Rudolph! (20 page)

"They're making changes, Bernie," Santa said. "The rest of the world is catching up, and there's a group within the Consortium who is arguing that the North Pole should get out of the delivery business altogether. We have the customer data; we don't need to be in the warehousing and fulfillment business. We should be outsourcing all of that. Another year or two and it'll all be virtualized. Gift cards and e-delivery. That Company That Shall Not Be Named has already figured out most of the model. Once they get it all sorted out, who will need some fat dude and a bunch of reindeer to drop packages down chimneys anymore?"

I shook my head, knowing what he was asking of me. "I can't do it," I said. "they took my union card and kicked me out. The RCMP have permission to grab me if I go north of the 60th parallel, and if I'm lucky enough to make it to the 80th, they can put a real bounty out on me. Even the polar bears will be trying to collect. I can't go back. Not ever."

"Name the place, Bernie. Anywhere. We'll pick you up. What can they do once the Clock is on and we're in the air?"

"You're starting to sound like an action junkie. You know, one of those guys who pops up in every extreme sport on ESPN. Extreme hang-gliding, extreme cold water snorkeling, extreme alligator wrestling, extreme volcano spelunking, extreme—"

"I'm loosing it, Bernie." Santa interrupted. "The couple of Seasons before—before we went after David Anderson—they were rough. It was all the same: the same toys, the same trends, and all the same greedy bullshit. Gimme gimme gimme. People fighting over toys. Kids getting trampled during extended shopping hours. It's all material, Bernie. Did you know we're doubling the weight load every three years? It used to take us nearly a decade to double the weight. We're already stretching physics pretty thin, and the curve is getting steeper. We're going to break something in the next few years, and it's going to be worse than '64. A lot worse."

"It's not that bad," I said. "You're just having a mid-life crisis. You're two hundred years overdue. Let it run its course. Find a hobby. Get a dog or something."

"I'm busting my butt up there every year," he said. "Do you know how many homes in the West have security systems now? I can't even do a block in under six minutes any more. The team and I spent nearly a week under the Clock last Season. You think anyone cares anymore?"

"Yeah, I do." I patted his elbow. "I really do. And Rudolph and I are out here making sure everyone else does too."

Santa nodded. "Yeah, I know. She says you guys were doing a great job." He puffed out his cheeks and watched the kids on the merry-go-round awhile. "I just had to get out of there and see it for myself. I had to see if I could still make a difference, see if it was still worth doing."

"It is," I said. "We are."

"That's good," he said. "That's really good to hear." He reached inside his windbreaker and brought out a manila envelope. "Your next assignment."

When I took the envelope from him, he stuck his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker and wouldn't look at me.

"What?" I asked.

"It's a solo assignment," he said.

"Rudolph?" I said. "You're letting Rudolph do one on his own?"

He shook his head. "Rudolph's got to come back with me. We want to get him some help."

"Help? There's nothing wrong with him."

Santa grimaced slightly. "I know. But the Consortium thinks—"

"Wait a second," I said. "The NPC knows about this?"

He ducked his head slightly. "We didn't have any choice. They implemented a new accounting system, and the Residence got rolled into it. I fought it—it's my household; I should be able to run it anyway I want—but they were too damn clever about it. Once they got their sticky fingers on my ledgers, they ran an audit."

"What did they find?"

He looked at the kids going round and round on the horses. "We had to come clean on some expenditures," he said. "And give them access to the report files, which included all of your
and
Rudolph's reports to Mrs. C."

A stickler for historical recordings, she insisted on very detailed accountings of what we had done—from both of us. In a sudden panic, I tried to recall any specifics in my reports that might aggravate my less-than-savory standing with the North Pole Consortium, and then I started worrying about what Rudolph had been saying in his.

"It's the Boston job," Santa explained. "They think you glossed over some details and Rudolph's terminology was so self-effacing as to be useless."

Beantown. Of course, it would be the Beantown job. That one had nearly been a PR disaster. What was his name? Randy—Randy Filner had sued his parents over an incorrect Christmas gift. He had asked for a horse and gotten a bike. It hadn't been our fault. Mom and Dad rewrote his request and thought he'd be excited about the change. Randy found some bottom-slurper with a law degree who tried to take the parents for nearly a million two in emotional damages. The case would have splashed every major newspaper across the city if it had gotten past its initial hearing, which is why Rudolph and I had paid Mr. Thomas Culpepper of Daughty & Culpepper a late night visit. Special envoys from the North Pole sort of visit. Seasonal stealth SEALs sort of visit. It hadn't gone so well. Culpepper didn't have an emotional bone in his body. It had been like talking to a block of gnarly gristle.

And then he called Rudolph a trained moose. He called me a midget too. Rudolph was a little perturbed. Well, even now, I'm glossing. Rudolph had gotten pissed. The guy held out until after Rudolph set his desk on fire and melted most of the trinkets in his trophy case.

Not entirely a proper solution to the problem, but it had worked.

"Fuck proper," Rudolph had said as we were leaving. "Proper never gets the girl. Proper dies miserably in the back of a rusted deSoto with a pocket full of unpaid bills and less than two dollars in his wallet, wondering why and how."

I left that bit out of the report too.

"What do the NPC want?" I asked Santa.

"They want Rudolph to do some anger management sessions."

"Why now? Why not after this next gig?"

"Mrs. C and I think it's probably best to do it now. We look good by catering to their concerns, and it gets Rudolph out of the way for a while. Trust me, it'll be better if he's not around on this job."

"Why?" I asked. I really didn't want to open the envelope now.

"There's a production company in Seattle that is in trouble. They need some cash and a new producer. It'll be easy: flash some green, tell them how much you love the arts, and smile a lot on opening night."

"If it's so easy, why can't Rudolph play?"

"Well, it's best he doesn't know about the show."

"I'm asking why a lot, Santa, which is making me nervous," I said. "Why shouldn't Rudolph know about this show?"

"It's about him. They're doing a musical."

December 6th

I
lifted my head, listening to a faint echo of music that was winding
its way down from somewhere upstairs. The banging and pinging of the old pipes as the ancient boiler sent warm air up had seemed awfully familiar, and now hearing the tinny sound of an old radio playing, I was certain I was still in the Heritage Building. The main boiler room was off to my left somewhere, which meant that the storage space beneath the stage was on my right. The music was coming from the radio in the carpenters' area. Someone had left it on again.

My ear ached. I had left my inquisitor frustrated, and he had ground his cigarette out in the curved valley of my earlobe, more from pique at not getting what he wanted than from any real attempt to make me talk.

I had talked, though. I told him all sorts of things: the combination of my first locker at school, most of the access codes for the NPC network at the Pole, the password on Santa's humidor, the words I had spoken to Clarise Hangvine that had garnered me an invite back to her place oh so many years ago now, the solution to the last puzzle in
Myst
, the answer to the "Got Milk?" question, the reason Douglas Adams picked 42 as the answer to everything; I told him all that and more.

But the one thing I didn't tell him was the access codes to the numbered bank account.

Hence the earlobe burning.

I had lost track of time, though my pants were dry now. I might have pissed myself when the cigarette was shoved against my ear; it was hard to remember if it had been then or some time after when I had given up on ever getting a chance to visit a real bathroom. Or maybe both. It didn't matter anymore because it had been long enough that I was no longer damp.

The worst part had been the chills once the urine had dried.

No, scratch that. The worst part was actually having the life experience that allowed me to make that distinction.

Not for the first time, I wished Rudolph were here. Things would have gone a lot differently with him around.

A key was inserted in the outer lock of the storeroom, and I tensed involuntarily. Stupid lizard brain response to the ache in my left ear. I wasn't going to talk, so why did part of my brain keep freaking out?

The lock clicked, and someone entered the room. I strained to hear the sound of shoes against the storeroom floor. How many? Was it Slapper, coming back for another round of hand-rolled cigarette interrogation? Was it Meeker, suddenly developing a spine? Was it—?

The shoes squeaked against the floor. Cork soles.

I knew who it was, and I was a little surprised.

The blindfold was removed, and even though the light in the storeroom was weak and pale, it was still a little bright for me since I had been playing earthworm down here in the basement for the past day or so.

"Hello, Erma," I said, squinting at the only person in the room. "What brings you down here?"

She caught my chin with her large hand and held it steady as she lifted a squeeze bottle to my dry lips. "Talk or drink," she said. "Your choice."

I closed my mouth around the nub of the squeeze bottle, and she applied a forceful amount of pressure, filling my desert-like mouth with a flash flood of warm water. I gasped, choked, tried to sneeze, all the while struggling mightily not to lose a single drop. She let me nurse like a calf for a minute before pulling the bottle away. I snapped at her fingers as she removed her hand from my chin.

She cuffed me lightly on the ear—the left ear—and I squealed like a different barnyard animal. "Watch your manners," she said.

I apologized for a good minute or so straight.

"Do you get it now?" she said when I ran out of steam. "The production was always meant to tank."

Erma Raeddicker was the general manager of the Delirious Arts Renaissance Company, which meant she did ninety-nine percent of all the real work while everyone else sipped expensive coffees and talked about
art
with capital letters. She was round in the head and body like a snowman, and her hair had been strawberry blonde once—though she kept trying to bring back that youthful luster with regular applications of Goldenrod #42. She reminded me of a bird with the way she moved her neck and chin. She was approximating a mother hen now as she tried to sweet talk me.

"What about the cast of thousands that you've got slaving away up there?" I asked. "Anyone told them?"

She raised her hand as if she was going to slap me again. "It's only forty-six," she said. "Don't exaggerate." She lowered her hand when I made a contrite bounce with my head. "They're theater wannabes, anyway. Who cares?"

"They might."

She offered me the water bottle again, but I only got a small mouthful before she pulled it away. "Whatever. They're getting paid for rehearsals. Beyond that? Well, it won't matter after the first few shows anyway . . ."

I swirled a final bit of the water around my mouth to wash out the taste of dust and stale air, turning my head away from her to spit on the floor. I tried to do some math, but I gave up and asked her instead. "How much did you skim off?"

"Enough to make it worth doing." She offered me a smile that wasn't entirely pleasing to look at. "But then you came along. Offering so much more."

I raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember offering."

"Yes, well, that's the sticky part now, isn't it?" She shucked my chin gently with her fist. "You're smart. I'm guessing you've got most of it figured out. How many are in on this con? And what does that knowledge do to your chances of walking out of here?"

"Well, since I finished all of my Christmas shopping before you kidnapped me, I haven't had a whole lot to worry about. Lots of time to think about who I should move over to the Naughty List."

"I warned them." She sighed. "They should have gone harder on you that first day."

"Gee, Erma. It's nice to see this outpouring of compassion during the holiday season."

She leaned in close, and I could smell mint on her breath. She always had a pot of mint tea steeping in her office. Part of the grandmotherly charm she tried to exude.
Come in, kids, have some tea. It'll warm your bones on these cold days.

"You're going to make it hard for us to disappear," she said in a rather ungrandmotherly way.

"Right," I said. "So let me see if I've got this. Choice A is you settle for what you've got, whack me, and vanish to Cabo. Choice B: threaten me enough that I cave and give you the account password; in return, I get to live, and I suffer temporary amnesia out of gratitude, and you still go to Cabo. Only a million or so richer. That about it?"

She tousled my hair. "That's about it," she said. "And I think
B
is the smart choice."

I leaned back to get out from under her hand. "Erma, you have no idea the shit I've been through the past few years," I said. "You really have no idea."

Her smile stayed, but it looked a little frozen.

"Really," I said. "I've stood toe-to-toe with Satan himself, Erma. I bluffed him, and he blinked. I spent last Christmas a mile down in the ocean with a very pissed off and claustrophobic reindeer. Do you think I'm the slightest bit frightened by your heavy-handed theatrics?"

Her smile dissolved. "I'm sorry, Mr. Rosewood, but you're wrong. I don't do theater. I'm in management."

She left the blindfold off but turned out the lights as she left. I listened to the sibilant whisper of her shoes until the noise was lost beneath the distant murmur of the radio and the buzz in my left ear.

I let the shakes into my knees then. Rudolph was the one who had bluffed Satan. He was the one with the indomitable nerves of steel. I was just the sidekick. The realist who kept everything grounded. I wasn't good at bluffing.

I was good at worrying.

Why had I let them talk me into doing this without Rudolph?