“Just go tend to it,” said Powell briskly, shooing Fleming out of his office with a fussy gesture.

  Fleming went along the hallway at a good clip, down the stairs at a quick pace, and along the lower corridor at a speed approaching a trot. The Accounting Department sign stuck out over the door and Fleming slipped inside, coming up to a high counter beyond which a row of desks were filled with paper and adding machines; the sound of punched keys and pulled cranks filled the room with their clatter rather like the noise a passing train would make. “I need to see Mister Eccles. On Powell’s order,” Fleming said to the clerk at the counter.

  “You may have to wait a bit,” said the clerk, exercising what little power he had to the full.

  “If you ask him, Mister Eccles will tell you he is waiting for me,” said Fleming.

  “That’s as may be,” said the clerk, and was about to say more when a voice behind him rapped out his name.

  “Crumpin,” Eccles said. “Let Mister Fleming through. He’s in a bit of a rush.”

  The clerk frowned but lifted the section of counter to give Fleming passage into the part of the room where the desks were.

  “He takes his work seriously,” said Eccles, guiding Fleming back to his own desk behind a tall partition. “I’m giving you the greater part of your funds in American dollars. You won’t have to change pounds at a bank; it’ll save all manner of questions. There’s four hundred fifty in tens, twenties, and fifties. And a hundred pounds in twenties,” said Eccles as he reached for a packet on his desk. “There is an auto arranged for you at Dallas, so you will drive to New Mexico. You’ll leave less of a trail that way, in case anyone is following you.” He patted Fleming on the shoulder. “Are you taking your pistol?”

  “Of course,” said Fleming. “And ammunition.” He had also taken the deadly force authorization from Sir William’s files, just in case he should need to take action against any foe he might come across.

  “Be careful. Americans have a great many guns, you know.” Eccles handed him the packet. “There’s a record sheet included, and I recommend you keep track of everything you spend, otherwise you may have to make up the difference when you return.”

  “I understand,” said Fleming, tucking the packet into the concealed pocket on the inside of the rear waist of his coat. “I’ll do my utmost.”

  “Good,” Eccles approved. “There’s also a number for emergencies which you can use if you find yourself in difficulties. There is a great deal of unease in America these days, and you may have to deal with it. Newsmen can be suspect, in spite of what the American First Amendment may guarantee. If you need legal representation, call Mason Caldwell. He will know what to do.” He held out a small, folded sheet. “Your visa, arranged through us.”

  “Very good,” said Fleming. “I should be back in three or four days.”

  “If you are going to be gone longer, you will have to let Powell know as soon as possible, so arrangements can be made.” Eccles gave him a sign, indicating he should leave.

  “Thanks,” said Fleming as he headed out of the Accounting Office and made his way back to Powell’s desk.

  “Here you are. I typed it myself,” said Powell, holding out a letter on his own stationery. “I trust you won’t need it, not with your press credentials in your wallet. They are in your wallet, aren’t they?”

  “Naturally,” Fleming said, glad he had them as well as the deadly force authorization. “Well, I’ll try to call you tomorrow, but if I can’t for some reason, don’t worry. I understand Texas and New Mexico are still fairly wild places.”

  “No doubt,” said Powell, and gave him a casual salute. “Off you go, then.”

  “Thanks,” said Fleming once again, and left Powell’s office, hurrying down to the street to get into his Lagonda Rapier and begin his drive to the airport.

  There were ten other passengers waiting for the airplane to carry them to New Orleans: two of them were women, and they sat together somewhat apart from the rest—men, mostly, like Fleming, dressed for business, but one in much more casual attire. The two women were put-away in ensembles that showed they had money as well as taste.

  A cabin steward arrived in the waiting area to send them out onto the runway to climb aboard the smallish airplane—a twin-engine sixteen-seater—white baggage handlers stowed suitcases and valises in the lower hold. Fleming had a briefcase that he carried into the cabin and held on his lap while the cabin attendants readied them all for departure, announcing that they would serve cocktails as well as tea and coffee on the flight, and a light meal of fruit and scones.

  Fleming found himself seated next to one of the two women, and he decided to make the most of their limited time together. “I’m Ian Fleming. I’m a journalist,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “I’m Alysa Sissons,” she said, not quite shaking hands. She was slightly more than average height, slim, with carefully groomed brown hair set off with a fetching, wide-brimmed hat worn at a rakish angle; her ankles were trim. Her suit was a Dior New Look of deep-green wool crepe, an outfit that certainly was not to be had on coupons. Her shoes had fashionable Louis XIV heels and slender ankle straps. She carried a small, dark-brown handbag of fine leather that hung from a short, narrow strap around her wrist. The pearls at her throat were undoubtedly genuine, as was the square-cut golden topaz in her lapel brooch. “Missus Walter Sissons,” she added, in case Fleming should jump to the wrong conclusion. “My husband is meeting me in New Orleans.”

  “How nice for you both,” said Fleming at his most mannerly. “Will this be your first time in America?”

  “Good gracious, no,” she exclaimed as the first of the two engines began to turn. “But it will be my first time in New Orleans.”

  “I hope you’ll enjoy it,” said Fleming. “I certainly have, when I have gone there in the past.”

  The second engine sprang into life, and the two of them roared in duet.

  “I intend to,” said Alysa Sissons.

  The plane began to taxi, making steady progress down the runway, picking up speed as it went, its nose lifting into the air.

  Beside him, Missus Sissons closed her eyes. “I hate taking off and landing. But I love to be in the air. It doesn’t make sense, I know.”

  “I can understand your feelings,” said Fleming, holding on to the arms of his seat and trusting his seat belt was tight enough.

  The plane rose, the engines changing pitch as they climbed. A few minutes later the landing gear was retracted and the pilot announced on the cabin speakers that they would be climbing for the next ten minutes, and that he recommended swallowing frequently or yawning to adjust to the pressure. “Nothing wrong with your ears popping,” he added jovially. “It’s quite the usual thing.”

  This announcement did not reassure Alysa Sissons, who swallowed hard twice, as if to test the pilot’s remarks. She looked at Fleming from the tail of her eye. “How do you stand it?”

  “I tell myself it won’t last long,” said Fleming, smiling a little to show he was joking. “You get used to it, in time.”

  “Well, I haven’t,” she said. Her pout showed her pretty, encarmined mouth to advantage.

  By the time the plane leveled off, Jamaica was behind them, and the expanse of the Caribbean stretched out ahead, a shiny version of the sky, with Cuba lying along the horizon.

  “It’s quite lovely from up here,” said Alysa, turning to face Fleming so he could see her smile.

  “Very much so,” he agreed. He enjoyed this elegant kind of flirting, and it would while away the hours to New Orleans. He took his cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Alysa and, when she declined, lit one for himself. “Flying can be exciting, can’t it?”

  “We’re quite above everything,” she said.

  “That we are,” Fleming told her.

  A cabin steward came along the aisle of the airplane to offer tea or coffee to the passengers, or a cocktail.

  “I’d like a Brass Monkey,” said Alysa. “I assume you can make one?”

  “Indeed I can, Ma’am,” said the steward. “And you, sir?”

  “A Martini, I think. It’s so American.” He nodded. “Very dry, if you would.”

  “Very good, sir.” The steward passed on to the next seats.

  “I do feel rather wicked, drinking so early in the day, but what else is there to do, way up here?” She flicked the tip of her tongue over her lips.

  “Nothing very much,” said Fleming. “More’s the pity.”

  She made a pretend-slap at his hand on the arm of the seat between them. “You’re a very audacious chap, Mister Fleming.”

  “Pays to be, when you’re a journalist,” he said in mock-contrition. “You never know what a little push will get you.”

  Her smile softened. “No, you don’t, do you?”

  They exchanged glances again, this time longer and more questioning. “What a lucky man your husband is,” said Fleming.

  “He thinks so, and so do I, for he is the best of all men,” she replied in a belated display of loyalty. “He’s fortunate in many ways. He’s good-looking, he’s wealthy, he’s a decorated hero, and he’s about to enter politics.”

  “In Jamaica?” Fleming said, startled, for he thought he knew all the politicos and up-and-coming politicos on the island.

  “Gracious, no,” she said with a quick laugh. “In England, of course. At home. Jamaica is our retreat, a place where he can set aside the demands of his work and enjoy himself.”

  “But he is in New Orleans?” Fleming asked her questions automatically, wanting to sort out who Mister Walter Sissons might be. He remembered reading an account of the firm currently improving the airport and bidding to do a project at one of the harbors. “SS Industries—am I right?”

  “Yes. SS Industries, for Sissons and Soleilsur. My husband is in America on business again,” she said, “with his tiresome partner, Monsieur Soleilsur. Perhaps you’ve met him?”

  “I haven’t had that pleasure. I have heard of him, of course,” he said, beginning to think he should find out more about Soleilsur, for the name had come up often enough to tweak his curiosity, and to be put in juxtaposition with a major engineering firm like SS Industries suggested an involvement that could have serious repercussions for the island. “He was on Jamaica himself, not too many days ago.”

  “Yes. He was arranging something on the island while my husband made things ready in America. Walter doesn’t tell me much in regard to particulars, but he does tell me that he has much to do, and that it is necessary to our future. He and Monsieur Soleilsur have important plans, or so I’m told.” She managed a hint of a smile that was at once smug and sad.

  The cabin steward appeared with their drinks, in the appropriate glasses. “Here you are,” he said, serving Alysa first. “A Brass Monkey. And your Martini, sir.”

  Fleming handed him two-and-six, a generous tip, all things considered, and lifted his glass to his seat partner. “Chin-chin,” he said, and sipped at his drink. It was appropriately cold but a bit too puckery. Still, he thought, not too bad for a bar in mid-air.

  Alysa tasted her drink and smiled. “I do like these.”

  “Just as well then that the steward could make it for you.” He watched her as she drank again. His cigarette was burned down most of its length, so he put it out in the arm-rest ashtray.

  “I suppose it will help steady my nerves,” she said as she put the glass down on the arm of her seat, smiling apprehensively.

  “Nothing to worry about,” said Fleming. “The report was for fair weather all the way to Louisiana. Probably nothing more than a bump or two.” He wanted her to keep talking, and not simply because he was enjoying her company.

  “A bump,” she repeated as if she were talking about bombs. “They say in future, everyone will fly.”

  “Only if they have wings,” said Fleming, and was rewarded with a giggle.

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  “Yes,” he responded, a bit more seriously. “And I suppose it is inevitable. The War made us rely on airplanes, and now we don’t know how to get along without them.”

  “That’s what my husband says,” she said, boasting a little.

  “Does he fly a great deal, in his business?” Fleming asked solicitously, for it was apparent that his wife did not.

  “Yes, he does,” she said, annoyance under her genial answer. “His business is very demanding, and once he enters politics, I suppose it will only get worse. He has commitments all over Europe, and may soon have some across the Pacific.”

  “It sounds very difficult for you,” said Fleming, hoping to get her to volunteer more information.

  Her laughter was edgy. “Goodness, no. Nothing of the sort. It is what I must expect—Walter Sissons must travel.”

  “And you, will you travel with him?” He wanted to sound sympathetic.

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking away from Fleming and staring into a distance that existed only in her thoughts.

  “It sounds as if there are many demands on you, as well,” said Fleming.

  “Nothing a good wife would not hope for her husband,” she said as if repeating a painfully learned lesson.

  Fleming backed off at once. “I didn’t mean to imply anything else, Missus Sissons. I only thought you must find such calls on your husband a bit trying—as many another woman would.”

  She glanced toward the window. “I suppose it could seem that way. If Monsieur Gadi Soleilsur did not have so many plans, it might be different, but as it stands—” She stopped herself. From that moment until they landed in New Orleans, she said very little, all of it pleasant, but offering nothing more in the way of information.

  Chapter 14

  NEW ORLEANS was warm under an elaborate display of gathering clouds, all pink and white as if cherubs were expected momentarily. The stillness of the air hinted at possible rain later that night. The city itself, low-lying and green, smelling of the sea and vegetation, showed equal parts of style and decadence, a combination that Fleming found heady, seductive, and enticing. He was sorry he would have only four-and-a-half hours here, but he had to be in Dallas in the morning, and that meant taking the ten-thirty flight for Hensley National Airport, and spending the next four hours in the air. He handed over his declaration statement to the uniformed agent and answered half a dozen routine questions before having his passport stamped; he remembered to declare his revolver that lay in a special holster along the small of his back. Leaving the Customs area at Moisant International Airport, he bade Alysa Sissons good-bye as they walked toward the exit; he could see a tall, good-looking man in an expensive suit waving a bouquet of roses at her. Fleming cast a last, appreciative glance in her direction, and intercepted a quick flicker in her eyes.

  She paid only the slightest attention to Fleming, as if glad to see the last of him; her hand was raised and all her attention on the handsome man at the rail. She might as well have never said a word to Fleming, let alone flirted with him over drinks.

  Fleming picked up his luggage, consigned it to a rental-locker, pocketed the key, and decided to take a brief turn into the city; he wanted a quick meal and was aware that New Orleans was famous for food and jazz, and decided to try to find both. The cabbie asked him where to, and he said, “Somewhere I can get a good dinner at a reasonable price, hear a little music, and still get back here by eight-fifteen.”

  “Something in the French Quarter?” the cabbie asked, already turning into the traffic that buzzed around the air terminal. “Most people from out-of-town want to go there.”

  “Why not, if it will fit the bill?” Fleming looked about at the other autos and noticed a Lincoln pulling ahead of them, driven by a hawk-faced man in light-colored clothing. “A grand auto, that.”

  “If you want to lay out more than three thousand bucks for a car, I guess so,” said the cabbie with ill-concealed envy.

  “That’s a lot of money. A Rolls-Royce would cost you more,” said Fleming.

  “More money than sense,” said the cabbie, and steered onto the street that led toward the heart of the old city—a concept that seemed ludicrous to Fleming, who could not imagine anything in America being old.

  They pulled up at a white-fronted restaurant on Bourbon Street, and the cabbie accepted his fare and his tip readily enough. As Fleming got out of the cab, he asked, “Will you call back for me in an hour and a half? I’ll double your fare to the airport if you’ll agree?”

  The cabbie considered the offer. “All right. I’m due for a dinner break.” He took the five-dollar bill, smiling. “Right nice of you, sir. I’ll be here in ninety minutes.” He touched the brim of his leather cap.

  “Thank you,” said Fleming, and went into the restaurant, noticing its vaguely Roman, vaguely Georgian interior. The aroma of the place was eloquent testimony to the quality of the food they served. He told the maître d’ that he was a party of one, and asked to be seated away from the door, a request the maître d’ honored, finding Fleming a table in an alcove at the far end of the room. “Excellent,” Fleming approved.

  “The crayfish stew is very good tonight, sir,” said the maître d’ as he handed Fleming the leather-bound menu, before he returned to the reservation desk.

  On the far side of the dining room a piano and double bass were pouring out easy, rhythmic music. Fleming tapped his toe as he opened the menu. The selection was extensive and varied, favoring seafood and regional dishes. While Fleming perused the menu, he kept a sharp watch on the room beyond, taking note of everyone who arrived and where they were seated. He could not bring himself to believe that he was under such close observation, but he was also aware that he might be watched. He gave his order—alligator soup, oysters Bonne Femme, spinach soufflé, and cheeses to finish—and sat back to sample a first taste of his split of a white Burgundy while he waited for his meal.

  Taking stock of the other patrons, he noticed that of the nine tables occupied, one seemed to be filled with businessmen from out-of-town. There were eight of them, dining boisterously. Another table held a couple of advanced years, both dressed in high fashion for 1933. A third table accommodated a family of five, the oldest youth in a military uniform. At a fourth table a couple, very likely honeymooning, judging by their behavior. The fifth table held two women of middle years, well-dressed and determined. One—the more attractive of the two—wore a black twist around her wedding band, indicating widowhood. Over at the sixth table two men and a woman pored over some item the older man held out in a small case. At the seventh table a harried-looking man in his thirties dined alone, his whole attention on his meal. The eighth table was the site of a birthday party for a lovely young woman, visibly pregnant, with a doting husband and an older couple, parents or in-laws. Table nine was occupied by four young men, all in conservative suits and with the manners of attorneys; they were into a second bottle of champagne, noisily congratulating one another on getting a favorable decision. Nothing too disquieting about any of them, he thought. But still. Only three of the other patrons noticed Fleming that he was aware of.