The Black Minutes

by Martin Solares

  Pure poetry, Rangel said to himself; this information is useless. I don’t know what the hell he was doing here, no reason to include this in my report. Luckily, there was a second column, where the writer didn’t beat around the bush so much, where he found what he was looking for. As he well knew, Calatrava took note of the day and time when certain suspicious vehicles passed through the checkpoint: “Tuesday, March 4, 11 PM: White Volkswagen Brazilia, possible electrical appliance contraband, license plate XEX 726.” “Wednesday 5, 2 PM: Yellow Renault 12 Routier, XEX 153, the owner passes by here toward Madera.” The last note was written the Tuesday before, the day the girl died in the Bar León. With a certain apprehension, Rangel read the following: “Tuesday, March 18, 11:30. The black van again.” Ah, caray, Rangel thought about it a second and rapidly reviewed the preceding pages. The black van appeared previously on two dates: January 15 and February 17. “Official plates,” Calatrava had written. Rangel thought this over and everything fell into place: the strange arrangement of the bodies, the grim coincidences, the Wizard’s death. Ah, cabrón, he concluded: the white fur, the hunting knife, the clues that the subject passed by here on the days of the murders; the Wizard discovered the killer and they knocked him off. It’s more transparent than water.

  Rangel closed the diary as he heard Wong’s footsteps.

  “Ready to go?” Wong asked. “We’ve got to lock this place up.”

  Heading down the Avenida del Puerto, Rangel saw Public School Number Five and decided to stop. In the last few months, they had added two stories and a new exterior, with an ultramodern seventies design. He lowered his speed and parked on the side of the road, on the gravel street, in front of the director’s house. Slow down, the voice of his uncle said. Slow down, Vicente. Think with that big head of yours, before you dive right in. El Travolta is going to be mad; he’s going to kick your ass if he finds out what you’re up to. What have I told you all these years? Patience, nephew, move as if you aren’t up to anything. And seeing Vicente wasn’t frightened, he added, I’m just saying that if you get out of the car you won’t be able to go back in. Are you sure we’re relatives? Damn, what a stupid nephew I have! Seems like they must have adopted you.

  Well, Vicente said to himself, we’re already here. He got out, slammed the car door, and knocked at the house with authority. A woman’s face looked out the window.

  “Who is it?”

  “Police, ma’am. You called for us.”

  “Mr. Vicente Rangel?”

  Though he thought it strange that they were looking for him specifically, Vicente nodded.

  A skinny, impressively beautiful woman opened the door. Her hair was short and very black; she had the prettiest nose that Rangel had seen in his life. He estimated she was thirty years old. Mrs. Dorotea Hernández looked like a statue. When Rangel arrived, she was drinking linden blossom tea in an armchair in the living room. A copy of La Noticia was spread out on the table, with a short interview they had done with her: MOTHER OF DISAPPEARED GIRL STILL HAS HOPE and DENIES DAUGHTER WAS MURDERED, PREFERS KIDNAPPING THEORY. It would soon be three months since her daughter’s disappearance.

  A group of children were playing happily on the other side of the windows in the back. The majority of the boys were playing soccer. The girls were jumping rope.

  “My husband is the principal of this school,” explained the woman. “I want to ask you not to let him know about our conversation. He did not agree with my being interviewed in the newspapers.”

  “I wouldn’t have called them, either. It seems like a mistake.”

  “What could I do?” she said. “The officer in charge of the case never gave me any information.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Mr. Joaquín Taboada.”

  Oh, yeah, he remembered: they chewed him out in the meeting for that, goddamn irresponsible fat ass.

  “I’m at you service, ma’am. Why did you send for me?”

  “Take this.”

  She handed over half a dozen photos to him, in which Lucía Hernández Campillo played, clapped, or had her birthday. In the last one, a framed photo, the girl was wearing a school uniform. Her bangs hung in front of her huge eyes and she smiled innocently. First in her elementary school, Group 1A. She looked like her mother.

  “Do you think she’s alive?”

  Rangel knew that when a minor disappears, the possibility of finding the child alive after the first seventy-two hours is radically diminished. But he didn’t have the heart to say this.

  “Could she possibly be hiding in someone’s house, like with friends or family?”

  “Impossible. Lucía is a very obedient girl. Besides, she’s only seven years old. She still depends on me for so many things.”

  “Did you already check the hospitals? The one in Paracuán? In Tampico? In Ciudad Madera?” And since he saw that the woman was nodding, he added, “Did you already go to the morgue?”

  “I even went to see the El Palmar girl, thinking it might have been my daughter. What they did to her was horrible.” And he was blinded by the sun coming through the window.

  It was obvious she was keeping quiet about something. If I don’t put some pressure on her, I’ll leave empty-handed.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “I don’t have much time. I have to investigate other reports.”

  “I think she was kidnapped.”

  “Do you suspect anyone in particular?”

  The woman nodded and sipped at her tea. Rangel noticed her hands were shaking.

  “Four months ago, when they started to rebuild the school, my husband introduced me to the donors and the architects, very powerful people. Two days later, one of them came to the house when he knew my husband wouldn’t be here.” She swallowed. “This despicable man wanted me to go with him to his ranch. I grabbed that vase and told him I would hit him with it if he didn’t leave, but it didn’t work. He stalked me the whole week. He would park outside, he had bodyguards—he always had a body-guard—and they would come and knock on the door. Since I wouldn’t open the door, he’d leave me obscene letters. This continued until I stuck my head out the window and told him I was going to tell my husband. Then he told me he would get his revenge, and my daughter was gone the following week.”

  “Do you have proof? It’s a very serious accusation.”

  She offered him a paper with letterhead on it. “This is the last letter he wrote me. I threw the other ones away.”

  Rangel examined the paper. “This is a photocopy.”

  “Would you please read it?”

  As soon as he finished it, he felt his throat dry out, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Goddamm it, I need water, a glass of water. Even so, he found the strength to say, “The letter speaks for itself. Tell me something,” said Vicente. “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “Officer Taboada. I told him a month ago and he hasn’t done anything. He kept the original copy of the letter.”

  “Joaquín Taboada?”

  Rangel felt his knees buckle. He was facing the worst moral dilemma of his career. From that moment on, he would have to think twice before each step forward.

  Before he started his car, he thought over what Mrs. Dorotea had said to him. El Travolta, who would have thought it? Through the rearview mirror, the three gigantic flames from the oil refinery seemed to shine brighter than ever.

  When Rangel got back, the office was full of unusual activity. Cruz Treviño and his coworkers watched him distrustfully.

  “And the doctor?”

  “He left.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The meeting ended and he left without telling anybody.”

  “Fucking asshole,” added the Evangelist.

  Rangel said to himself: That’s really strange. He decided to go look for him at the hotel.

  The chief’s nephew opened the door, naked. There was a redhead on the bed. And the doctor? Um, he was here, but not anymore. Yes, I know that, but what happened? Where did he go?
I wouldn’t be able to say. It’s really complicated. And how did you get here? I’m not sure. . . . Shit, said Rangel, what a fucking disaster.

  At the front desk, they told him the doctor had paid his bill and left. How could you have let him pay? He was the city’s guest! Well, yes, but he insisted. Rangel went outside and kicked the tires on his Chevy. In one second, everything had fallen apart. And it was just the beginning.

  Part IV

  18

  Testimony of Rodrigo Montoya, Undercover Agent

  Of course I know Paracuán. That’s where the biggest criminal case of my career started. It was when I was helping my uncle out, before I found my destiny and was shot off into infinity.

  I was at the ripe old age of twenty-two . . . or it could be a little less, because at the time I was still looking for myself, and I was going to say, I only found myself because of my uncle. He was the chief of police in Paracuán, a tropical port that had problems with smuggling and drug dealers. Like Juan Gabriel said, Pero, ¿qué necesidad? Why does it have to be this way? The first time I found out about this crap was at a Christmas dinner. My uncle was never really into all these family things, but his wife, who’s my mom’s sister, made him spend the holidays with us. So we’re all stuffed in there, all the relatives together. I decided I wasn’t going down to eat dinner because all that stuff is such a drag, especially because they wanted me to put on a suit and tie, so I locked myself up in my room. I should probably be clearer: I didn’t live with my parents anymore, I lived in the Distrito Federal, and I only went back to see them at Christmas or for Holy Week. That night I was thinking I’d just pretend I went to sleep early, but since I had to go to the dinner, I took a hit from La Clandestina, a special pipe that doesn’t leave any smell in the air, put a couple drops in my eyes, and went downstairs, prepared to deal with my folks. I was especially sensitive, you can probably imagine, so I went and sat down on the carpet in the living room, ready to listen to it all.

  My dad took advantage of the fact that my uncle had gone off on one of his long, never-ending tangents and asked him to tell the story about the Chinese mafia, a shoot-out in the port that was so insane it made the papers. And wham! My uncle told a story he never would’ve told if he were sober. Even though his wife and kids tried to shut him up, he started to tell them the story: they had to take on about two hundred Orientals. And the asshole said it like it was funny, like if he was saying how many ants he had stepped on, just cracking up. Everything started when two agents that patrolled the Laguna del Carpintero detained a very respected old man from the Oriental community. If the rumors about the patrolmen were true, they probably stopped him because they didn’t like him or because he refused to give them a bribe; but of course, my uncle didn’t say that. He hadn’t drunk that much. The problem was the old man turned out to be a respected martial arts professor at the Instituto Kong, a respected older man who knew all the Chinese in the port by name, so a sizable portion of the Oriental community organized a protest outside the police headquarters, from seven in the morning till noon. Since they didn’t release him, the situation got more and more tense, and my uncle ordered them to keep on fucking with them until they left. But two police officers who passed by there decided to start yelling at a Chinese girl and flirting with her. Their catcalling got louder and louder, and her boyfriend came out to defend her. Despite what the elders recommended, the boyfriend challenged the policemen to a fight right there, in front of everyone. Since the officer thought he looked skinny, he said why not and took off his shirt: an inexcusable mistake, because the skinny guy sucker-punched him like a boxing champion. He kicked him twice and broke his face in, and each time the officer tried to get up, the Chinese guy sat him back down with another punch. He didn’t even sweat when the officer tried to hit him with his belt. The bad thing is that in the meantime the officer’s partner called for backup from the department. In a few minutes, all the available officers in the area had closed the avenue on both sides. Arrogant and cocky, they stepped out of their cars with rifles in their hands and the standard-issue semiautomatic pistols clipped to the front of their pants. They wanted to grab the guy, but the community made a barrier, and since they wouldn’t let them get through, they started to massacre them in the middle of the street, as the Orientals retreated toward the entrance to the police headquarters. At first, the older men called for order, but when they saw that the cops had no code of honor, and that they were beating the young men with their nightsticks, the elders got into the fight, too. So the police fired off smoke grenades and under cover of all the chaos, they started to shoot. The Chinese didn’t know where all the bullets were coming from and they ran toward the police headquarters and started to go in through the door and the windows. You know how the cops are, always waiting for a chance to shoot, so just imagine, as soon as they saw people running in they thought the worst and boom! They reacted according to the logic of “Shoot first, ask questions later.” I was transfixed by my uncle’s story, among other reasons, because I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I imagined everything he was saying in complete detail, so that instead of everything happening over there in the port, the Chinese were actually coming into my house, through the windows with Ninja swords, Bruce Lee style. The hit I took from the pipe had knocked me out. The truth was, my uncle wasn’t the best conversationalist, and even less so when drunk, but that night he was the only one who could tell the story of what happened in the police department, and he had us all listening—until my dad said to my uncle, “Oh, yeah? Well, in your public statements you said something else,” and my uncle turned white in the face. It even killed his buzz.

  But me, I just said to him, Right on, and started to sketch out a plan. I knew right then what I was going to do for my final project at the Ibero. As we were carving the turkey, I was thinking about how to find my place in the world, and more than anything else I was thinking about New Journalism. I’d found out about it on a recent trip to New York, and I remember a talk that Monsiváis gave at a conference at college about how all of us communicologists had to get busy, and then all of a sudden it hit me. There was a lot of movement at the table, the cups of red wine and whiskey came and went, but I was completely calm, because I saw the truth. With each slice of turkey my mom cut, certain dark clouds that had prevented my growth as a human being simply disappeared, each slice she took off the turkey was like another obstacle she took out of my path, and suddenly I saw my future so clearly it scared me. That night, I decided I would be an undercover agent working on behalf of the New Journalism. I was going to write a book about Paracuán. So as soon as I could, I went to the port to look for my research subject. I got there on the first morning bus, took a taxi to my aunt’s house, and said hi to her. What’s up, Tía? I just got here, didn’t my mom let you know? Of course no one had called, but that was part of the plan. In a few minutes, I had her convinced that we had talked about it at the New Year’s dinner and that her husband had said yes. My aunt made a face like she was going to get upset with her husband for not telling her anything, then she went into the living room and called his office on the phone. Her husband hadn’t gotten there yet, so while we killed time, she made me breakfast: scrambled eggs, orange juice, and coffee. I took the opportunity to get up to speed on the news from the port in the last few days, and she told me that her husband was really worried about a problem with a drug dealer that had just shown up on the radar screen. Like always, my aunt started complaining about the newspapers, about how the reporters were always twisting everything around, especially that Johnny Guerrero. Of course, I thought, if they only read Tom Wolfe. . . . There was a busy signal at police headquarters, and my aunt recommended I go look for my uncle in his office, so as not to lose time. I left the house, walking with my own special style—laid back but steady, cool and calm, no problems—and I took a cab downtown.

  Are you familiar with the police headquarters in Paracuán? It’s that old white building, just two floors, that’s right off the
plaza. I got there in a few minutes. I was a very efficient agent. I have an incredible ease with directions; they could drop me off in the middle of the Kalahari, and I would always find my way home.

  The secretary told me that the chief was about to head out to the state capital, but that she would try to reach him, and since I was his nephew I could wait for him in his office. There wasn’t that much to see, and the majority of the drawers were locked, so I started to spy through the window. But all of a sudden I felt really worried, out of place, uncomfortable, like my uncle’s office was full of bad vibes or like the place was sliced through by all kinds of dark energy currents—just like what happens in The Exorcist when Max von Sydow goes into the girl’s house for the first time. Who knows what kind of stuff was going through there, but the officers looked like they were used to it and didn’t even notice. But I did. And every time some officer stuck his head in looking for the boss, they’d give me some weird look, like I was a suspect or they didn’t like how I looked. Since I have never been able to deal with pressure, I waited until the coast was clear and then took a toke off my pipe. I needed to have everything in good working order; I didn’t know what I was up against. Intelligent men like us need to have an open mind, a heightened sensibility, and a body ready to react.

  Since no one arrived, I opened my backpack and started to read a Moebius comic. I was totally getting into one of the characters, DogHead, when my uncle came in with one of his detectives. It was Rangel, the biggest badass in the secret service. The first impression I had was that the character from the comic had come alive and that Rangel also had a dog’s head and the look of a canine: sharp teeth, rabid, ferocious. But a Super Agent of New Journalism can’t get carried away by his impressions. I said, Good to meet you, man! And I shook his hand.