Mr. Clarinet

"God damn you, Allain!" she yelled, throwing down her napkin and standing up with such force her chair flew back and fell over. "I thought you promised to find Charlie."

"We're trying," Allain said, pleading.

"With him?" Francesca said, pointing at Max.

"Francesca, please sit down," Allain said.

"Damn you, Allain—and damn you too, Gustav!—damn you and your damn family!"

She shot Max a tearful, hate-soaked look. The veins in the corners of her eyes pushed up against her skin like early-morning worms. Her lips were trembling with rage and fear. Her anger made her look younger, less damaged and vulnerable.

She turned and ran out of the room. Max noticed she was barefoot and had a small tattoo over her left ankle.

Silence followed the explosion, a big pall of nothing that settled over the scene. It was so complete, so still in the room that Max could hear the Doberman's paws scrabbling on the gravel path outside, the crickets chirping in the night.

Allain looked humiliated. He was blushing. His father sat back in his chair, watching his son's discomfort with an amused expression playing on his thick lips.

"I'm sorry about my wife," Allain said to Max. "She's taken this whole business very hard. We all have, obviously, but she's—it's hit her particularly hard."

"I understand," Max said.

And he did. There were two kinds of victim-parent: those who expected the worst and those who lived in hope. The former didn't crack; they lived through their loss, grew thicker skins, became mistrustful and intolerant. The latter never recovered. They broke up and they broke down. They lost everything they'd ever loved and lived for. They died young—cancers, addictions, intoxications. Max could tell casualties from survivors the moment he met them, on the threshold of their greatest grief, not yet stepped over. He'd never been wrong, until now. He'd thought the Carvers would be OK, that they'd pull through. Francesca's outburst had changed his mind.

He put another grillot in his mouth.

"She was with Charlie in the car when he was kidnapped," Allain said.

"Tell me what happened," Max said.

"It was just before the Americans invaded. Francesca took Charlie in to Port-au-Prince to see the dentist. On their way there the car was surrounded by a hostile mob. They smashed the car up and took Charlie."

"What happened to her?"

"She was knocked out. She came to in the middle of the road."

"Didn't you have security?" Max asked.

"Yes, the chauffeur."

"Just him?"

"He was very good."

"What happened to him?"

"He was killed," Allain said.

"Tell me," Max said to Allain. "Was your wife on TV here a lot? Or in the papers?"

"No—maybe just once, at a function for the U.S. ambassador a few years ago. Why?"

"What about your son? Was he in the press?"

"Never. What are you getting at, Max?"

"Your driver."

"What about him?"

"What was his name, anyway?" Max asked.

"Eddie. Eddie Faustin," Allain answered.

Faustin? Max's heart skipped a beat. Was this Faustin any relation to Salazar Faustin of The SNBC? He didn't want to start down that path just yet.

"Could he have planned Charlie's kidnapping?"

"Eddie Faustin didn't have the brains to tie his laces, let alone plan a kidnapping," Gustav said. "But he was a good man. Very very very loyal. He'd break his back for you and wouldn't even ask you for an aspirin to take away the pain. He took a bullet for me once, you know? Didn't complain. He was back at work a week later. He and his brother used to be Macoutes—you know, the militia? Not a lot of people liked them—because of things they did under the Duvaliers—but everyone feared them."

Yes: same guys. Max remembered. Salazar was ex–Haitian secret police. They'd trained him in viciousness. Those stories he'd told them in interrogation—initiation ceremonies where they'd had to fight pit bulls and beat people to death with their bare hands. Same people. One big happy family. Keep it to yourself.

"Maybe people were out to get him," Max said.

"We thought of that, but they could have come for him anytime. Everyone knew he worked for us. Everyone knows where to find us," Allain said.

"Including the kidnappers, right? Are you sure he couldn't have been behind it—or maybe involved?" Max said to Gustav.

"No, Eddie wasn't involved and I'd stake my life on it," the old man said. "No matter how clear-cut it appears."

Max trusted Gustav's judgment—to a point. There were many ingredients to a kidnapping—the safe house, the abduction planning, victim stakeout, abduction, getaway. You needed a calm, calculating, orderly, fairly rational brain to put them all together and make them work. You needed to be ruthless and cold-blooded, too. Gustav Carver wouldn't have had someone that intelligent so close to him. Most bodyguards were dumb lunks with great reflexes and nine lives. And Eddie Faustin must have been every bit as dumb as his former boss said, to have carried on working after taking a bullet.