“CAN WE GET you anything Mister Co-da-da? Water? Coffee? Something like that?” Max offered, starting things off on a cooperative note. He had an interpreter with him—a short, sweaty man with Oriental features and brilliantine in his hair.
Codada sat with his hands tied behind his back, ankles chained together, bare lightbulb burning right above his head. Eloise Krolak was locked in the next room.
“Yes. You can get out of my house and then go fuck yourself.” Codada surprised Max by replying in English, his French accent as strong as his defiance.
“I thought you couldn’t speak English.”
“You think wrong.”
“Obviously,” Max said.
Codada had on sharkskin pants and black pinstriped socks that matched the silk shirt he wore open three buttons down to his pale, milky chest. Max counted four gold chains around his neck. On his way over to the house, Max had been told that the Codadas had been surprised coming back from a nightclub in the mountains.
“Why d’you think you’re here?” Max asked.
“You think I have boy—Charlie?” he answered, pronouncing “Charlie” as Tssharlie.
“Correct. So let’s not waste each other’s time. Do you have him?”
“No.”
“Who does?”
“God.” He looked skywards.
“You saying he’s dead?”
Codada agreed with a nod. Max looked at his eyes. Codada was looking straight at him, not a hint of a lie, voice steady, truth-telling. It meant nothing, of course, for now. Codada probably hadn’t worked out that he was a dead man either way.
“Who killed him?” Max asked.
“The people—dey keeel Eddie Faustin—en même temps—?”
“So, you’re telling me the mobs who attacked Eddie Faustin killed Charlie too? That what you’re sayin’?”
“Oui.”
“How do you know this?”
“I—investiger?”
“You investigated it?”
Codada nodded.
“Who told you?”
“In the street where it happen. Témoins. Wit-ness. The people talk to me.”
“So you had witnesses, who saw this happen?” Max pointed to his eyes. “How many? One? Two?”
“More. En pille moune. Many. Ten. Twenty. It was big big scandale here. Like if the daughter of Clinton kidnapped.” Codada flashed a smile. His gold tooth caught the light and an instant, warm, yellow light poured out of his mouth. “Charlie dead. I say dis to him father very many times. ‘Your son he dead,’ I say but him not listen.”
“You told Allain Carver this?” Max played dumb.
“Non. I tell him father.” Codada smiled more intensely, ready to drop the bomb on him. “Gustav. Gustav father of Charlie.”
Max wasn’t going to tear the ground away from Codada’s feet just yet. He returned Codada’s smile with one of his own. A bolt of panic pierced the confidence in the head-of-security’s face.
“Tell me about Eddie Faustin. Were you good friends?”
“Not friend.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“Him and him brother, Salazar, they work for me in the police.”
“You mean the Ton-ton Mackooots?”
“Yes, we was Macoutes.” Codada tried to straighten himself up in his chair, failed, resigned himself to a slump.
“Did Eddie work for you afterwards—when the Mackooots finished?”
“Non.”
“Did you see Eddie at all afterwards?”
“Only when he drive Monsieur Carver.”
“You didn’t talk to him?”
“I say hello, how you do.”
“Did you meet up? Go for a drink?”
“A drink? With Eddie?” Codada looked at Max as though he was suggesting something not only impossible but utterly absurd.
“Yeah, why not? Talk about old times?”
“‘Old time’?” Codada laughed. “When we Macoutes, Eddie Faustin work for me. I his boss.”
“So you don’t mix with the help either. You do some of the worst things imaginable, but you won’t spend quality time with some guy, because he was your subordinate back in the glory days of Doc? You people have some fucked-up standards, let me tell you.” Max shook his head and looked at Codada straight on. “Anyway, Eddie Faustin was going to kidnap Charlie. Did you know that?”
“Non. No true,” he insisted.
“Yes, true. Yes very true.”
“I say no true.”
“Why is that?”
“Eddie”—Codada pulled a proud face—“a good man. He never do bad to Monsieur Carver. He love Monsieur Carver like…like him father.”
“Eddie tell you that?”
“No. I see. I know. I feel.”
“Is that right? You see, you know, you feel? OK. I know Eddie was working for Charlie’s kidnappers. That was why he drove the car to that road that day. He was waiting for them to come and take the boy.”
“Non!”
“Yes!”
“Who tell you dis—dis shit?”
“I investigay too,” Max said. “And it’s not shit.”
Codada’s face said he didn’t believe him, told his interrogator he thought he was bluffing.
Max decided to switch lanes and ask him about other things. He went over to a corner of the room and picked up one of the prompts he’d brought from Codada’s house—Claudette’s videotape.
“Tell me about your business?”
“‘Business’?” Codada searched him.
“That’s what I said.”
“I no ’ave ‘business.’”
Max glanced at the door. An armed man was guarding it. His interpreter was standing against the wall behind Codada.
“You ever steal children?”
“I no steal children.”
“Bullshit!” Max thundered. “You and your crew stole children to sell to rich perverts. That is your business!”
“Non!” Codada snapped back and tried to stand, but he fell flat on his face.
Max put one foot on Codada’s back and pushed down hard until he heard the vertebrae cracking.
“YES! You did, you lying cocksucker!” Max seethed as he ground his foot down harder on Codada’s spine, making him gasp in pain. “You stole those kids and you took them to La Gonâve and sold them to kiddie rapers like yourself. I bet that’s what we’re gonna find when we go there—we’re gonna find your latest batch of merchandise. You sackful of fucking shit!”
Max stamped on him hard and Codada cried out.
“Pick him up!” Max snapped at the men.
They set him back in the chair.
Max opened Claudette’s videotape box and showed him her photograph.
“You know her?”
Codada didn’t answer, just winced in pain.
“John Saxby—the guy who bought her? Tell me about him: what does he do? And don’t talk shit because we’ve got your accounts—your business accounts. Answer me.”
“I no more want speak,” Codada said, looking past Max, his eyes going dull as he focused on the door.
“Oh, you ‘no more want speak’? Well, fuck you Maurice, because I’m as good as it fucking gets for you. Think I’m giving you a hard time now? This is easy time, Maurice, because you either speak to me now, or Vincent Paul will make you speak. Do you understand?”
“Good kop, bad kop?” Codada sneered.
“There are no cops here, Maurice. And there’s no good either. You’re through. You hear me? You’re over. You know why? I’m going to talk to Eloise. I’m going to make her tell me what you won’t. You understand me?” Max said, mouth close to Codada’s ear. “You still ‘no more want speak’?”
Codada didn’t reply.
Max turned and walked out of the room.