Here Comes Santa Claus
by Bill Pronzini
Page 3 of 6
While I was listening to an eight-year-old with braces and a
homicidal gleam in his eye tell me he wanted "a tank that has
this neat missile in it and you shoot the missile and it blows
everything up when it lands," Kerry appeared with a cup in her
hand. She motioned for me to join her at the far side of the
dais, behind Santa's sleigh. I got rid of the budding warmonger,
told the nearest elf I was taking a short break, stood up
creakily and with as much dignity as l could muster, and made my
way through the cotton snowdrifts to where Kerry stood.
She looked far better in her costume than I did in mine; in
fact, she looked so innocent and fetching I forgot for the moment
that l was angry with her. She was dressed as an angel-- all in
white with a coat-hanger halo wrapped in tinfoil. If real angels
looked like her, I couldn't wait to get to heaven.
She handed me the cup. It was full of some sort of punch with
a funny-looking skinny brown thing floating on top. "I thought
you could use a little Christmas cheer," she said.
"I can use a lot of Christmas cheer. Is this stuff spiked?"
"Of course not. Since when do you drink hard liquor?"
"Since I sat down on that throne over there."
"Oh, now, it can't be that bad."
"No? Let's see. A five-year-old screamed so loud in my left
ear that I'm still partially deaf. A fat kid stepped on my foot
and nearly broke a toe. Another kid accidentally kneed me in the
crotch and nearly broke something else. Not three minutes ago, a
mugger-in-training named Ronnie punched me in the stomach and
called me an asshole. And those are just the lowlights."
"Poor baby."
"That didn't sound very sincere."
"The fact is," she said, "most of the kids love you. I
overheard a couple of them telling their parents what a nice old
Santa you are."
"Yeah." l tried some of the punch. It wasn't too bad,
considering the suspicious brown thing floating in it. Must be a
deformed clove, I decided; the only other alternative--something
that had come out of the back end of a mouse--was unthinkable.
"How much more of this does the nice old Santa have to endure?"
"Two and a half hours."
"God! I'll never make it."
"Don't be such a curmudgeon," she said. "It's two days before
Christmas, we're taking in lots of money for the needy, and
everybody's having a grand time except you. Well, you and Mrs.
Simmons."
"Who's Mrs. Simmons?"
"Randolph Simmons's wife. You know, the corporate attorney.
She lost her wallet somehow--all her credit cards and two hundred
dollars in cash."
"That's too bad. Tell her I'll replace the two hundred if
she'll agree to trade places with me right now."
Kerry gave me her sometimes-you're-exasperating look. "Just
hang in there, Santa," she said and started away.
"Don't use that phrase around the kid named Ronnie," I called
after her. "It's liable to give him ideas."
I had been back on the throne less than ten seconds when who
should reappear but the little thug himself. Ronnie wasn't alone
this time; he had a bushy-mustached, gray-suited, scowling man
with him. The two of them clumped up onto the dais, shouldered
past an elf with a cherubic little girl in hand, and confronted
me.
The mustached guy said in a low, angry voice, "What the
hell's the idea threatening my kid?"
Fine, dandy. This was all I needed--an irate father.
"Answer me, pal. What's the idea telling Ronnie you'd shove a
pillow down his throat?"
"He punched me in the stomach," I said.
"So? That don't give you the right to threaten him. Hell, I
ought to punch you in the stomach."
"Do it, Dad," Ronnie said, "punch the old fake."
Nearby, the cherub started to cry. Loudly.
We all looked at her. Ronnie's dad said, "What'd you do?
Threaten her too?"
"Wanna see Santa! It's my turn, it's my turn!"
The elf said, "Don't worry, honey, you'll get your turn."
Ronnie's dad said, Apologize to any kid and we'll let it go."
Ronnie said, "Nah, sock him one!"
I said, "Mind telling me your name?"
It was Ronnie's dad I spoke to. He looked blank for two or
three seconds, after which he said, "Huh?"
"Your name. What is it?"
"What do you want to know for?"
"You look familiar. Very familiar, in fact. I think maybe
we've met before."
He stiffened. Then he took a good long wary look at me, as if
trying to see past my whiskers. Then he blinked, and all of a
sudden his righteous indignation vanished and was replaced by a
nervousness that bordered on the furtive. He wet his lips, backed
off a step.
"Come on, Dad," the little thug said, "punch his lights out."
His dad told him to shut up. To me he said, "Let's just
forget the whole thing, okay?" and then he turned in a hurry and
dragged a protesting Ronnie down off the dais and back into the
crowd.
I stared after them. And there was a little click in my mind
and I was seeing a photograph of Ronnie's dad as a younger man
without the big bushy mustache--and with a name and number across
his chest.
Ronnie's dad and I knew each other, all right. I had once had
a hand in having him arrested and sent to San Quentin on a grand
larceny rap.
Ronnie's dad was Markey Waters, a professional pickpocket and
jack-of-all-thievery who in his entire life had never gone
anywhere or done anything to benefit anyone except Markey Waters.
So what was he doing at the Gala family Christmas Charity
Benefit?
She lost her wallet somehow--all her credit cards and two
hundred dollars in cash.
Right.
Practicing his trade, of course.
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