Scaramanga, his task satisfactorily completed, minutely shifted his position, and, once again, made his penetrating examination of the surrounding bush.
As Scaramanga's gaze swept by him without a flicker, Bond blessed the darkness of his suit—a black patch of shadow among so many others. In the sharp blacks and whites from the midday sun, Bond was well camouflaged.
Satisfied, Scaramanga picked up the limp body of the snake, laid it across his stomach, and carefully slit it down its underside as far as the anal vent. Then he scoured it and carefully etched the skin away from the red-veined flesh with the precise flicks and cuts of a surgeon. Every scrap of unwanted reptile he threw towards crab holes, and, with each throw, a flicker of annoyance crossed the granite face that no one would come and pick up the crumbs from the rich man's table. When the meal was ready, he once again scanned the bush, and then, very carefully, coughed and spat into his hand. He examined the results and flung his hand sideways. On the black ground, the sputum made a bright pink scrawl. The cough didn't seem to hurt him or cause him much effort. Bond guessed that his bullet had hit Scaramanga in the right chest and had missed a lung by a fraction. There was haemorrhage and Scaramanga was a hospital case, but the blood-soaked shirt was not telling the whole truth.
Satisfied with his inspection of his surroundings, Scaramanga bit into the body of the snake and was at once, like a dog with its meal, absorbed by his hunger and thirst for the blood and juices of the snake.
Bond had the impression that if he now came forward from his hiding place Scaramanga, like a dog, would bare his teeth in a furious snarl. He got quietly up from his knees, took out his gun, and, his eyes watching Scaramanga's hands, strolled out into the centre of the little clearing.
Bond was mistaken. Scaramanga did not snarl. He barely looked up from the cut-off length of snake in his two hands and, his mouth full of meat, said, "You've been a long while coming. Care to share my meal?"
"No thanks. I prefer my snake grilled with hot butter sauce. Just keep on eating. I like to see both hands occupied."
Scaramanga sneered. He gestured at his blood-stained shirt. "Frightened of a dying man? You limeys come pretty soft."
"The dying man handled that snake quite efficiently. Got any more weapons on you?" Scaramanga moved to undo his coat. "Steady! No quick movements. Just show your belt, armpits, pat the thighs inside and out. I'd do it myself only I don't want what the snake got. And while you're about it, just toss the knife into the trees. Toss. No throwing, if you don't mind. My trigger finger's been getting a bit edgy today. Seems to want to go about its business on its own. Wouldn't like it to take over. Yet, that is."
Scaramanga, with a flick of his wrist, tossed the knife into the air. The sliver of steel spun like a wheel in the sunshine. Bond had to step aside. The knife pierced the mud where Bond had been standing and stood upright. Scaramanga gave a harsh laugh. The laugh turned into a cough. The gaunt face contorted painfully. Too painfully? Scaramanga spat red, but not all that red. There could be only slight haemorrhage. Perhaps a broken rib or two. Scaramanga could be out of hospital in a couple of weeks. Scaramanga put down his piece of snake and did exactly as Bond had told him, all the while watching Bond's face with his usual cold, arrogant stare. He finished and picked up the piece of snake and began gnawing it. He looked up. "Satisfied?"
"Sufficiently." Bond squatted down on his heels. He held his gun loosely, aiming somewhere halfway between the two of them. "Now then, let's talk. Afraid you haven't got too much time, Scaramanga. This is the end of the road. You've killed too many of my friends. I have the licence to kill you and I am going to kill you. But I'll make it quick. Not like Margesson. Remember him? You put a shot through both of his knees and both of his elbows. Then you made him crawl and kiss your boots. You were foolish enough to boast about it to your friends in Cuba. It got back to us. As a matter of interest, how many men have you killed in your life?"
"With you, it'll make the round fifty." Scaramanga had gnawed the last segment of backbone clean. He tossed it towards Bond. "Eat that, scum, and get on with your business. You won't get any secrets out of me, if that's the pitch. And don't forget. I've been shot at by experts and I'm still alive. Maybe not precisely kicking, but I've never heard of a limey who'd shoot a defenceless man who's badly wounded. They haven't got the guts. We'll just sit here, chewing the fat, until the rescue team comes. Then I'll be glad to go for trial. What'll they get me for, eh?"
"Well, just for a start, there's that nice Mr. Rotkopf with one of your famous silver bullets in his head in the river back of the hotel."
"That'll match with the nice Mr. Hendriks with one of your bullets somewhere behind his face. Maybe we'll serve a bit of time together. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? They say the jail at Spanish Town has all the comforts. How about it, limey? That's where you'll be found with a shiv in your back in the sack-sewing department. And by the same token, how d'you know about Rotkopf?"
"Your bug was bugged. Seems you're a bit accident-prone these days, Scaramanga. You hired the wrong security men. Both your managers were from the C.I.A. The tape'll be on the way to Washington by now. That's got the murder of Ross on it too. See what I mean? You've got it coming from every which way."
"Tape isn't evidence in an American court. But I see what you mean, shamus. Mistakes seem to have got made. So okay,"—Scaramanga made an expansive gesture of the right hand—"take a million bucks and call it quits?"
"I was offered three million on the train."
"I'll double that."
"No. Sorry." Bond got to his feet. The left hand behind his back was clenched with the horror of what he was about to do. He forced himself to think of what the broken body of Margesson must have looked like, of the others that this man had killed, of the ones he would kill afresh if Bond weakened. This man was probably the most efficient one-man death-dealer in the world. James Bond had him. He had been instructed to take him. He must take him— lying down wounded or in any other position. Bond assumed casualness, tried to make himself the enemy's cold equal. "Any messages for anyone, Scaramanga? Any instructions? Anyone you want looking after? I'll take care of it if it's personal. I'll keep it to myself."
Scaramanga laughed his harsh laugh, but carefully. This tune the laugh didn't turn into the red cough. "Quite the little English gentleman! Just like I spelled it out. S'pose you wouldn't like to hand me your gun and leave me to myself for five minutes like in the books? Well, you're right, boyo! I'd crawl after you and blast the back of your head off." The eyes still bored into Bond's with the arrogant superiority, the cold superman quality that had made him the greatest pro gunman in the world—no drinks, no drugs—the impersonal trigger man who killed for money and, by the way he sometimes did it, for the kicks.
Bond examined him carefully. How could Scaramanga fail to break when he was going to die in minutes? Was there some last trick the man was going to spring? Some hidden weapon? But the man just lay there, apparently relaxed, propped up against the mangrove roots, his chest heaving rhythmicallv, the granite of his face not crumbling even minutely in defeat. On his forehead there was not as much sweat as there was on Bond's. Scaramanga lay in dappled black shadow. For ten minutes James Bond had stood in the middle of the clearing in blazing sunshine. Suddenly he felt the vitality oozing out through his feet into the black mud. And his resolve was going with it. He said, and he heard his voice ring out harshly, "All right, Scaramanga, this is it." He lifted his gun and held it in the two-handed grip of the target man. "I'm going to make it as quick as I can."
Scaramanga held up a hand. For the first time his face showed emotion. "Okay, fella." The voice, amazingly, supplicated. "I'm a Catholic, see? Just let me say my last prayer. Okay? Won't take long, then you can blaze away. Every man's got to die sometime. You're a fine guy as guys go. It's the luck of the game. If my bullet had been an inch maybe two inches, to the right, it'd be you that's dead in place of me. Right? Can I say my prayer, mister?"