Mr. Clarinet

Other service categories were: (B), which stood for Bon Ami (good friend), or a buyer who could reserve a child of his choice from the menu, without facing competition. The cost was higher—between $75,000 and $100,000—depending on the child's popularity and the buyer's "additional value" (found in a separate box on the database, below the contacts section: this signified a buyer's clout—his links with governments; someone of high value was charged at the lower end of the scale).

(M), Meilleur Ami (best friend), or a buyer who ordered ŕ la carte. He got almost anything he wanted, brought to him from anywhere. For that privilege he could pay anything between $250,000 to $1,000,000.

Many buyers were graded (R)—recurrent purchasers—with numbers indicating the amount of times they had used the service. Most were R3 or R4, but several hit double figures, the highest being an R19.

There were 2,479 buyer names on the database. Of those, 317 came from North America. They included bankers, diplomats, stockbrokers, senior cops, senior clergy, senior military personnel, doctors, lawyers, high-level businessmen, actors, rock stars, movie producers and directors, a media magnate, and one former talk-show host. Max recognized only a handful of the names, but most of the organizations, establishments, and companies they were attached to were household names.

The "menus" consisted of files of photographs of individual children—a head shot and three full body shots—clothed, in underwear, and naked—which were sent to buyers via e-mail. The buyers would reply with their choice.

In the days before the Internet, the buyers had met up at private clubs and had been given the files in paper form. Many preferred this method, because they said e-mails were vulnerable to hackers.

Max next studied a photograph file showing children and their corresponding buyers. The buyers either had been snapped unawares from a distance, or their images had been lifted straight from video footage.

One whole file was devoted to pictures of buyers in or around the place where they kept the children, which Max recognized from the tape he'd found at the Faustin house. They had been photographed meeting and greeting each other, and inspecting the mouths of children standing on what looked like auction blocks. The buyers never looked at the camera, which led Max to think that they were being photographed in secret.

The final photos in the series showed them boarding boats bound for a nearby coastline.

Blackmail, Max thought immediately.

"Do you know where that is?" Max asked.

"Looks like these photos were taken on La Gonâve. It's an island off the coast."

"Could you look up a name for me on the database. First name Claudette—two ts—last name Thodore."

The woman brought up her details and printed them out. Claudette had been sold to a John Saxby in February 1995. He lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Max thought of the rest of the North American buyers and how he could set all those enslaved children free. He'd give Joe a copy of all the evidence. His friend would be a hero: when it was all over and the indictments had been handed down, they'd make him chief of police.

But first things first.

He returned to the basement.

Chapter 50

"CAN WE GET you anything Mister Co-da-da? Water? Coffee? Something like that?" Max offered, starting things off on a cooperative note. He had an interpreter with him—a short, sweaty man with Oriental features and brilliantine in his hair.

Codada sat with his hands tied behind his back, ankles chained together, bare lightbulb burning right above his head. Eloise Krolak was locked in the next room.

"Yes. You can get out of my house and then go fuck yourself." Codada surprised Max by replying in English, his French accent as strong as his defiance.

"I thought you couldn't speak English."

"You think wrong."

"Obviously," Max said.

Codada had on sharkskin pants and black pinstriped socks that matched the silk shirt he wore open three buttons down to his pale, milky chest. Max counted four gold chains around his neck. On his way over to the house, Max had been told that the Codadas had been surprised coming back from a nightclub in the mountains.

"Why d'you think you're here?" Max asked.

"You think I have boy—Charlie?" he answered, pronouncing "Charlie" as Tssharlie.

"Correct. So let's not waste each other's time. Do you have him?"

"No."

"Who does?"

"God." He looked skywards.

"You saying he's dead?"

Codada agreed with a nod. Max looked at his eyes. Codada was looking straight at him, not a hint of a lie, voice steady, truth-telling. It meant nothing, of course, for now. Codada probably hadn't worked out that he was a dead man either way.

"Who killed him?" Max asked.

"The people—dey keeel Eddie Faustin—en męme temps—?"

"So, you're telling me the mobs who attacked Eddie Faustin killed Charlie too? That what you're sayin'?"

"Oui."

"How do you know this?"

"I—investiger?"

"You investigated it?"