The street narrowed then turned abruptly widening into a kind of courtyard. There was Porpoise standing and looking about him as though lost. Now, Bond thought, now I can take him and find out what the hell’s going on. He took a step forward out of the shadow, then shrank back against the wall for two figures had appeared ahead of Porpoise, advancing from a wide double doorway above which an old weathered wooden sign hung, scrawled with Chinese characters.
The two were dressed in dark clothes, running suits most likely. Each wore a visored baseball cap and held baseball bats swinging easily in their hands. Bond automatically reached for his gun before he realised that he was unarmed. He had come on holiday and was quite unprepared for any kind of confrontation that called for more than the use of fists. There was no way he could take on this pair steadily approaching Porpoise, bats at the ready.
Porpoise threw one quick look over his shoulder, then called out to the men to stop, reaching for his weapon as he did so.
Bond saw one hand come up with a pistol, the other held some kind of wallet in front of his body as though it was a magic charm to stop evil. But the men kept coming.
He felt impotent, pushing his back against the wall, hoping the shadows would conceal him.
Then, as the pair of thugs came nearer, so others appeared silently from a doorway to Bond’s right, moving swiftly with no sound, bearing down on Porpoise’s back.
Bond wanted to cry out a warning, but his throat felt dry and constricted as he watched the inevitable which seemed to take place in horrific slow motion.
He saw Porpoise adopt a firing stance with legs apart and his pistol held in a two-handed grip, arms rigid in front of his body. In his mind, Bond imagined the finger already squeezing on the trigger, but before he could get off a shot, one of the men at his rear came within striking distance, raised his bat and swung with sickening force to the side of Porpoise’s head.
There was no human sound, only the horrific thud and crack as the bat connected and the target’s head smashed to one side, followed by the clatter as the pistol flew from his hands.
The first blow was like a signal for all four men to move in, though the initial crack to the head could well have killed. The solid baseball bats rose and fell as Porpoise dropped first to his knees and then to the ground.
Even when he was down, the quartet of clubs went on rising and falling, a macabre series of drumbeat thuds, thumping and cracking in unison until all that was left was a body with a terrible bloody sponge where the head had once been.
There was nothing he could do. No way to give an alarm or prevent this brutal overkill. So Bond backed away, still clinging close to the wall. Then he moved fast, avoiding the boxes and garbage as he hurtled back the way he had come.
He stopped running once he had reached the main street and walked at speed, weaving in and out of the people who still, at this late hour, filled the sidewalks. He felt guilt wash over him for a second and cursed his lack of any weapon or means to save the man. Then, as he began the long, thigh-aching toil back up Nob Hill, he realised that the guilt was really only a reflection of frustration at not having had the opportunity to question Porpoise. Why had be been followed? he asked himself again. Who wanted him under surveillance? Come to that, was the death of Porpoise just one of those unhappy timings – being in the wrong place at the wrong time – or was there some more sinister, premeditated reason?
The questions were to haunt him all that night as he lay in his safe and luxurious room high in the Fairmont. Bond dropped in and out of sleep, sweating and plagued by nightmares of a severed head being kicked around a schoolyard by a laughing gang of Chinese children.
At dawn he woke suddenly from one bout of deep sleep. Sitting bolt upright, he captured the image of the girl in the store from his most recent dream. The girl had first giggled and then thrown her head back, cackling, which showed her to have the razor-sharp teeth of a shark.
He called room service and ordered breakfast – just a lot of coffee and toast – there was little chance here of getting his beloved precisely boiled egg or the De Bry coffee, Tiptree strawberry jam or Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade which made up his breakfast ritual back home.
Before the room-service trolley arrived, he had time to shower, shave and dress. Then he sat at the window drinking almost scalding coffee and eating quite reasonable wholewheat toast with at least a facsimile of marmalade or jam.
As he breakfasted, his head began to clear and his thoughts became more positive. Was there any point in reporting what he had seen to the local police? The answer to that was a straight no. He had been summoned to San Francisco by his chief, which certainly meant official business. A report to the police would only snarl him in red tape. It would also, undoubtedly, reveal his RN rank plus his identity as a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service. Whatever M required of him, Bond could bet every penny he owned that his Chief would not be attracted to the idea of his identity becoming public knowledge to local law enforcement agencies. The only course still open to him was a quick, unidentifiable call to the SFPD giving the barest details of the horrific murder he had witnessed.
He was still thinking of the feasibility of this action when the doorbell chimed. Probably room service wanting to clear away the breakfast debris, but he took the safe action of squinting through the security peephole in the door. The strange fish-eye view showed two well-dressed burly men standing back from the door.
‘Who is it?’ he called.
‘FBI. Open up, Captain Bond, or we’ll have to smash the door down.’
They looked and sounded as though they meant it, and through the peephole, he saw one of the men holding up a wallet with official ID. Even through the lens Bond could see that it looked genuine.
‘Come on, Captain Bond. We haven’t got all day.’
Slowly, Bond slipped the safety chain off the door, moved to one side and tensed his body, ready to fight back if this pair proved not to be on the side of the angels.
They were FBI, there was no doubt about that. One even had his automatic pistol unholstered. They came into the room in the confident way of police officers who know that right is on their side, not barrelling in, or attempting to put any restraining hold on Bond, but smartly, firm in both manner and speech.
‘You are Captain James Bond, Royal Navy?’ the leading one asked, while his partner stood back, the unholstered automatic held close in to his side with the business end steadily pointing towards Bond.
‘Yes, my name’s Bond.’
‘What are you doing in San Francisco, Captain Bond?’
‘I’m on vacation. Why would you want to know?’
‘You’re here as a private individual?’
‘Yes.’
The FBI man nodded, his face blank but a deep disbelief embedded in his eyes. ‘There are several people who wish to talk with you, Captain Bond.’
‘For instance?’
‘First our own local Bureau Chief . . .’
‘He’s
‘About what?’ He was letting them come to him.
‘How about murder?’ Again from the younger of the two, the one looking very angry, the one with the pistol.
‘I’ve only been here since last night. I really . . .’
‘And you went out?’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘Tell it to the Bureau Chief, Captain Bond. He wants to talk to you about the murder of Agent Patrick Malloney who was found bludgeoned to death near the Embarcadero early this morning.’
‘I’ve never heard of Agent Malloney, and I haven’t been near the Embarcadero . . .’
‘We think he was dumped there, Captain Bond; and excuse me if I tell you that the late Agent Malloney and yourself have a very close connection.’
‘I’ve . . .’ Bond began, but the two agents had started to move in on him.
‘Come quietly, Captain Bond,’ one of them said.
‘We wouldn’t like to mess up this nice room,’ said the other.
