Mr. Clarinet

Pour out a little liquor for the dead, spirit for spirit. Joe did that every time someone close to him died. Right then solemnity threatened to invade their space, get the better of the moment. Max didn't need it. They had things to talk over.

"Sandra didn't drink," Max said.

Joe looked at him, read the traces of humor left over on his lips, and burst out laughing. He had a big laugh, a rolling rumble of joy that filled the room and made everyone look their way.

Max stared at the photograph of his godson. Jethro was holding a basketball up on splayed fingertips. The boy was twelve but already tall and broad enough to pass for sixteen.

"Takes after his daddy," Max said.

"Jet loves his ball."

"Could be a future there."

"Could be, but best let the future be the future. Besides, I want him to do well in school. Kid's got a good head on him."

"You don't want him to follow in your footsteps?"

"Like I said, the kid's got a good head on him."

They clinked glasses.

Max handed him back the photographs and looked over at the main bar. It was packed. Brickell Avenue bankers, businessmen, white-collar workers with loosened ties, handbags on the floor, jackets draped carelessly over the backs of their chairs, hems trailing on the ground. He homed in on two executive types in similar light gray suits, both clutching Bud bottles and talking to a couple of women. They'd just met, exchanged first names, established common ground, and now they were searching for the next conversation lead-in. He could tell all that from the tensed-up body language—stiff-backed, alert, ready to run off after the next best thing. Both men were interested in the same girl—navy blue business suit, blond highlights. Her friend knew this and was already looking around the bar. Back in his bachelor days, Max had specialized in going for the ugly friend, reasoning that the better-looking one would be expecting attention and would play hard to get and leave him holding his dick and a big tab at the end of the night. The woman who wasn't expecting to get hit on would be more likely to give it up. It had worked nine times out of ten, sometimes with the unexpected bonus of the good-looking one making a play for him. He hadn't liked most of the women he'd dated. They were challenges, notches, things to be possessed. His attitudes had changed completely when he'd met Sandra, but now that she was gone all those old thoughts were coming back to him like the ghost of an amputated limb, sending him feelings out of nowhere.

He hadn't had sex in seven years. He hadn't thought about it since the funeral. He hadn't even jerked off. His libido had shut down out of respect.

He'd been faithful to Sandra, a one-woman man. He didn't really want anyone else, anyone new, not now. He couldn't even imagine what it would be like again, going through all that bullshit conversation, pretending to be a sensitive guy when the only reason you'd gone up to her was to see if you could fool her into a fuck. He was looking at the whole scene below him with the pioneer's distaste for the follower.

Joe pushed the file over to him.

"Dug up a little on the Carvers of Haiti," Joe said. "Mostly back story, nothing current. The video's got a load of news footage about the Haitian invasion. Allain Carver's in there somewhere."

"Thanks, Joe," Max said, taking the files and putting them down on the seat beside him. "Anything on them here?"

"No criminal records, but Gustav Carver, the dad? He's got a mansion in Coral Gables. Got B&E'd six years back."

"What they take?"

"Nothing. Someone broke in one night, took one of their fine-china dinner plates, shit on it, put it on the dining-room table and left without a trace."

"What about the security cameras?"

"Nada. I don't think the case got followed through. Report is only two pages—looks more like a complaint than a crime. Probably some pissed off ex-servant."

Max laughed. He'd heard of far stranger crimes, but the thought of Allain Carver finding that on the table when he came down to breakfast was funny. He started to smile, but then he thought of Boukman and his expression wilted.

"So, you wanna tell me what happened with Solomon Boukman? When I went to New York he was sitting on death row, one last appeal away from the needle."

"We ain't in Texas," said Joe. "Things take time in Florida. Even time takes time here. A lawyer can take up to two years to put in an appeal. That stays in the system for another two years. Then you got yet another two years before you get in front of the judge. Add all that up and it's 1995. They turned down Boukman's last appeal, like I knew they would, only—"

"But they fuckin' set him free, Joe!" Max said, raising his voice to a near shout.

"Do you know how much a one-way ticket to Haiti costs?" Joe said. "A hundred bucks, give or take—plus tax. Do you know how much it costs the state to keep a man on death row? Hell—forget that. Do you know how much it costs the state to execute a man? Thousands. See the logic?"