The Black Minutes (30 page)

“And how much would he charge for his services?”

Military Intelligence explained.

“The doctor doesn’t charge. If the case is of interest to him, he takes it on and pays all his expenses himself. That gives him independence.”

“Well, a person like that would be ideal.”

“Besides, he’s from here,” the Pemex rep said.

“The doctor wasn’t born in the port,” interrupted the chief.

“He was raised in Tampico, but he’s from Jiménez, Chihuahua. He has only bad memories of that place.”

“Have you met him?” the mayor asked.

“One time,” he nodded. “One time, around 1940,” and Rangel understood that the doctor and the chief didn’t have a good relationship.

“It’s not a bad idea, but we have to make sure that he’s alive.”

“From what I know, he retired in ’sixty-eight.”

“Do you have any way to get in touch with him?” Torres Sabinas was looking at Vicente.

“Maybe.”

“OK, then, you contact him. If he’s interested, ask him to come as soon as possible.”

Rangel watched the millionaire. He looked really uncomfortable, as though the meeting had gone in a direction that he didn’t like.

Once in the car, the chief asked him, “How many years have you been doing this?”

“Four and a half, almost five.”

“I’ve got thirty,” said the old man. “If your uncle were here, he’d tell you that to find a criminal you don’t always go in a straight line. You have to spiral in, with a strategy. Find the leads. You get it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Three days ago.”

“You were nodding off in the meeting. Take the afternoon off and come pick me up tomorrow at seven.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And another thing: before you head out, ask Lolita for the doctor’s information. Invite him on my behalf and offer him a hotel room and a plane ticket.”

They found his information in an old yellowed address book with brittle paper. She found him under his first name: Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón, 54 Río Mixcoac, México, D.F. I can’t believe it, Vicente said to himself. Years ago, when Vicente had been a member of Las Jaibas del Valle, their headquarters in D.F. was a house at 27 Río Mixcoac, in a discreet, spacious apartment. Who knows, I may have even run into Dr. Quiroz on the street and know him by sight.

Lolita made the call for him, but the phone rang without luck. He tried again five minutes later and the voice of an older man answered.

“Yes?”

“Dr. Quiroz Cuarón?”

“Wrong number.” And he hung up.

Vicente thought it strange and called back.

“Have I reached the home of Dr. Quiroz Cuarón?”

“He doesn’t live here. Wrong number.” And he hung up.

He was going to try again when El Chicote reminded him that the chief was waiting for a summary of the meeting. Vicente put two blank sheets of paper into the typewriter and typed out the conclusions from the meeting for a few minutes. He stapled the report and handed it to El Chicote for him to copy and distribute. At nine, he went out to get
gorditas en salsa verde
for breakfast. He drank a soda—no gas, no color—returned to his desk, and put the call through again. It was answered on the third ring.

“Dr. Quiroz Cuarón?”

A firm voice answered, a voice used to giving commands.

“Yes. Talk to me.”

Instead of going home, Vicente went to get a cup of coffee at El Visir, a well-known café in front of the Plaza de Armas. An idea had obsessed him all morning. He checked his wallet discreetly to make sure that he had enough money for what he would need to buy. At exactly twelve noon, he headed to the historic center of the city. He was circling around
El Mercurio
when finally, on the umpteenth pass, he recognized the photographer coming out. Perfect, he said to himself, and drove over to her.

La Chilanga was walking unhurriedly along the Avenida Central. She looked odd without her usual camera slung over her shoulder; she didn’t even have her backpack with all the equipment she needed for her job. Rangel pulled up to the curb.

“Want a ride?”

Much later, Marianna turned over in bed and started to talk. “Johnny Guerrero says that Fidel betrayed Che Guevara; can you believe it? He says he sent Che into the Sierra Maestra hoping he wouldn’t come back and, since he had the power, he didn’t give him enough reinforcements, because it wasn’t to his benefit to bring him back. What are the Cubans going to do without Che, the lion, the warrior always out front, the brain for everybody? Who knows if Fidel can recover from the loss? Do you think he’ll try again in Bolivia?”

Rangel turned on the radio. He wanted to find English rock to cheer the girl up, and it wasn’t till then that he realized they had substituted Freaky’s show for one with
música tropical
:
This is for you, Benny Moré, and next: Chico Che y la Crisis!
Goddamnit, he said to himself. No shit, I didn’t even notice when this station went downhill.

“Hey, Mariana, are you Mr. Sherer’s niece?”

“Johnny made that up.”

A thunderclap signaled a coming storm.

“No hard feelings?” the young woman asked.

“Everything’s fine.”

“Good.” She got out of the bed, her hips swaying.

Rangel couldn’t get over how strange it was that all this had happened so quickly and easily. If he weren’t so hurt by what Yesenia did to him, he told himself, he could even marry a woman like this....

At six in the evening, the girl said she was hungry, and Vicente proposed going to La Rivera to eat seafood. As they took a quick shower, Vicente asked if they’d see each other after dinner.

“I’m supposed to get together with a girlfriend,” she explained, “but I’ll try.”

“I’d love to see you,” the detective insisted.

They didn’t have to wait for the ferry take them over, and they crossed the street with their arms around each other. They were going toward the Chevy Nova when a horn began honking repeatedly; someone was trying to get Vicente’s attention. From the other side of the avenue, a white pickup was coming over to him. It was Práxedes, the accountant. His uncle had introduced them several years ago.

“Get in,” Rangel said to the girl, and he held out the keys to his car. The girl took them without asking for an explanation, and
Rangel cautiously went over to say hello to the accountant through his window.

According to what Práxedes himself had said, because of his high status and his criminal record, they were always trying to pin crimes on him, but he was innocent. Rangel didn’t know exactly how he made his living, but he knew it bordered on the illegal. Today he seemed to be in a hurry.

“
Quiubo
, Práxedes.”

“
Quiubo, cabrón
. Who’d you get in a fight with?”

“Aw, shit, what do you mean, who’d I get in a fight with?”

“Some asshole on the docks. He was looking for someone to kill you.”

Fuck, thought Rangel. “He asked you?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess you didn’t accept.”

“What do you think?”

“Who was it?”

“I didn’t know him.”

“Goddamnit, Práxedes!”

“I swear I’ve never seen him before.”

“Could it be one of the guys from work?”

“No, it was a short guy. I think he was there for somebody else.”

“Was it Chávez?”

“No, I know Chávez. The guy who came to see me looked indigenous.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

He thought about it a minute. “All right, thanks.”

“Put a double lock on your door. If they keep asking around, someone’s gonna take the job.”

“Let me know,” he told him, and hit the side of the truck two times, saying good-bye. The accountant left immediately.

“Who was that?” Mariana asked. The fun and games were over.

“Someone I know. Where should I take you?”

“Drop me off downtown. If I leave my girlfriend early and want to go back to your house, how do I get in?”

“Here. I have another set in the office.” Rangel gave her his keys, and a huge smile lit up the girl’s face.

Before going back to his house, he stopped at Parcero’s store and asked for a thirty-eight-caliber bullets. It was time to take out the big guns. Afterward he went to the Modelo Superstore, where he bought food for two people, a bottle of whiskey, and a six-pack of beer.

He crossed the river in a
colectivo
boat and locked himself in so no one else could enter. Despite the pressure he was under, his time with La Chilanga had relaxed him. But then he remembered the accountant’s warning and considered the danger again.
Damn
, he said to himself. I’ll probably have to move. He didn’t have neighbors or anyone to ask for help in case he needed it, because there were no telephone lines on his side of the river. Anyone could force open the front door; it was only locked on the inside with a symbolic lock and, as if that weren’t enough, the windows were made out of plastic sheeting, which was simple enough to cut through. Come to think of it, it’s a miracle they haven’t gotten me yet.

He should move somewhere else, but it would be a shame to go. He loved that place. On one side of him, there was a mango tree, delicious fruits that woke him up when they fell on the roof. A cooling breeze came off the river and scared away the mosquitoes. On the other hand, if he left any food outside
the refrigerator, pests would immediately devour it. He once bought a poison powder to stop a plague of army ants that were threatening to invade. Another time he killed a tarantula as big as his hand. What can you do? he thought to himself. Soon, once he had time to think it through more calmly, he’d have to decide if it was time for him to move. But before then, I’m going to get this motherfucker and throw him in jail.

The rest of the afternoon he oiled and checked out his uncle’s pistol. After that, he took out his shoulder holster and tried it on: he didn’t remember it fit him so big.

At night, before going to bed, he split a melon in two pieces and absentmindedly left half of it above the sink in the kitchen, right next to the window. Vicente was completely worn out, but he couldn’t fall asleep. The conversation with Práxedes might have put him on edge. Every time he was about to drift off, some nearby noise would wake him up, noises that he couldn’t identify. What the fuck was that? It wasn’t the sound of a mango falling or the rumbling of the water heater, it was something different and repetitive, almost like Chinese water torture. As soon as he was about to get to sleep, there would be a new sound that he couldn’t identify, and on more than one occasion he thought he saw a person standing up next to his bed. The umpteenth time he woke up, his nerves destroyed, he went out to look for where the noise was coming from, furious, his twenty-two in hand. He wasn’t prepared for what he found.

Outside the window in the kitchen was a family of raccoons, two big ones and five babies. The biggest had been able to cut through the plastic sheeting and reach in his window. Between his hands—because they were hands—was the other half of the melon.

When the raccoon saw Rangel, he let out an amusing little scream, and the babies crowded around the mother. The detective
recoiled and observed their handiwork. One by one, the five babies headed into the forest, preceded by their mother. When the father understood that Rangel wasn’t going to follow, he stood up on two legs and sniffed in his direction. He’s thanking me, Rangel thought. Then he dragged the part of the melon that was his with one hand, like a person would do, and disappeared into the brush.

The policeman settled down on the terrace and drank two beers, one after another, with the lights out. A cool breeze started at eleven at night. I’m never leaving. If those motherfuckers want to come, let them come. I’ll be waiting.

On Thursday, the twentieth of March, at seven in the morning, Rangel parked his Chevy Nova in front of the chief’s house. The chief’s wife, Doña Dolores Rosas de García, asked him to wait in the living room, where he found the latest edition of
El Mercurio
:
NO TRACE OF THE HERNÁNDEZ GIRL. FALSE LEADS MULTIPLY
. The article added that, according to rumors, a brave officer in the Paracuán police force, a detective who had contributed several revealing pieces of evidence in the Jackal case, was about to quit “because his investigation was being stymied.” Guerrero not only summarized the previous day’s meeting at City Hall but also quoted the leader of the Professors’ Union, who took the opportunity to bash Mr. Barbosa from the state capital:
PROFESSOR EDELMIRO CRITICIZES THE GOVERNMENT OF MADERA
. Goddamnit, he said to himself, who told Johnny Guerrero about that meeting? And poor Barbosa, they’ve really got it in for him.

Then, since no one had come to get him, he skipped to page thirteen:

CONFERENCE ABOUT UFOS PROVOKES UPROAR
: This evening, in the city of Searchlight, Nevada, researcher Cormac McCormick will read an excerpt from his forthcoming book,
The Truth about UFOs
. The popular columnist’s editors assure us that the book, fruit of more than twenty
years of work, will be the most important in his field, as is clear from the interest shown in McCormick’s articles. They also confirmed that important revelations will be made during his talk.