The Black Minutes (8 page)

“The chief wants to see you. It’s urgent.”

He practically dragged him the few blocks that separated them from headquarters.

“What’s the rush,
cabrón?
”

But his coworker didn’t answer. Like everybody knows, the police offices are located in the historic downtown, in a whitish building, under a giant pecan tree swarming with ravens. In the morning, the noise they make is deafening.

There was the usual hustle and bustle at the front door. The Bedouin asked for the chief, and a new agent, who had someone in cuffs, motioned with his chin and signaled down a hallway: He’s back already. Hurry up, man, they’re waiting for you. They walked down the corridor. The walls were covered with official announcements, composite sketches, photographs of missing people, messages from one cop to another, ads for cars or apartments for sale, and several maps of the city, neighborhood by neighborhood. Finally, they reached the reception room. Two new guys were on duty. The chief’s secretary said hi to Cabrera, ignoring the Bedouin. Obviously bothered by this, the Bedouin made his way between the two guards and reported to the chief.

“Here’s Cabrera.”

Inside, it was as cold as in a glacier, though the chief didn’t seem to mind at all. He was wearing a white guayabera, like the ones in fashion when Echeverría was the president of Mexico in the seventies, and a black leather jacket, extra large. When Cabrera walked in, the chief was on the phone. The Bedouin approached him to whisper something in his ear, and the chief did nothing to welcome them. Cabrera had enough time to examine the office furniture, the official photograph of the president of the republic, the TV with the news on, two pictures of the chief with the current governor (one eating with him, the other hugging him), and, underneath them, three glass display cases packed with standard-issue firearms. There were few personal items in the office and all of them had to do with hunting: a Winchester shotgun, a deer’s head, and a wild boar.

While the chief was on the phone, Cabrera took a seat in one of the two chairs in front of his desk. The Bedouin hit the back of the seat twice and whispered, “You better wait for his permission,
cabrón
. Who knows what you did?”

Cabrera replied, “No mames, buey.” And he didn’t stand up. Even though the thick blinds blocked all the light out of the office, the chief kept on his dark aviator glasses. When he hung up, he looked at the detective and asked him point-blank, “You confiscated a gun that belonged to Mr. Obregón?”

The kid’s pistol. . . . He’d forgotten about that.

“Yes, it’s in my desk. It’s Mr. Obregón’s?”

The chief didn’t answer.

“Come on, Macetón, who do you think you are?”

“It was a mistake: the friggin’ brat. The kid was threatening a civilian with the gun, without identifying himself.” If the kid could lie so could he.

Chief Taboada shook his head. “Do me a favor and give it back right away. And one more thing: Why didn’t you tell me about this?” He threw a copy of
El Mercurio
at him.

There wasn’t much news in the port, and the really important stuff happened in the crime-beat section. That’s where the results of all the scheming and rivalries showed up. After every power struggle, the ones who were convicted or murdered ended up on those three pages. The secret history of the port was in there, and if there was somebody who knew how to read it, it was the chief.

Johnny Guerrero’s new column was on page three. Damn! Goddamn that Johnny and his stupid gossip. Just like the afternoon before, it wasn’t really an article, it was an editorial. The journalist commented once again on Bernardo Blanco’s death, writing that the officer in charge of the investigation was following a solid lead to track down the killer.

The chief looked at Cabrera without blinking or moving, using one of the oldest tricks of the police force: Whenever you want a suspect to talk, stay quiet. A couple of minutes of silence from a cop applies more pressure than a couple of good questions. Generally, people feel uncomfortable and start talking on their own, just like Cabrera did.

“The journalist is making up—”

The chief interrupted his explanation. “What have you found out?”

Cabrera explained there wasn’t much to go on. Before his death, Bernardo Blanco met with Padre Fritz Tshanz.

“What did they talk about?”

“I don’t know yet. Padre Fritz was very evasive. You know how he is.”

“What about the diskette?”

“There was nothing on it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Chief.”

Taboada exhaled, grunted, and stared at him. He didn’t like his answer. “I think your time has come, Officer. Hand over the case to the new guys. Talk to Camarena and fill him in on your investigation.”

He had never been humiliated like this before. The worst thing, the absolute worst thing, that can happen to an agent is to be replaced when he’s on the verge of solving a case. And to be replaced by Camarena! It wasn’t fair!

“I want three days off,” he said.

The chief looked at him angrily. “Who do you think you are?”

“Nobody. It’s just that I haven’t had a day off in two months, and I need a break.”

It was true: for the last two months, he had practically been living at police headquarters. His failing marriage was the proof.

“OK, I’ll give them to you, but watch out.” The chief made himself clear. “You have nothing to do with this case.”

“Thanks, Chief.”

The Bedouin looked at him disdainfully, and on his way out he bumped him with his shoulder.

He went to eat at his wife’s apartment, and miraculously he found her organizing his papers from work. To be cautious, he didn’t tell her about his days off; she would have insisted on using them to go visit her sister, and Cabrera didn’t feel like being a chauffeur. He tried to take her clothes off, but she slapped his hand. “Respect my space; I’m working.”

Cabrera looked for the remote control, and his hand almost cramped up again when he couldn’t find it. It was still hidden. He shouted, asking for it, and his wife got offended. He threw himself on the couch and stared out the window. After fifteen minutes of silence, his wife asked, “What are you thinking about, Ramón?”

“A lot of stuff. About Padre Fritz Tschanz, about the dead journalist, about Xilitla, and about a suspect whose name is Vicente Rangel.”

His wife, who was still organizing the papers, dropped a stack of them. Cabrera noticed it and walked away to the kitchen. He was in an awful mood.

He fixed himself a grilled fish with lime juice and sliced onion—bachelor food, since his wife didn’t like onions. She asked him if he was OK, and he told her about his argument with Chávez and his doubts about the Paracuán cartel’s responsibility. His food was almost ready when his wife suggested he should let the new guys handle the case, and he grabbed the pan and threw it against the wall. They yelled at each other and he ran out, slamming the door behind him.

He spent the next half hour driving around aimlessly in his car. His rage ended up leading him to the beach, where he ended up whenever he needed to think. He stopped at El Venado’s stand and bought two Tecates and six beef tacos.

There were no cars on the beachfront highway, and he parked in the dunes. The sea was rough and choppy, and the sand was stained with oil: maybe there was an accident at the refinery or another leak on the platforms. He ate the tacos with salsa, drank the Tecates, and smoked a cigarette: the perfect recipe for a bad case of gastritis. He had to go pee twice. If things kept up like this, he’d have to see a doctor.

He would’ve paid to find out what had gotten into the chief. Why’d he ask him to investigate the murder and then change his mind? But even more, he was wondering what was happening between him and his wife. Were things between them coming to an end? Was he so blind he couldn’t see it? It was no secret that of the two of them he had more to lose. His wife was still beautiful, she had admirers; he felt old and clumsy, with nothing going for him. Except for Rosa Isela, he had to work hard to make the social service girls look at him twice. There were two seagulls next to his car, and he asked them if his wife was about to leave him. As if to answer his question, the more capricious of the two seagulls flew away, leaving the other one alone next to the car.
Ay, cabrón
. Never try to tell the future with seagulls.

In the last few weeks they had fought more than the whole time they had known each other. He asked himself if they had a future together, if they worked or not. Perhaps he was the only one really interested in the relationship. He said to himself, Maybe it’s finished, and felt a knot in his throat. Bueno, if it’s over, it’s over; there’s nothing I can do about it. He had to be mature, he said to himself, and accept these things.

After analyzing everything he had heard and seen that day, he decided that she might have a lover. It was definitely a possibility. He was on the street all day, he only ate with her every now and then, sometimes he got home so exhausted he only wanted to watch TV. He imagined her making love with someone else and felt queasy in the stomach, that anxiety that comes when really important things come to an end.

He looked at the rough water. The sea was as black as the oil-stained sand. He was so focused it took him a minute to respond
to a kid carrying a foldable table who approached to offer him coconut candies.

“
Condesa? Cocada?
”

How was it possible for a candy seller to appear next to his car in the most deserted area of the beach? He said no thank you, started his car, and drove back to the city.

He pulled up to the city archives as the employees were getting back from lunch. Now that he had three days off, he would do things a little more slowly. When he asked for newspapers from twenty years ago, the clerk didn’t know what to answer.

“I’m new here. Let me see where they are.”

Cabrera wondered what case from the seventies had caught Bernardo Blanco’s attention. Was it corruption in the Oil Workers’ Union? The activities of the September 23rd Terrorist League? The founding of the Cartel del Puerto? Any of those three subjects would mean some thorny territory.

The girl came back with three dusty tomes tied together with a rope, and he could see the job was going to be grueling and long. Literally, he was going to dust off a case that others already considered buried and forgotten.

He examined the first volume: January through February 1970. The majority of the articles seemed to repeat themselves in the same stilted, overwrought language of low-budget provincial newspapers:
SEASONED SMUGGLER; OBSTINATE THIEF; PICKPOCKET ARRESTED; IMPRISONED FOR STEALING LIVESTOCK
—invariably followed by a picture of a guy looking sad and, next to him, a thoroughly outraged
OX
—and, again,
SKILLED SMUGGLER; OBSTINATE THIEF; PICKPOCKET ARRESTED; IMPRISONED FOR STEALING LIVESTOCK
and then the picture of another sad guy, another cow.

Since Cabrera didn’t have an exact date for the issue Bernardo was interested in, he began by examining the papers from 1970 and then the following year, advancing year by year. An hour later he thought he’d found something. By six that afternoon he had no doubt: eight months of newspapers confirmed his fears.
Puta madre
, he thought, what have I gotten myself into? At times, he felt like reality actually consisted of several layers of lies, one piled on top of another.

Back then there were two newspapers that copied each other’s designs, logos, and corporate colors. The leading one in sales was
La Noticia
, owned by General García; it was a weak newspaper, and obedient, always backing the dominant Institutional Revolutuionary Party and critical of its enemies. Its competition was
El Mercurio:
an independent paper, faithful to the official version of events and, more than anything else, utterly sensationalist. It was easy to confuse the two, because both were tabloid size.

Judging by the pictures, the city went through one of its most prosperous periods in the seventies. New oil reserves were being discovered, the government promoted private investing, and there was a boom in commerce. During that time of growth, the dollar exchange rate was at twelve pesos and fifty centavos, and because of the proximity of the United States, people would go to “the other side” as if they were picking something up at the supermarket.

Kraft cheese was everywhere. Brach’s candies. Levi’s jeans. Nike tennis shoes. Gringo aspirins. New neighborhoods were built in front of the lagoon. Hotels and restaurants were opened. A new hospital was built with the most modern equipment for the Oil Workers’ Union.

One night Mr. Jesús Heredia killed a tiger weighing more than four hundred pounds at his ranch. His horse reared when it saw
two eyes stalking it in the bushes. Heredia barely had time to turn his flashlight on and shoot at the shape. They needed two donkeys to hang the cadaver from a tree and take the picture published in the papers.

The article next to that one reported on a young mechanic who tried to abuse two teenage girls. One of the girls managed to escape and get help. The passersby almost lynched him. The image showed the mechanic with his lips swollen and a black eye. The headline read: V
ICIOUS
J
ACKAL
and it was the first time the word, jackal, popped up that year. In tabloid slang, jackal is used to refer to people who attack those smaller than them, like a predatory animal. The case didn’t cause any great commotion. Back then, three rapes a week made the news. The rest didn’t make the cut.