The Ian Fleming Files (31 page)

The concierge entered wheeling a drinks trolley. Fleming slapped coins in
the man’s palm and relieved him of the conveyance. After he had left, Fleming
put ice in the glass, splashed bourbon and swilled the liquid round the glass
to cool it. Then he pulled a chair up to the window, put a low table beside it,
took out a copy of Ugarte’s file and sat down to read, knocking the bourbon
down in two gulps, feeling its friendly bite at the back of his throat and in
his stomach. He caught sight of his disarticulated gun parts and cursed under
his breath, decided to put it off again and commenced reading.

Ten minutes later, he filled up his glass again, this time with more ice
to make it a weaker drink, and sat back and thought about Ugarte. The man was a
German Muslim. He had worked for Wolfgang Krupp for ten years. There was no
criminal past. Before the war he worked in Krupp Industries as an accountant.
His involvement in Parsifal seemed the result of conjecture. An organization
needed a treasurer and Ugarte was Krupp’s main financial adviser from 1935 on.
Ugarte was 44 and married with two kids.

As far as Fleming could surmise, Peter Ugarte was a fairly innocent
numbers cruncher who somehow managed to pull a Svengali on the stunning Miss
Lustbaden. He dumped the wife and kids and ran off with the boss’s strudel.
Such behavior might have won Fleming’s admiration had the lout not panicked and
begged to be rescued from Egypt of all places. Stupid kraut towel-head, thought
Fleming.

Two hours later as dusk settled, Fleming took off his damp clothes, put
his assembled gun and holster under a pillow and rang for the valet to have his
dinner jacket pressed.

By the time he had taken an ice-cold bath and pulled on a fresh pair of
St. Michael’s cotton underpants half the bourbon had been consumed. For two
hours he studied the file on Ugarte while he painstakingly put his Browning
back together, chain-smoking between slugs of Walker’s until the bottle was
half empty and the room was cloudy with a blue haze.

He looked at the time. Six o’clock. He put the docket away, refreshed the
ice in his glass, poured himself a double and proceeded to get dressed for the
evening.

Half an hour later, to insure no one would search his room without his
knowledge, he sprinkled talc on his holdall and placed hairs over his closet
doors. He took one last glance about the room, caught his reflection in the
armoire and flashed a grin at himself when he saw how good he looked in his
tuxedo. He verified in the mirror that there was absolutely no sign of the flat
gun under his left arm, gave a final pull at his bow-tie and walked out the
door and locked it.

The savage sun had dropped at last behind the horizon and long shadows
rippled across the winding streets of Cairo bringing welcome relief.

Fleming was sprawled in the back of a black sedan hurtling through the
capital. Even at seven in the evening in January it was still 23 degrees centigrade.
He took out the passport in the name of Clay Sinclair and examined the
handiwork of Q-Branch. He had seen better forgeries - the vermilion dye of the
Britannia seal was a shade too bold and the bogus visa stamps weren’t quite
smudged enough to be convincing - but it would suffice for a quick flash to the
proprietor of the nightclub where Ugarte was last seen.

A police searchlight swept the velvet-roped entrance to Casino Opera,
Cairo’s popular European-style hotspot, as the taxi pulled up and disgorged
Fleming who tipped the driver, drawing a big toothy smile. Fleming nodded
coolly to the tuxedoed thug at the door and sauntered inside. Brassy jazz from
a twenty-piece band greeted him as he descended a small flight of stairs into
the cavernous club.

The hedonistic space was like the interior of a Bedouin tent that had
been taken over by wanton Europeans. The men were all wonderfully coiffed in
black tie, the women draped in expensive black dresses encrusted in jewels.
Sections were appointed with lanterns and tea lights, authentic Moroccan sofas
and poufs, brass tables and potted palm trees. The varnished walls were
festooned with tapestries depicting racy scenes from
The Rubaiyat of Omar
Khayyam
. It boasted a mirrored ceiling, two long sprawling bars and a
packed dance floor centered by a trickling fountain sculpture of the gods Isis
and Osiris. Billowing shrouds of gaudy chintz hid canoodling couples and other
sybarites. Sequined belly dancers snaked arms and shimmied.

Fleming threaded through a sea of trim figures swinging to Duke Ellington
as he got the floor plan of the nightclub clear in his mind. The gaming lounge
was cordoned off to one side beyond a veil of beads where two turbaned,
bullneck sentries sat dour-faced at the entrance with sheathed scimitars.
Fleming approached and they gave him an appraising stare, recognized him as a
moneyed man and pulled the beads aside to let him enter.

Players looked up at the handsome stranger as he strolled to the cashier
kiosk and slapped an impressive wad of banknotes on the marble. While his cash
was exchanged for chips, Fleming slowly scanned the room, stripping away all
that was unimportant to him, focusing only on details that were. The
chemin
de fer
game was located at the far end of the room past a spinning roulette
wheel and a poker table.

An hour later, Fleming was seated opposite the baccarat dealer beside
several neat stacks of onyx chips and two empty martini glasses. A stunning
olive-skinned waitress with an hourglass figure and whose profile looked like
it belonged on a tomb wall leaned in close and caught Fleming’s eye as she
emptied his ashtray. He held her bare arm and looked directly at her as he
spoke. “There was too much ice in that last martini and tell your man behind
the bar to shake the next one vigorously until it’s freezing. Got it?”

“Make that two, Kanika,” came an accented voice.

Fleming swiveled his neck to see a fat Frenchman dressed like a cheap
slob sitting at the bar playing backgammon. He was drinking ouzo and munching on
caramelized scarabs with a cold cigar butt dangling from his mouth. Slouched
beside him in an ill-fitting mauve suit was his majordomo, the sleepy-eyed
rat-faced shutterbug from the rooftops.

“I admire your luck,” said the slovenly beetle-eater who looked like his
luck had ran out. “Mister…?”

“Smith,” said Fleming. “Peter Smith.”

The French glutton swilled the last remnants of his aperitif, wiped
insect crumbs from his sticky lips and walked over to the baccarat game, arm
extended.

Fleming’s hand moved towards Munson’s but dropped down and reached for
his cigarette case instead. He said: “Who are you?”

Munson scowled. “Name’s Munson. Charlie Munson. I own the place.”

“Excuse-me, Monsieur Munson,” said Fleming as he stood and harvested his
chips, “but I’m ahead which means it’s time to quit.”

Munson cracked a smile, revealing sharp little brown teeth. “Allow me to
offer you some Champagne to celebrate your good fortune while we convert your
chips into sterling.”

“Thank you,” said Fleming, “but Champagne should be stored at sixty-eight
degrees and on its side to keep the cork moist.” He turned with a disgusted
face to the upright magnums prominently displayed behind the bar. “I’m afraid
anything else doesn’t quite do the wine justice and the result is a flatter,
sweeter experience, not unlike ginger ale without the fizz. Excuse me.”

Munson was clearly affronted and for a moment it looked like his
right-hand man, whose name was Godo, might pounce but then Kanika returned with
a tray bearing two martinis and the bill.

Fleming went to pay when Munson stopped him. “Thank you for the
information about storage, Mister Smith. I shall share this knowledge with my
staff. In return, your drinks are on the house. Come, let us take our cocktails
into my boudoir to count your winnings in private.”

The two turbaned bodyguards appeared and flanked Munson forming a small
wall.

Fleming cracked as best a nervous smile as he could without being too
obvious and said, “I’d be delighted.” He stood up in a way that intentionally
offered a glimpse of the steel and leather stuffed under his armpit.

Godo saw the gun-holster and looked with concern at Munson who ignored
him and slapped an arm around his English guest. “What do you think of Egyptian
women, Mister Smith?”

“I hear they don’t believe in sex after marriage,” said Fleming without
hesitation. “But then I hear that’s true of most women.”

Munson guffawed heartily as they filed out of the card parlor and moved
through the throngs of beautiful people to an exposed staircase that spiraled
up to a private office overlooking the entire nightclub.

Munson’s lair was well-appointed with curtains, pillars, and a large bed
with a golden cover. Erotic art festooned the walls and illumination came from
three rather smoky oil lamps. Munson went to the venetian blinds, peered over
the house floor and then shuttered them. Godo stood silently against a wall
while the two mooks split security duties. Munson gestured for Fleming to sit
across from his desk, indicating to a chair with a leather fly-swat.

“Tell me, Mister Smith,” he began with a tone of idle curiosity, slapping
at a pesky winged intruder and missing. “What on earth enticed you to visit our
cultural backwater?”

“I heard the dealers at your table were soft.”

“I was referring to Cairo, not my establishment. I would give my left
testicle to be back in the Latin quarter, roaming the halls of the Louvre,
promenading along the Seine with a pretty white girl on my arm. Yet you left
the charms of Europe for this dusty furnace.
Pourquoi
?”

Fleming shrugged. “Egypt’s charms need no explanation. Any chance we
could conclude our business? I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

Starved for intelligent company, Munson refused to let the interesting
stranger get off so lightly. “Little by little Egypt is being plundered,” he
said with a wistful tone that drew a stifled yawn from Fleming. “We ransacked
the tombs and now the British ransack us. It is a wonder they have not
dismantled the pyramids and shipped them back to be reconstructed along the
Thames.”

“Reconsecrated,” said Fleming.

“What?”

“You say ‘reconsecrated’ not ‘reconstructed.’”

Munson smiled and Fleming started to wonder if anything rattled the guy.

“Thank you for correcting my appalling English, Mister Smith.”

“The last thing London needs right now is more tombs, Munson.”

“Quite,” said Munson, affecting an air of seriousness. He picked up a
gold cigarette box, reached forward and offered the open case to his guest. “I
hope, Mister Smith, you do not find the tobacco here as dry as the Champagne.”

“I have always been a fan of Middle Eastern leaf,” said Fleming, taking a
cigarette from him and sniffing it. “Turkish and Balkan.”

Munson looked pleased. “A tobacco connoisseur.”

Fleming took another whiff and tossed it back. “Rolled about four months
ago and quite stale.”

Munson frowned.

Fleming pried a Player from his tarnished Dunhill case, lit it and blew a
fat plume of smoke into Munson’s sweaty little face. “You might want to invest
in a humidor,” he told his French host. “Do you know what a humidor is?”

Before Munson could reply Godo snapped, “Why do you allow him to insult
you?”

Munson berated his minion in Arabic and sent him scampering back to his
post.

Fleming tried to move things along. “If we could finish up our transaction…”

Munson considered him. “For a sum this large, I will need to see a
passport.”

Fleming hesitated. “A man has a right to some privacy. Or has that
concept not spread to these parts?” The door opened and the curvaceous Kanika
entered with a tray bearing Turkish coffee, cream, sugar and two demitasse
cups.

“Do you have something to hide, Mister Smith?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

Fleming’s eyes went to Kanika who leaned down before him to pour the
coffee, a movement that accentuated her already deep cleavage which was dewy
and glistened slightly.

Fleming tried not to stare at the inviting valley of milky flesh as she
filled cups with steaming black java. Fleming sighed. “All right, Munson, fair
cop, the name’s not Smith. It’s Clive Sinclair. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?” He
offered Munson a fleeting look at his passport.

“Why should I of heard of you? What are you famous for? Cheating at
cards?” Munson leant back and lit a stale cigarette with a Zippo.

“People pay me a lot of money to kill people,” Fleming said icily. “And I
resent the accusation of cheating.”

The atmosphere was suddenly tense. Fleming made a sudden move inside his
jacket pocket. Godo sported a gat and Munson’s guard had his scimitar out but
everyone relaxed when they saw Fleming extract his Mont Blanc pen, twist it and
go to make a note. He scrawled “Ugarte” and showed it to Munson. “German chap
looking for passage to America. Going with a pretty young Fraulein.”

Munson shrugged. “A man and woman looking for a ticket out of this hell?
That is half the people in Cairo. You’re going to have to be more specific than
that.” He eyed the stack of chips in Fleming’s hand.

Fleming followed his gaze and considered the casino tokens. “How
specific?”

“As specific as possible.”

Fleming stacked the chips on Munson’s desk. “Tell me where he is.”

Munson turned and grabbed a new bottle of expensive bourbon, broke the
seal and found two glasses, filled them.

“I know you know where he is,” said Fleming. “He wrote to the United
States seeking asylum using your letterhead.”

Munson looked at Godo ironically. “I didn’t know we had letterhead.” He
raised his glass to Fleming’s, chinked it and took a slug of booze. “Ugarte is
holed up thirty miles south of here with that haughty German bitch he’s so in
love with.” He pocketed the chips. “One thousand. Four thousand more buys you
an address.”