The Black Minutes (3 page)

“Did he have a computer?”

“Did he have a computer? Strictly speaking, yes, he owned one, but we can’t access it. It requests a password, and there’s no way of guessing it.”

“Get a technician.”

“That’s what my colleague Columba here is doing; he’s the next generation of policemen—not like you, Macetón, still using a typewriter.”

The young man in glasses smiled at Cabrera, who looked away.

“And cassettes? Did you find any?”

“Audio cassettes? No, we didn’t.”

“No, not audio cassettes but, like, cassettes to save information.”

“They’re called diskettes,” Ramírez said, “or CDs.”

The specialist bent over the evidence, pulled a diskette from a plastic bag and in one sweeping motion handed it over, more gracefully than Cabrera would have expected.

“This is what we found. Let Columba help you.”

The young man in the glasses inserted the diskette in the computer. On the screen an empty window appeared. “It’s blank.”

“Let’s see it.” Cabrera looked at the blank image. Yes, the diskette had nothing on it.

“Or maybe it’s not formatted for a PC. I’d have to look it over on my Mac. If you want, I’ll examine it later, with another operating system.”

Cabrera answered with a growl. “Give me a photocopy of that notebook, butthead,” he ordered the kid. “And wear gloves.”

“Hey”—it suddenly dawned on Ramírez—“why are
you
working on the journalist? Wasn’t this El Chaneque’s case?”

Cabrera motioned for him to lower his voice. They went out to the hallway, and Cabrera said, “Chief’s orders.”

Ramírez heaved a deep sigh. “If I were you, I’d get out of it; this smells very weird.”

“Why? Or what? What did you hear?”

“Haven’t you ever wondered if the chief is just using you?”

“What are you trying to say?”

At that moment another colleague came in to ask for a report and Ramírez took the opportunity to end the conversation. “I’ll hunt down what you asked me for later, OK? Right now I’ve got a lot of work.”

Before he got into his car, he noticed that he had a flat tire and his head hurt. He didn’t know if the tire caused the headache or if the headache caused the tire, but it was clear that if he stopped to change it he was going to miss the funeral. Besides, he’d end up sopping because at that time of day the sun was broiling.

Fortunately, there was a tire-repair place two blocks from headquarters; Cabrera went to see the manager and gave him the keys. Since there weren’t any taxis in sight, he stood waiting for one in the middle of the street, deliberating whether it might not be better to walk—the funeral parlor wasn’t very far—but he had other things on his mind, a couple of ideas he couldn’t quite make sense of.

Minutes later, he saw a rickety old boat of a taxi approaching, a disco ball dangling from its rearview mirror. He told the driver to take him to the dead man’s house, the house fronting on the lagoon, where he thought he’d find more information. Cabrera was a methodical man; now that he’d reviewed the autopsy, he wanted to see the scene of the crime. The driver had on dark glasses and he’d purposefully greased down his hair with Vaseline. He was wearing a green shirt, military style. For quite some while now, Cabrera said to himself, everybody’s been wearing military-style clothing.

At first the address—No. 10 Calle Palma—meant nothing to him but as soon as he saw it he remembered. Look at this, who would’ve thought a crime would take place here? A long time ago, some twenty years ago at least, 10 Calle Palma was one of the few buildings in that neighborhood. At first, the good drainage system was bad and the electricity would go off; on the whole block there were only two or three houses, and the asphalt ended a few hundred yards farther down. Cabrera had always liked driving, to go tooling around, and when he was young he used to park nearby at nightfall, facing the lagoon, sometimes by himself, sometimes with one of his girlfriends from back then. He had a fleeting moment of happiness, remembering the things that happened there with his girls. How long has it been since I was here last? he wondered. The area had become an exclusive neighborhood, full of fancy houses, and because of the new buildings it wasn’t as easy to see the lagoon. If I weren’t here on an investigation, he thought, there’d be nothing for me to do around here.

The crime scene was an unpretentious house. It stood between two lavish mansions, but that wasn’t what most drew his attention. On the façade of the house, bands of police tape blocked access to the front door; beneath it, toward the entry, they’d drawn the outline of the body. Something was off and Cabrera’s expert eye caught it immediately.

He asked the cabdriver to wait and got out of the car. Examining the bloodstains confirmed his worst fears; the carelessness with which the journalist’s outline had been drawn didn’t hold out much hope for a solution to the case. It looked as if he’d been finished off inside and then dragged out here, though the report didn’t say that. Holy shit, he thought, what did I get myself into? Do I tell the chief or not? He kicked at a flowerpot, insistently,
until he shattered it. The cabdriver asked if he was ready to leave. Cabrera yelled back to him, “Wait for me here!” and walked around behind the house to see if he could get in through the back.

At the far end of the garden, where the lagoon began, sat a huge bulldozer. No trace remained of the yard’s trees, and in their place one of those mammoth gas pipelines had been installed. At the very back, an Oil Workers’ Union sign warned caution. Do not dig, and topping it all off was a big skull and crossbones.

Three impatient honks of the horn brought him back to earth. “I’m coming, motherfucker!” he yelled to the cabdriver. “What’s the hurry, man, if I’m gonna be paying you?” The driver didn’t answer him and tuned the radio to
Classics of Tropical Music
.

At the mansion next door, an indigenous maid was scrubbing at the stream of blood that had drained all the way over there. The maid, who was attempting to wash away the stain with soap and a brush, got unnerved when she saw him come up. He wanted to ask if she or her employer had seen anything suspicious, but the maid thought he was going to assault her, and from the way she gathered up her things he guessed she meant to run away. Cabrera showed her his badge, but the girl was so alarmed it was impossible to get a word out of her. So he told her good-bye and got back into the boat.

As the cab pulled away, the maid went back to scrubbing at the young man’s blood. Soon there wouldn’t be a trace left of him. Cabrera looked back at the crime scene, and the wind blew the police tape.

“Where to, boss?”

Cabrera looked at his watch and told the driver to take him to Gulf Funeral Parlor.

“The small branch or the big one?”

“The big one, and step on it; I’m really late.”

The driver took the avenue downtown. Around the military hospital, after a brief contest for dominance, the taxi passed a pickup with polarized windows, which was taking up two lanes simultaneously.

“Hey,” the driver said to him, “that was the dead man’s house, right? That’s where the journalist they killed lived.”

“That’s right.”

“Are the rumors true?”

“What rumors?”

“That he was running with the dealers, that he was friends with El Chato Rambal.”

He was about to reply, but before they reached the light the pickup cut them off. The cabdriver slammed on the brakes and stopped in the middle of the street. The first thing they saw when the pickup door opened was a leather boot with metallic studs. Cabrera imagined a six-foot-tall rancher, nasty and riled up, but instead the pickup spat out a five-foot-tall kid. Even that height was largely thanks to his boots. He couldn’t have been more than
twelve, but he already sauntered with drug-runner arrogance. He had on a sleek leather jacket and his gun was in sight.

At first Cabrera didn’t understand, because the youngster was talking too fast, but soon he realized that he was angry with the cabdriver for passing him.

“Are you in a hurry, asshole? What’s the rush?” He talked straight at the driver. “You won’t be in a hurry when I’m done with you, you fucking dickhead.” Then he realized the driver wasn’t alone. “And you, asshole? Someone talking to you?”

In this city, if you don’t know how to keep your mouth shut you don’t last long. Luckily, Cabrera was a pacifist and responded with a friendly smile.

“It’s no big deal,” he said calmly. “I’m on my way to a funeral.”

“Well, you can walk,” the kid provoked him. “Get out of the car.” He lifted his jacket to show his gun.

Of all the cars on the road, the detective said to himself, this kid had to pick me to tangle with, an honest citizen just doing his duty. As Cabrera was getting out of the car, the kid slapped the cabdriver. Shaking his head, Cabrera turned the tables on him. One slap knocked the kid’s face to the side.

“Hey, asshole! Fuck off!”

“You fuck off. Act right or I’ll make you.”

When Cabrera saw the kid was about to pull his gun, he twisted the kid’s arm with one hand and grabbed the pistol with the other. Then he raised it to look at it closely. It was top of the line and sported in gold plating the initials C. O. Since the kid kept on jumping around and wasn’t listening to reason, Cabrera slapped him again.

“I said stuff it, asshole. Do you have a carry permit?”

“No,” the kid answered, “but it’s not mine. It’s my dad’s.”

“If you don’t have the permit on you, I’ll have to confiscate this. Tell your dad to pick it up at the police station.”

The kid just laughed. “My dad is a friend of the chief.”

“Well, when he drops in to say hi to his friend, he can stop by my desk and pick up the gun. Now get out of here, you fucking punk. If you keep messing with me I’ll tell your father on you.”

The kid was red in the face, he was so angry, but he faked politeness. “Yes, sir. And who might you be?”

“Agent Ramón Cabrera, at your service.” As soon as he said it, he knew he’d said too much.

“I’ll remember that.”

“And now, get a move on.” He tucked the gun into his pants.

The kid stepped on the accelerator, his tires squealing, and pulled in to the curb a couple hundred feet farther down.

“Oh, God,” said the driver, “he’s waiting for us.”

“Do you know him?”

“I’ve seen him coming out of the clubs. I think he’s El Cochiloco’s son.”

Cabrera thought it over for a moment and finally said, “Could be.”

He tried to persuade the cabdriver to follow the kid, but the driver was entirely freaked out. “Give me a break, sir. Let me just take you to the funeral home. I don’t want the kid to get mad; these guys’ll shoot you for less than that.”

“Well, all right,” he agreed, but he didn’t like it. It was one thing to avoid violence, but something very different to let the dealers do whatever they wanted.

When they passed the truck, its engine revved five times, but it didn’t follow them.

Almost everyone gaped at him when they saw him come in: the blue suit coat was far too big for him and the multicolored tropical shirt he wore underneath it was all too visible. The first person he saw was the deceased’s father, Rubén Blanco, talking with three respectable elderly gentlemen. The mother and sisters wept on some nearby couches. At the other end of the room, four ranchers stood guard next to the coffin.

Cabrera nodded to the dead man’s parents and approached the coffin to pay his respects to the departed but actually to examine things in detail. That’s when he recognized him. Damnation, it can’t be, he thought, it’s the kid with the yogurts, the one who’d been living in San Antonio. What the fuck happened to him?

The cut on the neck was covered with a scarf but what he saw was enough to raise his suspicions. This wasn’t a regular Colombian necktie: either the attacker’s hand was shaky or the killer was no expert, otherwise there was no explaining the erratic trajectory of the cut. He then took a look at the body, and confirmed that he couldn’t be more than twenty-five. Poor boy, he thought. What could he have possibly done to be taken out so young? According to Chávez’s report, El Chincualillo was breaking in to rob the house when the journalist surprised him. No, he thought, it doesn’t fit. Why would a member of the Paracuán cartel break in
to steal? As if they needed the money! With what they earn in a day they can live for months without working.

“Sons of bitches,” a mourner behind him murmured. “He was a defenseless kid.”

He felt as if he were the one they were complaining to; their eyes were on him, and he thought, As if I had anything to do with this.

As soon as he could, Cabrera gave his condolences to the victim’s father and, on Chief Taboada’s behalf, asked if they could talk privately.

“In a minute,” the man answered, and shook his head disparagingly.

Cabrera didn’t like being treated like this, but he told himself that Don Rubén was going through a difficult time and you had to be understanding; so he stepped outside and waited for him at the end of the hallway. There was a vending machine with instant coffee, but it was out of order, and his longing for a coffee made the wait seem many times longer. Since he had nothing else to do he took out the confiscated weapon and inspected the initials for a second time: C. O.
Damn
, he thought. If the gun belonged to Cochiloco, he had problems.