Without warning

‘No. But I have not parked them here,’ he said. ‘When Miss St John’ – he indicated Phoebe – ‘warned me what had happened with Cesky, I hid them down the beach, at the Alberca Heritage. I know the security chief there. A good man.’

‘How much did that cost?’ asked Jules, rubbing her eyes.

‘A hundred gallons of gasoline. He is leaving with his family this evening.’

‘Fine,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘And the mob out the front?’

‘Roberto will hold them there. He has arranged with reception for a number of minibuses from the Fairmont. Everyone thinks they are the escape vehicles.’

‘And he wants passage too?’

‘No. He sees opportunities here,’ Pieraro replied. ‘Mostly he wants me gone. But some payment was involved.’

Jules closed her eyes. ‘How much?’

The merchant banker, the one with the silicone-enhanced mistress, suddenly spoke up. ‘It was nothing. Now can we get the hell out of here?’

Jules struggled for his name. Denby… Denby… Moorhouse. ‘So you paid off Roberto, the coke-dealing paramilitary fascist?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Oh well, that’ll turn out fine, I’m sure. He won’t be back for another bite of the cherry, will he! I mean, do any of you actually need me? Everything seems to be running tickety fucking boo without my input. Perhaps I should just piss off and leave you to get on with it.’

‘Listen,’ said Moorhouse, stepping forward. He was a short man with all of the attendant psychological problems. Jules estimated that standing face to face with his girlfriend, he’d be smothered by her breast implants. His features were flushed and he was sweating profusely. ‘We have had a very stressful morning here. Those people began arriving before dawn. The hotel has been locked down for hours by security men. We were stuck in our rooms, no air-conditioning, no cable, no idea what was happening. If it took a couple of trinkets and baubles to get that Colombian thug to run interference for us, that was well worth it. Now, I suggest you start earning your money and get us the hell out of Acapulco.’

Tempted to pistol-whip him, Jules merely nodded silently. She then turned her attention back to the vaquero. ‘Miguel, can I talk to you? Privately. For two minutes. Do we have two minutes?’

The background roar was building, but not in a way that that made her think a boilover was imminent. Pieraro patted his wife on the shoulder and gently rubbed the head of his youngest child, a little boy, who was crying silently. He bent down to whisper a few words in his ear before kissing his forehead. With the child settled, for the moment, he and Jules walked off to the other side of the terrace.

‘This conga line of relatives and… whatever,’ she began, ‘have you planned on provisions and stores for them? Because I haven’t. We had an agreement – your wife and children. I don’t recall agreeing to take all the supporting cast from Three Amigos.’

Pieraro looked physically pained. His next words came out like teeth extracted one after the other. ‘If you cannot take them, you cannot. I will explain.’

The man’s discomfort was so palpable, so deeply etched into the fissures of his sunburnt face, that Jules had to look away. She covered the moment of weakness by pretending to scan the hotel grounds for trouble. Unfortunately, standing right in her line of view were his family, the sorriest, most bedraggled-looking losers she’d seen in a long time. The crowd at the hotel gates were young, middle-class white people with a leavening of upper-echelon Mexicans; they were frightened, but still well fed and used to having their own way. Miguel’s family looked like they’d turn around at one word from her and slouch off to their fate.

Jules risked a quick glance at her paying customers. They seemed entirely nonplussed, and she supposed they had no reason to question the arrival of the Pieraro clan. The vaquero had clearly established himself as a powerful figure in their eyes only yesterday. If that power meant he could drag along his extended family, they would probably accept that. After all, they were all too used to the privileges of power themselves.

The crowd noise intensified noticeably, spilling over and around the Fairmont’s centrepiece architectural statement, the main hotel built in the form of a giant Aztec pyramid. She could see dozens of other guests on their balconies, hiding from the disturbance outside, and too many of them were pointing at her little group. Time to go.