Nick Stone: Mr. Clarinet

"I need the money."

Joe didn't say anything. Max heard him scribbling something down.

"You'll need a piece," Joe said.

"That was the second favor."

Max was banned from owning a gun for life. He'd expected Joe to refuse.

"And the first?"

"I'll need a copy of everything you've got on the Carver kid, plus his family."

He heard more scribbling.

"No problem," Joe said. "How about we meet at The L tonight, say 'round eight?"

"On a Friday? How about someplace quiet?"

"The L's got this new lounge bar? Away from the main one? It's so quiet you can hear a flea fart."

"OK." Max laughed.

"It'll be good to see you again, Max. Real good," Joe said.

"You too, Big Man," Max said.

Joe was going to say something and then stopped. Then he tried again and stopped again. Max could hear it in the slight sucking noises he was making as his mouth opened and he took in the right amount of air to launch the words massed at the back of his throat.

They still had it, their old telepathy.

Joe was worried about something.

"What's bugging you, Joe?"

"You sure you wanna go to Haiti?" Joe asked. "'Cause it ain't too late to back out."

"Where's this coming from, Joe?"

"It ain't gonna be too safe for you out there."

"I know about the country's situation."

"It ain't that," Joe said slowly. "It's Boukman."

"Boukman? Solomon Boukman?"

"Uh-huh."

"What about him?"

"He got out," Joe said, his voice dropping close to a mumble.

"What?!!? He was on death row!" Max shouted, standing up as his voice rose. His reaction surprised him: seven years in prison and he'd mostly kept his emotions in check, his expressions to a bare minimum. You couldn't afford to let people see what got you up or down in jail, because they'd use it against you. He was already adjusting to the free world, finding his left-behind self again.

"The government gave him a free pass home," Joe explained. "They're deportin' the Haitian criminals instead of keepin' 'em locked up. Happenin' all over-state and fed."

"This ain't official. It's one of those under-the-radar things you never find out about. And even if it did come out, who'd give a shit? Us? We'd say good riddance. The Haitians? Who they gonna complain to? Us? We're already rulin' their country."

"Do they know what he did?" Max said.

"That ain't the point, as far as they see it. Why waste taxpayers' money keepin' him in prison when you can send him back home?"

"But he's free."

"Yeah, but that's the Haitians' problem now. And now it's yours too-you meet him out there."

Max sat himself back down.

"When did this happen, Joe? When did he get out?"

"March. This year."

"Mother-fucker!"

"There's more to tell-" Joe started and then he broke off to talk to someone. He put the receiver down on his desk. Max heard the conversation get louder. He couldn't make out exactly what was being said, but someone had fucked up. Dialogue turned to monologue, Joe's voice crushing everything in its path. Joe grabbed the phone. "MAX?!!? I'LL SEE YOU TONIGHT! WE'LL TALK SOME MORE THEN!" he roared and slammed the phone down.

Max laughed, imagining the poor subordinate getting the trade end of one of Joe's tirades. He had a way of using every inch of his towering frame to win an argument, leaning his face right over yours and looking down into your eyes like you were a piece of dog shit he'd stepped in on his way to church. And then he'd start talking.

He suddenly stopped laughing when he remembered the first child-sacrifice victim, the way the body had looked on the morgue slab.

Solomon Boukman: child killer. Free.

Solomon Boukman: mass murderer. Free.

Solomon Boukman: cop killer. Free.

Solomon Boukman: gang leader, drug baron, pimp, money-launderer, kidnapper, rapist. Free.

Solomon Boukman: his last case as a cop, his last collar, the one that almost killed him.

Solomon's words to him in court: "You give me reason to live," stage-whispered with a smile that chilled Max to the core. Those words had made the whole thing between them very personal.

Max's words back: "Adнos, motherfucker." How wrong he'd been.

Boukman had headed up a gang called The SNBC-short for Saturday Night Barons Club, adapted from Baron Samedi, the voodoo god of death. Its members swore their leader had supernatural powers, that he could read minds and predict the future, that he could be in two places at once, materializing in rooms just like they did on Star Trek. They said he got his powers through some demon he worshipped, some mйchant loa. Max and Joe had caught him and shut down the gang.

Max was shaking with anger, fists balled up, heat rising up in his face, the vein in his forehead twitching and wriggling like a worm in a frying pan. Solomon Boukman was someone Max had taken great pride in catching-and great joy in working over with his fists and a sap before he'd booked him.

Now Boukman was free. He'd beaten the system. And he'd beaten Max and pissed in his face. It was too much-too much to have to come back to.

MAX HAD KNOWN Joe for twenty-five years. They'd started out as partners in Patrol and moved on up through the ranks together.

The pair were known as "Born to Run" within the Miami PD. Their boss, Eldon Burns, coined the nickname because he said the way the two of them stood together reminded him of the cover of Bruce Springsteen's eponymous album, where the pale, scrawny singer is propped up against Clarence Clemons, his gargantuan, pimp-hatted sax player. It wasn't a bad comparison. Joe dwarfed everyone. Built like a linebacker who'd swallowed the team, he was six foot five in his socks and had to duck to get through most doors.

Joe dug the nickname. He loved Bruce Springsteen. He had all his albums and singles, and hundreds of hours of live shows on cassettes. It was virtually all he seemed to listen to. Whenever Springsteen toured, Joe would have front-row seats for all the Florida concerts. Max dreaded having to share a car with his partner after he'd seen his hero in the flesh, because Joe would describe the experience in excruciatingly precise detail, song by song, grunt by grunt. Springsteen's shows averaged three hours. Joe's reports would go on for six. Max couldn't stand Springsteen, didn't know what all the fuss was about. To his ears, the "Boss" 's voice was stuck somewhere between throat-clearing and throat cancer-and the perfect soundtrack for white guys who drove station wagons in motorcycle jackets. He'd once asked Joe what the attraction was. "It's like everything that moves one person and leaves another standing still: you either get it or you don't. Ain't just about the music and the voice with Bruce. It's about a whole lotta other things. You get me?" Max hadn't, but he'd left it at that. Bad taste never hurt anybody.

That said, he had no problem with their nickname. It meant they were being noticed. After they'd both made detective, Max had the album image and title tattooed on his inner right forearm. A year before he'd had a traditional cop tattoo-a shield bearing a skull and crossed six-guns, surrounded by the legend DEATH IS CERTAIN-LIFE IS NOT-inked into his left arm.

The L was named after the shape of its building, although you'd have to see it from above to know. Detective Frank Nunez had first spotted it from a police helicopter while giving chase to a vanload of bank robbers across downtown Miami. He got some of his friends to come in with him in return for points, including Max and Sandra, who put in $20,000. Until they had to sell their share to help pay Max's legal bills, the bar had made them double their investment every year. It was a big hit with the downtown business-and-banking crowd, who packed it Monday through Saturday.