Mr. Clarinet

Paul raised his hands and the crowd fell quiet. He stood a good few inches above the tallest person there, so most had a good view of his huge, domelike head. He addressed them in a deep baritone that reached Max, although he couldn't understand a word Paul was saying. The crowd lapped it up, breaking out into cheers, applause, whistles, foot-stamping, and hollering. Even Paul's own men, who must have heard it all a million times over, were clapping with unforced enthusiasm.

Max had seen this kind of shit before, on the streets of Miami. Every few years, the biggest homegrown dealers—the ones who'd managed to stay alive and out of jail through luck, ruthlessness, money, and good connections—would decide to "give something back" to the community they'd helped decimate with their drugs and turf wars. They and their crews would roll into the 'hoods on Christmas Day and hand out roast turkeys, presents, and even money. It was what happened toward the end of their street-lifespans, the last grand gesture before they got taken down by rivals or cops. They'd got everything their limited minds had ever dreamed of—wealth, pussy, petty power, fear, cars, and clothes. Now they wanted love and respect too.

Here Max admired Paul's philanthropy, irrespective of his long-term ulterior motives. He'd begun to understand that this was a part of the world where everything he knew and took for granted had either long broken down or never existed. The only way people could help themselves was by leaving the country altogether, like thousands did every year when they took to the seas and risked their lives heading for Florida. Those who remained were doomed to a life lived on their knees, slaves to the kindness and mercy of strangers. Someone had to help them—and as it looked for sure that that someone wasn't going to be the U.S. and the UN, why not the man people claimed to be the biggest drug lord in the Caribbean?

Watching Paul lapping up the adulation, pressing more flesh, Max was sure he was looking at Charlie Carver's kidnapper. He could quite easily have snatched the kid and hidden him in Cité Soleil. He had the power to pull it off and get away with it. He had the power to do almost anything he wanted.

Chapter 28

IN THE LATE afternoon, Vincent Paul got into a jeep and left the slum. A truck and two more vehicles followed him out.

Max tailed them out of town, through dusty, arid flatlands and clumps of buildings that were either half-built or half-ruined. Then, as night fell, they headed up into the mountains, clinging to a steep, meager crust of dirt road, which was all that separated them from hundreds of feet of thin air.

The last stretch of the journey took them across a plateau. They made for a small bonfire, near where the convoy came to a halt. The vehicles then positioned themselves so that they were facing each other, and their headlights intersected and lit up a square of rough, rocky earth.

Max killed his lights, rolled a little closer to the place where they'd stopped, and got out of the car. He established his bearings so he could find his way back, then he approached the convoy.

The back of the truck was opened. There was fierce shouting both inside and out, and then a man was thrown out. He hit the ground with a thud, a scream, and the thick jingle of chains. One of Vincent's men picked him up and slammed him up against the truck.

Then more men were pushed out of the truck, all landing on top of one another. Max counted eight of them. They were marched into the lit-up space between the vehicles.

Max got a little closer. A group of a dozen or more civilians were watching what was happening.

Max walked off to the left, staying in the darkness. He had a clear view of the captives, who were lined up in a row. They were dressed in UN military uniforms and looked Indian.

Arms behind his back, Paul inspected them, glaring down at each and every one of them as he passed. He resembled a father angry with his unruly brood; the men, compared to him, were small and snappable.

"Do you any of you speak and understand English?" Paul asked.

"Yes," they answered as one.

"Who's the commanding officer here?"

A man stepped forward and stood at attention. He tried to meet Paul's eyes but his head traveled so far back he seemed to be staring up at the sky, seeking out some distant star.

"And you are?"

"Captain Ramesh Saggar."

"Are these your men?"

"Yes."

"Do you know why you've been brought here?"

"No. Who are you?" the captain asked in a heavy accent.

Paul glanced briefly over at the civilians, then back at the captain.

"Do you know why you're in this country?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What is the purpose of your presence here, in Haiti? What are you doing here? You, your men, the Bangladeshi division of the United Nations army?"

"I-I-I don't understand."

"You don't understand what? The question? Or what you're doing here?"

"Vye are you asking me dis?"