"MAURICE FIRST MET Monsieur Carver-Gustav-in the 1940s. He lived in a village in the southwest, about fifteen miles out of Port-au-Prince. At that time one of the most widespread diseases in Haiti was yaws. Maurice's area was the most heavily infected. Yaws is a lot like leprosy.
"Maurice told me these stories about how it attacked his parents. His mother was the first to get it. First her arms withered, then her lips fell off, then her nose was eaten away. They were driven out of the village. They lived in a clapboard shack, Maurice and what was left of his parents. He watched them fall apart, literally."
"How come he didn't get it?" Max asked.
"Le Docteur Duvalier-Franзois Duvalier-Papa Doc-saved him."
"Was that how they met?"
"Yes. The shack was on the way to the village. The doctor was setting up a hospital nearby and he found Maurice sitting there between the bodies of his parents. Maurice was the first person he inoculated."
"I see," Max said.
"They had a problem with protecting their medical supplies. They were always getting raided by the locals. So Maurice organized a gang to act as security. Kids his age, some younger. They watched over Le Docteur Duvalier while he was working, and they watched over the hospital at night. They were very effective. They used catapults, knives, and clubs. They carried their weapons around in macoutes-these straw satchels you see the peasants carrying. Duvalier called them 'mes petits tontons macoutes'-my little men with bags. The name stuck."
"That's so cute." Max laughed sarcastically. "What about Gustav Carver? Where does he come in?"
"Monsieur Carver was always around. He was the first white man Maurice had ever seen. Medical supplies were impossible to get hold of. It was Monsieur Carver, with his business contacts, who brought the supplies from America.
"Maurice went to work for Le Docteur Duvalier. He was responsible for Le Docteur Duvalier's safety during his presidential campaign."
"When did they start stealing children?"
"Le Docteur Duvalier, as well as being a doctor, was also a bokor-you know what that is?" she asked him condescendingly.
"I've been here long enough, lady," Max responded, giving her a hard look. She smiled at him, for the first time, very nervously, showing crooked, yellowed front teeth. She reminded Max of an old rat. All she needed were stick-on whiskers. "I also know that there's voodoo and there's black magic. I know enough about one to tell it from the other. So, stop me if I'm wrong, but Papa Doc was practicing black magic, wasn't he?"
"He dealt with the dead, the spirits. That's why he needed children."
"How?"
"The only thing that separates us from the spirit world is our bodies. When they go we become spirit. Spirits used to be people and like people they can be fooled," Eloise said, stretching her fingers, which were short and thin, like broken brown pencil stubs held together with Scotch tape.
"So what's the point of being a ghost-a spirit-if you can't see what a mortal's up to?"
"This is where you have black magic. Le Docteur Duvalier used the souls of children-the purest, most untainted souls you can find, the ones the spirits will always speak to and help out."
"How did he get their souls?"
"How do you think?"
"He killed the children?"
"He sacrificed them," Eloise replied, again condescendingly.
"So Maurice and his crew used to steal children for Papa Doc?"
"Yes. He stole to order, because Le Docteur Duvalier wouldn't take just any child off the street. He was very specific about who he wanted. It was different every time. Sometimes he'd need a boy, sometimes a girl. They had to be born on a certain date, they had to come from a certain region. They had to be under a certain age. Never over ten. Their souls became less pure at that age. They started developing into adults then. They knew more."
"And the spirits wouldn't talk to them as much," Max concluded.
"Yes."
"So Maurice stole these children and Gustav Carver knew all about it?"
"Yes, he did-and more than that: he was in charge of procuring the children. Le Docteur Duvalier would specify what he wanted to Monsieur Carver. Monsieur Carver and Maurice would look around the country, photographing likely subjects. They would present the photographs to Le Docteur Duvalier, who'd choose the one he wanted."
Max's blood ran cold. Her eyes weren't lying and her body language wasn't deceptive or panicked. She was telling the truth. It figured. It fit. Everyone knew Gustav Carver was close to Papa Doc, that they went back a long way. Gustav was an opportunist. He probably saw in Duvalier a ruthlessness identical to his own-and the same will to act without conscience or remorse.
"What did Papa Doc use these children-these children's souls-what did he use them for?"
"To trick his enemies."
"How?"
"We all have a guarding spirit-a guardian angel, I suppose. They watch over us, protect us. When he'd captured a child's spirit, Le Docteur Duvalier made it do his bidding. He used them to fool the guardians who watched over his enemies into giving away their secrets, see if they were plotting to get rid of him."
"And for that he got-? What did Baron Samedi give him? The presidency?"
"Yes. And once he'd got it, Baron Samedi kept him in power, gave him dominion over all his enemies-as long as he made the offerings and continued to do his loas' bidding."
"And you believe this?"
"Maurice said Baron Samedi used to appear in the room during the ceremony."
"Yeah? Sure it wasn't the same guy was in that James Bond movie?"
"You can mock all you want, Mr. Mingus, but Le Docteur Duvalier was a very powerful man-"
"-who killed children-defenseless, innocent children. I don't call that 'powerful,' Eloise. I call that weak, and cowardly and evil," Max interrupted.
"Call it what you want," she bristled. "But it worked. No one killed him. No one overthrew him-and your people never invaded our homeland."
"I'm sure there are more earthly reasons for that, and your Doc is dead," Max said. "Talk to me about Carver and Codada. The child kidnapping. At what point did it become a business?"
"Once Le Docteur Duvalier was in power, he rewarded Monsieur Carver with business contracts and monopolies. Maurice became security advisor. Many people who had originally backed the president fell out of favor with him, but this never happened to Monsieur Carver or Maurice. They were at his bedside when he died."
"Touching," Max quipped. "So Carver built his modern business empire on the backs of kidnapped children?"
"Not to begin with. It was just expansion, growth, like they cut down forests to build roads and towns. Le Docteur Duvalier needed to make his offerings to keep going.
"Maurice told me Monsieur Carver saw the business potential when a CEO from a bauxite mining company came to Haiti. The island is naturally rich in bauxite. Monsieur Carver got involved in a potential deal, but he was up against a mining conglomerate from the Dominican Republic. He hired a private detective to do some research into the company, investigate its management. The managing director was a pedophile. He liked little Haitian boys.
"He kept a young boy in a house in Port-au-Prince. During the week the boy went to a private school. He was taught etiquette-table manners, the correct way of conducting himself in civilized company-"
"Just like you taught?" Max interrupted.
"Yes."
Max could see more pieces of the awful puzzle coming together. It suited Carver's MO: he wasn't a creator, he was a parasite. He'd been born into wealth and had set about acquiring more, not through entrepreneurship but by buying or bulldozing his way into ownership of businesses others had devoted their lives to setting up and running.
He thought of the old man, his house, his bank, his money. He felt suddenly irrelevant, canceled out. What was he now? A man who did good things for bad people?
"Go on," he murmured.
"The managing director was a family man, old money, with good connections in the Dominican government. A scandal like that would have ruined him."
"So-don't tell me-Gustav Carver presented the man with the evidence and made him pull out of the deal?"
"Yes, sort of, but not quite," Eloise said. "Monsieur Carver didn't know anything about bauxite mining, so he brought the Dominicans in as partners anyway."
"And, seeing the success he'd had, and probably working out that pedophiles are an elite little group who tend to know each other, he started providing the Dominican or his 'friends' with fresh 'supplies'?" Max followed on.
"That's correct."
"And these 'friends' were either businessmen who Carver could cut deals with or connected to the kinds of people who could help him expand his empire?"
"That's it."
"So, he got them children and they gave him contracts and money in exchange?" Max asked.
"And-most importantly-more connections-others like them, or others not like them-very very powerful people. Monsieur Carver acquires people. It's how he built his business empire into what it is-and not just here, in Haiti. He has interests all over the world."
She stopped talking and opened up the handkerchief in her lap and folded it, very neatly, from left to right, into a triangle, which she doubled up to make another. She smoothed out the surface of the shape, admired it, and undid it, working backwards.
"But there's more to it than just money and clout, isn't there?" he resumed. "The sweet dirt he has on them, these high-up, powerful people? He must have enough to bury them ten times over. He owns them. He has power over them. They're his slaves. He tells them to jump, they ask 'how high?' Right?"
Eloise nodded.
"What about Allain Carver?" Paul looked at Eloise. "Is he involved in this?"
"Allain? No. Never!" She smirked and then sniggered.
"What's so funny?" Max stared at her. Her smirk was irritating the hell out of him-it was the I-know-better look teachers had.
"Monsieur Carver called Allain his 'dickter'-daughter with a dick. He said if he'd known Allain would turn out a faggot, he would have given him away to one of his clients-for free." She laughed.
"Fancy that," Paul cut her off. "He thinks gays are perverts but pedophiles aren't."
She tried and failed to hold his look. She went back to her handkerchief, which she rolled, like pastry, into a cylinder.
"So Allain didn't know anything?" Max picked up again.
"I didn't know anything about it, Max," Paul said. "I believe her. I know Allain. He doesn't even know about most of his father's legitimate businesses. I've got the inside track, remember? Gustav kept this one really secret. To be doing something like that in a place this small-and still keep it secret. That takes some doing. And to keep it so hidden that even I haven't heard about it…"
"Everyone was implicated," Eloise said. "That's why no one spoke about it. And with his connections, if something ever did look like it was going to get out…"
"He'd crush it into nothing," Paul finished.
Max thought about Allain. Unless he found evidence that completely exonerated him, Max decided he'd interrogate him about what he did and didn't know, all the same, just to be sure.
"Tell me about Noah's Ark."
"No one suspected a thing. Everyone thought it was just a simple charity-and it was, for the wrong children."
"What do you mean by 'wrong children'?"
"The surplus-and the ones that didn't get sold."
"Where did they end up?"
"Monsieur Carver found jobs for them."
"Nothing wasted." Max looked at Paul. Paul's face was rigid, his jaws clamped shut, his lips pressed tightly together. From the way he was standing, six-fingered hands half-formed into fists, Max knew he was getting ready to blow. He hoped he'd have time to get everything out of Eloise before Paul tore her head off.
"When did you start 'grooming' the children?"
"I must have been fifteen or sixteen. Monsieur Carver was very proud of me. He called me. I was his favorite." She smiled, her eyes tearing up and at the same time glowing with a cold, burning pride.
"Monsieur Carver already knew something about vodou potions, the ingredients that go into making the serum they give to people to turn them into zombies. He'd studied up on all that kind of stuff. He's a trained hypnotist, you know. He told me he'd always worked on children-poor slum kids."
"How? Sexually?"
"He taught them manners."
"So was it Carver's idea to take these rough kids and shape them-'groom them'-into obedient sex slaves with perfect table manners, so they'd pass in those upper circles?"
"Yes. No one buys a half-finished car."
"Is he still doing it? Hypnotizing kids?"
"Once in a while, yes, but he's passed his skills on to people in La Gonвve."
Max stared at a long, thin crack running down the length of the wall in front of him, breaking his concentration and letting his mind wander. He was feeling angry now, bitterly sick to his stomach. He was seeing himself back at Gustav's side, looking at Mrs. Carver's portrait, empathizing with the old man because they were both widowers who'd lost what they'd loved the most. He'd cherished the image, held it up as proof that Gustav Carver wasn't a monster but a man…still a human being. Not even the things Vincent had told him about the old man had completely destroyed the image. But this-what he'd heard now, what he was listening to-had dissolved his fondness for the old man in acid. He wished she was lying. But she wasn't.
He had to go on, finish it.
"With the adopted kids: What happened if something went wrong, say they tried to escape or tried to tell someone what's happening?"
"They're conditioned not to. Their new owners are supplied with serum, which keeps them in a"-she broke off and searched for the word, smiling when she'd landed on it-"'cooperative' state. We also have people on hand to help. If anything goes wrong, the owner calls a number and we take care of it."
"Like a maintenance service for a-a washing machine."
"Yes." She smiled condescendingly. "A 'maintenance' service, as you put it. It covers everything from reorienting a child-that means hypnotizing them again-to, if the matter is serious, removing him or her from circulation."
"You mean killing them?"
"That has been necessary, yes." She nodded. "But seldom."
"What about when these kids get older, d'you kill 'em too?"
"That has sometimes been necessary also," Eloise agreed. "But seldom. Usually they grow up and move on. Sometimes they stay with their owner."
"Like you did?"
"Yes."
"What about if I was a client with special desires? Say I wanted an Asian kid."
"That can easily be arranged. We have branches all over the world. We'd just fly one in for you."
Max switched back to Charlie.
"What about a handicapped child?"
"It hasn't been done before, not that I know of. But there are no limits, no extremes, no places we won't go-but that has never been requested," she said.
Max gave Paul a quick look and shook his head. They didn't have Charlie. They didn't take him.
"Who kidnapped Charlie Carver?" he asked her.
"No one. He is dead. I'm sure of it, Maurice is sure of it. He spoke to a lot of witnesses who were there when the mob attacked the car. They all said they saw the boy being trampled and kicked around on the ground by people running at Eddie Faustin."
"What about his body?" Max turned back to Eloise.
"He was a three-year-old child. Easy to miss."
"But wouldn't the mob have left it behind?"
"Why? A mother or father could have taken his clothes for their own child."
Paul breathed deep through his nostrils. Although his face was rigid and emotionless, Max heard the hurt echo deep within him in the way the air passed into his lungs with staccato rhythms. Paul believed her. His son was dead.
Max studied Eloise to see if she'd heard or noticed anything, but she was keeping her eyes down, worrying the edges of her handkerchief.
Max couldn't be sure Charlie was dead. Something screamed at him that it wasn't so.
What about Filius Dufour? What about Francesca's certainty that he was still alive?
The voice of reason countered:
You believe an old fortune-teller and a grieving mother? Come on!
Max was almost done with Eloise.
"And how involved was Gustav Carver in the day-to-day running of this business?"
"Up until his stroke he was very involved in it. Like I said to you before, he is Tonton Clarinette."
"How?"
"He played his part in hypnotizing the children."
"How?"
"Did you find the CDs in the study?"
Max nodded.
"Did you listen to them?"
"Not yet. What'll I hear?"
"Do-re-mi-fa-sol-each individual note, played on a clarinet, with a short gap in between. On each CD an individual note is held longer. For example, on the blue one it's re, on the red one it's fa, and so on. They're codes," Eloise explained. "They get implanted into the children's minds when they're being hypnotized.
"There are six stages to our hypnosis process. The first three strip away what you know and the last three replace it with what we want you to know. For example: a lot of the children-say ninety percent of them-were off the streets. They didn't know anything about table manners, using a knife and fork. They ate like monkeys, with their hands. Under hypnosis, they'd be conditioned not to do that, to lose the association of consuming food with their fingers, to forget they ever ate food like that-to unlearn, if you will."
"But they could learn that anyway?" Max said.
"Of course. Most people learn through repetition, trial and error. But that's time-consuming," she explained.
"So their minds associated a certain behavioral pattern with a certain code? Like a reaction-like that dog that got taught to sit up and salivate whenever it heard a bell ringing-Pavlov's dog?"
"That's exactly it-conditioning," Eloise said.
"And let me guess: the perverts used the codes to keep the kids in line?"
"Yes." Eloise nodded. "The Clarinette codes induced Pavlovian reactions. The clients play a certain set of codes to get what they want out of their child. For example, if they want full sexual compliance, they play a disc where the codes run backwards. If they want the child to be on his or her best behavior in front of adult company, they'd play a disc where re is the dominant note. You get the picture?"
"In Technicolor," Max mumbled disgustedly. He looked at Paul and felt his gaze buried deep behind the shadows in his sockets. He sensed waves of rage coming off him. He turned back to Eloise. "You used that zombie potion too, didn't you?"
"How did you know?"
"Got it all on tape," Max said.
"Tape? Where did you find it?" She looked worried.
"It doesn't matter. Answer my questions: zombie juice-why was it used?"
"To keep the children docile and receptive to conditioning. It's easier to manipulate a stupefied mind. Clients are provided with bottles of the solution to use at home. It was part of the deal," she said.
Max shook his head and then rubbed his temples. He needed to stop-stop hearing this, stop being here.
"So you're telling me that's Gustav Carver on those CDs, right? Playing the clarinet?"
"He used to participate in the hypnosis. He'd sit and play his clarinet to condition the children. When you get to the headquarters in La Gonвve you'll find the video vault-there are plenty of tapes and photographs of him sitting in the middle of groups of children," Eloise said. "Maurice told me he once asked him why he participated, why he didn't just record the notes once. Monsieur Carver said it was the closest he came to having absolute power."
"When did he stop playing?"
"Sometime in the mideighties-because of his illness. He might have retired, but his myth didn't."
"Mister Clarinet-Ton-ton Clarinet?"
"Yes, like I keep saying, Tonton Clarinette is real. Tonton Clarinette is Monsieur Carver-Gustav Carver."
"But if it's all supposed to be a secret, how did the myth get out?"
"A few of the children escaped over the years," she said quietly. "Not from us, but from their masters. Three are still at large."
"Was one called Boris Gaspйsie?"
"Yes. How did you know?"
"I ask, you answer. What about the others?"
"Two girls-Lita Ravix and Noлlle Perrin."
Max wrote down the two names. He was done with her. He gave a long, hard look, searching those ratlike features for something close to regret or shame for what she'd done. There was nothing of the sort there. There never had been.
He nodded to Paul to indicate that he was through, then he got up and left the room.