"And did he?"
Beeson didn't reply. His eyes shifted downward, and then his head followed. He fell silent. Max stared at the front of his scalp, bare but for a few strands of long, reddish-brown hair. The rest was massed up behind in a rusty halo, like half an Elizabethan collar. He stayed like that for a long minute, not making a sound. Max was about to say something, when he raised his head slowly. Before, his eyes had been defiant pinpricks, daring in his squalor. Now the look was gone and his eyes had widened, the sacks below them deflated. Max saw fear creeping into them.
Beeson glanced out of the window and dragged on his Pall Mall until he started coughing and spluttering again. He let the fit pass.
He moved himself up to the edge of the chair and leaned forward.
"I never thought I was getting close to nothing, but maybe I was, or maybe someone thought I was. Anyway, one day I'm sleeping in my hotel. The next day I'm wakin' up in some strange room with these yellow walls, no idea how I got there. I'm tied to this bed, naked, facedown. These people come in. Someone gives me a shot in the ass andkapow!I'm gone. Out like a light."
"Did you see these people?"
"No."
"What happened next?"
"I woke up again. Obviously. I thought I was dreamin'. 'Cause I'm on a plane. American Airlines, midair. I'm flying back to Miami. No one looks at me like there's anything strange. I asked this stewardess how long I'd been there and she told me an hour. I asked the person behind me if they'd seen me get on, and they say no, I was lying there asleep when they got on."
"You don't remember getting on the plane? Going to the airport? Nothing?"
"Nada. I went through Miami airport. I picked up my bag. Everything was there. It's only when I'm on my way out that I notice Christmas decorations. I grabbed a paper and saw it was December 14! That freaked the shit outta me! That's two fuckin' months I can't account for!two whole fuckin' months, Mingus!"
"Did you call Carver?"
"I woulda done, except " Beeson took a deep breath. He touched his chest. "I had this pain here. Like a tearing, a hot tearing. So I went to the airport bathroom and opened my shirt. This is what I found."
Beeson stood up, slipped off his shirt, and lifted up his grimy tank top. His torso was matted with thick, curly, dark brown hair that spread out in a vague butterfly shape, starting below his shoulders and finishing at his navel. But there was a place where the hair parted and didn't growa long, half-inch-thick pink scar than ran from the edge of his neck, down the middle of his chest, passed between his lungs, and rode over his round stomach before ending at his guts.
Max got the chills, a sinking feeling in his stomach, as if the ground had opened up right there in that fucked-up trailer and he was falling into an endless abyss.
Of course, it wasn't Boukman's handiwork, but it all looked so familiar, so like those poor children's bodies.
"They did this to me," he said, as Max looked on, horrified. "The mother-fuckers."
He dropped his tank top and fell back on the chair. Then he buried his head in his hands and started crying, his fat body shaking like Jell-O. Max reached into his pockets for his handkerchief but he didn't want Beeson getting his pestilential hands on it.
Max hated seeing men cry. He never knew what to say or do. Comforting them as he might a woman seemed to violate their masculinity. He stood there, feeling awkward and idiotic, letting Beeson weep himself out, hoping he'd finish up quick because there was a lot he needed to know.
Beeson's sobbing gradually broke up into diminishing puddles and sniffs and snorts. He scraped the tears off his face with his hands and wiped the damp off on the hairy back of his head.
"I checked myself straight into a hospital," he continued, once he'd gained control of his voice. "There was nothing missing, but" he pointed two fingers down at the diaper "I noticed after I ate my first meal. Went straight through. Them Haitians fucked up my sewage works full-time. No one could fix 'em here. I can't hold nothin' in too long. Permanent dysentery."
Max felt a twinge of pity. Beeson reminded him of those cellblock bitches he'd seen in the exercise yard, waddling around in diapers because their sphincter muscles had been permanently loosened by multiple gang-rapes.
"You think it was this Vincent Paul who did it?"
"I know it was him. To warn me off."
Max shook his head.
"That's a hell of a lotta trouble to go through just to warn someone off. What they did to you takes time. Besides, I know you, Beeson. You scare easy. If they'd burst into your room and stuck a gun down your throat you would have been outta there like a fart on a match."
"You say the sweetest things," Beeson said, sparking up another cigarette.
"What were you close to?"
"Whaddayamean?"
"Had you turned up something on the kid? A lead? A suspect?"
"Nothin'."
"Are you sure?" Max asked, searching Beeson's eyes for signs of lying.
"Nothin', I'm tellin' ya."
Max didn't believe him, but Beeson wouldn't give it up.
"So why d'you think they fucked with me like this? Send a message to Carver?"
"Could be. I'll need to know more," Max said. "So what happened afterwards? With you?"
"I fell apart. Up here," he said matter-of-factly, tapping the side of his head. "I had this collapse, this breakdown. I couldn't work no more. I quit. Gave it up. I owed clients for jobs I didn't finish. I had to pay 'em all back, so I don't have that much left, but what the fuck? At least I'm still alive."
Max nodded. He knew all about the place Beeson was in now. Going to Haiti was pretty much the only thing that was stopping him from finding his own shit-covered trailer to live in.
"Don't go to Haiti, Mingus. There is some bad shit out there in that place," Beeson said, his voice a steady, even whine of cold wind passing by a warm house, whistling through the cracks, trying to get in.
"Even if I didn't want to, I haven't got much choice," Max said. He took a last look around the trailer. "You know, Clyde, I never liked you. I still don't. You were a two-bit shamus, a greedy, double-dealing traitor scumbag with a morals bypass. But you know what? Even you don't deserve this."
"Take it you don't wanna stay for dinner?" Beeson said.
Max turned and made for the door. Beeson picked up his Magnum and stood up. He padded over to Max, squishing a fresh turd on his way.
Outside the trailer, Max stood in the clean air and sunlight, breathing deeply through his nose. He hoped the stench hadn't stuck to his clothes and hair.
"Hey! Mingus!" Beeson shouted from the door.
Max turned around.