Mr. Clarinet

"Most of those people live in houses with no electricity," said the woman sitting next to Max, in the window seat. "They're buying those things as ornaments, status symbols—like we'd buy a sculpture or a painting."

She told him her name was Wendy Abbott. She had lived in Haiti for the past thirty-five years with her husband, Paul. They ran an elementary school in the mountains overlooking Port-au-Prince. It catered to both the rich and the poor. They always made a profit, because very few of the poor believed in education, let alone knew what it was for. Many of their pupils either went on to the Union School, where they were taught the American curriculum, or to the more expensive and prestigious Lycée Français, which prepared them for the French baccalauréat.

Max introduced himself and left it at his name.

The con came on board, led in by his two escorts in a loud clunk-chink clunk-chink of thick chains. Max read him: heavy-duty denim pants, no belt, loose white T-shirt, blue-and-white headscarf, no gold, no ice—low-ranking gangbanger, probably caught selling rocks or coming back from his first kill, reeking of chronic and gun smoke. Strictly small-time, hadn't even left the second rung of the ghetto ladder. He was still in his prison clothes, because he'd outgrown his court ones working out in the yard. He puffed his chest out and kept his cellblock face on, but Max could see his eyes running to panic once he'd taken in the crowd on the plane and absorbed his first big whiff of freedom without parole. He'd probably expected to die in prison.

"I wonder if he knows what an insult he is to his heritage?—returning to Haiti as his forefathers arrived—in chains," Wendy said, looking at the con.

"I shouldn't think he gives a shit, ma'am," Max replied.

Up until then the con had kept his gaze locked in some vague middle distance, not focusing on anyone or anything in particular, but he must have felt Max and Wendy's stare, because he looked their way. Wendy dropped her gaze almost as soon as she made eye contact with the prisoner, but Max went eyeball-to-eyeball with him. The con recognized his own kind, smiled very faintly, and nodded to Max. Max acknowledged the greeting with an involuntary nod of his own.

None of that would have happened in prison, a black con bonding with a white one—unless he was buying or selling something, most usually dope or sex. Once you were locked up, you stuck to your own kind and didn't mix and mingle. It was like that and no other way. The tribes were always at war. Whites were the first to get gang-raped, punked-out, and shanked by blacks and Latinos, who saw them as symbols of the judicial system that was stacked against them from the day they were born. If you were smart, you unlearned any liberal views you had and got in touch with your prejudice as soon as the cell door slammed behind you. That prejudice—the hatred and fear—kept you alert and alive.

The guards sat the con down and took their places either side of him.

The plane left Miami International ten minutes later.

* * *

Shaped like a lobster's pincer with most of the top claw chewed off, from the air Haiti looked completely out of place after the dense, luscious green of Cuba and all the other smaller islands they'd flown over. Arid and acidic, the country's rust-on-rust-colored landscape seemed utterly bereft of grass and foliage. When the plane circled over the edges of the bordering Dominican Republic, you could clearly see where the two nations divided—the land split as definitely as on any map: a bone-dry wasteland with an abundant oasis next door.

* * *

Max hadn't slept much the night before. He'd been in Joe's office, first photocopying the old files on Solomon Boukman and The SNBC, then looking up the former gang members on the database.

Although he'd founded The SNBC, Boukman was a delegator. He had had twelve deputies, all fiercely loyal to him and every bit as ruthless and cold-blooded. Of these, six were now dead—two executed by the State of Florida, one executed by the State of Texas, two shot and killed by police, one murdered in prison—one was serving twenty-five to life in maximum security, and the remaining four had been deported to Haiti between March 1995 and May 1996.

Rudy Crčvecoeur, Jean Desgrottes, Salazar Faustin, and Don Moďse had been the most fearsome of Boukman's subordinates. They were the enforcers, the ones who watched over the gang, made sure no one was stealing or snitching or shooting off their mouths where they shouldn't. Moďse, Crčvecoeur, and Desgrottes had also been directly responsible for kidnapping the children Boukman sacrificed in his ritual ceremonies.

Salazar Faustin was in charge of The SNBC's Florida drug operation. He was a former Tonton Macoute—one of Duvalier's private militia—who had used his connections in Haiti to set up a highly efficient cocaine-smuggling network in Miami. The drugs were bought direct from the Bolivian manufacturers and then flown into Haiti on two-seater passenger planes, which landed on a secret airstrip in the north of the country. The pilot was changed and the plane was refueled and flown on to Miami. U.S. customs didn't bother to check the plane, because they thought it was only coming from Haiti, a non-drug-growing zone. Once in Miami, the cocaine was taken to the Sunset Marquee, a cheap hotel in South Beach, which Faustin owned and ran with his mother, Marie-Félize. In the basement, the cocaine was cut with glucose and distributed to The SNBC's street dealers, who sold it all over Florida.

Both Salazar and Marie-Félize Faustin received life sentences for drug trafficking. They were deported on the same day—August 8, 1995—tearfully reuniting at the airport.

* * *

They landed at two-forty-five in the afternoon. Airport staff in navy-blue overalls wheeled a white ladder up to the plane doors. They'd have to walk across the tarmac to the airport building, an unimposing and untidy rectangular structure with cracked and flaking whitewashed walls, a flight tower sticking out of it to the right, three empty flagpoles in the middle, and WELCOME TO PORT-AU-PRINCE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT painted across the bottom front, above the entrances, in crude, black block capitals.

The pilot asked the passengers to wait for the prisoner to leave the plane first.

The door opened. The guards, both now wearing sunglasses, stood up with the con and led him out of the aircraft.

* * *

When Max stepped off the plane, he was surprised by the heat that smothered him in a dense, airless blanket. Not even the slight breeze that was blowing could dislodge or loosen it. The hottest days in Florida seemed cool in comparison.

He followed Wendy down the steps, heavy carryall in hand, breathing in air that seemed like steam, popping sweat through every pore.

Walking side by side, they followed the passengers as they made their way to the terminal. Wendy noticed the red flush in Max's face and the damp film across his brow.

"You're lucky you didn't come in the summer," she said. "That's like going to hell in a fur coat."

There were dozens of troops around the runway area—U.S. Marines in short-sleeves, loading up trucks with crates and boxes, relaxed and unhurried, taking their time. The island was theirs for as long as they wanted it.

Ahead of them, Max could see the marshals handing the con over to three shotgun-toting Haitians in civilian clothes. One of the marshals was crouched down, unlocking the shackles around the prisoner's ankles. From where he was standing, it could have passed for something quite considerate, perhaps the marshal tying his charge's shoelaces before handing him over.