Mr. Clarinet

Joe asked Max what he was doing staying at the Radisson. Max couldn't think of anything remotely intelligent to say, so he told his friend the truth. To his surprise, Joe told him he knew where he was at and he should take all the time he needed. No sense in rushing into what he'd got the rest of his life to work out and get over.

They made arrangements to meet at The L Bar the next night. It was the first chance they'd had to meet since Max's return. Joe had been busy: Christmas always brought out the crazies.

* * *

Buy you a drink, lieutenant?" Max asked Joe's reflection in the booth window.

Joe stood up with his hand out, face a big ear-to-ear grin.

They hugged.

"You look good now, Max," Joe commented. "Not like you spent the last ten years hangin' upside down in a cave."

"You lost weight, Joe?" Max asked. Next to Vincent Paul, no man would ever be big again, but Joe had definitely lost more than just his place in Max's league table. His eyes were wider, there was a hint of cheekbone, a finer edge to his jaw, and his neck was somewhat slimmer.

"Yeah, dropped a few pounds."

They sat down. The barman came over. Max ordered a double Barbancourt rum neat, Joe the same with Coke.

The two old friends talked. It was easy and unhurried. They started small and built up to big. The drinks kept coming. Max told his whole story pretty much straight down the line, unraveling everything piece by piece, as it happened, and ending with Vincent Paul in Pétionville. Joe said nothing the whole way through, but Max watched the light slowly dying out of his friend's expression as he gave a detailed account of what he'd discovered. He wanted to know what would happen to Gustav Carver.

"I guess he'll be turned over to some of the parents whose children he stole."

"Good. I hope they each gets a slice of him. One for every child," Joe growled. "I hate them motherfuckers man! Hate them!"

"What's happening with the organization?"

"The Florida perverts we can handle. We've put together a squad to take them down. That's happening in the next few days," Joe said. "The rest I'm in the process of giving to friends of mine in the other states. Feebs will get their piece too. It's gonna be a big job. Expect to be hearin' about this for a long while to come."

They clicked glasses.

"Now, I got somethin' for you. It isn't gonna be of no use now, but you asked for it so I brought it along anyway," Joe said, handing Max a brown envelope. "First up: Darwen Medd. He's dead."

"What? When?"

"April this year. Coast Guard boarded a boat from Haiti, looking for illegals. Found Medd in the cargo hold. Naked, hands and feet tied, tongue cut out, sealed in a barrel. Autopsy report said he'd been in there at least two months before they found him. Also said he was alive when they took his tongue, still alive when they sealed him up."

"Jesus!"

"This may not have been the same people who cut Clyde Beeson open. I did a little digging. When Medd went off to Haiti to work this case, he was on the verge of being arrested by the Feebs for drug trafficking. He was helping an ex-client of his bring stuff in from Venezuela. A lot of people I talked to think this was their work. The barrel had Venezuelan markings on it, and the boat had stopped off there before going to Haiti."

"How clean was the cut to his tongue?"

"Scalpel. Professional—well, except for the way they let him bleed."

Max took a long pull on his drink.

"Same person did Beeson," Max said.

"Not necessarily…" Joe began.

"What else you got?" Max cut in.

"Remember that evidence you couriered me? Print on that videotape helped us solve an old case."

"Yeah?"

"You remember before you went out there you asked me to look into the Carver family? The only thing I could find on file was a B&E on their house here, where nothing got taken but the burglar took a king-size dump on one of their fancy plates?" Joe laughed. "Get this—the prints the lab took off the videotape was the same as the prints they found on the turd plate."

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh. Gets better—much better." Joe leaned closer, with a smile. "Now, we still don't have a file on the perp, just the match. Not here in the U.S. anyhow. If we'd bothered to run the plate prints with the Mounties we would've known exactly who The Turdman was."

"And…?"

"That other guy you asked me to look into—Boris Gaspésie," Joe said.

Max felt his pulse quicken as a cold jolt passed down his spine.

"Tell me."

"Wanted for two homicides in Canada."

"What happened?"

"Boris must've been one of those Carver kids, 'cause he was adopted by this man, Jean-Albert Leboeuf, a surgeon. Leboeuf was also a pedophile. Went to Haiti all the time.