The Black Minutes

21
Testimony of Jorge Romero, AKA the Blind Man

Not like it was anything new, but they started to assign me to follow up on the most f*cked-up calls; they sent me to the Colonia Coralillo. You know what they say about that neighborhood: One time a cop went in there and they diced him up alive. I asked the boss, Why don’t you go? It’s really far; you’ve got a car and I don’t. “You don’t really want to be part of the secret police, do you?” he said. Yeah, I do. “OK, then, go. And don’t be late coming back.” So I went.
I had a fake reporter’s ID and, depending on the situation, I wasn’t sure if I’d say I was a cop or not. I had a fake badge in one pocket, and in the other I had a mini–tape recorder that my cousin lent me so I’d be more convincing. When I headed into that part of town, I remembered they’d assault you for a watch or your glasses, so I thought I’d better keep it in my pocket. Just then, the taxi driver turned around at the traffic circle instead of going in. What’s up? What’s the problem? Why’re you stoppin’ here? “It’s union orders; they’re really worked up today about the girls who got killed. One of ’em was from here.” And what do I do now? “Sorry, that’s not my problem.”
As soon as I went in, I wouldn’t have anywhere to hide. The neighborhood’s calmed down a little now, but you can’t even imagine what the Coralillo was like in the seventies. None of the streets were paved; it was just a dusty pit where everybody went to throw their junk. No drinking water or electricity, not even a sewage system. Malaria, diphtheria, polio . . . the river was so dirty there were dead burros floating in it. The government never went there except to arrest somebody. A few months before I went in, a mob lynched a cop from Ciudad Madera. The guy went in, chasing some robbers, and he left in an ambulance, with his ribs broken. That’s why I was trembling. But the only thing I could think to do was to go in a straight line, never pass by the same place twice and entrust myself to the Virgen María.
And that’s how I did it, cussing the whole goddamn way. The first person who made a report lived in a house in front of a pharmacy called La Perla, an old termite-ridden wooden place. In front, there were like twenty kids fighting over a bike with training wheels. A skinny kid was hitting another kid when I came up.
“Hey, kids.” All of them stopped playing except for the one whose turn it was to be on the bike. “Is Mrs. Mariscal here?”
“Why you wanna see her?” A kid in a striped shirt asked. The other ones were curious, too, and they surrounded me.
“She asked for me to come. I’m a reporter with El Mercurio.”
“From El Mercurio?” the one in the striped shirt asked. “My mom didn’t talk to no reporter. She called the cops. That’s why my dad sent her to the hospital.”
I had to swallow my spit. The kids started shouting that I was a cop and that they were going to tell Juan’s dad. Luckily there were no adults around. I was trying to come up with something to say to interrupt them when I took a step backward and tripped on a bike wheel, almost breaking it. El Flaco, the skinny one, shouted, “F*cking cop! Don’t let him go!” And they all came at me at once. They started kicking me, throwing rocks, hitting me, whatever they could do. El Flaco held my legs together while the others grabbed my hands. I was still thinking, Aww, what sweet kids, and I wanted to get free without making noise, but one of them hurled a stone that hit me right in my left eye. No more Mister Nice Guy, I thought, and I got really mad and started to hand out knuckle sandwiches. Take that you, f*cking kids, güegüenches, you cocksuckers. Little by little they started to let go, but El Flaco was holding onto my pants really tight, and when I looked down I saw he was about to bite my stomach, the little bastard, so I gave him a good loud slap.
All of them turned to look, and when the kid saw he was at the center of attention, he started to cry. Typical. Then he shouted, “Now you did it, a*shole! I’m gonna get my dad’s gun.”
Gun? What the f*ck? I thought and ran to take cover in the little store on the corner. Since the kids were right at my heels, I took out the only pesos I had, put them on the counter, and shouted, “This is on me!” And I emptied a jar full of candy and gum into my hands.
The kids surrounded me like piranhas and I offered them the candy. That got their attention and they stopped shouting. It didn’t stop one of them from yelling, “F*cking cop,” and another from smearing mud on my shirt, but as soon as the first one grabbed a piece of candy, the others did, too.
“My mom told you to get all this?” asked the kid in the striped shirt.
“Sure she did.” I assured him.
Then the little devil showed what he was really made of. “My mom always buys us Chaparritas.”
After I bought a case of those little bottles of soda, the kids finally quieted down. I was just starting to breathe normally, when El Flaco showed up, carrying a plastic bag. He seemed surprised by our little party.
“What’s happenin’?” he asked the one in stripes.
“Nothin’, this dude got us some Chaparritas.” He was talking with his mouth half full of candy.
“And you, buddy, you don’t want anything?” I cut him off.
El Flaco looked at me distrustfully until the one in the striped shirt egged him on.
“Right on, get some chips.”
Still worked up, El Flaco watched me in silence, but he couldn’t resist the feast.
“OK,” he said, “I want some chips.” And before I could order them, he added, “The big bag. And I want salsa and peanuts on them, too.”
The guy behind the counter said, “You don’t have enough. And you owe me ten pesos for the Chaparritas.”
I had to give him the tape recorder for two bags of chips and a box of grape Chaparritas.
El Flaco, like a real vulture, was still mumbling. “We should go get El Chucho and the Ostrich, so this pig can get stuff for them, too.”
Just to follow up, I called the kid in the striped shirt over away from the other kids—as far away as I could, since two kids followed him over. “Hey, bro, what’d your mom call us for?”
He answered with his mouth full. “She thinks the Jackal is my Tío Abundis.”
“Your Uncle Abundis?” I gave him my last piece of gum. “Abundio Mariscal?”
“Yeah.” He took the gum. “That’s why my dad hit her, ’cause she reported my uncle to the cops. He hit her so bad he sent her to the hospital.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yep. I’da done the same thing.” He was a really tough kid.
I knew who Abundio Mariscal was. He was a lowlife with a repair shop that used all stolen parts. He was from Tamuín, and he was missing an arm. There was no way he could be the Jackal, because, according to the medical examiner, the killer had to be ambidextrous to inflict the wounds.
“Right,” I said.
“I’m gonna want another Chaparrita,” said one of his bodyguards.
“No problem,” I promised. “Just lemme go to the bank,” and I started to walk away.
El Flaco threatened me. “Don’t go too far, copper. We’re watching you.”
I left them there, focused on stuffing themselves silly.
I didn’t get anything from the next three houses: a teenager with a big imagination who wanted to be a police officer, a woman getting beaten by her husband, and an old woman who’d come to her own conclusions about life. I’d promised to visit Mrs. Dorotea Hernández, the mother of one of the victims, but I was already fed up. I just wanted to get out of there and relax. I was about to leave, but I thought, well, I’m already here, and if I don’t go, this old lady might just cause me problems at headquarters, besides it’s the only thing Rangel specifically assigned me to do.
Around that time, Mrs. Dorotea Hernández had appeared in the papers, talking bad about the police and saying we didn’t know how to do our job. The woman was really annoying. We were all fed up with her statements in the press, most of all for having led the protest. Her daughter disappeared on January 15, but no one helped her and the case got lost in the shuffle. If someone had paid attention to her, we could have avoided the whole problem. Maybe I’d still be working in the secret police. But it didn’t happen like that. Then the second girl disappeared, the woman called the office every day and now no one even took her calls. Rangel had assigned me to ask her if she knew where Mr. So-and-So’s ranch was, so I went. I was getting more and more nervous by the minute, because, after leaving the last interview, the same people who had called the police could spread the rumor that a cop was walking around the colonia. Besides, every time I left a house, I’d always run into El Flaco’s gang, El Flaco riding the bike with the training wheels. When I left the old lady’s house, I saw the kid waiting for me under a mango tree, like a bad omen. Then he ran toward me and introduced me to a big group of future gang members, not one of whom trusted me.
“You buying?” El Flaco asked.
“Sorry, bro,” I told him, “I don’t have a dime. I’m gonna have to walk back home.” Despite its being the truth, I didn’t convince him.
“Whaddaya mean? You don’t have any more cash?”
“Are you deaf? What don’t you understand?” I said it so rudely his friends made fun of him.
Then the kid really did get mad. “You f*cking cop! Now you’re really in for it.”
Go to hell, I thought, and I headed off to Mrs. Dorotea’s house, at the end of the market, next to Public School Number Five. The majority of the gang members dispersed, but El Flaco followed me at a distance, pedaling his bike with two bodyguards behind him. I had made him look bad in front of his friends, since they had to leave without their chips.
“Now I’m not telling you nothing!” he yelled at me.
But I didn’t stop. If I could get to the market without any problems, I’d be safe, or at least that’s what I thought. The idea was to avoid one of the busiest streets, the one by the dock.
So I’m heading that way with El Flaco grumbling behind me. As soon as I made it out of the market, I breathed deep and started to run. I lost them at the Danny candy store. It was tough to get through because it was payday and the market was packed, full of women running their errands and transvestites, prostitutes, dockworkers, and the normal customers. I went out a side door and saw no sign of the kids. I got to Mrs. Dorotea’s house around noon; the sun was beaming down hard, and as soon as I saw her I knew this was it. I questioned her relentlessly, until suddenly she confessed. Oh, shit, I said to myself, I got him. But I would’ve preferred it wasn’t him, because the guy was such a pain. The news made such an impression, I got really quiet, and she turned pale.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Yes,” I said to her. “You should have said something before.”
And she started to cry. I was already way beyond thinking about right or wrong, and I ordered her not to tell anybody what she told me, and we’d see if I could still help her. Don’t tell anybody at all, I insisted. At that moment, I was only thinking about the reward: I couldn’t believe it; I had found a needle in a haystack, a four-leaf clover. The money would be mine soon, twenty-four hours at the latest. I couldn’t hear what the woman was saying to me anymore, I was in another dimension and a voice was saying to me: “The reward, cabrón, go get the reward.” The woman didn’t know how to get to the person’s ranch, but she gave me the number of someone who did.
When I went out into the street, El Flaco and his dad were waiting for me. His dad was a crazy-looking black guy, with the face of a boxer. He looked mad as hell.
“Cop!” El Negro yelled. “F*cking cop!”
I acted like he was talking to somebody else and turned my head, like he wasn’t talking about me, and went up the street that leads to the plaza. I heard the kid’s voice, saying, “That’s him, dad, that’s him!” and I heard the father’s steps, following me—“Officer!” he yelled at me—but I didn’t turn around.
F*cking Rangel, I thought, I never should’ve agreed to come here without a pistol; he should’ve lent me his. All I needed was to get killed just when I’d found the murderer. Then El Negro shouted, “You’re not even a real man! You just mess with little kids!” And I heard him spit. I noticed El Negro was giving instructions to two people who ran off toward the market, and I felt the sweat pouring down my back. I thought, Oh, God, they’re gonna block the street off; they’re gonna kill me like a rat. I walked faster. The alley sloped up really steep, and I thought I was going to pass out. El Negro kept on shouting, but I didn’t turn around. Then I noticed that people were moving out of my way, like I was in trouble. I figured he must’ve been pointing a gun at me. For sure, they got him a gun. Since I saw there was a group of guys waiting for me at the end of the street, I turned off toward the customs house. As I walked by the tortas de la barda shops, El Negro’s steps sounded so close to me, they might have been my own. I almost passed out from the fear alone, but I made it to the train station. Then I saw that the kids were back, “Negro, Negro, here he is!” And I didn’t have any doubt. I said to myself, F*ck. Now they did get him a gun. I turned left onto a street that looked busier, but it didn’t help me at all, because the people jumped off to one side if I got close to them. Some of them even looked at me like a person condemned to death who still doesn’t know his fate, and I said to myself: Oh, God, they’re going to execute me. And I didn’t want to look back, because I figured El Negro wouldn’t shoot me in the back—or maybe he would; I mean, I was in the Coralillo. Nobody likes the police here. Then I knew very clearly that a crowd of people had gathered behind me, ready to see me die, like they were at the Roman circus, and right then a guy coming in the opposite direction ducked down as I came up next to him, like he was trying to duck something and I felt the first shot hit my back, hard and compact, and it made my whole body shake. I remember I thought: Oh, shit! That was it. My back was wet and dripping: Oh, God, oh, God, they got me! I couldn’t breathe and my nose was running, but I didn’t stop: Holy Mary Mother of God, Holy Mother of God! Get me out of here! When I got to the top of the hill, tears started to pour out of me, and I took the second hit, boom, and that was when I said, Ave María Purísima, I made it this far! But something strange was happening to the people, because instead of shouting or getting scared, they were laughing at me! All of a sudden, my legs gave way as I felt a soft, juicy substance slithering down my neck. I reached back, and my hand came away covered with yellow pulp: papaya. El Negro had thrown papayas at me! “Hey, officer!” he shouted, “I don’t think you’ll come back here no more!” Everyone was laughing wildly, and my nose wouldn’t stop running. I went up Calle Héroes de Nacozari, cleaned off the pulp, and didn’t stop until I got to police headquarters. I could breathe again. I was humiliated and dirty, and I had lost my tape recorder. But I was alive and I knew who the murderer was.