The Black Minutes

18

Rosa Isela was waiting for him at the door; she was obviously distressed. As soon as she saw him, she ran toward him and took him by the arm. The Bedouin and the huge Fatwolf were two steps behind her. The Bedouin shouted at him.
“Cabrera! Chávez is looking for you.”
Isela tried to drag him in the opposite direction, but Cabrera pulled free. “Wait a minute, mi reina, I’ll catch up to you.”
“No, sir, please, don’t go over there.”
When he heard this, he understood what he was in for.
“Chávez wants to talk to you,” Fatwolf insisted.
As soon as he walked in, he noticed the desks had been pushed to the sides, making an empty space in the middle of the office. And the civilians, who normally were everywhere, were nowhere to be found. Isela was the only one trying to get him out of there. At some point, Fatwolf pulled her off his arm, and Cabrera agreed to go into headquarters.
Chávez was sitting behind a plastic table, playing with his car keys.
“What’s up, Chávez, what can I do for you?”
Chávez looked at him and said nothing. His left hand was hidden behind his back.
In this line of work, if you get distracted, you lose. Chávez slowly looked him up and down, and Cabrera did the same to him. It went on like that until Chávez laughed and tugged on his little goatee.
“You’ve been very busy.”
“Yep.”
“I heard you met with Romero. Are you looking for Rangel?”
Hearing that name, for the third time in two days, gave him a bad feeling. “Why? Are you looking for him?”
“No.” He mocked him. “But if you want to find Rangel, go ask your wife.”
Rosa Isela knew what was going on, because she tried to intervene—“Mr. Cabrera, Mr. Cabrera, come on, please”—but Fatwolf and the Bedouin were guarding the door.
“Stay out of it, miss, leave them alone.”
Cabrera walked toward Chávez. “What did you say?”
“Go ask your wife.”
“Do you want me to beat your ass?”
“No pues. If you’re going to get all upset, don’t ask her. But if you want to find out where Vicente is, go ask your wife.”
Cabrera kicked the table up into the air. Chávez pulled his hand from behind his back, brass knuckles covering his fist, and brandished it in Cabrera’s face. Cabrera took a step back. While Chávez waved his hand around, Cabrera took the chance to punch him in the jaw, a direct hit as hard as he could, and Chávez fell down face-first. He was on the floor, but he wasn’t giving up; Cabrera guessed that he was about to jump up and hit him back, but as Chávez started to stand up, Cabrera kicked him right in the solar plexus. Unfortunately for Chávez, Cabrera was wearing cowboy boots. Chávez went up in the air, flipped over, and fell behind the table. He tried to get up but his legs gave out. It was already too late: Cabrera’s pacifist spirit was completely gone. The Bedouin and Fatwolf had to grab him by the arms so he wouldn’t kill Chávez: “Take it easy, dude, take it easy.”
“Ah, now you interrupt me, f*cking pendejo? F*ck your mother!” he screamed, and pulled himself out of their grip. Then he saw Chávez arch his arm and he felt a pain in his right leg. “Son of a whore!” he spat out. The a*shole had thrown his brass knuckles without even looking and got him square on the shin. Cabrera pushed Fatwolf off him and he was about to go finish what he had started, but Isela hugged him, bawling, “Mr. Cabrera, please calm down!” When he saw her, he pulled himself together and walked out, gasping for air.
By then a crowed had gathered at the door; all the new guys were there. Goddamn nosy people, he thought. The problem was that in order to leave he had to walk by Chávez, sprawled out on the floor. Rosa Isela dragged him by the arm, trying to get between the two, but when Cabrera went by Chávez, he heard murmuring and went back.
“Repeat what you just said!”
“You’re dead,” Chávez said. “You’re dead.”
“Learn from this,” Cabrera told the newbies. “If you’re going to kill somebody, just kill him and be done with it, don’t run an announcement in the society pages.”
Chávez squinted his eyes like only he knew how to do and Cabrera understood he was serious.
Leaning on Isela, he went out into the street.
“Please, get out of here. Chávez is going to be after you.”
“Don’t worry,” he told her, “nothing’s going to happen to me.”
“Do you want me to call an ambulance?”
“Yeah, but for Chávez. He’s probably spitting his teeth out right now.”
“Have you seen how you look yet? They hit you real bad.”
It was the truth. When Chávez hit him the first time, he must have grazed the tip of his nose, because it was bleeding. He was so enraged, he hadn’t noticed. And he noticed his leg was starting to go numb.
“You have to see a doctor. It might be broken.”
Where his leg had been hit, a dark black mark had begun to form. Rosa was right. He wasn’t going to be able to do anything like this, it would be better to head home.
“Here he comes. Get out of here, please!” The girl was incredibly anxious, “Chávez is coming.”
And, in fact, Chávez was walking out, leaning on Fatwolf. Cabrera saw him say something to one of the new guys, giving him instructions, and the kid got into a patrol car, staring at Cabrera the whole time. I can’t believe it, he said to himself. What has this f*ckin’ world come to when other officers are following me?
“Thanks, sweetheart. You should go get some rest, too. Your work here is done.” He hugged the girl and said good-bye.
Just walking caused sharp, shooting pains, but he couldn’t stop; the youngster had already started his car. We’ll see if you get me, you son of a bitch.
Instead of getting into his car, he took a bus downtown. Disconcerted, the kid followed the bus at a prudent distance. At the third stop, Cabrera got off and the kid slammed on the brakes. OK, he said to himself, we’re going to find out how smart you are. He grabbed a taxi headed in the opposite direction and watched the kid struggle to complete a U-turn in the middle of the avenue. This was fun and games for Cabrera. He asked the taxi driver to take him to the Rosales Supermarket.
“But it’s right over there.”
“Exactly.”
The driver groaned and turned and the kid did, too. Cabrera got out of the taxi and limped into the main entrance; then he walked out the back door and walked back to headquarters. The patrol car was caught in the thicket of se?oras in the cars looking for parking spaces. Too bad, he said to himself, he’s got a lot to learn. He walked around the block and said hello to everyone there before getting into his car.
“Good afternoon!”
Chávez was so angry he was red in the face, and Cabrera was dying of laughter. Pobres pendejos, he thought, missing the mark can be really frustrating; I hope they won’t build up a lot of negative energy on my behalf. He was saying this to himself as he drove down the street; accelerating hurt a lot, but he would be able to make it home on empty roads. When he got to the intersection with the avenue, it was a red light. His leg was throbbing. A movement as simple as depressing the accelerator caused shooting pains. As he waited for the green, a pickup with blacked-out windows that had pulled up on his left side suddenly went in reverse. He didn’t pay much attention because the pain in his leg was killing him. That’s weird, he thought, going in reverse in the middle of the street; at least there aren’t many cars. If there were, he could cause an accident. Then the guy in the pickup slammed on the accelerator and ran right into the driver’s side of his car.
Cabrera’s head went right through the window, breaking it into a million pieces. Of the chaos that followed, he only remembered leaning out the window of the car and repeatedly reading the words on the side mirror: OBJECTS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.
As he asked himself who he was and why he was there, he saw the pickup pulling into reverse again, this time all the way back to the end of the block; he was going to ram right into him again.
Cabrera couldn’t move. For a second, he was under the impression that there was an argument going on in his head, but then he looked in the rearview mirror and saw that no, he wasn’t the one arguing, it was two girls sitting in the backseat: a dark-skinned girl and a redhead. The first girl, the morena, was saying, Here comes the pickup, we gotta move. The redhead was really distracted, or maybe just in shock like he was because of the accident: Move? Why should we move? We’re fine right here! Meanwhile, Cabrera watched the pickup coming closer and heard a Rigo Tovar song on the radio: Oh! It’s so good to see you again! / To say hello and know you’re happy. / Oh! It’s so good to see you again. / So pretty, so beautiful, and so happy. When he asked himself why he could hear it so clearly, he realized it was none other than Rigo Tovar himself in the backseat. The best singer of música tropical on the planet was there, right next to the girls, behind the driver’s seat! Rigo, who was wearing a white suit and dark glasses, was playing the guiro with a lot of feeling. Cabrera smiled at him: Man, what a huge honor, Rigo Tovar in my car. Rigo sang: That day when you left / I found myself alone and sad in the park / trying to figure out a reason / why you were so angry.
The only thing was, the pickup was still moving toward them, and the morena mentioned an important fact: It’s getting closer; it’s dangerous. And the redhead said, Dangerous? Why dangerous? The redhead was not known for her intelligence. Suddenly, Rigo leaned forward and said in a haughty tone of voice: You know what, my friend? I think you need to move your car; otherwise they’re going to run into you and you won’t be able to sit in the park under the flamboyants and the rose bushes, you won’t see the social service girls or be able to dance to my songs, and I’ll feel sad. No, not that, Rigo couldn’t be sad. Don’t worry, Cabrera said to him, I promise I’m going to move the car, and the musician smiled condescendingly. No problem, Rigo, it’s an honor to be here talking to you, and Rigo laughed, and suddenly he and the girls had vanished into thin air.
Then it was just Cabrera and the pickup left. Not quite conscious of what he was doing, his hand shifted into reverse and his foot found the accelerator; his car jerked backward with a loud screech. The pickup grazed the bumper, just barely touching him and jumped over the median. Unfortunately, at that same moment a double tractor trailer was headed down the other side of the road. It dragged the pickup almost a thousand feet and then rolled up on top of it. That’s why I don’t run stop signs, he said to himself. You never know when there’ll be trouble.
The last thing he remembers is his car hitting the sidewalk behind him and coming to a halt. Then he turned off the engine, got out of the car, and passed out. The rest is what’s expected: ambulance, fractured arm, broken ribs, concussion.