The Black Minutes (23 page)

Rangel stayed quiet, thinking. Because of the rivalry between the two mayors, it was in Don Agustín Barbosa’s interest to solve the murder before Chief García. Vicente wasn’t a traitor, but, on the other hand he was fed up with El Travolta. Shit, what would my uncle have said? At the far end of the bar, next to the cash register, the girl was peering at Rangel curiously. For a minute, he imagined the life a guy like him could lead in Ciudad Madera, with a girl like that and twenty-five thousand dollars in his bank account. He saw himself dressed in new shirts with huge collars, unbuttoned to the waist, drinking in this place, listening to Elton John and holding the girl close. . . . The rosy dream evaporated in the air as soon as he pictured his old coworkers retaliating against him. He wished his uncle were still around to give him some advice.

Get one thing straight: as long as you’re in this business, you’re not going to have any friends. You heard right: not one friend. Everyone who gets close to you is going to ask for something or want to use you for something. You can’t trust anybody. A police officer doesn’t have friends when he’s doing his job; a police officer only has enemies. The trick is to learn how to avoid them.

Don’t tell anybody where you live and never open your door in one fell swoop, just in case they’re messing with you. If you eat out for lunch, look for a seat where they can’t surprise you (the doors, keep an eye on the doors), and if you have to be next to a window, close the curtain or lower the light, so they won’t be able to shoot at you from outside.

Don’t drink too much, don’t take drugs, don’t go into a dark place unarmed, don’t make deals with people from that world (the criminal world, I mean, but don’t make deals with your coworkers, either, just in case one day they get sick of you and want to get rid of you), and like the
santeros
say, put a glass of water next to your bed every night and pray to Saint Judas Martyr; just in case your soul gets thirsty, you don’t want it to head off looking for a drink and never come back.

One day, years ago, Rangel and his uncle had just got back from making an arrest, when Lolita called them aside.

“Lieutenant, a man came to look for you. It was an older gentleman, about eighty years old. He left you a book.”

His uncle’s face lit up. “Look at that, what good news!”

Don Miguel smiled big and showed the book to Rangel. It was a copy of
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
, dedicated
To my good friend, Don Miguel Rivera
. And it was signed
T
, just like that, all alone on the page, like a cross.

“A man about eighty years old, leather jacket and a straw hat?”

“Yeah. He said he was staying in the same place as always.”

The old man nodded his head and went to make a phone call. Twenty minutes later he asked his nephew, “You got a lot of work right now?”

“The usual.”

“Drop what you’re doing and meet me at the bar in the Hotel Inglaterra at two.”

At two o’clock on the dot, Rangel met his uncle at one of the tables in the middle of the bar. A man with graying hair was at his side, a straw-colored hat on the seat next to him.

“Vicente,” his uncle said, “I’d like to introduce Mr. Traven Torsvan, a writer.”

They ate lunch at a restaurant on the riverbank: a few giant shrimp; an oyster, octopus and ceviche cocktail; little cheese tortillas; and the house specialty: crabs à la Frank (crab meat with cheese and a magnificent olive oil). During the lunch, Mr. Torsvan took out a copy of
The Death Ship
and signed it for Rangel.

“You don’t see the waiter, do you?”

“No.”

“He hasn’t been paying any attention to us. If you see him, wave him over.”

But the waiter was nowhere to be seen.

“Where do you live?”

“On the other side of the river. Near the dock.”

“Near the Williams hacienda?”

“Right next door, in the foreman’s house.”

“And you know what they say about that house? I’ll tell you the story while we wait to order.”

As you know, the Williams family came from Germany, escaping from the First World War. They settled all along the coast and their largest property, their hacienda, started here in Paracuán and extended all the way to the Cerro del Nagual: as far as the eye can see. The oldest son, who was a bum, a drinker, and a womanizer, went to live in Haiti. When his father died, he returned to run the hacienda. He did it for a month, but soon his employees started to die. An animal was eating them in the forest, a tiger. It was hunting them down. It was so strong it could carry a man in his jaws and eat him up in a tree where no one could stop him. Bullets didn’t affect him, even if the rifle had been blessed.

One of the few men who survived an encounter with the tiger spread the rumor that the animal looked like the young Mr. Williams and even had his same eyes. After that point, no one wanted to go near the hacienda. It seemed that the employees killed were those who had worked closest to Mr. Williams in the past few weeks. Some people said it was the ghost of the old man, that his son had cast a spell on him and forced him to wander around like a lost soul. Others thought it was the son himself. In any case, the animal was going to eat them one by one. They tried to kill it with silver-tipped bullets, but no marksman could shoot it; the tiger was always too quick for them. The ones who wanted to leave and go somewhere else found themselves locked in by huge iron fences and guards preventing their escape: they had
signed a contract, and they had to work on the ranch until the end of the year.

Soon they realized the animal attacked on a schedule, once every thirty days. It attacked once and then relaxed for three weeks. Each time it made it’s monthly kill, the survivors would breathe easier; they had another three weeks to live.

Five months later, it was the turn of the poorest family on the ranch. Mr. Williams went to visit them and said one of them was to go into the depths of the forest to guard the harvest. The oldest brother excused himself, because he had four children; the second brother did the same, because his wife was expecting twins; and the third, who was said to be incredibly brave, was terrified and burst into tears. Then the youngest in the family asked for them to let him go. He was named Jacinto and he was fifteen years old; everyone loved the boy. Perfect, said Mr. Williams, and he left.

When Mr. Williams’s niece found out, the girl, who had been Jacinto’s playmate, went to see the boy and gave him a packet with a word of advice. The boy didn’t doubt the girl’s sincerity, but he asked himself, What if the others got the same advice? Unlike his friends, he didn’t take a rifle with him into the jungle, just a few chickens and the girl’s packet. When night fell, he made a fire and started to make an exquisite dinner. When it was so dark he couldn’t see beyond the fire, he heard something close by, stepping on some twigs. He stood up, grasping a picture of the Virgin Mary. And the tiger showed up. Just as people said, the animal was huge and horrific, more than six feet long. It had claws the size of knives instead of hands. It’s tail was as thick as an elephant’s trunk, and it had long whiskers. Its hair was blond with black stripes. It’s eyes were green. And it smiled, its tongue hanging out of its mouth. The animal came up and said, “Good evening, may I sit down?”

“Of course,” said Jacinto, “please take a seat, sir.”

“Whatever you’re cooking smells great. What is it?”

“Chicken with boiled cabbage.”

“Ah, sauerkraut. And those bottles you’re chilling, what are they?”

“Riesling wine.”

“Riesling wine from Germany! It’s been a long time since I ate sauerkraut and drank Riesling wine. And it’s my favorite dish. Are you going to ask me to eat with you?”

“Yes, sir. All of this is for you.”

“OK,” the tiger said, “but don’t think I’m going to spare your life. I’ll eat the sauerkraut and the chickens, and afterward I’ll have you for dinner as well.”

“As you wish, sir.” And Jacinto rushed to pour the wine.

After taking the first bite, the tiger said something had hurt; maybe there was a stone in the food. “It must have been a chicken bone,” said Jacinto, and the animal took another bite, licking its whiskers. After finishing the first chicken, the beast asked Jacinto for the second. Then it ate the third and the fourth. The fifth one was eaten directly from the pot. As the beast ate, Jacinto served the first, the second, and finally the third bottle of wine. As it drank, the animal was getting happier and happier, and it roared in between bites. When Jacinto served the second bottle, it was talking to itself and singing in German. When he poured the third bottle, the animal scratched his arm. When it had finished the last chicken, it threw the pot and shouted, “The appetizers were good, but now it’s time for dinner!” The animal stood up and, taking its first step toward Jacinto, slipped and fell. Jacinto took advantage of the animal’s being drunk to escape.

Everyone was surprised to see Jacinto come back. And they were even more surprised to see the young Mr. Williams fall ill that same day. First, they said, “He woke up with a headache.”
And then: “He’s sick; he ate something that made him sick.” The foreman, another German, went to ask Jacinto if he had run into an animal in the forest. Jacinto said no. “Are you sure you didn’t see anything?” Jacinto was positive.

The second day, the foreman went to ask if he hadn’t seen a tiger or something like that. “And you didn’t notice if that animal hurt itself somehow?”

“No,” said Jacinto, “I didn’t see anything.”

The third day, Mr. Williams died. The doctor who examined him said there were five silver bullets in his body. “One perfectly hidden in each chicken,” said Jacinto.

From then on, the workers didn’t have any other problems. Jacinto married the old man’s niece and they founded a soda company, Cola Drinks. That’s why the Williamses are dark-skinned with light-colored eyes.

“Ah,” Mr. Torsvan concluded, “finally the waiter is here. What are you going to have?”

After lunch they drank a bottle of whiskey, then coffee.

“Why don’t you take us to visit your mansion, Vicente?” his uncle suggested. “You can see the dock from there. Besides, it’s not far from here.”

They bought a bottle of cognac and Mr. Torsvan handed a cigar to each of them. Since the old men wanted to see the ships, Rangel set them up in rocking chairs on the terrace, so they would be able to talk at ease. The breeze coming off the river scared away the mosquitoes and made the heat more bearable.

The sun descended slowly in the sky, lighting up the other side of the river. Don Miguel Rivera was happy. “In the twenties, you could see javelinas and deer drinking from the river. Do you remember?” he asked the German. “You lived around here.”

“Yes,” he replied.

“You had to kick them to scare them away.”

Ah, Uncle Miguel, Vicente thought to himself. He’d never seen him so happy. Obviously he was happy to run into his buddy.

Half an hour later, Don Miguel Rivera poured the last glass and confessed, “Vicente, I’m thinking of retiring.”

“Really? Why?”

“It’s about that time.”

“No way. What are you talking about?”

“Wait a second, let me speak. As I was saying to you, I’ve been in this job forty years, and the other day I really started to think.”

He was referring to something that had happened recently. Eight days before, while they were chasing a thief on the docks, Rangel had noticed that his uncle was short of breath, so he parked the patrol car and let the suspect go. “It’s over,” the old man said. “You had that asshole.”

“Don’t worry, Uncle, your health is the most important thing.” And they went to see Dr. Ridaura.

“It’s been forty years. Besides, I hadn’t told you, but there’s a killer on my tracks.”

“What!” Rangel shouted. “You should have told me,
tío
. Tell me now, and I’ll go look for him.”

“They call him
the silent killer
. And when that killer’s after you, there’s no reason to take any risks.”

“No, don’t get ahead of yourself,
tío
. We’ll look for him and put him in his fucking place. Besides, if you retire, I retire, too. What am I going to do by myself?”

“If you like it, keep at it. I think you’re made for this. How long have you been working, a year?”

“A year and a half.”

“That’s right. When I retire, I’m going to leave my pistol to you, to help keep you out of trouble.”

“Yeah, but don’t say that. You’ve got a long time till retirement.”

“We’ll see.”

“The first ones your uncle arrested,” said Mr. Torsvan, “were Cain and Abel.”

“Look, skipper, you can’t say anything; you’ve got ten years on me.”

“That’s why you should show some respect.”

“If you’re so respectable, why don’t you write anymore?”

“Of course I’m writing. I just finished a novel for children. It’s the story of a woodcutter who gets lost in the jungle. A run-in with God, the devil, and death.”

“It’s all fairy tales. Why don’t you write something more realistic, something more serious, more worthy of you? That story about the woodcutter has been told a thousand times!”