Troubled Ambition

a short story

“The whole thing was a nasty, nasty affair, and Bond cursed the moment that...”

No, it simply wouldn’t do. Far too hasty. Keep it simple and start at the beginning.

“Night is a curtain behind which most of us hide. For others, a few chosen others...”

He might shoot himself. Lord, it read like a penny dreadful.

The black keypads were cool to the touch. By noon they would be tiny bathing-pools for sweaty
fingertips – if he ever wrote anything. He tore out the sheet of paper in frustration and aimed a
crumpled ball at the wicker basket nearby. The ball wiped its feet on the brim before deciding to join its
comrades.

No one heard his forced laugh. Not like the roulette table at Deauville. Or was it Le Touquet? No matter.
He wound another sheet of paper in the typewriter, enjoying, as he always did, the prospect of a virgin
sheet of foolscap. The outstretching for his half-finished cigarette was entirely automatic. He knew the
ashtray was almost full. There was no need to look at the pristine spring-back folder propping up an
open carton of cigarettes; he knew it was empty. Time to fill it.

He stubbed out the cigarette and vowed not to light another until he deserved it. Get into it. Find a
rhythm. He peered over the high window ledge to the empty beach before him, and remembered how
his belly of iced orange juice had almost ruined his morning’s snorkelling. But it hadn’t been a complete
bust. He would see the lobster again at lunch. His senses took over and were borne away on the warm
breeze that floated over the creamy rollers, his ears filled with their incessant breathing and the never-
ending cycle of rinse and return. He heard nothing but the throaty roar of victory and the hiss of retreat.
Back and forth, back and forth. In and out and back and forth. Rhythm.

Six fingers stabbed out a machine-gun burst.

“The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning.”