The Kid Who Stole Christmas (12 page)

Pop handed her the note he had just scribbled out. “This authorizes a raise and advance for Rick. We can’t expect a spy to make it on Santa Claus wages. And then take him to see Carl in Menswear.” He eyed Rick’s faded jeans. “If you want to fit in unobtrusively at Bayer’s, you’ll have to upgrade his wardrobe a notch.”

“They are snooty. Isn’t it nice to be one of the good guys?” She smiled. “Thanks, Pop. Great minds think alike.”

“In that case, I wish you’d help me think of something to tell my next appointment,” Pop said, grimacing.

“Who’s that?”

“The police. They want to ask me why I didn’t inform them of Leo’s kidnapping.”

“What are you going to tell them?” Rick wanted to know.

“Exactly what they want to hear, I suppose,” Pop replied. “That the whole thing is just one big publicity stunt.”

Chapter Ten

“I
t’s ringing now,” Angela said. “Finally. But they’re not answering.”

Nathan glared at her. “What do you mean, they’re not answering? They have to be there.”

“Listen for yourself.” Angela dropped the phone in his lap and crossed his office to the built-in wet bar, where she poured herself a cup of coffee. She didn’t offer him one. “I told you it was a bad idea to put them in charge.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Angela?” Nathan said. “They are not in charge. I am.”

Angela sipped delicately at her coffee so as not to ruin her lipstick. As she did so, she looked at him over the rim of the cup, her expression one of boredom.

“Don’t grit your teeth like that, darling,” she told him. “You’ll ruin your caps.”

“To hell with my caps!”

“Nathan!” Angela’s voice cracked like a whip, and she scowled at him ferociously. “How dare you swear in front of the child.”

Chelsea was sitting primly in one of the office chairs nearest the window, where she could look out at the people passing by on the street below. If she heard her mother or Nathan, she didn’t acknowledge them, so intent was she on the street scene being played out down there.

Like her mother, she had long, honey-blond hair, pulled back and tied to one side today, as was Angela’s. They were dressed in similar outfits, as well, white knit suits with gold-buttoned jackets and knife-pleated skirts. But Chelsea had on thin-ribbed white tights rather than panty hose, and wore a cream-colored turtleneck, where her mother was showing plenty of cleavage at the low-scooped neckline of her jacket.

Still, they looked remarkably similar, and when they walked along together, they got plenty of attention, which was of course what Angela wanted.

At least for now. After all, Chelsea was only eleven. Once she hit puberty and started to turn heads for other reasons, which was a given, considering her genes, Angela probably wouldn’t enjoy sharing the limelight quite as much.

Angela put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Chelsea, sweetie?”

She looked up, and it was then that the differences between them became more apparent. Where Angela’s eyes were a pale, almost reptilian gray, Chelsea’s were soft brown and soulful, like her father’s. She had her father’s nose, too, for better or worse. At eleven, her small face didn’t do it justice; by her teens, however, the Roman contours would give her a proud, regal air to Angela’s pert and perky.

Not that it would be given the chance. Angela had already planned to correct what she perceived as a flaw. There wasn’t much she could do about the eyes. Yet. She was keeping tabs on the technology.

“Yes, Momma?” Chelsea asked politely.

“Your daddy and I have some business to discuss. Would you like to go down and see the new line of scarves I had Mrs. Terret order in?”

Chelsea frowned. “I’d rather go look at the toys.”

“Very well, if you must.” Angela tapped her finger on the bridge of Chelsea’s nose. “And don’t scowl, dear. We don’t want to wrinkle, do we?”

“For pity’s sake, Angela,” Nathan exclaimed. “Eleven-year-old skin doesn’t wrinkle. Let the girl be.”

Angela whipped her head around to pin Nathan with her snakelike gaze. “It’s a bad habit that I don’t want her to continue. Just like your bad habit of telling me how to raise her,” she said caustically. And then, quick as a wink, her voice returned to its former soft lilt as she addressed her daughter. “Go on now, honey. I’ll be down in a little while and we’ll go to lunch.”

“Yes, Momma.”

When Chelsea was gone, Angela’s entire demeanor changed yet again. She came to stand in front of Nathan’s desk, arms folded over her breasts, a very deep wrinkle of her own in evidence between her perfectly plucked eyebrows.

“Don’t you ever interrupt me again when I’m correcting my child, Nathan. Todd is your concern, but Chelsea is all mine. I mean it.”

Nathan had no doubt about that. And normally he wouldn’t pursue the matter further. But he was in a lousy mood this morning. Right off the bat, the newspaper had all but accused him of kidnapping. He had an appointment with his lawyers for that afternoon to discuss a libel suit. The mountain phone lines were back in operation, but Joey still hadn’t called. Worse, he wasn’t even answering the phone at the lodge. It all had Nathan so ticked off, he didn’t care who he tied into.

“Chelsea is my child now, too,” he reminded her. “She carries the Bayer name. And if I have something to say about her behavior or yours, I’ll say it.”

“You know perfectly well why I had her name changed, and it had nothing to do with needing your parenting help.”

“Yes, Angela, I do know why you did it,” Nathan agreed quietly. “Sheer, unmitigated venom.”

In fact, after what she had done—and eventually forced him to do—to that poor sap Hastings, it was amazing Nathan had the guts to stand up to her like this. If she were to decide to come after him with a divorce lawyer, he’d probably shoot himself just to get it over with quickly.

Angela had started tapping her foot. It scarcely made any noise on the thick carpeting, but it was something she knew annoyed Nathan, so she did it, anyway.

“So, Mr. Big Shot. Woke up cranky today, did you? We’ll see how you are tomorrow morning after waking up alone!”

Nathan sighed. “Angela, just sit down and shut up, will you? I have a headache.”

“So will I.” Angela smirked. She sat down and crossed her legs, the whisper of nylon audible in the quiet office. “A bad one. Might even last the rest of the year.”

“Enough!” Nathan looked at her perfect legs and had to close his eyes for a moment. It was no use. He looked her in the eye and capitulated. “I’m sorry, all right? I’m on edge. Where are those two idiots?”

Angela wasn’t quite through making him squirm. “How should I know? They’re
your
idiots.
You’re
the one in charge, right? Or so you keep telling me.”

Nathan started to say something, but stopped himself just in time. He remembered when he was a boy, sitting right here in this office, watching his father. The old man blustered at everything and everyone that got in his way. There wasn’t a definite link between his behavior and the aneurysm that stilled his nearly endless tirade at sixty-two. But it had to have been a factor. All that yelling and all those bulging veins. It didn’t take a doctor to figure out that wasn’t good for a person.

The manner of his father’s death was a lesson Nathan had taken to heart, literally. Exercise, a low-fat diet and stress reduction were the order of the day. He had also long ago removed the gun his father had always kept in the top right-hand desk drawer.

And now, looking at Angela’s smug, perfect face, Nathan was very glad it wasn’t there. “They’ll call,” he assured her in quiet, clipped tones. “They’re probably just out for a walk. Kids get restless, you know.”

Angela was checking her nails. They were perfect. “I say they’ve made another deal.”

“Who with?”

“I wouldn’t know. Another retailer maybe,” she said. “Or maybe even old Pop Lyon himself.”

Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “Joey wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t he?” Angela glared at him. “You pay him peanuts and treat him like dirt, Nathan, the same as all your employees.”

“But he has complete job security,” Nathan said.

“Well, whoopee!” Angela exclaimed sarcastically. “Did you ever stop to think he might aspire to something better?”

Nathan laughed. “Joey? Come on.”

The phone rang. It was Nathan’s private line. He gave Angela an I-told-you-so smile and picked up the receiver.

“That better be you, Joey,” he said gruffly.

“Sorry I didn’t call earlier. The phones were out.”

“But they had them fixed by nine this morning, Joey,” Nathan said. “I’ve been calling the lodge since then.”

“What can I tell you, Nathan? We’ve been right here the whole time. Maybe they’ve got the lines crossed, or something.”

Nathan scowled. “Maybe. Everything okay?”

“What could be wrong?” Joey asked.

“Nothing.” Nathan leaned back in his chair with a sigh of relief. Same old Joey. “Kid okay?”

“I should feel so good. Any word on the shipment?”

“Not the one we’re after. But it won’t be long now,” Nathan said. “They hit both coasts at the same time about an hour ago. It’s wild. You ought to see those crowds snappin’ ‘em up.”

“Yeah, well, maybe there’s something on the radio.”

“Maybe.” Nathan grinned at Angela. “Anyway, you hang tight, Joey. Call me if there’s any trouble.”

“Relax, Nathan. Everything is going according to plan.”

Chapter Eleven

S
hannon had decided to try the undercover shopper route first, with the intent of asking seemingly innocent questions about the Bayers and their life-style, particularly any mountain property they might own. So far, however, all the sales clerks she had spoken to didn’t know, didn’t want to know and, furthermore, couldn’t care less how the Bayers lived.

In fact, given the dour, elitist attitudes exhibited by everyone in the entire store—including quite a few of the customers—she wasn’t at all enthusiastic about the prospect of becoming a Bayer’s employee, even of the temporary variety.

Rick wasn’t enthusiastic about being there, period. He had argued against this approach, suggested alternatives and in general had dragged his heels the entire time. He was acting strangely in other ways, as well, nervous and jumpy, as if he expected to be caught at any moment.

“Would you relax?” she urged.

“I
am
relaxed.”

“Is that a fact?” Shannon grinned. “Then I can hardly wait to see what you’re like when you’re tense.”

Rick managed a small, crooked smile. “I just think this is a total waste of time, that’s all. We could accomplish the same thing by going down to city hall and checking property records.”

“Maybe,” Shannon said. “But in the first place, I’ve found that bureaucracies don’t function all that well this close to a major holiday. Second, you know as well as I do that the rich have ways of keeping their names off any lists that might cause them to pay their fair share of taxes. And third, that’s not the only thing we’re trying to find out. We have that one name I remembered Leo mentioned, too. Irv, wasn’t it?”

Rick sighed, disgusted. “Right. Irv. And what have we gotten when we drop that name, Shannon?”

“So far, blank stares,” she admitted. “But hope springs eternal. While we’re here, shall we look at ties?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Though he was being a grump, Rick looked sharp in his dark blue wool trousers and coordinating Harris tweed jacket. His shirt, in a shade Lyon’s menswear maven Carl had described as chamomile, was open at the throat, since Rick had absolutely refused to wear the tie Carl had also picked out.

As they browsed for one he could stand, they heard a flurry of excitement coming from the electronics department and went to investigate. Rather than discover that some kind of special sale was in progress, however, they found that a large crowd had gathered around the wall-size bank of televisions. And every one of them showed the same thing.

Arnie the Arachnid had arrived in New York. He was taking Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, too. So far, the crowds were manageable and restrained, even festive. The lacquer-haired newsperson, of course, predicted, darkly, that such behavior would only last as long as the Arnies did. And of course, no matter what sort of mayhem ensued, viewers could rest assured that her station’s cameras would be there to film it all.

Shannon glanced at Rick. “That’s a rather enigmatic smile you have on your face,” she observed. “Bemused, even.”

“It’s just that...” He trailed off, and turned to look at her. “So much has gone into this moment. Now that it’s started, I’m...I don’t know. Overwhelmed, I guess.” He leaned close to whisper in her ear. “Can you keep a secret?”

Her eyes widened. “To the grave. What is it?”

“Those things are ridiculously cheap to make.”

“And they sell for ten bucks a pop,” Shannon remarked, her eyes opening wider still. “I take it there is some sort of profit sharing at good old Arnie Inc.”

Rick nodded. “Something like that.”

“In other words, you may not need to moonlight anymore.”

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I can’t turn in my Santa suit just yet. It’ll be a while before I see any money.”

“Good,” Shannon said.

“Thanks!” he said indignantly.

“You know what I mean.” She linked her arm through his. “Come on. I want to get a look at their toy department.”

They strolled around Bayer’s centerpiece indoor fountain, with its gaily splashing water, tinted green in honor of the season. In contrast to Lyon’s almost art deco interior, Bayer’s had been originally designed to look flamboyantly rich—not unlike its customary clientele.

In fact, Pop had once accused Joe Bayer of lifting the decor from a Las Vegas casino. Although the display areas had been updated over the years, those roots still showed in the store’s white marble columns, gleaming brass railings and high, domed ceilings.

Bayer’s wasn’t nearly as big as Lyon’s, but made up for the lack of space by careful selection of merchandise. But often, the value of this merchandise was implied rather than real, by virtue of its brand name or celebrity endorsement. That there were those who put such things above price, however, was evident. Lyon’s had only the one downtown location, while Bayer’s had that and space in every Denver mall, as well.