Mr. Clarinet

"Manet's Le Fifre. Remember that painting? The soldier boy with the flute? It was the organization's badge, how they recognized each other. There was one hanging in the club you met Allain in. He sat you where you'd notice it. There was one in Codada's office, when Allain took you to meet him. There was another in Noah's Ark, right outside Eloise Krolak's classroom. There's one hanging in every club. The symbol is an outline of the painting. It was meant to be subliminal," Huxley said and chuckled. "Maybe it was too subliminal."

"You could've made this easier, just left me an anonymous note telling me who to look for."

"No," Huxley said. "It couldn't be that easy. You'd have wanted to know who was behind the note. You would have found us."

"But couldn't you have just blown the whistle on the Carvers?"

"Here? You'd have better luck whispering to the deaf. And you know what happened in Canada. That wasn't the way it was going to work," Huxley said.

They continued in silence. Max tried not to think about the way he'd been played from the very beginning to the very end, and tried to focus instead on the positive outcome, that he would soon be freeing Charlie from his captors and reuniting him with his real parents. That was the main thing, the important thing, the only thing. That was why he'd come here.

He didn't know what he was going to do about Huxley.

"What about Allain?" Max asked. "Where'd he go?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. He never told me. We settled up and that was the last I saw of him. I don't expect he'll ever be found."

"So you did get money out of it?"

"Yeah, sure. I didn't want to go back to preying on horny faggots," Huxley said. "We're not too far now."

Max checked his watch. It had turned eight p.m. In the distance he could see the lights of a town. He guessed they were close to the Dominican Republic.

"Unlike you, Max, I have no regrets. Mine might have been a poor life, a miserable life even—but it was my life. Not theirs—mine. And it was my sister's life too. Our lives. Ours to keep, ours to live. They took it from us. They took her from me. So, I took it all from them.

"Allain didn't give a shit about those kids. He was horrified and disgusted by what his father was doing, sure, but you know, it was always really just about him. Not anyone else. He just wanted to rip his dad off, piss in his face and steal his money. He used to say the only things worth doing in life are worth doing for money. I never understood that mentality.

"You say you made no difference, that you're a failure? You shouldn't think that way, Max. You killed monsters and saved the lives of the children they would have fed on. Just like I did."

The road was taking them downhill, closer to the border. Gaining on his left, on top of a nearby mountain, Max saw the lights of a house.

"Charlie's in there," Huxley said and turned off the road.

Chapter 67

CARL AND ERTHA were waiting for them by the door. Ertha, dressed in a loose brown dress and sandals, was a voluminous Creole woman of indeterminate age, with the sort of kind and gentle face it was impossible to imagine angry. Carl was half her height and next to her appeared close to skeletal. His head was way too big for his body, a pumpkin speared on a dressed-up broomstick, and he made it even larger by wearing what was left of his hair—a thick, chestnut-tinged, gray mane sprouting out from the sides—down to his shoulders. His face—heavily lined, weathered, pocked, bloated, boiled red—was as classic a lush mug as Max'd ever seen, home to a million stories with ordinary beginnings, extraordinary middles, and forgotten endings. His eyes, however, were a remarkably clear and brittle blue, making Max think that he'd kicked the bottle quite recently, cleaned up in time for the rest of his life.

They were both smiling at the car and at Huxley as he got out. Then they saw his face and their features drooped, and sadness filled their expressions and bodies, changing their posture from welcoming to edgy.

Max stepped out and they stared at him with contempt, already knowing what—or who—he'd come for. They looked him over, sizing him up as he came forward. They weren't impressed.

The couple walked into the house and led them to a room where the door was open. They stepped aside. Huxley gave Max a nod to go ahead in.