Mr. Clarinet

It was a recording of a concert. Sweet Micky had a voice like sandpaper cleaning a cheese grater, his singing was a repertoire of shouts, barks, screams, laughter, and—for the higher notes—the whining yelps of fighting cats; the music behind him was madcap funk, played at a frenetic pace that didn't let up. It was like nothing Max had ever heard before. Chantale was getting into the song, dancing with her whole body, tapping her hands on the wheel and her feet on the pedals, moving her head, torso, and hips. She whispered the chorus—"Tirez sur la gâchette—baff!—baff!—baff!"—making her hand into a gun shape and stabbing at the air, smiling away to herself, her eyes alive with joy and aggression, as she dipped below the surface and connected with the song's furious groove.

"I guess that wasn't 'Imagine all the people, livin' life in peace'?" Max said when the song finished and she ejected the tape.

"No," she said. "It's about the raras. It's a kind of traveling dance people do at carnival time—moving through the streets, village to village. It lasts for days. Pretty wild too. Plenty of orgies and murders."

"Sounds fun," Max quipped.

"You might see it."

"When is it?"

"Before Easter."

"Not if I can help it." Max laughed.

"Are you going to stay here until you find Charlie?"

"I hope it doesn't take me that long, but yeah, I'll be here until the job's done."

By the green and red lights of the dashboard, Max saw her smile.

"What'll you do if the trail runs cold?" she asked.

"It ain't exactly hot now. We're checking out rumors, myths, hearsay. Nothin' solid."

"What about when those run out? What then?"

"We'll see."

"What if he's dead?"

"He probably is, if I gotta level with you. We're just gonna have to find the body and the person or persons who took his life—and why. Motive's always important," Max said.

"You're not the kind that gives up, are you?"

"I don't believe in unfinished business."

"Did you get that from childhood?" she asked, looking across at him.

"Yeah, I guess. Not from my parents. I didn't know my dad. He took off when I was six and never came back. Closest I had to a dad was this guy called Eldon Burns. He was a cop who ran this boxing gym in Liberty City. Trained local kids. I went there aged twelve. He taught me to fight—and much more. I learned some of my life's lessons in the ring. Eldon had these rules taped to the changing-room walls, so's you wouldn't miss 'em. One of 'em was 'Always finish what you start.' If it's a race and you're comin' in last, don't pussy out and walk the rest of the way—run to the finish line anyway. If it's a fight and you're gettin' beat—don't say 'no mas' and quit on your stool, fight to the last bell." Max smiled at the memory. "'Go out standing,' he'd say, 'and one day you will be out-standing.' It's a good rule."

"Was he why you became a cop?"

"Yeah," Max said. "He was my boss back in them days too."

"Are you still in touch?"

"Not directly," Max said. He and Eldon had fallen out before he'd gone to prison and they hadn't spoken in over eight years. Eldon had come through for him at his trial and he'd been there at Sandra's funeral, but he'd done both out of duty, to square favors. They were quits now.

Chantale sensed Max's ambivalence and turned the radio back on, rolling the dial until she came to some unobtrusive piano picking out the notes of "I Wanna Be Around."

The sun was starting to rise and the mountains were appearing ahead of them, peaks silhouetted black against a sky painted shades of black, indigo, and mauve by the dawn.

"What about you?" Max asked. "How's your mother?"

"Dying," she said. "Slowly. Sometimes painfully. She's saying she'll be glad when it's over."

"What's your dad doin'?"

"Never knew him," Chantale said. "My mother got pregnant during a ceremony. She was possessed by a spirit at the time, so was my father. It's called 'chevalier.' It means 'knight' in French, or 'ridden by the gods' in our language."

"So you're a god's child?" Max quipped.

"Aren't we all, Max?" she countered with a smile.

"That ever happen to you—Chevrolet?"

"Chevalier not Chevrolet," she corrected him with mock indignation. "And no. It hasn't. I haven't been to a ceremony since I was a teenager."

"There's always time," Max said.

She turned and gave him a look he felt in his crotch—bedroom eyes coupled with a searching gaze. He couldn't stop his eyes from slipping down to her mouth and the small, dark brown mole under her bottom lip. It wasn't perfectly oval, more like a comma that had been knocked on its back. Not for the first time he wondered what she was like in bed and guessed she was spectacular.

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