Read Online Warriors in Paradise by Luis E. Gutiérrez-Poucel - Free Book Online

passengers and luggage, Charlie and Caleb stayed at the house while I played chauffeur for the ladies.
    I drove for an hour and a half to Acapulco Dorado, where both hotels were located. We stopped first at Valentina’s hotel. She was in and out in a few minutes, telling me as I was putting her suitcase in the trunk that she had called her parents in Monterrey. They had been worried because of the storm, but she told them she was staying with some friends and gave them my telephone number. I said, “I hope the house phone keeps working in this weather!”
    Juliette and Camille’s hotel was a couple of blocks away, so we were there inside of ten minutes. The girls took almost an hour to check out. As they came down to the CR-V with a bellboy carrying their luggage, Juliette said, “Sorry for the delay. Not only were we being overcharged, but we were talking to a very nice American guest we met a couple of days ago, and she invited us to an Independence Day party on her friend’s yacht. We would really like to go. We asked her if it would be OK for all of us to go together. She said no problem; the more the merrier. Can we go? Come on, let’s all go. We have never been to a yacht party before. Come on. Say yes.”
    I looked straight at them and told them, “We are expecting extreme weather. Being on a yacht in these conditions is dangerous.”
    Juliette answered, “We asked her that, and she told us not to worry. The yacht is a big one, suited for extreme weather conditions, including hurricanes. It is a super-yacht, seventy meters long, with a party room, seven suites, and twenty crew members.”
    Well, I thought, a seventy-meter yacht should be safe, but I was still uncomfortable. I said, “Why don’t we wait until we get back and talk to Charlie and Caleb before deciding? However, if you two girls want to say yes to your friend right now, go ahead.”
    “No,” said Camille. “Either we all go, or nobody goes.”
    I liked her response, so I said, “Good. Then it is settled. Juliette, why don’t you go back to your friend and tell her that we will call her back in a couple of hours and let her know?”
    “OK,” Juliette responded. She turned around and ran back into the hotel. A minute or two later, she was outside again and climbing into the CR-V.
    Park and shop
    I drove back in bumper-to-bumper traffic, with broken-down cars in the middle of the street, in six to eight inches of brownish water with all kinds of floating trash. It had taken us just over an hour to drive to the supermarket, a trip that would have normally taken only five minutes. When we arrived, all the parking slots were taken. After waiting for an interminable ten minutes, we made it to the head of the car line. As I waited for the woman in front of us to vacate the parking space, a car at the end of the line swerved left and sped up on the opposite side. The driver tried to cut in front of me and steal the space.
    No, no, no. That was not going to happen.
    I had already started moving forward into the slot, so he didn’t have enough room to maneuver into the space. We were both blocking the entrance.
    I turned to look at the girls. I could see Valentina and Camille getting angry, but Juliette had a look of concern. She immediately said, “Let’s forget about the space and wait for another one.”
    Camille turned and told her, “What if another car does the same thing? Should we keep on losing our turn until the store is closed?”
    “No, no. That is not what I meant. What I meant is that we don’t want to get into a fight over a parking space.”
    “Juliette, it is not a parking space that is the issue here,” I said. “It is about what is right and what is wrong. And it is wrong for this man to barge in ahead of us and take away the parking spot that is rightfully ours.”
    As we were talking, a large man had come to my door shouting something we couldn’t hear because the windows were closed to keep out the rain. He slapped my