The Black Minutes

Part III

12

When he called Dr. Ridaura, she thought he was kidding. “Are you sure?”
Rangel explained that he was serious and said that running the test was urgent.
The old woman didn’t like the idea of getting up so early in the morning, but because she was dealing with him, she replied very kindly. “Call me in half an hour.”
Before the time was up, the specialist called headquarters.
“It was complicated, but it was worth it. You’re half right. I have your results here, but first, tell me how it occurred to you to do this.”
“Another time,” he apologized, “we have to hurry.”
“OK, I have to admit that I forgot the principle of Poe’s ‘The Purloined Letter’: when you want to hide something, leave it in plain sight. There they were, but since they provoked my allergies, I overlooked them. Do you remember how I was sneezing at the crime scene?”
“What are they?”
“I’m getting to that. I don’t understand how it didn’t occur to me, but anyway, I checked the material that we recovered from under the nails and indeed I found two samples of animal origin.”
“White in color?” Rangel inquired.
Dr. Ridaura was stunned. “You already knew? Well, yes, a grayish white. And you want to know something? They are also under the nails of Karla Cevallos. You were right so far. But you were wrong about one thing: They’re not dog hairs. It’s sheep wool. A very young white lamb.”
“Are you sure?”
“Either I’m sure or Ridaura’s not my name. That guy attracts the girls with a little lamb.”
“Thank you so much, Doctor. And listen, don’t mention this to anyone. It’s very important.”
“OK. Congratulations, Rangel. I’m going to be following this to see what happens.”
He confirmed that no one had heard him, but his nervousness was unjustified. The Professor and the Bedouin had gone to sleep in their respective cars at 4:30, and El Chicote was snoring on the first floor.
He went down to get some coffee. When he heard him moving around, El Chicote half woke up.
“Are you going to want some more? I’ll make it right now.”
“You’re really on top of things, cabrón.”
“It’ll be ready in a second. If you want to, go back to sleep,” he suggested. “If something comes up, I’ll wake you.”
Sure, thought Rangel, even though you can’t even handle your own business. As he waited for the coffee, he heard the new edition of El Mercurio arrive and went outside to get it. Let’s see what’s new, he thought. The first page grabbed his attention: SIERRA DE OCAMPO ON FIRE. DROUGHT CAUSES CONCERN IN PORT. But it was two other headlines that bothered him: NO TRACE OF THE JACKAL and WORK OF JOURNALISTS OBSTRUCTED. Holy shit, it was La Chilanga. There was a photo of the chief on the cover, promising an intense manhunt and an arrest. On one side, the weather report contradicted him with a certain ill will: Only light winds and isolated rainfall in the region. And the satellite image did in fact show a persistent cloudiness parked over the metro area. Farther down, Johnny Guerrero’s column said: NEW POLICE ERRORS: SECRET SERVICE STILL HAS NO LEADS ON SADISTIC MURDERER. He said to himself: Let’s see what this idiot wrote about, and to his surprise, Johnny told the story of El Profeta. Goddamn, cabrón, this shit is serious. The columnist told everything about Taboada’s failure in exacting detail, but he was careful not to identify the agents. “According to our sources, a good detective who has been working on the case is about to quit due to internal pressures.” Rangel realized he was turning pale. Shit, he thought, now they really are going to f*ck with me; f*cking dumb-ass reporter, this is gonna make my life impossible. They’re gonna think I’m ratting them out. Goddamnit, somebody’s got me in their sights. He didn’t want to think about what El Travolta would do. Holy shit, he said to himself, if I’m in the office, I’m gonna be in trouble.
A rooster crowed somewhere in the neighborhood, and Rangel considered working with Agustín Barbosa. What am I gonna do with my life? He didn’t have a lot of options; he hadn’t even finished college. At his worst moments, he imagined himself dealing with the humiliation of going to ask for work from the Williams family. No f*cking chance of that. Besides, the Federal Highway Patrol was the only thing left after the Secret Service, and there weren’t many positions in the city. Whatever, he thought, I’m gonna end up in a f*cking checkpoint, just like the Wizard. He thought over Barbosa’s offer and concluded that his coworkers would never let him work for the opposition. They’d make his life impossible. He decided that if he was fired, he wouldn’t apply to the Federal Police. The pay was so bad he’d have to end up corrupt.
It had been a crazy night and he couldn’t take it anymore. The sun would come up in a few minutes and he had a pounding headache. For a minute, he thought about going back home, but there was no time, so he cleared off his desk and tried to get some sleep.
Vicente thought about his childhood and his brief professional career in music. The year he learned to play bass. The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Clapton. His first gigs, touring with Rigo Tovar. But as always happened when he remembered his life in the band, he ended up thinking about his first girlfriend and his friend’s betrayal. At that moment, the needle of his memory, accustomed to protecting him from his past, skipped on the LP album of his life, and the next thing he saw was the place where he was right then. He was a police officer pursuing a murderer. He didn’t like his job but he couldn’t leave it: he didn’t know how to do anything else.
That’s what he was thinking about that day, Wednesday the nineteenth of March, at six in the morning, when Chief García came in dressed in a suit and tie. Rangel barely had time to stand up.
“Is there anything new?”
Vicente presented his findings. As he spoke, the chief watched him and nodded.
“It’s about time. Have you distributed this information?”
“Not yet.”
“I’d like you to personally advise the other officers. This is very good information. I can’t have it wasted in the papers.”
He thought the chief would reprimand him, but he did not seem to be upset. It was obvious he hadn’t read El Mercurio.
“And Taboada?”
“He hasn’t come in.” He was the only officer on watch, Rangel explained; the others were sleeping in their cars. He didn’t want to talk badly about his colleagues, but he had to tell the chief the truth.
Chief García shook his head with disgust and thought about the situation. “Rangel, I need your help: bring a notebook so you can take notes. We leave in ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir. Where are we going?”
“To a meeting. You drive.” And he threw him the keys to his personal patrol car.
Vicente opened up the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a jar of gel, a razor, toothpaste, and dug around until he found his Odorono deodorant. Five minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom, his hair combed and with an acceptable shave.
He started the chief’s car—it was always a pleasure to drive that patrol car—and pulled up at the entrance. The chief was waiting for him.
“Where are we headed, sir?”
“To the palace.”
He was referring to City Hall. They were going to see the Mayor Torres Sabinas.
Passing through Parque Hidalgo, he saw the fog was starting to clear. The birds were screeching in the cypress trees and a large orange cloud was moving closer to the city. For a moment, the fog seemed to dissipate.
At the stoplight in front of the cathedral, they had to wait for a garbage truck to move. As they were waiting, the old man commented, “Churruca called me again. He wants this case resolved in two days.”
Poor guy, he thought. The chance of García’s staying in his job was worse than ever, and, in a gesture of friendship, he made an offer. “Sir, would you like me to help interrogate Jack Williams?”
The old man responded by looking at him. Everything he wanted to say was understood in that one look. “Don’t pressure me, Rangel, don’t pressure me.”
As soon as they turned onto the Avenida del Puerto, Rangel saw that the doorman was waiting to open the gate. There were already six cars there.
Rangel parked next to Torres Sabinas’s minivan, and they walked up the wide staircase. On the second floor, they ran into six bodyguards, who moved to one side to allow them to pass; one of them was the gringo security guard who had questioned him at John Williams’s mansion. Shit, what is he doing here?
The chief walked on one side of the guards, who greeted him with their customary phrase, “At your command, Chief.” As was the norm, he responded to their greeting with a slight head movement.
In the main assembly room, a handful of people were arranged around a rectangular table. Seeing them arrive, Licenciado Daniel Torres Sabinas went to welcome them.
“Anything new?”
“We have evidence, but we can’t announce it at the press conference.”
“Why?”
“There have been too many leaks. We can’t allow ourselves to lose track of this one.”
“OK. Here, just between us, tell me what it is.”
The chief took him off to one side.
Rangel saw that the mayor was nodding. “Very well, very well.” He looked over at Rangel. “It’s a shame we can’t announce it, the reporters are going to think we woke up this morning with empty hands. . . . Well,” and he spoke to the chief, “proceed as instructed.”
As the rest of the people said hello to the chief, Rangel identified the men assembled. Damn, he thought, this meeting is serious. Besides the mayor of Paracuán and his chief of staff, there was also the chief of the municipal police of Tampico, the director of the Federal Highway Patrol for the state, the coordinator of security services for the Oil Workers’ Union, the director of intelligence for the eighth military regiment, and a representative of the federal government. At the end of the table, two people Rangel didn’t know were having a conversation: a young man in a plaid shirt and a bald man with a dour look on his face. Rangel remembered that the young man in the plaid shirt was the president of the Parents’ Association, Mr. Chow Pangtay. He didn’t have time to identify the bald man because at that moment the door between the hall and the mayor’s office opened and Rangel thought that he was dreaming.
Mr. John Williams and his lawyer, Carrizo, sat down at the end of the table, to the right of the mayor. Everyone stood up to welcome the men, who were wearing suits, tie bars, and cuff links. It’s not possible, he said to himself. What was he doing here? Since he had been on night watch the last few days, Rangel would have heard about anyone who was detained, or even any rumor of an arrest, but nothing of that sort had happened. He assumed that working straight for the last two days without sleeping had begun to affect his sense of reality. The following half hour he had to make a huge effort just to stay awake. Everything seemed to be far away, blurry, like a thick fog. He drank two cups of coffee, one after another, but the liquid only filled him with apprehension.
The dark hall had velvet curtains and there was a green covering on the table. When everyone had a cup of coffee in front of him, the mayor ordered the secretary to leave. If you all agree, he said to them, we’re going to get started; I’m not going to do introductions because you already know each other. He directed himself to the millionaire and his companion. “John, Ricardo, thanks for coming.” Then he summarized the situation and suggested that they should all work as a team to resolve the emergency. He avoided mentioning the fact that a group of Texans wanted to invest a large quantity of money in the fiestas the following month, but the Jackal was scaring them away.
“One of the priorities of my government is the purveyance of justice,” he said. “That’s why John and a representative of the Parents’ Association are here—so that they can work with us on what we decide today.” Next he reiterated that in the port there were seven schools, two private and five public. The private schools had already hired private security, he said, which left the public schools and their three thousand students. “We have two plainclothes officers in each one, and to placate the parents, we have a uniformed officer at the main entrance, but it’s not enough. The schools have a lot of exit doors, and at opening and closing times, everything becomes a complete chaos, impossible to control.”
Mr. Chow replied that that wasn’t any kind of excuse. The association was exasperated, they couldn’t understand how it was possible that the murderer had struck again. Mayor Torres Sabinas replied that they already had a firm lead, and Chief García trusted that they could get results in the next few days. The Chief enumerated the few clues and at the end he focused on the cigarette butts: “He smokes Raleighs and bites on the filter.” Rangel saw that Mr. Williams, hearing that, leaned forward on the table and listened attentively. “We consulted with two dentists,” the chief continued, “and both of them were of the opinion that the mark corresponds to an upper canine. This is the first firm lead we have, and it must be handled with a lot of care: if the murderer finds out, we run the risk of putting him on alert.”
“Could we distribute that inside the schools?” asked Mr. Chow.
“I’d prefer you didn’t. The best idea would be to tell the security guards in private, one by one, in order to avoid leaking the information. Imagine, with this knowledge, our agents will be more prepared and will protect our schools even more efficiently. But if this gets to the press, we’ll lose a golden opportunity.”
At this point, the bald guy whispered something into Mr. Chow’s ear; Chow nodded and asked to speak.
“Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, that’s not good enough. Those of us who have school-age daughters can’t wait for the government to handle this. We want a serious investigation, done by professionals.”
He proposed that they ask for help from the feds, but the mayor didn’t agree. The last time they asked for help from the Federal Safety Administration, he said, was in the sixties. They took over a month to show up and, when they did, they complicated a situation that was already resolved and filed away. We all know what happened as a result. Several people looked at the director of the Federal Highway Patrol; he was sweating profusely. He had had a really bad time of it nine years ago. The bald guy passed a note to Mr. Chow, and he nodded. When the mayor finished speaking, Chow commented that the Parents’ Association was completely outraged because of what was going on, and the Professors’ Union wanted to intervene. If the government did not respond, he said, there would be a general strike.
The comment was a direct threat to Daniel Torres Sabinas. The Professors’ Union was not only one of the most powerful in Tamaulipas, but its leader, Professor Edelmiro Morales—whom El Travolta had met with the day before—was one of his personal enemies. During his campaign, the union had opposed him fiercely and mobilized its thousands of members; only the intervention of the governor was able to hold it back. On the Monday before, during an official function, Arturo Rojo López, head of the National Professors’ Union expressed his opposition to what was going on in the port.
Visibly upset, Torres Sabinas commented that he had only taken office in January, and he was met by a police force with few members, badly paid and without professional preparation. “One of the crime-scene experts didn’t even know how to do a gunpowder residue test, that test—what’s it called—?”
“A sodium rhodizonate test,” the chief prompted.
“That one,” the licenciado said, “and they had to ask the chemist, Orihuela, to do it. As if that weren’t enough,” he added, “the papers have been on my back ever since all this started. Colonel Balseca and Mr. Nader come every week and offer me advertising packages: buying ads to keep them from discussing the issue in the newspapers, but since there’s no money for that and I don’t want to go into debt, they attack me. The same with the Parents’ Association,” he said resentfully.
Mr. Chow said that the reporters always exaggerate whatever someone says. “That columnist—Guerrero? He interviewed me about security in the schools and put words in my mouth.”
Torres Sabinas gracefully asked if the military intelligence had any leads. The director said no: only rumors, no real substance. More than one person looked at Mr. Williams.
The bald guy asked for permission to speak. Torres introduced him as Padre Fritz Tschanz, a Jesuit priest. The Society of Jesus had brought him from Ciudad Juárez, where he was assistant director of a school, to work on student security at the Instituto Cultural de Paracuán. The Jesuit summarized the measures the institute had put in place. As Rangel suspected, the Jesuit revealed that, since the day before, two modern Beta video cameras, strategically located, were filming everyone who came through the institute’s entrance. “You’d be surprised by the number of well-known people who are around there”—he looked at John Williams—“people who have no children enrolled in the institute.” The chief asked for a copy of the tapes and the Jesuit promised to hand them over, to the embarrassment of all those present. Then he admitted that the newspapers’ sensationalism was contributing to an increase in the sense of worry, and he proposed asking the bishop to help calm the public, so that the climate of fear and panic wouldn’t grow. The Society could convince His Excellency to publish an open letter in all the newspapers, in which he would criticize the journalistic excesses and call for calm.
“Sir,” said the mayor, “that would be very good. . . . John, would you like to add anything?”
As a response, the businessman’s lawyer, Licenciado Carrizo, said that the Grupo Industrial Gamma, and Mr. Williams in particular, had their reasons for being upset with the local government, but they had come to make a proposal.
“The Grupo Industrial Gamma would like to make a donation in order to find the guilty party as soon as possible. We will donate another twenty-five thousand dollars that, added to our previous contribution, makes a total of a fifty-thousand-dollar reward. We think this second sum is difficult to refuse and could attract more people to share information with the police.”
“Thank you, John,” Torres Sabinas said to Mr. Williams. “I expected no less from you.”
“Yes.” The businessman pointed with his finger at the mayor. “But in exchange I’m going to ask you for a favor.”
The millionaire was famous for making drastic decisions during his bouts of anger, like firing his most faithful employee without a second thought or threatening congressmen in public places. In the port, people said he had ordered Colonel Balseca, the owner of La Noticia, to stop publishing editorials against his son or he would remove all his advertising.
“I’m listening.”
“I want you to stop pursuing my son. Monday night, a black minivan was circling around the main entrance to my house, and yesterday a Chevy Nova was parked in front of my door. Here are the license plate numbers.”
Rangel said to himself: It’s all over. His dismissal seemed to be imminent. The director of security at Pemex smiled.
“Were you following Mr. Jack Williams?” asked the mayor. “Could you explain why, Chief?”
“Yes, sir,” the old man didn’t even hesitate. He had seen more than five mayors parade by while he was in his position. “We do not doubt Mr. Williams’s innocence, but we are worried about his safety. As the rumors have increased, we’ve decided to provide protection for Licenciado Williams so as to avoid any attack against him.”
Rangel looked at the chief with concern. The millionaire was irritated; he didn’t expect this.
“I appreciate it, but the private security I’ve hired is quite enough. My bodyguards were trained in Tel Aviv.”
“The police will not follow him anymore,” promised the mayor, and hurried to continue. “By the way, would you like to share what you mentioned to me in my office?”
“I told you that the only mistake my son made was to listen to me. If he was present in that goddamn bar it was because the daughters of a Texan business partner were visiting, and I asked him to take them out on the town. Is that clear?”
“Case closed,” the mayor said, and noticing that Williams’s lawyer was looking at his watch, he added, “From now on, sirs, we need to work as a team.”
Then they focused on what would be the next steps in the following days. They would order the schools’ principals to only use one exit door for the duration of the crisis in order to redouble their surveillance. The teachers should lend additional support with increased vigilance, and if the governor authorized the budget, they would add another unit of undercover security for each building, so they could monitor the area around the schools. The search would go more quickly, the chief complained, if we had a bigger budget.
When things seemed to settle down, the bald guy said something in Chow’s ear. Chow insisted that a completely professional investigation was in order, and Torres Sabinas asked what he meant by that.
“You could hire consultants.”
“Yes,” the mayor responded, “but who?”
With a look, Rangel asked for Chief García’s permission. The chief indicated that he could speak, so he gave his opinion. “Why not invite Dr. Quiroz Cuarón?”
Hearing that name, the head of security at Pemex and the head of military intelligence looked at each other for a second. The first to react was the Jesuit.
“Wow. Dr. Quiroz Cuarón, a man of his stature. . . . Well, he would be ideal, but is he still alive?”
“Dr. Quiroz Cuarón!” the director of police in Tampico blurted out. And he got really excited. “Oh, goddamn, goddamn, is he really still alive? He must be, like, ninety years old. I don’t think he’d do it, but it would be great. Dr. Quiroz Cuarón is an institution.”
“Let’s see, sirs, we are working against the clock. Who is this doctor?” the mayor asked.
“The best detective there is in the country. One of the best in the world.”
“Time magazine called him ‘The Mexican Sherlock Holmes.’”
“Wow, hot shit,” said the federal government representative.
The head of military intelligence reviewed the facts.
“He identified the man who killed Leon Trotsky. He arrested Enrico Sampietro, who worked for Al Capone, and disarmed the new uprising of La Causa de la Fe. And, above all, he tracked down El Pelón Sobera and the Tacubaya strangler. He’s a legend.”
“And how much would he charge for his services?”
Military Intelligence explained.
“The doctor doesn’t charge. If the case is of interest to him, he takes it on and pays all his expenses himself. That gives him independence.”
“Well, a person like that would be ideal.”
“Besides, he’s from here,” the Pemex rep said.
“The doctor wasn’t born in the port,” interrupted the chief.
“He was raised in Tampico, but he’s from Jiménez, Chihuahua. He has only bad memories of that place.”
“Have you met him?” the mayor asked.
“One time,” he nodded. “One time, around 1940,” and Rangel understood that the doctor and the chief didn’t have a good relationship.
“It’s not a bad idea, but we have to make sure that he’s alive.”
“From what I know, he retired in ’sixty-eight.”
“Do you have any way to get in touch with him?” Torres Sabinas was looking at Vicente.
“Maybe.”
“OK, then, you contact him. If he’s interested, ask him to come as soon as possible.”
Rangel watched the millionaire. He looked really uncomfortable, as though the meeting had gone in a direction that he didn’t like.
Once in the car, the chief asked him, “How many years have you been doing this?”
“Four and a half, almost five.”
“I’ve got thirty,” said the old man. “If your uncle were here, he’d tell you that to find a criminal you don’t always go in a straight line. You have to spiral in, with a strategy. Find the leads. You get it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When was the last time you slept?”
“Three days ago.”
“You were nodding off in the meeting. Take the afternoon off and come pick me up tomorrow at seven.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And another thing: before you head out, ask Lolita for the doctor’s information. Invite him on my behalf and offer him a hotel room and a plane ticket.”
They found his information in an old yellowed address book with brittle paper. She found him under his first name: Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón, 54 Río Mixcoac, México, D.F. I can’t believe it, Vicente said to himself. Years ago, when Vicente had been a member of Las Jaibas del Valle, their headquarters in D.F. was a house at 27 Río Mixcoac, in a discreet, spacious apartment. Who knows, I may have even run into Dr. Quiroz on the street and know him by sight.
Lolita made the call for him, but the phone rang without luck. He tried again five minutes later and the voice of an older man answered.
“Yes?”
“Dr. Quiroz Cuarón?”
“Wrong number.” And he hung up.
Vicente thought it strange and called back.
“Have I reached the home of Dr. Quiroz Cuarón?”
“He doesn’t live here. Wrong number.” And he hung up.
He was going to try again when El Chicote reminded him that the chief was waiting for a summary of the meeting. Vicente put two blank sheets of paper into the typewriter and typed out the conclusions from the meeting for a few minutes. He stapled the report and handed it to El Chicote for him to copy and distribute. At nine, he went out to get gorditas en salsa verde for breakfast. He drank a soda—no gas, no color—returned to his desk, and put the call through again. It was answered on the third ring.
“Dr. Quiroz Cuarón?”
A firm voice answered, a voice used to giving commands.
“Yes. Talk to me.”