Mr. Clarinet

When Max had opened the envelope, he'd found copies of the results of the paternity test proving Vincent Paul was Charlie Carver's father.

Carver slumped back in his chair, his complexion ashen, his eyes vacant, the fight gone out of him, a monument brought crashing down to earth. If he hadn't heard what he had from the old man's lips, Max might have felt sorry for him.

They remained there in silence, one in front of the other, for a very long and slow-moving moment. Gustav Carver's eyes were pointed right at him, but their stare weightless and empty, like a dead man's.

"What do you mean to do with me, Mingus?" Carver asked, his voice sucked clean of its authority and thunder, little more than a rattle in his throat.

"Take you in."

"Take me in?" Carver frowned. "Take me in where? There are no jails here."

"Vincent Paul wants to talk to you."

"Talk to me!" Carver laughed. "He wants to kill me, Mingus! Besides, I won't say a word to that…that peasant!"

"Suit yourself Mr. Carver." Max took the cuffs off his belt.

"Wait a moment." He raised his voice. "Can I have one last drink and cigarette before you do that?"

"Go ahead," Max said.

Carver poured out another large whiskey and lit one of his unfiltered cigarettes.

Max sat back down in his place.

"Mr. Carver? One thing I can't understand is, with all your contacts, how come you never took Vincent Paul out?"

"Because I'm the only person who could. Everyone would have known it was me. There would have been a civil war," he explained.

He drew on his cigarette and sipped his drink.

"I never did like filters. Killed the taste." Carver blew on the orange tip and laughed. "Do you think they've got cigarettes in hell, Mingus?"

"I wouldn't know, Mr. Carver. I don't smoke."

"Think you can do a little something for me?" Carver asked.

"What?"

"Let me walk out of my house? On my own? Not between those…goons." He flicked his eyes at the men by the doorway.

"Yeah, but I'll have to cuff you. Precaution."

Carver finished smoking and drinking and offered Max his wrists for the cuffs. Max made him stand up, turn around, and put his hands behind his back. He groaned as the cuffs locked on tight.

"Let's go." Max started leading him out toward the door, holding him tight because Carver was staggering and limping heavily.

They hadn't gone five paces before Carver stopped.

"Max, please, not like this," he slurred, gasping booze and stale tobacco in Max's face. "I have a pistol in my office. A revolver. Let me finish it myself. You can empty the chamber, leave me the one bullet. I'm an old man. I don't have long."

"Mr. Carver. You stole hundreds of children and ruined not just their lives, but their families' lives too. Most of all, you stole their souls. You destroyed them. You took their futures. There isn't a punishment enough for you."

"You self-righteous little prick," Carver spat at him. "A cold-blooded killer lecturing me on morality, you—"

"You done now?" Max interrupted him.

Carver dropped his gaze. Max started dragging him toward the door. Paul's men came forward. Carver stumbled along for a few steps and then stopped again.

"I want to say good-bye to Judith."

"Who?"

"Judith—my wife. Let me look at her painting just one more time. It was such a good painting, so lifelike, so much like her," Carver said, his voice breaking.

"It's not her. She's dead. And you're sure to see her soon."

"What if I don't? What if there's nothing? Just one more look, please, Mingus."

Max thought of Sandra and relented. He waved the men back and took him to the portrait.

He propped the old man up as Carver gazed up at the picture of his wife and mumbled to her in a mix of French and English.

Max looked at the Hall of Fame—the mantelpiece and all the framed photographs of the Carvers pressing flesh with the great and the good. He wondered if he'd find any of those famous names in the records.

Carver stopped his babbling and leered at Max.

"None of them are clients, don't worry," he slurred. "But they're no more than two people away. Remember that. Two people."

"OK, let's go." Max took Gustav's arm.

"Get your hands off me!" Carver jerked himself roughly out of Max's grip and tried to step back, but he lost his already precarious balance and fell heavily to the floor, landing on his back, his cuffed wrists taking the brunt of his weight.

Max didn't move to help him.

"Get up, Carver."

The old man rolled over on his side, painfully, gasping and groaning. Then he was on his front. He tilted to his right side, pulled up his left leg, and tried to push himself up, but it was his bad side, the one he needed the cane to support, and his leg only executed a quarter-move before it froze up and he rolled back onto his chest. Carver caught his breath and blinked. Then he scraped and wriggled and budged forward along the floor toward Max, wincing and snorting in agony.

When his face was at Max's toes, the old man looked up as far as he could.