The Black Minutes

9

Get one thing straight: as long as you’re in this business, you’re not going to have any friends. You heard right: not one friend. Everyone who gets close to you is going to ask for something or want to use you for something. You can’t trust anybody. A police officer doesn’t have friends when he’s doing his job; a police officer only has enemies. The trick is to learn how to avoid them.
Don’t tell anybody where you live and never open your door in one fell swoop, just in case they’re messing with you. If you eat out for lunch, look for a seat where they can’t surprise you (the doors, keep an eye on the doors), and if you have to be next to a window, close the curtain or lower the light, so they won’t be able to shoot at you from outside.
Don’t drink too much, don’t take drugs, don’t go into a dark place unarmed, don’t make deals with people from that world (the criminal world, I mean, but don’t make deals with your coworkers, either, just in case one day they get sick of you and want to get rid of you), and like the santeros say, put a glass of water next to your bed every night and pray to Saint Judas Martyr; just in case your soul gets thirsty, you don’t want it to head off looking for a drink and never come back.
One day, years ago, Rangel and his uncle had just got back from making an arrest, when Lolita called them aside.
“Lieutenant, a man came to look for you. It was an older gentleman, about eighty years old. He left you a book.”
His uncle’s face lit up. “Look at that, what good news!”
Don Miguel smiled big and showed the book to Rangel. It was a copy of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, dedicated To my good friend, Don Miguel Rivera. And it was signed T, just like that, all alone on the page, like a cross.
“A man about eighty years old, leather jacket and a straw hat?”
“Yeah. He said he was staying in the same place as always.”
The old man nodded his head and went to make a phone call. Twenty minutes later he asked his nephew, “You got a lot of work right now?”
“The usual.”
“Drop what you’re doing and meet me at the bar in the Hotel Inglaterra at two.”
At two o’clock on the dot, Rangel met his uncle at one of the tables in the middle of the bar. A man with graying hair was at his side, a straw-colored hat on the seat next to him.
“Vicente,” his uncle said, “I’d like to introduce Mr. Traven Torsvan, a writer.”
They ate lunch at a restaurant on the riverbank: a few giant shrimp; an oyster, octopus and ceviche cocktail; little cheese tortillas; and the house specialty: crabs à la Frank (crab meat with cheese and a magnificent olive oil). During the lunch, Mr. Torsvan took out a copy of The Death Ship and signed it for Rangel.
“You don’t see the waiter, do you?”
“No.”
“He hasn’t been paying any attention to us. If you see him, wave him over.”
But the waiter was nowhere to be seen.
“Where do you live?”
“On the other side of the river. Near the dock.”
“Near the Williams hacienda?”
“Right next door, in the foreman’s house.”
“And you know what they say about that house? I’ll tell you the story while we wait to order.”
As you know, the Williams family came from Germany, escaping from the First World War. They settled all along the coast and their largest property, their hacienda, started here in Paracuán and extended all the way to the Cerro del Nagual: as far as the eye can see. The oldest son, who was a bum, a drinker, and a womanizer, went to live in Haiti. When his father died, he returned to run the hacienda. He did it for a month, but soon his employees started to die. An animal was eating them in the forest, a tiger. It was hunting them down. It was so strong it could carry a man in his jaws and eat him up in a tree where no one could stop him. Bullets didn’t affect him, even if the rifle had been blessed.
One of the few men who survived an encounter with the tiger spread the rumor that the animal looked like the young Mr. Williams and even had his same eyes. After that point, no one wanted to go near the hacienda. It seemed that the employees killed were those who had worked closest to Mr. Williams in the past few weeks. Some people said it was the ghost of the old man, that his son had cast a spell on him and forced him to wander around like a lost soul. Others thought it was the son himself. In any case, the animal was going to eat them one by one. They tried to kill it with silver-tipped bullets, but no marksman could shoot it; the tiger was always too quick for them. The ones who wanted to leave and go somewhere else found themselves locked in by huge iron fences and guards preventing their escape: they had signed a contract, and they had to work on the ranch until the end of the year.
Soon they realized the animal attacked on a schedule, once every thirty days. It attacked once and then relaxed for three weeks. Each time it made it’s monthly kill, the survivors would breathe easier; they had another three weeks to live.
Five months later, it was the turn of the poorest family on the ranch. Mr. Williams went to visit them and said one of them was to go into the depths of the forest to guard the harvest. The oldest brother excused himself, because he had four children; the second brother did the same, because his wife was expecting twins; and the third, who was said to be incredibly brave, was terrified and burst into tears. Then the youngest in the family asked for them to let him go. He was named Jacinto and he was fifteen years old; everyone loved the boy. Perfect, said Mr. Williams, and he left.
When Mr. Williams’s niece found out, the girl, who had been Jacinto’s playmate, went to see the boy and gave him a packet with a word of advice. The boy didn’t doubt the girl’s sincerity, but he asked himself, What if the others got the same advice? Unlike his friends, he didn’t take a rifle with him into the jungle, just a few chickens and the girl’s packet. When night fell, he made a fire and started to make an exquisite dinner. When it was so dark he couldn’t see beyond the fire, he heard something close by, stepping on some twigs. He stood up, grasping a picture of the Virgin Mary. And the tiger showed up. Just as people said, the animal was huge and horrific, more than six feet long. It had claws the size of knives instead of hands. It’s tail was as thick as an elephant’s trunk, and it had long whiskers. Its hair was blond with black stripes. It’s eyes were green. And it smiled, its tongue hanging out of its mouth. The animal came up and said, “Good evening, may I sit down?”
“Of course,” said Jacinto, “please take a seat, sir.”
“Whatever you’re cooking smells great. What is it?”
“Chicken with boiled cabbage.”
“Ah, sauerkraut. And those bottles you’re chilling, what are they?”
“Riesling wine.”
“Riesling wine from Germany! It’s been a long time since I ate sauerkraut and drank Riesling wine. And it’s my favorite dish. Are you going to ask me to eat with you?”
“Yes, sir. All of this is for you.”
“OK,” the tiger said, “but don’t think I’m going to spare your life. I’ll eat the sauerkraut and the chickens, and afterward I’ll have you for dinner as well.”
“As you wish, sir.” And Jacinto rushed to pour the wine.
After taking the first bite, the tiger said something had hurt; maybe there was a stone in the food. “It must have been a chicken bone,” said Jacinto, and the animal took another bite, licking its whiskers. After finishing the first chicken, the beast asked Jacinto for the second. Then it ate the third and the fourth. The fifth one was eaten directly from the pot. As the beast ate, Jacinto served the first, the second, and finally the third bottle of wine. As it drank, the animal was getting happier and happier, and it roared in between bites. When Jacinto served the second bottle, it was talking to itself and singing in German. When he poured the third bottle, the animal scratched his arm. When it had finished the last chicken, it threw the pot and shouted, “The appetizers were good, but now it’s time for dinner!” The animal stood up and, taking its first step toward Jacinto, slipped and fell. Jacinto took advantage of the animal’s being drunk to escape.
Everyone was surprised to see Jacinto come back. And they were even more surprised to see the young Mr. Williams fall ill that same day. First, they said, “He woke up with a headache.” And then: “He’s sick; he ate something that made him sick.” The foreman, another German, went to ask Jacinto if he had run into an animal in the forest. Jacinto said no. “Are you sure you didn’t see anything?” Jacinto was positive.
The second day, the foreman went to ask if he hadn’t seen a tiger or something like that. “And you didn’t notice if that animal hurt itself somehow?”
“No,” said Jacinto, “I didn’t see anything.”
The third day, Mr. Williams died. The doctor who examined him said there were five silver bullets in his body. “One perfectly hidden in each chicken,” said Jacinto.
From then on, the workers didn’t have any other problems. Jacinto married the old man’s niece and they founded a soda company, Cola Drinks. That’s why the Williamses are dark-skinned with light-colored eyes.
“Ah,” Mr. Torsvan concluded, “finally the waiter is here. What are you going to have?”
After lunch they drank a bottle of whiskey, then coffee.
“Why don’t you take us to visit your mansion, Vicente?” his uncle suggested. “You can see the dock from there. Besides, it’s not far from here.”
They bought a bottle of cognac and Mr. Torsvan handed a cigar to each of them. Since the old men wanted to see the ships, Rangel set them up in rocking chairs on the terrace, so they would be able to talk at ease. The breeze coming off the river scared away the mosquitoes and made the heat more bearable.
The sun descended slowly in the sky, lighting up the other side of the river. Don Miguel Rivera was happy. “In the twenties, you could see javelinas and deer drinking from the river. Do you remember?” he asked the German. “You lived around here.”
“Yes,” he replied.
“You had to kick them to scare them away.”
Ah, Uncle Miguel, Vicente thought to himself. He’d never seen him so happy. Obviously he was happy to run into his buddy.
Half an hour later, Don Miguel Rivera poured the last glass and confessed, “Vicente, I’m thinking of retiring.”
“Really? Why?”
“It’s about that time.”
“No way. What are you talking about?”
“Wait a second, let me speak. As I was saying to you, I’ve been in this job forty years, and the other day I really started to think.”
He was referring to something that had happened recently. Eight days before, while they were chasing a thief on the docks, Rangel had noticed that his uncle was short of breath, so he parked the patrol car and let the suspect go. “It’s over,” the old man said. “You had that a*shole.”
“Don’t worry, Uncle, your health is the most important thing.” And they went to see Dr. Ridaura.
“It’s been forty years. Besides, I hadn’t told you, but there’s a killer on my tracks.”
“What!” Rangel shouted. “You should have told me, tío. Tell me now, and I’ll go look for him.”
“They call him the silent killer. And when that killer’s after you, there’s no reason to take any risks.”
“No, don’t get ahead of yourself, tío. We’ll look for him and put him in his f*cking place. Besides, if you retire, I retire, too. What am I going to do by myself?”
“If you like it, keep at it. I think you’re made for this. How long have you been working, a year?”
“A year and a half.”
“That’s right. When I retire, I’m going to leave my pistol to you, to help keep you out of trouble.”
“Yeah, but don’t say that. You’ve got a long time till retirement.”
“We’ll see.”
“The first ones your uncle arrested,” said Mr. Torsvan, “were Cain and Abel.”
“Look, skipper, you can’t say anything; you’ve got ten years on me.”
“That’s why you should show some respect.”
“If you’re so respectable, why don’t you write anymore?”
“Of course I’m writing. I just finished a novel for children. It’s the story of a woodcutter who gets lost in the jungle. A run-in with God, the devil, and death.”
“It’s all fairy tales. Why don’t you write something more realistic, something more serious, more worthy of you? That story about the woodcutter has been told a thousand times!”
“You want a serious story? Vicente, I’ll tell you the story of a police officer who let a guy with no papers go in the thirties.”
Rangel thought, What are they talking about?
“You know, your uncle knew who B. Traven was and didn’t turn him in. All around the world, the press would have paid to find out who Traven really was. Even though your uncle knew, he let him go. A long time after that, when Dr. Quiroz Cuarón discovered Traven’s identity, he boasted about being the best detective in the world. I had to tell him: But you aren’t, Dr. Quiroz. The first one to find out was Don Miguel Rivera in the port of Paracuán, more than thirty years ago.”
“More than forty,” said his uncle.
“Who’s telling this story, you or me?”
“Well, if you’re going to tell that one again, you’ll have to forgive me but I’m going to go lie down. Will that hammock hold me, Vicente?”
“Yeah, go right ahead.”
His uncle stood up. “Excuse me, skipper,” he put his hand on the older man’s shoulder. “This officer is retiring from circulation.”
“Go and relax, you deserve it at your age.”
His uncle laughed loudly and patted his friend on the shoulder, then headed off to the hammock.
Torsvan sang a few verses in a foreign tongue, which made Rangel’s ears perk up. “Excuse me, sir, where are you from? Are you German?”
“What? You don’t understand me when I speak Spanish? Is my pronunciation that bad?”
“Of course not, your Spanish is very good.”
“Then I’m Mexican.”
And since he could see Rangel was surprised, he told his story.
“I came to Tampico in 1929. I got here in the cargo ship Alabama, with no money and no papers. They had kicked me out of three countries. I was in the Alps, between France, Belgium, and Holland. At that moment, they were kicking me out of Belgium, so I considered my options. If I went to Holland, the sentence for traveling without papers was six months in a nasty prison, sharing a cell with a lot of shady characters with bad food and the chill of the cold at night. That was the punishment in Holland. In Belgium, it was eight months, but I knew the Belgian police were looking to give me a good beating if I went back to cross the border again. If I waited for my escort to leave and went back to Belgium, most likely they’d still be waiting for me, and before locking me up for six months with only bread and water, they’d torture me: those border guards were a mean lot. If I returned to France, they would sentence me to ten months in jail, but I’d be well fed, with decent food and a blanket. So I went to France. After they kicked me out of Spain, I went to Portugal and then to Mexico, as I already told you. I lived between Tampico and Paracuán, and then in Acapulco and Chiapas.
“I met your uncle in ’twenty-nine. I was able to avoid deportation that year. Someone who wanted to do me harm reported me as illegally in the country. The average cop would have taken advantage of the situation, but your uncle came to interrogate me, understood my case, and didn’t bother me again. Curious, no? I’ve only told the story of this part of my life twice, and both times Lieutenant Rivera was present. I’d say the circle is closing, wouldn’t you?
“Imagine it’s 1928, a little before the Great Depression. Imagine a young German playwright—handsome, strong, intelligent—and imagine an actor. Do you know who Peter Lorre is? No? It’s not really important, but he was of his best friends. The playwright is becoming very popular. At that point in his life they are mounting his third production in Germany, and people wait in long lines to get in to see it. Offers from producers rain down; he has to push actresses away, everyone wants to work with him. His girlfriend is one of the most well-known blondes of the stage. They swore their eternal love for each other, and he’s thinking of writing a drama so she can play the lead.
“One day at the end of the play they tell him a producer wants to meet him. Usually, the playwright would not have seen him, since those matters were his agent’s responsibility, but the playwright was about to have a birthday and thought it was a joke by the owner of the theater. So he received the visitor in his girlfriend’s dressing room, and instead of the ostentatious millionaire he was used to dealing with, he found three men dressed with a marked simplicity; they hadn’t polished their shoes and one of them had a suit with patches on it. From the start of the conversation, the playwright behaved as if he were playing a role, and that was his error; it’s enough to fake your belief in something to make that something become reality.
“The playwright asked in an exaggerated tone: ‘What can I do for you, gentlemen?’
“‘Mr. Torsvan, I presume? A pleasure. We are Misters Le Rouge, Le Jaune, and Le Noir.’
“‘I guess they’re fake names.’ The playwright was pleased with the apparent joke.
“The one who seemed the most together says to him, ‘they told us to come and see your work and we weren’t disappointed. We enjoyed it quite a bit, and we’d like to make you an offer.’
“The playwright appreciates the kind words but doesn’t know how to respond. These guys want to hire him? How are they going to pay him? Do they really not know how much he charges? They ask him if he thinks the same way as the play’s main character and he explains to them that the author always identifies with his characters, but that in this play in particular, his favorite character is indeed the young idealistic lawyer who defends the poor. The playwright notices them nudging each other, and they decide to continue. They ask him very intelligent questions about the background of his stories, very honest questions like simple people ask.
“With his interest piqued, he asks them what their offer is all about. They look at one another, and one of them sticks his hand in his suit jacket and hands him a paper. When he unrolls it, he notices the poster is printed in red ink, with a hammer and sickle. They were members of the German Communist Party, which at the time was underground. They defended the workers, organized resistance groups, and wanted to build unions, and that was why their lives were in danger.
“‘You haven’t realized it, but your plays have a lot in common with our struggle. We want to hire you to write a play for us.’
‘Yes, the other visitor added, your new play could change a lot of lives.’
“‘Change lives? That’s not my project,’ the playwright argued. ‘I’m looking for other things. Besides, a writer requires a certain comfortable environment to write peacefully.’ He thought this was going to scare them off, but one of them, wearing worn-out shoes, stepped forward and offered him an envelope. The playwright opened it and looked through its contents. ‘Ha, you must be joking. I’m very sorry, but it’s too little. I spend this in a weekend!’
“‘What for some is very little, for others represents a lot of work,’ they told him. ‘Thirty of our most dedicated comrades worked extra hours for months to collect that money. It represents the sweat and toil of three dozen workers.’
“The playwright stutters. He says he already has deals for his next two plays and he doesn’t have time to write on request, but they insist. They tell him that his play is going to be important, it’s going to change many people’s lives, and he has to write it. To clear up any doubt, they invite him to attend one of their clandestine gatherings. When? Right now. Always looking for new subjects, he accepts the invitation and leaves the envelope on his girlfriend’s dressing table, hidden behind a number of actors’ photos and bottles of makeup.
“OK, so as not to draw the story out, he ends up accepting. What he sees in the meetings moves him and reveals a part of the world he didn’t know about until then. Inconceivable stories for a civilized country, incredible injustice, regions of suffering he should have known about. So he drops everything and sets to work on that play, he helps mount the production, and he even participates in the rehearsals. A week before the opening, there’s an important meeting. The playwright attends the meeting with his actors, but they’re attacked by the police and many are shot. They take him for dead and throw him in the truck with the other bodies. He saves himself from being killed, because he jumps out of the truck as soon as it starts up.
“He crosses the border into France; he’s illegal in five countries in Europe. Finally, he’s able to board a ship in Portugal and get to the United States, but they don’t let him in. He takes the cargo ship Alabama and gets off in the Gulf of Mexico.
“He gets to a town, Tampico: What a town! Afterward he moves to Paracuán. He sends a letter to his girlfriend using a false name. He tells her what happened and asks for her help. With the money he earned on the ship, he rents a little room on the docks and waits, but the money disappears quickly. He has to do any and every job just to make it as an illegal. He becomes a stevedore on the docks, a delivery man in the market, a worker in the oil wells. A hard, hard life! He lives in horrible rooming houses, on flea-ridden cots, sharing a room with twenty other people. When there’s no work, he begs for money from foreigners. He ends up fighting over a cigarette butt with other bums.
“Every Friday, he goes to check the mail to see if he got a letter. There is no response for months. Once, he gets a contract to work in the most remote of the oil wells. He has to work fourteen hours under the relentless sun, in a place where tigers are heard roaring at night. He’s there for two months. He loses more than twenty pounds.
“When he gets back from the oil well, they tell him he got a telegram from the United States. The playwright almost tears up the envelope, he’s so excited. The letter is from his girlfriend, who was able to leave the country and is living in New York. She doesn’t give any address. If you are alive, she writes, send a letter to this post box. A week later, she sends him a money order for two hundred dollars (a fortune for someone who doesn’t have a cent) and asks him to wait for her in Tampico at the Hotel Inglaterra.
“He goes to the barber shop, buys a new outfit, lives in a cheap but more respectable hostel than the ones he used previously, and a week before his girlfriend arrives, he moves to the designated hotel. The white room seems huge and empty to him. He knows that everything is OK, but as the days pass, he is overtaken with doubt: Why didn’t she tell me to meet her at the border? Why didn’t she tell me to meet her in New York? Why couldn’t she drop everything and come look for me?
“When she finally arrives, the playwright goes to meet her at the docks. They hug for a long time, and she tells him that he can’t go back to Germany. Officially he is said to be dead, but the police are waiting to kill him. They read his Communist play and know he supported the organization. ‘This has to be very clear,’ she says, ‘you can’t go back. They know you’re alive. They’re looking for you to kill you.’
“He tells her he doesn’t care; the best thing is that she has found him and finally they are going to be together again. ‘Oh, Torsvan,’ the girl explains, ‘I have to tell you something,’ and she pulls loose from his arms. While he was in jail in France, she met a movie director, a Mr. Lang, and they were married. ‘Understand, we thought you were dead. I’m at the prime of my life, it was a huge opportunity. We don’t have a future together. The best thing would be for you to stay in this country and forget about me.’ He doesn’t respond, but goes out onto the balcony for a cigarette, watching the ships take up their anchors and set out from the docks. He stays there for a long time, even though she calls for him from inside. He realizes the Communists were right; his play changed at least one life—his own.
“He decides to turn his life around. Back inside, he asks his girlfriend, ‘And the money? Were you able to take out my savings?’”
“‘I’m sorry, Torsvan. They canceled your accounts; the only thing I could recover was this. Do you want me to lend you money? No? Then take this.’ And she hands him the envelope he left in her dressing room, the envelope from the three Communists. What a paradox! He, who used to spend that amount in a weekend, is now forced to make it last for a while.
“When she leaves, he decides to grow his own food. In all, he lives for a year on the money from the envelope. He buys the basics to hunt and plant crops and he goes to the country, between Tampico and Paracuán. He rents half the fields from an Indian. He lives in a wood hut, where there are scorpions as big as his hand. Every morning, he takes an insect out of his shoes. To get water, he has to walk almost two miles. He writes a novel living like that—really, autobiography disguised as fiction—in which he tells the story of his escape from Germany. Then he writes two others about his experiences in the jungle. There comes a time when he decides to do something with them, and, using a pseudonym, he sends them to his former theatrical agent. He knows he’s playing with fire and this could cost him his life, but despite it all he signs with his mother’s maiden name, that almost no one knows, and instead of his first name he uses the single letter B. Inventing that initial, he thinks it through like this: until they killed me, I lived on the A side of my life; now I’m on the B side.
“His agent responds with an enthusiastic letter, saying that he likes the books but that he only works with plays, but B. Traven insists: They have spoken very highly of you; they say you are an honest person. The agent doesn’t promise anything but tells him he will try.
“A year and half later, the writer receives another telegram. He has a contract for his first novel. A year later, it’s a bestseller in Europe. He sells a hundred thousand copies in the United States. There’s an offer to make a movie out of the third novel; they want John Huston to direct. He gets mountains of letters, and the most frequent comment is: Your novel has changed my life. At that moment, the author says, I don’t understand anything anymore, and he moves to Mexico City.”
Mr. Torsvan doesn’t say another word. Rangel takes the chance to ask, “Do you think a person like me could find his path again?”
To respond, the writer takes out an old gold coin, a heavy little German mark shimmering in the afternoon light.
“Are we, each of us, just one person or are we inhabited by a multitude?”
And he handed him the coin. Rangel took another sip from his drink. It was a splendid afternoon, and his uncle was missing it! So he decided to wake him.
“Tío,” he said.
But Miguel Rivera Gonzáles didn’t answer. He had died in his sleep, after smoking a cigar and drinking half a bottle with his friends.
Since they didn’t know what to do, they called Dr. Ridaura, who came and took his pulse and placed a mirror under his nose, but it didn’t steam up.
“The silent killer,” she said, and since the others gave no sign of understanding, she added, “That’s what they call high blood pressure. It kills quickly and leaves no trace. One day you’re healthy and the next day, bam! Believe me, I’m so sorry. He was a good person.”
They buried him on Friday afternoon. In attendance were Mr. Torsvan, the mayor at the time, all his police coworkers, from the night watchman to the chief, and, a little removed from the crowd, two dozen residents of the Colonia Coralillo.
Three days later, still grieving, Rangel had to go to the wreck of a place where his uncle lived to gather up his personal effects. His ex-wife kept the money in his bank account, which she was supposed to distribute to the kids, and Rangel took away the rest. He kept a picture of his uncle and Mr. Torsvan and some other people. If Rangel had had some knowledge of the movie world, he would have known that those individuals were Humphrey Bogart and John Huston, and that the picture was taken during the filming of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in the port of Tampico . . . but Rangel wasn’t an educated guy.
To his surprise, he found four records: Los Panchos’ 15 Hits, Supersonico by Ray Conniff, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and Frank Sinatra’s “Somethin’ Stupid”: his uncle was eclectic. Without saying a word, he piled up the suits, the ties, the white shirts, the shoes, and the jackets that he was going to throw out. He only kept two things: the thirty-eight caliber Colt and the shoulder holster.