The Black Minutes

11

Rangel turned on the car radio and heard the sound of mysterious drumbeats. It was the voice of Rubén Blades: “The roar of the roiling sea / the waves break at the horizon / the blue-green of the great Caribe glistens / in the majesty of the setting sun.” Since he stopped playing and dedicated himself to his current work, Rangel’s only pastime was listening to music, certain music that helped him disconnect from everything: Rubén Blades, Willie Colón, Ray Barretto, Benny Moré, disco music, soul, Aretha Franklin, the sappy songs by Marvin Gaye, blues, Eric Clapton, the rhythms of Creedence, the harmonies of the Beatles, but no corridos or Rigo Tovar, even if they were in style. He had lived without a record player ever since that ill-fated Sunday when he decided to kick it to pieces because it reminded him of a certain person. He didn’t get another one until he saw the sales at Mr. Guillén’s store, but he hardly ever used it. Now his time for daily leisure activities consisted of the songs that he listened to in his Chevy Nova, while going to or coming from the office. But something must really be going wrong, the policeman reasoned, when even his last refuge had become unbearable. The Panamanian’s lyrics had taken on another dimension:
The shark goes out looking
the shark never sleeps
the shark out on the prowl
the shark a bad omen.
Holy shit, thought Rangel, this case is really getting to me.
Anyone else would have gone home and focused on his own life, but Rangel was a good and decent police officer and felt obligated to arrest the person who was guilty. Against the advice of his uncle, he was becoming obsessed with these girls who’d been killed. Look, Vicente, you have to toughen up so your work doesn’t affect you so much. Get a thicker skin; listen to what I’m telling you and don’t dick around. You gotta understand you can’t get involved in your cases and keep your objectivity. When you make a job into a personal issue, your blind spot grows, you can’t see clearly, and that can get really dangerous. You have to work from outside, like it’s someone else who’s dealing with all this stuff.
The fog is getting thicker, Vicente thought; as far as he could see, the street was empty. It looks like a ghost town, he said to himself. Whenever there’s fog, it’s always the same; everyone runs to their houses to escape the heat. It’s what I should do myself. He was exhausted. The only thing he wanted to do was roll into bed and sleep eight hours. Get rid of his worries, forget the pain in his hands, the fight with El Travolta, the accumulated tension. But sometimes we make tiny decisions that change our lives, without even noticing it. Just when Rubén Blades sang,
And the horizon swallows up the sun
and the volatile sea begins to calm
you can hear the mermaids’ lullabies
captivating the sky with their song,
Rangel turned to the right, looking for a way out.
When he got to the corner of Ejército and Aduana, he saw the outrageous neon lights at the Cherokee Music Disco, a second-rate club that was going from bad to worse. He said, Oh, shit, and parked. He had enough money to down a few drinks, even to leave with a bar girl, and still be able to eat like a king the following day at breakfast at Klein’s. Besides, today was a show day. Every Tuesday, starting at eleven, the Cherokee Music Disco attracted a good number of hookers, and there was a show where they danced in bathing suits. Rangel decided he wasn’t going to take one home, but he thought he should distract himself for a few hours, send his brain on vacation, forget about the case for a while.
It was past eleven. Before turning off the car, he heard some more Rubén Blades lyrics:
The stars are shining in the night
the moon rests in the silence
only the shark is still on the prowl.
He was just getting out of his vehicle when two kids ran up to him: “I’ll take care of it, man” and “You want it washed, chief?” Rangel shook his head and headed to the club.
El Watusi and Juan Pachanga were guarding the main entrance to the Cherokee. El Watusi was a black man from Jalapa, almost six and a half feet tall, who had previously been a fisherman. Juan Pachanga was the administrator, always a little tipsy, a few whis-keys above sea level. Since they knew Rangel by sight, they let him go in without searching him, like they should have done. For sure, they can see how tired I am, thought Rangel. A sign was hanging off his face that said: DON’T BOTHER ME.
He pushed aside a beaded curtain and waited a second while he got used to the contradictions of the place. Even though there was one of those mirror balls spinning nonstop at the center of the dance floor, the music was a salsa by Roberto Roena: “You’re loco-loco . . . and I’m chill.” The decoration was leftover from the prior owner, Freaky Villarreal, a disco music aficionado who went bankrupt and had to sell the business. Another person bought the club and salsa pushed the Village People aside.
The bar had started to liven up. Four bar girls danced on the floor, and their mistress, Madam Kalalú, was mingling with the regulars, leaning on the bar in a wispy red dress, with her customary cigar in her mouth. As soon as she saw him, she sent him two bar girls, who went to give him the traditional welcome. As soon as someone came into the Cherokee, one or more of these scantily dressed women would rush to stroke him suggestively a little, so the new guy would buy them a drink. The ones who hugged the detective now, wrapping themselves around him like a pair of boa constrictors, were very disappointed, because Rangel sent them away with an ugly gesture. He had walked over to the bar when he heard someone talking to him.
“Jackie Chan!”
It took him a minute to recognize the butcher from the Colonia Coralillo, the black man he had almost arrested with his uncle. He didn’t seem to have any hard feelings and raised his glass to toast him. He was at a nearby table with two other guys and three bar girls. As he remembered the circumstances of their last meeting, Rangel moved his head discreetly to say hello and continued on his way. Two steps from the bar, he heard someone else shout his name—“Rangel!”—and saw that the Evangelist was motioning to him from another table close by. Rangel accepted the fact that the solitude he longed for was not possible and went to sit with his colleagues.
Wong and Cruz Trevi?o were with the Evangelist. A bar girl was comforting Cruz. There was a half-empty Bacardi bottle in the middle of the table, about the size of an elephant’s foot. Since the Evangelist had a Coke in front of him, Rangel assumed that the rum was flowing through Cruz Trevi?o’s six-foot, three-hundred-pound frame. Cruz hadn’t even seen him come in. The Evangelist offered his hand, and Rangel did the same.
“What’s up, John One Four?” Every time they saw each other, Rangel rebaptized the Evangelist with a verse from the Bible. “I thought you didn’t drink. Aren’t you condemning yourself?”
“Of course not. I’m just taking care of this sinner, making sure he doesn’t get himself killed.” The Evangelist pointed to his partner, who was trying to explain something to the bar girl.
“Hey, man.”
Rangel said hello to Cruz Trevi?o, whose head swayed until his eyes focused on the musician; then he extended a huge hand, with a lot of effort, and finally crashed it into Vicente’s palm. Then Cruz Trevi?o pointed at him with the other hand and said a few words under his breath. Rangel didn’t understand a thing. Even though his relationship with the giant was passable, Rangel always kept a certain distance to avoid problems. Just like El Travolta, Cruz Trevi?o had some kind of teenage problem, always about to explode. That was his personality. He’d get red with anger at the slightest affront.
“What’d he say?” the Evangelist asked him. “I didn’t get it.”
“He’s fed up with his boss,” the bar girl mumbled, so drunk she swayed back and forth. She was a fake redhead in a green sequined dress. “He says he’s a f*cking a*shole.”
The giant nodded his head in agreement.
“Who knows what’s going on?” shouted Wong. You had to scream to be heard in that club. “They’re saying the Federal Safety Administration is going to come.”
Rangel felt a shiver make its way up his spine; the FSA was the Mexican president’s personal police force. The last time agents from the Federal Safety Administration had visited the port was in 1971, during the repression of the student movement. That was the year Rangel got to the port, but people told him that his uncle had had to do everything he could to stay clear of their abuse. They called a student who witnessed the massacre to make a statement, and as soon as he sat down, one of the agents, a deaf mute, stood up and punched him in the eye. There’s no need to hit him, Lieutenant Rivera had said, the young man came of his own volition. They let the student go, but things were really tense for months, and people thought the government agents would retaliate.
“Get yourself a Coke,” the Evangelist told him, “it’s the only nonalcoholic drink in the bar.”
Rangel was still deep in thought, and since he didn’t respond, the Evangelist took a cup that looked clean, poured the petroleum-colored liquid, and offered it to Rangel, but before the drink reached its destination, Cruz Trevi?o grabbed it from him, dumped its contents on the floor, and filled it up halfway with rum. Then he handed it over to the new guy with an animalistic roughness.
“No, compadre, what’s wrong with you? Our friend wasn’t going to drink, I don’t want any craziness,” the Evangelist protested, but the giant lifted a finger and pointed at Rangel, as if to say it was an order. “Fine, fine,” said the Evangelist, and whispered to Vicente, “Let him have his way; he’s already bent out of shape.”
At that moment, the song ended and they heard a screeching noise that nearly burst their eardrums. Then a voice started to test the sound equipment with a tap on the microphone and the traditional “Testing . . . one, two, three . . . testing.” There was one last screech and the DJ announced to the elegant clientele that the Cherokee Music Machine was pleased to present that night’s show: a contest between the elegant ladies of the Mulatto Dancing Club, direct from our sister republic of Chihuahua, here to entertain you with a few classy melodies. They put on “El Bodeguero,” and the dance floor filled up with artificial smoke. In the darkness, a half dozen girls did their best to reach the dance floor without being pinched.
“They’re spring chickens,” said the bar girl, and since Rangel didn’t respond, she added, “I already saw them, they’re not professionals. They don’t know how to move their hips, and they don’t show their breasts.”
As soon as the girls came out on the dance floor, the policeman noticed something was wrong. There were six presentable young ladies, wearing tight outfits. There were two artificial blondes, two long-haired dark-skinned girls, a black, and a Chinese. They didn’t look like conventional hookers; the oldest one was about twenty-five years old and the fattest one weighed about 130 very-well-distributed pounds. In terms of their clothes, they looked straight out of an Olivia Newton-John movie.
“Sinners,” said the Evangelist.
Just like the announcer had said, the girls fanned out on the aerodynamic dance floor and started doing a supersonic dance. Rangel thought that the choreography was too structured for a show in a place like this. They didn’t move in a sexy or provocative way, and so, as they always did when something reeked of culture, the distinguished clientele of the Cherokee started to yawn. Insults would follow quickly.
One of the dancers lifted her hands and arched her back as she fell to her knees on the dance floor. Her gesture would have had better luck in a TV program, not on this well-used floor, designed for dancing to Jackson Five songs. Up until that moment, Rangel didn’t understand what was going on: It’s modern dance, he thought; they’re modern dancers. As he realized this, he imagined what would come next: the humiliation of the dancers and widespread booing. Poor girls, he said to himself, that’s what’s gonna happen.
Rangel took the glass the giant offered him, added two ice cubes, and drank half. He put the glass back on the table. Let’s see, he said to himself: the chief doesn’t want to mess with Jack Williams. Instead of assigning me to the case, he orders me to take crime reports and gives the case to El Travolta. Then he chews me out like I had anything to do with those f*cking flyers; Congressman Wolffer shows up in his office, and he gives me a huge tip. If Uncle Miguel were sitting here, with his customary white shirt and shoulder holster, he would have snorted and leaned toward him: Ah, you’re so stupid, Vicente. Did they only hire you because you knew somebody? Look at the facts; that’s where you’ll find the answers, if you know how to think it through.
The salsa was still rattling the speakers, and a second girl moved a few steps forward to meet the first girl. She fell to her knees and lifted up her hands.
“F*cking bitches, what are you smoking?” screamed the bar girl.
Cruz Trevi?o finished off his drink suddenly and the redhead prepared him another one. Rangel asked himself why the chief was trying to distract him. It seemed unthinkable that the old man would protect the murderer, not because of professional ethics but because that kind of thing is always found out, and there was still a chance of his being removed from his post. That’s not the answer, he decided. The chief wasn’t stupid; he wasn’t going to risk his job. In his opinion, it could only be due to one or two reasons, Rangel decided; either someone very powerful had ordered him to freeze the investigation or—more likely—he was trying to get the reward for himself.
In the distance, Rangel made out a person in a white shirt and glasses who was doing his best to get around El Watusi and Juan Pachanga. It’s over, Rangel thought, here comes this idiot. The character finally got to the dance floor, looked around, and came to sit down with him: it was the Blind Man, the guy who wanted to be his gofer.
“Hey, boss, I just came to say thanks for the envelope.”
“Don’t call me boss.”
“Call me master, for so I am. John thirteen, verse thirteen,” said the Evangelist.
“Sit down. And you, f*cking fanatic, go evangelize the neighborhoods on the North Side.”
“Do you want a drink?” the bar girl asked. “Cruz is paying.”
Rangel thought about leaving, but he heard a sudden pattering on the roof, growing louder. A violent rain shower had started, like a creature with a thousand fists slamming into the corrugated sheet metal. F*ck, he said to himself, I can’t leave now.
“What?” He had to scream at the Blind Man.
“I asked if you’re interested in getting the reward, Mr. Rangel. It’s four years’ salary. Four years! Imagine everything you could buy with that money.”
Rangel didn’t answer. To the left of the bar girl, Wong nodded off on the table.
When the dancers passed by, Rangel, already loosened up by the drink, decided they looked pretty good. The majority looked better when they weren’t fooling around with that modern stuff. Damn, I’m already drunk, he said to himself, f*cking cheap rum. Why am I drinking this stuff?
One of the dancers at the bar walked up and came on to him, and since his anger was starting to diminish, he let himself play a little with her. Rangel brandished his evil side: even though he saw how much she wanted to have a drink, he didn’t invite her to sit down.
“Come on, get me a drink. I have to support my dad and my seven little brothers and sisters.”
“Damn, why that many? Are you Snow White’s daughter?”
“Come on. If you don’t get me a drink, I’m going to have to go to that table, where that guy is waving at me. But I’d rather stay here with you.”
And the girl leaned forward, grazing Vicente’s arm with her breasts as if by mistake. Then she stretched out her arms and pretended to dance, shaking her shoulders frenetically.
“What’s up, mi rey? Deal or no deal?”
“Sorry, no deal.” And he regretted it as soon as he sent her away.
Even though the majority of the girls were really good-looking and had voluptuous figures, Rangel wasn’t interested in the blonde or the Chinese girl or the redhead. He was only interested in a thin girl with short black hair in braids who was smoking at the bar with some girlfriends. Goddamn, he said to himself, that one’s really hot. The girl had a long, thin nose and white skin. He was admiring her legs when the girl noticed that he was watching her. She shot him a sharp look, like a cat discovering a rat, and Rangel lowered his eyes. F*cking bitch, for sure she’s trying to figure out how much she can get out of me. All of ’em are whores, total whores, just like the bloodsucker next to me.
As soon as the dancers got to the bar, the men closed in to buy them drinks. A really fat guy took the redhead by the hand. Two guys fought over the Chinese girl. In less than ten minutes, three a*sholes moved in close, one by one, and took the ones who were left. Only the girl with the little braids off to the side rejected two admirers. How strange, Rangel thought, she must be charging a lot. Meanwhile, her girlfriends, legs crossed, kept on talking at the bar. Rangel was serving himself another drink when he noticed that the girl with the little braids was staring at him. Is she looking at me? He even looked behind him, but no one was there. What an idiot, he said to himself, I’m leaning against a column. Rangel turned red for the first time in a long time and the girl started laughing. F*cking bitch, I’m gonna make you pay for that.
Rangel served himself another drink and the girl with the little braids came over to his table.
“Excuse me, aren’t you Rigo’s guitarist?”
“Huh?” Rangel was shocked.
“With Rigo Tovar. Didn’t you play with him?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“You were the guitarist, the one from Las Jaibas del Valle.”
“No, you’ve got me mixed up.”
“Don’t lie! Tell me it was you.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I was in his fan club.”
“Really? Rigo Tovar had a fan club?” Rangel was flattered, but he didn’t want to admit it was him. “Yeah, they say the guitarist was good.”
“No way! He was the best! Who knows why he retired?”
“All right, well, thanks. The guitarist would be happy to hear that.”
The girl sat down on the chair next to him, subtly pushed by the redhead. “So, really, are you him or not?”
She had huge blue eyes that stood out when she laughed. They must be contact lenses, he said to himself, everything here is fake. He was about to make his getaway, but the girl moved in closer to him. Damn, Vicente said to himself. For a moment, the girl’s laughter reminded him of someone else. Suddenly, it was as if something from the woman who was not there reappeared in the face of the dancer who was, only diluted and changed. Instead of paying attention to the girl, which is what he should have done, Rangel remembered other days and other nights, from more than six years ago, when he was a musician and lived with his lady, Yesenia, the one with the perfect curly black hair, his girlfriend since high school, the most beautiful girl ever, famous in musical circles for her angelic smile.
And he thought of other afternoons with Yesenia by his side, as he tried to write the arrangements for the group leader. Look, Rigo, what do you think of this deal? The tune’s far out, brother, what’s it about? It’s the story of a mermaid, or really about a guy who falls for a mermaid. Ah, damn, don’t go getting all cultural on me, Rangel. Are there mermaids in your pueblo? Don’t be a jerkoff, Rigo, that’s why you’re not hitting it big. You’re never gonna take any risks? In Vicente’s opinion, Rigo was getting stubborn and overbearing. If he didn’t come up with the idea for a song, that meant the deal wasn’t worth anything. He was becoming a star and he didn’t accept anyone else’s point of view. I’ve got to watch out, brother, a lot of people want to put an end to my career. Rangel insisted for a few days, but Rigo wouldn’t give in. The song was almost finished, especially the music. Then, one night, after a concert, Rigo and his group, Las Jaibas del Valle, went to a bar to finish getting wasted. Rigo, his fans, and his agent were on one side of the place. Yesenia, the keyboardist, and Rangel, stroking his guitar, were on the other side. All of a sudden, Rigo, who was already pretty drunk, lifted up his head and looked toward the back of the club, like he was scanning for smoke signals, and as his fans drank the last drops from the vodka bottle, he stood up real slow, with his drink and everything and walked over to Vicente. What’s up, Chente? Is that song yours? It’s the one I told you about, friggin Rigo, the one about the mermaid, I’m just wrapping up the lyrics. It sounds good, Vicente. Let’s see, who’s got some paper?
They worked on the song for the rest of the night. Rangel played, Rigo nodded his head in agreement or shook it to say no, but always very authoritatively, and between the two of them, they put the song together. There was a moment when the song finally straightened out and Rigo burst out: That’s it, we’re done, we’ve got it. But one line was missing—Damn, Vicente, we just need that one f*cking line—and Rangel, by this time very inspired, suggested they go back to the original idea: It doesn’t make sense for them to have normal kids, Rigo; if they’re gonna procreate, it’d be better if they had mermaids. Wait, wait, what do you mean? Okay, look: Where it says: We had six little angels, tra la la, tra la la, it’d be better as: We had a little mermaid. Damn, Vicente! That’s really good, lemme see: what next? As the fruit of our love. No shit, Vicente, that’s really corny; that’s like fifth-grade stuff. Oh, all right, what, you’re really high-class now? Go on, go on, don’t slow down. OK: We had a little mermaid. And what else? Like a year after being married. You’re doing well, Vicente, and then what? With the face of a little angel, but the tail of a fish. Damn, man, now you broke the record, pinche Vicente; we’ve got a new songwriter.
The euphoria was gone three days later, when, after getting back from touring around Montemorelos, Vicente opened the door to his apartment and caught her wrapped in the singer’s arms, her hot pants thrown in the corner of the room. F*cking a*sholes: you, cabrón, I thought you were my friend; you ain’t shit. And you, f*cking bitch, you’re really faithful, huh? What about you being totally open and honest and all that bullshit? What a joke! Go f*ck yourselves, I don’t want anything to do with this band; I’m out of the group. And don’t even try to play that song.
The girl’s eyes reminded him of Yesenia. Rangel, the only person in the world who hated Rigo Tovar’s biggest hit, looked intensely at the girl and said, “No, I’m not him.”
She covered her face with both hands and pulled her cheeks down, like someone putting on a fake mustache; then she turned around and walked away. The Blind Man watched her, his mouth hanging open.
“She was really into it. Why’d you let her go, boss?”
“Because I don’t have enough money.”
The Blind Man grabbed the envelope he had in his pants as if his tip was in danger and said, “But that girl is one of the ones that doesn’t charge. . . . But it doesn’t matter, when we get the Jackal, you’re gonna have thirty of them.”
Rangel pushed his drink away, f*cking worthless Bacardi, and the Blind Man’s words reverberated in his head for the rest of the night.
It’s four years worth of pay, boss.
Four years.
Imagine what you could do with four years’ pay.
You could buy a house.
You could even retire.
Two drinks later, when they asked him what was going on, Rangel was able to murmur, “The Chief supports El Travolta more than me.”
“F*cking idiot,” the Blind Man said to him. “Even though the Chief doesn’t want to face it, everyone says you’re the good one and you’re gonna get him. Why don’t we work together, boss? Two heads think better than one.”
Rangel just looked at him and didn’t say no, but he didn’t say yes either. Damn, he thought, what a messed-up situation. All I wanted was to relax.
Celia Cruz sang “El Berimbau,” and Cruz Trevi?o fell asleep on the table. After everybody was nodding off, Rangel waved to the fan with the little braids. Hey, you, you want a drink? The girl said yes and he prepared her a gigantic Cuba libre that never ran out, and they drank it the rest of the night. Damn, this woman is so supportive. He looked at the girl and then at the vampire on the rum label; another drink and another look at the girl. One more drink and the girl started to look irresistible.
His vision blurred and the next thing he saw was an immense, grassy plain, somewhere in the country. He was asking himself where he was when suddenly he saw the silhouette of a mountain, perhaps the Cerro del Nagual, and he realized that an old-fashioned UFO was floating at the summit, one of those interplanetary space ships in black-and-white movies that looked like two soup bowls stuck together. Then he realized he was standing on the peak of the mountain. There were a lot of journalists all around him, the ones he had run into that morning, and six TV cameras. An announcer said, We are witnessing the first contact between a human being and the people of Mars. Mr. Vicente Rangel, police officer from the port, has been chosen to receive this great honor, this grand distinction. And there was a round of applause.
Deeply moved, Rangel watched as the Martian ship descended. Judging by its dimensions, he reasoned that it was the mother ship, landing and opening its double doors. The king of the Martians came out on a long bridge, joined by ten ministers and a legion of secretaries. These women were straight out of a Mexican science-fiction movie: they were wearing silver mini-skirts, sixties-style beehive hairdos, and long fake eyelashes. One of them, a long-legged good-looking blonde, placed a medal on Rangel and he began to whisper softly, Thank you so much, but I do not deserve this. There are many more competent people.
Nevertheless, the King of the Martians made it clear that Rangel was his choice and he is allowed one wish: Ask for whatever you want. Whatever? That’s right: whatever you request will be provided.
Suddenly, the king of the Martians looked just like Chabuelo, a television personality, and Rangel thought he was on a game show. And Rangel asked himself, What should I ask for, an all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii? A new car, a washing machine, a record player? He was aware that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but the professional part of his subconscious took over before he could stop it: The murderer, ask who the murderer is.
Your time is up, the Martian said. Let’s see what’s behind curtain number one, the prize the contestant did not select. Wow! The audience grumbled. A millionaire’s mansion, with a huge car out front and three servants: a blonde, a redhead, and a brunette, all ready and at your service. Rangel heard applause, a round of applause, and the game show host continued. Let’s go to the second curtain, what’s behind the second curtain? Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, the guitar that Jimi Hendrix played, and next to it . . . the secret to immortality! Mr. Vicente Rangel González just turned down the secret to eternal life. But don’t lose hope, there’s still one more chance to redeem yourself. What do we have behind curtain number three, please? The last servant removed the curtain and the announcer said: A monkey. A spooky monkey.
Inside, under a powerful spotlight, a baboon was sitting on a stool. Oh, my God, what an ugly monkey! The baboon was dark gray and he had a terrible look on his face, almost human. When it realized that Rangel was looking at him, the primate reprimanded him: What do you want, dude?
Frightened, Rangel apologized: I don’t know what’s going on, I’m here for the contest. The baboon seemed to get upset: What contest? What a stupid nephew! Uncle Miguel? Is that you? Yeah, it’s me. And what are you doing here? Working, I’m still a detective, but now I’m an undercover agent, I investigate dreams, and you, what do you do now, nephew? I’m tracking two murders, a guy who kills young girls. A little girl murderer . . . that’s unbelievable! And do you have any evidence? A little, but it hasn’t helped any. That’s too bad, Uncle Miguel said, too bad. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Listen, Uncle Miguel, what if you help me? Nooo, I’m really sorry but I can’t, why should I drop my work just to help with yours? Besides, if I don’t charge, I don’t work. But before, you would always help me. Yeah, but now you’re all grown up, and there’s nothing in it for me. Uncle, the years have made you really egotistical, you only think about money. Do you or don’t you want to solve the case? Yes. Well then, shut up and watch.
The baboon climbed down from the stool and walked over to a door in the back. For starters, you need to get out of this building. Don’t dawdle. Before Rangel could react, he ordered: look, there’s the guy you’ve been looking for, and he pointed to the other side of a window. A scary-looking man carrying a French poodle was outside. He was wearing a wide leather duty belt, loaded with sharp tools, and when he saw a young girl pass by, he offered her the French poodle. No, he thought, don’t take it, but it was too late. Rangel wanted to stop him from attacking her, but the door was locked with a key, and when he looked out the window again, they were no longer there. He asked himself where they could have gone to, and the next thing he saw was an enormous curtain, a yellow curtain, ruffling in the wind. He couldn’t explain why he was so afraid. But the wind lifted the curtain and he saw the girl’s feet, submerged in a puddle of blood....
He woke up, stamping his feet violently, and for a minute he confused the curtain in his dream for the real curtain. Ooof—he opened his eyes—at least I’m in my own house. There was a ceiling fan, and everything was fine, except that he didn’t have any ceiling fans.
“Oh, shit, where am I?” he said out loud.
“We’re in the Motel Costa Brava,” a voice answered. “What happened to you? As soon as you got here, you started snoring,” the girl with the braids complained.
As the image of the room came into focus, the detective concluded with growing amazement: The French poodle! The fuzz, he thought, we have to analyze the fuzz.