At last the negro had finished and Bond was loaded with hot mud. Only his face and an area round his heart were still white. He felt stifled and the sweat began to pour down his forehead.
With a swift movement the negro bent down and picked up the edges of the sheet and wrapped them tightly round Bond’s body and his arms. Then he reached up for the other half of the dirty shroud and bound this also round him. Bond could just move his fingers and his head, but otherwise he had less freedom of movement than in a strait jacket. Then the man closed the open side of the coffin, lowered the heavy wooden lid, and that was that.
The negro took a slate down from the wall above Bond’s head and glanced at a clock high up on the far wall and scribbled the time down. It was just six o’clock.
‘Twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘Feel good?’
Bond gave a neutral grunt.
The negro moved away about his business and Bond stared dumbly up at the ceiling. He felt the sweat running down from his hair into his eyes. He cursed Felix Leiter.
At three minutes past six the door opened to admit the naked, scrawny figure of Tingaling Bell. He had a sharp weasely face and a miserable body on which each bone showed. He walked cockily into the middle of the room.
‘Hi, Tingaling,’ said the man with the cauliflower ear. ‘Heard you had some trouble today. Too bad.’
‘Them stewards is a heap of obscenity,’ said Tingaling sourly. ‘Why would I want to ride across Tommy Lucky? One of my best pals. And why would I need to? The race was sewn up. Hey, you black bastard,’ he put out his foot to trip up the negro, who was passing with a pail of mud, ‘you got to get six ounces off me. Just had me a plate of French fries. On top of that they’ve given me a heap of lead to carry in the Oakridge tomorrow.’
The negro stepped over the outstretched foot and chuckled fatly. ‘Don’t worry, baby,’ he said affectionately. ‘Ah kin always break yo’ arm off. Get yo’ weight down easy dat way. Be right with you.’
The door opened again and one of the card players put his head in.
‘Hey, Boxer,’ he said to the man with the cauliflower ear, ‘Mabel says she can’t get on to the delicatessen to order your chow. Phone’s busted. Line down or sumpn.’
‘Aw Cheesus,’ said the other. ‘Tell Jack to bring it on his next ride.’
‘Okay.’
The door closed. A telephone breakdown in America is a rare thing, and this was the moment when a small danger signal might have shrilled in Bond’s mind. But it didn’t. Instead, he looked at the clock. Another ten minutes in the mud. The negro sauntered across with the cold towels over his arm and wrapped one round Bond’s hair and forehead. It was a delicious relief, and Bond had a moment of thinking that perhaps the whole business was just supportable.
The seconds ticked by. The jockey, with a crackle of obscenities, lowered himself into the box directly in front of Bond, and Bond guessed that he was being given the mud at 130 degrees. He was wound up in the shroud and the lid was banged shut over him.
The negro wrote 6.15 on the jockey’s slate.
Bond closed his eyes and wondered how he was going to slip the man his money. In the rest-room after the bath? There was presumably somewhere one went to lie down after all this. Or in the passage on the way out? Or in the bus? No. Better not in the bus. Better not be seen with him.
‘All right. Nobody move now. Just take it easy and no one’ll get hurt.’
It was a hard, deadly voice that meant business.
Bond’s eyes snapped open and his body tingled at the reek of danger that had come into the room.
The door to the outside, the door through which the mud came, was standing open. A man stood in the opening and another man was advancing into the middle of the room. They both had guns in their hands and they both had black hoods over their heads with holes cut for the eyes and mouth.
