Mr. Clarinet

As Max and Carver began to walk toward the door, Allain and Francesca rose from their seats and followed them. For a while, Max had completely forgotten they were all in the same room.

Chapter 11

DINNER WAS SERVED by two maids in black uniforms with white aprons. They were silent and unobtrusive, serving the first course—two slices of prosciutto, with chilled cantaloupe, honeydew, galia, and watermelon—with the minimum of fuss, their presence a brief shadow at the shoulder.

The dining room, black-and-white-tiled, like the living room, was brightly lit by two huge chandeliers and dominated by the banquet table that could sit twenty-four. Judith's portrait hung on the left-hand wall, her face and torso looming over the end of the table, her essence filling the place she had no doubt occupied in body. The table was decorated with three vases of artificial lilies. Max and the Carvers sat close together at the opposite end. Gustav was at the head, Francesca faced Allain, and Max was placed next to her.

Max looked down at his place setting. He'd landed in alien territory. He didn't stand much on ceremony and etiquette. Other than the restaurants he'd taken his wife and girlfriends to, the only formal dinners he'd attended were cop banquets, and those had been like frat parties, disintegrating into roll fights and rude food-sculpture contests.

Cutting his ham, Max looked at the Carvers. They were still on the melon. They ate in silence, not looking at each other. The percussive tap of metal on porcelain was the only sound filling the cavernous dining room. Gustav kept his eyes fixed on his food. Max noted the way the fork trembled in his fingers as he brought it up to his mouth. Allain stabbed at his food, as though trying and failing to crush a zigzagging ant with the point of a pencil. He brought pieces of fruit up to his lipless mouth and snatched them in, like a lizard swallowing a fly. Francesca held her cutlery like knitting needles, dissecting her fruit into small morsels she then dabbed into her mouth without really opening it. Max saw how thin and pale and veinless her arms were. He noticed she was trembling, too, a nervous tremor, worries rattling inside of her. He glanced back at Allain and then again at her. No chemistry. Nothing left. Separate rooms? Miserable couple. Did they still argue or was it all silence? It was more than just the kid. These were two people staying together like bugs on sap. Max was sure Carver had someone on the side. He looked after himself, kept up his appearance, cut a dash. Francesca had given up. Poor woman.

"How long've you been in Haiti, Mrs. Carver?" Max asked, his voice filling the room. Father and son looked his way, then Francesca's.

"Too long," she said quickly, just above a whisper, as if implying that Max shouldn't be talking to her. She didn't turn her head to look at him, merely glanced his way out of the corner of her eye.

Max swallowed the ham with a loud, hard gulp. It hurt his throat going down. There was another slice to go but he didn't touch it.

"So, tell me, Max—what was prison like?" Gustav barked across the table.

"Father!" Allain gasped at the old man's brusqueness and indiscretion.

"I don't mind talking about it," Max said to Allain. He'd been expecting the old man to ask him about his past.

"I shouldn't have taken the Garcia case," he started. "It was too close, too personal. My wife and I knew the family. They were friends. Her friends first, then mine. We babysat their daughter, Manuela, sometimes."

He saw her again, now, in front of him. Four years old, her grownup features budding, crooked nose, brown eyes, curly brown hair, impudent smile, always talking, a little Inca. She'd loved Sandra, called her "Auntie." Sometimes she'd want to come and spend the night with Sandra even when her parents were with her.

"Richard and Luisa had everything most people wish for. They were millionaires. They'd been trying for a baby for years. There'd always been complications. Luisa had had three miscarriages and the doctors told her she couldn't get pregnant again—so, when Manuela came along they thought it was a miracle. They loved that little girl."

Manuela hadn't liked Max much, but she'd inherited her father's smooth, diplomatic skills and, even at that age, she'd understood the importance of not offending people unless you were sure you could get away with it. She'd been polite to Max and called him "Uncle Max" to his face, but when she thought he couldn't hear she referred to him as "Max" or "he." It had always made him smile, hearing the future adult in the child.