The toilet flushed. Flip-flops followed the feet.
A woman's playful scream, Huxley growling, then a moan.
The second woman's voice, talking from the bedroom, then laughing.
Max listened. He heard nothing. He thought of the water. He had to move in.
Flip-flops followed by bare feet came back and went into the bedroom.
Talking, giggling.
Max moved near the door and waited.
He heard Huxley talking low. Moving around on the bedsprings.
Max opened the door a crack. Silence.
Max stepped out on tiptoe.
Huxley spoke again.
More gasping, moaning, climbing in pitch.
Max braced himself. His head was clear. He was here for Charlie, to find out where they were keeping him or where they'd buried him. He wasn't here for revenge. He was just finishing his job and closing out his career. He had the element of surprise on his side. They wouldn't be expecting him.
Huxley said something else.
Now's the time.
Max stepped silently into the room.
Some scene.
All three were so into it they didn't realize he was in the room.
The two women were on the bed, naked, heads buried between each other's thighs. Huxley was in a chair opposite, yellow Triumph T-shirt, powder-blue flip-flops, shorts around his ankles, mouth agape, his erection in his hand, stroking slowly.
Max aimed the Glock at his head.
Huxley was so lost in his show he didn't notice Max standing in front of him, at point-blank range.
Max cleared his throat.
The girl on the bottom looked up at him, freed her head, and screamed.
Huxley stared at Max like he was a hallucination, his expression normal and relaxed as if he were waiting for his brain to flip his sanity switch back on and make the vision disappear.
When it didn't, he panicked. He tried to keep it from showing overall, but the color left his face, his nostrils flared, his eyes opened up more, and his lips parted and stayed half-open.
The second girl screamed. They both sat up and grabbed the sheets to cover themselves. Dark-skinned, high cheekbones, full, plump lipsbeautiful. Huxley had great taste.
Max put his finger to his lips for them to be quiet and stepped away from the bed in case they tried to lunge at him.
"Charlie Carver," he said to Huxley. "Dead or alive?"
Huxley cracked a smile.
"I told Allain you'd be back," he said, sounding almost pleased. "Especially when you wired him his money back. He couldn't believe it. I knew you were onto us then. I knew it was only a matter of time before you came to finish your job. I knew it. I've never seen someone cut and run so fast. Allain ran away like his asshole was on fire."
"Answer me."
"Charlie's alive."
"Where've you got him?"
"He's safe. Near the Dominican Republic border."
"Who's got him?"
"A couple," Huxley stammered. "They haven't harmed him at all. He's virtually like a son to them."
"Let's go get him," Max said.
Chapter 65
HUXLEY DROVE. MAX sat next to him with the gun trained on his waist.
"When was the last time you saw the kid?" Max asked.
"Three months ago."
"How was he?"
"Very well. Healthy."
"Any speech?"
"What?"
"Can he talk?"
"No. He won't."
It was midafternoon. Huxley explained that they would be driving back to Pétionville, then up the mountain road, past the Carver estate, stopping close enough to see the lights in the houses in the Dominican Republic. He hoped to reach the place where Charlie was being held by late evening.
"Tell me about the people who've got the kid."
"Carl and Ertha. Old folk, in their seventies. The most dangerous object they've got in the house is a macheteand that's for coconuts. Carl's an ex-priest"
"Another one," Max quipped.
"originally from Wales. He knew Allain's mother very well. He helped Allain in his teens, when he discovered he was gay."
"Carl gay?"
"No. Women and the spirit you buy in bottles are his thing."
"That why he got kicked out of the Church?"
"He fell in love with Ertha, his housemaid, and left of his own accord. Mrs. Carver supported them. She bought them the farmhouse near the border. Allain made sure they never wanted for anything. They're good people, Max. They've treated Charlie as their own. He's been very happy there, really blossomed. It could have been much worse."
"Why wasn't it? Why didn't you kill him? Why go through all this trouble, this risk of getting caught by keeping the kid alive?"
"We're not monsters, Max. That was never part of the plan. Besides we like Charliewhat he represented. Gustav Carver, with all his power and money and contactsthe old fool didn't even know the kid wasn't hislet alone that it was Vincent Paul'shis sworn enemy's."
Huxley halved his speed when they entered Pétionville, and then slowed to a crawl once they got into the densely populated center, where the distinction between street and sidewalk was buried under masses of moving and stationary bodies. They drove up the hill past La Coupole.
"How did you find us out?"
"It's what I do," Max said. "Remember that videotape you planted in Faustin's house? You fucked up. You left your prints on it. One loose thread's usually all it takes to catch the big fat fish."
"So, if it hadn't been for that?"
"That's right," Max said. "You coulda spent the rest of your sorry-ass life pullin' your puddingor whatever life you had left. See, with Allain running off the way he did, it would only have been a matter of time before Vincent Paul caught up with you."
"I was planning to leave tomorrow," Huxley said bitterly, tightening his grip on the wheel, all four knuckles popping out. Fighter's hands, Max thought. "Vincent Paul wouldn't have known about me. Hardly anyone saw us together. Only Chantale knew my namewell, one of them."
"Was she in on this?"
"No," Huxley said. "Absolutely not. Allain debriefed her on where you'd been and who you'd seen every day, but she didn't know what was really goin' onany more than you did."