The Black Minutes

4

It was his uncle’s fault he got to this point. When no one would give him a hand, when even people who said they were his closest friends turned their back on him, the only one who provided him with a way to make a living was his uncle, Miguel Rivera, whom the family had practically disowned. Rangel had called him to ask for work and his uncle arranged for them to meet: “Of course, Vicente, come over tomorrow and we’ll talk.” He met him at his desk next to the chief’s office. He drank a cola drink, as he talked with a guy who was about twenty-three years old and a woman in her forties.
“Young people, I’d like to introduce you to my nephew, Vicente Rangel. Nephew, this is Lolita and this is Joaquín Taboada, a promising young man in the investigative unit.”
The woman turned out to be the chief’s secretary. At the time, she was thinner and sexier. The second guy was tall and chubby; he wasn’t particularly well-built but one punch from those hands would be enough to knock anybody to the ground. Rangel’s first impression was of a violent, insecure fat guy. Before he could come to a final conclusion, his uncle called him to one side and they went to the restaurant at the corner, Klein’s, a legendary eatery.
“It’s the best there is around here.”
They ordered two coffees that ended up being watered down.
“I read in the newspaper that things were going well for you with your band,” his uncle said. “You’re not going to play anymore?”
Rangel explained in very general terms that he had fought with the band leader, he was going through a transitional period, and he wanted to stop playing for a while.
“That’s a shame,” his uncle said. “I think you have real skill.” Without another comment, he offered him a job.
“Doing what?”
“The same thing as me, Vicente.”
“Well, thanks a lot, but I was thinking I’d look for office work.”
“No, no, no, we already have an accountant, and one is enough. Come with me and I’ll show you how to work.”
“But I don’t think police work is my calling.”
“That’s the same thing I said thirty-seven years ago. Look, Vicente: you’re not going to find anybody here who dreamed about being a police officer; we all got here some other way. You’ll start tomorrow morning, early. I’ll see you at six right here.”
And that’s how Rangel became a police officer. The first few weeks were incredible. His uncle had him look through the files on terrorists and bank robbers, so he would recognize them if he ran into them on the street, and let him read the latest folder they had sent him from Mexico City with the stamp reading STATE DEPARTMENT, a report about a group called the September 23rd Terrorist League, and at the bottom it mentioned the names of two people in the port suspected of belonging to the group. No shit, he said to himself, I never thought I’d jump from the art scene to the crime scene.
For the next three weeks, Rangel went with his uncle on all his assignments. He made arrests, inquiries, followed up on crime reports, and started to get to know the city. Since he was the type of person who had never left the bars and music stores, he had to change his ways. People told him their problems and Rangel listened to them, went inside houses that had seemed impenetrable, and talked with people he never thought he would meet. All without having to be violent, because that was his uncle’s style. He told him, “There’s one golden rule, nephew, and it’s this: If you’re going to pull out your gun, it’s because you’re going to use it.” His uncle acted like he went everywhere unarmed, but Vicente noticed that he carried a .38 caliber, sometimes stuck in his belt, other times in his shoulder holster.
The first days were the most dangerous. As that universe was completely foreign to him, several times he was on the edge of causing an accident and even someone’s death, because he didn’t know how to react yet. One Monday, after the weekly meeting with the chief, his uncle asked him to go with him to the Coralillo to make an arrest.
“Ay, cabrón,” Rangel answered, “I’ve never been there, they say it’s really dangerous.”
“It’s not so bad, it was worse at the end of the forties, after World War Two; then, you really did have to watch out for the unsavory types that came in from overseas: Turks, Chinese, Koreans, you’d even run into Italian mafiosos.”
“Listen, uncle, I’m not armed.”
“Don’t worry, we’re going to arrest the Petrolera thief.”
“What do you mean?”
“The jerk who’s robbing from the neighborhood where the oil workers live, don’t tell me you haven’t heard about it.”
“And who is it?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I’ve got a hunch.”
“And are we going to go to the Coralillo because of a hunch?”
“Nephew,” his uncle said to him, “in this job, you’ve got to go on your intuition. If you wait to find conclusive proof, or if you think they’ll just turn in the guy who did it, you should look for another line of work. To stay alive you have to use your intuition.” And since he saw that Rangel was interested, he added, “There are times when you just know, without anyone having to tell you. You’re deep in the worst case ever, you have no idea how to tackle it, and suddenly, boom! You hear a voice saying, Over here, cabrón, there’s no other way. You have to drop whatever you’re doing and follow it wherever it leads you. It might seem strange, but your intuition is never wrong. Now you’re going to see the proof.”
As they got closer to the Colonia Coralillo, Rangel’s nerves came back and he began to feel his hands itching. “Listen, Uncle, they say the last police officer to go in that neighborhood almost left feet first.”
“No. You don’t say? And what else do they say?”
“They say like twenty people attacked him, and when they were about to let him go one of them cut him with a knife, and the bastard ran out of there with his intestines in his hands.”
“And they’re right,” said his uncle, and he lifted up his shirt. He had a scar that ran the length of his stomach. “Damn, what a stupid nephew I have! You got everything you know secondhand.”
They left the last paved alleyway behind and drove down a steep gravel gully. There weren’t a lot of cars around. When he saw his uncle’s furrowed brow, Rangel knew that despite his jokes, the idea of wandering around this area made his relative nervous. As soon as the vehicle appeared, the people moved away from them distrustfully and it was obvious they were being watched from behind the curtains of the buildings.
As he turned a corner, his uncle said, “OK, now for real. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“Is there going to be shooting?”
“No way, don’t get ahead of yourself; we won’t have any problem. The Coralillo is a crucial area in this line of work; they know me, and it’s about time I presented you to the bigwigs around here.”
They parked in front of a butcher’s shop and his uncle got out of the car with a huge smile on his face.
“Juanito!” He waved to a man in his fifties wearing a bloody apron, cutting steaks behind the counter.
“How you doin’, boss? What can I do for you? You come for some round steak?”
“No,” said his uncle, “I actually came for your assistant there.”
Rangel turned to look at the guy he was talking about, a rough-looking man who was taller and thicker than his uncle and him combined. The giant didn’t bat an eyelid. He had an ax in his right arm, resting on the cutting board, and on each side of him there was a big segment of beef ribs, recently broken into pieces. Does my uncle really think he’s going to arrest him? Don Miguel at seventy years old and Vicente at twenty-four, even working together, couldn’t subdue this gorilla. If he could split cow ribs into pieces with one single blow, how could my uncle think we could catch him?
The owner must have known his uncle for a long time, because he came out from behind the counter with the knife in his hand and walked over to the old man to turn the heat up on him.
“Hold on, let me see here.” He made like he was examining him. “You’re fatter and older. And your partner here doesn’t look so tough. You should have brought a different lackey, because this one isn’t going to last long against my assistant.”
His uncle just stood there, exposing himself completely to the butcher’s knife like he was hanging out with friends.
“Not so fast. They call him Jackie Chan, just so you have an idea. Besides, he’s not my lackey, he’s my nephew.”
“Ah,” said the butcher, studying his face. “Nice to meet you.”
Rangel nodded.
“So, what then? You going to tell your assistant there to get in the car?”
“He’s all grown up; you tell him. Or tell Jackie Chan to get him. Let’s see if he can handle him.”
The giant stared at him. Damn, thought Rangel, is he for real? And he looked at the giant with the ax in his hand. He hadn’t moved since they got there, but Rangel knew he was sizing them up. He’d just need a little push to jump over the counter and attack them both.
“What do you say?” his uncle asked the giant. “You wanna mess around with my nephew?”
But the giant didn’t answer.
“Well,” said the owner, “he doesn’t want to go. You’ll have to carry him, lieutenant, but I don’t think you could. He moves washing machines for fun in his spare time.”
“That’s why I came to see you, Gaptooth.” His uncle got in the butcher’s face, and the butcher did the same, like two bulls sizing each other up. “I’m not going to take him with me, just as long as you give the stuff back. Why are you breaking into my friends’ houses?”
Gaptooth opened his huge mouth and smiled broadly, and Rangel understood where the nickname came from.
“Damn, I can’t believe you, boss! Every time you come around here it turns out you’re trying to help out your friends.”
“It’s not my fault I have so many friends. You already know how I work. You probably just don’t like my car. You want me to come back here in La Julia?”
“No, that truck’s damned ugly and it doesn’t have air-conditioning.” “Don’t worry about it, just imagine you’re in a sauna.”
“And what will my neighbors say?”
“That you went on vacation up north.”
The Nagual Prison was up north, built on a hill of the same name.
Gaptooth laughed again, but he didn’t say anything, and Rangel noticed that the giant was discreetly trying to slip out the back door. Rangel’s uncle also noticed and shot a look at Vicente.
They were standing right in front of the butchers, and Gaptooth hadn’t put his sharp knife down. All he has to do is lift up his hand to cut my uncle’s guts out again, he thought. But even though he was at a disadvantage, his uncle was the one who accelerated the situation. Without moving an inch, without deflecting his body despite the danger he was facing, he broke the tension with an impatient remark.
“Look, Gaptooth, you know I was always straight with you. It’s not in your interest to lose this relationship. The ones coming into power aren’t as patient as I am.”
The butcher considered his options. Finally, he nodded.
“All right, Shorty, tell the lieutenant here where you put those things you found in the trash.”
The giant had a deep voice. “At Teobaldo’s shop.”
“With the Spaniard?”
“Yep, there.”
“Ah, goddamn Teobaldo. When did you take him the stuff?”
“Just yesterday.”
“He already paid you?”
“No.”
“Good. That way you don’t have to give him the money back. Let him know we’re on our way over there.”
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Half an hour later, Rangel helped his uncle put a television, a sound system, and a jewelry case in the trunk. The owner of the place, a Spaniard with Moorish roots, spit a lot and cussed them out.
“I wonder if this is all of it. At least this much is going back where it came from. And don’t take any more stuff that’s been lost, Teobaldo, because I’ll lock you up. This is the last time I give you a warning, dumb-ass. The next time I’m locking you up for good.”
They made a U-turn and went back the same way they came. The car could hardly climb the gravel incline with the additional weight, the wheels were spinning.
As he accelerated with great care, his uncle spat out, “And all this f*cking work so they can say we stole whatever’s still missing.”
Maybe his uncle wouldn’t do it, but any of the other officers would, Rangel thought.
He was appointed to the force a month later, since the chief owed some favors to his uncle. Soon, he started to receive his check every two weeks, much to the surprise of the lackeys who had been waiting for theirs for months. It wasn’t a lot of money, but for other people it was a lot, and that tiny step that was so difficult for Rangel to take, because he thought he was lowering himself, debasing the image that he had of himself, incited a lot of envy among those who worked with him. An example: because of his criminal record, Chávez could never have a stable job and be a normal police officer. According to him, he’d clarified what happened when he stabbed two people—“It was self-defense”—but Chief García didn’t care about that: Chávez was sentenced to being a lackey his entire life, being paid out of the others’ salaries, living at the expense of El Travolta, his partner, who became even more famous with every arrest Chávez made. Chávez took the risks, El Travolta took the credit.
Rangel went and bought some shoes and a pair of pants with the first pesos he got. He trashed his Hawaiian shirts and the pastel-colored suit he had used as a guitarist. A musician had died and a police officer was born.
His days were long. Wake up and iron a shirt, do a few crunches, exercises for the arms, abs, and legs—so as not to end up with his uncle’s potbelly and his smoker’s cough—then he’d take a quick shower and head out to take the first águila (taxis in the port were called águilas, or eagles, because of the union emblem that identified them). He never could beat his uncle to the breakfast spot. No matter how early he woke up, by the time Rangel sat down in the Jewish guy’s place, Don Miguel Rivera had already finished his gigantic plate of chilaquiles with beans, salsa roja, or verde; orange juice; and a sweet dark café de olla. Then they’d go over the cases one by one. Rangel gave him a report from the day before. If no one was visibly eavesdropping on them, his uncle would entrust him with one or two interesting things that were about to happen: apprehensions, rewards, the interception of a gringo shrimper in Mexican federal waters. Then they would leave to clock in and organize themselves for the day. Or days plural. Two days were never the same.
As soon as the work routine seemed normal to him, Rangel noticed that the dark depression that had afflicted him began to disappear, though not completely. It would always come back like a chronic sickness, and he would have to scare it away each time.
He got a semi-used Chevy Nova a year later. He bought it from a coworker who came from the border. He left the nasty downtown room he rented and went to live on the other side of the river, in what he called his mansion: an old wooden house he stumbled upon one day while chasing a suspect. It was one of those old houses that exist in many ports, a house built at the beginning of the century in a New Orleans style. There was a large living room, a kitchen, a small dining area, and two bedrooms in the back. The high ceilings cooled off the inside, and it was a delight to sit on the huge terrace looking out on the river. The mansion belonged to a ranch foreman, and the owner was an elderly woman who charged him a symbolic amount to live there. Behind his house, the cornfields began. Between his house and the dock, there was an eternally muddy path, preventing anyone from coming around to bother him. The houses closest to him belonged to two families of fishermen, and they were located a good distance in front, by the river’s edge. The only sound to be heard was the occasional whistle of departing ferries. After living in a noisy room in the city’s historic downtown near the docks, he got to know something like calm those first afternoons he spent in his mansion, when he would listen to music on the terrace, lying in his hammock with a drink in his hand, looking at the indigo sky and the lights reflected on the river.
Soon, he noticed that once a month El Chicote walked by certain desks to hand out checks with a PETRóLEOS MEXICANOS stamp on them. He also realized that on the fifteenth of every month a guy in an ostentatious suit who looked like an accountant would walk by and leave them tips, courtesy of millionaire John Williams, owner of the local Cola Drinks bottler. And as if this weren’t enough, the chief had a monthly meeting in his office with a guy wearing expensive plaid suits, who, it was said, was the owner of three motels and a gasoline station. After meeting with these people, the chief would always seem to be in a better mood and he’d call a few guys into his office, where he’d hand out some bills in envelopes with the logos of several different government institutions. Then he understood why Chávez and El Travolta spent more money and dressed better than he could, despite making the same. When he asked his uncle how he tolerated all that, his uncle cleared his throat and took a minute before answering.
“Look, Vicente”—he swallowed his saliva—“this is a very complicated job. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do your job, but what I mean to say is that sometimes you can’t . . . or you shouldn’t . . . and if you do, you run into a lot of problems. Your good intentions ricochet back in your face, like you were shooting at a wall.”
One of those afternoons when the guy in the plaid suit came to visit, Chief García sent for him.
“Rangel,” he said, “this is Congressman Tobias Wolffer. Yesterday someone threatened to kidnap his daughter, and I want to help him, because the poor guy’s busy helping the Professors’ Union. I’m going to ask you to drop whatever you’re doing”—the last few days Rangel hadn’t been doing anything—“turn over your cases to someone else, no matter how many there are, and tomorrow, starting at seven A.M. you’re going to be on watch at the lawyer’s house, on the lookout for any suspicious activity.”
Then he spoke to the congressman.
“Rangel is one of our most qualified officers. He was the one who solved the kidnapping in Tantoyuca, Veracruz.”
The chief was exaggerating things, but Rangel wasn’t about to contradict him in front of a benefactor. The chief would often play the role of protector of souls for the people who came to ask him for favors. Normally, the visitors weren’t looking for spiritual help, since Chief García was no saint; rather, among his many other duties, he always represented the only legal means to hire a bodyguard. Rangel asked himself why he had called him, since normally the chief turned to El Travolta, Fatwolf, or Cruz Trevi?o, who’d earned his trust. Him, on the other hand, they respected, but they didn’t involve him in many things, because he was Miguel Rivera’s nephew. Usually, they saw his uncle as an island set apart from the rest; he did his work well, but without rubbing shoulders with the others, and he didn’t normally skim a little off the top when he solved his cases, unlike the rest of them.
Since Rangel was already an experienced officer, he asked himself what Congressman Wolffer’s secret was. When he tried to look him in the eye, Don Tobias looked away from him. No, Rangel said to himself, no one’s threatened this guy. If he wants a police officer to keep watch at his house, it must be for other reasons; maybe he wants someone to keep an eye on his wife. He probably thinks she’s cheating on him.
The next day, he was at his post at ten minutes to seven. The licenciado was waiting for him.
“The last few days, my daughter’s been trying to ditch school. I want you to watch the entrances, and as soon as school’s out bring her home.”
He gave him the keys to a light-blue luxury van and sent for his daughter, a dark-skinned girl who was in sixth grade at a private school run by nuns. She was wearing a thin sweater, even though winter was ending, and it was obvious that she was sweating.
“Do you want me to turn on the air?”
The girl didn’t answer. Where her left sleeve ended, the girl had a huge bruise, as if someone had ruthlessly squeezed her arm. There was a similar mark near her neck—and then Rangel understood the sweater and her long hair, down in this heat. Child abuse; no wonder she didn’t like her dad. Nothing’s going to happen, he told her, but the little girl stayed quiet, looking out the window.
He kept on with that job for eight days. Until Friday the following week when the congressman asked, “She doesn’t give you a lot of trouble, does she? The little brat.”
Rangel answered, “No, but she must have fallen down, because she has some strange marks on her arms. Do you want me to take her to a doctor?” The congressman turned red. “They already looked at her,” he said, “you don’t need to. That’s all for today.”
The worst thing that ever happened to him was his uncle’s death. He thought about quitting. He was left up in the air, without anyone to support him at headquarters, and immediately the other officers set about making his life impossible, above all El Travolta and Chávez, until one afternoon he got into a fistfight with Wong. Even though Wong planted a right hook in his face, Rangel was agile enough to dodge the following punch and give him an impeccable kick. That was enough for them to stop messing with him.
What he regretted most was that his uncle had died suddenly, before he’d finished teaching Rangel the job. That was why he thought about submitting his resignation. Or he’d just stop going. He felt really nervous: he was just a musician faking at being a police officer, he hadn’t finished his training period, and his teacher, the only trustworthy officer, had died. That’s why, every time he found himself in a complicated situation, he asked himself: Would my uncle have done it this way? And it seemed like he could hear a voice giving him advice: The surprise factor, look for the surprise factor, nephew. The person, the most important thing is the person; learn to get inside his skin. Or his most memorable advice: The first impression is the most important, don’t forget that, nephew: who got you this job anyway? The reason why he was doing well in the job was that the majority of the other officers focused their attention on a small, set group of people, but he always stepped out of the box and looked farther afield.
They got a call from El Travolta around midnight. Rangel knew because he noticed Cruz Trevi?o 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 Trevi?o 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 Trevi?o 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 Trevi?o 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 Trevi?o 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.
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His hands were stinging as he left headquarters. What the f*ck, 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—f*cking 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, Jo?o 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.