didn't answer.
'Ask the boy when he last saw him?'
'Yesterday,' Huxley said. 'Wanna grab a drink and fill me in?'
* * *
Huxley laughed when Max told him about what had happened after they'd last met.
'All you had to do was treat the kid with a little respect, just said no, firmly. He would've left you alone. They don't persist,' Huxley explained. 'Being rude to someone who's born with nothing to lose isn't wise?and being rude to them in their own country, on their own streets, is pretty fuckin' stupid, Max. You're lucky Vincent Paul came along when he did.'
The bar was nearly empty and no music was playing. In the courtyard outside, however, was a large group of Americans. They sounded like Midwesterners, straw-sucking cowpokes out on the weekend. He heard the rifles being dry-fired and magazines being slapped into place.
Max was on his third straight Barbancourt. The measures were more than generous. The booze was starting to work its charms again, loosen him up.
'So, how was Shitty City? You went there today, right?' Huxley asked, lighting a cigarette. Max shot him a suspicious look.
'C'mon, Max. You smell like a skunk hit you.' Huxley laughed. 'You know how everyone here can tell a riot's coming? 'Cause the air smells like you?the smell of the Shitty City. When all the people come out of Cite Soleil and head for Port-au-Prince to bring down the government, the clouds turn their noses up, the wind blows in the opposite direction, and birds fall out of the sky. I
Max realized he was still wearing his throwaway boots, caked to the toecaps in Cite Soleil muck.
'Sorry 'bout that.'
'Don't worry. You find anything out there?' Huxley asked.
'Not much,' Max said. He wasn't going to tell him what he'd witnessed. 'Just some kind of relief operation?Vincent Paul's charity work.'
'The green tents? Yeah, he's famous for that. That's why they love him in the slums. He looks after them. All free, paid for out of the proceeds of his drug trade. Guy's like a cocaine Castro.'
Max laughed.
'Know where this place is?'
'No. It's like El Dorado. Nobody knows where it is or how to get there, but
'Early days,' Max replied, sinking his drink.
The Americans came in. Marines, about thirty of them, walking heavily through the bar and out into the street, all armed, blacked up, and dressed head-to-toe for combat.
'What's goin' on? A raid?' Max asked quietly.
'No.' Huxley smiled and shook his head as he watched the troops filing out. 'You know how this whole 'invasion' went down? Not a single shot fired? No opposition. Well, a lot of the soldiers are pissed they didn't see any combat, so every couple of weeks they go downtown and play war games with the UN troops. The UN guys defend this old barracks in the Carrefour district of Port-au-Prince. The marines have got to go and try and take it.'
'Sounds like fun,' Max said sarcastically.
'There's a catch.'
'Yeah?'
'They use live rounds.'
'No word of a lie.'
'On my mother.'
'She alive?'
'Sure.' Huxley laughed.
'What about casualties?'
'Not as high as you'd expect. There've been a couple of fatalities on both sides, but high command have covered it up?said it was an enemy attack or a blue-on-blue.'
'I still don't believe you.' Max chortled.
'Same as me till I saw it for myself,' Huxley said, standing up.
'Where you goin'?'
'I've got a video camera in the car. I'm just waiting for one of the guys to take a direct hit so I can sell the tape to CNN.'
'I thought you were here for a noble cause?' Max laughed.
'I am. But a man's gotta eat.' Huxley laughed too. 'Feel like coming?'
'Not tonight. I've had a full day. Maybe some other time. Don't get shot.'
'You too. Take care.'
They shook hands. Huxley took off after the troops. Max ordered another drink and stared at the still-smoldering cigarette butt the journalist had left behind, following the smoke up to the ceiling. He didn't care if what he'd just heard wasn't true. It was a good story and it was making him laugh. Right now that was all that mattered.
Chapter 30
MAX CALLED ALLAIN Carver the next morning and told him he wanted to interview all the servants who'd been working for them at the time of Charlie's kidnapping.
Allain said he'd fix it up for the following day.
* * *
Max interviewed fifteen servants in a small room on the first floor of the main house, overlooking the lawn and the thick perimeter of trees surrounding it. Other than a table and the chairs he and Chantale sat in, there was no furniture in the room. It quickly dawned on Max that the setup was a deliberate way of reinforcing the household's social code?servants always stood when spoken to. Max made a point of offering his seat to everyone he talked to. He was politely turned down and thanked for his kindness at every occasion by both the very old and the very young, all of them casting a quick, fearful look up at the only painting in the room?a large oil canvas of the present-day Gustav, dressed in his beige suit and black tie, glowering down on them above their interrogators. At his side, on a thick leather leash, sat a bulldog the same color as Gustav's suit, its head and expression bearing more than a passing resemblance to its master's gargoylic mien.
The Carver domestic staff were broadly divided into culinary, cleaning, mechanical, gardening, and security. Most of them worked directly for Gustav. Allain and Francesca employed their own retinue.
The interviews followed the same pattern. Max started with the old man's staff. He asked them their names, what they did, whom they worked with, how long they'd been there, where they were on the day of the kidnapping, and if they'd seen or heard anything suspicious in the weeks leading up to it. Other than their names, responsibilities, and length of service, their answers were very similar. On September 4, 1994, they'd been working in or around the house either with or in plain sight of several other people.
When he asked them about Eddie Faustin, he found that the bodyguard had seemingly passed through their lives like a perfect stranger. They all remembered him well enough but none had much else to say about him. They'd only known him by sight. Gustav Carver forbade the household staff from having any personal contact with his security, and vice versa. Even if they'd wanted to get acquainted with Faustin, it would have been next to impossible because he'd spent all day out of the house. They didn't see him when he finished his shifts either, because he didn't live in the servants' quarters with the rest of them, but in the main house, in one of the basement rooms reserved for key personnel.
The servants themselves were so alike in their smiling, benign deference, Max had a lot of trouble remembering any of them after one'd left the room and the next one came in.
They took a break for lunch, which was brought up to them?grilled fish so fresh they could still taste the sea in the meat, and a salad of tomatoes, kidney beans, and red and green peppers.
When they'd finished, Chantale rang the bell that had come with their food. The servants came into the room and cleared the plates.
'I meant to ask you about Noah's Ark?' Max said to Chantale, spotting the words as he rifled through his notebook for a clean page.
'Ask the next person who walks in,' she said curtly. 'They'll know more about it than me. They all come from there.'
He did just that. The next interviews were with Allain and Francesca's retinue. Noah's Ark, he learned, was an orphanage school in Port-au-Prince, owned and run by the Carvers. The family recruited not just their domestic staff from there but virtually everyone who worked for them.
The new interviewees were different from Gustav's servants: they had clearly discernible personalities.
They opened up about Faustin. They described how they used to see him going through Francesca's rubbish, stealing things from the bins and taking them back to his room. When they'd cleaned out his room after his disappearance, they'd found a voodoo doll he'd made out of her hair, fingernail clippings, tissues, old lipstick tubes, and tampons. Some told Max they'd heard rumors that the bodyguard picked up light-skinned Dominican whores in Petionville and paid them extra to wear long, blond wigs while he fucked them. Many said they'd often seen Faustin entering or leaving a bar called Nwoi et
