Mr. Clarinet

Haiti.'

'What was he doin' in England?'

'Getting an education?school, college.'

Max remembered the man's English accent the previous night.

'Have you ever met him?' Max asked.

'No.' She laughed. 'What I'm telling you's what I've been told, what I've heard. Not hard fact.'

He scribbled a few notes.

'Where to, detective?'

'The Roo doo Chumps da Mars.'

'Rue du Champs de Mars. What's there?'

'Felius Doofoor.'

Chantale said nothing. When he looked up at her, he saw she'd gone pale and looked scared.

'What's the matter?'

'Filius Dufour? Le grand voyant?'

'What was that last thing in English?'

'Out here it isn't the politicians or the Carvers who have the real power, it isn't even your president. It's people like the man you're going to meet. Filius Dufour was Papa Doc's personal fortune-teller. Duvalier never did anything important without consulting him first,' Chantale lowered her voice as if she didn't really want to be heard. 'You know Papa Doc died at least two months before it was announced to the public. He was so scared of his enemies discovering his body and trapping his spirit that he ordered that they bury his body in a secret location. To this day no one knows where it is?except for Filius Dufour. He was said to have conducted the burial ceremony. Just like he was said to have married Baby Doc to his mother on the day of Papa Doc's death out by the sacred waterfalls?some sort of rare voodoo ritual that very few people in the world know how to perform; it ensures the smooth transfer of power from father to son. After the Duvaliers fell from power, everyone who was associated with them either went into exile or went to jail or got killed?everyone except Filius Dufour. Nothing happened to him. Everyone was too scared of him, what he could do.'

'I thought he was just a voodoo priest.'

'A houngan? Him? No. A voyant is like a fortune-teller, but they go much deeper than that. For example, if you really want a woman you can't have?say she's happily married or not interested in you?you can go to your houngan, who'll try and fix it for you.'

'How?'

'Spells, prayers, chants, offerings. It's very personal and informal and it depends on the houngan. A lot of it involves some really disgusting things, like boiling the woman's used tampons and drinking the water.'

'Does it work?'

'I've never known anyone who tried it.' Chantale laughed. 'But I've seen plenty of ugly men walking around here with beautiful women, so draw your own conclusions.'

'What would the voyeur??'

'Voyant. Now they're very different. Absolutely nothing to do with voodoo?but go telling that to a non-Haitian and they won't believe you.' Chantale scrutinized Max as she spoke to see if he was taking her seriously. She was pleased to see he had the notebook open and was scribbling furiously.

'All over the world you've got fortune- tellers?tarot-card readers, palm readers, gypsies, psychics, mediums. Voyants are like that, but they go a lot further. They don't use any gimmicks. They don't need them. You go to them with a specific question in mind?say, you're getting married in a month and you're having doubts. The voyant looks at you and tells you, in broad strokes, what will happen. Just like you're having a conversation. He or she can't ever tell you what to do, merely show you what the future has in store and let you make your mind up.'

'So far so Psychic Hotline,' Max said.

'Sure, but the grands voyants?and there are maybe two in the whole of Haiti?and Filius Dufour is as powerful as any man can be?they can change your future. If you don't like what they tell you, the grands voyants can talk directly to spirits. To get back to the woman you can't have?imagine you've got spirits watching over you.'

'Like guardian angels?'

'Yeah. The grands voyants can talk directly to these spirits and cut deals with them.'

'Deals?'

'If the woman's been letting them down, not following her destiny, being cruel to people around her, then they will agree to let the voyant in to push her toward the man.'

'Is that right?' Max said. 'And of course, the success of all this depends on believing what you've just told me?'

'It works on nonbelievers too. It's worse for them because they don't know what's hit them?the run of bad luck they're suddenly getting, their wife of fifteen years leaving them for their sworn enemy, their teenage daughter getting pregnant?that kind of thing.'

'How come you know so much about all this?'

'My mother is a mambo?a priestess. Filius Dufour initiated her when she was thirteen. He initiated me too.'

'How?'

'At a ceremony.'

Max looked at her but he couldn't read her face.

'What did he do?'

'My mother gave me a potion to drink. It made me leave my body, see everything from above. Not very high up, more like a couple of feet. Do you know what your skin looks like when you step out of it?'

Max shook his head no?not even when he was stoned on the best Colombian or Jamaican grass.

'Like grapes going off?all wrinkled and hollow and sagging, even when you're as young as I was.'

'What did he do?' Max asked again.

'Not what you think,' she replied, reading his mind through his tone. 'Ours may be a primitive religion, but it's not a savage one.'

Max nodded.

'When did you last see Dufour?'

'Not since that day. What do you want with him?'

'Part of the investigation.'

'And??'

'Client confidentiality,' Max said sharply.

'I see,' Chantale snapped. 'I've just told you something very personal, something I don't exactly spread around, but you won't tell me?'

'You volunteered that information,' Max said and immediately wanted to take it back. It was an asshole thing to say.

'I didn't volunteer anything,' Chantale sneered and then softened. 'I felt like telling you.'

'Why?'

'I just did. You've got that confessional quality about you. The kind that listens without judging.'

'Probably cop conditioning,' Max said. She was wrong about him: he always judged. But she was flirting with him?nothing overt, everything tentative and ambiguous, nothing she couldn't deny and dismiss as wishful thinking on his part. Sandra had started out the same way, fed him enough to suspect she was interested in him, but kept him guessing until she was sure of him. He wondered what she would have made of Chantale, if they would have gotten along. He wondered if she would have approved of Chantale as a successor. Then he dismissed the thoughts.

'OK, Chantale. I'll tell you this much. Charlie Carver was visiting Filius Dufour every week for six months before he vanished. He was due there the day he was snatched.'

'Well let's go talk to him,' Chantale said, starting up the engine.

Chapter 21

THE RUE BOYER had once been a gated community of exclusive gingerbread houses set behind coconut palms and hibiscus plants. Papa Doc had moved his cronies there during his reign, while Baby Doc had converted two of the houses into exclusive brothels he'd filled with $500-an-hour blond hookers from L.A. to entertain the Colombian cartel heads who were in and out of the country to oversee their drug distribution and wash the profits in the national banks. The cronies and whores had fled with the Doc regime and the masses had claimed the road as theirs, first looting the houses down to the floorboards, then squatting in the shells, where they remained to this day.

Max couldn't understand why Dufour had chosen to stay behind. The street was a dump, as bad as he'd seen in any ghetto or bottom-of-the-ladder trailer park.

They drove through the remains of the gate?an iron frame, tilting back away from the road, one corner bent all the way down, pointing at the ground, ruptured hinges bent and twisted into the shape of malign butterflies, needles for antennae and razors for wings. The road was the usual obstacle course of potholes, craters, bumps, and gulleys, while the houses?once glorious and