The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

by Otto Penzler

  Stone pulled his trenchcoat collar up around his face. “I gave at the office, Eddie. Five C’s is all you get.”

  “What are ya—Scrooge? Maggie’s rich! And you’re rolling in your own dough!”

  Stone kicked Eddie in the side and the little man howled.

  “The negatives and the register page, Eddie. Hit me up again and you’ll take a permanent swim in the Chicago river. Agreed?”

  “Agreed! Don’t hurt me anymore! Agreed!”

  “Merry X-mas, moron,” Stone said, and exited the alley, pausing near the street to light up his own cigarette. Christmas carols were being piped through department-store loud speakers: “Joy to the world!”

  “In a rat’s ass,” he muttered, and hailed a taxi. In the back seat, he sipped rum from a flask. The cabbie made holiday small talk and Stone said, “Make you a deal—skip the chatter and maybe you’ll get a tip for Christmas.”

  Inside his Gold Coast apartment building, Stone was waiting for the elevator when he caught a strange reflection in a lobby mirror. He saw—or thought he saw—an imposing trenchcoated figure in a fedora standing behind him.

  His late partner—Jake Marley!

  Stone whirled, but … no one was there.

  He blew out air, glanced at the mirror again, seeing only himself. “No more rum for you, pal.”

  On the seventh floor, Stone unlocked 714 and slipped inside his apartment. The art moderne furnishings reflected his financial success; the divorce racket had made him damn near wealthy. He tossed his jacket on a half-circle white couch, loosened his tie and headed to his well-appointed bar, already changing his mind about more rum.

  He’d been lying, of course, about going to see his uncle and aunt. Christmas out in the sticks—that was a laugh! That had just been an excuse, so he didn’t have to spend the night with that blood-sucking Maggie.

  From the ice box he built a salami and swiss cheese on rye, smearing on hot mustard. Drifting back into the living room, where only one small lamp was on, he switched on his console radio, searching for sports or swing music or even war news, anything other than damn Christmas carols. But that maudlin muck was all he could find, and he switched it off in disgust.

  Settling in a comfy overstuffed chair, still in his shoulder holster, he sat and ate and drank. Boredom crept in on him like ground fog.

  Katie was busy with family tonight, and even most of the hookers he knew were taking the night off.

  What the hell, he thought. I’ll just enjoy my own good company.…

  Without realizing it, he drifted off to sleep; a noise woke him, and Sadie—his trusty .38—was in his hand before his eyes had opened all the way.

  “Who’s there?” he said, and stood. Somebody had switched off the lamp! Who in hell? The room was in near darkness.…

  “Sorry, keed,” a familiar voice said. “The light hurts my peepers.”

  Standing by the window was his late partner—Jake Marley.

  “I must be dreamin’,” Stone said rationally, after just the briefest flinch of a reaction, “ ’cause, pal—you’re dead as a doornail.”

  “I’m dead, all right,” Marley said. “Been dead a whole year.” Red neon, from the window behind him, pulsed in on the tall, trenchcoated fedora-sporting figure—a hawkishly handsome man with a grooved face and thin mustache. “But, keed—you ain’t dreamin’.”

  “What sorta gag is this …?”

  Stone walked over to Marley and took a close look: no make-up, no mask—it was no masquerade. And the trenchcoat had four scorched holes stitched across the front.

  Bullet holes.

  He put a hand on Marley’s shoulder—and it passed right through.

  “Jesus!” Stone stepped back. “You’re not dead—I’m dead drunk.” He turned away. “Havin’ the heebie-jeebies or somethin’. When I wake up, you better be gone, or I’m callin’ Ripley.…”

  Marley smiled a little. “Nobody can see me but you, keed. Talk about it, and they’ll toss ya in the laughin’ academy, and toss away the key. Mind if I siddown? Feet are killin’ me.”

  “Your eyes hurt, your feet hurt—what kinda goddamn ghost are you, anyway?”

  “ ’Zactly what you said, keed,” Marley said, and he slowly moved toward the sofa, dragging himself along, to the sound of metallic scraping. “The God-damned kind … and I’ll stay that way if you don’t come through for me.”

  Below the trenchcoat, Marley’s feet were heavily shackled, like a chain-gang prisoner.

  “You think mine’s heavy,” Marley said, “wait’ll ya see what the boys in the metal shop are cookin’ up for you.”

  The ghost sat heavily, his shackles clanking. Stone kept his distance.

  “What do ya want from me, Jake?”

  “The near-impossible, keed—I want ya to do the right thing.”

  “The right thing?”

  “Find my murderer, ya chowderhead! Jesus!” At that last exclamation, Marley cowered, glanced upward, muttering, “No offense, Boss,” and continued: “You’re a detective, Stoney—when a detective’s partner’s killed, he’s supposed to do somethin’ about it. That’s the code.”

  “That’s the bunk,” Stone said. “I left it to the cops. They mucked it up.” He shrugged. “End of story.”

  “Nooooo!” Marley moaned, sounding like a ghost for the first time, and making the hair stand up on Stone’s neck. “I was your partner, I was your only friend … your mentor … and you let me die an unsolved murder while you took over my business—and my wife.”

  Stone flinched again; lighted up a Lucky. “You know about that, huh? Maggie, I mean.”

  “Of course I know!” Marley waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, her I don’t care two cents about … she always was a witch, with a capital ‘b.’ Having her in your life is punishment enough for any crime. But, keed—you and me, we’re tied to each other! Chained for eternity …”

  Convinced he was dreaming, Stone snorted.

  “Really, Jake? How come?”

  Marley leaned forward and his shackles clanked. “My best pal—a detective—didn’t think I was worth a measly murder investigation. Where I come from, a man who can’t inspire any more loyalty than that outta his best pal is one lost soul.”

  Stone shrugged. “It was nothin’ personal.”

  “Oh, I take gettin’ murdered real personal! And you didn’t give a rat’s ass who killed me! And that’s why you’re as good as damned.”

  “Baloney!” Stone touched his stomach. “… or maybe salami …”

  Marley shifted in his seat and his shackles rattled. “You knew I always looked after my little brother, Eddie—he’s a louse and weakling, but he was the only brother I had … and what have you done for Eddie? Tossed him in some garbage cans! Left ’im for the Boys to measure for cement overshoes!”

  “He’s a weasel.”

  “He’s your dead best pal’s brother! Cut him some slack!”

  “I did cut him some slack! I didn’t kill him when he tried to blackmail me.”

  “Over you sleeping with his dead brother’s wife, you mean?”

  Stone batted the air dismissively. “The hell with you, Marley! You’re not real! You’re some meat that went bad. Some mustard that didn’t agree with me. I’m goin’ to bed.”

  “You were right the first time,” Marley said. “You’re goin’ to hell … or anyway, hell’s waitin’ room. Like me.” Marley’s voice softened into a plea. “Stoney—help me outa this, pal. Help yourself.”

  “How?”

  “Solve my murder.”

  Stone blew a smoke ring. “Is that all?”

  Marley stood and a howling wind seemed to blow through the apartment, drapes waving like ghosts. “It means something to me!”

  Now Stone was sweating; this was happening.

  “One year ago,” Marley said in a deep rumbling voice, “they found me in the alley behind the Bismarck Hotel, my back to the wall, one bullet in the pump, two in the stomach, and one in between … remember?” />
  And Marley removed the bullet-scorched trenchcoat to reveal the four wounds—beams of red neon light from the window behind him cut through Marley like swords through a magician’s box.

  “Remember?”

  Stone was backing up, patting the air with his palms. “Okay, okay … why don’t you just tell me who bumped you off, and I’ll settle up for you. Then we’ll be square.”

  “It’s not that easy … I’m not … allowed to tell you.”

  “Who made these goddamn rules?”

  Marley raised an eyebrow, lifted a finger, pointed up. “Right again. To save us both, you gotta act like a detective … you gotta look for clues … and you must do this yourself … though you will be aided.”

  “How?”

  “You’re gonna have three more visitors.”

  “Swell! Who’s first? Karloff, or Lugosi?”

  Marley moved away from the couch, toward the door, shackles clanking. “Don’t blow it for the both of us, keed,” he said, and left through the door—through the door.

  Stone stood staring at where his late partner had literally disappeared, and shook his head. Then he went to the bar and poured himself a drink. Soon he was questioning the reality of what had just happened; and, a drink later, he stumbled into his bedroom and flopped onto his bed, fully clothed.

  He was sleeping the sound sleep of the dead-drunk when his bed got jostled.

  Somebody was kicking it.

  Waking to semi-darkness, Stone said, “Who in hell …”

  Looming over him was a roughly handsome, Clark Gable–mustached figure in a straw hat and a white double-breasted seersucker.

  Stone dove for Sadie, his .38 in its shoulder holster slung over his nightstand, but then, in an eyeblink, the guy was gone.

  “Over here, boyo.”

  Stone turned and the guy in the jauntily cocked straw hat was standing there, picking his teeth with a toothpick.

  “Save yourself the ammo,” the guy said. “They already got me.”

  And he unbuttoned his jacket and displayed several ugly gaping exit wounds.

  “In the back,” the guy said, “the bastards.”

  The guy looked oddly familiar. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Let’s put it this way. If a bunch of trigger-happy feds are chasin’ ya, don’t duck down that alley by the Biograph—it’s a dead-end, brother.”

  “John Dillinger!”

  “Right—only it’s a hard ‘g,’ like in gun: Dillin-ger. Okay, sonny? Pet peeve o’ mine.” Dillinger was buttoning up his jacket.

  “You … you must not have been killed wearing that suit.”

  “Naw—it’s new. Christmas present from the Boss. I got a pretty good racket goin’ here—helpin’ chumps like you make good. Another five hundred years, and I get sprung.”

  “How exactly is a cheap crook like you gonna help me make good?”

  Dillinger grabbed Stone by the shirt front. Stone took a swing at the ghost, but his hand only passed through.

  “There ain’t nothin’ cheap about John Dillinger! I didn’t rob nobody but banks, and times was hard, then, banks was the bad guys … and I never shot nobody. Otherwise, I’da got the big heat.”

  “The big heat?”

  Dillinger raised an eyebrow and angled a thumb, downward. “Which is where you’re headed, sonny, if you don’t get your lousy head screwed on right. Come with me.”

  “Where are we goin’?”

  “Into your past. Maybe that’s why I got picked for this caper—see, I was a Midwest farm kid like you. Come on! Don’t make me drag ya …”

  Reluctantly, Stone followed the spirit into the next room …

  … where Stone found himself not in the living room of his apartment, but in the snowy yard out in front of a small farmhouse. Snowflakes fell lazily upon an idyllic rural winter landscape; an eight-year-old boy was building a snowman.

  “I know this place,” Stone said.

  “You know the kid, too,” Dillinger said. “It’s you. You live in that house.”

  “Why aren’t I cold? It’s gotta be freezing, but I feel like I’m still in my apartment.”

  “You’re a shadow here, just like me,” Dillinger said.

  “Dickie!” a voice called from the porch. “Come inside—you’ll catch your death!”

  “Ma!” Stone said, and moved toward her. He studied her serene, beautiful face in the doorway. “Ma …”

  He tried to touch her and his hand passed through.

  Behind him, Dillinger said, “I told ya, boyo—you’re a shadow. Just lean back and watch … maybe you’ll learn somethin’.”

  Then eight-year-old Dickie Stone ran right through the shadow of his future self, and inside the house, closing the door behind him, leaving Stone and Dillinger on the porch.

  “Now what?” Stone asked.

  “Since when were you shy about breaking and entering?” Dillinger said.

  And walked through the door.…

  “Look who’s talking,” Stone said. He took a breath and followed.

  Stone found himself in the cozy farmhouse, warmed by a wood-burning stove, which, surprisingly, he could feel. In one corner of the modestly furnished living room stood a pine tree, almost too tall for the room to contain, decorated with tinsel and a star, wrapped gifts scattered under it. A spinet piano hugged a wall. Stone watched his eight-year-old self strip out of an aviator cap and woolen coat and boots and sit at a little table where he began working on a puzzle.

  “Five hundred pieces,” Stone said. “It’s a picture of Tom Mix and his horse what’s-his-name.”

  “Tony,” said Dillinger.

  “God, will ya smell that pine tree! And my mother’s cooking! If I’m a shadow, how come I can smell her cooking?”

  “Hey, pal—don’t ask me. I’m just the tour guide. Maybe somebody upstairs wants your memory jogged.”

  Stone moved into the kitchen, where his mother was at the stove, stirring gravy.

  “God, that gravy smells good … can you smell it?”

  “No,” said Dillinger.

  “She’s baking mincemeat pie, too … you’re lucky you can’t smell that. Garbage! But Pa always liked it.…”

  “My ma made a mean plum pudding at Christmas,” Dillinger said.

  “Mine, too! It’s bubbling on the stove! Can’t you smell it?”

  “No! This is your past, pal, not mine.…”

  The back door opened and a man in a blue denim coat and woolen knit cap entered, stomping the snow off his workboots.

  “That mincemeat pie must be what heaven smells like,” the man said. Sky-blue eyes were an incongruously gentle presence in his hard, weathered face.

  “Pa,” Stone said.

  Taking off his jacket, the man walked right through the shadow of his grown son. “Roads are still snowed in,” his father told his mother.

  “Oh dear! I was so counting on Bob and Helen for Christmas supper!”

  “That’s my uncle and aunt,” Stone told Dillinger. “Bob was mom’s brother.”

  “They’ll be here,” Pa Stone said, with a thin smile. “Davey took the horse and buggy into town after them.”

  “My brother Davey,” Stone explained to Dillinger.

  “Oh dear,” his mother was saying. “He’s so frail … oh how could you …”

  “Send a boy to do a man’s job? Sarah, Davey’s sixteen. Proud as I am of the boy for his school marks, he’s got to learn to be a man. Anyway, he wanted to do it. He likes to help.”

  Stone’s ma could only say, “Oh dear,” again and again.

  “Now, Sarah—I’ll not have these boys babied!”

  “Well, the old S. O. B. sure didn’t baby me,”

  Stone said to Dillinger.

  “Davey just doesn’t have Dickie’s spirit,” said Pa. “Dickie’s always getting in scrapes, and he sure don’t make the grades Davey does, but the boy’s got gumption and guts.”

  Stone had never known his pa felt that way about him.
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br />   “Then why are you so hard on the child, Jess?” his mother was asking. “Last time he got caught playing hookey from school, you gave him the waling of his life.”

  “How else is the boy to learn? That’s how my pa taught me the straight and narrow path.”

  “Straight and narrow razor strap’s more like it,” Stone said.

  Ma was stroking Pa’s rough face. “You love both your boys. It’s Christmas, Jess. Why don’t you tell ’em how you feel?”

  “They know,” he said gruffly.

  Emotions churned in Stone, and he didn’t like it. “Tour guide—I’ve had about all of this I can take.…”

  “Not just yet,” Dillinger said. “Let’s go in the other room.”

  They did, but it was suddenly later, after dark, the living room filled with family members sitting on sofas and chairs and even the floor, having cider after a supper that everybody was raving about.

  A pudgy, good-natured man in his forties was saying to eight-year-old Dickie, “How do you like your gift, young man?”

  The boy was wearing a policeman’s cap and a little tin badge; he also had a miniature nightstick, a pair of handcuffs, and a traffic whistle. “It’s the cat’s meow, Uncle Bob!”

  “Where does he get those vulgar expressions?” his mother asked disapprovingly, but not sternly.

  “Cap’n Billy’s Whiz Bang,” Stone whispered to Dillinger.

  “Never missed an issue myself,” Dillinger said.

  The boy started blowing the whistle shrilly and there was laughter, but the boy’s father said,

  “Enough!”

  And the boy obeyed.

  The door opened. A boy of sixteen, but skinny and not much taller than Dickie, came in; bundled in winter clothes, he was bringing in a pile of firewood for the wood-burning stove.

  “Davey,” Stone said.

  “Did you like your older brother?” Dillinger asked.

  “He was a great guy. You could always depend on him for a smile or a helpin’ hand.… But what did it get him?”

  Out of his winter jacket, firewood deposited, Davey went over to his younger brother and ruffled his hair. “Gonna get the bad guys, little brother?”

  “I’m gonna bop ’em,” Dickie said, “then slap the cuffs on!”