The James Bond Anthology

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 half-way between the two of them. ‘Now then, let’s talk. ’Fraid 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 your spiel. An’ don’t forget. I’ve been shot at by experts an’ I’m still alive. Mebbe not precisely kicking but I’ve never heard of a limey who’d shoot a defenceless man who’s badly wounded. They ain’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. Mebbe 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. An’ 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 time 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.