"It doesn't have to be 'good-bye,'" Max said. "It could be 'see you later' or 'see you soon.' Why don't you give me a call when you get back to Miami" He started writing down his number, got past the area code, and then realized he'd forgotten it. "I'll have to call you."
She looked at him, met his eye, and let him stare right at her sadness, a pain so deep she'd lost sight of it, so intense it was on the verge of overwhelming her. He felt clumsy and stupid. Wrong move at the wrong time in the wrong place.
"I'm sorry."
She shook her head, whether in forgiveness or disbelief, he couldn't tell.
They pulled up opposite the airport.
Chantale took his arm.
"Max, don't call me. You're not ready. Not for me, not for anyone," she said, doing her best to smile with her quivering lips. "You know what you need to do when you get home? You need to bury your wife. Mourn her, cry, let it out, wash her ghost right out of your heart. Then you can move on."
Part 5
Chapter 59
BACK IN MIAMI, back at the Kendall Radisson Hotel. They hadn't given him the same room that he had before, but they might as well have, because it was identical to the last onetwo single beds with brown-and-yellow tartan bedspreads, a bedside table with a Gideon's Bible inside, a writing desk and chair with a hazy mirror that needed a more vigorous polish, a medium-sized TV, and an armchair and table by the window. The view wasn't any different eitherStarbucks, Barnes & Noble, an ice cream parlor, a carpet warehouse, and a cheap Chinese eatery; beyond that, some of Kendall's quiet houses, set away from the road, drowned in trees and shrubbery. The weather was good, the sky a deep, liquid blue, the sun nowhere near as intense as he had become used to in Haiti.
When he'd got out of the airport, he hadn't even bothered trying to take the route home, just told the cabdriver to bring him straight here. He'd made the decision on the plane, right after takeoff, when the wheels had left the runway and his guts had dropped through his seat. He didn't want to spend Christmas or see 1997 in at his house, the memorial to his past life, his past happiness. He'd return there on January 2, when he was set to check out.
* * *
It wasn't over.
He couldn't get Charlie Carver out of his head.
Where was the kid?
What had happened to him?
He'd never left unfinished business for this very reasonit kept him up nights, it haunted him, it wouldn't let him be.
He hit Little Haiti. The shops, the bars, the market, the clubs. He was the only white face there. No one bothered him, plenty of people spoke to him. He often thought he recognized faces he'd seen in Port-au-Prince and Pétionville, but they were no one he'd met.
He ate dinner every night at a Haitian restaurant called Tap-Tap. The food was great, the service temperamental, the atmosphere warm and raucous. He sat at the same tablefacing a noticeboard with a missing-persons poster of Charlie stuck in the middle.
* * *
He chewed over the case in his head. He went through it chronologically. He laid out the evidence. He added it up. Then he worked in other detailbackground, history, people.
Something wasn't right.
There was something he hadn't seen, or something he'd overlooked, or something he wasn't meant to see.
But what, he didn't know.
It wasn't over.
He had to know what had happened to Charlie Carver.
Chapter 60
DECEMBER 21: JOE called him just after eight a.m., to tell him they'd rescued Claudette Thodore and arrested Saxby. Saxby had started spilling his guts the minute they'd slapped the cuffs on him, trying to cut a deal with everyone from the arresting officer to the paramedic, promising to tell them about a private club in Miami and bodies dumped in the Everglades, in return for a reduced sentence.
Father Thodore was on his way to Fort Lauderdale to see his niece.
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."