Murder Most Merry (5 page)

Here Mr. Kay broke off his narrative to poke the fire and then to stare into the flames. As he did, Sorley once again had the distinct impression he was being watched. He turned and was startled to find another grouping of little pirate statues he hadn’t noticed before on a shelf right at the level of his eye in the bookcase beside the fireplace. They held drawn dirks and cutlasses in their earnest little hands and had pistols stuck in their belts. And, oh, what ugly little specimens they were!

“Then, early one December,” Mr. Kay continued, “Crandal captured a cargo of novelty items from the toy mines of Bavaria. Of course, in those days toys were quite unknown. Parents gave their children sensible gifts like socks or celluloid collars or pencil boxes at Christmas. Suddenly Crandal broke into a happy hornpipe on the frosty deck, for it had come to him how he could harm Goody Two-Shoes City and make it curse his name forever. But he would need a disguise to get by the guards at the city gate who had strict orders to keep a sharp eye out for Death-Warmed-Over. So he changed his black outfit for a red one with a pillow for fatness, rouge for his gray cheeks, a white beard to make him look older, and a jolly laugh to cover his pirate gloom. Then, on Christmas Eve, he put the
Olson Nickelhouse
in close to shore and sneaked into Goody Two-Shoes City with a wagonload of toys crated up like hymnals. That night he crept across the rooftops and down chimneys and by morning every boy and girl had a real toy under the Christmas tree.

“Well, of course, the parents knew right away who’d done the deed and what Crandal was up to. Next Christmas, they knew, they’d have to go and buy a toy in case Crandal didn’t show up again or risk a disappointed child. But suppose he came next year, too? Well, that would mean that the following year the parents would have to buy two toys. Then three. And on and on until children no longer knew the meaning of the word ‘enough. ‘

“Curse Crandal and the visit from the
Olson Nickelhouse
,” the parents muttered through clenched teeth. But their eavesdropping children misheard and thought they said ‘Kris Kringle’ and something about a visit from ‘Old Saint Nicholas.‘ As if a saint would give a boy a toy drum or saxophone to drive his father mad with, as if a saint would give a girl a Little Dolly Clotheshorse doll and set her dreaming over fashion magazines when she should be helping her mother in the kitchen.” Mr. Kay laughed until the tears came to his eyes. “Well, the Pirate King knew he’d hit upon a better game than making fat landlubbers walk an icy gangplank over cold gray water. And since the Crandals had salted away a fortune in gold coins they settled down here and started a reindeer farm so Crandal could Kringle full-time with the missus as Mrs. Kringle and the crew as his little helpers.” Mr. Kay looked up. “Isn’t that right, Mother?”

Mrs. Kay had appeared in the doorway with a red costume and a white beard over her arm and a pair of boots in her hand. “That’s right, Father. But it’s time to get ready. I’ve loaded the sleigh and harnessed the reindeer.”

Mr. Kay got to his feet. “And here’s the wonderfully strange and miraculous thing. Mr. Sorley. As the years passed we didn’t age. Not one bit. What did you call it, Mother?”

“The Tinker Bell Effect,” said Mrs. Kay, putting down the boots and holding up the heavily padded red jumpsuit trimmed with white for Mr. Kay to step into.

“If children believe in you,” explained Mr. Kay, as he did up the Velcro fasteners, “why then you’re eternal and evergreen. Plus you can fly through the air and so can your damn livestock!”

Mrs. Kay laughed a fine contralto laugh. “And somewhere along the line children must have started believing in Santa’s little helpers, too,” she said. “Because our pirate crew didn’t age either. They just got shorter.”

Mr. Kay nodded. “Which fitted in real well with their end of the operation.”

“The toy workshop?” asked Sorley.

Mr. Kay smiled and shook his head. “No, that’s only a myth. We buy our toys, you see. Not that Mother and I were going to spend our own hard-earned money for the damn stuff. No, the crew’s little fingers make the counterfeit plates to print what cash we need to buy the toys. Electronic ones, mostly. Wonderful for stunting the brain, cramping the soul, and making ugly noises that just won’t quit.”

“Hold it.” Sorley wagged a disbelieving finger. “You’re telling me you started out as Death-Warmed-Over the Pirate and now you’re Santa Claus?”

“Mr. Sorley, I’m as surprised as you how things worked out. Talk about revisionism, eh? Yesterday’s yo-ho-ho is today’s ho-ho-ho.” Mr. Kay stood back and let his wife attach his white beard with its built-in red plastic cheeks.

“But where does the Christmas Triangle business fit in?” demanded Sorley. “We’ve got twenty-seven people who disappeared around here last year alone.”

“Copycats,” insisted Mr. Kay. “As I said. Mother and I only take one a year, what we call our Gift from the Night. But of course, when the media got onto it the copycats weren’t far behind. Little Mary Housewife can’t think of a present for Tommy Tiresome who has everything, so she gives him a slug from a thirty-eight between the eyes and buries him in the basement, telling the neighbors he went to visit his mother in Sarnia. Little Billy Bank Manager with a shortage in the books and a yen for high living in warmer climes vanishes into the Christmas Triangle with a suitcase of money from the vault and reemerges under another name in Rio. And so on and so on. Copycats.”

“Father’s right. We only take one,” said Mrs. Kay. “That’s what our agreement calls for.”

Mr. Kay nodded. “Last year it was an arrogant young bastard from the SPCA investigating reports on mistreated reindeer. Tell me my business, would he?” Mr. Kay’s chest swelled and his eyes flashed. “Well, Mother and I harnessed him to the sleigh right between Dancer and Prancer. And his sluggard backside got more than its share of the lash that Christmas Eve, let me tell you. He was blubbering like a baby by the time I turned him over to my scurvy crew.”

“I don’t understand,” said Sorley. But he was beginning to. He stood up slowly, utterly clearheaded and sober. “You mean your cannibal crew ate him?” he demanded in a horrified voice.

“Consider the fool from the SPCA part of our employee benefits package,” shrugged Mr. Kay. “Oh, all right,” he conceded when he saw Sorley’s outrage. “so my little shipmates are evil. Evil. They’ve got wolfish little teeth and pointed carnivore ears. And don’t think those missing legs and arms were honestly come by in pirate combat. Not a bit of it. There’s this game they play. Like strip poker but without the clothes. They’re terrible, there’s no denying it. But you know, few of us get to pick the people we work with. Besides, I don’t give a damn about naughty or nice.”

Sorley’s voice was shrill and outraged. “But this is hideous. Hideous. I’ll go to the police.”

“Go, then,” said Mr. Kay. “Be our guest. Mother and I won’t stand in your

way.”

“You’d better not try!” warned Sorley defiantly, intending to storm from the room. But when he tried he found his shoelaces were tied together. He fell forward like a dead weight and struck his head, blacking out for a moment. When he regained consciousness he was lying on his stomach with his thumbs lashed together behind his back. Before Sorley’s head cleared he felt something being shoved up the back of his pant legs, over his buttocks, and up under his belt. When they emerged out beyond the back of his shirt collar he saw they were the bamboo poles that had been leaning in the corner.

Before Sorley could try to struggle free, a little pirate appeared close to his face, a grizzled thing with a hook for an arm. little curly-toed shoes and a bandanna pulled down over the pointed tops of its ears. With a cruel smile it placed the point of its cutlass a menacing fraction of an inch from Sorley’s left eyeball and in language no less vile because of the tiny voice that uttered it, the creature warned him not to move.

Mrs. Kay was smiling down at him. “Now don’t trouble yourself over your car, Mr. Sorley. I’ll drive into the city later tonight and park it where the car strippers can’t miss it. Father’ll pick me up in the sleigh on his way back.”

Mr. Kay had been stamping his boots to get them on properly. Now he said, “Give us a kiss, Mother. I’m on my way.” Then the toes of the boots hove into view on the edge of Sorley’s vision. “Good-bye, Mr. Sorley,” said his host. “Thanks for coming. Consider yourself grist for the mills of Christmas.”

As soon as Mr. Kay left the room, Sorley heard little feet scramble around him and more little pirates rushed to man the ends of the bamboo poles in front of him. At a tiny command the crew put the cutlasses in their teeth and, holding their arms over their heads, hoisted Sorley up off the floor. He hung there helplessly, suspended front and back.

The little pirates lugged Sorley out into the hall and headed down the carpet toward the front door. He didn’t know where they were taking him. But their progress was funereally slow, and, swaying there, Sorley conceived a frantic plan of escape. He knew his captors were tiring under their load. If they had to set him down to rest, he would dig in with his toes and. somehow, work his way to his knees. At least there he’d stand a chance.

Sorley heard sleigh bells. He raised his chin. Through the pane of beveled glass in the front door he saw the sleigh on the lawn rise steeply into the night, Christmas tree lights and all, and he heard Mr. Kay’s booming “Yo-ho-ho-ho.”

Suddenly Sorley’s caravan stopped. He got ready, waiting for them to put him down. But they were only adjusting their grips. The little pirates turned him sideways and Sorley saw the open door and the top of the cellar steps and smelled the darkness as musty as a tomb. Then he felt the beginning of their big heave-ho. It was too damn late to escape now. Grist for the mills of Christmas? Hell, he was meat for the stew pots of elfdom.

AS DARK AS CHRISTMAS GETS – Lawrence Block

It was 9:45 in the morning when I got to the little bookshop on West Fifty-sixth Street. Before I went to work for Leo Haig I probably wouldn’t have bothered to look at my watch, if I was even wearing one in the first place, and the best I’d have been able to say was it was around ten o’clock. But Haig wanted me to be his legs and eyes, and sometimes his ear, nose, and throat, and if he was going to play in Nero Wolfe’s league, that meant I had to turn into Archie Goodwin, for Pete’s sake, noticing everything and getting the details right and reporting conversations verbatim.

Well, forget that last part. My memory’s getting better—Haig’s right about that part—but what follows won’t be word for word, because all I am is a human being. If you want a tape recorder, buy one.

There was a lot of fake snow in the window, and a Santa Claus doll in handcuffs, and some toy guns and knives, and a lot of mysteries with a Christmas theme, including the one by Fredric Brown where the murderer dresses up as a department store Santa. (Someone pulled that a year ago, put on a red suit and a white beard and shot a man at the corner of Broadway and Thirty-seventh, and I told Haig how ingenious I thought it was. He gave me a look, left the room, and came back with a book. I read it—that’s what I do when Haig hands me a book—and found out Brown had had the idea fifty years earlier. Which doesn’t mean that’s where the killer got the idea. The book’s long out of print—the one I read was a paperback, and falling apart, not like the handsome hardcover copy in the window. And how many killers get their ideas out of old books?)

Now if you’re a detective yourself you’ll have figured out two things by now—the bookshop specialized in mysteries, and it was the Christmas season. And if you’d noticed the sign in the window you’d have made one more deduction: i.e., that they were closed.

I went down the half flight of steps and poked the buzzer. When nothing happened I poked it again, and eventually the door was opened by a little man with white hair and a white beard—all he needed was padding and a red suit, and someone to teach him to be jolly. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid we’re closed. It’s Christmas morning, and it’s not even ten o’clock.”

“You called us,” I said, “and it wasn’t even nine o’clock.”

He took a good look at me, and light dawned. “You’re Harrison,” he said. “And I know your first name, but I can’t—”

“Chip,” I supplied.

“Of course. But where’s Haig? I know he thinks he’s Nero Wolfe, but he’s not gone housebound, has he? He’s been here often enough in the past.”

“Haig gets out and about,” I agreed, “but Wolfe went all the way to Montana once, as far as that goes. What Wolfe refused to do was leave the house on business, and Haig’s with him on that one. Besides, he just spawned some unspawnable cichlids from Lake Chad, and you’d think the aquarium was a television set and they were showing
Midnight Blue
.”