The heat, gradually invading the day, affects me. Mamá notices. She lowers the blinds, offers the electric fan.

I believe Mamá is the only person who loves me.

“I’d like to live in a country with snow,” she says.

She’s always said that. In response, I’ve offered to take her on a winter vacation. Each year I suggest it again.

“This year we’ll go,” I repeat.

“Where?”

“To the snow.”

“Oh sí. Sí, hijo. We’ll go.”

Some mornings she’s against the idea and tells me I need to save up for a little car. “You need it for your work.”

This depresses me. Other people seem able to manage both: a car and snow.

My brother, who has a Fiat 1500, says, “Need a ride?”

Mamá knows her daily ration of this son of hers is over. She’s sad about that, I can see, but my life is tied up in the streets.

My brother kisses his son and his daughter, and his second son, and his third son. The third is clutching a thoroughly mangled copy of issue 7 of Minotauro. I recognize it from what’s left of the cover. I give him a slap and take it away. From the kitchen door, my sister-in-law says, “Mauricio!”—nothing more. She’s sounding the alarm to her husband, asking for help with that brother of his.

My brother exhibits restraint. He says, “Calm down.” Like a magistrate.

In the car, he doesn’t speak.

Some idiot cuts us off but suffers no consequences because Mauricio slams on the brakes just in time. He has every right to yell but doesn’t. I do.

I don’t usually yell at anyone except on Saturdays.

•

Marcela has the late-afternoon shift. I won’t be able to see her until four o’clock. I’m sure she doesn’t yet know she’ll be working with me.

Aceituno, the agency reporter assigned to police headquarters, can’t link the photos to any story he’s worked on. He circulates them in the reporters’ room and they come back around without having struck a chord in the experts’ memories.

Aceituno takes me to Forensics and leaves me with the chief of the unit.

I ask the chief to work with us on some information, for the agency. The agency can have all the information it wants, unless it has to do with a case a judge is about to rule on, a crime under special investigation, pedophilia, or suicide.

I haven’t mentioned the photos yet. I’m going to act as if I don’t know they fall into one of the off-limits categories.

Do I have time to see the in-house museum? Yes, I do. What matters, in the end, is the elbow-rubbing.