Mr. Clarinet

sidewalk hubbub, Max heard the familiar exploratory rhythms of the drums starting up in the mountains.

'That's how he started out,' Chantale said. 'I believed in him. A lot of people did. Not just the poor.'

'Don't tell me.' Max smiled. 'Us evil racist white Americans decided we didn't want another Commie on our doorstep?especially not a black one?so we had him overthrown.'

'Not quite,' Chantale retorted. 'Aristide turned into Papa Doc quicker than it took Papa Doc to turn into Papa Doc. He started sending the mobs around to beat up or kill his opponents. When the papal nuncio criticized what was going on, he had him beaten up and stripped naked in the street. That's when people decided enough was enough, and the army took over?with the blessing of President Bush and the CIA.'

'So what's Aristide doing back here?'

'Bill Clinton had a reelection this year. In 1993, barely a year into his first term, he'd messed up big time in Somalia. His approval ratings took a dive. America suddenly looked weak, vulnerable. He had to do something to get his credibility back. Restoring a president deposed by a coup seemed like a good idea. America as champions of democracy?even if it was Aristide?the third Duvalier in waiting,' Chantale explained. 'They've got him on a leash now, so he'll have to behave himself until Clinton's gone. Then who knows? Hopefully I'll be far away from here,' she said, looking out on the street where a UN car had stopped and the driver was handing out cartons of cigarettes to someone on the street.

'Where are you planning on going?'

'Back to America, I suppose. Maybe I'll move to L.A. Nothing left for me in Florida,' Chantale said. 'What about you? What'll you do when you've finished here?'

'I don't have the faintest idea.' Max laughed.

'Thought of moving on yourself?'

'What? Like to L.A.?' Max looked at her and met her eyes. She looked down. 'L.A. ain't my scene, Chantale.'

'I thought you said you were the try-most-things-once kind.'

'I know L.A.' He laughed again. 'Did a few cases out there. Hated it every time. Too sprawled out, disconnected. Worked twice as fast so I could get out fast. Movies, resumes, head shots, tit jobs, and bullshit. Everyone tryin' to crawl through the same hole. Lots of people gettin' left out. Victims and broken dreams. I've got that kind of shit at home?only there I actually feel sorry for some of them. Their hard-luck stories change a bit every time. In L.A. they're all reading off the same page. You're better off staying here if you're gonna move there.'

'I'm not staying here a second longer than I have to.' She shook her head.

'That bad?'

'No, but not much better.' She sighed. 'I had happy memories of growing up here, but when I came back whatever I'd known was all gone. I guess I had a happy childhood. Made coming back here as an adult that much harder, disappointing.'

A couple walked in and greeted the waiter with a handshake. First-to third-episode daters, Max decided, still checking each other out, circling, everything formal and polite, timing the move. They were in their late twenties, well dressed. The guy ironed his jeans and the woman had just bought hers or only wore them on special occasions. They both sported polo shirts, hers turquoise, his bottle-green. The waiter showed them to a corner seat. Chantale watched them with a wistful smile.

'Tell me about Faustin's hoon-gan.'

'Leballec?' she said, lowering her voice. 'First up, he's not a houngan. Houngans are good. Leballec is a bokor?a black magician. He's supposed to be as powerful as Dufour, but a hundred times worse.

'You know, in life, certain things aren't meant to happen to you. Say you're in love with someone who just doesn't want to know, or you really want a job you can't have?disappointments, things that don't go your way. Most people shrug their shoulders and move on to the next thing. Here people go to their houngan or their mambo. They look into the future and see whether or not the person's desires are going to be fulfilled for them. If they're not, the houngan or mambo might try to fix it?as long as it's not going to alter the direction of the person's life. But a lot of things you want but can't have are just not meant to be.'

'So they go to Le Balack?'

'His kind, yes. They call them 'Les Ombres de Dieu.' God's shadows. Those who walk behind God, in the dark, where He doesn't look. They give you what you're not supposed to have,' Chantale whispered, looking fearful.

'How?'

'Remember what Dufour told you about black magic? How they use children to fool your guardian angels?'

'Le Balack kills kids?'

'I don't want to say,' Chantale said, sitting back. 'No one knows for sure what they do. That's between the people he's working for and him. But it's guaranteed to be extreme.'

'What kind of people would go to him? Generally?'

'People who've lost all hope. Desperate people. People at death's door.'

'That's everybody sometime,' Max said.

'Faustin went.'

'To make Francesca Carver fall in love with him?or whatever. Maybe that's why he stole Charlie,' Max said, thinking things through. 'Dufour said Charlie was very special. Le Balack thought so too.'

'Maybe,' Chantale said. 'Maybe not. Maybe Charlie was payment.'

'Payment?'

'Les Ombres never ask you for money. They ask you to do something for them in return.'

'Like a kidnapping?'

'Or a murder.'

'What happens if the spell doesn't work?'

'They don't ask you to do anything for them upfront, not until you've got what you want. Then you start paying. That's how it starts.'

'What?'

'Well, whatever you cast out you get back three times over. Good and bad,' Chantale said. 'It's how things maintain their balance. No bad deed goes unpunished. In the early eighties, before AIDS hit the headlines, Jean-Claude Duvalier had a mistress and a mister. He was bisexual. The mistress was called Veronique, the boyfriend was called Robert. Veronique got jealous of Robert, who was getting more attention from Jean-Claude. She was scared of losing favor and scared of getting dumped for a man. So she went to Leballec. I don't know what she asked for but Robert died quite unexpectedly in the middle of Port-au-Prince. Like that?' she snapped her fingers '?at the wheel. When they opened him up they found water in his lungs, like he'd drowned.'

'Couldn't someone have drowned him and dumped him in the car?'

'Lots of people saw him driving the car. He even stopped to buy cigarettes a few minutes before he died,' said Chantale. 'Word got back to Jean-Claude that Veronique had been seen at Saut d'Eau with Leballec. He knew what that meant. He was terrified of Leballec. Even Papa Doc was said to be scared of him. He cut Veronique off. A month later they found her, her mother, and two of her brothers drowned in the family swimming pool.'

'Any idea what this Le Balack looks like?' Max asked. He'd recovered from the taffia, although he felt tired.

'No. No one I know's ever seen him. When are we going to look for him?'

'How about tomorrow?'

'How about the day after? It's a long trip over bad road. We'll have to leave here early?three or four in the morning,' she said, looking at her watch. 'You can get some rest, sleep off the taffia, go at it fresh.'

She was talking sense. He'd need a clear head if he was going to the place where one of his predecessors had disappeared and the other had returned from with his torso opened up from neck to navel.

Chapter 33

'IT'S NOT THAT we don't care. We do?only we appear not to. And appearance is everything,' Allain Carver said with a grin. He'd woken Max up three hours earlier with a phone call telling him to meet up at Noah's Ark.

Max was badly hungover, feeling much worse than he had the night before, with a sack of greasy cannonballs for a stomach and a headache that felt like someone was using his skull for a mixing bowl. He couldn't understand it. He was pretty much OK when he'd got out of bed, but the sickness and the pain had kicked in the minute he'd finished his first cup of coffee. He'd taken four extra-strength migraine pills, but they hadn't done a thing.

Noah's Ark was situated on a sideroad off the Boulevard Harry Truman. Carver led Max and Chantale through a small wrought-iron bar gate and up a white footpath bordered with dark-blue bricks. They crossed a lush lawn, part-shaded by leaning coconut palms and dotted with sprinklers whose mist made miniature rainbows above the ground. To the right was a small playground with swings, seesaws, a slide, and a climbing frame.

The path ended at the steps of an impressive