Murder Most Merry (58 page)

He was bending over the chimney with its collection basket when someone bumped him from behind. He straightened and tried to turn, but by that time the thin copper wire was cutting into his throat.

By the time the second Santa Claus had been strangled to death, the tabloids had the story on page one. No Clues to Claus Killer, one of them trumpeted, while another proclaimed, Santa Strangler Strikes Again. Nick Velvet glanced over the articles with passing interest, but at that point they were nothing to directly affect him.

“Where was the latest killing?” Gloria asked as she prepared breakfast.

“In the subway. An elderly Santa on his way to work.”

She shook her head. “What’s this world coming to when somebody starts strangling Santa Clauses?”

The next morning Nick found out. He was seated in the office of the Intercontinental Protection Service, across the desk from a man named Grady Culhane. The office was small and somewhat plain, not what Nick had expected from the pretentious name. Culhane himself was young, barely past thirty, with black hair, thick eyebrows, and an Irish smile. He spread his hands flat on the uncluttered desktop and said, I understand you steal things of little or no value.”

“That’s correct,” Nick replied. “My standard fee is twenty-five thousand dollars, unless it’s something especially hazardous.”

“This should be simple enough. I want you to steal the beard from a department store Santa Claus. It’s the Santa at Kliman’s main store, and it must be done tomorrow before noon. Santa’s hours there are noon to four and five to eight.”

“What makes it so valuable to you?”

“Nothing. It’s worth no more than any other false white beard. I just need it tomorrow.”

“I usually get half the money down and the other half after the job,” Nick said. “Is that agreeable?”

“Sure. It’ll have to be a check. I don’t have that much cash on hand.”

“So long as I can cash it at your bank.”

He made out the check and handed it over. “Here’s a sketch map I drew of Kliman’s fourth floor. This is the dressing room Santa uses.”

“So the beard is probably there before noon. Why don’t you just walk in and steal it?” Nick wondered. “Why do you need me?”

“You ever been in Kliman’s? They’ve got security cameras all over the store, including hidden ones in the dressing rooms. This is only Santa’s room during the Christmas season. The rest of the year it’s used by the public, and the camera is probably still operational. I can’t afford to be seen stealing the beard or anything else.”

“What about me?”

“That’s your job. That’s what I’m paying you for.”

“Fair enough,” Nick agreed, folding the check once and slipping it into his pocket. “I’ll be back here tomorrow with the beard.”

Nothing had been said about the two Santa Claus killings, but somehow, as Nick Velvet left the building, he had the feeling he was becoming involved in something a lot more complex than a simple robbery.

The Santa Claus killings were still big news the following morning, and Nick read the speculations about possible motives as he traveled into midtown on the subway. The second man to die, Larry Averly, was a retired plumber who’d been earning some spare cash as a holiday Santa Claus. The first victim, Bajon, had died on Monday evening, the fourteenth, while the second death came the following morning. Nick had the feeling the press was almost disappointed that another killing had not followed on Wednesday. Now it was Thursday, eight days before Christmas, and the street before Kliman’s block-long department store was crowded with shoppers.

He entered the store with the first wave of customers when the doors opened at ten, making his way up the escalator to the fourth floor. After a half-hour of lingering in the furniture department, he wandered over to the dressing-room door that Grady Culhane had indicated on his map. When no one was looking, he slipped inside.

His first task was to locate the closed-circuit television camera. He found it without difficulty—a circular lens embedded in the very center of a round wall clock. Not wanting to blot out the view entirely and arouse the suspicion of possible observers, Nick moved a coat rack in front of the clock, blocking most of the little room. Then he quickly opened a pair of lockers. But there was no Santa Claus costume, no beard, in either one. He’d been hoping that the store’s Santa changed into his costume on the premises, but it looked as if he might come to work already dressed, like the street Santa who’d been strangled in the subway.

If that was the case, however, Culhane wouldn’t have told him to come to this room. It was already nearly eleven and Nick decided to wait till noon to see what happened. He positioned himself behind the clothes rack, but at the far end, away from the television camera. Exactly at eleven-thirty, the door opened and someone came in. He could see a tall, fairly broad-shouldered person carrying a large canvas tote bag. There was a flash of red as a Santa Claus suit came into view.

Nick Velvet breathed a sigh of relief. The white beard came out of the bag and he saw the prize within his grasp. He stepped from his hiding place, ready to deliver a knockout blow if necessary. “Keep quiet and give me the beard,” he said.

The figure turned and Nick froze in his tracks. Santa was a woman.

She was probably in her late thirties, large boned but not unattractive, with dark brown hair that was already partly covered by the Santa Claus wig and cap. Nick’s sudden appearance seemed not to have frightened her but only angered her as any unexpected interruption might. “You just made the mistake of your life, mister,” she told him in a flat tone of voice.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Give me that beard.”

“I have a transmitter in my pocket. I’ve already called for help.”

He realized suddenly that she thought he was the Santa strangler. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he tried to assure her.

But it was too late for assurances. The dressing-room door burst open and Nick faced two men with drawn revolvers. “Freeze!” the first man ordered, crouching in a shooter’s stance. “Police!”

“Look, this is all a mistake.”

“And you made it, mister!” The second man moved behind Nick to frisk him.

Nick decided it was time for a bit of his own electronic technology. He brought his left arm down enough to hit the small transmitter in his breast pocket. Immediately there was a sharp crack from the direction of the furniture department, and billowing smoke could be seen through the open dressing-room door. The first man turned his head and Nick kicked the gun from his hand, poking his elbow back simultaneously to catch the second detective in the ribs. As he went out the door he made a grab for the white beard the lady Santa was holding in her hand, but he missed by several inches.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” one of the detectives yelled, but Nick knew he wouldn’t. The floor was crowded with shoppers, and the cloud from Nick’s well-placed smoke bomb was already enveloping everyone.

Five minutes later he was out of the store and safely away, but without the beard he’d been hired to steal.

Later that afternoon Nick returned to the office of the Intercontinental Protection Service. Grady Culhane was not in a pleasant mood. “That was you at the store this morning, wasn’t it?” he asked pointedly. “The radio says someone set off a smoke bomb and two shoppers were slightly injured in the panic.”

“I’m sorry if anyone was hurt. You didn’t tell me Santa Claus was a woman. That threw off my timing and enabled a couple of detectives to get the drop on me.”

“What about the beard?”

“I didn’t get it.”

Culhane cursed. “That means Santa will be back in place as soon as they get the smoke cleared out and things back to normal.”

Nick was beginning to see at least a portion of the scheme. “You wanted the beard stolen so Santa couldn’t appear.”

“Sure. It was easier than stealing the whole costume, except that you bungled it.”

“They could have found another beard quickly enough,” Nick argued.

Grady Culhane shook his head. “They don’t sell them in the store. I checked. The delay would have been an hour or two, and that was all I needed.”

“For what?”

He eyed Nick uncertainly for a moment before deciding to yield. “All right, I’ll tell you about it. But I want something in return. I want that beard tomorrow, and no slip-ups this time!”

“You’ll have it, so long as you play square with me. What’s this all about? Does it involve the Santa Claus killings?”

The dark-haired young man reached into a desk drawer and extracted a sheet of paper which he passed across the desk to Nick. It was a copy of a crudely printed extortion letter addressed to the president of Kliman’s department store: “Tuesday, December 15—I have just come from killing my second Santa Claus of the Christmas season. The deaths of Bajon and Averly were meant as a demonstration. A third Santa Claus will die in your store, in full view of the children, unless you are prepared to pay me one million dollars in cash within forty-eight hours, by noon Thursday.” There was no signature.

“Sounds like a crackpot,” Nick decided, returning the letter. “He doesn’t even give directions for paying the money.”

“This letter was hand-delivered by a messenger service Tuesday afternoon. A second letter came yesterday, with instructions. They haven’t shown me that one.”

“You’ve been hired by Kliman’s store?”

Culhane nodded. “Frankly, it’s the first major client I’ve had. Even though the police have been called in, the store is paying me as a personal bodyguard for Santa.”

“Or Mrs. Santa.”

He smiled. “She’s an unemployed actress named Vivian Delmos. I just met her yesterday after I talked with you. There are some female Santas around. They’re good with children. If their voices are deep enough and the suit is padded enough, no one knows the difference. I didn’t know the cops would be guarding her too.”

“How much are they paying you?” Nick asked.

“That’s proprietary information.” the young man answered stiffly.

“I figure fifty thousand, at least, if you can afford to pay me twenty-five.”

“I don’t get a thing if the Santa strangler kills her.”

“You thought he’d strike right at noon, so you needed me to keep her from going out there then. That means they decided not to pay.”

“It’s not just them. There are other stores involved. The killer is trying to shake down the largest stores in New York.”

“The police must have a description from the messenger company that delivered this note.”

Grady Culhane shook his head. “They deny any knowledge of it. One of their messengers was probably stopped in the street and paid to deliver it. Naturally he won’t admit it now and risk losing his job.”

“What happens after the smoke is cleared out?”

“The Delmos woman puts on her beard and goes back out there. I’ll probably have to be standing next to her, and I’m too big for those elves’ costumes.”

“Don’t worry,” Nick promised. “This time I’ll get the beard.”

On his second visit to the store Nick Velvet wore a grey wig and a matching false moustache. He was taking no chances on coming face-to-face with one of those detectives again. In the atrium at the center of the main floor where Santa’s throne was in place, a sign announced that he would not return until noon the following day due to the illness of one of his reindeer. Nick found a pay telephone and called Culhane at his office.

“You’re off the hook until tomorrow,” he said.

I just heard from the store.”

“Do you still want the beard?”

“Of course—unless the police come up with the extortionist by then.”

Nick hung up and decided he should know more than he did about the Santa Claus killings. He went down to the subway newsstand and bought all the local papers. It wasn’t the lead item anymore but the unsolved killings still filled several columns inside each paper. The first victim, Russell Bajon, was a young homeless man—a would-be actor—who’d been staying at the men’s dorm maintained by a charitable organization. He’d been collecting money for the charity at one of their Christmas chimneys when he’d been strangled. One of the other Santas, a man named Chris Stover, had come by in a van a few minutes later to find a crowd gathering around the fallen man. No one admitted to having seen the actual killing.

The second victim had followed less than twelve hours later, on Tuesday morning. Larry Averly lived in a rundown hotel on the fringes of Greenwich Village, a place where Nick had grown up. His Christmas job as a Santa Claus for a local radio station’s holiday promotion involved coming to work in costume that day. since they were doing a remote broadcast from the Central Park skating rink. He’d been heading for a subway exit near the park when the killer struck. This time two people saw the attack and scared him off, but not in time to save the victim. The killer was described as a white man of uncertain age wearing a bulky coat. Averly hadn’t been carrying any identification in his shabby wallet and it had taken police most of the day to trace his room key to the hotel where he’d been staying. The radio station had hired him through an employment agency and didn’t even know his name. They’d finally learned it just in time for the six o’clock news.

The papers, of course, carried nothing about the extortion plot. That would have been enough to get the story back on page one. Nick read them all and then tossed them aside. He had his own problem to consider. Stealing Santa’s beard the following day would be next to impossible in Kliman’s store, but the alternatives were equally impossible. He knew Vivian Delmos carried her costume to work in a large canvas bag, but he wasn’t about to mug her on the way to work. Still...