Bond lowered his voice. He said, ‘What are
‘How are you going to do that?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea. Something may turn up.’
‘And you expect me to go along with you?’
‘Why not? Any other suggestions?’
She pursed her lips obstinately. ‘Why should I do what you say?’
Bond sighed. ‘There’s no point in being a suffragette about this. It’s either that or get yourself killed after breakfast. It’s up to you.’
The mouth turned down with distaste. She shrugged her shoulders. She said ungraciously, ‘Oh, all right then.’ Suddenly her eyes flared. ‘Only don’t ever touch me or I shall kill you.’
There came the click of Bond’s bedroom door. Bond looked mildly down at Tilly Masterton. ‘The challenge is attractive. But don’t worry. I won’t take it up.’ He turned and strolled out of the room.
One of the Koreans passed him carrying the girl’s breakfast. In his room another Korean had brought in a typist’s desk and chair and a Remington portable. He arranged them in the corner away from the bed. Oddjob was standing in the doorway. He held out a sheet of paper. Bond went up to him and took it.
It was a foolscap memo sheet. The writing, with a ball point, was neat, careful, legible, undistinguished. It said:
Meeting held under the chairmanship of Mr Gold
: J. Bond
Miss Tilly Masterton
Helmut M. Springer Jed
The Purple Gang. Detroit
Midnight
Shadow Syndicate. Miami and
Havana
Billy (The Grinner) Ring
The Machine. Chicago
Jack Strap
The Spangled Mob. Las Vegas
Mr Solo
Unione Siciliano
Miss Pussy Galore
The Cement Mixers. Harlem.
New York City
A project with the code name OPERATION GRAND SLAM. (Refreshments.)
At the end of this was written, ‘You and Miss Masterton will be fetched at 2.20. Both will be prepared to take notes. Formal dress, please.’
Bond smiled. The Koreans left the room. He sat down at the desk, slipped paper and carbons into the typewriter and set to. At least he would show the girl that he was prepared to do his stint. Gosh, what a crew! Even the Mafia had come in. How had Goldfinger persuaded them all to come? And who in heaven’s name was Miss Pussy Galore?
Bond had the copies finished by two o’clock. He went into the girl’s room and gave them to her together with a shorthand notebook and pencils. He also read her Goldfinger’s note. He said, ‘You’d better get these names in your head. They probably won’t be hard to identify. We can ask if we get stuck. I’ll go and get into my formal dress.’ He smiled at her. ‘Twenty minutes to go.’
She nodded.
Walking down the corridor behind Oddjob, Bond could hear the sounds of the river – the slapping of water on the piles below the warehouse, the long mournful hoot of a ferry clearing her way, the distant thump of diesels. Somewhere beneath his feet a truck started up, revved and then growled away presumably towards the West Side Highway. They must be on the top tier of the long two-tiered building. The grey paint in the corridor smelled new. There were no side doors. Light came from bowls in the ceiling. They reached the end. Oddjob knocked. There was the sound of a Yale key being turned and two lots of bolts being pulled and they walked through and into a large bright sunlit room. The room was over the end of the warehouse and a wide picture window, filling most of the facing wall, framed the river and the distant, brown muddle of Jersey City. The room had been dressed for the conference. Goldfinger sat with his back to the window at a large round table with a green baize cloth, carafes of water, yellow scratch-pads and pencils. There were nine comfortable armchairs and on the scratch-pads in front of six of them were small oblong white parcels sealed with red wax. To the right, against the wall, was a long buffet table gleaming with silver and cut glass. Champagne stood in silver coolers and there was a row of other bottles. Among the various foods Bond noticed two round five-pound tins of Beluga caviar and several terrines of foie gras. On the wall opposite the buffet hung a blackboard above a table on which there were papers and one large oblong carton.
Goldfinger watched them come towards him across the thick wine-red carpet. He gestured to the chair on his left for Tilly Masterton and to the one on the right for Bond. They sat down.
