The Black Minutes

25

They paid at the Federal Highways and Bridges tollbooth, and a sign bid them farewell on behalf of the city: HASTA LUEGO, AMIGOS TURISTAS.
They left behind the stretch of places to eat lunch: buildings with palm roofs, surrounded by eighteen-wheelers and cattle trucks, where only truck drivers ate. They saw a hot-sheets motel that had no doors, just an insufficient number of plastic curtains, through which it was possible to see dozens of bodies making love in plain sight; a little later the first shacks appeared, along with banana fields planted in rows, boarded-up beer stores, dark houses with no outside lighting, a gas station abandoned before being finished, a restaurant with no one inside except an old man and a teenage girl, who remained standing, bored, leaning against the doorframe. ...
Plastic tanks to store water, orange groves hidden by invading plants, so extremely overgrown they covered the tree entirely, and above them, the wind rustling the palm trees, truly majestic giants. ...
A flattened red-necked vulture with black feathers on the side of the road; a pack of wild dogs fighting over the remains of a sheep run over by a car. ...
A sad little stream full of leaves and fallen tree trunks, a row of weeping willows with their branches covered in moss. ...
An abandoned gravel mine, a moonscape with no plants or trees, a bulldozer with its shovel stuck in the ground and, next to it, two tow trucks and two dump trucks, motionless, turned off, waiting. ...
Two advertisements for Cola Drinks; when they passed the third, Romero clicked his tongue, opened the Thermos he kept in his lap, and gulped from it anxiously.
A sign announced the next highway crossing: Matamoros to the right, Valle Verde to the left. They saw the cemetery next to the road, an abundance of small crosses, painted in pastel colors, and, farther along, the Paso Culebrón sign. The highway became a dirt road and it wasn’t long before they saw the sign for Arroyo del Tigre and the fresh-water springs.
A thick fog bank that appeared out of nowhere took them by surprise. A little later, the car’s bumper hit the base of a hill and the fog became incredibly thick. They passed through three consecutive gates, made of wood and barbed wire, that Romero got out and pushed open. He didn’t close them, just in case there wasn’t time to open them on the way back.
When they got to the top of the hill, they saw the stump that had the name of the owners on it. This is it, said Vicente, and he took the safety off the Colt. Following Rangel, his companion took out an automatic pistol and lodged it between his legs; the wheels of the car turned ever so slowly.
“Seems like it’s a hundred degrees,” said the Blind Man, and Rangel nodded.
The fog would clear up every few seconds and they could briefly make out the road. The fog was like a grimy white sheet rolling over them. They saw a horse grazing and Romero lowered the high beams. It took Rangel a minute to make out the little wooden houses at the other end of the hill.
“Shit,” said his lackey. “We’re f*cked.”
Three dogs barked at them from the top of the incline. They hadn’t counted on that.
“Now what do we do?” the Blind Man asked.
“Improvise. There’s no other way.”
Romero turned on the lights, and, escorted by the three animals, drove the car toward the ranch. There was a tire swing hanging from the only tree they could see. Behind it were two shacks; a guy with a small rifle ran out of the first one. “Hold up, hold up!”
Romero didn’t see him and was just barely able to brake. The shadow got into firing position behind the tree. At the same time, a brawny older guy stuck his head out of the second shack.
The guy with the rifle blinded Romero with a flashlight and he lost his cool. “Turn that off!”
“What do you want?” a voice screamed.
Romero couldn’t see anything. The dogs’ growling intensified beside him. “Turn that flashlight off, goddamnit!”
Rangel intervened before Romero messed everything up. “Police!”
For a few seconds, all they could hear was the deafening buzzing of the cicadas. The light from the flashlight reflected off Romero’s glasses.
Rangel noticed the man waiting in the door of the hut, lit by the headlights, talking to someone inside the shack. Rangel made out the shape of a girl or a woman squatting down through the Ocote pine branches that formed the wall of the shack. She went up to the man and handed him a gun.
“What do you want?” the guy with the flashlight repeated.
Romero moved to pick up his pistol, but Rangel stopped him. He didn’t want to die like a deer on the run.
“I came to talk to Don Cipriano.”
The man with the rifle pointed the flashlight on the ground. Rangel was able to make out a young man, about thirty years old, with a mustache and mutton-chop sideburns, pointing a small machine gun at them. Because of the rush, the guard only had on his boots and his pants.
Rangel recognized the gun and knew that if they started shooting, he and his partner wouldn’t have a chance.
“Put that away, Chuy,” said Vicente. “Your boss sent us.”
Judging by the silence, the ranch hand was doubtful. Then the other guy shouted at them without moving. “What are you looking for?”
And Rangel answered, “We came for the shipment.”
The guy in the shack gestured to the younger guy, and, to get some time, asked, “Chuy, what’s the man saying?”
“I don’t understand him. Who the hell knows.”
The man in the hut came over to them—Rangel saw he was hiding a pistol in the small of his back—walking up to the right side of the car. He stopped as the detective tried to get out.
“Let’s see. Show me something in writing.”
As he lifted himself up to take out his wallet, Rangel kept one hand on his Colt. But the guy didn’t try anything, just struggled to read the document.
“Vicente Rangel González, Secret Service. . . . Why didn’t the boss come?”
“He sent you this, a bonus.”
Rangel handed over the envelope from Congressman Wolffer, with the government seal and the rest of the bribe. Don Cipriano counted it and put the package in his pocket, while the second man kept his gun pointed at Romero.
“Well, now,” Vicente joked, “tell the lady here to put the toy away. She seems real anxious.”
Rangel thought the one with the machine gun was going to go after him, but he just snorted and spit in the grass.
“You taking the truck?” the older man asked.
“What?”
“Are you gonna go back in that wreck or you gonna take the boss’s truck?” Don Cipriano pointed at a black truck parked behind the house.
Rangel turned on the high beams and saw the official logo: the same three letters he had seen on the girls’ bodies.
“It wouldn’t hurt to have Chuy follow us out,” Vicente explained. “We’d appreciate the support. We have to be at the airport in a few hours, because the boss needs to move the shipment. What do you think?”
“Yeah, sure,” said Cipriano. “Just one thing: why’d you guys come?”
“To deliver you from evil,” Romero said, and he patted his pistol suggestively.
The ranch hand didn’t look convinced but he gave in anyway. “Okay, Chuy, give our friend a hand here.”
Rangel calmly got out of the car. The dogs immediately went for his legs, but Cipriano yelled and they stopped. F*cking coyotes, Rangel thought. The mud had made their fur bristle.
“And why so early?”
“He has to take a plane to Matamoros. We’ll just have to wake him up.”
“He never sleeps, right, Chuy?”
“Is he here in the house?”
“No, they’ll take you to him. But your partner stays here.”
“Why?”
“What do you need him for? Is he your wife?”
Romero grumbled under his breath but didn’t respond to the insults. Chuy put the machine gun under his arm.
“Is that an Uzi?” Rangel asked.
“What do you think?”
“That gun’s only allowed in the army.”
“What, you gonna take it from me? Guess who gave it to me?”
Don Cipriano intervened. “You’ll have to take the horse to get him.” And he motioned to an enclosure where two horses were grazing.
They went up to two dark-colored mares, who snorted at them as they approached. Chuy jumped up on a horse and Rangel did the same.
“Come on,” the ranch hand said.
The mare tried to bolt and knock him off, but the detective tightened his grip as well as he could. As soon as he had the chance, he stuck his gun in the front part of his pants: I can’t trust El Chuy, this guy just rubs me the wrong way.
When they left the enclosure, he saw a corral where sheep were sleeping. Of course, he said to himself, that a*shole used animals from his brother’s ranch to lure the girls to him. He got them from here.
The two of them rode until the hill descended into a small creek bed. They crossed a forest of tamarind trees. Once in a clearing, fingers of far-off lightning seemingly illuminated the sky, drawing lines across it and surprising the men. The vegetation grew denser, and Rangel heard a bird screech. El Chuy slowed his horse, and they came to an even bigger clearing.
There was a house made of concrete and three shacks around it. The concrete house was built where the forest began. In case of danger, Rangel said to himself, you only had to run out the back door.
“Is he in the house?”
“No,” said Chuy, “over here.”
They stopped in front of the smallest and most miserable shack. The noises coming from the forest ceased for an instant and then continued.
The walls were made of Ocote pine branches. The gaps in between them had once been filled with clay; now you could make out the forest on the other side of the shack without much difficulty. A hammock creaked inside.
Without losing sight of the ranch hand, Rangel moved closer. His heart was beating so hard that he thought he was going to have a heart attack.
“Mr. Morales!” he shouted.
“Be careful, amigo,” El Chuy reprimanded him, “don’t talk to him like that. Don’t you know who he is?”
Rangel thought he was being very considerate of the man who had killed so many girls, so he got off his horse and walked inside the hut. The ranch hand was horrified. Immediately, the creaking stopped. As he got closer, a group of flies buzzing warned him to be careful. What the f*ck is this? He immediately recognized the same stench from the abandoned building. It doesn’t matter now, Rangel said, it was already God’s will. He lifted up the swaying fabric covering the doorway and went into the shack.
He had to blink so his eyes would adjust to the lack of light. Three empty cans of cola led his eyes to the hammock, where a body was wrapped up in a blanket. Rangel told him he’d come to look for him, and the man got out of the netting.
He was the spitting image of his brother: a small thin man with blond hair, no more than a hundred and thirty pounds or so, with lank, greasy hair. When he was close enough to him, Rangel asked, “Clemente Morales?”
The man nodded.
“You killed the girls?” he asked him quietly.
The man sighed, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
“It was me.”
“What was the first girl’s name?”
“Lucía Hernández Campillo.”
“Where did you kill them?”
“In a school over by the train tracks.”
“Shut up and let’s go. Don’t say a word. You don’t have the right to speak.”
And that was it.
Once they were back at the ranch, they loaded the suspect into the Chevy Nova and said good-bye to Cipriano.
“Let’s go, Chuy, hurry up, you have to escort us.”
The ranch hand got into the black truck and followed the Chevy Nova to the first wooden gate. Once there, the Chevy stopped so Rangel could get out to relieve himself.
“Goddamnit,” said El Chuy, “weren’t you in a big hurry before?” And he got out to shut the gate.
When he got back to his car, Rangel jammed his Colt .38 into El Chuy’s kidneys.
“What the f*ck? What’s up?”
“What’s your full name?”
“Jesús Nicodemo.”
“Jesús Nicodemo, don’t resist. You’re under arrest for the murder of Luis Carlos Calatrava.”
He tied his hands together behind his back with a cable and put him into the backseat of the Chevy.
A few minutes later, Don Cipriano finished counting the money inside the shack and listened intently.
“What happened?” The woman could have been his daughter.
“Shut up!”
The sound of the car on the road faded away. The man listened closely, and when the sound was completely gone, he ran out onto the hill. As soon as he saw the truck parked, he snapped his fingers at the woman.
“María! Get me my boots.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the gas station, to call the boss.”
“Why?”
“They took El Chuy and left the truck!”