Mr. Clarinet

happen.

He put his doubts to one side. He'd go back to them later, sometime.

'What was your relationship with your son like?'

'I used to see Charlie once a week.'

'Who chose his name?'

'I had no say in it,' Paul said sadly.

Max took advantage of Paul's moment of fragility to clear up something that had been bugging him since his first night in the country.

'What's wrong with Charlie?' he asked.

'He's autistic,' Paul replied quietly.

'Is that it?' Max was incredulous.

'It's a big deal to us?and to him.' Paul sounded hurt.

'But why the secrecy?'

'Gustav Carver doesn't know. And we didn't know if we could trust you with the information.'

'Did Beeson or Medd know?'

'No.' Paul shook his head.

'When did you find out he was autistic?'

'We both knew something was wrong, pretty much from the time he started walking. He wasn't communicative like a normal baby.'

'How did that make you feel, when you found out? When you were told?'

'We were both shocked and confused at first, but?'

'No, I asked how you felt.'

'Bad, at first. Because I knew there were things that I'd never be able to do with my son,' Paul said, his voice cracking a touch. 'But you know, that's life. It isn't all yours. Charlie's my boy, my son. I love him. That's all there is to it.'

'How did you keep all that from Gustav Carver?'

'A lot of luck and a little cunning. He's also not the man he once was. The stroke left him a bit soft in the head. But I'll say this about him. He loves my boy with every ounce of his wretched body. Obviously he doesn't know Charlie isn't his, let alone about the autism?but take it out of that context and watching them together was really quite touching. The old man helped Charlie take his first steps. Josie showed me the video she shot, said it was almost a shame the child wasn't his. She said the kid made him nicer. I don't believe her. If he'd known the truth about my boy he would have beaten his brains out with his bare hands.'

'If that's the case, why didn't Francesca?Josie?and Charlie move in with you?'

'Josie didn't want Charlie growing up in an environment like mine. And she's right. Someone will probably punch my clock one day, Mingus. I know that. I wouldn't want the two people I love most in the world getting caught in the crossfire.'

'Why don't you quit, walk away?'

'You never quit this life of mine. It quits you.'

'That is true,' Max agreed. 'Why'd you do it in the first place?'

'To get Josie back. I picked the fastest route to the kind of money and power I'd need to take on Carver if I had to. I took a look at how the Haitian military were smuggling Colombian-cartel cocaine in and out of the country and I saw ways it could be improved. That's all I'm going to say.'

'Wasn't there another way?'

'To make a billion dollars in twenty years?in Haiti? No.'

'Your motive's original?the reason you got started?I'll give you that. Twenty times outta ten all you hear is some wannabe Scarface say, you know, he got into it 'cause of his neighborhood, 'cause he had no opportunity, 'cause his moms never loved his ass as much as her boyfriend did. Peer pressure this, socioeconomic conditions that. Blah-blah-blah. That's all you ever hear. But you?out of everything you could've said, you tell me you turned to drug-dealing for love.' Max snickered. 'That is some unbelievable shit, Vincent. And you know what is even more unbelievable? I believe you!'

'I'm glad you see the funny side.' Vincent fixed Max from the bottom of his sunken stare, the beginnings of a smile on his lips. 'I'm putting you back in circulation this evening. When Allain asks where you were, you weren't with me, understood?'

'Yeah.'

'Good. Now, let's talk a little more.'

Chapter 46

MAX WAS BLINDFOLDED and put in the back of an SUV. The trip to Petionville took a good while, a lot of it uphill over bumpy ground, leading Max to think that Paul's hideout was in the mountains. There were two other people in the car with him: Vincent Paul and the driver. There was plenty of talking in Kreyol, some laughter.

Max reviewed the conversation he'd had with Paul, starting with the truth about Charlie's parentage, the shock of which still reverberated through him. He hadn't doubted it was the truth when he'd studied the photograph of Vincent with his father. Charlie looked something like the younger Vincent had, but he took strongly after his paternal grandfather?same eyes, same expression, same stance. Paul had shown him an album of family photographs going back to the late 1890s, every face in it containing a trace element of the missing boy's physiognomy; all of Paul's ancestors had been white or very light-skinned?right up until his black grandmother. He explained that Charlie turning out the color he had wasn't really that uncommon in Haiti, given the nation's mixed bloodline. Max thought about Eloise Krolak and the blue-eyed, near-Caucasian descendants of Polish soldiers in the town of Jeremie. As a formality, Paul had shown Max a copy of Charlie's paternity test.

They talked about the investigation. Paul told him he'd been in the area when Charlie had been kidnapped. He'd rushed to the scene, arriving in time to see the mob pull Faustin out of the car and stab and beat him to death, before cutting off his head, sticking it on a spiked pole, and dancing it away into the slum. Charlie was gone. Nobody had seen him being taken out of the car, but then nobody had seen how Francesca had managed to end up halfway down the road either. Paul guessed that Francesca had held on to Charlie so tightly, the kidnappers had had to carry or drag them both away until they'd broken her grip. He had no witnesses to this, only people who'd seen Francesca coming to on the sidewalk.

Paul had checked out Faustin. He'd been to Saut d'Eau and spoken to Mercedes Leballec, and he'd checked out the house in Port-au- Prince. He'd found the veve, but nothing else. The trail had gone cold from there. He thought the boy had been kidnapped by one of Gustav's many enemies and smuggled out of the country via the Dominican Republic. He'd searched there too, but drawn a blank. Paul was sure Charlie was dead.

They'd discussed Claudette Thodore. Paul didn't think the kidnappings were related.

Max revealed some but not all of what he'd uncovered. He didn't mention the tape he'd found nor the potential Noah's Ark connection. He didn't mention what it told him?that Haitian children were being stolen, brainwashed, and turned into potential sex toys for foreign pedophiles.

Paul knew he'd been following someone from Noah's Ark but he didn't know whom. Max refused to tell him, because he didn't have the evidence he needed. Paul agreed to let him complete his investigation and offered to help him in whatever way he could.

* * *

The blindfold came off on the outskirts of Petionville. The SUV they'd been riding in was wedged between a military jeep with UN markings and Max's Land Cruiser.

Max stared out at the passing streets in the near evening, right before the end of daylight. Christmas was coming but there was no sign of the impending holiday?no Santas, no trees, no tinsel. It could have been any time of the year. He wondered what Haiti had been like before its troubles, in more peaceful times. Had those ever existed here? He was starting to care a little about the place, to want to know more about it, to want to know how it could produce people like Paul, for whom he had to admit a repulsed admiration?loathing his methods but lauding his intentions, and even understanding his reasons for getting into the business he was in. Would he have gone the same way if he'd had Paul's life? Possibly, if he hadn't fallen apart first. Would Paul have gone the way Max had? Probably not, but if he had he'd have steered a clearer, quicker course and never fallen down the way Max had.

* * *

'We didn't talk payment,' Paul said as they rolled into the Impasse Carver.

'Payment?'

'You don't work for free.'

'You didn't hire me, so you don't owe me,' Max said.

'I'll give you something anyway?for your troubles.'

'I don't want anything.'

'You'll want this.'

'Try me.'

'Peace of mind.'

Max gave him a quizzical look.

'Solomon Boukman.'

'Boukman?' Max started. 'You got him?'