Without warning

The vaquero looked furious, but not nearly as angry as Jules. She stormed over, fists clenching and unclenching. Everyone but Pieraro flinched and shuffled aside.

‘What the fuck is going on out there? And who the hell are these people, Miguel?’ she demanded to know. ‘You told me you had a wife and three kids. But now you’ve brought half the fucking village with you!’

The Mexican’s extended family looked to him, with more than a little fear. Jules assumed the woman holding a toddler and clinging to his arm was the wife, and the girls crowded around her were their daughters, but the rest had to be a grab bag of aunts, uncles and grandparents – and possibly the village drunk, the village idiot and the village’s drunken idiotic mayor all thrown in for good measure. None of them looked to have a fucking peso between them.

Pieraro disentangled himself from them and moved forward to intercept Julianne as she bulldozed her way through the tables and chairs overlooking the lagoon, knocking one over with a resounding crash. Normally the terrace would have been crowded with guests taking a late breakfast at this time, but the restaurant was closed and seemingly abandoned. She guessed that very few staff had bothered to show up.

‘You’ve got a fucking nerve,’ she hissed at him. ‘I don’t know what that balls-up out the front is about, but there are a thousand dumb-jock college students out there who seem to think they’ll be hitching a ride out of here with us. But they won’t, will they, because you’ve brought half the fucking village of el Shithole del Diablo with you!’

Pieraro didn’t flare up or push back, instead replying in a steady voice, ‘There is no need to be offensive, Miss Julianne. I am not responsible for the crowd out the front. That was Cesky’s doing.’

‘That putty-nosed toad. What the hell did -’

‘It’s true,’ called out Phoebe, the trust-fund bimbo, looking appreciably less sure of herself than yesterday. ‘He was so pissed off with you for cutting him out that he marched off yesterday and started telling everyone about the escape plan. It spread. I got three text messages about it.’

She held up a cell phone as if to explain. Jules was surprised it still worked. Hers had cut out days ago. She sighed inwardly. The rich - they always had a way. Her other five-star refugees all nodded glumly.

‘Right,’ said Jules, barely able to contain her exasperation. ‘Well, we’ve still got to get you away from here. There’s another lynch party back at the marina, waiting to do you all in for a ticket out of this madhouse, so listen up. You do exactly as I say or you will be left behind… Miguel? Transport. That was your job…’

‘I have two buses,’ he told her. ‘They will take everyone.’

‘Yeah, and how are they going to get out through that mob in front? I’ve got Sergeant Shah parked down on the beach waiting for us. There’s no way your buses’ll run on soft sand.’

‘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.’