His Word His Bond

BY IxN FLxMxNG* Chapter XIX

YMCA AGAIN !

THE whole room smelt of the Mexican. `Take him away,' said Bond, as he straightened his Old .Mauresques tic. 'His iggula's broken. It's a trick I learned from the YMCA.'

The YMCA! Ensign Squarchead's eyes narrowed at the mention of the Soviet counter - counter - under - the - counter group.

`Where'll I put him, Boss?' `Down the lift-shaft,' said Bond: The traffic would cover the scream. .

As Squarehead made off Viith his twitching burden, Bond turned to the internal television apparatus.

`Canteen,'. he said evenly, and one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen stood before him on the cazonated uviform frumpiglass screen.

`Two double Martinis.' said Bond, specifying Old Fusty and a dash of Miss Dior. , As the woman bent over her blotter the sun sparked on her spectacles (`1.9/34 Spitzer Weichmann lenses,' Bond noted * This chapter from MR. IxN FLxMxNG's latest work was sup- pressed by the Home Office; but Mr. John Russell has rescued it from a wastepaper basket, and the Spectator has much pleasure in pub- lishing it:. automatically). The wind from the open window stirred the blue ridge of her facial hair, there was pre-stressed concrete in the bridge of her nose; and her 1294 mm. bust lay like an unwrapped parcel on the top of her desk. She reminded him of something he'd once seen by Rembrandt, the artist.

One day he'd take her away from this filthy business. There'd be a seat for her on the racing tricycle that old W. 0. Bentley had built for him with his own hands in the bad year before Munich. They'd pedal down N.63 . . . Aud he'd see how she shaped.

`Shaped?' He was forgetting himself. 'And get me something to eat.'

`The usual, Commander?' Her nostrils showed the admira- tion she felt, in spite of herself, for the slim trim man with the pressurised waistcoat and the ankles of a gambler.

`Hippo steaks,' said Bond, `with a double portion of Mobiloil dressing. Those mussels you get for me from Danzig, with some chopped rhinestones. No béarnaise, of course, but some very fresh okapi trotters, boiled in Jordan water, and a carton of Old Hatstand crackers.'

The simple meal was nearly finished when the blood-red telephone went galloo-galloo.

`B.,' said the familiar voice; and Bond leant forward on his malleable inscuffated drabba-tested gros-point `Would you know Blotkin-Plotkin If you saw him?'

beard and nine fingers to his t right hand? I don't think I'd mis- take him.'

`He's in Surrey again. I told the PM he could count on you.'

All tiredness forgotten, Bond called to his aide.

`Leatherhead, Squarehead,' he said evenly.

The fight was on.