Hank shook his head too. "Fights with his brother."
Jingle joined in. "Pouts. Cries."
"My goodness. Coal?"
"Coal," the elves sang in chorus.
"Ahhhh." Mrs. Claus moved on to the next letter. "Missy Widgitz?"
"Nice," said Frank.
"But," said Hank.
"Read the letter," said Jingle.
Mrs. Claus cleared her throat and took the letter out of its envelope. "'Dear Santa,'" she read aloud. "'I have been extra good all year long, but I do not want any dolls, games or books this Christmas. You can give my toys to a poor child who needs them more than me.'" Mrs. Claus smiled. "How precious."
"Keep reading," Jingle said.
Mrs. Claus looked back down at the letter. "'But there is something I would like—my very own . . .' Oh."
She peeked back up at the elves, who stared back at her, frowning indignantly.
"'Elf,'' Mrs. Claus read. "'I promise to feed it and take it for walks and . . .' Oh my."
"She's getting a Barbie," Jingle said.
"I see. Well, I think what we're looking for wouldn't be quite so . . . colorful." Mrs. Claus pulled out the next letter. "Like this one. This little boy wants books, games and a Farrah Fawcett-Majors poster. All very normal. What do we know about this—" She squinted at the name scrawled across the bottom of the page. "Bud Schmidt?"
Frank rolled his eyes. "Oh."
Hank rolled his eyes. "That one."
Jingle shrugged.
"Naughty?" Mrs. Claus asked.
"Eh," said Frank.
"Could be worse," said Hank.
"That's not the problem," said Frank.
"He's forty-three years old," said Hank.
"Ahhh," said Mrs. Claus. She placed the letter on Frank's desk. "Well, that is suspicious—if a bit transparent. I suppose it's the best candidate we have so far."
She flipped to the last letter, obviously hoping for something better.
Dear Mr. Claus,
I am seven years of age. I have been a well-behaved child this year. Thus I consider myself deserving of reward. I think you should bring me candy and a toy truck.
I will look for the candy in my socks. You may place the truck beneath the Christmas bush. I will leave baked goods out for you to consume, as is the usual custom.
Cordially yours,
Bjorn Bjelvenstam
4000 Sundquist Road
(on the northernmost edge of town near the abandoned lutefisk factory—it will look dark, but do not let that be of concern)
Kalmar, Sweden
P.S.: There is a chimney on my house. Please feel free to make use of it in the fashion for which you have become so famous.
"Ah ha," said Frank.
"Oh ho," said Hank.
"Umm hmm," said Mrs. Claus.
"I'll get the sleigh," said Jingle.
Minutes later, he and Mrs. Claus were in the air, headed for Sweden behind a team of young back-up reindeer.
"Now, Pac-Man! Now, Disco! Now, Yoda and Vader!" Mrs. Claus called out, giving the reins a gentle snap. "On, Ford! On Carter! On, Alda and Nader!"
The reindeer strained in their harnesses, rocketing over Greenland and the Norwegian Sea toward Sweden. But they weren't fast enough.
"Oh no!" Jingle cried when they reached the outskirts of Kalmar. "We're too late!"
He stood up and pointed at the rooftops below. They were covered with sleigh tracks, hoofprints and discolored snow—telltale signs that Santa had already come and gone.
The reindeer veered to the east then, changing course so suddenly Jingle lost his balance and nearly toppled over the side. The only thing that kept him in the sleigh was Mrs. Claus's hand reaching out to snag a handful of his green tights.
"Thanks," Jingle squeaked. "But where are we—?"
"Look! Up ahead!"
In the distance, a pinprick of light gleamed through the gentle swirl of snow. As they got closer, they could see shapes in its soft red glow.
Antlers, a rooftop, a chimney.
And an empty sleigh.
"Take it easy, everyone," Mrs. Claus told the reindeer. "Let's try to make this a very quiet landing."
The reindeer slowed to a flying trot, then a gliding amble, and Mrs. Claus's sleigh slid into place next to her husband's without a sound.
"Well done, my dears," Mrs. Claus said as she stepped carefully onto the roof. There wasn't much room to move around. It was a small house, dreary and forlorn, with no neighbors in sight other than a decaying factory half a mile up the road.
"Keep it steady there, buddy," Jingle told Rudolph, whose nose was beginning to strobe with excitement. "Where's Santa?"
Rudolph grunted and sneezed simultaneously, making a wet, snorting noise that, translated roughly, meant "I dunno." Comet and Cupid and the rest grunted and sneezed in agreement.
"Deary deary dear," said Mrs. Claus.
She was peering down into the chimney. Jingle crept over and pulled himself up to see what she was looking at.
A few feet below, metal bars gleamed in the moonlight. Mrs. Claus cleaned her glasses with her apron and leaned in to give them a closer look.
"They're mounted on some kind of spring mechanism," she said. "So when Santa got to the bottom of the chimney—"
"He couldn't get back out!" Jingle blurted. "You were right. It is a trap!"
Mrs. Claus shushed him. "Listen."
She turned an ear downward and bent over the chimney. Jingle imitated her.
Voices echoed up from inside the house.
"Me? Work for the KGB? Ho ho ho! Ridiculous!"
There could be no mistaking who it was. Santa was alright—for the moment.
"What could I possibly do for you?"
"Vell, you know vhat they zay," a heavily accented man replied. "'He zeez you vhen you're zleeping. He knowz vhen you're avake. He knowz if you've been bad or good, zo be good for goodnez zake.'"
"Yes?"
"Don't be denze, fat man! You are the greatezt zpy the vorld haz ever known!"
"'Zpy'?"
"Yez, zpy!"
"I don't—"
"There iz no zecret our enemiez could keep from uz vith you on our zide!"
"On your what now?"
"Our zide! Thiz cowboy the Americanz have elected—Reagan. He planz to zpend hiz vay to victory over uz. Vell, let him try! Ve vill have zomething money cannot buy. You!"
"Wait now. What's all this about a cowboy?"
"Zoon you vill be zmuggled to the Zoviet Union in one of our zubmarines. And then imagine the propaganda value vhen Zanta Clauz—the living embodiment of Veztern materializm—renounzez hiz vayz and zayz, 'At lazt, thiz red zuit of mine really ztandz for zomething!'"
"'Fez turn materialism'? My red 'zoot'? Ho ho! Goodness, lad! I can't understand a word you're saying!"
"Here iz all you need to underztand. Our operative at the Pole haz hidden a bomb—a very powerful bomb—in your vorkshop. If you do not cooperate, ve vill reduze your toymaking elvez to zo much zmoke and duzt."
Mrs. Claus and Jingle locked eyes on each other, each of them stifling a horrified gasp.
"Zmoke and duzt?" a baffled Santa mused.
"Da! Zmoke and duzt! You know. Boom!"
"Hmmmm. I'm sorry. You're just not getting through. Maybe one of you other fellows can tell me what your friend's so excited about."
A string of Russian curses bounced up out of the chimney.
"I vill blow up your caztle! It iz that zimple! Thiz iz the deztruct button here in my hand!"
"Oh! Ho ho! A bomb! I thought you said a very powerful bum. Now I see! Clever! Naughty, but clever! Ho ho ho! But let me tell you something, my friend. You'll never get anywhere in life with bombs and threats. Generosity and good cheer! Those are the things that really matter. Now why don't you let me out of this cage so I can be on my way? I've got toys to deliver. Ho ho!"
Santa's ho-hoing was cut off by more curses. The Russians were learning what Mrs. Claus and everyon
e else at the North Pole already knew.
Santa Claus was the sweetest man on the face of the Earth . . . and he was nowhere near the brightest.
At that moment, the real mastermind of the Claus clan was whispering quick instructions to Jingle. The elf gulped, nodded, hopped into Santa's sleigh and told Rudolph and the other A-list reindeer it was time to fly their furry butts off. They were careful to take off quietly, but once they were airborne they streaked out of sight like a red-nosed rocket.
"Get it through your thick zkull, Clauz!" the Russian spymaster was screaming as they left. "Ve are not letting you go!"
"Really? My my my. That's a bit selfish, wouldn't you say? Think of the children."
"I am thinking of the children! The children who vill grow up in a better vorld because ve have overthrown decadent capitalizm and freed them from the grinding boot heel of the bourgeoizie!"
"Well, I don't know about all that. I just know how those good little boys and girls love their toys. Ho ho! And if they don't find them under the tree tomorrow—goodness! We can't have that, can we?"
Mrs. Claus heard a strangled cry that was, no doubt, "Oh, shut up!" in Russian. Santa didn't get the message.
"If you let me go now I'll still have time to stop and eat all the treats the kids have left out for me. You wouldn't believe how disappointed the children are if I don't eat those cookies. And all those glasses of milk to drink! Speaking of which, I should probably make a quick pit-stop before I get going. Ho ho ho! So if you'll just let me out of here . . . ."
Mrs. Claus couldn't wait any longer. Another minute and the Russians might kill her husband out of sheer irritation. So she hopped in her sleigh, brought it around for a landing on the ground below, walked up to the front door and knocked. A minute passed without an answer, so she knocked again. This time the door opened just wide enough for a tall man in a black turtleneck and black leather trench coat to peek out at her.
"Yez?" the man said.
"Hello. I'm here about my husband. May I come in please?"
The tall man frowned. "It iz late. You should go home. There iz no—"
Pac-Man the reindeer sneezed, and the man poked his head out the door and saw the sleigh for the first time. His eyes widened. Then he poked his hand out the door, too.
There was a gun in it.
"Inzide, if you pleaze."
"Thank you," Mrs. Claus said.
In the house were four more men in black turtlenecks and black leather coats. They were all wearing berets and sunglasses. And all of them had guns.
Santa was on the far side of the room, standing in a cage that surrounded the fireplace.
"Gladys!" he called out when he saw her.
"Gladyz?" one of the turtleneck men said. Mrs. Claus recognized the voice immediately. It was the spymaster.
"No, dear. Gladys," she corrected him. "With an s. But you can call me 'Mrs. Claus.'"
She moved toward him with her right hand out. There was a gun in his, and the look on his face indicated that they were not about to share a hearty handshake. Mrs. Claus stepped past the gun, threw her arms around the Russian and gave him an enthusiastic hug. The spymaster stiffened like he'd been given an electric shock.
"Unhand me, voman," he spat.
"Oh, come now. Everyone needs a hug from time to time."
"Let me go!"
Mrs. Claus stepped back, shaking her head sadly. "Alright then. But you really shouldn't be afraid of a little human warmth."
"Ho ho ho! She's right, you know! You look like a man who could use a few hugs!"
"Zilenze, zimpleton!"
There was a comfy-looking armchair near the fireplace, and Mrs. Claus walked over and took a seat. All the guns in the room pivoted to follow her as she moved.
"Don't you worry, Santa," she said, folding her hands primly in her lap. "We'll have you out of there soon."
"Wonderful! Time's a-wasting! I'm not even half-way through my route! So many toys to deliver. So many notes to read. So many cookies to—"
"Yes, darling, of course. We know."
"No one iz going anyvhere!" the spymaster barked. "A threat far away could not penetrate your thick zkull, Zanta. But now fate haz delivered uz a new hoztage—one you can zee with your own eyez." He brought up his gun and pointed it at Mrs. Claus's forehead. "Perhapz now you vill underztand that ve mean buzinezz. Vow to zerve uz, or your vife diez."
"Well, now . . . that's. . . I . . .," Santa stammered. "You wouldn't really do a mean old thing like that, would you?"
A malevolent grin slithered across the Russian's lips.
"Yez," he said. "I vould."
"I think he really would dear," Mrs. Claus said. "But he won't."
The spymaster cocked an eyebrow at her. "Oh? And vhy vouldn't I?"
"Because we returned your bomb." Mrs. Claus pulled out the control mechanism she'd slipped from his jacket while giving him a hug. "And I have this."
One of the turtleneck men blurted out a Russian phrase so foul it would have made a reindeer blush.
Mrs. Claus looked at him and shook her head reprovingly. "Such language," she said to him in perfect Russkij. "What would your mother say?"
"Sorry, ma'am," the henchman mumbled.
"Vhat do you mean vhen you zay you returned the bomb?" the spymaster asked, eyeing the remote control in her hand.
"We took it back where it came from."
"Where it . . . ? You mean Mozcow?"
Mrs. Claus nodded. "The Kremlin."
Two of the Russians burst into tears. Another threw himself down and began kicking and pounding the floorboards. Another, the tallest and palest of all the turtleneck men, simply rolled his eyes and sighed loudly as if he'd already been through the exact same experience a hundred times before.
"Zteady, comradez," the spymaster said. "She iz bluffing."
"Oh, I assure you I'm not bluffing," she bluffed.
"Yez, you are. If you vere telling the truth, you could tell me vhere the bomb vaz hidden."
"Why, in the star at the top of our Christmas tree, of course."
There was really no of course about it. It was a guess. That little assassin Giftwrap had been up to something in the tree, hadn't he? If she were wrong, at that very moment Jingle would be dumping a perfectly good star in the Arctic Ocean while a bomb sat in the workshop, ready to blow the place to peppermint-scented smithereens if the Russians got their hands on the remote control again.
The spymaster laughed.
It took Mrs. Claus a moment to realize that it wasn't a gloating, "You old fool!" laugh. It was a bitter, "Why me?" laugh. Then she saw the slice of fruitcake he'd drawn from his black trench coat.
"Oh, come now," she chided him. "You don't have to take it that hard."
But it was too late for the spymaster. Within seconds his chin was covered in crumbs, and he was dead.
The tall, sighing spy moved quickly to the cage around the fireplace. He pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the door.
"Go," he told Santa. He turned to Mrs. Claus. "Hurry."
He followed them out to the sleigh and helped them both into the front seat.
"I have to azk you," he said once Santa had the reins in hand. "At the North Pole, do you have . . . how you zay? Political azylum?"
"A xylowhat?" Santa asked.
Mrs. Claus smiled. "Get in." She waited until the tall Russian was settled into the back seat, then swiveled around to face him. "So tell me, young man. What can you do?"
The secret agent shrugged. "I have been a zpy for zo many years. All I know iz thiz Cold Var."
"You don't have any skills?"
"Vell . . . I do know one hundred and forty vays to kill a man."
"Oh." Mrs. Claus stroked her chin for a moment. "Well, maybe Rumpity-Tump could use some help in the stable."
"Ho ho ho!" said Santa.
The reindeer knew what to do when they heard that. So they did it.
NAIVETÉ
"Look, Charlie, let's face it," sai
d the little girl with the raven hair and the cold, unblinking eyes. "We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket."
The Reptile, a.k.a. Alvin Joseph Erie of River City, Indiana, snorted so hard Chivas Regal came out his nose. Which wasn't just undignified and uncomfortable, it was a sad waste of fine whiskey. But there was plenty more where that came from (and plenty already in the Reptile's stomach), so his mood wasn't dampened even though the front of his vintage AC/DC T-shirt was.
"You go, girl!" the Reptile croaked, voice phlegmy, puffy eyes watering, nostrils burning like he'd just snorted a line of Comet. "Testify!"
On the television screen, Lucy Van Pelt dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
"It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know," she told Charlie Brown.
"Right on!" the Reptile cheered, losing even more of his drink as he raised the "World's Greatest Dad" mug in his hand in a sloppy, scotch-sloshing salute. He turned to Diesel, who'd draped his massive body over the living room's other La-Z-Boy recliner, and jerked a thumb at the TV. "See, D? What'd I tell you? You're not gonna get straight talk like that from no snowman."
Diesel (a.k.a. Kenneth Patrick McIntyre) kept his gaze glued to the TV, answering only with a "whatever" grunt that stirred some extra foam into the bottle of Bud Lite perched atop the round mound of his belly. There'd been three DVDs to choose from that evening—A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman and (excavated from its hiding place at the bottom of a drawer of socks) Girls Gone Wild: Dormroom Fantasies Volume 2. They'd already watched the Girls Gone Wild DVD. Twice. After that, Diesel had voted for Frosty. But the Reptile cast his vote for Charlie Brown, which meant Frosty lost by a landslide. In the tiny, two-man democracy Diesel and the Reptile had founded six years before, "one man, one vote" was not the law of the land.
Necessity had first bonded the men together. They met in the Knox County Jail: Diesel a fumble-fingered would-be beer thief, the Reptile a pot dealer so far down on the drug cartel totem pole he wasn't really on the pole at all but merely part of the dirt on which it stood. They were the pettiest of petty criminals, together in a holding cell the very night the River City Police Department took down the town's biggest crack house and the crew of swaggering gangbangers who ran it. This being Indiana, these were Hoosier gangbangers, and therefore lacking the serious street cred of their New York or Los Angeles counterparts. Which only meant they had something to prove. And there'd be no better way to prove it than grinding a couple crackers into crumbs.
Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime Page 17
