Mr. Clarinet

/>

'Yeah. Adios, motherfucker.'

Chapter 55

GUSTAV CARVER SMILED warmly when he saw Max walk into the living room, his great gargoyle face turning into something straight out of a horror cartoon as it registered, processed, and displayed his pleasure: his eyebrows creased into upward arrowheads, his brow furrowed disjointedly like the spring bands on a collapsed chest expander, and his lips thinned to pale pink rubber bands as they stretched and curved toward his earlobes.

'Max! Welcome!' Gustav shouted to Max across the empty space.

They shook hands when they met. Carver overapplied his grip and accidentally pulled Max forward into him. They bumped shoulders, awkwardly, jock-style by default, neither knowing the drill. Carver, who had been using his other hand to balance himself on his silver-topped black cane, staggered back and threatened to keel over on his back but Max grabbed hold and steadied him. Gustav righted himself with Max's help, took in the remains of the minor panic in Max's expression, and giggled almost coquettishly. He smelled strongly of booze, cigarettes, and musky cologne.

Max noticed a tall Christmas tree in the corner of the room, not too far from Judith Carver's portrait. It had fiberoptic lights hidden among the branches, which morphed continuously into shades of red, purple, and blue before stopping at a steady all-white and then repeating the color changes. The rest of the tree was decorated with twinkling gold and silver streamers, hanging baubles, and a golden star at the top. It was surprising to find something so tacky in Carver's tasteful surroundings.

Gustav seemed to read Max's thoughts.

'That's for the servants. Those damn lights fascinate them, simpletons that they are. One night of the year I let them use the room. I buy presents for them and their children and they go and find them. Do you like Christmas, Max?'

'I'm not sure anymore, Mr. Carver,' Max said quietly.

'I hate it. It's when I lost Judith.'

Max stayed silent?not out of awkwardness but because nothing in him was moving in the old man's favor.

Gustav looked at him curiously, brow tensing, eyes narrowing and crinkling at the corners, a hostile wariness about his expression. Max met his gaze with a blank look, giving nothing away except his indifference.

'How's about a drink?' Carver insisted rather than offered. He wafted his cane over the armchairs and sofas. 'Let's sit.'

He sunk into the armchair one haunch at a time, his bones creaking and popping with the strain. Max didn't offer to help him.

Gustav clapped his hands and barked for a servant. A black-and-white-uniformed maid stepped out from the darkness surrounding the doorway, where she had probably been standing the entire time. Max had neither seen nor sensed her until she appeared. Carver asked for a whiskey.

Max sat close to the armchair.

Carver leaned across to the coffee table and picked up a silver box filled with unfiltered cigarettes. He took one out, put the box back, and picked up a smoked-glass ashtray with a silver lighter inside it. He lit up, took a deep drag, and held on to the smoke for a few seconds before letting it out slowly.

'From the Dominican Republic, these,' Carver said, holding up the cigarette. 'They used to make them here. Hand-rolled. There was a shop in Port-au-Prince run by two women?ex-nuns. Tiny place called Le Tabac. All they did all day was sit in the window and roll cigarettes. I watched them once for about an hour. I just sat in the back of my car and observed them at it. Pure concentration, pure dedication. Such craft, such skill. Customers would come in all the time and interrupt them to buy a couple of cigarettes. One would serve while the other carried on. Me? I'd buy two hundred. The amazing thing is that all of those cigarettes were identical. You couldn't tell them apart. Amazing. Such precision, dedication. You know, I used to make all my employees sit outside the shop to watch those ladies work?to teach them to adopt virtues like diligence and attention to detail in their work for me.

'Those cigarettes were wonderful. A deep, rich, and very satisfying smoke. The best I've ever had, I think. These aren't too bad, but there's nothing like the original.'

'What happened to the shop?' Max asked out of politeness rather than interest. He had to cough and clear his throat to make his voice heard?not that there was a blockage. He was getting nervous, dark energy coursing through him, muscles tightening, his heart pumping ever harder and louder.

'Oh, one of them got Parkinson's disease and couldn't work anymore, and the other closed up the shop to look after her. Or so I heard.'

'At least it wasn't cancer.'

'They didn't smoke.' Carver laughed as the maid reappeared with a bottle of whiskey, water, ice, and two glasses on a tray. 'I always drink and smoke at this time of year. Damn the doctors! What about you? Care to indulge?'

Max said no with a shake of his head.

'But you will join me for a drink?'

An order, not an offer: Max nodded and tried a smile, but the insincerity made his lips coagulate into a crumpled pout. Carver shot him another curious look, this one laced with suspicion.

The maid deflected attention off him by pouring the drinks. Carver took his whiskey neat. Max took it with ice and water almost to the brim. When she was gone, they clinked glasses and toasted each other's health, the coming year, and a happy conclusion to Max's investigation. Max pretended to take a sip.

He'd sat at home trying to work out the best way to tell Carver that he was taking him in. He'd contemplated just walking in and confronting him with what he knew and then marching him out to his car. But he'd nixed that, because he wasn't a cop.

He'd decided to get Carver to confess to what he'd done, own up to having masterminded the sex ring, and even explain his actions and justify them. He'd spent the entire day planning it, how he'd lure Carver further and further into implicating himself, all the while shutting off every escape route until the old man's admission of guilt became a formality, the symbolic toppling of the chessboard king.

All day in the house, he'd worked up his strategy, anticipating the many possible turns the confrontation would take and preparing the response he'd have waiting at every corner. He rehearsed his questions and worked on his voice until he reached the light, conversational, friendly, open, seemingly unguarded tone he was looking for: all bait and no hook.

Paul had called in the afternoon, told him to go get the old man after they'd taken the house in La Gonave. He'd arranged for Allain to phone him on the pretext of inviting him up to the house for an update. Paul said that Allain was pretty broken up at having to make the call. To him, it was his father he was betraying, not a criminal he was setting up for the fall.

By nightfall, everything was straight in his head. He'd showered, shaved, and changed into a loose shirt and pants. At around nine Allain had called. Max guessed Paul's operation had been a success.

As he was driving out of the house, he'd been stopped by some of Paul's men in a jeep. They'd handed him an unsealed envelope and told him he was to give it to Gustav when the time was right.

Then they told him he'd have to wear a wire when he saw Gustav.

That had upset everything?at least in his head.

He'd never worn a snitch socket in his life. He'd been on the other end, listening in. They were leads you put on vermin to take you to bigger vermin.

He was told it was for his own protection, that he couldn't go in there carrying a walkie-talkie.

Yes, sure, that made perfect sense, but it was the rest he objected to?being Paul's stoolie, getting Gustav Carver to incriminate himself on tape, to confess and sign his death warrant.

He'd thought about it?not long, because he didn't have much time and he really didn't have any option but to accept what he couldn't refuse.

They'd all gone back to the house. He'd shaved his chest and they'd taped the mic just above the nipple, the wire running down his torso and curling around his back like an elongated leech, stopping at a receiver and battery clipped to his trousers.

They ran a test. He heard his voice loud and clear.

They walked back to their cars. He asked how things had gone in La Gonave. He was told they'd gone very well.

On his way driving up to the Carver estate, he decided that the thing he wanted most of all for Christmas was to be done with this, with Haiti, with Carver, with this case.

He accepted that his case was over: Charlie Carver was dead and his body would most likely never be recovered. The mob that had killed Eddie Faustin had trampled him to death.

That fit, that made sense, and added up quite tidily, at least on paper.

It would do, but it wasn't really enough. Not for him, not if he wanted to sleep easy for the rest of his life.

He needed more proof that the boy was dead.

But how would he get it? And why?

Then again, whom was he kidding with that bullshit now? He