Mr. Clarinet

"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.

Sitting on his haunches on the floor, Charlie, now five, was threading ring pulls through a long bootlace. The first thing Max noticed about him was his eyes, which were essentially the same as in his pictures, except a little larger and sparkling with intelligence and mistrust. He was a beautiful child, whose innocence was shaded with a capacity for mischief, his features taking more after his father's than his mother's. Max had expected Charlie to be sitting on his hair, or at least for it to be braided and sitting in a wound-up coil on top of his skull, but Charlie had since surrendered it to scissors and styling. It was trimmed short and combed neatly, with a part in the middle. He was dressed in blue shorts, white socks, shiny black shoes, and a red-and-white-striped sailor T-shirt with an anchor on the right breast. He looked happy, healthy, and very well—even lovingly—looked after, about as far removed from any kidnap victim Max had ever found and freed.

Max crouched down and introduced himself to Charlie. Confused, Charlie looked for help to Huxley, standing behind Max. Huxley crouched down and spoke to the boy in French—Max heard his name repeated twice—and then he tousled Charlie's hair, picked him up, and spun him around. Charlie's eyes lit up and he laughed, but formed no words. He was beyond speech.

After Huxley had set him down, Charlie fixed his mussed hair until it was exactly the way it had been when they'd first seen him. Then he resumed threading his ring pulls, selecting one from a pile on the floor and adding it to the chain he was working on. He completely ignored Max, didn't even act as if they were in the same room.

Huxley left the room and went next door to talk to Carl and Ertha, who were standing close to the doorway, looking in. He took them away, one arm around each, out of Max's earshot.

Max stepped out to look. Ertha had turned away, facing a wall and a framed black-and-white picture of priests in black cassocks, one of whom must have been a younger Carl. She was biting her hand to stifle her crying.

Carl tugged Huxley away from her, back toward the door, and spoke close to his ear, looking, as he did, over at Ertha, who was now leaning against the wall for support.

Huxley came back to Max and whispered to him.

"Carl's just told me we'd best take Charlie now, while we can. If we stay much longer Ertha will be too upset to let him leave."

Huxley went into the room and picked Charlie up off the ground, so suddenly that the boy let go of his necklace and all the ring pulls slipped off the lace and fell on the floor. Charlie's face suddenly went bright red and he looked very angry as he was carried out of the room. He made low, moaning sounds, as if he were imitating a trapped and wounded animal's cry for help.

Charlie's expression turned from anger to confusion as he passed Ertha and Carl, now together. Ertha's head was buried in Carl's shoulder and she was holding on to him tightly, arms overlapping across his narrow back, refusing to see what was happening. Carl wasn't looking their way either as he stroked the back of Ertha's head, the two of them right then about the saddest, most broken two people Max had ever seen.

Charlie reached out for them both as Huxley carried him out through the door. The boy's mouth opened and his eyes darted from Max to Carl and Ertha in panic and bewilderment. Max braced himself for the kid's notorious screaming. It didn't come. Instead Charlie started bawling like any other small child—loudly and hysterically—but no different from any normal child.

They left the house and Max shut the door behind him. No sooner had he done so than he heard Ertha release her grief, and even the little of her pain that he heard as he walked away pierced him to the quick and made him very briefly question what the hell he thought he was doing taking the boy away from here—a healthy atmosphere and these good, loving people—and taking him to the outskirts of an open sewer and his father, the drug baron.

Max opened the car door and told Huxley to put Charlie in the back.

Huxley settled Charlie in the car and closed the door.

"What now?"

Max held out his hand. Huxley shook it.

"Stay off the roads," Max said. "Vincent Paul ain't too far behind."

"Thanks Max," Huxley said.

"So long, Shawn…Boris—whatever."

"Take care of yourself, Max Mingus," Huxley said as he stepped away from the car and into the darkness, the night quickly engulfing him.

He got into the car, started the engine, and drove down the hill without looking back.

He turned onto the road and drove away.

He knew he wouldn't have to wait long before he met Vincent Paul on the road.

And sure enough, not five minutes later, he saw the headlights of an approaching convoy.

Chapter 68

EARLY THE NEXT morning, Vincent Paul, Francesca, and Charlie came to collect him.

Paul drove, Max sat in the passenger seat, Francesca and Charlie in the back. The three made small talk, most of it inconsequential, words spoken for the sake of passing from one moment to the next and beating back the silence in between—the weather, political rumors, jokes about Hillary Clinton's eyesore pink suits.

Charlie ignored them all. He had his forehead pressed to the window and spent the whole drive staring at the parched landscape whizzing by in a wiry, sandy blur. He was dressed in new jeans, a blue T-shirt, and sneakers. Max noticed how long his legs were. He'd take after his father. He'd be a tall man.

Francesca stroked her boy's shoulder and back with long, soft caresses. From time to time, as she spoke, she'd glance at him and let her eyes rest on him. The smile never left her face.