Mr. Clarinet

"How long have you been here, Mingus, in this country? Three, four weeks? Do you know why people have children here? The poor, the masses? It's not for the same cutesy reasons you have them back in America: you know, because you want to—most of the time.

"The poor don't plan to start families here. It just happens. They just breed. That's all there is to it. They fuck, they multiply. They're human amoebas. And when the babies are old enough to walk their parents put them to work, doing what they do. Most of the people in this country are born on their knees—born slaves, born to serve, no better off than their pathetic ancestors."

Carver paused for breath and another cigarette.

"You see—what I do, what I've done—I've given these kids a life they couldn't possibly hope to have, a life that their dumb, illiterate, no-hoper parents couldn't even have dreamed about because they weren't born with the brains big enough. Not all of them suffer. I've educated almost all the ones I couldn't sell, and all those who made the grade I've given jobs to. A lot of them have gone on to do very well for themselves. Do you know what I've helped create here? Something we didn't have before—a middle class. Not rich, not poor, but in the middle, with aspirations to do better. I've helped this country become that little bit more normal, that little bit more Western, in line with other places.

"And as for those I sold. Well, do you know how some of them end up, Mingus? The clever ones, the tough ones, the survivors? When they get old enough, they wise up and they play their sugar daddies like big fat pianos. They end up wealthy, set for life. Most of them go on to lead perfectly normal lives in civilized countries—new names, new identities—the past just a bad blurry memory—if that.

"You think of me as evil, I know, but I have given thousands of people honor, dignity, money, and a home. I've given them someone they can respect when they look in the mirror. Hell—I gave them the damn mirror too. In short, Mr. Mingus, I've given them life!"

"You're not God, Carver."

"Oh no? Well then, I'm the next best thing in a place like this—a white man with money!" he thundered. "Servitude and kowtowing to the white man is in this country's DNA."

"I beg to differ, Mr. Carver," Max said. "I don't know too much about this place, true. But from what I can see, it's been royally fucked over by people like you—you rich folk with your big houses and servants to wipe your asses. Take, take, take—never give a damn thing back. You're not helping anyone but yourself, Mr. Carver. Your charity's just a lie you tell people like me to make us look the other way."

"You're sounding just like Vincent Paul. How much is he paying you?"

"He's not paying me anything," Max said.

Carver held his eyes for a short moment and looked away, tightening his paw into a fist.

Max looked at the open cigarette box, and a mad craving suddenly leaped out of nowhere and jumped on his shoulders. He suddenly wanted a smoke, something to do with his hands, something to take the edge off what he was sitting through. Then he spied his glass of diluted whiskey and considered for a while downing that, but he shook off the temptation.

"I knew about little Charlie, you know," Carver said without turning to Max, addressing the bookshelves instead. "I knew the first time I saw him. I knew that he wasn't mine. She tried to keep it from me. But I knew. I knew he wasn't mine."

"How?" Max asked. He hadn't expected this.

"Not completely mine," Carver continued in the same tone, as if he hadn't heard Max's question. "Autism. It's a possessive illness. It keeps a little of the person for itself and never ever relinquishes what it has."

"How did you know?"

"Oh, different things," Carver said. "Behavioral patterns not quite right. I know about children, remember?"

Max reached into his pocket and took out the envelope Paul's men had given him. He slipped out the two photocopied sheets of paper that were inside and handed it to the old man.

Then he stood up and stepped away.

Gustav opened the sheets of paper and looked at the first. He blinked and snuffled. He looked a little closer, his mouth half-opening in a bemused grin, but still heavy with sadness. He shuffled the pages—first, second, second, first—scrutinizing each. Then he held a page in each hand and looked from one to the other, back and forth, his eyes growing tinier and tinier as they disappeared behind ever more finely slitted lids. The loose folds of drooping flesh on his face began to shake, going bright red at the edges, starting around his jaw, moving up to under his eyes. He stiffened and took a deep breath.

And then he looked right at Max and screwed up the pages in his hands, chewing down the paper with his fingers. When he dropped them on the floor, they were crushed and compressed into tiny pellets.