Bond 07 - Goldfinger Read Online Free PDF

in his filing system.
    ‘So no game today.’ The voice was flat, colourless. The words were more of a statement than a question.
    ‘Whaddya mean, no game?’ shouted Mr Du Pont boisterously. ‘You weren’t thinking I’d let you hang on to my money? Got to get it back or I shan’t be able to leave this darned hotel,’ Mr Du Pont chuckled richly. ‘I’ll tell Sam to fix the table. James here says he doesn’t know much about cards and he’d like to learn the game. That right, James?’ He turned to Bond. ‘Sure you’ll be all right with your paper and the sunshine?’
    ‘I’d be glad of the rest,’ said Bond. ‘Been travelling too much.’
    Again the eyes bored into Bond and then drooped. ‘I’ll get some clothes on. I had intended to have a golf lesson this afternoon from Mr Armour at the Boca Raton. But cards have priority among my hobbies. My tendency to un-cock the wrists too early with the mid-irons will have to wait.’ The eyes rested incuriously on Bond. ‘You play golf, Mr Bomb?’
    Bond raised his voice. ‘Occasionally, when I’m in England.’
    ‘And where do you play?’
    ‘Huntercombe.’
    ‘Ah – a pleasant little course. I have recently joined the Royal St Marks. Sandwich is close to one of my business interests. You know it?’
    ‘I have played there.’
    ‘What is your handicap?’
    ‘Nine.’
    ‘That is a coincidence. So is mine. We must have a game one day.’ Mr Goldfinger bent down and picked up his tin wings. He said to Mr Du Pont, ‘I will be with you in five minutes.’ He walked slowly off towards the stairs.
    Bond was amused. This social sniffing at him had been done with just the right casual touch of the tycoon who didn’t really care if Bond was alive or dead but, since he was there and alive, might as well place him in an approximate category.
    Mr Du Pont gave instructions to a steward in a white coat. Two others were already setting up a card table. Bond walked to the rail that surrounded the roof and looked down into the garden, reflecting on Mr Goldfinger.
    He was impressed. Mr Goldfinger was one of the most relaxed men Bond had ever met. It showed in the economy of his movement, of his speech, of his expressions. Mr Goldfinger wasted no effort, yet there was something coiled, compressed, in the immobility of the man.
    When Goldfinger had stood up, the first thing that had struck Bond was that everything was out of proportion. Goldfinger was short, not more than five feet tall, and on top of the thick body and blunt, peasant legs, was set, almost directly into the shoulders, a huge and it seemed exactly round head. It was as if Goldfinger had been put together with bits of other people’s bodies. Nothing seemed to belong. Perhaps, Bond thought, it was to conceal his ugliness that Goldfinger made such a fetish of sunburn. Without the red-brown camouflage the pale body would be grotesque. The face, under the cliff of crew-cut carroty hair, was as startling, without being as ugly, as the body. It was moon-shaped without being moonlike. The forehead was fine and high and the thin sandy brows were level above the large light blue eyes fringed with pale lashes. The nose was fleshily aquiline between high cheek-bones and cheeks that were more muscular than fat. The mouth was thin and dead straight, but beautifully drawn. The chin and jaws were firm and glinted with health. To sum up, thought Bond, it was the face of a thinker, perhaps a scientist, who was ruthless, sensual, stoical and tough. An odd combination.
    What else could he guess? Bond always mistrusted short men. They grew up from childhood with an inferiority complex. All their lives they would strive to be big – bigger than the others who had teased them as a child. Napoleon had been short, and Hitler. It was the short men that caused all the trouble in the world. And what about a misshapen short man with red hair and a bizarre face? That might add up to a really formidable misfit. One could certainly