Santa 365 (3 page)

“Nothing to be afraid of,” Bernie's mom said. She gave Charlie a bit of a forward shove. He dug in his heels—a move I've got myself—and did a nice job of it. “He's just an actor pretending to be an elf.”

Elrood put his hand to his chest. “How hurtful. I happen to be a real elf and very friendly.” He whipped the bag off his shoulders and dumped out the contents: brightly wrapped presents, a whole big jumble of them. Elrood stooped down, scooped one out, and held it in Charlie's direction. Charlie resisted for a moment or two, then took it. I recognized that move as well.

“Open it,” Elrood said.

“But it's not Christmas yet,” Charlie said.

“That's the whole point,” Elrood told him, his voice for a moment deeper and unsqueaky. He cleared his throat and went on, his voice back to high and squeaky. “None of those technicalities matter at Santa 365.”

Charlie turned to Bernie. “Can I open it?”

“Don't see why not,” Bernie said.

Charlie started opening the present. “Not like that!” Bernie's mom said. “That's nice wrapping paper. It can be reused.” She did a careful job with the wrapping paper, folded it up nicely, then handed the box inside to Charlie.

Charlie lifted the lid off the box. “Hey! A baseball glove!” He put it on, made a fist with his free hand, smacked the pocket. Lovely leather smells came wafting my way. Plans for that glove began forming in my mind. I did my very best to smother them.

“Nice glove,” said Bernie, taking a close look. Bernie knows baseball. He pitched for Army, back before his arm blew out. Even so, he can still throw tennis balls a country mile, which is the kind of mile we have here in the desert.

“Finest in its category,” Elrood said. “Comes with our platinum package.”

“Platinum package?” Bernie said.

Elrood took a phone from a pocket in his green jacket and checked the screen. “Yup, you took the platinum package.”

“I thought it was the entry-lev—”

“Lookin' right here at Plumpy's—er—Santa's deal memo.” Elrood flashed the screen at Bernie and stuffed it back in his pocket.

“What's in all these?” Bernie said, gesturing at the presents scattered around the tree.

“Why, platinum-level gifts chosen in the spirit of the season,” said Elrood.

Bernie gave Elrood a look that might not have been too friendly. “Where are the other elves?”

“Other elves?” said Elrood. “That would be platinum plus.”

Yes, an unfriendly look, no doubt about it. “And where's Plumpy?”

“You mean Santa,” Elrood said. “Santa 365. He should be ho-ho-hoing his way in here any second.” He laughed a squeaky laugh. No one joined in. Except for Bernie's mom. She had maybe the loudest laugh I'd ever heard. It made me yelp, and I'm no yelper.

Plumpy never showed, but lots of other people did. We had dudes from Valley PD, like Sgt. Rick Torres and Lieutenant Stine. We had Suzie's friend Carla from the
Trib
, our mechanic Nixon Panero, plus some of our experts—Prof, our finance guy from the college, and Otis DeWayne, our weapons guy, who brought Bernie a genuine poison-tipped dart from the Amazon, wherever that happened to be. Livia Moon dropped by, although without any of the staff from her house of ill repute over in Pottsdale, business being too hectic at this time of year. Janie the groomer, Amy the vet, and don't leave out my buddy General Beauregard, a real heavy-hitter who lived with Otis. We did us some heavy-hitting, although not much, the General waiting out the remainder of the party in their pickup, and me having some recess on the patio.

The platinum-level presents went over very well. “Bernie! So generous of you!” I heard that a lot. Especially from some perps we knew, like Lumpy Flanagan and Boodles Calhoun and Whizzer Dupuis and Nuggets Bolliterri. “Havin' the time of our lives!” said Nuggets, chowing down on ribs that Cleon Maxwell had brought over by the truckload from Max's Memphis Ribs, best ribs in the
Valley, no one else close. Don't let me forget the boozing, of which there was plenty. Although not by Bernie. Did he even have one single glass of bourbon? Not that I saw.

Plus there was Charlie's friend Esmé. A fine kid with a fine way of slipping me ribs behind her back.

“Told you there's no Santa Claus,” she said to Charlie.

“He's coming,” Charlie said.

But he never showed.

After everyone had gone, we went into the office—me, Bernie, Elrood the Elf—to settle up. Bernie gazed at the bill, his eyes widening.

“Five percent off for cash,” Elrood said. “Meaning actual currency of the realm.”

“What about the fact that Plumpy didn't appear?”

“There are many demands on Santa,” said Elrood. “But I'll see if I can shake out a ten-dollar coupon good for next year when I see him.”

“Doesn't get jollier than that.” Bernie went to the waterfall picture and took it off the wall. We've also got ocean and lake and river pictures in the house, water being one of Bernie's biggest worries. I'll get to the aquifer issue later on, if there's time. But the point is that behind the waterfall picture is our safe, containing Bernie's grandfather's watch—our most valuable possession—plus the .38 Special and sometimes, actually hardly ever, a roll of cash. Bernie spun the dial. At the same time, Elrood took out his phone, checked the screen, then laid the phone in his lap.

The safe opened and Bernie took out a . . . a roll of cash? When had that gotten in there? Were our finances looking up? My mood brightened, and it was pretty much blue skies already.
Bernie closed the safe and rehung the waterfall picture. Elrood rose from the guest chair, tucking the phone in his pocket. Bernie counted out most of the roll and handed it over.

“Much obliged, your honor,” Elrood said, at his very squeakiest. He bowed and tucked our cash in his pocket, beside the phone. We left the office, headed toward the front door. “That the facilities?” Elrood said, as we passed the bathroom door.

Bernie nodded.

“Mind if I . . .”

Bernie nodded again. Elrood went into the bathroom, closing the door. Bernie and I continued into the front hall, where we waited for him. Suzie, Charlie, and Bernie's mom were gazing at the tree. Bernie's mom turned to Bernie, lifting the glittering strands of her new necklace off her chest.

“Had no idea you were doing so well, kiddo.”

“Um, kind of misleading,” Bernie said. “The fact is—”

I never learned this particular fact, because at that moment Elrood appeared. He shook hands with everybody, except for Charlie, who got a head pat, said “Merrrry Chriiiistmas!” one more time, and was gone.

“What a party!” Suzie said.

Bernie smiled.

“Count the spoons,” said Bernie's mom.

Everyone laughed, except for Charlie who went into the kitchen, came back and said, “Eleven.”

The whole expression on Bernie's mom's face changed. For a tiny bit of time, she looked almost young, almost happy. Bernie gave Suzie a quick kiss on the cheek. I located a forgotten rib behind the tree. If this was Christmas, we were having a great one.

The next morning, not long after Suzie had to go to work, Charlie wanted to try out his new glove, so we played catch in the front yard: me, Bernie, Charlie, and—big surprise—Bernie's mom. And here was an even bigger surprise: she could throw and she could catch. Zip zip zip went the ball, round and round. You'll have trouble finding a better ball-playing family than ours. I myself don't throw, of course, but I'm a good catcher. In fact, there's probably no one in my class when it comes to snatching balls right out of the air.

“Chet! Cool it!”

Oops. Something wrong? I dropped the ball at Bernie's feet. He wiped it off on his pants.

“Chet reminds me of Gaylord Perry,” Bernie's mom said.

Bernie laughed.

“Who's Gaylord Perry?” said Charlie. Sounded like a perp to me. If so—heads up, Mr. Perry. Hope you're good at breaking rocks in the hot sun.

“Spitballer,” said Bernie, winging the ball to Charlie. “Won over three hundred games.”

Charlie caught the ball in his new glove, gripped it, got set to throw to Bernie's mom, and then paused. “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Elves make the presents, right?”

“Uh, in Christmas theory.”

“But Santa brings them.”

“Yup.”

“So how come Elrood brought the presents? He's an elf.”

“Well, in this case, Santa didn't come.”

“So Elrood knew Santa wasn't coming?”

Bernie went still. In a soft voice, maybe just meant for him—and me, goes without saying—he said, “Even though he said
Santa would be along any minute.”

Soft, but Charlie heard. “Yeah,” he said.

Bernie gave Charlie a long look. So did Bernie's mom. And me, just because they were doing it. No idea what they were seeing, but I saw a great kid.

The next thing I knew we were all in the office. Bernie removed the waterfall painting, spun the dial on the safe, opened it up. The .38 Special was inside, but Bernie's grandfather's watch was not.

“Last-minute pit stop,” Bernie said. “Quick but productive.”

“What are you talking about?” said Bernie's mom.

Bernie stuck the .38 in his belt. “How about you two hanging out for a bit? Chet and I have work to do.”

“Never liked elves, myself,” Bernie said, as we drove off in the Porsche, Bernie behind the wheel and me in the shotgun seat, our normal seating arrangement, although once we'd gotten it reversed, meaning Bernie riding shotgun and me behind the wheel. What a night that was! No time to go into it now, and no point, either, since I doubt we'll be visiting that part of Mexico anytime soon. “Always found them kind of creepy.”

What was this? Elves? Was this a case about elves? I went over everything I knew so far, an excellent technique in our line of work, but was unable to come up with fact one. Did that bother me? How could anything bother a dude riding shotgun? I sat up tall and straight, a total pro, on the job.

Bernie got on the phone, called Rick Torres.

“Hey!” Rick said. “Mr. Christmas himself. I'll be drinking off the top shelf for the foreseeable future.”

“Huh?”

“Don't go aw-shucks on me, Bernie. I'm talking about that case of single malt.”

“A whole—”

“Best Christmas party I can remember, and I actually can't remember much of it. Your mother is one tough babe, if you don't mind me saying so. Is she dating anyone, by the way?”

“You're married, among many other things.”

“I was thinking of my uncle Hector.”

“What's he like?”

“Better than he used to be.”

“How about we aim higher?” Bernie said. “Meanwhile I need a favor—address for Norbert Norwood Bonaparte, a.k.a. Plumpy. Parole Board should have it.”

“Yours for the asking, Mr. Christmas.”

“Knock it off.”

Rick called back almost right away with an address in El Monte, not far past the airport. Bernie calls it Subprimoville, for reasons of his own. Subprimoville is just about the biggest development in the whole Valley, detached and semidetached and not detached at all houses built in what Bernie calls faux adobe style—or sometimes faux-a-dough, when it's only him and me in the conversation—going on and on to the edge of the desert. Soon we were stopping in front of a small, detached faux-a-dough with vacant lots on both side, the driveway already occupied by a small van. Bernie parked right behind the van, blocking it in. Just another one of our techniques at the Little Detective Agency. We've got many, one of the reasons we're so successful, except for the finances part.

We hopped out of the car, me actually hopping, and . . . what was this? Bernie hopping, too, despite his poor leg, wounded in the war? That lovely feeling of somehow being better than ever
came to me again. What a life! And Bernie had the .38 Special in his belt. That made it even more better!

A little path lined with wilted flowers led to the front door. We didn't take it, instead walked around to the back. Fine with me. As for why, I had no clue. All I knew was that someone was moving around inside, either a woman or a small man. I listened more carefully: yes, a small man, men and women having different strides, no matter their size.

A little lawn lay at the back of the house, the grass all brown, litter stirring in the breeze. We closed in on a window, peeked inside, me with front paws on the sill, Bernie looking over my head. On the far side was a living room, pretty much trashed: everything upside down, cushions slashed, holes poked in the walls here and there.

We moved on toward a door, the glass kind with a metal frame. It led to a kitchen, also pretty much trashed, and in fact still being trashed at that very moment. The dude doing the trashing was small and thin, wore jeans and a muscle shirt that showed he had none. He looked like a lot of dudes, especially those of the short, brown hair and smallish features type. But was there something familiar about those close-together eyes? I sniffed at the door, but couldn't pick up his scent, maybe overwhelmed by the powerful smell of pepperoni, coming from an open pizza box on the floor. Pepperoni in my near future? No one has it better than me.

We watched the little dude. Trashing maybe wasn't exactly what was going down, although things were getting trashed. Am I confusing you? That would be bad. The point is the little dude seemed to be looking for something. He checked the cupboards, the fridge, the freezer, grabbing all sorts of things—ice cube trays, pickle jars, plates, and bowls—and tossing them aside in a big
shattering mess, but not before first examining them for who knows what. Car keys? His wallet? Those were my best guesses.

The little dude picked up a toaster, turned it upside down, and shook it. Crumbs fells out. He threw the toaster across the room, and on the follow-through I got a real good look at his skinny arm. And what was this? On his skinny wrist he was wearing Bernie's grandfather's watch, our most valuable possession! I barked a short, angry bark, couldn't help myself. The little dude spun around in our direction. His mouth fell open and he bolted from the kitchen and out of sight. Bernie tried the door: locked.