Mr. Clarinet

the buyers had met up at private clubs and had been given the files in paper form. Many preferred this method, because they said e-mails were vulnerable to hackers.

Max next studied a photograph file showing children and their corresponding buyers. The buyers either had been snapped unawares from a distance, or their images had been lifted straight from video footage.

One whole file was devoted to pictures of buyers in or around the place where they kept the children, which Max recognized from the tape he'd found at the Faustin house. They had been photographed meeting and greeting each other, and inspecting the mouths of children standing on what looked like auction blocks. The buyers never looked at the camera, which led Max to think that they were being photographed in secret.

The final photos in the series showed them boarding boats bound for a nearby coastline.

Blackmail, Max thought immediately.

'Do you know where that is?' Max asked.

'Looks like these photos were taken on La Gonave. It's an island off the coast.'

'Could you look up a name for me on the database. First name Claudette?two ts?last name Thodore.'

The woman brought up her details and printed them out. Claudette had been sold to a John Saxby in February 1995. He lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Max thought of the rest of the North American buyers and how he could set all those enslaved children free. He'd give Joe a copy of all the evidence. His friend would be a hero: when it was all over and the indictments had been handed down, they'd make him chief of police.

But first things first.

He returned to the basement.

Chapter 50

'CAN WE GET you anything Mister Co-da-da? Water? Coffee? Something like that?' Max offered, starting things off on a cooperative note. He had an interpreter with him?a short, sweaty man with Oriental features and brilliantine in his hair.

Codada sat with his hands tied behind his back, ankles chained together, bare lightbulb burning right above his head. Eloise Krolak was locked in the next room.

'Yes. You can get out of my house and then go fuck yourself.' Codada surprised Max by replying in English, his French accent as strong as his defiance.

'I thought you couldn't speak English.'

'You think wrong.'

'Obviously,' Max said.

Codada had on sharkskin pants and black pinstriped socks that matched the silk shirt he wore open three buttons down to his pale, milky chest. Max counted four gold chains around his neck. On his way over to the house, Max had been told that the Codadas had been surprised coming back from a nightclub in the mountains.

'Why d'you think you're here?' Max asked.

'You think I have boy?Charlie?' he answered, pronouncing 'Charlie' as Tssharlie.

'Correct. So let's not waste each other's time. Do you have him?'

'No.'

'Who does?'

'God.' He looked skywards.

'You saying he's dead?'

Codada agreed with a nod. Max looked at his eyes. Codada was looking straight at him, not a hint of a lie, voice steady, truth-telling. It meant nothing, of course, for now. Codada probably hadn't worked out that he was a dead man either way.

'Who killed him?' Max asked.

'The people?dey keeel Eddie Faustin?en meme temps??'

'So, you're telling me the mobs who attacked Eddie Faustin killed Charlie too? That what you're sayin'?'

'Oui.'

'How do you know this?'

'I?investiger?'

'You investigated it?'

Codada nodded.

'Who told you?'

'In the street where it happen. Temoins. Wit-ness. The people talk to me.'

'So you had witnesses, who saw this happen?' Max pointed to his eyes. 'How many? One? Two?'

'More. En pille moune. Many. Ten. Twenty. It was big big scandale here. Like if the daughter of Clinton kidnapped.' Codada flashed a smile. His gold tooth caught the light and an instant, warm, yellow light poured out of his mouth. 'Charlie dead. I say dis to him father very many times. 'Your son he dead,' I say but him not listen.'

'You told Allain Carver this?' Max played dumb.

'Non. I tell him father.' Codada smiled more intensely, ready to drop the bomb on him. 'Gustav. Gustav father of Charlie.'

Max wasn't going to tear the ground away from Codada's feet just yet. He returned Codada's smile with one of his own. A bolt of panic pierced the confidence in the head- of-security's face.

'Tell me about Eddie Faustin. Were you good friends?'

'Not friend.'

'You didn't like him?'

'Him and him brother, Salazar, they work for me in the police.'

'You mean the Ton-ton Mackooots?'

'Yes, we was Macoutes.' Codada tried to straighten himself up in his chair, failed, resigned himself to a slump.

'Did Eddie work for you afterwards?when the Mackooots finished?'

'Non.'

'Did you see Eddie at all afterwards?'

'Only when he drive Monsieur Carver.'

'You didn't talk to him?'

'I say hello, how you do.'

'Did you meet up? Go for a drink?'

'A drink? With Eddie?' Codada looked at Max as though he was suggesting something not only impossible but utterly absurd.

'Yeah, why not? Talk about old times?'

''Old time'?' Codada laughed. 'When we Macoutes, Eddie Faustin work for me. I his boss.'

'So you don't mix with the help either. You do some of the worst things imaginable, but you won't spend quality time with some guy, because he was your subordinate back in the glory days of Doc? You people have some fucked-up standards, let me tell you.' Max shook his head and looked at Codada straight on. 'Anyway, Eddie Faustin was going to kidnap Charlie. Did you know that?'

'Non. No true,' he insisted.

'Yes, true. Yes very true.'

'I say no true.'

'Why is that?'

'Eddie'?Codada pulled a proud face?'a good man. He never do bad to Monsieur Carver. He love Monsieur Carver like?like him father.'

'Eddie tell you that?'

'No. I see. I know. I feel.'

'Is that right? You see, you know, you feel? OK. I know Eddie was working for Charlie's kidnappers. That was why he drove the car to that road that day. He was waiting for them to come and take the boy.'

'Non!'

'Yes!'

'Who tell you dis?dis shit?'

'I investigay too,' Max said. 'And it's not shit.'

Codada's face said he didn't believe him, told his interrogator he thought he was bluffing.

Max decided to switch lanes and ask him about other things. He went over to a corner of the room and picked up one of the prompts he'd brought from Codada's house?Claudette's videotape.

'Tell me about your business?'

''Business'?' Codada searched him.

'That's what I said.'

'I no 'ave 'business.''

Max glanced at the door. An armed man was guarding it. His interpreter was standing against the wall behind Codada.

'You ever steal children?'

'I no steal children.'