Nick Stone: Mr. Clarinet

Carver clocked his indifference and switched his talk to Charlie-when he'd taken his first steps, how he had an ear for music-and then he went into a bit more detail about Haiti.

Max listened, feigning interest with a fixed look, but behind it he was going away, back into himself, delving, working out if he could still cut it.

He came up strangely empty, unresolved. The case had two obvious angles-financial motive or some possible voodoo bullshit. No ransom, so that left the latter, which he knew a bit more about than he'd let on to Carver. Or maybe Carver knew about him and Solomon Boukman. In fact, he was certain Carver did know about that. Of course he did. How couldn't he, if he had Torres on his payroll? What else did Carver know about him? How far back had he gone? Did he have something stored up, ready to spring on him?

Bad start, if he wanted to take it farther. He didn't trust his future client.

Max ended their meeting telling Carver he'd think about it. Carver gave him his card and twenty-four hours to make up his mind.

He took a cab back to his hotel, Charlie Carver's photographs in his lap.

He thought about ten million dollars and what he could do. He'd sell the house and buy a modest apartment somewhere quiet and residential, possibly in Kendall. Or maybe he'd move out to the Keys. Or maybe he'd leave Florida altogether.

Then he thought about going to Haiti. Would he have taken the case in his pre-con prime? Yes, certainly. The challenge alone would have appealed to him. No forensics to fall back on and cut corners with, just pure problem-solving, brain work, his wits pitted against another's. But he'd mothballed his talents when he'd gone to prison, and they'd quietly wasted away with inattention, same as any muscle. A case like Charlie Carver's would be up the hill backwards, the whole way.

Back in his room, he propped the two photos up on his desk and stared at them.

He didn't have any children. He'd never cared for kids all that much. They tried his patience and fried his nerves. Nothing would piss him off more than being stuck in a room with a crying baby its parents couldn't or wouldn't shut up. And yet, ironically, many of his private cases had involved finding missing children, some mere toddlers. He had a hundred-percent success rate. Alive or dead, he always brought them home. He wanted to do the same for Charlie. He was worried that he couldn't, that he'd fail him. Those eyes, sparkling with precocious rage, were finding him again, all the way across the room. It was stupid but he felt they were calling out to him, imploring him to come to his rescue.

Magic eyes.

Max went out and tried to find a quiet bar where he could have a drink and think things through, but everywhere he passed was full of people, most of them a generation younger than he, most of them happy and loud. Bill Clinton had been reelected president. Celebrations everywhere. Not his scene. He decided to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels at a liquor store instead.

While he was looking for a store, he bumped into a guy in a white puffy jacket and ski hat pulled down almost to his eyes. Max apologized. Something fell out of the man's jacket and landed at his feet. A clear plastic Ziploc bag with five fat joints rolled tampon-style. Max picked it up and turned to give it to the man, but he was gone.

He slipped the joints into his coat pocket and carried on walking until he found a liquor store. They were out of Jack. They had other whiskeys, but nothing came close to a hit of Jack.

Of course, there was always the reefer.

He bought a cheap plastic lighter.

Back in the day, Max Mingus and his partner Joe Liston had liked nothing better than to unwind with a little reefer they got off a snitch dealer called Five Fingers. Five'd feed them certified busts and throw in a few free ounces of Caribbean Queen-a very potent strain of Jamaican grass he used himself.

It was the best shit Max had ever had, way better than the year-old garbage he'd just smoked.

An hour later, he sat on his bed, staring intently at the wall, vaguely aware of the lurchy feeling in his stomach.

He lay back and closed his eyes.

He thought of Miami.

Home sweet home.

He lived near Hobie Beach, on Key Biscayne, off the Rickenbacker Causeway. On a good evening, he and Sandra used to sit out on the porch and watch downtown Miami in all its hypnotic, neon-lit splendor, the smell of Biscayne Bay wafting in on the cool breeze, fish and boat oil mixed in. No matter how many times they took in the view, it was always different. Manhattan had nothing on his hometown on a good day. They liked to talk about the future then, right then when life was good and promised to get better. To Sandra, the future meant starting a family.

Max should have told her about the vasectomy he'd had a few months before they'd met, but he'd never had the-yeah, he'd never had the balls.

How could he bring children into the world after seeing what was left of the ones he found in his line of work, the ones he had to pick up and reassemble piece by piece? He couldn't. He'd never let his kids out of his sight. He'd lock them up and throw away the key. He'd stop them going to school and playing outside and visiting friends, in case they got snatched. He'd run background checks on all his relatives and in-laws in case they were hiding pedo convictions. What kind of life would that be-for them, for his wife, for him? None at all. Best to forget having a family, best to forget continuing the cycle, best to shut it down completely. 1981: that had been a bad time for him, a shit era. 1981: the year of Solomon Boukman, a gang leader from Little Haiti. 1981: the year of the King of Swords.

Sandra would have understood, if he'd been honest with her from the start, but when they'd first started dating he was still in his confirmed-bachelor mode, lying to every woman he met, pretending he was a long-term prospect, telling them whatever they wanted to hear so he could fuck them and run. He'd had plenty of opportunities to come clean with her before they got married, but he thought he'd lose her. She came from a big family and loved children.

Now he regretted not reversing the vasectomy when he'd had the chance. He'd thought about it a year into his marriage, when being with Sandra had started changing him for the better and, with it, little by little, changing his attitudes toward starting a family. It would have meant everything to him to still have something of her left behind, even a trace he could love and cherish as he had loved and cherished her.

He thought about their house again.

They had a large kitchen with a counter in the middle. He used to sit there at night, trying to get his head around a case that was keeping him awake. Sometimes Sandra would join him.

He saw her again now, dressed in a T-shirt and slippers, hair pillow-frazzled, a glass of water in one hand, Charlie's headshot in another.

"I think you should take this case, Max," she said, looking across at him, her eyes all puffed up with broken sleep.

"Why?" he heard himself ask.

"Because you got no choice, baby," she said. "It's that or you know what."

He woke up with a start, fully dressed on the bed, staring at the blank ceiling, his mouth dry and tasting of rotted beef.

The room stank of stale reefer, taking him right back to his cell after Velasquez had taken a nightcap hit before saying his prayers in Latin.

Max stood up and staggered over to the desk, twenty jackhammers busting out of his cranium. He was still mildly stoned. He opened the window and the freezing-cold air tore into the room. He took a few deep breaths. The fog in his head retreated.