Mr. Clarinet

ushering them through a guarded door and into a cool and long, blue-carpeted corridor that ended, some way down, at an elevator.

They stopped outside the only office in the corridor. Carver rapped twice on the door before opening it brusquely, as if hoping to catch the inhabitant off-guard, in the middle of something embarrassing or forbidden.

Mr. Codada was on the phone, one foot on his desk, laughing loudly and making the tassels on his patent-leather loafers rattle in time with his outbursts of mirth. He looked over his shoulder at the three of them, waved vaguely, and carried on his conversation without changing his posture.

The office was spacious, with one wall dominated by a framed painting of a modern white building overlooking a waterfall, and another traditional painting?also framed?of a street party outside a church. His desk was bare, apart from the telephone, a blotter, and some small, black, wooden figurines.

Codada said, 'A bientot ma cherie,' blew a couple of kisses into the receiver, and hung up. He spun his chair around to face his new guests.

Without moving from his spot near the door, Carver talked to him brusquely in Kreyol, motioning to Max with his head as he spoke his name. Codada nodded without saying a word, his face a mixture of professional seriousness and leftover jollity. Max understood the dynamic right away. Codada was Gustav's man and didn't take Allain at all seriously.

Next, Carver addressed Chantale, far more gently, smiling, before turning on the surface charm a little more as he took his leave of Max.

'Enjoy your tour,' he said. 'We'll talk later.'

Maurice Codada stood up and walked around his desk.

Codada air-kissed Chantale on both cheeks and pumped her arms warmly. She introduced him to Max.

'Bienvenu r la Banque Populaire d'Hadti, Monsieur Mainguss,' Codada gushed, bowing his head and showing Max an odd- looking freckled, pink, bald spot on his crown, before taking Max's hands and also shaking them vigorously. Although he was a slender little man, shorter and narrower than Max, his grip was strong. Chantale explained that she would have to translate, as Codada didn't speak English.

Codada took them back outside to the main entrance and immediately started showing them around the bank, running a rapid-fire commentary in Kreyol, which seemed to rattle out of his mouth like telex script, as he walked them across the floor.

Chantale packaged up his verbal geysers into one-liners: 'The pillars come from Italy'?'The floors too'?'The Haitian flag'?'The counters come from Italy'?'The staff do not, ha, ha, ha.'

Codada moved about the line of customers, shaking hands, slapping shoulders, air-kissing the ladies, working the crowd with the gusto of a politician campaigning for office. He even picked up a baby and kissed it.

Codada resembled a lion made up as a circus clown?a cartoon character looking for a comic strip. He had a flat, broad nose, round ginger afro, and redhead's naturally pale complexion pocked with a heavy spray of freckles. His lips were red?the lower one rimmed purple?and permanently moist from where he darted the pink tip of his tongue all around them like a praying mantis chasing and missing a fleet-footed bug. His stare was hooded, roasted-coffee-bean irises peering out from under eyelids crisscrossed with a spaghetti junction of fine veins and arteries.

Max thought Codada lacked virtually every personality trait needed for working in security. People who worked those jobs were introverted, secretive, and above all discreet; they said little, saw everything, thought and moved quick. Codada was the opposite. He liked people or liked their attention. Security personnel blended into the crowd but thought everyone in it a potential threat. Even his clothes were wrong?white duck pants, a navy blue blazer, and a maroon-and-white cravat. Security staff favored dull tones or uniforms, while Codada could have passed himself off as a maitre d' on some gay cruise liner.

They took a mirrored elevator up to the next floor, the business division. Codada stood to the left of the door so he could get the full three-dimensional view of Chantale his position allowed. Max had thought he was gay, but Codada spent all of the few seconds the ride lasted tracing the outline of Chantale's bust with his gaze, slurping up the detail. Just before they reached the floor, he must have felt the intensity of Max's stare, because he looked straight at him, then flicked the briefest look at Chantale's bosom, and then went back to Max and nodded to him very slightly, letting him know they'd broached common ground. Chantale didn't seem to notice.

The business division was tile-carpeted, air-conditioned, and reeked faintly of plasticine. The corridors were lined with framed black-and-white, dated photographs of all the major constructions and projects the bank had financed, from a church to a supermarket. Codada led them past various offices, where three or four smartly dressed men and women sat behind desks furnished with computers and phones, but none of them were actually doing anything. In fact, nothing seemed to be happening on the entire floor. Many of the computer screens were blank, no phones were ringing, and some people weren't even bothering to disguise their inactivity. They were sitting on desks and gossiping, reading papers, or talking. Max looked at Chantale for an explanation but she offered none. Codada's tones cut straight through the silence. Many looked up and followed the guided tour, some laughing out loud at some of the things he said, but whatever it was was either lost in translation or left out altogether.

Max was beginning to understand Gustav's mentality, his attitude toward people. There was something to hate about it, but then again there was much more to admire.

It was slightly livelier on the next floor?mortgages and personal loans. The setup of the area was the same, but Max heard a few telephones ringing and saw that some computers were on and being worked at. Codada explained through Chantale that Haitians tended to build their homes from scratch rather than buy them from previous owners, so they often needed assistance to buy the land, hire an architect and a construction crew.

The Carvers had their offices on the upper floor. Codada used the elevator's walls to straighten himself up and pat down his hair. Chantale caught Max's eye and smiled at him with a what-a-jerk-this-guy-is look. Max patted down his bald head.

The elevator doors opened onto a reception area manned by a woman sitting behind a tall mahogany desk, and a waiting area of low black-leather couches, a coffee table, and a water cooler. Two Uzitoting security guards in bulletproof vests hovered about at opposite ends of the area. Codada led them out of the elevator to a set of heavy double doors on the left. He typed in an access code on a keypad in the frame. A camera eyed them from the right. The doors opened onto a corridor that led to another set of double doors at the end.

They walked down to Gustav Carver's office. Codada spoke their names through an intercom and they were buzzed in.

Gustav's secretary, an imposing Creole woman in her late forties, greeted Codada with next to no warmth and almost as much in the way of a greeting.

Codada introduced Max to her but not the other way around, so Max never caught her name. She didn't have it on her desk either. She shook Max's hand with a curt nod.

Codada asked her something and she said 'Non.' He thanked her and led Max and Chantale out of the office and back down the corridor.

'He asked if we could see Gustav Carver's offices, but Jeanne said no,' Chantale whispered.

'What about Allain?'

'He's VP. His office is on the first floor. We passed it.'

Codada took them back downstairs to the ground floor. Max handed him two hundred bucks to change for him into Haitian currency. Codada glided off toward the tills, glad-handing and air-kissing a few more customers on his way there.

He came back a few fast minutes later, holding a small brown brick's worth of gourdes between his thumb and index finger. The currency had been so hopelessly devalued by the invasion and Haiti's parlous economic state that a dollar was worth anything between fifty and a hundred gourdes, depending on which bank you went to. The Banque Populaire had the most generous exchange rate in Haiti.

Max took the pile of money from Codada and flicked through it. The notes were damp and greasy and?despite their blue, green, purple, and red colors?all were varying shades of gray- brown. The smaller the denomination, the smallest being five gourdes, the more obscured the value and design by dirt and grime, while the notes of the highest denomination, five hundred gourdes, were only mildly smudged, the bills' details completely discernible. The money reeked strongly of unwashed feet.

Codada walked them through the revolving doors and they said their good-byes. As they were speaking, the men with the cases?now empty?came out through the doors. Codada broke off his farewell to greet them, embracing one of the men warmly.

Max and Chantale walked back to the car.

'So what do you think?' Chantale asked.

'Gustav's a generous man,' Max said.

'How so?'

'He's keeping a lot of people on the payroll with nothing to do,' he said. He wanted to throw Codada into the mix too, but he didn't. It was never good to judge based on appearances and instinct alone,