Mr. Clarinet

Bait and hook, Max thought. Don't go there. You'll get drawn into a pissing contest. Still, he was curious. How many people had already worked on the case? Why had they failed? And how many were out there now?

He played indifferent.

"Don't get ahead of yourself. Right now we're just having a conversation," Max said. Carver was stung, brought down to a level he usually didn't frequent. He must have been surrounded by the sort of people who laughed at all his jokes. That was the thing about the very rich, the rich born and bred: they swam in their own seas and didn't breathe the same air as everybody else; they lived parallel, insulated lives, immune to the struggles and failures that shaped character. Had Carver ever been forced to wait until next month's paycheck for a new pair of shoes? Been turned down by a woman? Had property repossessors knocking on his door? Hardly.

Carver told him about the danger, brought up the predecessors again, hinted that bad things had happened to them. Max still didn't rise to it. He'd gone into the meeting a third of the way determined not to take the job. Now he was almost at the halfway mark.

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.

* * *