"How so?" asked Max, incredulous.
"Whole thing's online now," Joe said. "I do my brain work at home these days. The workplace is just for keepin' tabs on the little juniors, hobnobbin' with the brass and gettin' away from the family every now and again. Things've moved on a lot since you went away Max. Technology's like rustnever sleeps, always movin' forward, slowly takin' over what we're too lazy to do . Anyway, this search you want done could take time, dependin' on how many eyes are on the system right now."
"I've got time if you have, Joe. You may need to cross-reference with the Interpol database."
"Shoot."
"First name Vincent, last name Paul. Both spelled the way they sound."
"He Haitian?"
"Yes."
Max heard Joe's fingers typing in the information, music in the background, turned low. Bruce Springsteen's voice over spare acoustic guitar. He wondered if Gustav's Sinatra CD was still in the street.
"Max? Nada on the nationwide database, but there's a Vincent Paul on Interpol. Low priority. Listed as an MPmissing person. Brits want him. Scotland Yard."
Joe tapped some more.
"Picture here too. Mean-looking bastardlike Isaac Hayes on a really bad day. Big motherfucker too. They've got his height down here as six-nine and change. Probably straight seven in shoes. Go-liath baby! There's a lot of cross-referencing I've got to do here . There's a known associate come up. No ID yet. Machine's slow . Listen, this could take another hour, and I've got to see to the kids. I'll put this thing on auto-search-and-select. The minute I got it I'll call you. What's your number?"
Max gave it to him.
"But I'd better call you, Joe. I don't know when I'll be back here."
"OK."
"If I need it, can you run some forensics tests?"
"Depends what it is you're looking for."
"DNA, blood-typing, fingerprint cross-referencing?"
"That's OK. Small stuff. Just don't be sending no whole body overor a chicken."
"I'll try not to." Max laughed.
"How's it goin' out there?" Joe asked.
"Early days," Max said.
"If you walk away now the only thing you lose is money. Remember that, brother," Joe said.
Max had forgotten how well Joe knew him. Joe had heard the doubt in his voice. Max thought of telling him about the kids outside La Coupole, but he thought it best not to mention it, let it go, sink through his memories. If he kept it uppermost in his mind, it would cloud his vision, mess with his perceptions. Keep the channel clear.
"I'll remember that, Joe, don't worry."
Max heard the musicBruce flailing away on acoustic guitar, piping notes through a harmonica like Bob Dylan on steroids. He guessed Joe was at his happiest now, at moments like these, listening to his music, right in the bosom of his beloved family. Joe would always have someone around who cared about him and would care for him. Max wanted to stay there a little longer, listening to Joe's life, listening to the sounds of warmth and tenderness, his home, its parts as fragile as a newborn baby's.
Part 3
Chapter 16
"MAX, YOU STINK," Chantale told him and laughed her dirty laugh.
She was right. Although he'd showered and brushed his teeth, the scent of a night of neat booze was a hard one to shake off in a hot climate. The rum he'd been drinking fairly steadily up until a few hours ago was evaporating through his pores and reeking up the inside of the Land Cruiser, sweet and stale and acrid, candy boiling in vinegar.
"Sorry," he said and looked through the window at the landscape passing them by in a brown, yellow, and sometimes green blur as they headed down the winding road to Port-au-Prince.
"No offense meant." She smiled.
"None taken. I like people who speak their minds. It usually means they mean what they saysaves trying to figure them out."
Chantale smelled greata fresh, sharp yet delicate citrus fragrance hummed about her and insulated her from his odor. She was dressed for the day, in a short-sleeved turquoise blouse, faded blue jeans, and desert boots. Her hair was scraped back in a short ponytail. Sunglasses, a pen, and a small notebook poked out of her blouse pocket. She hadn't just come to drive around. She'd come to work with him, whether he liked it or not.
She'd arrived at the house at seven-thirty, rolling into the courtyard in a dusty Honda Civic whose windscreen looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a year. Max was eating the breakfast Rubie, the maid, had cooked for him. He'd wanted eggs over easy, sunny side down, but when he'd tried explaining it to her, she must have misinterpreted his hybrid of slowed-down English, sound effects, and sign language, because he'd ended up with an omelet served up on cassava tortillas. Still, it was delicious and filling. He'd washed it down with extra-strong black coffee and a tall glass of a juice she'd called chadecgrapefruit without the tartness.
"Heavy night?" Chantale asked.
"You could say that."
"You go to La Coupole?"
"How would you know?"
"Plenty of bars round your way."
"Have you been there?"
"No," she laughed. "They'd mistake me for a hooker."
"I don't know about that," Max said. "You're way too classy."
There: he'd made his first move on herno deep breath, no summoning dormant strength, no scrabbling around for the right words; he'd just opened his mouth and exactly the right thing had come out, smooth and simple; the sort of ambiguous compliment that didn't stray beyond platonic flattery. He'd slotted straight back into velvet predator mode like he'd never given it up. Things went either way from hereeither she'd pick up on his words and bat them back to him with a spin of her own, or she'd let him know no way was it going any further.
Chantale gripped the wheel a little too tight with both hands and looked straight ahead.
"I don't think your countrymen know the difference out here," she said bitterly.
She wasn't going for it. It wasn't a direct rebuff, but she wasn't yielding. Max heard a corrosive anger in her words, the sort of defense mechanism you build after a heartbreak. Maybe she'd recognized his play because she'd fallen for it beforeand been burned.
"He must've hurt you pretty bad, Chantale," Max said.
"He did," she replied curtly, speaking to the windscreen, cutting off the conversation's circulation by turning on the radio and turning it up loud.
They took a sharp left turn around the side of the mountain they were driving down and as they cleared it, Max saw Port-au-Prince spread out before him, a few miles below, spilling out from the coastline like a splurge of dried vomit waiting for the sea to wash it away.