The Black Minutes by Martín Solares

Bernardo Blanco had been writing about. He nodded, humbly.
    “How could I not? I was his main source. You see this?” And he pointed to his eyes.
    Don Jorge Romero wore dark glasses for just one reason: he had no eyes. They’d been torn out.
    “In order to solve this case, you have to know what happened twenty years ago: I’m talking about the Jackal.”
    After beating around the bush, Cabrera went so far as to say, “Yeah, I remember some things about the case. I was reading about it, too. People said Jack Williams was the killer, right?”
    Romero asked Cabrera for a cigarette and Cabrera gave him his almost full pack. The blind man expertly lit one and shook his head as he exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Jack Williams had nothing to do with it.”
    “Why are you so sure?”
    “Because I caught the real killer.”

17

    They were there for three hours. The whole time, Romero referred to his partner, and when Cabrera asked the partner’s name, the blind man said, “Vicente Rangel.”
    Cabrera felt a chill surge up his spine, and he asked to meet Rangel as soon as possible.
    “That’s impossible. He disappeared; nobody knows what happened to him.” Romero filled his jacket pockets with free sugar packets and said he had to go, but first he asked for a second pack of smokes.
    “What about the murderer?”
    “That’ll cost you. I have to make something out of this,
chingá
. I’m not doing it for love of country.”
    Cabrera handed him practically all the money he had on him. In exchange, Romero called to the little girl, “Conchita: give the piece of paper to the gentleman,” and she handed him a wrinkled piece of newspaper from the section with local society news. There, two men in ties and jackets, surrounded by bodyguards, looked at the photographer intently.
    “The murderer is the one in dark glasses.”
    As he left, Romero said, “Wait a while before leaving. If we
are
being followed, it’s best if we don’t step out together.”
    Cabrera waited for as long as he could. When it seemed like he’d waited long enough, he asked for the check and went out.Romero was still there, waiting for the bus on the other side of the street. The little girl noticed him, and, so as not to cause them concern, he went to waste some time on the beach.
    What Romero had told him was a real bombshell.
¡Carajo!
What should I do now? He was close to the refinery, and the wind had the rotten smell of sulfur.
    To calm himself down, he spent a little while contemplating the barrier made of pine and palm trees that signaled the end of the beach. But despite the roiling sea of thoughts in his head, he suddenly remembered the gun. Yeah, I did: I forgot to return the gun. If he wanted to stay out of any more trouble, he would have to go pick it up at the office.

18

    Rosa Isela was waiting for him at the door; she was obviously distressed. As soon as she saw him, she ran toward him and took him by the arm. The Bedouin and the huge Fatwolf were two steps behind her. The Bedouin shouted at him.
    “Cabrera! Chávez is looking for you.”
    Isela tried to drag him in the opposite direction, but Cabrera pulled free. “Wait a minute,
mi reina
, I’ll catch up to you.”
    “No, sir, please, don’t go over there.”
    When he heard this, he understood what he was in for.
    “Chávez wants to talk to you,” Fatwolf insisted.
    As soon as he walked in, he noticed the desks had been pushed to the sides, making an empty space in the middle of the office. And the civilians, who normally were everywhere, were nowhere to be found. Isela was the only one trying to get him out of there. At some point, Fatwolf pulled her off his arm, and Cabrera agreed to go into headquarters.
    Chávez was sitting behind a plastic table, playing with his car keys.
    “What’s up, Chávez, what can I do for you?”
    Chávez looked at him and said nothing. His left hand was hidden behind his back.
    In this line of work, if you get distracted, you lose. Chávez