Mr. Clarinet

Sitting on his haunches on the floor, Charlie, now five, was threading ring pulls through a long bootlace. The first thing Max noticed about him was his eyes, which were essentially the same as in his pictures, except a little larger and sparkling with intelligence and mistrust. He was a beautiful child, whose innocence was shaded with a capacity for mischief, his features taking more after his father's than his mother's. Max had expected Charlie to be sitting on his hair, or at least for it to be braided and sitting in a wound-up coil on top of his skull, but Charlie had since surrendered it to scissors and styling. It was trimmed short and combed neatly, with a part in the middle. He was dressed in blue shorts, white socks, shiny black shoes, and a red-and-white-striped sailor T-shirt with an anchor on the right breast. He looked happy, healthy, and very well—even lovingly—looked after, about as far removed from any kidnap victim Max had ever found and freed.

Max crouched down and introduced himself to Charlie. Confused, Charlie looked for help to Huxley, standing behind Max. Huxley crouched down and spoke to the boy in French—Max heard his name repeated twice—and then he tousled Charlie's hair, picked him up, and spun him around. Charlie's eyes lit up and he laughed, but formed no words. He was beyond speech.

After Huxley had set him down, Charlie fixed his mussed hair until it was exactly the way it had been when they'd first seen him. Then he resumed threading his ring pulls, selecting one from a pile on the floor and adding it to the chain he was working on. He completely ignored Max, didn't even act as if they were in the same room.

Huxley left the room and went next door to talk to Carl and Ertha, who were standing close to the doorway, looking in. He took them away, one arm around each, out of Max's earshot.

Max stepped out to look. Ertha had turned away, facing a wall and a framed black-and-white picture of priests in black cassocks, one of whom must have been a younger Carl. She was biting her hand to stifle her crying.

Carl tugged Huxley away from her, back toward the door, and spoke close to his ear, looking, as he did, over at Ertha, who was now leaning against the wall for support.

Huxley came back to Max and whispered to him.

"Carl's just told me we'd best take Charlie now, while we can. If we stay much longer Ertha will be too upset to let him leave."

Huxley went into the room and picked Charlie up off the ground, so suddenly that the boy let go of his necklace and all the ring pulls slipped off the lace and fell on the floor. Charlie's face suddenly went bright red and he looked very angry as he was carried out of the room. He made low, moaning sounds, as if he were imitating a trapped and wounded animal's cry for help.

Charlie's expression turned from anger to confusion as he passed Ertha and Carl, now together. Ertha's head was buried in Carl's shoulder and she was holding on to him tightly, arms overlapping across his narrow back, refusing to see what was happening. Carl wasn't looking their way either as he stroked the back of Ertha's head, the two of them right then about the saddest, most broken two people Max had ever seen.

Charlie reached out for them both as Huxley carried him out through the door. The boy's mouth opened and his eyes darted from Max to Carl and Ertha in panic and bewilderment. Max braced himself for the kid's notorious screaming. It didn't come. Instead Charlie started bawling like any other small child—loudly and hysterically—but no different from any normal child.

They left the house and Max shut the door behind him. No sooner had he done so than he heard Ertha release her grief, and even the little of her pain that he heard as he walked away pierced him to the quick and made him very briefly question what the hell he thought he was doing taking the boy away from here—a healthy atmosphere and these good, loving people—and taking him to the outskirts of an open sewer and his father, the drug baron.

Max opened the car door and told Huxley to put Charlie in the back.

Huxley settled Charlie in the car and closed the door.

"What now?"

Max held out his hand. Huxley shook it.

"Stay off the roads," Max said. "Vincent Paul ain't too far behind."

"Thanks Max," Huxley said.

"So long, Shawn…Boris—whatever."

"Take care of yourself, Max Mingus," Huxley said as he stepped away from the car and into the darkness, the night quickly engulfing him.

He got into the car, started the engine, and drove down the hill without looking back.

He turned onto the road and drove away.

He knew he wouldn't have to wait long before he met Vincent Paul on the road.

And sure enough, not five minutes later, he saw the headlights of an approaching convoy.

Chapter 68

EARLY THE NEXT morning, Vincent Paul, Francesca, and Charlie came to collect him.