Unforgettable Christmas Dreams: Gifts of Joy

by Rebecca York

  “Wait!” Hugo said, then pointed to the minivan in the parking lot. “That’s him again! How can that be?”

  “Well, I’ll be bound, tied, and tickled. There really is a twin! Good going, Hugo.”

  “Hey, since there’s two of them, do you think Zelda will pay us twice as much?”

  “No,” Vinny said, biting off the word ‘idiot,’ the trigger word that made Hugo go ballistic. “No, I doubt that bitch would part with an extra dime. But watch it calling her by her name. She’s Z, all right?”

  “Oh, yeah. So, where’s KQ? I’m supposed to use her initials, too, huh?”

  “I don’t know if it makes a difference, but you start calling anything ‘killer’ other than angry bees, and you’ll have cops and environmentalists all over you.” Vinny put his phone back in his jacket and pulled out the little quarter-sized tracker. “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  The short, sturdy Sicilian sauntered over to the minivan Junior was loading with groceries. “Do you need a hand there, bud?”

  Junior looked askance at him. He was at least fifteen years younger than this stranger and fully capable of lifting the recycled dog food grocery bags. “No, thanks. I got this. Thanks anyhow,” he said politely, then walked the cart back to the little corral.

  Vinny stood by the front tire and watched, quickly squatting down and sticking the tracking device in the wheel well as soon as Van’s twin turned away. Then he made a big mistake. He turned to look in the vehicle to verify there really was a twin, hoping to get at least a side view of him.

  “Shit!” he whispered as Van stared at him, the eyebrow lift and furrowed forehead focus a subtle indication that he was studying him.

  Van’s eyes widened as he took a deep breath and held it. Shit! It’s Vinny! I knew Killer Queen didn’t have friends but if she bailed on a contract, it’s still open. I gotta get out of here!

  Junior walked back to the driver’s side of the car, Vinny still standing there bug-eyed, staring at Van. Junior glanced at his brother and saw the same wide eyes and an intense mixture of emotions draining the color from his face.

  He may have been born second, but Junior’s protective big brother mode kicked in at super strength at seeing the unspoken threat. “If you don’t need anything, Sir, I’d appreciate it if you stepped away,” Junior said as nonchalantly as he could. “I still have a few more errands to run.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. Sorry. I thought I was seeing double there for a minute,” Vinny said, a nervous chuckle escaping as he offered what he hoped was a plausible explanation for the stare-down.

  “Yup,” Junior said. “Who would have thought it? I just met the guy. We sure do look alike, though, don’t we?”

  “Just met him?” Vinny squeaked, as he backed away. “Yeah. I’ll just run the carts back to the store.”

  Junior watched as the nervous and now very confused man took a few carts out of the galvanized pipe enclosure and headed to the store, pretending to look like he worked there.

  “We’re screwed,” Van said when Junior got in.

  “Maybe,” Junior replied, then handed him the tracker. “What do you think we should do with this?”

  “You know,” Van laughed, “if you weren’t already my brother, I’d love you all over again. Are you sure you didn’t grow up on the streets? You sure have some strong survival skills.”

  “Must be hereditary. So, where to?”

  Van held up the round metallic disc. “How about we have some fun? Let’s drop this off at the sheriff’s office. I don’t mean him any harm, but if anyone can protect himself, it’s O’Reilly. He’s a local legend. The cop with a thousand lives…or something like that.”

  “Okay, let’s give it to him, but explain the circumstances so he knows what’s going on.” Junior watched as another out-of-towner approached the front of the store and stared at them, pointing at their car with a nod and drop-jawed gaze of confusion. “O’Reilly needs to be prepared,” Junior added.

  “Yeah, well odds are,” Van said, squinting to verify his suspicions, “he’s already aware of them. Those two stink like East Coast hitmen. I just don’t want the sheriff to know they’re probably after me. That would open up a whole new bottle of skunky piss from my past.”

  “Carson?” Junior asked tentatively, then put the car in reverse.

  “Yup.” Van sighed and shook his head. “I have to tell him. I mean, tell O’Reilly the whole story. I guess you don’t know, but Lucy’s Uncle Pete was Carson’s godfather.”

  “What?” Junior said and inadvertently stomped on the brakes. “Crap. Does anyone know it was you who killed him?”

  “Nope, but I found out that Pete didn’t think too highly of him. He actually sounded like he was glad Carson was dead. That was a horrible thing for even me to hear. Maybe Lucy can help me out. She may be Pete’s niece, but she’s also a pre-law student. Or was. That’s all I needed: more guilt. She quit school so she could be with me…”

  “Hey! That was her decision. A lot of people get burned out with school or their major just before graduating. Maybe it happened to her, too. Could be that all she needs is a challenging case to get her all fired up. What would be more exciting than getting her fiancé acquitted?”

  “You were there, Junior. What do you think my chances are?”

  “Pretty good since I was the only witness. All I saw was a man with Harlequin-faced makeup and crazy hair. I’d say that unless you admitted the crime, you got your first ‘Get out of jail free’ card.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be my first,” Van admitted. “My mother — our mother — bought my way out of a few minor infractions. You know, minor as in getting mad at someone and smashing out the windshield of his Porsche…”

  “Ew. Sorry, but when you say, ‘our mother,’ it sounds so weird. I have two mothers, but neither one birthed me. I’m glad they were excited about adopting you in the family and giving you their – our – name, even if it wasn’t legal. You did need a last name, after all.”

  “Yeah, and since my legal first name is Charles, there shouldn’t be any reason Van Wagner is on the government’s radar. What a mouthful I had: Charles Van der Cleft the Third.”

  Junior chuckled as he pulled into the sheriff’s department parking lot. “Yeah, I got Junior as a legal first name. Well, at least the name I went through school with. I never did get a social security number. As far as that goes, I’m not a real entity. I’m invisible to the government. My moms didn’t even claim me on tax returns as a dependent.”

  “Cool. The Invisible Twins. Let’s hope we can do something about that down the line. In the meantime, I’ll take this to the sheriff. Coming with me?”

  “Sure, why not. The ice cream is in an insulated bag. We’re good for at least an hour.”

  “Probably more,” Van added, “since it’s December. Who eats ice cream at Christmastime?”

  “Mom,” Junior said. “Any time of the year is good for sweets, although she has cut down. Come on. I got your back.”

  “And I got yours, too. Damn! It’s nice having a brother,” Van said, his arm around Junior’s shoulder. “Better late than never.”

  ***

  “So, you say you saw this short, dark-haired man with a clean-shaven face try to sneak this tracker under your wheel well?” O’Reilly asked, turning the high-tech bit over and over, looking for any sign of product identification.

  “Oh, he did sneak it in,” Junior said. “It’s just that I saw him do it in the mirror. What middle-aged man asks a healthy guy in his twenties if he can help him unload his groceries?”

  “Maybe he was hitting on you?” O’Reilly asked, hoping he had suppressed his grin.

  “Nah. I didn’t get that vibe from him,” Junior said. “And as soon as he saw Van, he went positively snow white.”

  The sheriff looked from one brother to the other, then stopped at Van, the one with the guilty look on his face. “Do you know why?”

  “I recognized him.”

  “And
…” O’Reilly prompted.

  “And he’s a hitman.”

  “Oh.”

  Van chuckled and shook his head. “I have a past. I never had dealings with him directly, but know of people who did. He could tell I recognized him.”

  Junior moved in front of Van and took over the conversation. “The man said he was staring because we were twins. I knew he was lying from the minute he opened his mouth, but I let him ramble. I told him Van and I just met. That’s the truth, too.”

  “Well, I’m not an expert,” the sheriff said, “but you two look like twins to me. And from what I remember about an incident at the emergency room a couple months ago, you did claim him as your identical twin. Right?”

  “Yes, Sir, I did,” Junior said. “But what I told that creeper…”

  “Vinny the Axe,” Van interrupted, then went still again.

  “But what I told Vinny the Axe was true, too. Van and I were separated at birth.”

  The sheriff looked at both of them again and could tell they were telling the truth. “So, what do you want me to do?”

  “You can do whatever sheriff-y things you normally do when a hired assassin comes into town,” Junior said. “I just don’t want him haunting me or my family. When he tagged me – not Van; he saw him after he put the tracker on the car – he was targeting me for something evil. I’m sure you’ll agree with my suspicions if you ever meet him. Just make sure you’re wearing Kevlar if you do.”

  “Yeah, well, me and my Kevlar are best of buddies after that she-devil stomped your brother into salsa and shot me at point-blank range.” O’Reilly looked at Van and grinned. “You look a whole lot better now than you did. Rumor has it that you’ve taken a shine to Pete’s niece. I’m glad you two are stickin’ around to help him out. He’s a crotchety old fart, but has a heart of gold.”

  “Yeah, he does,” Van agreed. “Lucy inherited the heart, but thank goodness, she’s not ornery like him.”

  “She’s prettier, too,” Junior added. “Both of them seem to be good for you, though. We may live in different states, but as long as we’re only a CD of tunes away, I’m sure we’ll keep popping in for dinner on Sundays. By the way, we’re having lasagna this Sunday. Make sure you bring breath mints. Mom loves to put extra garlic on the toast.”

  Chapter 2: A Research Project

  “Damn! Why can’t I just look this up on the internet?” Vinny groused to Hugo. His minion was barely literate and wasn’t worth a washcloth in a mud bath, but he did have his skills. Too bad he also had the attention span of a fruit fly.

  “Huh?” Hugo asked as he shoved his phone into his coat pocket.

  “These blasted microfiche are harder than hell to read. Even these glasses the librarian loaned me don’t help. Much.”

  Hugo came and looked over Vinny’s shoulder at the blue screen on what looked like an ancient computer. “Micro fishies?” he asked. “I don’t see no fishies; just a bunch of words and old pictures.”

  Vinny silently counted to ten. “No, Hugo. A microfiche is a piece of film. Before they saved everything to a computer, it was printed on paper. Old newspapers and magazines were too bulky to store, so they took pictures and saved the film. They call these films microfiche. I’m trying to use this special viewer to read the microfiche that pertain to newspapers that were out about the time Zelda had her baby. Or babies. I want to know if those two really are twins.”

  “Didn’t the Killer Queen say something about that when you visited her in that Arizona hospital a while back?” Hugo asked, then slipped his phone out of his pocket, ready to play solitaire again.

  “Yeah, well, she was so pumped full of drugs and mush-mouthed from brain damage, I wasn’t sure if she was hallucinating or just raving mad. I did find out that she sneaked out of that hospital, though.” Vinny chuckled to himself. “I guess she found out that I was paying her nurse to report back to me. When I didn’t hear back from the old gal for two days, I did a little snooping and found out she was dead. And not a natural death, either.”

  “Yeah, that foxy KQ never did like bein’ spied on, huh, Vinny?”

  Vinny rubbed his scarred right hand where she had stabbed him years ago when she caught him watching her shower. “You got that right.” He looked over and saw Hugo was sneaking peeks at his phone again. “Go ahead and play your games. I got this.” His stomach rumbled, then Hugo’s echoed it. “Just give me another half hour, then we can go eat. There’s got to be a good Italian restaurant around here somewhere.”

  Five minutes later, he found what he was looking for. “Voila! Look at this.” Vinny motioned for Hugo to come see the screen. “See! She only had one. That’s her and the old man and the baby: Charles Van der Cleft the Third.”

  “Yeah, but if I was Van der Cleft’s wife, I wouldn’t want to share his estate with two boys. Shoot! Word was that she bought her way into that marriage. She promised to give him a son in exchange for some stocks or bonds or whatever it is he has that’s worth the billions of dollars.”

  “Hugo, some folks say you’re not too bright, but you really come up with some brilliant insight sometimes.”

  “Is that good?”

  Vinny patted him on the shoulder. “Yes, that’s very good. At least, it is for me.” He squinted to read the rest of the story, continued on the next page. “It says she was delivered by a Dr. Thaddeus Daniels. With a first name like that, he shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

  “Yeah, if he was there, he’d know if she had one or two babies. I think it would be kinda hard to hide having two of them. I know it’s pretty obvious when a dog has more than one.”

  Vinny snapped an image of the article, then put his phone away. “Come on. Let’s go eat.” He stuck the borrowed reading glasses in his vest pocket. “I think I need these more than that librarian does. She can go buy herself another pair.”

  ***

  “Well, that was an interesting conversation,” Vinny said, ending the call on his cellphone. He looked up at Hugo. “Ready for another road trip? Looks like we’re heading to the old neighborhood back east. That’s where Van was born.”

  “What about his twin? Was he born there, too?” Hugo asked.

  Vinny bit his bottom lip, once again suppressing the first words to come to mind with a chomp. “Let’s see if there really was a twin first. Then we can see if they were born in the same place.”

  “Oh! Wait! Duh,” Hugo said. “Of course they were. What was I thinking?” He looked back at his phone and grinned. “You’re sure missing a lot of hot pictures by not playing strip solitaire, Vinny.”

  “Just don’t start taking off your clothes if you lose. Remember, they can’t see if you’re really stripping or not. It’s just a game with a computer.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot,” Hugo said, re-buckling his belt. “So, when do we leave?”

  “Right now. The Christmas rush is coming up. Come on. New York, here we come.”

  “All right!” Hugo said. “I’m ready for some real comfort food. No one makes calzones like Giovanni’s.”

  Bzzz! Bzzz!

  “Hey, Vinny. I think that’s your phone.”

  Vinny rolled his eyes at Hugo’s declaration of the obvious and answered the call. “Yeah, this is me. Oh, yeah? Really? He’s in Portland? What’s the name of the street again? Thanks!”

  He grinned broadly and turned to Hugo. “I guess real food’s going to have to wait. That doc who delivered Z is in state.” He opened the app on his phone and typed in the address. “And only six hours away. Take a piss if you need to, and I’ll grab some drinks and sandwiches. Time for another road trip.”

  ***

  “Is this the place?” Hugo asked, looking up at the high rise from the rolled-down window.

  “Yeah, according to the phone call. Let’s go find a hotel and get some dinner. It’s late. We’ll tackle this in the morning.”

  The next morning, Hugo awoke to Vinny hissing angrily into the phone. “Why didn’t you tell me he was dead yesterday when
you called? I just drove six hours to get here!”

  Hugo knew his boss was getting ready to explode, so he got up quickly. He hurried into the bathroom and closed the door behind him, then turned on the shower to drown out the shouts. Five minutes later, he shut off the water and listened.

  “Well, are you done in there or were you just pretending to shower?” Vinny asked.

  Hugo stepped out and looked at Vinny, checking for signs of residual anger. “Are you gonna be okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I was ticked that my contact didn’t tell me that Doc Daniels had died last week. I did find out there was an investigation into some improprieties, though. I’ll just sneak into his building today, pretending to be an analyst, and see what I can find. You can stay here and order room service. I’ll be back later today. You can play your game and even strip if you want to. I’ll knock before coming in.”

  Hugo chuckled. “Yeah, maybe I’ll win more if I follow the rules this time.” He held his phone up to his face again and grinned. “Ready or not, Lola, here I come!”

  Vinny stepped into the bathroom and noticed no towels had been used. Hugo had pretended to bathe again. “And before I get back, would you take a real shower? You’re starting to get ripe.”

  ***

  “Special Agent Vicenti,” Vinny said, flashing his fake ID at the receptionist. “I’ll need his log in codes, passwords, and anything else related to those. I’m not concerned with anything current. The improprieties I’m investigating started in December of ’91. I’ll need access to those records.”

  The frazzled receptionist pushed the preprinted set of access codes and passwords to yet another investigator. She had long ago decided to accept this as a job and nothing personal. Any feelings for Dr. Thaddeus Daniels had disappeared when he did, three months earlier. At least, he hadn’t implicated her in anything. Being the silent mistress who never received anything more than a poke behind closed doors had its merits. She swished an unexpected smile and quickly swallowed it. Invisible for three months, then washed up on an Arabian beach with several important body parts missing: he really pissed someone off this time.