Mr. Clarinet

They walked out of the airport and crossed the road to where two navy blue Toyota Land Cruisers were parked one behind the other. Chantale got into the first car and opened the trunk for Max to put his bags in. The men got into the car behind.

Max sat in the front seat next to her. She turned on the air-conditioning. He broke out into a heavy sweat as his body fought to acclimatize after the heat of the airport.

He looked at the airport entrance through his window and saw the con he'd been on the plane with, standing near the entrance, rubbing his wrists and taking in his surroundings, looking left and right. The man looked lost and vulnerable, sorely missing his cell, the safety of familiarity. A woman sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of a pair of battered, ruptured sneakers was talking to him. He shrugged his shoulders and held up his empty palms in a sign of helplessness. There was worry in his face, a dawning fear. If only the punks and the hardmen could see him now, cornered by the free world, life calling his bluff. Max entertained the notion of playing good Samaritan and giving the con a lift into town, but he let it slide. Wrong association. He'd been to prison but he didn't consider himself a criminal.

Chantale seemed to read his mind.

"He'll get picked up," she said. "They'll send a car for him, like we did for you."

"Who's 'they'?"

"Depends which bit of porch talk you eavesdrop. Some people say there's an expat criminal collective operating here, like a union. Whenever someone comes in from a U.S. prison, they get picked up and assimilated into the gang. Other people say there's no such thing, that it's all really Vincent Paul."

"Vincent Paul?"

"Le Roi de Cité Soleil—the King of Cité Soleil. Cité Soleil is the biggest slum in the country. It's next to Port-au-Prince. They say he who rules Cité Soleil rules Haiti. All the changes of government have started there—including the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier."

"Was Paul behind that?"

"People say all sorts of things. They talk a lot here. Sometimes it's all they do. Talking's like a national pastime, what with the economy being the way it is. No jobs. Not enough to do. More time than purpose. You'll notice," Chantale said, shaking her head.

"How do I get to meet Vincent Paul?"

"He'll come to you if it gets to that," Chantale said.

"Do you think it will?" Max asked, thinking of Beeson. Had Chantale collected Beeson from the airport? Did she know what had happened to him?

"Who's to say? Maybe he's behind it, maybe he isn't. He isn't the only person who hates the Carver family. They have a lot of enemies."

"Do you hate them?"

"No," Chantale said, laughing and locking eyes with Max. She had beautiful, doelike eyes and a telling laugh—loud, raucous, vulgar, smoky, knowing, and irresistibly filthy; the laugh of someone who got drunk, stoned, and fucked complete strangers.

They drove off.

Chapter 8

THE ROAD AWAY from the airport was long, dusty, and milky gray. Cracks, fissures, gaps, gouges, and splits shattered the road surface into a crude latticework that frequently converged into random potholes and craters of differing sizes and depths. It was a miracle the road hadn't long ago fallen apart and regressed to dirt track.

Chantale drove deftly, swerving around or away from the biggest holes in the road and slowing down when she had to roll over the smaller ones. All of the cars in front of them, and on the opposite side of the road, were moving the same way, some negotiating the road like classic drunk drivers, steering more dramatically than others.

"First time in Haiti?" she asked.

"Yeah. I hope it's not all like the airport."

"It's worse," she said, and laughed. "But we get by."

There were, seemingly, only two types of car in Haiti: luxury and fucked-up. Max saw Benzes, Bimas, Lexes, and plenty of jeeps. He saw a stretch limo. He saw a Bentley followed by a Rolls-Royce. Yet for every one of these there were dozens of rusted-out, smoke-belching sand trucks, their holds full of people—so full, some were hanging off the sides, others clinging to the roof. Then there were the old station-wagons brightly painted all over with slogans and pictures of saints or field workers. These were taxi cabs, Chantale told him, called tap-taps. They too were filled with people and loaded on top with their belongings—crammed baskets, cardboard boxes, and cloth-wrapped bundles. To Max, it looked like everyone was fleeing the scene of a natural disaster.

"You'll be in one of the Carver houses in Pétionville. It's a suburb half an hour out of Port-au-Prince. The capital's too dangerous right now," she said. "The house has a maid called Rubie. She's very nice. She'll cook for you, wash your clothes. You'll never see her—unless you spend all day indoors. There's a phone, TV, and a shower. All the essentials."

"Thanks," Max said. "Is this what you do for the Carvers?"