5 No. 3 -1/2 Love Lane

The south coast of Jamaica is not as beautiful as the north and it is a long hundred-and-twenty-mile hack over very mixed road surfaces from Kingston to Savannah La Mar Mary Goodnight had insisted on coming along, "to navigate and help with the punctures." Bond had not demurred.
Spanish Town, May Pen, Alligator Pond, Black River, Whitehouse Inn, where they had luncheon-the miles unrolled under the fierce sun until, late the afternoon, a stretch of good straight road brought them among the spruce little villas, each with its patch of brownish lawn, its bougainvillaea and its single bed of canna lilies and crotons, which make up the "smart" suburbs of the modes little coastal township that is, in the vernacular, Sav' La Mar.
Except for the old quarter on the waterfront, it is not a typically Jamaican town, or a very attractive one. The villas, built for the senior staff of the Frome sugar estates, are drably respectable, and the small straight streets smack of a most un-Jamaican bout of town planning around the 1920s. Bond stopped at the first garage, took in petrol, and put Mary Goodnight into a hired car for the return trip. He had told her nothing of his assignment, and she had asked no questions when Bond told her vaguely that it was "something to do with Cuba." Bond said he would keep in touch when he could, and get back to her when his job was done, and then, businesslike, she was off back down the dusty road and Bond drove slowly down to the waterfront. He identified Love Lane, a narrow street of broken-down shops and houses that meandered back into the town from the jetty. He circled the area to get the neighbouring geography clear in his mind and parked the car in a deserted area near the spit of sand on which fishing canoes were drawn up on raised stilts. He locked the car and sauntered back and into Love Lane. There were a few people about, poor people of the fisherman class. Bond bought a packet of Royal Blend at a small general store that smelled of spices. He asked where Number three-and-a-half was and got a look of polite curiosity. "Further up de street. Mebbe a chain. Big house on de right." Bond moved over to the shady side and strolled on. He slit open the packet with his thumbnail and lit a cigarette to help the picture of an idle tourist examining a corner of old Jamaica. There was only one big house on the right. He took some time lighting the cigarette while he examined it.
It must once have had importance, perhaps as the private house of a merchant. It was of two storeys with balconies running all the way round and it was wooden built with silvering shingles, but the gingerbread tracery beneath the eaves was broken in many places and there was hardly a scrap of paint left on the jalousies that closed off all the upstairs windows and most of those below. The patch of "yard" bordering the street was inhabited by a clutch of vulturine-necked chickens that pecked at nothing and three skeletal Jamaican black-and-tan mongrels.  They gazed lazily across the street at Bond and scratched and bit at invisible flies. But, in the background, there was one very beautiful lignum vitae tree in full blue blossom. Bond guessed that it was as old as the house-perhaps fifty years. It certainly owned the property by right of strength and adornment. In its delicious black shade a girl in a rocking chair sat reading a magazine. At the range of about thirty yards  she looked tidy  and pretty.  Bond strolled up the opposite side of the street until a corner of the house hid the girl. Then he stopped and examined the house more closely.
Wooden steps ran up to an open front door, over whose lintel, whereas few of the other buildings in the street bore numbers, a big enamelled metal sign announced "3-1/2" in white on dark blue. Of the two broad windows that bracketed the door, the left-hand one was shuttered, but the right-hand one was a single broad sheet of rather dusty glass through which tables and chairs and a serving counter could be seen. Over the door a swinging sign said dreamland cafe in sun-bleached letters, and round this window were advertisements for Red Stripe beer, Royal Blend, Four Aces cigarettes,  and Coca-Cola. A hand-painted sign said snax and, underneath, HOT COCK SOUP FRESH DAILY.
Bond walked across the street and up the steps and parted the bead curtain that hung over the entrance. He walked over to the counter and was inspecting its contents -a plate of dry-looking ginger cakes, a pile of packeted banana crisps, and some jars-when he heard quick steps outside. The girl from the garden came in. The beads clashed softly behind her. She was an octoroon, pretty, as in Bond's imagination the word octoroon suggested. She had bold, brown eyes, slightly uptilted at the corners, beneath a fringe of silken black hair. (Bond reflected that there would be Chinese blood somewhere in her heredity.) She was dressed in a short frock of shocking pink which went well with the coffee and cream of her skin. Her wrists and ankles were tiny. She smiled politely. The eyes flirted. "Evenin'."
"Good evening. Could I have a Red Stripe?"
"Sure." She went behind the counter. She gave him a quick glimpse of fine bosoms as she bent to the door of the icebox-a glimpse not dictated by the geography of the place. She nudged the door shut with a knee, deftly uncapped the bottle, and put it on the counter beside an almost clean glass. "That'll be one and six."
Bond paid. She rang the money into the cash register. Bond drew up a stool to the counter and sat down. She rested her arms on the wooden top and looked across at him. "Passing through?"
"More or less. I saw this place was for sale in yesterday's Gleaner. I thought I'd take a look at it. Nice big house. Does it belong to you?"
She laughed. It was a pity, because she was a pretty girl, but the teeth had been sharpened by munching raw sugar cane. "What a hope! I'm sort of, well sort of manager. There's the cafe"-she pronounced it caif-"and mebbe you heard we got other attractions."
Bond looked puzzled. "What sort?"
"Girls. Six bedrooms upstairs. Very clean. It only cost a pound. There's Sarah up there now. Care to meet up with her?"
"Not today, thanks. It's too hot. But do you only have one at a time?"
"There's Lindy, but she's engaged. She's a big girl. If you like them big, she'll be free in half an hour." She glanced at a kitchen clock on the wall behind her. "Around six o'clock. It'll be cooler then."
"I prefer girls like you. What's your name?"
She giggled. "I only do it for love. I told you I just manage the place. They call me Tiffy."
"That's an unusual name. How did you come by it?"
"My momma had six girls. Called them all after flowers. Violet, Rose, Cherry, Pansy, and Lily. Then when I came, she couldn't think of any more flower names so she called me Artificial." Tiffy waited for him to laugh. When he didn't, she went on. "When I went to school they all said it was a wrong name and laughed at me and shortened it to Tiffy and that's how I've stayed."
"Well, I think it's a very pretty name. My name's Mark."
She flirted. "You a saint too?"
"No one's ever accused me of it. I've been up at Frome doing a job. I like this part of the island and it crossed my mind to find some place to rent. But I want to be closer to the sea than this. I'll have to look around a bit more. Do you rent rooms by the night?"
She reflected. "Sure. Why not. But you may find it a bit noisy. There's sometime a customer who's taken some drinks too many. And there's not too much plumbing." She leaned closer and lowered her voice. "But I wouldn't have advised you to rent the place. The shingles are in bad shape. Cost you mebbe five hunnerd, mebbe a thousand, to get the roof done."
"It's nice of you to tell me that. But why's the place being sold? Trouble with the police?"
"Not so much. We operate a respectable place. But in the Gleaner, after Mr Brown, that's my boss, you read that et ux?" "Yes."
"Well, seems that means 'and his wife.' And Mistress Brown, Mistress Agatha Brown, she was Church of England, but she just done gone to the Catholics. And it seems they don't hold with places like three and one-half, not even when they're decently run. And their church here, just up the street, seems that needs a new roof like here. So Mistress Brown figures to kill two birds with the same stone and she goes on at Mr. Brown to close the place down and sell it and with her portion she goin' fix the roof for the Catholics."
"That's a shame. It seems a nice quiet place. What's going to happen to you?"
"Guess I'll move to Kingston. Live with one of my sisters and mebbe work in one of the big stores-Issa's mebbe, or Nathan's. Sav' La Mar is sort of quiet." The brown eyes became introspective. "But I'll sure miss the place. Folks have fun here and Love Lane's a pretty street. We're all friends up and down the Lane. It's got sort of, sort of. . . ." "Atmosphere."
"Right. That's what it's got. Like sort of old Jamaica. Like it must have been in the old days. Everyone's friends with each other. Help each other when they have trouble. You'd be surprised how often the girls do it for free if the man's a good feller, regular customer sort of, and he's short." The brown eyes gazed inquiringly at Bond to see if he understood the strength of the evidence.
"That's nice of them. But it can't be good for business." She laughed. "This ain't no business, Mister Mark. Not while I'm running it. This is a public service, like water and electricity and health and education and. . . ." She broke off and glanced over her shoulder at the clock which said 5:45. "Hell! You got me talking so much I've forgot Joe and May. It's their supper." She went to the cafe window and wound it down. At once, from the direction of the lignum vitae tree, two large black birds, slightly smaller than ravens, whirled in, circled the interior of the cafe amidst a metallic clangour of song unlike the song of any other bird in the world, and untidily landed on the counter within reach of Bond's hand. They strutted up and down imperiously, eyeing Bond without fear from bold, golden eyes and went through a piercing repertoire of tinny whistles and trills, some of which required them to ruffle themselves up to almost twice their normal size.
Tiffy went back behind the bar, took two pennies out of her purse, rang them up on the register, and took two ginger cakes out of the flyblown display case. She broke off bits and fed the two birds, always the smaller of the two, the female, first, and they greedily seized the pieces from her fingers and, holding the scraps of the wooden counter with a claw, tore them into smaller fragments and devoured them. When it was all over, and Tiffy had chided them both for pecking her fingers, they made small, neat white messes on the counter and looked pleased with themselves. Tiffy took a cloth and cleaned up the messes. She said, "We call them kling-klings but learned folk call them Jamaican grackles. They're very friendly folk. The doctor-bird, the humming bird with the streamer tail, is the Jamaican national bird, but I like these best. They're not so beautiful, but they're the friendliest birds and they're funny besides. They seem to know it. They're like naughty black thieves."
The kling-klings eyed the cake stand and complained stridently that their supper was over. James Bond produced twopence and handed it over. "They're wonderful. Like mechanical toys. Give them a second course from me."
Tiffy rang up the money and took out two more cakes. "Now listen, Joe and May. This nice gemmun's been nice to Tiffy and he's now being nice to you. So don't you peck my fingers and make messes or mebbe he won't visit us again. "She was halfway through feeding the birds when she cocked an ear. There was the noise of creaking boards somewhere overhead and then the sound of quiet footsteps treading stairs. All of a sudden Tiffy's animated face became quiet and tense. She whispered to Bond:  "That's Lindy's man. Important man. He's a good customer here. But he don't like me because I won't go with him. So he can talk rough sometimes. And he don't like Joe and May because he reckons they make two much noise." She shooed the birds in the direction of the open window, but they saw there was half their cake to come and they just fluttered into the air and then down to the counter again. Tiffy appealed to Bond, "Be a good friend and just sit quiet whatever he says. He likes to get people mad. And then. . . ." She stopped. "Will you have another Red Stripe, mister?"
Bead curtains swished in the shadowy back of the room.
Bond had been sitting with his chin propped on his right hand. He now dropped the hand to the counter and sat back. The Walther PPK inside the waistband of his trousers to the left of his flat stomach signalled its presence to his skin. The fingers of his right hand curled slightly, ready to receive its butt. He moved his left foot off the rail of the stool onto the floor. He said, "That'd be fine." He unbuttoned his coat with his left hand and then, with the same hand, took out his handkerchief and wiped his face with it. "It always gets extra hot around six before the Undertaker's Wind has started to blow."
"Mister, the undertaker's right here. You care to feel his wind?"
James Bond turned his head slowly. Dusk had crept into the big room and all he could see was a pale, tall outline. The man was carrying a suitcase. He put it down on the floor and came forward. He must have been wearing rubber-soled shoes for his feet made no sound. Tiffy moved nervously behind the counter and a switch clicked. Half a dozen low-voltage bulbs came to life in rusty brackets around the walls.
Bond said easily, "You made me jump."
Scaramanga came up and leant against the counter. The description in Records was exact, but it had not caught the catlike menace of the big man, the extreme breadth of the shoulders, and the narrow waist, or the cold immobility of the eyes that now examined Bond with an expression of aloof disinterest. He was wearing a well-cut, single-breasted tan suit and co-respondent shoes in brown and white. Instead of a tie, he wore a high stock in white silk secured by a gold pin the shape of a miniature pistol. There should have been something theatrical about the getup but, perhaps because of the man's fine figure, there wasn't.
He said, "I sometimes make 'em dance. Then I shoot their feet off." There was no trace of a foreign accent underneath the American.
Bond said, "That sounds rather drastic. What do you do it for?"
"The last time it was five thousand dollars. Seems like you don't know who I am. Didn't the cool cat tell you?" Bond glanced at Tiffy. She was standing very still, her hands by her sides. The knuckles were white.
Bond said, "Why should she? Why would I want to know?"
There was a quick flash of gold. The small black hole looked directly at Bond's navel. "Because of this. What are you doing here, stranger? Kind of a coincidence finding a city slicker at three and one-half. Or at Sav' La Mar for the matter of that. Not by any chance from the police? Or any of then- friends?"
"Kamerad!" Bond raised his hands in mock surrender. He lowered them and turned to Tiffy. "Who is this man? A one-man takeover bid for Jamaica? Or a refugee from a circus? Ask him what he'd like to drink. Whoever he is, it was a good act." James Bond knew that he had very nearly pulled the trigger of the gun. Hit a gunman in his vanity. ... He had a quick vision of himself writhing on the floor, his right hand without the power to reach for his own weapon. Tiffy's pretty face was no longer pretty. It was a taut skull. She stared at James Bond. Her mouth opened but no sound came from the gaping lips. She liked him and she knew he was dead. The kling-klings, Joe and May, smelled the same electricity. With a tremendous din of metallic squawks, they fled for the open window, like black thieves escaping into the night.
The explosions from the Colt .45 were deafening. The two birds disintegrated against the violet backdrop of the dusk, the scraps of feathers and pink flesh blasting out of the yellow light of the cafe into the limbo of the deserted street like shrapnel.
There was a moment of deafening silence. James Bond didn't move. He sat where he was, waiting for the tension of the deed to relax. It didn't. With an inarticulate scream, that was half a filthy word, Tiffy took James Bond's bottle of Red Stripe off the counter and clumsily flung it. There came a distant crash of glass from the back of the room. Then, having made her puny gesture, Tiffy fell to her knees behind the counter and went into sobbing hysterics.
James Bond drank down the rest of his beer and got slowly to his feet. He walked towards Scaramanga and was about to pass him when the man reached out a languid left arm and caught him at the biceps. He held the snout of his gun to his nose, sniffing delicately. The expression in the dead brown eyes was faraway. He said, "Mister, there's something quite extra about the smell of death. Care to try it?" He held out the glittering gun as if he was offering James Bond a rose.
Bond stood quite still. He said, "Mind your manners. Take your hand off me."
Scaramanga raised his eyebrows. The flat, leaden gaze seemed to take in Bond for the first time.
He released his grip.
James Bond went on round the edge of the counter. When he came opposite the other man, he found the eyes were now looking at him with faint, scornful curiosity. Bond stopped. The sobbing of the girl was the crying of a small dog. Somewhere down the street a sound system-a loudspeaker record player-began braying calypso.
Bond looked the man in the eye. He said, "Thanks. I've tried it. I recommend the Berlin vintage Nineteen forty-five." He smiled a friendly, only slightly ironical smile. "But I expect you were too young to be at that tasting."