The Christmas Megapack Page 9

  Once the elevator hit the tenth floor, the doors opened and I found myself in a plush lobby. Expensive paintings of old bearded guys were hung all over the walls. Obviously earlier Thompsons—the founder, his sons, brothers—as grim a looking bunch of angry curmudgeons as you’d ever want to see. Not a smile or friendly look among any of them.

  There was a curvy receptionist behind a desk. She had a red Santa elf cap on her head. The end came to a point with a little red ball. She looked cute as hell. I figured she was there for window dressing and didn’t know anything about any of this. I showed her my badge, gave her the shush sign and put her back into the elevator and then pressed Lobby. “Stay there until I tell you that you can come back up. Now go!”

  I figured there had to be another elevator, a special private elevator somewhere in Thompson’s suite. I’d find that, but first I’d find Fats. And the others. If they were really here. Which I hoped to discover for sure soon enough.

  It was near dinner time. I knew Fats would be getting mighty hungry real soon now. The thought of that mighty appetite of his running wild chilled me and at the same time it brought a smile to my face. Fats hadn’t missed a meal in ten years, I sure didn’t want him to start now.

  There was a door behind the receptionist’s desk. No doubt it opened into Gerald Thompson’s private suite of offices, and his own personal apartment. He had the entire tenth-floor penthouse. It was a huge area. I’d read where the rich and well-connected had some mighty fine parties up here in the old days. I could see it was the hot party type of place, where anything went, and did. The kind of place guys like Fats and I would never be invited to. I could not see it as the focus of a lot of sex and sin but not the center of some crazy Bay City Santa Claus-napping scheme. It didn’t make any sense to me at the time—but there wasn’t any kind of prerequisite for crime back then in Bay City. Or for that matter, for a lot of crime today either.

  So I opened the door, stepped into the huge room, and stood there amazed as I looked upon the damnedest situation I’d ever seen in my entire life!

  I had my gun drawn as I entered Thompson’s private suite of luxurious rooms. It was a magnificent area, lavishly furnished. There was a gorgeous Persian rug that ran the entire expanse of the room. The rug must have measured fifty feet by a hundred. Upon it were five guys all in full-dress Santa Claus outfits: baggy red trousers, thick black belt and ankle-high black boots, bright red shirts, white suspenders, thick long white beards, funny little pointy red caps with the traditional snowball at the point. The really weird thing was that these five Santas were all on the floor in a general wild melee—each one beating the living crap out of the other! They were punching, kicking, biting, pushing, cursing, growling, screaming, crying, jumping, hitting, and falling all over each other. It was a mess.

  It took me a minute to pick out Fats from the pack of brawlers. Once I did, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Then I picked out McConnell. Drunk as a skunk and giving Fats a hard time as usual. I noticed the original Thompson’s Department Store Santa, a guy named Jake Stanton, and another fellow named Davis, who I knew played Santa at the Hermitage. Then there was the remaining Santa, and they all seemed to be fighting him. More or less. At least Fats was fighting. The others didn’t seem to know what they were doing or care who they were doing it to. It was a general punching, kicking, biting melee of incredible confusion, a totally out of control free-for-all with the drunken McConnell hitting wildly at everyone.

  I could see Fats was having a hard time of it. That last Santa, who I figured had to be Gerald Thompson himself, was hitting on Fats pretty good, while McConnell was interfering by lashing out drunkenly at anyone. Including Fats—who’d gone in there risking his life and was trying to rescue the idiot, by the way. I could see McConnell was so damn drunk he had no idea who was who, so in a general fit of rage he was just swinging out at everyone. It didn’t make things easy for Fats but it was sure funny to watch. I was amused. I couldn’t help laughing, once I realized there was no real danger to my partner.

  I mean, watching five fully-dressed Santas beating the living crap out of each other seemed pretty funny to me just then. It kinda ignited my Christmas spirit, in a weird way. I don’t know how. Maybe it was just the season. None of the Santas held a gun or any weapon, which was good. I figured Fats had somehow gummed up Thompson’s works, caused himself and the other abducted Santas to try an escape, and I’d walked in when Thompson was trying to prevent that escape.

  “Hey, Griff!” Fats bellowed, finally noticing me as he pushed McConnell off of him again, only to receive a hammer-punch to the bread basket from Thompson that set him down a bit.

  “Having fun?” I asked, moving in closer. My weapon was drawn and ready, just in case anyone did something stupid—like pull a gun, or really try to hurt Fats—but the damn scene was so funny to me, so downright ridiculous, I couldn’t help but watch and enjoy it. It surely was some show.

  “Damn moron Santa Clauses! I’m never gonna play Santa again!” Fats promised loudly, deftly knocking Thompson out of his way, then pulling the man’s fake white beard off his face. Which got Thomspon even more angry.

  “Ain’t exactly the Christmas spirit,” I said to Fats, laughing. “By the way, you okay?”

  “Sure, Griff, doing fine, having a ball, actually, but ain’t this the damnedest thing you ever seen?”

  I said yes, let Fats bang a few more heads together in his inimitable style, then asked him, “Ah, would you like a hand? I kinda hate to break up the entertainment and all since it looks like you and the boys here went to such pains and are obviously having so much fun.”

  “Nah,” Fats growled, getting Thompson in a headlock.

  “Figured I’d ask. Just to let you know I’m still on the job and paying attention.”

  “Yeah, Griff, that’s right nice of you. This crap is kinda dampening my usual cheerful Santa Christmas spirit, you know? You think you could do me a favor and get this drunken bastard McConnell off me long enough so that I can cuff this moron Santa-snatching fool Thompson?”

  “Sure, I can do that, Fats. All you had to do was ask.”

  Fats growled, laughed, said, “Thanks, Griff.”

  I didn’t play it cute, I just came up behind McConnell and slugged him hard with my gun butt, which sent him immediately into dreamland. Then I pulled the other Santas off Thompson, and pushed them to the side. Fats grabbed Thompson, got him down, cuffed him and finally stood up, took a deep breath and said, “Getting too old for this crap, Griff. Santa, Christmas, man it’s been a long, rough year!”

  I laughed, nodded. I got Thompson to his feet, dragged him over to a chair and plopped him down into it hard.

  “Don’t you move, if you know what’s good for you!” I told him sharply. Then to Fats, I said, “So what the hell is all this about?”

  “I don’t know, exactly,” Fats replied. Fats was wearing his street clothes under his Santa outfit, but he still kept on the Santa outfit.

  I couldn’t figure that out and told him, “So, ah, you gonna keep the Santa suit on?”

  Fats just gave me a wry smile, “Yeah, Griff, just for a while. I got an idea. I’ll let you know about it in a bit.”

  “Well, don’t get too many ideas, Fats, that can be dangerous,” I laughed.

  He nodded, said, “It’s okay, Griff, you’ll like this idea.”

  I frowned. I knew Fats. That did not sound reassuring. I decided to change the subject to the immediate situation. “So what’s the story with Thompson?”

  “Guy’s got a real bad thing for Santa and Christmas,” Fats told me, frowning as he looked over to our prisoner. “He was gonna go out tonight dressed as Santa, take all our places, and then start shooting shoppers. He planned to do this the damn night before Christmas! It would have been a blood bath.”

  I looked at Gerald Thompson. He was a wealthy guy, the son of priviledge and well-known as a wacko, but not really known to be dangerous. Inherited wealth can do that to some people
. It can give them a screw loose. Or, in Thompson’s case, if you were already inclined in that direction, big money will give them the opportunity to indulge themselves in all kinds of stupid or weird crap they’ll think they can get away with. And usually do.

  “He did it!” Jake Stanton shouted, standing there in his Santa outfit in red rage. “Kidnapped me right out of the locker room! Imagine, the bastard kidnapping Santa Claus!”

  “Ah, you’re not really Santa Claus,” Fats spoke up, but Stanton did not seem to hear him.

  The guy from the swanky Hermitage joined in almost immediately, “That madman, he also abducted me! Me! Of all people. Reginald Davis! I want you two to do something about it. You’re police officers, aren’t you?”

  He looked at me, then towards Fats and shook his head. Fats and I weren’t impressed with his haughty airs. Fats just barked, “Take it easy, Reggie!”

  “So what’s the story, Fats?” I asked.

  “Gerald here, caught me by the elevator when I was going back to do my Santa thing after our little encounter with Jonesey in the men’s room. He said he wanted to talk to me about the kidnappings, said he thought he had some information on who the guy might be.” Fats laughed, “At least he was telling me the truth about that, Griff. He just didn’t tell me he was the guy. Until it was too late. He jumped me, gave me a nasty crack on the head when I wasn’t looking, then put me on ice up here in a back room with his other Santas.”

  I nodded. What I’d figured.

  “Gerald’s a severely disturbed guy. When I escaped and tried to free the other Santas, Gerald saw me and jumped me again. This time though, he was dressed as Santa himself, and he had a shotgun, Griff. I think he was gonna go play Santa and use that gun. I grabbed it from him and tossed it out the window before he could use it, then that drunken fool McConnell jumped me. He thought I was Thompson! That’s where you walked in, Some fun, eh?”

  I smiled at Fats, “You always seem to get into these interesting situations.”

  “Don’t I though. Well, all this fighting was damn uncivil of Thompson, Griff. When he came at me dressed in a Santa outfit carrying that shotgun, I damn near wet my pants. I mean, I seen weird stuff, but this boy could have a monopoly on crazy.”

  “Damn dangerous too,” I added.

  “He could have really ruined Christmas for a lot of people,” Fats growled.

  “You did good, Fats,” I said. I was proud of my partner.

  “I still don’t know the motive, Griff. The guy’s got a serious problem with Christmas, and he down-right hates Santa Claus. I don’t understand this warped mind stuff. Did you ever heard of such a thing?”

  I shrugged. Things were a lot more simple in the old days but we still had our moments. I said, “What does it matter, Fats? One thing you can always count on with a crazy person—you can never really figure out what they’ll do next. And you’ll be damn lucky if you can figure out why they do what they do. Otherwise, Fats, they wouldn’t be crazy. Now would they? They’d be normal and not doing crazy violent stuff.”

  Fats nodded. He looked over at Thompson. The guy had some kinda weird smirk on his puss. The kind of twisted grin I knew Fats would just love to knock off the guy’s face.

  I sent the other Santas on their way. Then Fats and I brought out Gerald Thompson, still dressed as Santa, but now in cuffs, slightly battered and bruised.

  “You’ll be changing that Santa suit for one with prison stripes soon enough,” Fats told him.

  Gerald Thompson just gave us that insipid grin again, the kind of crazy-man, I-ain’t-really-home look that can get cops nervous. I figured that he’d lost it all now and that his mind was shot. That’s when the bad guys couldn’t be reasoned with, which is when they could be most dangerous.

  “It’s the Christmas Crazies, Griff. Lotta lonely people. Lotta bitter people. Lotta crazy people. It all kinda jells on Christmas for too many of them. Failure, loss, pointless people living pointless lives. It’s one day out of the year when a lot of people can get too thoughtful, they reassess their miserable lives, and they always come up short. It’s a time when they see the truth clear for some reason, maybe the only time of the year they’ll take a real hard look, and that cruel truth is not anything pleasant for them to see. It all bubbles to the surface on Christmas, Griff.”

  Fats was getting talky again. I just told him, “Come on, let’s get this creep in the car and run him downtown. And when the hell are you going to take off that stupid Santa suit?”

  “Hold it, Griff,” Fats said, handing off our prisoner to me. “Take this louse to the car, I gotta make a stop on the 4th floor.”

  “Fats?” I asked, but he was gone so fast I didn’t get a chance to get any answer. I knew he’d missed a meal or two. I just hoped he wasn’t stepping out for an emergency bite to eat. Fats was like that. However, I didn’t remember Thompson’s Department Store with counter service on the 4th floor.

  I took Thompson to our car. A prowl car was outside and had just pulled up and I passed Thompson off to the uniform guys. They’d bring him downtown.

  I sat in our car and waited for Fats.

  It was already beginning to snow. Never seen snow in Bay City before. It was most unusual. It was really coming down too. Big flakes, already covering everything. It looked kinda nice.

  Fats walked over, threw something heavy in the trunk, then jumped into the driver’s seat beside me like the whale he was. I wondered if he had snuck off for a snack or two. He had no food in his hands. He was also still wearing that damn Santa suit.

  It was getting chilly. The snow really coming down now. I turned up the heater but it didn’t work. Fats lit up a smoke and looked out the window at Bay City. We watched the snow coming down. It had begun to cover everything.

  I watched the snow fall and wondered what Fats was thinking about. He was unusually quiet.

  He started up the car, and I wondered where he was going.

  “City looks nice with the snow, Fats,” I said.

  Fats shrugged, “You know how it is, Griff. The Christmas Crazies. We’ll read about it all in tomorrow’s papers—but right now, right this minute, I guarantee you, somewhere some cop is eating his gun, some kid’s spiking his arm full of dope, some father’s beating his wife and kids, some mother is plunging a steak knife into her husband’s back while he sleeps, some pimp is cutting some whore on Dumont Avenue, some slime is robbing and raping some eighty-year-old lady in some run-down SRO apartment somewhere in this town.”

  “My, my, you’re just bursting with Christmas cheer, aren’t you?” I said, feigning laughter. Trying to lighten the old walrus up a bit, but I knew Fats was dead right.

  Fats did not reply but got quiet. He kept driving. He was going into a bad part of town. The snow was coming down hard now but plenty of people were out and on the corners, whores making that final Christmas Eve date, drug dealers selling that last fix for the holiday, bums and winos passing a bottle as they warmed themselves at old oil drums stuffed with wood and set ablaze for heat. That was their Christmas present. Maybe they wouldn’t freeze to death out on the street tonight.

  “You gonna take off that silly Santa suit?” I asked.

  Fats ignored me, he didn’t even pay any attention to me, so I shut up about it.

  Fats turned down a street without any lights. I didn’t see any street sign. I didn’t know where we were. Fats didn’t say a word. Then he parked. He looked at me hard. His face was like.... It was so damn angry, like a damn killer. It scared me. It was like he was a different person, not the often grumpy, sometimes cheerful fatman I knew, but like I was looking down into his soul. It was not a pretty sight. It was all there for me to see plain as day, for just that one second—then it was gone. Fats’ face softened, he laughed and said, “It’s okay, Griff, I got one last call to make tonight.”

  Before I knew it he opened the door and was out of the car and in the back opening up the trunk. He took out a huge sack. It looked pretty heavy. I just hoped that he didn
’t have a body in it. Things like that were done all the time in Bay City in the old days, and the cops were the worst offenders. Fats walked off. I got out of the car and followed Fats as he trudged through the snow to a run-down rat-trap apartment building. There was no number on the building, no lock on the outer door. Fats walked in. I followed behind him, a little ways back. I saw Fats walk down the hall, the stink of urine and stale booze heavy in the air like smog. A drunk was sleeping it off on the floor at the end of the hall.

  Fats gave him a hard kick, growled, “Get the hell outta here!” The wino looked up, did a double take saw Fats dressed as Santa. Got another boot in the ass, then said, Santa? Is it really you? You know what I want for Christmas...?”

  “I know what you want and you’re not getting it! Now get the hell outta here!” Fats barked.

  The wino knew better than to remain in the Fatman’s way. He got up, backed off wobbly, “Okay, I’m going! I’m going!”

  Fats walked to the door the wino had been blocking. There were ten names listed around the bell. All of them were crossed out. The door bell didn’t work. I watched from the end of the hallway.

  Fats knocked softly upon the door.

  There was a muffled voice from inside. Nervous.

  All of a sudden I heard a loud voice boom out, “Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!”

  It was Fats!

  “Who’s there?” I heard a female voice whisper fearfully from behind the apartment door.

  “Open up, it’s me. It’s Santa Claus and it’s Christmas Eve. I’ve come to pay a call.”

  There was silence, then the door opened slightly, held back on a chain. I knew that could never keep Fats out. I was still wondering what the hell he was up to when I saw the woman’s face. Then I knew.