Crime at Christmas (34 page)

Bandylegs
smiled and went on, 'Darby Shortribs was there, prattling on against dolls. As
I left, Crouchback shook my hand and whispered, "Every movement needs its
lunatic fringe, Bandylegs. Shortribs is ours".' Bandylegs lowered his
voice. 'I'm tired of the grown-up rat race, Rory. I want to get back to the
sled shed and make Blue Streaks and High Flyers again. I'll never get there
with Hardnoggin and his modern ideas at the helm.'

Bigtoes
pulled at his beard. It was common knowledge that Crouchback had an elf spy on
the Board. The reports on the meetings in
The Midnight Elf
were just too complete. Was it his
friend Bandylegs? But would Bandylegs try to kill Santa?

That
brought Bigtoes back to Hardnoggin again. But cautiously. As Security Chief,
Bigtoes had to be objective. Yet he yearned to prove Hardnoggin the villain.
This, as he knew, was because of the beautiful Carlotta Peachfuzz, beloved by
children all around the world. As the voice of the Peachy Pippin Doll, Carlotta
was the most envied female at the North Pole, next to Mrs Santa. Girl elves
followed her glamorous exploits in the press. Male elves had Peachy Pippin
Dolls propped beside their beds so they could fall asleep with Carlotta's
sultry voice saying: 'Hello, I'm your talking Peachy Pippin Doll. I love you. I
love you. I love you. . .'

But once it
had just been Rory and Carlotta, Carlotta and Rory—until the day Bigtoes had introduced
her to Hardnoggin. 'You have a beautiful voice, Miss Peachfuzz,' the Director
General had said. 'Have you ever considered being in the talkies?' So Carlotta
had dropped Bigtoes for Hardnoggin and risen to stardom in the talking-doll
industry. But her liaison with Director General Hardnoggin had become so
notorious that a dutiful Santa—with Mrs Santa present—had had to read the riot
act about executive hanky-panky. Hardnoggin had broken off the relationship.
Disgruntled, Carlotta had become active with SHAFT, only to leave after a
violent argument with Shortribs over his anti-doll position.

Today
Bigtoes couldn't care less about Carlotta. But he still had that old score to
settle with the Director General.

Leaving the
fashionable section behind, Bigtoes turned down Apple Alley, a residential
corridor of modest, old-fashioned houses with thatched roofs and carved beams.
Here the mushrooms were in full bloom—the stropharia, inocybe, and chanterelle—dotting
the corridor with indigo, vermilion, and many yellows. Elf householders were
out troweling in their gardens. Elf wives gossiped over hedges of gypsy
pholiota. Somewhere an old elf was singing one of the ancient work songs,
accompanying himself on a concertina. Until Director General Hardnoggin discovered
that it slowed down production, the elves had always sung while they worked,
beating out the time with their hammers; now the foremen passed out song
sheets and led them in song twice a day. But it wasn't the same thing.

Elf
gardeners looked up, took their pipes from their mouths, and watched Bigtoes
pass. They regarded all front-office people with suspicion—even this big elf
with the candy-stripe rosette of the Order of Santa, First Class, in his
buttonhole.

Bigtoes had
won the decoration many years ago when he was a young Security elf, still wet
behind his pointed ears. Somehow on that fateful day, Billy Roy Scoggins,
President of Acme Toy, had found the secret entrance to the North Pole and
appeared suddenly in parka and snowshoes, demanding to see Santa Claus. Santa
arrived, jolly and smiling, surrounded by Bigtoes and the other Security elves.
Scoggins announced he had a proposition 'from one hard-headed businessman to
another.'

Pointing
out the foolishness of competition, the intruder had offered Santa a king's
ransom to come in with Acme Toy. 'Ho, ho, ho,' boomed Santa with jovial
firmness, 'that isn't Santa's way.' Scoggins—perhaps it was the 'ho, ho, ho'
that did it—turned purple and threw a punch that floored the jolly old man.
Security sprang into action.

Four elves
had died as Scoggins flayed at them, a snowshoe in one hand and a rolled up
copy of
The Wall
Street Journal
in the other. But Bigtoes had crawled up the outside of Scoggins' pant leg. It
had taken him twelve karate chops to break the intruder's kneecap and send him
crashing to the ground like a stricken tree. To this day the President of Acme
Toy walks with a cane and curses Rory Bigtoes whenever it rains.

As Bigtoes
passed a tavern—The Bowling Green, with a huge horse mushroom shading the
door—someone inside banged down a thimble-mug and shouted the famous elf toast:
'My Santa, right or wrong! May he always be right, but right or wrong, my
Santa!' Bigtoes sighed. Life should be so simple for elves. They all loved
Santa—what did it matter that he used blueing when he washed his beard, or
liked to sleep late, or hit the martinis a bit too hard—and they all wanted to
do what was best for good little girls and boys. But here the agreement ended.
Here the split between Hardnoggin and Crouchback—between the Establishment and
the revolutionary—took over.

Beyond the
tavern was a crossroads, the left corridor leading to the immense storage areas
for completed toys, the right corridor to The Underwood. Bigtoes continued
straight and was soon entering that intersection of corridors called Pumpkin
Corners, the North Pole's bohemian quarter. Here, until his disappearance, the
SHAFT leader Crouchback had lived with relative impunity, protected by the inhabitants.
For this was SHAFT country. A special edition of
The Midnight Elf
was already on the streets denying
that SHAFT was involved in the assassination attempt on Santa. A love-bead
vendor, his beard tied in a sheepshank, had
Hardnoggin Is a Dwarf
written across the side of his
pushcart.
Make love,
not plastic
declared the wall of The Electric Carrot, a popular discotheque and hippie
hangout.

The
Electric Carrot was crowded with elves dancing the latest craze, the Scalywag.
Until recently, dancing hadn't been popular with elves. They kept stepping on
their beards. The hippie knots effectively eliminated that stumbling block.

Buck
Withers, leader of the Hippie Elves for Peace, was sitting in a corner wearing
a
Santa Is Love
button. Bigtoes had once dropped a
first-offense drug charge against Withers and three other elves caught nibbling
on morning-glory seeds. 'Where's Crouchback, Buck?' said Bigtoes.

'Like who's
asking?' said Withers. 'The head of Hardnoggin's Gestapo?'

'A friend,'
said Bigtoes.

'Friend,
like when the news broke about Shortribs, he says "I'm next, Buck."
Better fled than dead, and he split for parts unknown.'

'It looks
bad, Buck.'

'Listen,
friend,' said Withers, 'SHAFT's the wave of the future. Like Santa's already
come over to our side on the disarmament thing. What do we need with bombs?

That's a
bad scene, friend. Violence isn't SHAFT'S bag.'

As Bigtoes
left The Electric Carrot a voice said, 'I wonder, my dear sir, if you could
help an unfortunate elf.' Bigtoes turned to find a tattered derelict in a
filthy button-down shirt and greasy gray-flannel suit. His beard was matted
with twigs and straw.

'Hello,
Baldwin,' said Bigtoes. Baldwin Redpate had once been the head of Santa's
Shipping Department. Then came the Slugger Nolan Official Baseball Mitt
Scandal. The mitt had been a big item one year, much requested in letters to
Santa. Through some gigantic snafu in Shipping, thousands of inflatable rubber
ducks had been sent out instead. For months afterward, Santa received letters
from indignant little boys, and though each one cut him like a knife he never
reproached Redpate. But Redpate knew he had failed Santa. He brooded, had
attacks of silent crying and finally took to drink, falling so much under the
spell of bee wine that Hardnoggin had to insist he resign.

'Rory,
you're just the elf I'm looking for,' said Redpate. 'Have you ever seen an elf
skulking? Well, I have.'

Bigtoes was
interested. Elves were straightforward creatures. They didn't skulk.

'Last night
I woke up in a cold sweat and saw strange things, Rory,' said Redpate. 'Comings
and goings, lights, skulking.' Large tears rolled down Redpate's cheeks. 'You
see, I get these nightmares, Rory. Thousands of inflatable rubber ducks come
marching across my body and their eyes are Santa's eyes when someone's let him
down.' He leaned toward Bigtoes confidentially. 'I may be a washout.
Occasionally I may even drink too much. But I don't skulk!' Redpate began to
cry again.

His tears
looked endless. Bigtoes was due at the Sticks-and-Stones session. He slipped
Redpate ten sugar plums. 'Got to go, Baldwin.'

Redpate
dabbed at the tears with the dusty end of his beard. 'When you see Santa, ask
him to think kindly of old Baldy Redpate,' he sniffed and headed straight for
The Good Gray Goose, the tavern across the street—making a beeline for the bee
wine, as the elves would say. But then he turned. 'Strange goings-on,' he
called. 'Storeroom Number 14, Unit 24, Row 58. Skulking.'

'Hardnoggin's
phone call was from Carlotta Peachfuzz,' said Charity, looking lovelier than
ever. 'The switchboard operator is a big Carlotta fan. She fainted when she
recognized her voice. The thrill was just too much.'

Interesting.
In spite of Santa's orders, were Carlotta and Hardnoggin back together on the
sly? If so, had they conspired on the bomb attempt? Or had it really been
Carlotta's voice? Carlotta Peachfuzz impersonations were a dime a dozen.

'Get me the
switchboard operator,' said Bigtoes and returned to stuffing Sticks-and-Stones
reports into his briefcase.

'No luck,'
said Charity, putting down the phone. 'She just took another call and fainted
again.'

Vice-President
Bandylegs looked quite pleased with himself and threw Bigtoes a wink. 'Don't be
surprised when I cut out of Sticks-and-Stones early, Rory,' he smiled. 'An
affair of the heart. All of a sudden the old Bandylegs charm has come through
again.' He nodded down the hall at Hardnoggin, waiting impatiently at the
Projection Room door. 'When the cat's away, the mice will play.'

The
Projection Room was built like a movie theatre. 'Come over here beside Santa,
Rory, my boy,' boomed the jolly old man. So Bigtoes scrambled up into a tiny
seat hooked over the back of the seat on Santa's left. On Bigtoes' left sat
Traffic Manager Brassbottom, Vice-President Bandylegs, and Director General
Hardnoggin. In this way Mrs Santa, at the portable bar against the wall, could
send Santa's martinis to him down an assembly line of elves.

Confident
that no one would dare to try anything with Santa's Security Chief present,
Bigtoes listened to the Traffic Manager, a red-lipped elf with a straw-collared
beard, talk enthusiastically about the television coverage planned for Santa's
trip. This year, live and in color via satellite, the North Pole would see
Santa's arrival at each stop on his journey. Santa's first martini was passed
from Hardnoggin to Bandylegs to Brassbottom to Bigtoes. The Security Chief
grasped the stem of the glass in both hands and, avoiding the heady gin fumes
as best he could, passed it to Santa.

'All
right,' said Santa, taking his first sip, 'let's roll 'em, starting with the
worst.'

The lights
dimmed. A film appeared on the screen. 'Waldo Rogers, age five,' said Bigtoes.
'Mistreatment of pets, eight demerits.' (The film showed a smirking little boy
pulling a cat's tail.) 'Not coming when he's called, ten demerits.' (The film
showed Waldo's mother at the screen door, shouting.) 'Also, as an indication of
his general bad behaviour, he gets his mother to buy Sugar Gizmos but he won't
eat them.

He just wants
the box-tops.' (The camera panned a pantry shelf crowded with opened Sugar
Gizmo boxes.) The elves clucked disapprovingly.

'Waldo
Rogers certainly isn't Santa's idea of a nice little boy,' said Santa. 'What do
you think, Mother?' Mrs Santa agreed.

'Sticks-and-Stones
then?' asked Hardnoggin hopefully.

But the
jolly old man hesitated. 'Santa always likes to check the list twice before
deciding,' he said.

Hardnoggin
groaned. Santa was always bollixing up his production schedules by going easy
on bad little girls and boys.

A new film
began. 'Next on the list,' said Bigtoes, 'is Nancy Ruth Ashley, age four and a
half. . .'

Two hours
and seven martinis later, Santa's jolly laughter and Mrs Santa's giggles filled
the room. 'She's a little dickens, that one,' chuckled Santa as they watched a
six-year-old fill her father's custom-made shoes with molasses, 'but Santa will
find a little something for her.' Hardnoggin groaned. That was the end of the
list and so far no one had been given Sticks-and-Stones. They rolled the film
on Waldo Rogers again. 'Santa understands some cats like having their tails
pulled,' chuckled Santa as he drained his glass. 'And what the heck are Sugar
Gizmos?'