The Black Minutes

by Martin Solares

  “Dr. Quiroz Cuarón, in person,” said the personal assistant to the minister, a conniving, impertinent young man who was smiling for no reason; “it’s an honor to have you here.” Thank you, I said, but time is of the essence, I must speak with Gutiérrez. “He’s on vacation,” he said, “he left for the Gulf of Mexico.” To the Gulf? I just came from there. “You can tell us all about it, Doctor, but before you do that”—and he took out a document—“the Minister would like you to sign this statement supporting the president in the incident of October second.” How presumptuous, I thought, I was already familiar with the document and had refused to sign it. I didn’t come about that, I told him. I came to report injustice. What you people want to do is a crime, if you don’t stop now, I’ll report you to the president. “Doctor,” he said without dropping his smile, “there’s no use insisting, the president isn’t going to listen to you. Don’t waste your time.” I understood that he was serious. Look, I told him, tell the president that he does not have my support, I’ll never sign that paper—and I left, slamming the door. I had broken with the government once and for all.

  When I got to my house, I felt I was about to explode. I called and called but no one answered in the president’s office. The last secretary who answered the phone, a rude and offensive woman, made such a sarcastic remark that I hung the phone up violently. On few occasions had I felt as irritated as I did that morning. It was hot, and I was sweating. I should relax, I said to myself, I’m stressed out; the heat from the Gulf has followed me here. When I moved to take off my shoes, I saw that my left arm was trembling. Argh, I said to myself, this time I’ve overdone it. I breathed in deeply, but it was too late, soon the pain was intolerable and I lay down to relax. I couldn’t feel my arm below my shoulder and I knew I was in trouble, I’d brought on another heart attack. Suddenly, boom! It reached my chest. The pain increased minute by minute, it was like giving birth. I couldn’t beat it, until I said to myself, Enough already, Alfonso; you’ve overcome bigger challenges in your life, don’t give up. Deal with the pain. That’s what I told myself, only instead of resisting I relaxed my body, as if the pain were a river and I was swimming in the middle of it, and I lost consciousness as I floated in its current.

  I woke up the next morning. The sun shone through the window and everything seemed incredibly real. I called my sister. Consuelo, I’m exhausted, and I told her what had happened. But I was so tired I couldn’t be sure if I actually called her on the phone or if I had just imagined that I did it. Nothing happened the rest of the day. I had no strength to move. Luckily, there was a bottle of water on the bedside table, and that allowed me to survive.

  The next day, my sister and her children came to see me, but I was so tired I couldn’t get up to open the door. I shouted to them: Use your key! I’d given them a copy before, and they were able to come in. As soon as they saw me, they said we had to call a doctor. No, no, I said to them, I’m not so bad off, I just need to rest, but they didn’t listen to me. Consuelo stayed by my side and I slept like a log. Once, my sister stood up and said to me, “Alfonso, I love you a lot, and I was angry with you when you left for that port, but I understand you had to do it, your vocation is stronger than your body.” Consuelo, I told her, you’re my sister and I love you, too. There’s no need to apologize, just the opposite; you’ve always been very kind to me. But now it’s midnight and I’m very tired. I need to sleep.

  The next morning, I woke up before her and her children. I felt like new. I even put on my shoes without feeling out of breath. Rest, I said to myself, I needed the rest. From here on, I’ll rest every weekend.

  I wanted to surprise everyone by going out to get the newspaper, so I headed to the door and opened it. How strange, I thought, the paper isn’t here. I thought about going to buy one myself at the corner and I headed that way, but then I saw the kiosk wasn’t there. And not only that: there wasn’t anyone in the street. The largest city in the world was suddenly empty. Where was everyone? I thought. Is there another protest? Or is it really early? As for the kiosk, they must have moved it somewhere else. So many things happened in two days! That’s what I told myself and I headed to Avenida Insurgentes, where there’s another kiosk. Only when I turned the corner, I saw the same guy as always: the man in black. This is too much, I thought, this is just too much, and I went up and confronted him.

  Look, I told him, I’m fed up with your following me. Why are you doing this? He didn’t respond. Who do you work for? The young man stayed quiet and took off his dark glasses. Up close, it was obvious he was very young, you know, with long hair like those singers from Liverpool. Why are you following me? I persisted. The young man smiled. “Because you’re dead, Doctor.” What? Me, dead? What are you talking about? And he showed me the death certificate: On said day at said time Dr. Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón passed away at his house at 54 Río Mixcoac. “You died in your bed, after coming back from the port.” Are you sure? “Very sure, I’ve been keeping an eye on you for the past few days, but you have been very clever and I haven’t been able to reach you. You’ve even been able to live your last few days three times.”

  For a minute, I thought it was a trap set by Echavarreta and the Federal Safety Administration, but the young man’s calm demeanor gave the impression of being beyond question. So, what am I doing here? “I suppose you wanted to solve that case, you’ve been very busy.” Oh, yeah, I said, the girls. I almost forgot. “It happens when you’re old, don’t worry.”

  All of a sudden, I realized what I was doing was utterly ridiculous—me, one of the most brilliant minds of my generation—and my legs gave way. I feel bad, I said, I think I’m having another heart attack. The young man took me by the arm. “The stars, Doctor, look at the stars.” Even though it was a gorgeous day, I could see the stars as never before; I could see the constellations and the planets—Mercury, Venus, Mars—and all of a sudden the pain dissipated.

  “It’s over?” Yes, it is, he said. It was very simple; in the end, it was very simple, I feel much better. He looked at me and smiled; he was actually wearing white. I understood intuitively that I should have kept quiet, but I said to him: There’s one thing that worries me, it’s about the case. “There’s no time anymore, Doctor: it’s time to go.” That’s a shame, I said, I had it all solved. . . . At the very least, wouldn’t you like to know my explanation? Two minutes, just give me two minutes, and you’ll know what really happened. And I explained the whole case, detailing the system I had developed over the years, the foolproof criminal equation. When I was done, the young man gave me his opinion. “Impressive,” he said, “a little bit like Sherlock Holmes.”

  Sherlock Holmes was a fraud, I said, a huge fraud. I lost it like I always do when I hear that name, but that time I didn’t have the sense of conviction, as if a gigantic hole had opened up in the middle of my sentence and all the resentment had just flowed out. And then I understood that the mystery, the real mystery, was just beginning for me.

  20

  Back at headquarters, Rangel picked up the evening edition of El Mercurio: COLUMNIST CORMAC MCCORMICK DISAPPEARS.

  Tuesday night, the renowned FBI investigator Cormac McCormick disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The author of All About UFOs, the famous column reprinted in more than a hundred and fifty newspapers in the United States, was headed from Mojave, California, to Searchlight, Nevada, where he was to give a talk on UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects). The writer’s vehicle was found abandoned on the highway in Death Valley. Prior to his disappearance, the investigator spent the weekend in a Las Vegas hotel, where he won a considerable amount of money that was found undisturbed inside the car. There was no sign of theft or violence, no evidence or blood. But around the vehicle, a curious circular track was found, a meter wide and with a diameter of twenty meters. The grass around it appeared to be charred. The detectives in charge of the case were baffled—

  He had thought things couldn’t get any worse. Then the phone rang again, the secretary
answered, and, suddenly frightened, she covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Mr. Rangel?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They just found two more girls, near the train tracks.”

  José Torres loved his three daughters, especially the youngest, Daniela. He had named her after an actress with green eyes from the telenovelas. The girl’s eyes were brown, but to please the mother, everyone said that they were green at first, as if the actress’s name had changed them for the better. Ever since the first telenovela in Mexico, an actress’s popularity was measured by the number of girls baptized with her name.

  She’d woken up sad that morning, because of a dream she had, and didn’t want to go to school, but her parents dressed her and sent her on her way. Since they lived in a neighborhood with no electricity or paved streets, the girl had to walk through a small wooded area with mango and avocado trees to get to Public School Number Seven.

  She was very small, her father thought. She looked so pretty with her hair wet and combed, just after her bath. She always wanted a metal lunchbox, like her classmates had, but José Torres never could buy it for her: I’m sorry, mija, but the most important thing is to have enough to eat, and he handed her her breakfast wrapped in a plastic bag.

  The girl waved good-bye. It was the last time he saw her.

  A group of Boy Scouts was responsible for finding the body: Augusto Cruz, Jesús Cárdenas, Carlos Síerra, and Martín Solares. Not one of them was more than seven years old. The first thing that was strange about the chaotic statement they gave was that they had no reason to be there, because their group, Number 7, was based out of the other end of the city. It all started when they tried to skip class and see The Exorcist at the Cinemas del Bosque, but—they’d never skipped class before—they took a bus headed in the wrong direction and when they got off, they were caught in a thunderstorm, so they sought shelter in an abandoned building. Later, one of them wanted to explore the second floor and he found the body.

  The address was for an abandoned building on the outskirts of the city. The Evangelist’s car was in the street, and there was an ambulance next to it. Rangel jumped the barrier restricting access to the crime scene. Crazyshot tried to stop him.

  “Hold on, man, you can’t go in.”

  “Why?” He tried to push his way through, but his coworker got in his way.

  “Chief’s orders. Taboada’s in charge.”

  “Fuck Taboada.” And he pushed his coworker out of the way. Cruz Treviño made such a small effort to hold him back that Rangel realized the giant really wanted him to take the case, so he wouldn’t have the responsibility. Fucking jerks. All of them just want to get off the hook, and here I go like a complete idiot.

  He walked to the first floor, and immediately the awful smell hit him, like he was entering a tiger’s den. Damn, he said to himself, this is the place, no doubt about it. His legs almost gave way when he passed the stairs and walked into the foul-smelling hallway; it was impossible to breathe and he started to cough. The Evangelist ran out of the room, covering his nose with a handkerchief and didn’t stop till he made it to the window. Then he started vomiting.

  “Watch out, cabrón!” they shouted at him from below.

  Rangel deeply wanted someone else to take the job from him, but he found himself on his own again, so, summoning all his strength, he covered his mouth with his handkerchief and walked through a door that seemed to lead to another world.

  The scene of the crime was so overwhelming that while he was in the room, he couldn’t think. He could only ponder the insanity that was behind it all, trying to imagine what kind of person could do something like this. His hands weren’t even sweating anymore, they were literally cracking open, but he didn’t realize it at that moment. He realized he was covered with cold sweat when Dr. Ridaura came into the room.

  “Oh, finally, you’re here. If you thought this was it, follow me; I’ll show you some more.”

  The old woman went back down the hallway and, completely exasperated, opened one door after another.

  “Look.”

  There was blood splattered on the floor in each of the rooms. “Holy Mother of God,” said Rangel. The building had a parking area inside it, so the killer was able to go in and out without being seen. Of course, he thought, that fucking pig, he killed all of them right here. I’m in the killer’s den.

  The doctor sneezed and angrily blew her nose.

  “And that’s the least of it. You know what’s the strangest part, Vicente? That girl who’s lying on the ground has been dead for two months. There’s evidence that the maniac came back and attacked her several times.”

  “Two months?”

  “At least. Look: advanced state of decomposition, cadaver fauna; the skin comes off like a glove. It’s awful, I don’t understand how no one found her sooner. But right now, the most important thing is that this guy’s got to be caught and brought to justice.”

  The doctor picked up the clothing with a metal wire. The sound of the flies buzzing was unbearable, and Rangel couldn’t take it anymore. And right then, he said to himself, the clothes, the clothes. Vicente was able to decode the strange arrangement of the bodies.

  In the three plastic bags he had examined so far, the killer had covered the girls’ remains with strips of their school uniform. First, he put the girls into the bags and then he added the uniform. Was he trying to cover them? Exactly, he thought, covering them up is his calling card, as Dr. Cuarón would say. Holy shit, that’s it, why would he possibly want to cover them up? And he said to himself silently: To identify himself. Horrified, completely stupefied, Rangel looked over the first layer of clothing, a white shirt with bloodstains. Using tweezers, he spread it out, and his amazement multiplied infinitely when he recognized that, if he squinted, the shape of the stains seemed to spell out three block letters.

  He went to his car, took out the two girls’ files and reviewed the black-and-white photos: three letters, damn it, it was obvious. On the front of both shirts he recognized similar markings. It wasn’t hard, because they were the initials of one of the most powerful political associations in Mexico, which was especially powerful in the area. Cigarettes bitten on one side, white wool from a sheep, a hunting knife, three letters. . . . Holy shit, he thought, it’s crystal clear. He saw El Mercurio out of the corner of his eye and the hair on his arms stood on end. That day, they had published the perpetrator’s photo; he was at an official event, practically in the place of honor, receiving applause from the public.

  Holy shit, he thought, holy shit, this is about to blow up. They had to take Mrs. Hernández seriously. Covering his face with his hands, he considered the possibility of telling Wong and the Professor, but if the fucking idiots didn’t support me before, he thought, they sure as hell won’t do it now. He mentally ticked through the rest of the officers on the force and concluded that he had his reasons not to trust any of them, just like none of them trusted him. Ever since the rumor about his quitting had made the rounds, they had even more reason to buddy up to Taboada and stop working with him. Shit, he said to himself, what do I do now?

  When Taboada pulled up, he was surprised to find Rangel parked there.

  “And what the hell are you doing here? Weren’t you going off with Barbosa, you fucking asshole?”

  Surprising everyone, Rangel headed right at him, more than willing to break his face in, and he walked so purposefully that even El Travolta took a step back.

  Now you’ve gone and done it, fucking fat-ass, Rangel thought. El Travolta was about to jump on top of him when Wong and the Bedouin held him back. Not now, cabrón, not here. A little calmed down and without the look of fear in his eyes, El Travolta puffed his chest out like normal.

  “You’re gonna pay, asshole.”

  “Bring it on, man.”

  And he turned around slowly, giving the fat guy a chance to go after him, but he didn’t try it. Taboada’s a fucking idiot.

  He pulled his car out,
tires squealing. If I could’ve, I would’ve quit right that fucking second. If Taboada wants to get mixed up in all this violence, let him, let him get in the mud and stay there, like the pig he is. I’ve had enough.

  He wasn’t able to calm himself down until he got to the avenue, but as he headed down the boulevard in Tres Colonias, he had no more doubts about what he had to do.

  After making his decision, it took him two minutes to put together his plan. He needed someone desperate who’d be willing to help him. And since he couldn’t trust anyone, he called the only investigator with that profile.

  21

  Testimony of Jorge Romero, AKA the Blind Man

  Not like it was anything new, but they started to assign me to follow up on the most fucked-up calls; they sent me to the Colonia Coralillo. You know what they say about that neighborhood: One time a cop went in there and they diced him up alive. I asked the boss, Why don’t you go? It’s really far; you’ve got a car and I don’t. “You don’t really want to be part of the secret police, do you?” he said. Yeah, I do. “OK, then, go. And don’t be late coming back.” So I went.

  I had a fake reporter’s ID and, depending on the situation, I wasn’t sure if I’d say I was a cop or not. I had a fake badge in one pocket, and in the other I had a mini–tape recorder that my cousin lent me so I’d be more convincing. When I headed into that part of town, I remembered they’d assault you for a watch or your glasses, so I thought I’d better keep it in my pocket. Just then, the taxi driver turned around at the traffic circle instead of going in. What’s up? What’s the problem? Why’re you stoppin’ here? “It’s union orders; they’re really worked up today about the girls who got killed. One of ’em was from here.” And what do I do now? “Sorry, that’s not my problem.”