The Madre de Cacao had plenty of protection. They were broken down for opium which was sold quickly and comparatively cheaply by the waiters at a small cafe in Mexico City called the 'Madre de Cacao'. A big man in Mexico had some poppy fields. The death of the Mexican had been the finishing touch to a bad assignment, one of the worst - squalid, dangerous and without any redeemingįeature except that it had got him away from headquarters. He stubbed out the butt of his cigarette and sat, his chin resting on his left hand, and gazed moodily across the twinkling tarmac to where the last half of the sun was slipping gloriously into the Gulf. When the wide, chunky glass came, he swirled the liquor round for the ice to blunt it down and swallowed half of it. He signalled to a waitress and ordered another double bourbon on the rocks. At least another ten minutes before Transamerica would be called. All aboard, please.' The Tannoy switched off with an echoing click. Will all passengers please proceed to gate number seven. 'National Airlines, "Airline of the Stars", announces the departure of their flight NA 106 to La Guardia Field, New York. Cynicism gathered at the corners of Bond's mouth. One couldn't tell how soon the weapon would be needed again. It was a painful process, but if he kept the circulation moving the hand would heal more quickly. He had been doing the same thing at intervals through the quick plane trip that had got him away. Bond flexed the hand, kneading it with his left. The cutting edge of his right hand was red and swollen. Bond looked down at the weapon that had done it. And the difference, the thing that had gone out of the stinking Mexican bandit, was greater than all Mexico. Then something had gone out of him, out of the envelope of flesh and cheap clothes, and had left him an empty paper bag waiting for the dustcart. This had been a Mexican with a name and an address, an employment card and perhaps a driving licence.
#FONT KEEPS ON CHANGING IN NOTECASE PRO FULL#
What an extraordinary difference there was between a body full of person and a body that was empty! Now there is someone, now there is no one. Yes, it had certainly been time for him to die but when Bond had killed him, less than twenty-four hours before, life had gone out of the body so quickly, so utterly, that Bond had almost seen it come out of his mouth as it does, in the shape of a bird, in Haitian primitives. A capungo is a bandit who will kill for as little as forty pesos, which is about twenty-five shillings -though probably he had been paid more to attempt the killing of Bond - and, from the look of him, he had been an instrument of pain and misery all his life. He was an evil man, a man they call in Mexico a capungo. It wasn't that he hadn't deserved to die. And yet there had been something curiously impressive about the death of the Mexican. Regret was unprofessional - worse, it was death-watch beetle in the soul. As a secret agent who held the rare double-O prefix - the licence to kill in the Secret Service - it was his duty to be as cool about death as a surgeon. He had never liked doing it and when he had to kill he did it as well as he knew how and forgot about it. It was part of his profession to kill people. Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press), Ltd., Bungay, Suffolk To my gentle Reader William Plomer PART ONE: HAPPENSTANCE CHAPTER ONE REFLECTIONS IN A DOUBLE BOURBON JAMES BOND, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death. Any coincidence of characters' names with those of living persons is entirely accidental.
No resemblance is intended between its characters and any real persons living or dead.
This edition published 1961 by Pan Books Ltd., Headfort Place, London, S.W.I (c) 1959 fry Glidrose Productions Ltd. TREATMENT First published 1959 by Jonathan Cape Ltd.
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