and Manuela sitting there together, and at that moment, for the first time, he'd wanted a family. Manuela might have read his mind because she caught his eye, looked right into him, and smiled.
He'd thought of her and only her as he'd shot her killers. The last of them?Cyrus Newbury?hadn't gone quietly. He'd screamed and cried, pleaded for his life, recited half-remembered prayers and hymns. Max had let him beg himself weak, beg until he lost his voice. Then he blew Newbury away.
The rum had a calming effect on him. It smothered his troubles, floated them away to someplace where nothing really mattered for a while. It was good stuff, sweet painkiller.
A couple of whores in straight black wigs sidled over to him and sandwiched him, smiling. They were near-identical twins. Max shook his head and looked away. One of the girls whispered something in his ear. He didn't understand what she was saying, the music muffled her words to all but the sharpest sounds. When he shrugged his shoulders and pulled an I-don't-understand expression, she laughed and pointed to somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Max looked over at the clump of moving bodies?jeans, sneakers, T-shirts, beach shirts, tank tops?not seeing what he was meant to see. Then a camera flash went off. A few of the dancers were surprised and turned around to look for the source of the flash, then went back to their moves.
Max searched for the photographer from where he was, but he didn't see anyone. The girls walked away. He stepped down on the dance floor and picked his way through the crowd to where the flash had come from. He asked the nearest dancers if they'd seen the photographer. They said no; like he, they'd only seen the light.
Max went back inside the bar to look for the girls. They were talking to two marines. Max went up to them and was going to ask about the flash, but when he looked at them, he realized that they weren't the two girls who'd accosted him. He mumbled an apology and continued looking around the bar, but he never saw them. He asked the barman, but the barman just shrugged. He checked the bathroom area: no one. He went outside and looked up and down; the streets were deserted.
He had a few more drinks inside. He got talking to a Sergeant Alejandro Diaz, a Miami resident. Diaz was sure Max was CIA. Max played him along for quiet laughs, neither confirming nor quelling the sarge's suspicions. They talked about Miami and how much they both missed the place. Diaz told him many of the places Max referred to?clubs, restaurants, record stores, dance halls?were long gone.
Max went off home at around three a.m., reaching his gate twenty minutes later.
He went to the living room, took off his gun holster, and slumped down on the chair.
He considered getting up and completing the journey to bed, but he couldn't be bothered. It was too far.
He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Chapter 57
THE NEXT DAY he got a call from Allain, who wanted to see him that afternoon.
* * *
Allain was pale?waxy-looking, with a slight bluey tinge to his ghostly skin. A rash of stubble had advanced across the lower half of his face, and there were deep shadows under his eyes, spreading to the start of his cheeks. Max could tell he'd slept in his clothes. He was wearing his jacket to conceal a badly crumpled shirt, whose collar was crushed and whose cuffs he hadn't bothered to roll down. His tie was on crookedly, his top button undone. He'd combed his hair back but was running low on brilliantine; clumps of hair were already starting to pull away from the main, leaning off to the side and pointing in different directions. It was as if someone had taken the old Allain, the first one Max had met, and gone over him with a wire scrubber: he was still recognizably all there, but much of the gloss had come off.
They were in a meeting room on the top floor, sitting on opposite sides of a round table. They had a great view of the sea through the smoky-gray glass. Max thought there was water in the carafe in front of them, but when he poured himself a glass, alcohol fumes wafted out. Max tasted it. Neat vodka. Allain was almost through the glass he'd poured himself. It was three in the afternoon.
'Sorry,' Allain said sheepishly. 'I forgot.'
He wasn't drunk.
Allain had Max's plane ticket waiting for him on the table. He'd be leaving on the eleven-thirty flight back to Miami the following day.
'Chantale'll take you,' Allain said.
'Where is she?'
'Her mother died on Tuesday. She took her ashes back to her hometown.'
'I'm sorry to hear that,' Max said. 'Does she know what happened?'
'Yes. Some,' Allain said. 'I haven't told her the full details. I'd appreciate it if you kept those to yourself.'
'Sure.'
Max turned the subject to the raid in La Gonave. Allain told Max what they'd found, looking absolutely horrified as he reeled off the details. When he'd said as much as he could, he broke down and wept.
After he'd recovered, Max resumed his questioning. Had his father never mentioned La Gonave to him? No, never. Had his father ever played him the clarinet? No, but Allain knew he played. His father was also a fairly gifted trumpeter. Had he ever been suspicious of why his father had such a vast array of business contacts? No. Why should he? The Carvers were important people in Haiti. He remembered meeting Jimmy Carter before he'd run for president. In Haiti? No, Georgia. His father had done a deal to import Carter's peanuts after the Haitian crop had failed. Carter had even come by to say hello when he was in the country negotiating for the junta's peaceful surrender.
Max went back and forth like this, and the more he asked and the more Allain answered, looking Max in the eye with sad, bloodshot eyes, vision slowly steaming up with alcohol and heartbreak, the more he convinced Max that he really didn't have a clue about what had been going on around him.
'He hated me, you know,' Allain blurted out. 'He hated me for what I was and he hated me for what I wasn't.'
He ran his hands back over his hair to smooth it down. He wasn't wearing his watch. Max noticed a thick, pink scar over his left wrist.
'What about you, Allain? Did you hate him?'
'No,' Allain replied tearfully. 'I would have forgiven him if he'd asked me.'
'Even now? With all you know?'
'He's my father,' Allain replied. 'It doesn't excuse what he's done. That still stands. But he's my father all the same. All we have here is ourselves and our families.'
'Did he ever use any of those psychological techniques on you?'
'What? Hypnosis? No. He wanted to get a shrink to straighten me out, but Mother wouldn't let him. She always stuck up for me.' Allain looked at his blurred reflection on the table. He finished his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Then he suddenly clicked his fingers and patted at his jacket.
'This is for you.' He pulled out a crumpled but sealed envelope, which he held out to Max between his fingers.
Max opened it. Inside was a receipt for a money transfer into his account in Miami:
$5,000,000.
Five million dollars.
Max was speechless.
A big pile of money on a plate.
Tomorrow he was going back to Miami. He had his life to restart. The money in his hand would be a great big help, maybe all the help he'd ever need.
Then a shadow stole up and chilled the vision.
'But?' Max started, looking up from the zeros.
He remembered Claudette Thodore, sold for the money that went into the Carver empire, an empire made out of the flesh of children. Some of that money was in his hands, and that money was his future.
'Isn't it enough?' Allain looked suddenly frightened. 'I'll gladly pay you more. Name it.'
Max shook his head.
'I've never been paid for a job I didn't finish,' he said finally. 'I can't even tell you for sure what happened to Charlie.'
'Vincent's back on the case again,' Allain said. 'He liked you, you know, my father. He said you were an honorable man.'
'Yeah? Well, I don't like him,' Max answered. 'And I can't accept this money.'
He put the receipt on the table.
'But it's in your account. It's yours.' Allain shrugged. 'Besides, the money doesn't know where it's come from.'
'But
They shook hands, then Max walked out of the boardroom and headed for the elevator.
* * *
He parked his car near the pastel pink Roman Catholic cathedral and walked off into downtown Port-au-Prince.
Close to the Iron Market, he stopped by a building that claimed it was a church, despite looking like a warehouse from the outside.
He pushed the door open and went into what was, quite simply,
