Mr. Clarinet

Finally, she exhaled through her mouth, opened her eyes, and addressed Max.

"I'll tell you everything you need to know. I'll tell you where we keep the children and who we sell them to. I'll tell you who is involved, and who we work for."

"Who you work for?"

She opened her eyes and met his.

"You didn't think Maurice ran this all by himself, did you?" She laughed.

Paul came back in.

"Maurice is many things, but clever isn't one of them." She giggled fondly, and then almost immediately flipped into business mode. "I'll tell you absolutely everything—but on one condition."

"Try me," Max said.

"You let Maurice go."

"What? Absolutely no fucking way!"

"You let Maurice go and I'll tell you. He was just a cog in a very big wheel. We both were. If you don't let him go, I won't talk. You might as well turn your guns on us now."

"Done," Paul suddenly interrupted, making Eloise start. "As long as we verify whatever information you give us, I'll let him go."

"Give me your word," Eloise said.

"I give you my word."

Eloise bowed her head solemnly to indicate they had a deal.

Max didn't know if he believed Paul would let Codada walk, but he put that to the back of his mind.

Paul put his hand on Max's shoulder and tapped it, which Max understood as a sign to resume the interrogation.

"Tell me who you're working for."

"Can't you guess?"

"Eloise, you've got a deal. We ain't going to play cat-and-mouse no more. We ain't going to play clever. I ask you a question, you give me an answer—and you tell me the truth. Simple as that. Understood?"

"Yes."

"Good. Who are you working for?"

"Gustav Carver," she said.

"No fucking shit, Eloise!" Max yelled. "I know he's your fucking boss already! He runs Noah's Ark. He runs the bank where your motherfucker child-rapist lover works!"

"But you asked who we're wor—"

"Don't get fucking cute with me!" Max leaned all the way over to her. "You hold out on me anymore, I swear to God I'm going over and capping Maurice myself."

"But I'm telling you it's Gustav Carver! He is our boss. He is behind this. He runs this. He owns this. He started it! He invented it!" Eloise insisted, her voice trembling. "Gustav Carver. It's him. He's been doing it for almost forty years. Stealing children, turning them out, selling them for sex. Gustav Carver is Tonton Clarinette."

Chapter 52

"MAURICE FIRST MET Monsieur Carver—Gustav—in the 1940s. He lived in a village in the southwest, about fifteen miles out of Port-au-Prince. At that time one of the most widespread diseases in Haiti was yaws. Maurice's area was the most heavily infected. Yaws is a lot like leprosy.

"Maurice told me these stories about how it attacked his parents. His mother was the first to get it. First her arms withered, then her lips fell off, then her nose was eaten away. They were driven out of the village. They lived in a clapboard shack, Maurice and what was left of his parents. He watched them fall apart, literally."

"How come he didn't get it?" Max asked.

"Le Docteur Duvalier—François Duvalier—Papa Doc—saved him."

"Was that how they met?"

"Yes. The shack was on the way to the village. The doctor was setting up a hospital nearby and he found Maurice sitting there between the bodies of his parents. Maurice was the first person he inoculated."

"I see," Max said.

"They had a problem with protecting their medical supplies. They were always getting raided by the locals. So Maurice organized a gang to act as security. Kids his age, some younger. They watched over Le Docteur Duvalier while he was working, and they watched over the hospital at night. They were very effective. They used catapults, knives, and clubs. They carried their weapons around in macoutes—these straw satchels you see the peasants carrying. Duvalier called them 'mes petits tontons macoutes'—my little men with bags. The name stuck."

"That's so cute." Max laughed sarcastically. "What about Gustav Carver? Where does he come in?"

"Monsieur Carver was always around. He was the first white man Maurice had ever seen. Medical supplies were impossible to get hold of. It was Monsieur Carver, with his business contacts, who brought the supplies from America.

"Maurice went to work for Le Docteur Duvalier. He was responsible for Le Docteur Duvalier's safety during his presidential campaign."

"When did they start stealing children?"

"Le Docteur Duvalier, as well as being a doctor, was also a bokor—you know what that is?" she asked him condescendingly.

"I've been here long enough, lady," Max responded, giving her a hard look. She smiled at him, for the first time, very nervously, showing crooked, yellowed front teeth. She reminded Max of an old rat. All she needed were stick-on whiskers. "I also know that there's voodoo and there's black magic. I know enough about one to tell it from the other. So, stop me if I'm wrong, but Papa Doc was practicing black magic, wasn't he?"

"He dealt with the dead, the spirits. That's why he needed children."

"How?"

"The only thing that separates us from the spirit world is our bodies. When they go we become spirit. Spirits used to be people and like people they can be fooled," Eloise said, stretching her fingers, which were short and thin, like broken brown pencil stubs held together with Scotch tape.

"So what's the point of being a ghost—a spirit—if you can't see what a mortal's up to?"

"This is where you have black magic. Le Docteur Duvalier used the souls of children—the purest, most untainted souls you can find, the ones the spirits will always speak to and help out."

"How did he get their souls?"

"How do you think?"

"He killed the children?"

"He sacrificed them," Eloise replied, again condescendingly.

"So Maurice and his crew used to steal children for Papa Doc?"

"Yes. He stole to order, because Le Docteur Duvalier wouldn't take just any child off the street. He was very specific about who he wanted. It was different every time. Sometimes he'd need a boy, sometimes a girl. They had to be born on a certain date, they had to come from a certain region. They had to be under a certain age. Never over ten. Their souls became less pure at that age. They started developing into adults then. They knew more."