Mr. Clarinet

There were traces of East Coast WASP wrinkling Carver's otherwise crisp English accent, an unnatural reining in of some vowels and an overexaggeration of others. English school, Ivy League diploma?

Carver resembled a matinee idol manqué, looks fading agreeably. Max placed him as his own age, maybe a year or two younger; balanced diet–healthy. There were lines on his neck and crow's-feet etched at the ends of his small, sharp blue eyes. With his golden skin he could have passed for white South American—Argentinean or Brazilian—bloodlines going all the way back to Germany. Untouchably handsome but for his mouth. That let him down. It resembled a long razor cut where the blood had just started to bubble but not yet run over.

The coffee came in a white porcelain pot. Max poured himself a cup and added a measure of cream from a small jug. The coffee was rich and strong, and the cream didn't leave a greasy slick on the surface; it was connoisseur stuff, the kind you bought by the bean and ground yourself, not the average brews you picked up in the supermarket.

"I heard about your wife," Carver said. "I'm sorry."

"Me too," Max countered curtly. He let the subject die in the air, then got down to business. "You said you had a job you wanted me to look at?"

Carver told him about Charlie. Max heard the basics and flat-out said no. Carver mentioned the money and Max quieted down, more out of shock than greed. In fact, greed didn't even enter into it. While Carver was talking numbers, he handed Max a manila envelope. Inside were two glossy black-and-white photographs, a headshot, and a full-length bodyshot—of a little girl.

"I thought you said your son was missing, Mr. Carver?" Max said, holding up the picture.

"Charlie had a thing about his hair. We nicknamed him Samson because he wouldn't let anyone go near it. He was born—somewhat unusually—with a full head of the stuff. Whenever anyone tried to sneak up on him with a pair of scissors he screeched—this deafening howl. Quite terrifying. So we left it alone. I'm sure he'll outgrow the phobia eventually," Carver said.

"Or not," Max said bluntly, deliberately.

Max thought he saw Carver's face change for an instant, as a shadow of humanity stole away a fragment of his all-business composure. It wasn't enough to make him warm up to his potential client, but it was a start.

Max studied the headshot. Charlie didn't look anything like his father. His eyes and hair were very dark and he had a large mouth with full lips. He wasn't smiling. He looked pissed off, a great man interrupted in the middle of his work. It was a very adult look. His stare was intense and stark. Max could feel it prodding at his face, humming on the paper, nagging at him.

The second photograph showed Charlie standing in front of some bougainvillea bushes with almost the same expression on his face. His hair was long all right, bow-tied into two drooping bunches that poured over his shoulders. He was wearing a floral-patterned dress, with frills on the sleeves, hem, and collar.

It made Max sick.

"It's none of my business and I ain't no psychologist, but that's a sure-as-shit way to fuck a kid's head up, Carver," Max said, hostility upfront.

"It was my wife's idea."

"You don't seem the henpecked kind."

Carver laughed briefly, sounding like he was clearing his throat.

"People are very backward in Haiti. Even the most sophisticated, well-educated sorts believe in all kinds of rubbish—superstitions—"

"Voodoo?"

"We call it vodou. Haitians are ninety percent Catholic and a hundred percent vodouiste, Mr. Mingus. There's nothing sinister about it—no more than, say, worshipping a half-naked man nailed to a cross, drinking his blood and eating his flesh."

He studied Max's face for a reaction. Max stared right back at him, impassive. Carver could have worshipped supermarket carts, for all he cared. One person's God was another person's idea of a good joke, as far as he was concerned.

He looked back at the photograph of Charlie in his dress. You poor kid, he thought.

"We've looked everywhere for him," Carver said. "We ran a campaign in early 1995—newspaper and TV ads, billboards with his picture on them, radio spots—everything. We offered a substantial reward for information, or, better still, for Charlie himself. It had predictable consequences. Every lowlife suddenly came out from under a rock and claimed they knew where 'she' was. Some even claimed they'd kidnapped 'her' and made ransom demands, but it was all—the sums they wanted were trivial, way too small. Obviously, I knew they were lying. These peasants in Haiti can't see past the ends of their noses. And their noses are very flat."

"Did you follow up on all the leads?"

"Only the sensible ones."

"First mistake right there. Check everything out. Chase every lead."

"Your predecessors said that."