We sat down at a table against the railing, opposite the gate through which the bulls were to come. From that position, our view of the ring below us was completely unobstructed.
The band struck up a brassy tune. Four men walked out across the packed sand of the ring, swaggering to the beat of the music. The crowd applauded them.
I’d expected them to be dressed in the traditional trajas de luces, the tightly tailored, brilliantly embroidered “suit of lights” worn by matadors I’d watched in the bullrings at Pamplona, Barcelona, Madrid, and Mexico City. Instead, these four wore short, dark jackets, white shirts with ruffles and gray trousers tucked into black, ankle-high boots. They stopped at the far side of the ring and bowed.
There was some scattered applause. The matadors turned and walked back, disappearing under the platform beneath us.
Next to us, the table filled up. There were six in the party. Two of the three girls sat down with their backs to the ring. One of them was blonde, the other redheaded. The third girl was small and dark, with a delicate, cameo featured face.
At the head of the table, a husky, gray-haired man with a large paunch began joking with the girls. A tall thin man sat between the redhead and a stocky, bronze-featured Mexican.
I leaned toward Consuela. “Are these your people?”
“Two of them.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. She didn’t turn her head away from the ring.
“Which two?”
“They’ll let you know.”
Now the picador rode out into the ring on a horse with heavy padding on its right side and a long blinder at the side of its right eye to keep it from seeing the bull.
The bull lowered its horns and charged the horse. In a vicious thrust, the picador leaned over and planted the point of his pic deep into the bull’s left shoulder, leaning his full weight into the long haft of the pic. He pushed hard against the drive of the bull, keeping the horns away from his mount. The bull tore loose from the agonizing pain and ran around the ring, a bright gush of blood coming from the wound in its shoulder, streaking it like a gay, red ribbon against the dusty black of its hide.
The first banderillero came out into the ring. In each hand, he held a long-shafted barb, and with his arms outstretched in a vee, he made a curving run at the bull. The bull lowered his head to charge.
Leaning in, the banderillero planted the sharply honed barbs in each shoulder of the bull. The pointed iron slid into the tough hide of the animal as if it were made of tissue paper.
I looked at the people at the next table. None of them paid any attention to me. They were watching the action in the ring.
The matador came out again, carrying the small muleta. He moved up to the bull in short sidesteps, trying to get the bull to charge. The bull was very bad. But the matador was even worse.
The blonde girl at the next table turned away from the ring. “Hey, Garrett, when do they kill the bull?”
“In a minute or two,” the heavy-set man answered. “You won’t see it it unless you turn around.”
“I don’t want to see it. I don’t like the sight of blood.”
The bull was tired. The matador was ready for the kill The bull’s flanks were heaving with exhaustion, its head dropping close to the sand. The matador moved up to the lowered head, leaned in and thrust his sword into the bull, up to the hilt. He missed the vertebrae..
If you cut the spinal column, the bull will collapse instantly. It’s a fast, clean death, almost instantaneous. This bull didn’t fall. It stood there, with the sword in its neck, blood coming from the fresh wound and streaming from the two barbs in its shoulders and from the gaping pic wound. And now, blood began to spout from its mouth in a thick, ropy stream.
“Oh, shit,” said the blonde, who had turned back to the ring in spite of herself. “This is such a goddamned bloody country! Who needs all this killing.”
The Mexican was amused by her revulsion. “We’re still a primitive people,” he said to her. “The sword, the knife — steel and bloodletting heighten our sense of machismo. You norteamericanos are too soft.”
“Screw you, Carlos,” she snapped and turned her back on the ring.
The matador came back to the bull with a stabbing sword in his hand. One of the banderilleros had pulled put the other sword. The matador leaned over the bull and made a chopping motion. The blade severed the spinal cord and the bull collapsed on the sand.
Garrett turned his head and caught my eye. He got to his feet. “I’ve got a couple of bottles of Scotch in the car,” he said, loudly. “Let’s go get them, Carlos.”
I saw them walk around the perimeter of the bullring and cross the wooden platform that led to the parking lot.
Consuela touched me on the arm. “You can join them now.”
I followed them out of the enclosure. Garrett threaded his way through the parked cars until he came to the far side of the lot. He stopped to turn and wait for me.
As I approached, he eyed me coldly. I stopped in front of him.
I don’t know what he expected me to say, but I didn’t waste words or time.
“Lay off Stocelli,” I said abruptly, staring into Garrett’s heavy, belligerent face. Then my eyes moved to Carlos, who met my stare with an impassively bland expression.
Carlos was dressed in lime-green slacks, a raw silk shirt, and wore white, tasseled loafers on his small feet. He looked like a fop, but I sensed a deep core of toughness in him that Garrett didn’t possess. Garrett was bluff and bluster. Carlos was the more dangerous of the two.
Carlos reached out and touched me on the arm. His voice was importurbably calm and polite.
“Senor, I think Acapulco has just become very un-healthy for you.”
“I don’t frighten.”
Carlos made a small shrug of his plump shoulders.
“That is too bad,” he remarked. “A little fear can sometimes save a man’s life.”
I turned away from them, hiding my anger. I made my way back to the ring, through the tables to Consuela. I touched her on the arm.
“There’s going to be trouble. Can you get a ride back to town with your friends?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Give me the keys to your car. “I’ll leave them at my hotel.”
Consuela shook her head. “I brought you here. I’ll drive you back.”
“Let’s go then.”
I gathered up my camera and the large equipment bag. With Consuela a step behind me, I walked out of the enclosure.
We were crossing the small wooden bridge, Consuela at my side, when I suddenly caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. In pure, instinctive reflex, I flung Consuela away from me toward the railing and threw myself against the wooden wall that formed one side of the passageway.
I caroomed off the wall at an angle, spinning around and dropping to one knee. The back of my neck burned like someone had scorched it with a white-hot branding iron. I felt the trickle of blood begin to run down my collar.
“What is it?” cried Consuela, and then her eyes went to the long handled banderilla that was still quivering in the wall between us, its honed, steel barb sunk deeply into the wood. The long handle, with its bright ribbons, swayed back and forth like a deadly metronome.
I remembered how easily the barbed steel had sunk into the leathery hide of the bull. It wasn’t too hard to imagine the bander ilia piercing my throat if I hadn’t acted, so fast.
I got to my feet and dusted off the knee of my trousers.
“Your friends don’t waste any time,” I said, savagely. “Now let’s get out of here.”
Jean-Paul was waiting for me in the lobby. He came to his feet as I walked in. I headed across the lobby toward the elevators, and he fell into step beside me.