The Black Minutes

17

At the request of Don Daniel Torres Sabinas, the meeting took place Thursday afternoon in the assembly room at City Hall. Torres Sabinas introduced the specialists and left him with the agents, as he couldn’t stay for the meeting. Over by the door, Vicente confirmed that a majority of his colleagues were in attendance. Besides the policeman from Paracuán, there were a dozen other officers from Tampico and Ciudad Madera in attendance, all willing to cooperate in the investigation. El Travolta and Cruz Trevi?o were talking quietly. Chief García’s nephew said hello. When the meeting was about to start, Rangel noticed that one of Torres Sabinas’s secretaries was calling him, waving him over urgently.
“Sir, are you Vicente Rangel?” The girl asked.
“Yes.”
“You have a call. This way, please.”
She led him to the large offices near the main entrance. As they walked down the hallway, they ran into the Professor, coming toward them with a taciturn expression. When he recognized Rangel, he called him over, and said quietly, “Someone killed Calatrava. They put a bullet through his neck.”
“What?” Rangel stopped. “Are you sure?”
The Professor nodded. “They took him out at the checkpoint. The ambulance already went for him.”
“Sir,” the secretary interrupted them. “Your call is long distance. It’s very urgent.”
He went up to the first floor, where a new surprise awaited him: the person calling was Chief García, from the state capital.
“Rangel? I’m glad I found you.”
It may have been caused by the distance, but the chief’s voice sounded old and tired. He was calling to send his regards to the doctor, but he didn’t want to interrupt the meeting; he’d already heard what happened to Calatrava.
“Lolita told me a few minutes ago. Wong’s handling it.”
“Sir, I’d like your permission to take part in the investigation—”
“Don’t get distracted.” The old man was unequivocal. “Wong is already on top of it. You worry about the doctor and the girls.”
“Taboada is with him.”
“Rangel, this is an order. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Does the doctor need anything?”
“No, everything is fine.”
“Remember, he’s very sensitive. If something upsets him or makes him distrustful, he’ll leave and slam the door on his way out. My nephew isn’t giving you any problems, is he?”
“Not really.” He was still being watched by the Blind Man. “He just went into the meeting.”
“No, get him out of there. You don’t know what he’s capable of! Get him out immediately.”
“I’ll do it right now, sir.”
They said good-bye. Rangel made another call, this time to El Mercurio, and spoke briefly to Mariana in the editorial room. When he hung up, Rangel noticed that Cruz Trevi?o had been listening to his conversation.
“What do you want, Trevi?o?”
His coworker looked at him with contempt. “We know you’re talking to Barbosa. You going to Ciudad Madera, man?”
“You’re a complete jackass.”
Rangel pushed past his coworker and went back to the room. Cruz Trevi?o followed two steps behind.
When he entered the conference room, he signaled to the Blind Man.
“I’m leaving the doctor with you,” he ordered. “I’ll be back in a half hour. You keep the patrol car and give me the keys to my car.”
And he went out to look for the Chevy Nova.
Getting to the checkpoint took him a few minutes. As he was parking, he noticed that Wong was already at the Wizard’s post.
“What’s up, Rangel? You’re going off with Barbosa?”
Rangel was fed up and ignored the question. “What have you found?”
Wong, aware of Vicente and Calatrava’s friendship, gave him an update.
“Look.” He showed him the holes in the exterior of the checkpoint. “Nine bullet holes, and Calatrava hadn’t even pulled out his gun.”
“A machine gun?”
“It’s gotta be. I’d say an Uzi. Another two bullets hit on the inside of the checkpoint. The body was lying inside, but it was visible from the highway.”
It was impossible not to notice the blood.
“A driver headed to the refinery reported it. Everything’s in order.”
Holy shit, Rangel thought, he probably stopped some driver to ask for the paper, and the guy had a record. Maybe the driver thought he was in trouble and took Calatrava out.
“Look, here’s another.” Wong pointed at a piece of metal on the ground. “The shooter didn’t even get out of his car. He called him, or Calatrava came up to him; the guy pulled out the gun and shot him. On my first count, I got seven bullet wounds between the left leg and arm, like he was trying to cover up. One pierced his neck.”
“How big’s an Uzi?”
“They’re small, not too heavy, made by the Israelis. Some are as small as a clothes iron.”
With Vicente’s help, the officer was able to open a closet.
“Hell-o,” said Wong, “no wonder he didn’t have a TV.”
He was holding up a piece of newspaper full of marijuana. Rangel said nothing but followed the trail of blood with his eyes.
“They shot him over there.” Wong pointed to the highway. “The killer got away. Calatrava dragged himself to the desk and picked up the phone, but he couldn’t speak—he had a bullet in his neck—and he stayed right there on the ground. Poor f*ck. He ran off to his meeting with infinity.”
“Yeah,” said Rangel. “Poor cabrón.”
When the jugular’s cut, the only way to stop the hemorrhaging is to strangle the person.
“What did you see?”
“It’s just that he didn’t come back to finish him off.”
As Wong looked through the late officer’s personal effects, Rangel lifted up the previous Monday’s copy of El Mercurio and found a green notebook: Calatrava’s diary. The front said: UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, and the inside was divided into two columns. In the first, there were a series of notes along the lines of: “Every new moon, green lights are seen floating toward the mountains.” “A dove who loses a baby returns every day to the same spot for four months.” “The cat activity picks up at dawn.” Dreams were recounted in a very thoughtful way: “I dreamed that my father was sad and dejected. In the dream my father was like a small child who had to be consoled. When one consoles someone in dreams who has shrunk in size, who is being consoled in reality, that part of our consciousness is afraid of disappearing. Identity is like a wave, in which crests will rise at times, then be submerged and then disappear.” One note attracted his attention: “There are times when one dreams of monsters or deformed dwarves that refuse to leave a room or a vehicle in motion and even come back furious after we’ve made them go. These dreams announce pain, what is left of a great pain or the remains of a stubborn sickness that will soon be destroyed or forgotten.”
Pure poetry, Rangel said to himself; this information is useless. I don’t know what the hell he was doing here, no reason to include this in my report. Luckily, there was a second column, where the writer didn’t beat around the bush so much, where he found what he was looking for. As he well knew, Calatrava took note of the day and time when certain suspicious vehicles passed through the checkpoint: “Tuesday, March 4, 11 PM: White Volkswagen Brazilia, possible electrical appliance contraband, license plate XEX 726.” “Wednesday 5, 2 PM: Yellow Renault 12 Routier, XEX 153, the owner passes by here toward Madera.” The last note was written the Tuesday before, the day the girl died in the Bar León. With a certain apprehension, Rangel read the following: “Tuesday, March 18, 11:30. The black van again.” Ah, caray, Rangel thought about it a second and rapidly reviewed the preceding pages. The black van appeared previously on two dates: January 15 and February 17. “Official plates,” Calatrava had written. Rangel thought this over and everything fell into place: the strange arrangement of the bodies, the grim coincidences, the Wizard’s death. Ah, cabrón, he concluded: the white fur, the hunting knife, the clues that the subject passed by here on the days of the murders; the Wizard discovered the killer and they knocked him off. It’s more transparent than water.
Rangel closed the diary as he heard Wong’s footsteps.
“Ready to go?” Wong asked. “We’ve got to lock this place up.”
Heading down the Avenida del Puerto, Rangel saw Public School Number Five and decided to stop. In the last few months, they had added two stories and a new exterior, with an ultramodern seventies design. He lowered his speed and parked on the side of the road, on the gravel street, in front of the director’s house. Slow down, the voice of his uncle said. Slow down, Vicente. Think with that big head of yours, before you dive right in. El Travolta is going to be mad; he’s going to kick your ass if he finds out what you’re up to. What have I told you all these years? Patience, nephew, move as if you aren’t up to anything. And seeing Vicente wasn’t frightened, he added, I’m just saying that if you get out of the car you won’t be able to go back in. Are you sure we’re relatives? Damn, what a stupid nephew I have! Seems like they must have adopted you.
Well, Vicente said to himself, we’re already here. He got out, slammed the car door, and knocked at the house with authority. A woman’s face looked out the window.
“Who is it?”
“Police, ma’am. You called for us.”
“Mr. Vicente Rangel?”
Though he thought it strange that they were looking for him specifically, Vicente nodded.
A skinny, impressively beautiful woman opened the door. Her hair was short and very black; she had the prettiest nose that Rangel had seen in his life. He estimated she was thirty years old. Mrs. Dorotea Hernández looked like a statue. When Rangel arrived, she was drinking linden blossom tea in an armchair in the living room. A copy of La Noticia was spread out on the table, with a short interview they had done with her: MOTHER OF DISAPPEARED GIRL STILL HAS HOPE and DENIES DAUGHTER WAS MURDERED, PREFERS KIDNAPPING THEORY. It would soon be three months since her daughter’s disappearance.
A group of children were playing happily on the other side of the windows in the back. The majority of the boys were playing soccer. The girls were jumping rope.
“My husband is the principal of this school,” explained the woman. “I want to ask you not to let him know about our conversation. He did not agree with my being interviewed in the newspapers.”
“I wouldn’t have called them, either. It seems like a mistake.”
“What could I do?” she said. “The officer in charge of the case never gave me any information.”
“Who was it?”
“Mr. Joaquín Taboada.”
Oh, yeah, he remembered: they chewed him out in the meeting for that, goddamn irresponsible fat ass.
“I’m at you service, ma’am. Why did you send for me?”
“Take this.”
She handed over half a dozen photos to him, in which Lucía Hernández Campillo played, clapped, or had her birthday. In the last one, a framed photo, the girl was wearing a school uniform. Her bangs hung in front of her huge eyes and she smiled innocently. First in her elementary school, Group 1A. She looked like her mother.
“Do you think she’s alive?”
Rangel knew that when a minor disappears, the possibility of finding the child alive after the first seventy-two hours is radically diminished. But he didn’t have the heart to say this.
“Could she possibly be hiding in someone’s house, like with friends or family?”
“Impossible. Lucía is a very obedient girl. Besides, she’s only seven years old. She still depends on me for so many things.”
“Did you already check the hospitals? The one in Paracuán? In Tampico? In Ciudad Madera?” And since he saw that the woman was nodding, he added, “Did you already go to the morgue?”
“I even went to see the El Palmar girl, thinking it might have been my daughter. What they did to her was horrible.” And he was blinded by the sun coming through the window.
It was obvious she was keeping quiet about something. If I don’t put some pressure on her, I’ll leave empty-handed.
“Ma’am,” he said, “I don’t have much time. I have to investigate other reports.”
“I think she was kidnapped.”
“Do you suspect anyone in particular?”
The woman nodded and sipped at her tea. Rangel noticed her hands were shaking.
“Four months ago, when they started to rebuild the school, my husband introduced me to the donors and the architects, very powerful people. Two days later, one of them came to the house when he knew my husband wouldn’t be here.” She swallowed. “This despicable man wanted me to go with him to his ranch. I grabbed that vase and told him I would hit him with it if he didn’t leave, but it didn’t work. He stalked me the whole week. He would park outside, he had bodyguards—he always had a body-guard—and they would come and knock on the door. Since I wouldn’t open the door, he’d leave me obscene letters. This continued until I stuck my head out the window and told him I was going to tell my husband. Then he told me he would get his revenge, and my daughter was gone the following week.”
“Do you have proof? It’s a very serious accusation.”
She offered him a paper with letterhead on it. “This is the last letter he wrote me. I threw the other ones away.”
Rangel examined the paper. “This is a photocopy.”
“Would you please read it?”
As soon as he finished it, he felt his throat dry out, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. Goddamm it, I need water, a glass of water. Even so, he found the strength to say, “The letter speaks for itself. Tell me something,” said Vicente. “Does anyone else know about this?”
“Officer Taboada. I told him a month ago and he hasn’t done anything. He kept the original copy of the letter.”
“Joaquín Taboada?”
Rangel felt his knees buckle. He was facing the worst moral dilemma of his career. From that moment on, he would have to think twice before each step forward.
Before he started his car, he thought over what Mrs. Dorotea had said to him. El Travolta, who would have thought it? Through the rearview mirror, the three gigantic flames from the oil refinery seemed to shine brighter than ever.
When Rangel got back, the office was full of unusual activity. Cruz Trevi?o and his coworkers watched him distrustfully.
“And the doctor?”
“He left.”
“Excuse me?”
“The meeting ended and he left without telling anybody.”
“F*cking a*shole,” added the Evangelist.
Rangel said to himself: That’s really strange. He decided to go look for him at the hotel.
The chief’s nephew opened the door, naked. There was a redhead on the bed. And the doctor? Um, he was here, but not anymore. Yes, I know that, but what happened? Where did he go? I wouldn’t be able to say. It’s really complicated. And how did you get here? I’m not sure. . . . Shit, said Rangel, what a f*cking disaster.
At the front desk, they told him the doctor had paid his bill and left. How could you have let him pay? He was the city’s guest! Well, yes, but he insisted. Rangel went outside and kicked the tires on his Chevy. In one second, everything had fallen apart. And it was just the beginning.