Nick Stone: Mr. Clarinet

The waiter came over. They ordered refills.

"Like I said, Boris is wanted by the Canadian police for two homicides. One's a banker called Shawn Michaels, the other a businessman called Frank Huxley-"

"Again? Those names?" Max said, pulse quickening.

"Shawn Michaels and Frank Huxley," Joe said. "Mean anything to you?"

"Some," Max said. "Carry on."

"Boris's bloody prints were all over their dead bodies. He'd tortured them for at least three days before he killed 'em."

"How d'he kill 'em?"

"Cut their windpipes with a scalpel."

"Figures," Max said. He opened the envelope and took out a sheaf of photocopied pages held together with a thick paper clip. The first page was the report on the murder. Max looked through the pages Joe had given him, turning back one after the other until, clipped somewhere in the middle, he found a copy of Boris Gaspйsie's mugshot. It wasn't a good copy, but he clearly recognized the unsmiling teenage face as an early draft of the man he'd known as Shawn Huxley.

Huxley was Boris Gaspйsie.

Huxley had handled the tape he'd found at Faustin's house.

He'd found Faustin's house because of the page from the phone book in the box handed to him by Dreadlocks/"Darwen Medd" at Saut d'Eau.

He hadn't seen Dreadlocks's face.

Boris Gaspйsie was Dreadlocks too?

Why had he gone to Saut d'Eau in the first place?

Huxley had told him Beeson and Medd had gone there.

Huxley had been guiding him all along.

Huxley had kidnapped Charlie.

The world fell out from under Max's feet and he stood suspended over one great big void.

"There's another thing, Max," Joe said. "You and Boris got something in common."

"What?"

"A person: Allain Carver. Around the time of the shit-on-the-plate incident, a 'Shawn Huxley' got caught drunk-driving on U.S. 1. He got booked and put in the drunk tank. Gave his profession as journalist. Made one phone call. To Allain Carver, who came and bailed him out in two hours.

"You know, I almost missed it. It was late in the day and I thought I'd better try cross-referencing the names of Gaspйsie's vics in case he was using their ID. I typed in 'Shawn Huxley' by accident."

"You can be the luckiest person in the world and the worst cop in the history of law enforcement, but that good luck'll get you through every time. When it's the other way around you get blamed and fired," Max said.

"Ain't that the truth." Joe chuckled, then his face got serious. "Whatchu' gonna do, Max?"

"Makes you think I'll do anythin'?"

"I thought you'd do nothing, I woulda told you nothing."

"VINCENT? IT'S MAX Mingus." The line wasn't good, a lot of static and squeals.

"How are you, Max?"

"I'm good, Vincent, thanks. I think I know who took Charlie."

"Who?"

"I'm coming back tomorrow."

"You're coming back?" Vincent sounded surprised. "What? Here? To Haiti?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow. First flight I can get."

"You don't need to do that, Max," Vincent said. "I can handle it from here. Really. Just tell me."

"Negative," Max said.

"What do you propose?" Vincent asked.

"Let me finish my job. Give me a week tops, from touchdown. If I don't get anywhere then I'll tell you what I know and haul ass back here. Anything happens to me on the search and I don't make it, I've left all the information you need with Joe Liston. He's got your number. He doesn't hear from me a week from tomorrow, he'll tell you everything."

"OK. It's a deal."

"Here's what I need from you: first up, I want to make as little noise as possible coming back. No one outside your most trusted can know I'm in the country."

"I'll have some people meet you on the runway, take you out through the military exit."

"Good. Next: I'll need a good car."

"And a gun."

The morning of his departure, he'd taken the Beretta apart and dropped its components in Pйtionville's open sewer holes.

"Consider it done."

"Thanks. I'll call you before I leave."

"And another thing, Vincent-same as before, this is still my gig. You let me run things."

"Understood," he said.

"See you very soon."

"Indeed," Vincent said. "Oh, Max?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

Part 6

CHANTALE HAD JUST finished loading two cases into the back of her Fiat Panda and locking the door to her house when he walked up to her and tapped her shoulder.

"Max!" she jumped with shock and gasped when she saw him, a confused smile tripping across her lips. She was dressed in jeans and a light blue blouse, small gold studs in her ears, a thin chain around her neck, and minimal makeup, the look one of formal informality. She took traveling seriously.

"Where's Allain?"

"He's gone. Left the country," she said, worry creeping into her face. He was blocking her way to the car. "I'm going too. My plane's leaving in a couple of hours and I really want to beat the traffic, so…"

"You aren't goin' nowhere, Chantale," Max pulled out the Glock Vincent Paul had handed him when he'd picked him up at the airport.

She panicked.

"Look, I didn't know anything was wrong until yesterday," she said. "Allain came by early in the morning. I'd just woken up. He told me not to go back to the bank because he was letting me go. He said something had gone wrong and he had to go talk to the family lawyers in New York. He didn't know when he'd be back. He gave me a receipt for a money transfer to my Miami bank account. Said it was my golden handshake."

"Did you try and find out what had happened?"

"Sure. I called a couple of friends in the bank, but they didn't know anything. They didn't even know I wasn't coming back."

"How much did he give you?"

"Not as much as you."

"How much?" he insisted.

"A million."

"That's a lot of money, Chantale."

"Allain's a generous guy."

"What else did you do for him apart from being his personal assistant?"

"Nothing!" she snapped. "How dare you-"

"Where's Charlie?"

"Charlie? I don't know."

She looked scared, but she didn't seem to be lying. Had she even guessed Allain was gay?

"How much do you know?" Max asked. "What's Allain been up to since I've been gone?"

She scrutinized him, trying to read him, work out his angle. He tapped the gun against his leg impatiently.

"He's been doing a lot of money transfers. I overheard him yelling at someone on the phone about the time some of them were taking. I took a couple of calls from banks in the Caymans, Monaco, Luxembourg…"

"Do you know how much money?"

"No. What is going on, Max?" she said.

Max handed her a copy of Gaspйsie's teenage mug shot.

"Ever see him with Allain?"

"He's a boy," she said.

"He grew up. Look hard. His name might be-"

"-Shawn Huxley?" she offered.

"You know him?"

"Yeah. He said he was a journalist, and an old friend of Allain's."

"How many times did you see them together?"

"Two, three times at the most. He always came to see Allain at the bank. He was there just last week. He asked me if I wanted to come water-skiing with him that weekend. He's been renting Allain's beach house."

"Where's that?" Max asked.

She told him. It was three hours away. He asked her to write down the directions.

"Do you know anything else about Huxley? Did you ever hear what they talked about?"

"No. I know they laughed a lot the last time they met," she said, then her expression darkened. "Did Allain and Huxley kidnap Charlie?"

"Why d'you think I'm back?"

"That's impossible!" she said.

"How well d'you know Allain?" he asked. When she didn't reply, he told her what he knew for sure, watching her face express first surprise (Allain's sexuality, Huxley's true identity), then disbelief (that Vincent was Charlie's father); then complete bewilderment (all of it at once) took over.