The Black Minutes

by Martin Solares

  “I don’t like this at all,” Romero said. “What is it? What do they want? You know them?” El Chuy shook his head. When he looked at the Jackal in the rearview mirror, Rangel noticed he was trembling.

  The officers didn’t move. They watched the car and they didn’t budge. The black Grand Marquis still had its engine on, the radiator was roaring. Rangel checked out the main entrance. There wasn’t a single cop to be seen, not even El Chicote dozing off at his post. Where were they? He noticed a red glow light up behind the black car’s tinted windshield and thought, He’s smoking, whoever it is, he’s smoking.

  An orange Caribe two-door, loaded up with suitcases, parked behind the Grand Marquis and the patrol car and started to honk at them. It was a family: a man, his wife, and their kids. They must be going to the bus station. Since the cars were blocking the street, the man honked his horn. Then the Grand Marquis pulled over to the curb a few centimeters and turned on its hazard lights, two small, elegant, yellow lights that emerged from the headlights. Then, demonstrating the ostentatious features of the fancy car, the lights moved from one side of the bumper to the other. The driver of the Caribe ran out of patience and passed the two cars. As he passed by the patrol car, he shouted, “Idiots!” And kept driving.

  Rangel finally saw movement on the first floor. He parked about ten feet from the door and told Romero, “OK, partner, turn those guys in.”

  “And what are you gonna do?”

  “I’ll cover you.”

  “And if you don’t come back, can I keep your half?”

  Rangel smiled—there was something suicidal in that smile—and answered, “It’s my gift to you.”

  Romero took his automatic pistol and pointed it into the backseat. “Look,” he said to them, “the first one to do something stupid gets blown away.” But he didn’t have to say it, because both of them were scared to death and got out peacefully.

  “Move it, move it,” he spurred them on.

  Once at the door, he had to kick it for someone to open up.

  A tall, incredibly brawny guy he’d never seen before opened it. He was wearing a black suit and tie.

  “Oh, fuck, where’s El Chicote?”

  “On vacation. What do you need him for?”

  This rubbed Romero the wrong way. “I’m a special agent,” he informed him. “I arrested this guy.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He’s the Jackal.”

  “Oh, the one who killed the girls?”

  “Yeah, the Jackal.”

  “You don’t say?” The man gestured with his hand and two huge, gorilla-looking guys came up from behind him. “Gutiérrez, the Jackal just got here. What do you think?”

  “That’s great. We have to congratulate this man. Come in, come in. Leave him with us.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Mr. Fernández, Mr. Gutiérrez, Mr. Barrios.”

  “The Jackal, awesome! Was it hard for you to find him?” another one asked.

  “Listen, who the hell do you think you are?” asked Romero.

  “You have to start the process. Why don’t you advise the chief?”

  They burst out laughing. “The chief doesn’t work here anymore. We’re in charge now.”

  Gutiérrez took the prisoners by their arms and escorted them toward the door.

  “Listen, cabrón! What are you doing?” Romero asked indignantly.

  Calm down, they insisted. Romero looked around but couldn’t find one familiar face. He went to the desk and tried to make a phone call, but they had cut the line. “OK, pendejos, what the hell’s going on? This is the Jackal! Arrest him, he’ll get away!” The Blind Man thought he was going crazy. You’re not going to do anything? I’m not going anywhere. Fernández, what about you? No, me either. By then, the third man was leading El Chuy and the Jackal to the door. He motioned to the black Grand Marquis and the prisoners left the headquarters. These motherfuckers are gonna let him go just so they can grab them and get the reward for themselves, Romero thought. The guys in Paracuán had done this to him once before, when he was just starting out. So he walked toward the Jackal, but Officer Gutiérrez pulled him by the arm. “Look, buddy, these are my instructions, if you don’t like it, talk to the boss.”

  “To the boss? Who’s the boss, if I might ask?” And right then, he saw El Travolta walking down the stairs with no shame or guilt.

  “Hey, Joaquín, what’s going on?”

  El Travolta took out one of the chief’s cigars from his pocket.

  “What happened was you got confused, jackass, and now the man has to go free.”

  “No fucking way,” Romero said. “He just confessed and we’ve got proof. It’s an open-and-shut case.”

  “Look, Romero.” El Travolta perforated the bottom of the cigar with a needle. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave now, before I get upset. Things are changing. We don’t need people like you anymore.”

  One of the three gorillas offered him a light, and Romero could see his badge: Federal Safety Administration. Then he understood everything and he started to sweat.

  Edelmiro Morales, the head of the Professors’ Union had asked for help from President Echavarreta; that’s why the guys from the Feds were there. That’s why Morales come out against Don Agustín Barbosa the last few days: since he knew Barbosa would charge his brother, so he decided to oust him, which meant that the president of Mexico was on his side. That’s why they didn’t want to hire Dr. Quiroz Cuarón and why they rebuked Chief García when he asked Cuarón to investigate. The thing was so big he hadn’t seen it. He was so focused on getting his fifty thousand dollars, he didn’t see what was right in front of his face.

  Right then, someone pushed him from behind: it was Fatwolf, with El Chicote. While one guy distracted him, the other took his pistol. Holy shit, he thought.

  “What’s up, Romero? How much they pay you for each article?”

  “Fucking traitor. Asshole. Who woulda thought? Ass kisser.”

  Well, he said to himself, you have to recognize when your luck’s run out. Ten minutes ago, I was a millionaire; now the only choice is to run. So he said to them, “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Right there, to the corner.”

  “Hold on, it’s dangerous to go out at this hour. We need to talk,” added Fatwolf.

  Romero, sweating, walked toward the door and watched out of the corner of his eye as the men followed him. Before he could pull the door handle, El Chicote reached out to stop him.

  “Just a second, hold on. Your buddies are talking to you, cabrón.”

  “Goddamnit, Chicote,” he begged, “let me go.” El Chicote had known him for years, he had helped him get the job in the first place, but he didn’t let him go. “What’s wrong with you, Chicote? What’s the deal? Why won’t you let me go? What’s wrong with you? What did I do?”

  “Look, Romero, I’m just following orders. I don’t know what’s on your conscience.” Romero noticed there wasn’t any security at the door to the parking lot, so he ran that way. He was halfway there when a voice shouted at him, “Romero!” But he didn’t stop. He was opening the back door when a hand grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and turned him around. It was El Travolta, with Gutiérrez. “I’m talking to you, cabrón.” By that time, the other agents had him surrounded. While Taboada grabbed him by the belt, Gutiérrez stood behind him. Romero lifted up his hands to try to stop them, but when he saw Gutiérrez smile, he knew no human force could save him. He tried to make himself small and dodge the punches, but the fat guy pounded him so hard he dropped to the ground, and their kicks started to rain down on him.

  They locked him in the concrete room and the four of them beat him. “Let’s see who protects you now, rat. This is what happens to guys who sing: they end up with no tongue.” He was hit from one side, near his temple, and the last thing he saw was a black lightning flash that expanded. . . . He didn’t know how long it laste
d. The next thing he knew, he was sprawled out on the ground, and they were putting a piece of metal in his mouth. They were knocking his teeth out; they pulled the last ones out with pliers. He regained consciousness because he could feel they were poking his eye. “No, not my eyes, no.”

  “Shut up, bitch.” It was the two guys from the Feds. “They call him the Blind Man, right? But he’s not blind, looks like he’s got two eyes to me, what do you think?”

  “Yep, two eyes. But they call him the Blind Man, let’s give ’em a reason.” And they pulled out his left eye. He could do nothing to prevent it, because they’d tied his hands together with a wire.

  He woke up because someone was shouting, “That’s horrible! Stop!” And he saw the mayor come in.

  Licenciado Daniel Torres Sabinas saw Romero crumpled up on the floor; the blood horrified him. Two shadowy figures were reasoning with him.

  “Think it through. The president has sent word that it would be shame to waste all the money that’s been allocated,” said a voice. “And cancel the June fiestas? Do you know they approved two and a half million dollars to organize your carnival? Imagine all the investment that would disappear, the unemployment you could fight, your plans for modernizing the port. Are you going to let someone else take that money? Are you going to leave, right when they just authorized your budget? Do it for the city, licenciado; the president will find a way to thank you. If you govern for the sake of one person, you govern for the benefit of all.”

  “And this man?”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of him.”

  Torres Sabinas looked at Romero one last time. Then he turned toward the shadowy figures and made them understand that he accepted.

  Son of a fucking bitch, Romero thought. Everybody’s come to agreement: the government agrees, the president agrees, they made their agreement over the girls’ dead bodies. As happens everywhere, the city grew up around its tombs.

  He heard them saying, “There’s the Texas Curve, behind that hill,” and they were laughing at him. “Listen, Romero, the ride’s over.” The federal agents reeked of alcohol; the one who was closest to him was drinking straight from the bottle. “You want your eye?” asked the other one. “Here it is,” and he threw it in the river. “Now go look for it, dumb ass, with a pound of lead to help you dive deeper. Get up, you son of a bitch.” As they were crossing the bridge, he said to himself, It’s now or never, see you later, boys, thanks for the ride. He jumped from the moving car, and fell badly on the road. The truck stopped, braking suddenly, but by then the Blind Man was rolling toward the river. He tumbled down the hillside and fell into the water, the current sweeping him away immediately. He heard bullets buzzing around him; at least one of the agents emptied his gun.

  Some fishermen pulled him out around where the river flows into the lagoon. The bones in his face were splintered and he had a broken thighbone. The curandero who took care of him told him his jaw would never heal completely and he’d be lucky just to live. But that was nothing in comparison to what happened to Vicente Rangel. This is how the city rewards its honorable citizens.

  28

  Vicente was watching the Grand Marquis when two guys waved to him. They were coming from the parking lot of the headquarters and each was wearing a suit and tie.

  “Vicente Rangel González?”

  “Yes.”

  The taller one put out his cigarette.

  “Miguel Miyazaki, from the Federal Safety Administration. We were waiting for you. Let’s go for a ride.”

  “I have to finish up here.”

  “With the guy you arrested? Don’t worry about it, they’ll take care of him. You come with us. Or what? You don’t wanna talk?”

  “D-d-d-don’t t-t-be a coward,” the second officer stuttered.

  Rangel offered them the keys.

  “No, you drive, we don’t know the port. Let’s go to the dock. They say you live in a really cool house. Right? Take us to see it.”

  Miyazaki sat down on his right and the stutterer got in the back. As Vicente drove, Miyazaki noticed the bulge of the .38.

  “Allow me,” he said, and reached out his hand.

  Rangel thought about it a second but ended up handing over his gun to the man.

  Oh, nephew— he could almost hear his uncle’s voice—you never lend guns or women.

  Miyazaki found six cartridges in the barrel, and as soon as he closed it, he pointed it at Rangel’s temple. Vicente looked at him out of the corner of his eye, and the man lowered the pistol.

  “Look, Manuel: a thirty-eight Colt, like the old ones.” And he handed it to the stutterer, who looked it over with real delight. “Manuel loves the Colts.”

  “It was my uncle’s.”

  “It used to be,” the stutterer replied from the backseat.

  Miyazaki backed him up with a mocking laugh.

  Five minutes later, as they approached the last stoplight, Miyazaki said, “Stop. Don’t run the light. We don’t want to do anything illegal, do we?”

  Rangel braked under the huge Cola Drinks sign. The woman on the billboard seemed to be laughing at him, as if she were singing a victory song. From this perspective, she had long sharp canines and was smiling at Vicente.

  When they got to the dock, the sun was setting over the Pánico. The last rays of light were shining on the other side of the river.

  “Stop there.” Miyazaki pointed to an abandoned lot, and the three of them got out.

  A dense cloud of smoke wafted from the other side of the river. A furious wind ripped through the corn fields on shore and Rangel understood.

  They had burned down his house. There were only a few smoking logs left, which the firefighters were doing their best to put out. Farther away, sitting on a patrol car, El Chaneque was poking the sand with a stick. And El Albino, always the same El Albino, stuck on rewind, froze when he recognized Rangel.

  “That was your house? Look, my friend, there was nothing we could do.”

  The stutterer was rubbing his arms, as if he was trying to heat them up. He’d stopped stuttering. “A tragedy, right? A fucking crazy-ass tragedy. The forensic guys already came for her.”

  Rangel grabbed the stutterer by his lapels and head-butted him in the face. This was what the agent was expecting; he pulled out the .38 and fired, but the gun jammed.

  “That’s to be expected,” said Lieutenant Miguel Rivera. “That’s normal. The gun doesn’t work anymore; it broke twenty years ago.”

  Before Rangel could react, Miyazaki put his own gun to his temple. “Calm down, Rangel, don’t make this any harder.”

  As they were crossing the river, he felt a hard object on the seat and found Mr. Torsvan’s German coin. The girl must have slipped it into his pants at some point the night before. When they were halfway across the bridge, he asked himself, How many sides, cabrón, how many sides? and he threw the coin into the river. Then he gripped the steering wheel tightly, very tightly with his hand.

  BOOK THREE

  THE SPIRAL

  1

  Joaquín Taboada woke up earlier than usual on the first morning of the month. He had a dream that his predecessor, Chief García, was standing at the foot of his bed. The problem was that Chief García had died twenty years ago.

  As soon as he recognized his old boss, Taboada tried to avoid looking at him. He pretended to look somewhere else; he turned over in his bed, but he couldn’t avoid him. The old man, who looked kind of like a Greek oracle, pointed a heavy finger at him.

  “Your time is up, it’s over. They’re going to do to you what you did to me.”

  As he was calming himself down, Taboada had the impression that part of the anxiety that was tormenting him in the dream was also biting his leg in real life. It was the crafty French poodle who insisted on sleeping in the bed.

  As soon as he was able to bring his heartbeat down, he tried to wake Zuleima, the bar girl with the cosmetically enhanced breasts, but she didn’t respond. Zuleima had painted her nails n
eon green and was sleeping next to a bottle of Valium. The detective lifted up and let go of one of her arms and it dropped like a log. This bitch, he said to himself, she’s popping pills again. There was a cycle to his relationships: it started at the whore-house or with a table dance, then to his bed, where they ended up sleeping, and from there back onto the street. His father was right, he said to himself. In the end prostitutes end up making your life miserable.

  Taboada kicked the dog and went to relieve himself in the bathroom. His reflection in the mirror made him even more worried. His cheeks were sagging, he was rapidly losing his hair, and his gut hung out over the waistband of his underwear. I’m fucked, he thought. Ever since I turned fifty, everything’s gone from bad to worse. He told himself that the best thing to do was to get dressed and eat breakfast. That’s it, he told himself, get something in your stomach. Unfortunately, the only thing in the refrigerator was a bottle of spoiled milk and what was left of a pizza, now hard as cardboard. I have to talk to Zuleima, he said. If it keeps on like this, I’m gonna have to tell her to leave me the fuck alone.

  The sound of a cumbia from the street convinced him it was better to wake up, so he put a cup of water in the microwave to make some instant coffee. As the machine began its downward count, he went over the scraps of his dream in his head. The source of his anxiety wasn’t the chief. No, I’m over that; a guy like me doesn’t worry about that kind of stuff. He can rot in hell. No, it’s not that, it’s something else, but what? For years, he had dreamed about snails, disgusting snails that climbed up the palms of his hands. But eventually the snails disappeared, and then he started making deals with Norris Torres, the governor. Since then, not a thing, he felt like he was immune to it all: a little power changes you a little bit, but complete power corrupts you completely. So, with no remorse about the past, he thought about his dreams. The microwave had started to beep just when he concluded that one of the shadowy figures with the chief was Vicente Rangel.