21
" when the stresses are too great for the tired metal, when the ground mechanic who checks the de-icing equipment is crossed in love and skimps his job, way back in London, Idlewild, Gander, Montreal; when those or many things happen, then the little warm room with propellers in front falls straight down out of the sky into the sea or on to the land, heavier than air, fallible, vain. And the forty little heavier-than-air people, fallible within the plane’s fallibility, vain within its larger vanity, fall down with it and make little holes in the land or little splashes in the sea. Which is anyway their destiny, so why worry? You are linked to the ground mechanic’s careless fingers in Nassau just as you are linked to the weak head of the little man in the family saloon who mistakes the red light for the green and meets you head-on, for the first and last time, as you are motoring quietly home from some private sin. There’s nothing to do about it. You "
― Ian Fleming , Live and Let Die (James Bond, #2)
28
" He sensed a lonely childhood on some great decaying plantation, an echoing ‘Great House’ slowly falling into disrepair and being encroached on by the luxuriance of the tropics. The parents dying, and the property being sold. The companionship of a servant or two and an equivocal life in lodgings in the capital. The beauty which was her only asset and the struggle against the shady propositions to be a ‘governess’, a ‘companion’, a ‘secretary’, all of which meant respectable prostitution. Then the dubious, unknown steps into the world of entertainment. The evening stint at the nightclub with the mysterious act which, among people dominated by magic, must have kept many away from her and made her a person to be feared. And then, one evening, the huge man with the grey face sitting at a table by himself. The promise that he would put her on Broadway. The chance of a new life, of an escape from the heat and the dirt and the solitude.
Bond turned brusquely away from the window. A romantic picture, perhaps. But it must have been something like that. "
― Ian Fleming , Live and Let Die (James Bond, #2)
31
" with her pinched lips. ‘Yes?’ ‘Mr Leiter?’ ‘Oh yes, you’re Mr Bryce. Cabana Number One, right down on the beach. Mr Leiter’s been expecting you since lunchtime. And …?’ She heliographed with her pince-nez towards Solitaire. ‘Mrs Bryce,’ said Bond. ‘Ah yes,’ said Mrs Stuyvesant, wishing to disbelieve. ‘Well, if you’d care to sign the register, I’m sure you and Mrs Bryce would like to freshen up after the journey. The full address, please. Thank you.’ She led them out and down the cement path to the end cottage on the left. She knocked and Leiter appeared. Bond had looked forward to a warm welcome, but Leiter seemed staggered to see him. His mouth hung open. His straw-coloured hair, still faintly black at the roots, looked like a haystack. ‘You haven’t met my wife, I think,’ said Bond. ‘No, no, I mean, yes. How do you do?’ The whole situation was beyond him. Forgetting Solitaire, he almost dragged Bond through the door. At the last moment he remembered the girl and seized her with his other hand and pulled her in too, banging the "
― Ian Fleming , Live and Let Die (James Bond, #2)
