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living?”
    “I don’t know . . . I suppose he had savings. . . . Bernardo was a hermit: just like that he’d disappear for weeks on end and hole up to write. I hadn’t seen him for over six months when I found out he’d died.”
    “And you don’t know what he was writing?”
    “No idea.”
    “Did he know anybody with the initials C.O.?”
    Columba shrugged and, as Cabrera said nothing, stood up. There was a stir among the funeral party.
    As they were lowering the journalist’s body, a tiny nun who looked to be a hundred years old shouldered her way through the crowd to the center. She tuned an ancient guitar and, as the coffin descended into the grave, began to sing, before anybody could stop her, a Christian version of “Blowing in the Wind,” in an adaptation so free that the only thing left of Bob Dylan’s song was the original melody. In place of Dylan’s lyrics the sister sang a song of protest, religiously inspired. Something on the order of “Know ye He will come / Know He will be here / Meting out His bread to the poor.” Her voice was no good, but she did sing loudly, and as she repeated the chorus some of the mourners wept, especially the dead man’s relations. Cabrera was a roughneck, but even he felt a lump in his throat: burials depressed him. To change the subject, he said to Rodrigo Columba, “If the deceased were here, he’d request a different song.”
    “Don’t be so sure,” the young man answered. “Bernardo loved Bob Dylan. He loved anything that had to do with the sixties and seventies; he was obsessed with all that.”
    None of this jibes, thought Cabrera: Bernardo Blanco had a job and a girlfriend in Texas, a promising stable future, and suddenlyhe decides to leave it all to come here, write tabloid journalism, risk his life. Cabrera would’ve liked to know what the reporter was really up to, though most likely he’d never find out. As Bob Dylan’s song echoed through the cemetery, the cloud above broke up into ever smaller pieces, until it dissipated completely.
    “Time to get back to work,” he growled.

7

    Columba dropped him off at the tire-repair shop, where the manager was waiting for him.
    “I had to put a new tire on.”
    “Why, isn’t the other any good?”
    “No way, not even with Viagra. Look here, officer.” He showed him what was left of the tire. “How can I fix that? It’s impossible. Who did you get in a fight with?”
    The tire had been cut. Slashed, actually.
    “That isn’t a tire,” the workman said, “it’s a warning.”
    Cabrera’s stomach growled again.
    He went looking for Ramírez twice, but the forensics expert had an assignment at the docks and hadn’t come back. Meanwhile, the kid who’d had the pistol started calling; Cabrera hung up on him a couple of times, thinking Go change your diapers, fucking snot nose. If you want your piece, let your daddy come get it.
    At 3:30 he decided to go have lunch at Flamingos, well aware that he had an important date at five. He rummaged through all his desk drawers until he found a very battered book and went out to the parking lot. After he’d made sure the car didn’t have another flat tire—the last thing he needed—he headed to the restaurant: all the troublemakers from the office were there. He caught sight of Ramírez eating in a corner and went to sit down at his table.

    “OK, Fatso, out with it! What were you going to tell me?”
    In front of Ramírez were two orders of enchiladas
suizas
and another of
cecina
-style dried beef, waiting its turn. The expert swallowed a mouthful and wiped his lips with his napkin.
    “Don’t get into that, butthead, it’s a minefield.” Ramírez spoke in a low voice.
    “I’m not in it for pleasure, dude; the chief gave me the assignment.”
    “It’s really weird, really weird. If I were you, I’d drop it. You’re getting in way too deep. I wouldn’t, and”—he took a deep breath, wiping sweat from his forehead—“nobody else would dare