The Black Minutes (18 page)

They got a call from El Travolta around midnight. Rangel knew because he noticed Cruz Treviño covered the phone receiver and lowered his voice.

“Where were you, man? They found another girl. You remember El Palmar? And you remember who’s in charge? Well, hurry up, the chief’s been asking for you since four o’clock. . . . No,
cabrón
, I’m not joking. You’re gonna see I’m not joking soon. . . . Yeah. . . . Well, that’s what you think, but if I were you I’d already be walking in the door.”

El Travolta showed up in the hallway a half hour later. Fatwolf stopped him before he walked in the glass door and updated him as to what was going on. Rangel was talking to Lolita, watching as El Travolta said nothing, not a word; he just stared at him, his straight hair covering his forehead. Cruz Treviño looked at Vicente and told him, “Now it’s on, man. Now you started something.”

Lolita turned toward the hallway, saw the two fat guys talking—oh, God, goddamnit—and walked toward the chief’s office, her heels clicking on the floor. El Travolta whispered something, like looking for an explanation, and Fatwolf tilted his chin at Rangel.

Taboada kicked a metal file cabinet that tumbled down the hallway toward the detective; Fatwolf tried to grab him by an arm but El Travolta was quicker. Rangel snatched up the only blunt object at hand, the heavy phone receiver, and stood up. When the fat guy passed in front of the chief’s door, García called him from inside his office: “Taboada!” But the fat guy walked straight ahead toward Rangel.

If Cruz Treviño thought he could just look the other way and let the fight happen, he realized he was wrong as soon as he saw
the chief stick his head out. Even though he would have liked to see Rangel beat up, he had to stop El Travolta, but with his bad luck, when he did he got popped in his left eye. Despite that, Cruz—who had to win some points to make up for past mistakes—grabbed hold of El Travolta by his arm and stopped him. As they were tussling, the chief yelled, “Taboada!”

Lolita was biting her nails with a look of terror on her face. Finally, Cruz Treviño pacified El Travolta.

“They’re talking to you, man!”

And he didn’t let go until El Travolta settled down and went into the chief’s office.

They yelled at each other for ten minutes. Rangel listened as their bellowing echoed through the office. The chief was giving him the scolding of a lifetime. “What’s going on in your head? Who do you think you are? The next time you mess up like this, you’ll be locked up for a month, understand?” Then they lowered their voices.

No one knew what they said, but the fat guy came out quietly and didn’t look for a fight with Rangel. He just sat down next to Cruz Treviño and faked like he was reading the autopsy report. Every now and then he’d raise his eyes, look toward Vicente, and send him all the bad vibes he could. He was only there for about half an hour, because he couldn’t work, as drunk as he was, and he only left when Lolita handed him a sealed envelope from the chief.

Then, when Rangel thought it was all over, El Travolta stood up and said to him, “You better watch out,
cabrón
. I’m gonna get you.”

Rangel stayed quiet, completely quiet, and when he saw the man was leaving, he said to himself, Well, there’s nothing I could do about this one, it was fate.

His hands were stinging as he left headquarters. What the fuck, he thought, why do I have to go through this again? I thought it was under control. He left the office exhausted and went straight to his house, more to change his clothes than to sleep. After much difficulty, he was able to park at the dock, next to the ferry ramp. He peered through the fog but couldn’t make out the ferry. Whatever, he thought, it must be on the other side, so he walked over to Las Lupitas, the only place open at that hour. There, under three dim lightbulbs, a fisherman was talking with two transvestites and the owners of Las Lupitas. When they saw Rangel coming, the fisherman stood up. “Shit, it’s that same damn guy again.”

The man tried to run away, but Rangel grabbed him by the arm and took him over by the river. It was El Lobina, a fisherman with a criminal record, a bad guy. Rangel had been looking for him because he was selling marijuana, but he was waiting for the chance to arrest him on a more important charge. When El Lobina tried to get free, Rangel punched him in the back.

“Ah . . .
cabrón
. You throw a heavy punch.”

When Rangel was tired, he acted arbitrarily; why should he explain himself to a despicable character like El Lobina?

As they were walking, the fisherman shouted, “Hold on, wait, my sandal—my sandal came off! My sandal!” But since the officer didn’t stop, he shouted to the trannies, “Keep it for me!”

Once at the river, the fisherman started his boat’s motor. “What, the ferry left you again?”

But Rangel didn’t respond. The fisherman looked at him defiantly—fucking cop—and ferried him to the other side of the river.

“There you go, boss.”

Rangel whispered something incomprehensible and stumbled off to his house. He took a quick shower with cold water, and took out a shirt and a pair of pants from the closet. As he was picking his clothes, the faint light in the living room illuminated the armchair, where he made out a bottle of whiskey that still had a little bit in it, just a swig, and he said to himself, Anyway, I’m already here, and I need to get some shut-eye. So after getting dressed he lay back in the armchair, just for a second, with the whiskey in his hand and Stan Getz in the CD player....

He heard the sound of a trumpet. That’s strange, he thought, I know how to play the guitar, but in the dream he was playing the trumpet, it was a really soft jazz, the best of Stan Getz. Rangel was the first trumpet in the ensemble; he was doing whatever he wanted with the music, and the others followed him without a problem. A great group, João Gilberto and Astrud and António Carlos Jobim play so well.
Kick Getz out!
he suggested.
Now I’m gonna do a solo that’ll blow their minds
, and in the dream he stood up and blew really hard, and the gorgeous Astrud watched him with complete admiration. Of course, Rangel thought. She’s going to leave her boyfriend to come with me. He was going to play the final note when he heard his uncle’s voice:
What are you doing, nephew?
And he played a note off-key. Aw, man, I wanted to try it again, and, aw, man, it was worse: the trumpet didn’t make a sound; inside there was just a dark black hole and his uncle next to him, it seemed like his uncle was standing in the living room wearing his perpetual white shirt and his shoulder holster.
What are you doing? You’re falling asleep. Aren’t you going to work?
His eyes shot open with a start: Ah,
cabrón
. It was 5:15. I’m just barely going to make it.

García arranged to meet them at the Restaurant Flamingos. It was a pink-colored place behind the bus station. The chief preferred to have his meetings there, because it had air-conditioning, the waitresses didn’t bother them, and they had enough coffee. Taking advantage of its being open twenty-four hours a day, the officers got there between six and seven in the morning, went to the most discreet corner—the table all the way at the back—and Cruz Treviño or Fatwolf took care of clearing out the nearby tables if the people didn’t leave as soon as they saw them arrive.

They were all there: the Professor, Wong, the Bedouin, the Evangelist, Crazyshot, Fatwolf, Cruz Treviño, El Travolta, and Chávez. No one bothered them there, but on that day, March 18, 1977, at six in the morning, as they headed to their usual corner, Rangel noticed that a large number of reporters with notepads, tape recorders, and even a TV camera were seated at the tables closest to them. Now what? he said to himself. What are they giving away now? He recognized three local journalists and one who was from Tampico, but he had never seen the others before. There were two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve. They must be from Monterrey or Mexico City, or maybe from San Luis Potosí. One of them, a guy who looked more awake than the others, elbowed his photographer when he recognized Rangel: Get a picture of that guy. Which guy? The one with his hair done like the Beatles.

Oh, shit, what’s up with these guys? he thought; why are they pointing at me? Rangel was completely drained; he’d only slept half an hour the whole night. He needed to drink some coffee fast. He was about to sit down when he heard Crazyshot say
“Mamacita”
and saw he was talking about La Chilanga, who, out of character, had retired her normal baggy Che T-shirt and was wearing bell-bottoms and a half-open denim blouse. Rangel, who’d never seen her dressed like that before, suddenly didn’t feel so tired anymore; he shamelessly studied the cut of her clothing, which highlighted her tiny waist, and focused on the way her blouse accentuated the shape of her breasts. He was looking for an excuse to get a closer look when he noticed that next to her was a tall young man wearing expensive clothes and poofy, long hair like the Jackson Five. Just a sec, he said to himself, who’s that guy? Jackson Five grabbed La Chilanga by the arm and led her to the reporters’ table. The detective was wondering what kind of relationship she might have with the long-haired guy, when he saw the chief come in. Instantly he knew something had happened, since Lolita was two steps behind him, her high heels clicking.

As soon as the detectives saw the older man, they fell silent. Rangel felt a stiflingly hot wave of air blow into the room. Aw, man, he said to himself, he’s in a bad mood. The chief looked around at everyone and sighed with frustration.

“No reporters and no
madrinas
,” he said, and most of the crowd left.

Since four or five stragglers had stayed, Fatwolf stood up, dripping with greasy sweat, and got rid of them, pushing them out. He was a really quiet guy. He was always sweating, weighed four hundred pounds, and was five feet nine inches tall. There was just one tuft of black hair on the middle of his head, which he tried to slick back. When he didn’t like something, he didn’t waste time
explaining himself; he made himself understood with his fists. When they saw him coming, the rest of the reporters stood up and went into the street. How weird, Rangel said to himself, I wonder how they found out the meeting was here. As La Chilanga left, the detectives focused their eyes on her, and more than one of them stretched out his neck to see her leave.

“Jerks,
cabrones
, fascists,” she said, “we have a right to information.”

When the young woman was gone, Rangel noticed the chief looking at El Travolta, who took a while to realize it. Finally, the fat guy gestured to Chávez: you’d better go, bro.

The weasel left, but he was upset. His presence had been tolerated at headquarters for the last month, and no one mentioned the fact that he had a criminal record. How strange, thought Rangel, Chávez had been trying to get some recognition for a long time. In the last few days, he’d even heard a rumor that they were going to name him a detective with a badge and everything, but the chief’s attitude made it clear he was going to stay in purgatory a while longer. Nothing you can do about it, thought Rangel, it goes with the territory, my friend.

The chief took the seat farthest away so they couldn’t surprise him from behind, an old habit he’d acquired after spending thirty years on the force and watching a lot of action movies. At a normal meeting, the chief asked each one of them what cases they were working on and what kind of progress they’d managed. He gave some advice, set deadlines for solving cases, and assigned new investigations—from coordinating the investigation of an assault or a violent death to simply sitting in the car and keeping watch on the entrance to the oil refinery or the Cola Drinks plant—and received the corresponding shows of appreciation. Very rarely would he redirect a line of investigation, and
the meetings were normally calm. But that day, March 18, was not a normal meeting.

What is it then? Rangel asked himself. First, it occurred to him that the chief was angry about the newspaper’s criticism of police “ineptness.” But that couldn’t be; the chief had heard worse things and wasn’t ruffled before. Maybe he got in a fight with Torres Sabinas? Ever since Licenciado Daniel Torres Sabinas had become mayor of the port, the chief argued with him on a weekly basis. Torres was a young politician, an enemy of Governor Pepe Topete, and he didn’t get along well with the chief. A rumor was going around that they’d set him up as mayor because of his friendship with President Echavarreta. Who knows, he said to himself, Torres Sabinas probably asked him for a report last night and they got pissed again. The chief has never been very diplomatic.