As he neared the toril, there came a jolt against the door that sent the young toreros scattering in fright. The matador briefly turned his attention to the animal in the pen.
— Good, you are eager to come out, he said in Spanish, — into the smell of blood.
Then he returned his attention to the corrida proper where, as the bull tired, his moment was upon him.
— Fuera! came the fevered cries from the aficionados. — Fuera! Get out!
they called to the picadores, for fear their lances were weakening the bull too much, that the final confrontation would not be the blood match they craved.
Now, as the picadores backed their mounts away from the beast, the matador was on the move, entering the corrida as his underlings exited it. The tumult from the crowd was almost ear shattering. No one paid the slightest attention to Bourne as he reached the area near the toril, save for Scarface who, Bourne could see now, had the tattoo of three skulls on the opposite side of his neck. They were crude, ugly, without doubt prison tattoos, most likely received inside a Russian penitentiary. And this man was more than an intimidator. A skull meant that he was a professional killer: three skulls, three kills.
Bourne was at the very end of this section of the stands-beyond was a decorative archway that led back to the area under the stands. Just below him was the wall that divided the pit where the toreros crouched to evade the charges of the bull. At the end of that, to Bourne‘s right, was the toril.
Scarface was rapidly approaching, moving down the aisle and across the tiers like a ghost or a wraith. Bourne turned and passed through the archway and down an incline into the shadowed interior. Immediately he was hit by a miasma of human urine and strong animal musk. To his left was the concrete corridor that led to the toilets. There was a door along the wall to his right, outside of which was a uniformed guard.
As he walked toward this tall, slim man a figure blotted out the daylight: Scarface. Bourne approached the guard, who told him, rather brusquely, he had no business being in an area so close to the bulls. Smiling, Bourne placed himself between the guard and Scarface, then reached out and, talking amiably to the guard, pressed the artery at the side of his neck. Even as the guard reached for his weapon, Bourne blocked him with his other hand. The man tried to fight, but Bourne, moving swiftly, used an elbow to temporarily paralyze the guard‘s right shoulder. He was rapidly losing consciousness from loss of blood to his brain and, as he fell forward, Bourne held him up, continued talking to him because he wanted Scarface to think that this was the man he‘d spoken to on his cell, a colleague of the man Bourne had come here to see. It was essential that he keep the fiction going now that Scarface was closing in.
Taking the key from the chain at the guard‘s hip, he unlocked the door and pushed the guard into the darkened interior. As he followed him in, he shut the door behind him, but not before he‘d caught a glimpse of Scarface hurrying down the ramp. Now that he‘d ascertained the place of Bourne‘s meet, he was prepared to close in on his quarry.
Bourne found himself in a small anteroom filled with wooden bins containing food for the bulls and an enormous soapstone sink with outsize zinc spout and taps, beneath which sat buckets, cloths, mops, and plastic bottles of cleaning fluids. The floor was covered with straw, which absorbed only a minuscule part of the stench. The bull, hidden behind a concrete barrier that rose to Bourne‘s chest, snorted and bellowed, scenting his presence. The frenzied shouts of the crowd broke like waves over the toril, above which sunlight, multicolored from the reflections spinning off the costume of the matador and the outfits of the patrons, splashed across the upper walls of the pen like an artist‘s broad and reckless brushstrokes.
Bourne drew a cloth from one of the buckets and was halfway across the anteroom when the door behind him opened so slowly one needed to be looking straight at it to be aware of the movement. Putting his back to the barrier, he moved to his left, toward the part of the room where the opening door would block Scarface‘s view of him.
The bull, frightened, angered, or both by the sudden new human scents, struck the concrete barrier with its hooves, the force so powerful it sent bits of stucco flying on Bourne‘s side. Scarface seemed to hesitate, no doubt trying to identify the noise. Bourne was almost certain that he had no idea that the next bull was waiting here for its turn to die a bellowing death in the corrida. It was a creature of pure muscle and instinct, easily provoked, easily bewildered, fast and deadly unless brought low by exhaustion and a hundred wounds out of which its life dribbled into the dust of the corrida.
Bourne crept behind the door as it slowly opened, as Scarface‘s left hand appeared holding a knife with a long, slender blade shaped like that of the matador‘s sword. The wicked tip was tilted slightly up, a position from which he could thrust it, slash it, or throw it with equal ease.
Bourne wrapped the cloth around the knuckles of his left hand, providing sufficient padding. He let Scarface take one tentative step into the anteroom and then rushed him from the side. The killer‘s instinct caused the blade to come up and out in a semicircular sweep as he turned toward the blur of motion he detected at the extreme corner of his field of vision.
Deflecting the blade with wrapped knuckles caused Scarface‘s defense to open up, and Bourne stepped in, planting his feet, turning from his hips, and drove his right fist into Scarface‘s solar plexus. The killer gasped almost inaudibly and his eyes opened in a moment of shock, but an instant later he‘d wrapped his right arm around Bourne‘s, locking the back of his hand against the inside of Bourne‘s elbow. Instantly he applied both pressure and leverage in an attempt to break the bones in Bourne‘s forearm.
Pain shot up Jason‘s arm, and he faltered. Scarface took the opening and brought the knife blade down, inside Bourne‘s wrapped left hand so that the point was directed at Bourne‘s rib cage. He couldn‘t concentrate on both motions at once, so he let up fractionally on Bourne‘s forearm long enough to drive the blade inward toward Bourne‘s heart.
Bourne stepped into the lunge, surprising him. Bourne was suddenly too close and the blade passed along his side, allowing him to trap Scarface‘s hand between his side and his left arm. At the same time, he kept his forward momentum going, driving Scarface across the room at an angle, backing him up against the stucco barrier.
Scarface, enraged, redoubled his efforts to break Bourne‘s arm. A moment more and the bones would snap. On the other side of the barrier, the bull scented the blood in the air, which further maddened it. Once again, its great hooves struck the barrier. The shock reverberated down Scarface‘s spine and jolted him from his position of superior leverage.