Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [147]
The older of the two businessmen looked like he consumed a fair amount of his alfalfa personally, but he’d obviously done a bit of singing in the distant past and was now working steadily through his repertoire, to the delight of the assembled henchmen and underlings. One of these, a slimy little turd I pegged as the accountant son-in-law of one of the principals, was busy eyeing up a group of young local women who were cheerily clapping along at the next table. As I watched I saw him signal to the non-singing baron, who turned and clocked the girls. His smile broadened to the kind of leer which would make a werewolf look bashful and charming; he beckoned the leader of the band over, more money already in his hand.
I was sitting to one side of a table crammed with tourists, the only seat that had been free when I’d entered over two hours before. The girls were red-faced from the day’s sun, and fizzing with Margarita-fuelled bravado; the guys sipping their Pacíficos sullenly and panning their eyes around the bar, probably trying to work out which of the locals was going to come and try to steal their women first. I could have told them that it was much more likely to be another American, probably one of the boisterous frat rats who were in town for some damnfool motorcycle race, but I didn’t know them and couldn’t be bothered. In fact, they were getting on my nerves. The girls were dancing in their seats in that way people do when they’re letting themselves off a very short leash, and the nearest one kept banging into my arm and causing me to spill beer and cigarette ash onto jeans which hadn’t been that clean when I’d pulled them on two days ago.
When I felt the tap on my shoulder I turned irritably, expecting to see the waiter who was working that corner of the room. I like attentive service as much as the next man, but Christ, there’s a limit to how fast a man can drink. In my case that limit is pretty high, and yet this guy was still hassling me well before I’d finished each beer. It-was good that the waiter was there, because the only way I could have gotten to the bar was with a chainsaw, but I felt he needed to calm down a little. I was in the middle of deciding to tell him to go away—or at least to do so after he’d brought me another drink—when I realised it wasn’t him at all, but a fat American who looked like he’d killed a dirty sheep and glued it to his chin.
“Fella asking for you!” he shouted.
“Tell him to fuck off,” I said. I didn’t know anyone in Ensenada, not any more, and didn’t wish to start making new acquaintances.
“Seems pretty insistent,” the guy said, and jerked his thumb back towards the bar. I glanced in that direction, but there were far too many people in the way. “Little black fella, he is.”
In those parts this could mean the guy was actually black, or an indigenous Mexican Indian. Didn’t really make much difference, I still didn’t want to talk to him, but it surprised me that my fellow countryman hadn’t felt qualified to tell him to fuck off by himself. The guy with the beard didn’t look the type to run errands for ethnic majorities.
“Well then tell him to fuck off politely,” I snarled into a moment of relative quiet, and turned back to face the mariachi band.
They immediately and noisily embarked on yet another song, which sounded eerily identical to all the others. It couldn’t be, though, because it got an even bigger cheer than usual, and the singing businessman clambered unsteadily onto a chair to give it his all. I took a sip of my beer, wishing the waiter would hurry up and hassle me again, and waited with grim anticipation for the alfalfa king to pitch headlong into the table of girls. That should be worth watching, I felt.
Then I became aware of a sound. It was quiet, and barely audible below the baying of voices and barking of trumpets, but it was getting louder.
“Told him, like you said,