In 1945 before she became a full-time hoofer, Loretta had studied acting at the Sonny Tufts School for Thespians. Drawing on the long-ago experience, she earnestly and sincerely performed her well-practiced scenario for Wilma and Ernie. Ernie never breathed a word to her about a winning ticket. She only drove him home as a favor to him and to Lou. Lou couldn’t leave and anyhow Lou’s such a runt, he couldn’t fight Ernie for the car keys. “At least you agreed to let me drive,” Loretta said to Ernie indignantly. “I took my life in my hands just letting you snore your way home in my car.” She turned to Wilma and woman-to-woman reminded her: “You know how jealous Jimbo is of me, silly man. You’d think I was sixteen. But no way do I go into your house unless you’re there, Wilma. Ernie, you got smashed real fast at the Harmony. Just ask Lou. Did you stop anywhere else first and maybe talk to someone about the ticket?”
Loretta congratulated herself as she watched the doubt and confusion on both their faces. A few minutes later they left. “I hope you find it. I’ll say a prayer,” she promised piously. She would not shake hands with them, explaining to Wilma about her dumb sister-in-law’s greenhouse harvest of poison ivy. “Come have a Christmas drink with Jimbo and me,” she urged. “He’ll be home about four o’clock Christmas Eve.”
At home, sitting glumly over a cup of tea, Wilma said, “She’s lying. I know she’s lying but who could prove it? Fifteen winners have shown up already. One missing and with a year to claim.” Frustrated tears rolled unnoticed down Wilma’s cheeks. “She’ll let the whole world know she buys a ticket here, a ticket there. She’ll do that for the next fifty-one weeks and then bingo she’ll find the ticket she forgot she had.”
Ernie watched his wife in abject silence. A weeping Wilma was an infrequent sight. Now as her face blotched and her nose began to run, he handed her his red bandana handkerchief. His sudden gesture caused a ceramic hummingbird to fall off the sideboard behind him. The beak of the hummingbird crumbled against the imitation marble tile in the breakfast nook of the kitchen and brought a fresh wail of grief from Wilma.
“My big hope was that Wee Willie could give up working nights at McDonald’s and study and do her birds full-time,” Wilma sobbed. “And now that dream is busted.”
Just to be absolutely sure, they went to the Friendly Shamrock near the Do-Shop-Here Mall in Paramus. The evening bartender confirmed that Ernie had been there the night before just around midnight, had two maybe three drinks but never said boo to nobody. “Just sat there grinning like the cat who ate the canary.”
After a dinner which neither of them touched Wilma carefully examined Ernie’s undershirt which still had the safety pin in place. “She didn’t even bother to unpin it,” Wilma said bitterly. “Just reached in and tore it off.”
“Can we sue her?” Ernie suggested tentatively. The enormity of his stupidity kept building by the minute. Getting drunk. Talking his head off to Loretta.
Too tired to even answer, Wilma opened the suitcase she had not yet unpacked and reached for her flannel nightgown. “Sure we can sue her,” she said sarcastically, “for having a fast brain when she’s dealing with a wet brain. Now turn off the light, go to sleep, and quit that damn scratching. You’re driving me crazy.”
Ernie was tearing at his chest in the area around his heart. “Something itches,” he complained.
A bell sounded in Wilma’s head as she closed her eyes. She was so worn out she fell asleep almost immediately but her dreams were filled with lottery tickets floating through the air like snowflakes. From time to time she was pulled awake by Ernie’s restless movements. Usually Ernie slept like a hibernating bear.
Christmas Eve dawned gray and cheerless. Wilma dragged herself around the house, going through the motions of putting presents under the tree. The two boxes from Wee Willie. If they hadn’t lost the winning ticket they could have phoned Wee Willie to come home for Christmas. Maybe she wouldn’t have come. Wee Willie didn’t like the middle-class trap of the suburban environment. In that case Ernie could have thrown up his job and they could have visited her in Arizona soon. And Wilma could have bought the forty-inch television that had so awed her in Trader Horn’s last week. Just think of seeing J. R. forty inches big.
Oh well. Spilt milk. No, spilt booze. Ernie had told her about his plans to put the lottery ticket in her pantyhose on the mantel of the fake fireplace if he hadn’t lost it. Wilma tried not to dwell on the thrill of finding the ticket there.
She was not pleasant to Ernie who was still hung over and had phoned in sick for the second day. She told him exactly where he could stuff his headache.
In mid-afternoon, Ernie went into the bedroom and closed the door. After a while, Wilma became alarmed and followed him. Ernie was sitting on the edge of the bed, his shirt off, plaintively scratching his chest. “I’m all right,” he said, his face still covered with the hangdog expression that was beginning to seem permanent. “It’s just I’m so damn itchy.”
Only slightly relieved that Ernie had not found some way to commit suicide, Wilma asked irritably, “What are you so itchy about. It isn’t time for your allergies to start. I hear enough about them all summer.”
She looked closely at the inflamed skin. “For God’s sake, that’s poison ivy. Where did you manage to pick that up?”
Poison ivy.
They stared at each other.
Wilma grabbed Ernie’s undershirt from the top of the dresser. She’d left it there, the safety pin still in it, the sliver of ticket a silent, hostile witness to his stupidity. “Put it on,” she ordered.
“But …”
“Put it on!”
It was instantly evident that the poison ivy was centered in the exact spot where the ticket had been hidden.
“That lying hoofer.” Wilma thrust out her jaw and straightened her shoulders. “She said that Big Jimbo was gonna be home around four, didn’t she?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Nothing like a reception committee.”
At three-thirty they pulled in front of Loretta’s house and parked. As they’d expected, Jimbo’s sixteen-wheel rig was not yet there. “We’ll sit here for a few minutes and make that crook nervous,” Wilma decreed.
They watched as the vertical blinds in the front window of Loretta’s house began to bob erratically. At three minutes of four, Ernie pointed a nervous hand. “There. At the light. That’s Jimbo’s truck.”
“Let’s go,” Wilma told him.
Loretta opened the door, her face again wreathed in a smile. With grim satisfaction Wilma noticed that the smile was very, very nervous.
“Ernie. Wilma. How nice. You did come for a Christmas drink.”
“I’ll have my Christmas drink later,” Wilma told her. “And it’ll be to celebrate getting our ticket back. How’s your poison ivy, Loretta?”
“Oh, starting to clear up. Wilma, I don’t like the tone of your voice.”
“That’s a crying shame.” Wilma walked past the sectional which was upholstered in a red-and-black checkered pattern, went to the window, and pulled back the vertical blind. “Well, what do you know? Here’s Big Jimbo. Guess you two lovebirds can’t wait to get your hands on each other. Guess he’ll be real mad when I tell him I’m suing you for heartburn because you’ve been fooling around with my husband.”
“I’ve what?” Loretta’s carefully applied purple-kisses lipstick deepened as her complexion faded to grayish white.
“You heard me. And I got proof. Ernie, take off your shirt. Show this husband-stealer your rash.”
“Rash,” Loretta moaned.
“Poison ivy just like yours. Started on his chest when you stuck your hand under his underwear to get the ticket. Go ahead. Deny it. Tell Jimbo you don’t know nothing about a ticket, that you and Ernie were just having a go at a little hanky-panky.”
“You’re lying. Get out of here. Ernie, don’t unbutton that shirt.” Frantically Loretta grabbed Ernie’s hands.
“My what a big man Jimbo is,” Wilma said admir
ingly as he got out of the truck. She waved to him. “A real big man.” She turned. “Take off your pants too, Ernie.” Wilma dropped the vertical blind and hurried over to Loretta. “He’s got the rash down there,” she whispered.
“Oh, my God. I’ll get it. I’ll get it. Keep your pants on!” Loretta rushed to the junior-sized dining room and flung open the china closet that contained the remnants of her mother’s china. With shaking fingers she reached for the sugar bowl. It dropped from her hands and smashed as she grabbed the lottery ticket. Jimbo’s key was turning in the door as she jammed the ticket in Wilma’s hand. “Now get out. And don’t say nothing.”
Wilma sat down on the red-and-black checkered couch. “It would look real funny to rush out. Ernie and I will join you and Big Jimbo in a Christmas drink.”
The houses on their block were decorated with Santa Clauses on the roofs, angels on the lawn, and ropes of lights framing the outside of the windows. With a peaceful smile as they arrived home, Wilma remarked how real pretty the neighborhood was. Inside the house, she handed the lottery ticket to Ernie. “Put this in my stocking just the way you meant to.”
Meekly he went into the bedroom and selected her favorite pantyhose, the white ones with rhinestones. She fished in his drawer and came out with one of his dress-up argyle socks, somewhat lumpy because Wilma wasn’t much of a knitter but still his best. As they tacked the stockings to the mantel over the artificial fireplace, Ernie said, “Wilma, I don’t have poison ivy,” his voice sunk into a faint whisper, “down there.”
“I’m sure you don’t but it did the trick. Now just put the ticket in my stocking and I’ll put your present in yours.”
“You bought me a present? After all the trouble I caused? Oh, Wilma.”
“I didn’t buy it. I dug it out of the medicine cabinet and put a bow on it.” Smiling happily, Wilma dropped a bottle of calamine lotion into Ernie’s argyle sock.
BILL PRONZINI
HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS
Meet Bill Pronzini’s favorite character. Bill’s written seventeen full-length novels and a short-story collection about him, and has collaborated with Marcia Muller on a book called Double that features him along with Muller’s private eye, Sharon McCone.
Bill says he’s a joy to write about, Bill knows him so well that the stories just flow naturally and it’s more fun than work. But don’t ask what this paragon’s name is, because even Bill Pronzini himself doesn’t know.
The author was not at all sure how his fictional alter ego was going to enjoy playing Santa Claus for a charity benefit, though. As this one turned out, he had every reason to worry. Even a big, jolly Nameless Detective can have serious trouble with his “ho, ho, ho” when he finds himself with fake whiskers on his face, a pillow stuffed under his belt, and a spectacularly rotten little kid on his knee.
Kerry sprang her little surprise on me the week before Christmas. And the worst thing about it was, I was no longer fat. The forty-pound bowlful of jelly that had once hung over my belt was long gone.
“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “You can wear a pillow.”
“Why me?” I said.
“They made me entertainment chairperson, for one thing. And for another, you’re the biggest and jolliest man I know.”
“Ho, ho, ho,” I said sourly.
“It’s for a good cause. Lots of good causes—needy children, the homeless, three other charities. Where’s your Christmas spirit?”
“I don’t have any. Why don’t you ask Eberhardt?”
“Are you serious? Eberhardt?”
“Somebody else, then. Anybody else.”
“You,” she said.
“Uh-uh. No. I love you madly and I’ll do just about anything for you, but not this. This is where I draw the line.”
“Oh, come on, quit acting like a scrooge.”
“I am a scrooge. Bah, humbug.”
“You like kids, you know you do—”
“I don’t like kids. Where did you get that idea?”
“I’ve seen you with kids, that’s where.”
“An act, just an act.”
“So put it on again for the Benefit. Five o’clock until nine, four hours out of your life to help the less fortunate. Is that too much to ask?”
“In this case, yes.”
She looked at me. Didn’t say anything, just looked at me.
“No,” I said. “There’s no way I’m going to wear a Santa Claus suit and dandle little kiddies on my knee. You hear me? Absolutely no way!”
“Ho, ho, ho,” I said.
The little girl perched on my knee looked up at me out of big round eyes. It was the same sort of big round-eyed stare Kerry had given me the previous week.
“Are you really Santa Claus?” she asked.
“Yes indeedy. And who would you be?”
“Melissa.”
“That’s a pretty name. How old are you, Melissa?”
“Six and a half.”
“Six and a half. Well, well. Tell old Santa what it is you want for Christmas.”
“A dolly.”
“What sort of dolly?”
“A big one.”
“Just a big one? No special kind?”
“Yes. A dolly that you put water in her mouth and she wee-wees on herself.”
I sighed. “Ho, ho, ho,” I said.
The Gala Family Christmas Charity Benefit was being held in the Lowell High School gymnasium, out near Golden Gate Park. Half a dozen San Francisco businesses were sponsoring it, including Bates and Carpenter, the ad agency where Kerry works as a senior copywriter, so it was a pretty elaborate affair. The decoration committee had dressed the gym up to look like a cross between Santa’s Village and the Dickens Christmas Fair. There was a huge gaudy tree, lots of red-and-green bunting and seasonal decorations, big clusters of holly and mistletoe, even fake snow; and the staff members were costumed as elves and other creatures imaginary and real. Carols and traditional favorites poured out of loudspeakers. Booths positioned along the walls dispensed food—meat pies, plum pudding, gingerbread, and other sweets—and a variety of handmade toys and crafts, all donated. For the adults, there were a couple of city-sanctioned games of chance and a bar supplying wassail and other Christmassy drinks.
For the kiddies, there was me.
I sat on a thronelike chair on a raised dais at one end, encased in false whiskers and wig and paunch, red suit and cap, black boots and belt. All around me were cotton snowdrifts, a toy bag overflowing with gaily wrapped packages, a shiny papier-mâché version of Santa’s sleigh with some cardboard reindeer. A couple of young women dressed as elves were there, too, to act as my helpers. Their smiles were as phony as my whiskers and paunch; they were only slightly less miserable than I was. For snaking out to one side and halfway across the packed enclosure was a line of little children the Pied Piper of Hamlin would have envied, some with their parents, most without, and all eager to clamber up onto old St. Nick’s lap and share with him their innermost desires.
Inside the Santa suit, I was sweating—and not just because it was warm in there. I imagined that every adult eye was on me, that snickers were lurking in every adult throat. This was ridiculous, of course, the more so because none of the two hundred or so adults in attendance knew Santa’s true identity. I had made Kerry swear an oath that she wouldn’t tell anybody, especially not my partner, Eberhardt, who would never let me hear the end of it if he knew. No more than half a dozen of those present knew me anyway, this being a somewhat ritzy crowd; and of those who did know me, three were members of the private security staff.
Still, I felt exposed and vulnerable and acutely uncomfortable. I felt the way you would if you suddenly found yourself naked on a crowded city street. And I kept thinking: What if one of the newspaper photographers recognizes me and decides to take my picture? What if Eberhardt finds out? Or Barney Rivera or Joe DeFalco or one of my other so-called friends?
Another kid was on his way toward my lap. I smiled automatical
ly and sneaked a look at my watch. My God! It seemed as though I’d been here at least two hours, but only forty-five minutes had passed since the opening ceremonies. More than three hours left to go. Close to two hundred minutes. Nearly twelve thousand seconds …
The new kid climbed onto my knee. While he was doing that, one of those near the front of the line, overcome at the prospect of his own imminent audience with the Nabob of the North Pole, began to make a series of all-too-familiar sounds. Another kid said, “Oh, gross, he’s gonna throw up!” Fortunately, however, the sick one’s mother was with him; she managed to get him out of there in time, to the strains of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.”
I thought: What if he’d been sitting on my lap instead of standing in line?
I thought: Kerry, I’ll get you for this, Kerry.
I listened to the new kid’s demands, and thought about all the other little hopeful piping voices I would have to listen to, and sweated and smiled and tried not to squirm. If I squirmed, people would start to snicker—the kids as well as the adults. They’d think Santa had to go potty and was trying not to wee-wee on himself.
This one had cider-colored hair. He said, “You’re not Santa Claus.”
“Sure I am. Don’t I look like Santa?”
“No. Your face isn’t red and you don’t have a nose like a cherry.”
“What’s your name, sonny?”
“Ronnie. You’re not fat, either.”
“Sure I’m fat. Ho, ho, ho.”
“No you’re not.”
“What do you want for Christmas, Ronnie?”
“I won’t tell you. You’re a fake. I don’t need you to give me toys. I can buy my own toys.”
“Good for you.”
“I don’t believe in Santa Claus anyway,” he said. He was about nine, and in addition to being belligerent, he had mean little eyes. He was probably going to grow up to be an ax murderer. Either that, or a politician.
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