The Black Minutes (44 page)

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.

There’s a moment in every man’s life when he begins to turn to stone. In the case of Chief Taboada, this development began twenty-five years ago, when he took the reins of the police force in Paracuán. He remembered an afternoon in 1977 when they still called him El Travolta. He was going back to the office to write the report of an uneventful day when Cruz Treviño stopped him at the main entrance. It seemed like he was waiting for him.

“You heard what’s going on in Madera?” Treviño asked.

“They’re gonna fuck Barbosa over. They made him quit.”

“That’s fucking great,” Taboada responded. “As far as I’m concerned, they
should
fuck him over, fucking communist asshole. I don’t know how they ever let him be mayor.”

“Wait, wait, it’s not just that,” Cruz remarked. “We’ve also got an inspection.”

“Oh, man. The chief know about it?”

“The chief isn’t back yet, he’s still in the capital.”

“And what’s he doing there?”

“I was gonna ask you the same thing, man. What? You don’t have a clean conscience?”

El Chicote interrupted them. “Mr. Taboada, they’re looking for you up there.”

They’d turned the chief’s office upside down. Six guys were digging through Chief García’s papers, and Lolita was with them, handing over files. An incredibly tall guy tried to keep El Travolta out but El Travolta tried to push his way in. The rest of the agents noticed the tussle and pulled their guns. Lolita barely had time to interrupt.

“That’s him, that’s Mr. Taboada.”

“Relax, relax,” ordered a dark-skinned guy wearing a suit and tie, who looked like he had more authority than the others.

“Oh, Mr. Joaquín Taboada.” A heavy-set man about fifty years old, with a double chin and wearing dark sunglasses, walked over to him. “We wanted to speak with you, sir.”

El Travolta smiled.

“Licenciado Pedro García González has some problems in the state capital. That’s why the president asked us to come look over the books and make an assessment. If we have to pay off a debt, we’ll pay it; if there’s an account open, we’ll close it and that’s it.”

“May I ask who you are?”

The badge said FSA: Federal Safety Administration, the personal police force of President Echavarreta. And above it, in italics, José Carlos Durazo, Managing Director. Taboada had heard of him over the years: Durazo, the scourge of the cellblock. One of the most violent people in the country.

“Nice to meet you.”

Durazo put his arm around El Travolta’s shoulders, like they were old friends. “Come with me; let’s walk. Walking is good for the knees, isn’t it? How old are you, buddy?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Twenty-nine years old. You’re very young, very young. If you just clear up a few questions I have, you’re going to be young
and
very lucky.”

El Travolta didn’t know what was going on. He got the drift though, that’s for sure. This large man had to be extremely powerful, just going by how submissive his assistants were.

“Tell me, Javier.”

“Joaquín.”

“Tell me, Joaquín, do you think you’re prepared to lead this office?”

“What about Chief García?”

“Don’t you worry about that. The chief just turned in his resignation. It’s better that way, right? He was already very old, he was sixty-five, and what we need around here is a changing of the guards, don’t you think?”

The impact of this news made El Travolta stop, but Agent Durazo took him by the neck and they continued on down the hallway.

“Look, Javier—”

“Joaquín.”

“Look, Joaquín, people much more important than you or I would like for you to take over the chief’s office. People very high up. I don’t know if you understand.”

Taboada’s jaw dropped. The dark-skinned guy, who had been following them, broke the silence. “He probably had other plans, Licenciado.”

“Of course, he probably had other plans. But the people who sent me want him to be the one to do us this favor and accept. What would you do in his place, Negro?”

“No question about it, Licenciado, I’d take it. It’s a favor for a favor,” said El Negro.

“That’s it. A favor for a favor. What do you think, Joaquín . . . or Javier, either one, right? Doing favors is good for a friendship, right?”

Taboada swallowed saliva before he answered. “Yes, Licenciado.”

“That’s it! Good work, boy, you’re the person I’m looking for. Now we need to talk about serious matters. I’d like to know about your deductive abilities. In your opinion, who killed the girls?”

Taboada took a step back. Oh, he said to himself, that’s why these guys are here; I got it now. He thought about it for a minute.

“Up until a few hours ago, I was sure it was a guy named René Luz de Dios López.”

“René Luz, good. Bring me that guy if you think it was him.”

“No, hold on, sir.”

“No, you hold on. If you think it was him, that works for us.”

“The thing is there’s no proof—”

“Oh, well, Javier. . . . Look, buddy, in this job you have to learn to trust in your intuition and in your deductive abilities. Right, Moreno?”

“Yes, Licenciado. A favor for a favor.”

“That’s it: a favor for a favor. Bring me René Luz and we’ll talk some more. Got it, buddy?”

By then, they had made it back to the chief’s office. Durazo patted Taboada on the back and ended that part of the conversation.

“So,” Durazo said to Lolita. “There’s nothing to drink around here? Go get some bottles and some ice, I can’t deal with this heat. We should make a toast to our colleague’s future. We’ve got a long night ahead of us, and we’re just getting started.”

That night, once they were drunk, they celebrated El Travolta’s good luck, so young and so lucky, for sure they had a lot to talk about. “Just one thing, once they’ve promoted you, don’t forget about all of us.” “No, of course not!” “’Cause we’re
coming back, buddy, we’re gonna come back so you can take us to the beach with some girls. You know girls, right?” “Yes, sir.” “Oh, that’s good news, I expected no less from you.” Once they’d finished off the second bottle, one of the bodyguards said to him: “You, me, us, we’re all just skeletons with flesh on the bones, skeletons with flesh on top, skeletons in motion.” And another guy interrupted him: “You’re already drunk, Luján, you need something to pick you up.” “Your sister, I need your sister. Skeletons with flesh on the bones,” he insisted, and pointed at Taboada.

“Our colleagues just got here.” El Negro cut them off; he had a walkie-talkie in his hand. “Barrios, Gutiérrez, and Fernández are waiting for you at the entrance. One of them is knocking on the door, with the subject. The other guy is waiting in the car.”

“Good,” said Licenciado Durazo, “you and you, take Mr. Clemente Morales to his brother’s house so he can rest. Explain the situation to him and stay there to take care of him until the union people get there. Take the idiot who arrested him to solitary. Joaquín, you have good cells for solitary, right? I mean an isolated area, comfortable, preferably with running water, where sound doesn’t get out. . . . Do you have a place like that?”

Taboada nodded. “There’s the concrete room, but it’s not used very much.”

“Let’s go there. That room’s finally gonna be used.”

“And the other guy, sir?” asked El Negro.

“What other guy?”

“The one who stayed in the car.”

“Handle him like I explained earlier.”

When they went into the concrete room, two bodyguards were holding Romero up. His eye was purple and his nose was bleeding.

“Taboada,” he begged, “for the love of God.”

“Shut up already, shut up.” One of the bodyguards shook him by the arm. “The licenciado came to pay you a visit.”

El Negro stood in front of the lackey and lifted his arm to punch him, but before hitting him he stopped and gave his boss the opportunity.

“Licenciado . . . would you do the honors?”

Durazo put on his brass knuckles, took two steps forward, and
boom!
Romero doubled over from the punch. Then he motioned to El Negro and they took turns hitting him: Durazo, Durazo, El Negro, El Negro, Durazo, El Negro again, Durazo. . . . When Durazo started to sweat, he took off the knuckles and motioned to his bodyguards:

“Now it’s your turn, friends. He’s all yours.” He turned to El Travolta, “How far are you willing to go?” And he held out the brass knuckles.

Taboada remembered what his colleague said: We’re skeletons with flesh on the bones.

When Romero saw him come up, he twisted in the assistants’ grip “Not again, please, not my eye”—but El Travolta went after him and beat him mercilessly.

“Do you think that’s enough?” Durazo egged him on. “Do you think that’s enough, after what he did to us?”

That had been his first truly violent act on this earth.

Now, twenty-five years later, he remembered: We’re skeletons with flesh on the bones, skeletons in motion. And he had a lot of things to do.

The day got off to a bad start: the congressmen were mad, the attorney general was upset, and the governor was furious. The situation with the journalist was posing a lot of problems. Taboada made a list of issues: the governor, the attorney general, the journalist’s family members, my partner. . . . He examined each one of them, and in the end he decided to start with the most complicated.

He called Agent Chávez. The phone rang and rang but Chávez never answered. How strange, he said to himself, he never turns off his cell phone. After considering his options, he called Agent Cabrera’s house, with the same result. Fucking Macetón, where’d he go? Then he called his secretary, Sandrita, at home, even though it wasn’t seven o’clock yet. It was clear he had woken her up; she took a while to react. He asked her what she knew about El Chaneque.

“Nothing, sir. The last time I saw him was when he talked with you, yesterday morning.”

“Go look for him at his house and tell him to report to me. I’ll see you in an hour at the office.”

Fifteen minutes later, after bathing and putting his clothes on, he opened the door to his car. He grabbed the latest edition of
El Mercurio—
the paper guy put it on his windshield—to find out that the dead guy’s relatives had published an advertisement against
him. Just what I need, he thought. They must have offered a lot of cash to the paper’s editor to get him to publish that letter.

He got to his office at 7:30. The first thing he did was review the journalist’s boxes. He found a small manila envelope with his property-tax receipt: Mile 31, Las Conchas subdivision. He saw the property was near the beach and asked himself what this journalist was up to. A little while later, he heard an old man’s footsteps dragging down the hallway. It must be El Chicote, the old man is always the first one to get here.

“Good morning.” The old man stuck his head in. “Can I get you anything?”

He had an intuition, so he sent the old man to buy all the newspapers, including the ones from the U.S. side of the border. As he suspected, Mr. Blanco’s parents had put an insert in a newspaper in Mexico City and another one in the main newspaper in south Texas, in which they condemned his performance and demanded speedy justice. As if he didn’t have anything else to do.

Sandrita arrived at eight o’clock on the dot.

“Where’s Chávez?”

“I couldn’t find him, Chief. I went to look for him at his house and he wasn’t there.”

“Cabrera hasn’t come in either?”

“No, sir, he’s not here yet.”

“As soon as either one of them shows up, send him to me.”

A few minutes later, the girl transferred a call from Licenciado Campillo, the governor’s personal secretary. He was short and to the point.

“Turn on Channel Seventy. We’ll talk in a minute.”

He turned on the cable box and looked for the channel. A TV anchor in San Antonio, Texas, was talking about the state of affairs in the port. He condemned the death of the young journalist,
Bernardo Blanco, and then criticized the shoddy way they were carrying out the investigations. The anchor, a young guy with a blond mustache, was asking ironically if the local police, who were known to have ties to the Paracuán cartel, would resolve the situation. Damn, Taboada said to himself, where’d he get that one from? Fucking dumb-ass reporters. Everyone expected great things from Bernardo Blanco. Just problems, he said to himself, the only thing he had accomplished was creating problems, like the one that for sure was ringing his phone right now.