Mr. Clarinet

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'I never said you were going to find him. That hasn't been decided yet.'

'Oh? And who decides that?'

'We don't yet know why you're here.'

'Who's 'we'?'

'We don't know what's keeping you here. With the others it was easy to see. They were here for the money. Mercenaries. Not right. But that's not what brought you here.'

'Well, I ain't here for the climate,' Max quipped, and then almost immediately remembered the dream he'd had in his hotel room in New York, where Sandra had told him to take the case because he had 'no choice.' He remembered how he'd weighed up what remained of his options, how he'd glimpsed his future, how bleak it had all seemed. The old man was right?he was here to rescue his life as well as Charlie's.

How much had Dufour already known about him? Before he could ask him, the old man started talking.

'God gives us free will and insight. To a few He gives a lot of both, to many He gives more of one than the other, and to most He limits what He gives. Those with both are aware of where their futures lie. Politicians see themselves as presidents, employees as managers, soldiers as generals, actors as superstars, and so forth. You can usually tell these people at the starting gate. They know what they want to do with their lives before they turn twenty. Now, how and when we fulfill our purpose?our 'destiny'?is a lot up to us and also a little out of our hands. If God has a higher purpose in mind for us and sees us wasting time with a lowly one, He will intervene and set us back on the right path. Sometimes it's a painful intervention, sometimes a seemingly 'accidental' or 'coincidental' one. The more insightful recognize His hand shaping their lives and follow the path they were meant to. Max, you were meant to come here.'

Max breathed in deeply. The stench had gone and the sweet tang of lime was back. He didn't know what to think.

Stick to what you know, not what you'd like to know. You're investigating a missing person, a young boy. That's all that matters?what you're going after. As Eldon Burns used to say: Do what you do and fuck the rest.

Max took Charlie's poster out of his pocket and unfolded it on the table. He pointed out the cross scored in the poster's margins.

'Can you see this?' he asked Dufour, pointing to the marks.

'Yes. Tonton Clarinette. That's his mark,' Dufour replied.

'I thought Ton Ton Clarinet was a myth.'

'In Haiti all facts are based on myths.'

'So you're saying that he's for real?'

'It is all for you to discover.' Dufour smiled. 'Go to the source of the myth. Find out how it started and why, and who started it.'

Max thought of Beeson and Medd and where Huxley had told him they'd gone: the waterfalls. He made a note to talk to Huxley again.

'Back to Charlie,' Max said. 'Did he see Ton Ton Clarinet?'

'Yes.'

Max glanced at Chantale. She caught his stare. Max saw fear in her eyes.

'When?'

'The last time he came here, he told me he'd seen Tonton Clarinette.'

'Where?' Max leaned in closer.

'He didn't say. He just told me he'd seen him.'

Max scribbled 'interview Carver servants' in his notebook.

'People steal children here, don't they?' Max asked.

'It happens a lot, yes.'

'Why do they steal them?'

'Why do they steal them in your country?'

'Sex?mostly. Ninety-nine percent of the time. Then it's for money, or it's childless couples who want to cut out adoption agencies, lonely women with a mothering fetish, that kind of thing.'

'Here we have other uses for children.'

Max thought back for a second and quickly got to Boukman.

'Voodoo?'

Dufour chuckled mockingly.

'No, not vodou. Vodou is not evil. It's like Hinduism, with different gods for different things, and one great big God for all things. No children are ever sacrificed in vodou. Try again.'

'Devil worship? Black magic?'

'Black magic. Correct.'

'Why do they sacrifice children in black magic?'

'Various reasons, most of them insane. Most black magic is the preserve of deluded idiots, people who think if they do something shocking enough the devil will ride out of hell to shake their hands and grant them three wishes. But here it's different. Here people know exactly what they're doing. You see, you, me?all of us?we are all watched over, guarded by spirits?'

'Guardian angels?'

'Yes?whatever you want to call it. Now, almost the strongest protection anyone can have is a child's protection. Children are innocent. Pure. Very little lasting harm comes to you when one is watching over you?and that which does is the sort of harm you learn and grow from.'

Max thought things through for a moment. This was the Boukman case all over. Boukman had sacrificed children to feed some demon he'd supposedly conjured up.

'You say children make the most powerful guardian angels because they're innocent and pure?' Max asked. 'What about Charlie? What would they want with him?apart from his being a child?'

'Charlie is very special,' Dufour said. 'The protection he offers is greater, because he is among the purer spirits?those sometimes known as the Perpetually Pure, those who will never know evil. Other spirits trust them. They can open many doors. Not many people have them as guardians. Those who do are usually people like me, those who can see beyond the present.'

'So is it possible to?'steal a spirit'?'

'Yes, of course. But it's not a simple procedure and not everyone can do it. It's very specialized.'

'Can you do it?'

'Yes.'

'Have you done it?'

'To do good you have to know bad?you, Max, more than most, know what I mean. There is a bad side to what I do?a reversal of my process, a sort of black magic, which involves enslaving souls, forcing them to become the protectors of evil. Children are a major element of that. They're a premium here in Haiti, a currency.'

Just as Chantale finished translating, the maid came into the room and walked over to them.

'It's time,' Dufour said.

They said their good-byes. The maid took Chantale's hand and Chantale took Max's and they filed out of the room. In the doorway, Max looked back at where they'd been sitting. He thought he saw a faint outline of not one but two people standing where Dufour had been. He couldn't be sure.

Chapter 24

THEY HEADED BACK to the bank, Max at the wheel now, getting used to Port-au-Prince's ruined streets. Once he'd dropped Chantale off, he'd return to the house. His head was heavy, pounding. He was done for the day. He couldn't think clearly. He hadn't had time to release the information he'd been steadily accumulating throughout the day, and his brain was fit to burst. He needed to process all the information, break it down into useful and useless, chuck out the trash and keep the good stuff, then work it, break it down, look for common threads and connections, promising leads, things that didn't quite seem to fit.

Chantale had barely said a word since they'd left Dufour's house.

'Thanks for your help today, Chantale,' Max said and looked over at her. She was pale. Her face shone with a dull dew of perspiration, which pooled and crested into small droplets on her upper lip. Her neck and jaw muscles were tensed.

'Are you OK?'

'No,' she croaked. 'Stop the car.'

Max pulled over on a bustling road. Chantale got out, took a few steps, and threw up in the gutter, prompting an exclamation of shocked disgust from a man who was pissing up against a nearby wall.

Max steadied her as she heaved a second time.

When she'd finished, he stood her up against the car and made her take deep breaths. He got the water bottle out, poured some onto his handkerchief, and wiped her face, wafting the notebook to cool her off.

'That's better,' she said after she'd recovered and the color had returned to her face.

'Was that too much for you? Back there?'

'I was real nervous.'

'Didn't show.'

'Trust me, I was.'

'You did great,' Max said. 'So much so I'll give you tomorrow off.'

'You're going to Cite Soleil,