He pauses and sucks in a breath. He’s smoking, Rita thinks to herself. She turns on her tape recorder and connects the microphone to the receiver.
“Your article this morning and the editorial took a shot in the dark. But I’m not crazy, and I’m not a criminal. I’m just someone who through tremendous effort and sheer will became what I am today: Jacinto Bustillo, the man with the snakes.”
Another pause. Without letting go of the phone, Rita gestures to Jonás and El Zompopo, who just came into the office. She covers the mouthpiece and whispers that Jacinto Bustillo is on the line and to tell Matías to come quickly, before he hangs up.
“It must have been me you saw driving by the Presidential Palace,” the voice continues. “But that’s not important. I’ve been all over the city. If I didn’t get inside the politicians’ lair it’s because I wasn’t meant to.”
Matías comes running, exhilarated. He tells her to ask Bustillo for an interview, anywhere he likes and on his conditions. She keeps her hand over the mouthpiece and explains that she can’t interrupt him or he’ll hang up. Matías orders the staff to be quiet, pushes the loudness button and then, in the middle of the tense, expectant atmosphere, they hear the voice calmly say, “There’s no plan and there’s no conspiracy, the way they’re saying on the radio. Only chance and logic have allowed me to complete my mutation. But you wouldn’t understand.”
There’s another pause, another drag on the cigarette.
“I’ll call you back.”
He hangs up.
They stand there open-mouthed for a few seconds. Then they all start talking at once, loudly and excitedly. A few wonder whether it could have been a hoax, others mention the tone of his voice; those who have just arrived scold Rita for not having been more aggressive.
Matías tells her to transcribe the recording right away and to bring him a copy as soon as it’s ready.
“We’ve done it!” he exclaims, delighted. “With your account of what happened at the Presidential Palace and this transcript, we’re going to blow them out of the water.”
“What if he calls back?” Rita asks.
“Cut him off. Start talking to him. Make him trust you, tell him you do understand.”
But she’s not happy about having to transcribe the tape. She needs to finish her article and then start her in-depth report. Isn’t that enough already?
Matías says fine, Jonás will write the transcript while she concentrates on writing a piece that needs a new dimension, now that Jacinto Bustillo himself has confessed that he and his snakes drove by the Presidential Palace and caused all the commotion that forced the President and his ministers to be evacuated.
That’s why Rita is so pleased, sitting at her computer. Her distraught entry into the corridors of power wasn’t the product of a hysterical young woman’s terror of being attacked by a bunch of snakes, but an astute reaction that enabled her to save the President of the Republic and his Security Cabinet from a possible attack by Jacinto Bustillo’s reptiles.
Now she can write freely and at length. She can describe in detail the politicians’ panic and vent her emotions in the first person, without having to avoid mentioning her own cowardice, or even her initial fit of panic.
Minutes later the phone rings again.
The entire office goes still. All eyes expectantly turn to look at her.
She lets it ring a few more times.
She bites her nails.
Matías comes over, nervously chewing the filter of his cigarette.
“Pick it up! Don’t let him get away!”
She lifts the receiver, a million questions in her mind, waiting to hear that same quiet voice, but the switchboard operator tells her it isn’t the man with the snakes.
“Villalta,” Rita says, relieved.
A collective jeer goes up around the room.
Matías goes back to his office.
“We know Bustillo called you,” the detective says.
She assures him that he didn’t say anything worthwhile.
They need the tape right away; it will help them enormously with the investigation. It’s the first time the suspect has made any contact, and the forensic psychologists can use it to create a profile.
She doesn’t have the tape. She’s extremely busy writing an article about what happened at the Presidential Palace. He should talk to Matías; he’s the only one who can turn it over to them. She’ll transfer him right away, so Villalta can explain it to him.
The detective passes the receiver to his boss, Deputy Commissioner Handal. This is an official request now, and it would be out of place for Villalta to order the news editor of one of the biggest newspapers in the country to give up the tape.
It’s a matter of national security, Handal explains so there can’t be any doubt on the other end of the line. It’s for the sake of the President himself. They have to hand over the Bustillo tape without delay.
But Matías knows how to play this game.
“Of course, Deputy Commissioner, I just need a written request and a letter from the Commissioner promising it will only be used for police purposes and won’t be shared with any other news outlet.”
Handal is probably in his swivel chair with his feet up on his desk, hating this insolent hack who has very little sympathy for the government and even less for the police. Meanwhile, Matías can barely contain his satisfied smirk. He feels like blowing smoke rings.
“We need to keep in close contact,” Handal mumbles. “So we can trace the call if he phones again.”
“He’ll call back, Deputy Commissioner, I’m sure of it. He promised.”
Handal tells him he’ll send an officer over who’ll contact police headquarters right away to tell them which line Bustillo is on.
“Yes, but under the same conditions. I want a promise from the Commissioner that nothing will be leaked to other papers,” Matías warns him. “If you want to set up a sting operation from here, I want an exclusive.”
Fifteen minutes later, while Rita is still feverishly working on her first-person account, an extremely personal piece which, according to Jonás and Arturo, is going to win her the Best Journalist of the Year Award, detective Villalta himself comes into the office. He’s excited; his large jaw is clenched and it’s as if his radio is burning in his hands. He knows that in a few minutes, he’ll be in the home stretch of the hunt. He’s like an old bloodhound flexing his muscles after sniffing out the scent of his prey.
He wants to explain the tactics he’d like Rita to follow when she gets the call to make sure they have enough time to trace it accurately and set up plans to surround the area and arrest him right away.
But Rita is too involved in her piece, glued to her monitor, typing frantically. She tells him to get lost and not interrupt or distract her; to wait until she’s finished.
“But you need to be prepared,” Villalta complains. “What if the phone rings right now?”
She’s unimpressed. She tells him to either keep quiet or leave, they’ll call him when they have Bustillo on the line. Does he think she’s an idiot who doesn’t know how to handle this?
All he wants is to follow Handal’s instructions, which are a key part of the plans being laid all over the city to get Bustillo: the entire operation’s success rests with her ability to keep him talking. Handal and Flores are at headquarters right now on red alert, in constant communication with units stationed near phone booths at strategic points across the city, particularly on the outskirts, because Handal has a gut feeling the yellow Chevrolet is out in the open, even though continuous helicopter searches have turned up nothing.