Mr. Clarinet

weeping adult-child? Someone right out of your training manual?' She was defiant and angry, her voice falling just outside a shout. Yet, in spite of this, her delivery was completely devoid of passion, as if she had been rehearsing this speech all her life and the words had lost their meaning to her, become a row of audio dots she had to follow until they stopped.

'It's easy for you to paint us all as innocent, vulnerable little victims, but we're not all the same. Some of us beat the system. Some of us come out on top.'

'You call this coming out on top?' Max threw his hands around the room. 'You're gonna die and you're gonna die bad.'

'No one has ever treated me as well as him. Ever. In my whole life. I have no regrets. If I could change anything, I really wouldn't,' she said calmly.

'Tell me about Maurice. How did he steal you? What was his technique?'

'He didn't 'steal me,'' she said impatiently. 'He rescued me.'

'Whatever.' Max sighed. 'Just tell me how he did it.'

'The first thing I remember about him was his camera?he had a Super 8 then. It covered half his face. I used to see him in the mornings. Me and my friends would wave to him. He'd talk to us, give us things?candy, these little wire figurines he made of us. He paid me the most attention. He made me laugh. My friends were so jealous.' Eloise smiled. 'One day he asked me if I wanted to go away with him?go on a trip to a magical place. I said yes. And the next thing I knew, I was sitting next to him in a car. Best decision I ever made.'

Max tried to swallow but his mouth was arid. She was right. She wasn't what he was expecting. He knew all about Stockholm syndrome, where kidnap victims fall in love with their captors, but he'd never encountered that in a child-abuse case before.

He was deeply confused?and lost and horrified, and the worst part was he couldn't help himself from showing it, letting her see into him, letting her have the edge on him, the authority.

'But?what about your family?'

She let out a sour laugh, her face rigid, her eyes cold and fixed.

'My family? You mean my 'apple-pie Mom and Dad,' like you have in America? Is that what you think when you speak of my 'family'?'

Max looked at her blankly.

'Well, it wasn't like that, let me tell you. The little I can remember I'd give anything to forget. Eight to a tiny one-room house, so poor the only thing I had to eat was dirt cake. Do you know what dirt cake is? It's a little cornmeal and a lot of dirt mixed together with sewer water and left outside to dry into a cake. That's what I ate every day.'

She stopped and looked at him defiantly, goading him to come back at her with something bigger, to try and net her with some homespun morality.

When she saw he wasn't going there, something in her changed and became unsure. Then she breathed deeply through her nose, held in the air, closed her eyes, and lowered her head.

She held her breath for well over a minute, her eyeballs squirming back and forth behind her eyelids, her fingers screwing up the corners of her handkerchief, and her lips moving fast but soundlessly, either in prayer or conflict with her conscience. Then, one by one, the neurotic motions timed out: she put the handkerchief down on her lap and rested her hands, palms down. Her lips froze and her eyes rolled to a stop.

Finally, she exhaled through her mouth, opened her eyes, and addressed Max.

'I'll tell you everything you need to know. I'll tell you where we keep the children and who we sell them to. I'll tell you who is involved, and who we work for.'

'Who you work for?'

She opened her eyes and met his.

'You didn't think Maurice ran this all by himself, did you?' She laughed.

Paul came back in.

'Maurice is many things, but clever isn't one of them.' She giggled fondly, and then almost immediately flipped into business mode. 'I'll tell you absolutely everything?but on one condition.'

'Try me,' Max said.

'You let Maurice go.'

'What? Absolutely no fucking way!'

'You let Maurice go and I'll tell you. He was just a cog in a very big wheel. We both were. If you don't let him go, I won't talk. You might as well turn your guns on us now.'

'Done,' Paul suddenly interrupted, making Eloise start. 'As long as we verify whatever information you give us, I'll let him go.'

'Give me your word,' Eloise said.

'I give you my word.'

Eloise bowed her head solemnly to indicate they had a deal.

Max didn't know if he believed Paul would let Codada walk, but he put that to the back of his mind.

Paul put his hand on Max's shoulder and tapped it, which Max understood as a sign to resume the interrogation.

'Tell me who you're working for.'

'Can't you guess?'

'Eloise, you've got a deal. We ain't going to play cat-and-mouse no more. We ain't going to play clever. I ask you a question, you give me an answer?and you tell me the truth. Simple as that. Understood?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Who are you working for?'

'Gustav Carver,' she said.

'No fucking shit, Eloise!' Max yelled. 'I know he's your fucking boss already! He runs Noah's Ark. He runs the bank where your motherfucker child-rapist lover works!'

'But you asked who we're wor?'

'Don't get fucking cute with me!' Max leaned all the way over to her. 'You hold out on me anymore, I swear to God I'm going over and capping Maurice myself.'

'But I'm telling you it's Gustav Carver! He is our boss. He is behind this. He runs this. He owns this. He started it! He invented it!' Eloise insisted, her voice trembling. 'Gustav Carver. It's him. He's been doing it for almost forty years. Stealing children, turning them out, selling them for sex. Gustav Carver is Tonton Clarinette.'

Chapter 52

'MAURICE FIRST MET Monsieur Carver?Gustav?in the 1940s. He lived in a village in the southwest, about fifteen miles out of Port-au-Prince. At that time one of the most widespread diseases in Haiti was yaws. Maurice's area was the most heavily infected. Yaws is a lot like leprosy.

'Maurice told me these stories about how it attacked his parents. His mother was the first to get it. First her arms withered, then her lips fell off, then her nose was eaten away. They were driven out of the village. They lived in a clapboard shack, Maurice and what was left of his parents. He watched them fall apart, literally.'

'How come he didn't get it?' Max asked.

'Le Docteur Duvalier?Francois Duvalier?Papa Doc?saved him.'

'Was that how they met?'

'Yes. The shack was on the way to the village. The doctor was setting up a hospital nearby and he found Maurice sitting there between the bodies of his parents. Maurice was the first person he inoculated.'

'I see,' Max said.

'They had a problem with protecting their medical supplies. They were always getting raided by the locals. So Maurice organized a gang to act as security. Kids his age, some younger. They watched over Le Docteur Duvalier while he was working, and they watched over the hospital at night. They were very effective. They used catapults, knives, and clubs. They carried their weapons around in macoutes?these straw satchels you see the peasants carrying. Duvalier called them 'mes petits tontons macoutes'?my little men with bags. The name stuck.'

'That's so cute.' Max laughed sarcastically. 'What about Gustav Carver? Where does he come in?'

'Monsieur Carver was always around. He was the first white man Maurice had ever seen. Medical supplies were impossible to get hold of. It was Monsieur Carver, with his business contacts, who brought the supplies from America.

'Maurice went to work for Le Docteur Duvalier. He was responsible for Le Docteur Duvalier's safety during his presidential campaign.'

'When did they start stealing children?'

'Le Docteur Duvalier, as well as being a doctor, was also a