Mr. Clarinet

Unlike many a Dade County PI, Beeson had never been a cop. He'd started his working life as a fixer for the Florida Democratic Party, gathering dirt on rivals and allies alike and molding it into political currency.

He'd quit politics for private investigations after Jimmy Carter's nomination in 1976. He was reputed to have made millions out of ruining lives—marriages, political careers, businesses—bringing down everything he snooped around in. He'd worn, driven, eaten, fucked, and lived in the fruits of his success. Max remembered the sight of him when he was king of the hill: designer suits, gleaming patent-leather tasseled loafers, shirts so white they virtually glowed, storm clouds of cologne, manicured hands, and a thick pinkie ring. Unfortunately, given his gnomic stature, pomp-and-prime-era Beeson hadn't cut quite the dash he assumed a few thousand dollars worth of tailoring would give him; instead of looking like some Florida hotshot, he'd always reminded Max of an overeager kid on his way to First Communion in Sunday clothes his mom had picked out for him.

Now here he was, wearing a grubby tank top under an open cheap, black beach shirt with orange and green palm trees splashed over it.

Max was shocked at the sight of him.

It wasn't the shirt or the tank top

It was the diaper.

Clyde Beeson was wearing a diaper—a thick, grayish-brown toweling diaper held together at the waist by large, blue-tipped baby safety pins.

What the fuck had happened to him?

Max looked around the trailer. It seemed empty. Between him and Beeson was a linoleum-covered floor, an olive-green leather armchair with the stuffing popping out near the armrests, and an upturned packing crate he used as a table. The floor was filthy, covered in an oily-looking black grime, its original yellow color apparent through the pit bull's claw gouges and paw-print streaks. There was dog shit everywhere: fresh, dried, and semidried.

How had Beeson let himself go like this?

Max saw cardboard boxes stacked against the wall, from the floor to the ceiling, covering the windows to his right. Many of the boxes were damp and sagging in the middle, their contents about to spill out.

The light coming through the blinds sliced through air that was hung heavy with layered cigarette smoke and dotted with bluebottle flies hurtling past them and smacking into the exposed window, thinking it was the great outdoors. Even the flies wanted out of this pathetic cesspit.

The dog growled in Max's direction from a murky corner where the darkness had retreated and bunched up on itself. He could just about make out its eyes, glinting, watching.

He guessed the kitchen behind him was stacked with filthy dishes and rotting food, and he hated to think of what lay in Beeson's bedroom and bathroom.

It was roasting hot. Max was already covered in a thickening film of sweat.

"Come on in, Mingus," Beeson beckoned over with his gun-holding hand. He had a long-barreled .44 Magnum with solid steel cast, the kind of six-shooter Clint Eastwood used in Dirty Harry—no doubt a major influence on its buyer. The gun was almost as long as the arm that held it.

Beeson noticed that Max hadn't moved. He was staying put, with his handkerchief clamped over his nose and a disgusted stare in his eyes.

"Suit yourself." He shrugged and smiled. He looked at Max through sticky, toadlike brown eyes propped up on puffy cushions of grayish flesh. He couldn't have been sleeping much.

"Who are you hiding from?" Max asked.

"Just hiding," he replied. "So Allain Carver has got you looking for his kid?"

Max nodded. He wanted to take the handkerchief away, but the stench in the room was so thick he could feel particles settling on his skin in a fine dust.

"What d'you tell 'im?"

"I told him the kid was probably dead."

"I never knew how you ever made a buck in this town wearin' an attitude like that," Beeson said.

"Honesty pays."

Beeson laughed at that. He must have been smoking three or more packs a day, because his mirth triggered a loud, raucous chugging cough that tore chunks out of his chest. He hawked a tongue-load of phlegm up onto the floor and rubbed it into the filth with his foot. Max wondered if there was tumor blood mixed in with the spit.

"I ain't doin' your spadework, Mingus—if that's what you come for—'less you pay me," Beeson said.

"Some things haven't changed."

"Force-a habit. Money ain't no use to me now anyways."

Max couldn't stand it any longer. He stepped back to the door and threw it open. Light and fresh air stormed the trailer. Max stood there for a second, breathing in deep, cleansing breaths.

The pit bull was barking, yanking at the chain and the thing that held it, probably desperate to flee the cesspool it had been living in.

Max walked back to Beeson, sidestepping a slalom path of dog turds leading into the kitchen. He'd narrowly missed standing in a tepee of turds that looked too deliberately arranged to be natural. Beeson hadn't moved. He didn't seem to mind that the door was open.