The Black Minutes

by Martin Solares

  “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.”

  13

  Instead of going home, Vicente went to get a cup of coffee at El Visir, a well-known café in front of the Plaza de Armas. An idea had obsessed him all morning. He checked his wallet discreetly to make sure that he had enough money for what he would need to buy. At exactly twelve noon, he headed to the historic center of the city. He was circling around El Mercurio when finally, on the umpteenth pass, he recognized the photographer coming out. Perfect, he said to himself, and drove over to her.

  La Chilanga was walking unhurriedly along the Avenida Central. She looked odd without her usual camera slung over her shoulder; she didn’t even have her backpack with all the equipment she needed for her job. Rangel pulled up to the curb.

  “Want a ride?”

  Much later, Marianna turned over in bed and started to talk. “Johnny Guerrero says that Fidel betrayed Che Guevara; can you believe it? He says he sent Che into the Sierra Maestra hoping he wouldn’t come back and, since he had the power, he didn’t give him enough reinforcements, because it wasn’t to his benefit to bring him back. What are the Cubans going to do without Che, the lion, the warrior always out front, the brain for everybody? Who knows if Fidel can recover from the loss? Do you think he’ll try again in Bolivia?”

  Rangel turned on the radio. He wanted to find English rock to cheer the girl up, and it wasn’t till then that he realized they had substituted Freaky’s show for one with música tropical: This is for you, Benny Moré, and next: Chico Che y la Crisis! Goddamnit, he said to himself. No shit, I didn’t even notice when this station went downhill.

  “Hey, Mariana, are you Mr. Sherer’s niece?”

  “Johnny made that up.”

  A thunderclap signaled a coming storm.

  “No hard feelings?” the young woman asked.

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Good.” She got out of the bed, her hips swaying.

  Rangel couldn’t get over how strange it was that all this had happened so quickly and easily. If he weren’t so hurt by what Yesenia did to him, he told himself, he could even marry a woman like this....

  At six in the evening, the girl said she was hungry, and Vicente proposed going to La Rivera to eat seafood. As they took a quick shower, Vicente asked if they’d see each other after dinner.

  “I’m supposed to get together with a girlfriend,” she explained, “but I’ll try.”

  “I’d love to see you,” the detective insisted.

  They didn’t have to wait for the ferry take them over, and they crossed the street with their arms around each other. They were going toward the Chevy Nova when a horn began honking repeatedly; someone was trying to get Vicente’s attention. From the other side of the avenue, a white pickup was coming over to him. It was Práxedes, the accountant. His uncle had introduced them several years ago.

  “Get in,” Rangel said to the girl, and he held out the keys to his car. The girl took them without asking for an explanation, and Rangel cautiously went over to say hello to the accountant through his window.

  According to what Práxedes himself had said, because of his high status and his criminal record, they were always trying to pin crimes on him, but he was innocent. Rangel didn’t know exactly how he made
his living, but he knew it bordered on the illegal. Today he seemed to be in a hurry.

  “Quiubo, Práxedes.”

  “Quiubo, cabrón. Who’d you get in a fight with?”

  “Aw, shit, what do you mean, who’d I get in a fight with?”

  “Some asshole on the docks. He was looking for someone to kill you.”

  Fuck, thought Rangel. “He asked you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess you didn’t accept.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Who was it?”

  “I didn’t know him.”

  “Goddamnit, Práxedes!”

  “I swear I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Could it be one of the guys from work?”

  “No, it was a short guy. I think he was there for somebody else.”

  “Was it Chávez?”

  “No, I know Chávez. The guy who came to see me looked indigenous.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  He thought about it a minute. “All right, thanks.”

  “Put a double lock on your door. If they keep asking around, someone’s gonna take the job.”

  “Let me know,” he told him, and hit the side of the truck two times, saying good-bye. The accountant left immediately.

  “Who was that?” Mariana asked. The fun and games were over.

  “Someone I know. Where should I take you?”

  “Drop me off downtown. If I leave my girlfriend early and want to go back to your house, how do I get in?”

  “Here. I have another set in the office.” Rangel gave her his keys, and a huge smile lit up the girl’s face.

  Before going back to his house, he stopped at Parcero’s store and asked for a thirty-eight-caliber bullets. It was time to take out the big guns. Afterward he went to the Modelo Superstore, where he bought food for two people, a bottle of whiskey, and a six-pack of beer.