Bagombo Snuff Box (21 page)

“Good girl,” said Kiah. He talked to the car sometimes as
though it were a girl, sometimes as though it were a boy.

It overtook the Hampton, which was going only a hair over
the speed limit. The Marittima-Frascati had to slow a lot, so it could run
alongside the Hampton and Kiah could give Marion and Paul the finger.

Paul shook his head and waved Kiah on, then applied his
brakes to drop far behind. There would be no race.

“He’s got no guts, baby,” said Kiah. “Let’s show the world
what guts are.” He pressed the accelerator to the floor. As blurs loomed before
him and vanished, he kept it there.

The engine was shrieking in agony now, and Kiah said in a
matter-of-fact tone, “Explode, explode.”

But the engine didn’t explode or catch fire. Its precious
jewels simply merged with one another, and the engine ceased to be an engine.
Nor was the clutch a clutch anymore. That allowed the car to roll into the
breakdown lane of the highway, powered by nothing but the last bit of momentum
it would ever have on its own.

The Hampton, with Paul and Marion aboard, never passed. They
must have gotten off at some exit far behind, Kiah thought.

Kiah left the car where it died. He thumbed a ride back to
the village, without having to give his lift a story of any kind. He returned
to Daggett’s showroom and acted as though he was there to work. The MG was
still on the floor. The man who said he would buy it for his son had changed
his mind.

“I gave you the whole day off,” said Daggett.

“I know,” said Kiah.

“So where’s the car?”

“I killed it.”

“You what?”

“I got it up to one forty-four, when they said it could only
do one thirty-five.”

“You’re joking.”

“Wait’ll you see,” said Kiah. “That’s one dead sports
vehicle. You’ll have to send the tow truck.”

“My God, boy, why would you do such a thing?”

“Call me Kiah.”

“Kiah,” echoed Daggett, convinced he was dealing with a lunatic.

“Who knows why anybody does anything?” said Kiah. “I don’t
know why I killed it. All I know is I’m glad it’s dead.”

Big Nick was said to be the most recent heir to the power of
Al Capone. He refused to affirm or deny it, on the grounds that he might tend
to incriminate himself.

He bought whatever caught his fancy, a twenty-three-room
house outside Chicago, a seventeen-room house in Miami, racehorses, a
ninety-foot yacht, one hundred fifteen suits, and among other things,
controlling interest in a middleweight boxer named Bernie O’Hare, the
Shenandoah Blaster.

When O’Hare lost sight in one eye on his way to the top of
his profession, Big Nick added him to his squad of bodyguards.

Big Nick gave a party every year, a little before Christmas,
for the children of his staff, and on the morning of the day of the party,
Bernie O’Hare, the Shenandoah Blaster, went shopping in downtown Chicago with
his wife, Wanda, and their four-year-old son, Willy.

The three were in a jewelry store when young Willy began to
complain and cling to his father’s trousers like a drunken bell-ringer.

Bernie, a tough, scarred, obedient young thug, set down a velvet-lined
tray of watches and grabbed the waist of his trousers. “Let go my pants, Willy!
Let go!” He turned to Wanda. “How’m I supposed to pick a Christmas present for
Big Nick with Willy pulling my pants down? Take him off me, Wan. What ails the
kid?”

“There must be a Santa Claus around,” said Wanda.

“There ain’t no Santy Clauses in jewelry stores,” said
Bernie. “You ain’t got no Santy Claus in here, have you?” he asked the clerk.

“No, sir,” said the clerk. His face bloomed, and he leaned
over the counter to speak to Willy. “But if the little boy would like to talk
to old Saint Nick, I think he’ll find the jolly old elf right next—”

“Can it,” said Bernie.

The clerk paled. “I was just going to say, sir, that the
department store next door has a Santa Claus, and the little—”

“Can’tcha see you’re making the kid worse?” said Bernie. He
knelt by Willy. “Willy boy, there ain’t no Santy Clauses around for miles. The
guy is full of baloney. There ain’t no Santy next door.”

“There, Daddy, there,” said Willy. He pointed a finger at a
tiny red figure standing by a clock behind the counter.

“Gripes!” said Bernie haggardly, slapping his knee. “The kid’s
got a eye like a eagle for Santy Clauses.” He gave a fraudulent laugh. “Why,
say, Willy boy, I’m surprised at you. That’s just a little plastic Santy. He
can’t hurt you.”

“I hate him,” said Willy.

“How much you want for the thing?” said Ernie.

“The plastic Santa Claus, sir?” said the bewildered clerk. “Why,
it’s just a little decoration. I think you can get one at any five-and-ten-cent
store.”

“I want that one,” said Bernie. “Right now.”

The clerk gave it to him. “No charge,” he said. “Be our
guest.”

Bernie dropped the Santa Claus on the terrazzo floor. “Watch
what Daddy’s going to do to Old Whiskers, Willy,” he said. He brought his heel
down. “Keeeeee-runch!”

Willy smiled faintly, then began to laugh as his father’s
heel came down again and again.

“Now you do it, Willy,” said Bernie. “Who’s afraid of him,
eh?”

“I’ll bust his ol’ head off,” said Willy gleefully. “Crunch
him up!” He himself trampled Father Christmas. “

“That was real smart,” said Wanda. “You make me spend all
year trying to get him to like Santa Claus, and then you pull a stunt like
that.”

“I hadda do something to make him pipe down, didn’t I?” said
Bernie. “Okay, okay. Now maybe we can have a little peace and quiet so I can
look at the watches. How much is this one with the diamonds for numbers?”

“Three hundred dollars, sir, including tax,” said the clerk.

“Does it glow in the dark? It’s gotta glow in the dark.”

“Yes, sir, the face is luminous.”

“I’ll take it,” said Bernie.

“Three hundred bucks!” said Wanda, pained. “Holy smokes,
Bernie.”

“Whaddya mean, holy smokes?” said Bernie. “I’m ashamed to
give him a little piece of junk like this. What’s a lousy three-hundred-dollar
watch to Big Nick? You kick about this, but I don’t hear you kicking about the
way the savings account keeps going up. Big Nick is Santy Claus, whether you
like it or not.”

“I don’t like it,” said Wanda. ‘And neither does Willy. Look
at the poor kid—Christmas is ruined for him.”

“Aaaaah, now,” said Bernie, “it ain’t that bad. It’s real
warmhearted of Big Nick to wanna give a party for the kids. I mean, no matter
how it comes out, he’s got the right idea.”

“Some heart!” said Wanda. “Some idea! He gets dressed up in
a Santa Claus suit so all the kids’ll worship him. And he tops that off by
makin’ the kids squeal on their parents.”

Bernie nodded in resignation. “What can I do?”

“Quit,” said Wanda. “Work for somebody else.”

“What else I know how to do, Wan? All I ever done was fight,
and where else am I gonna make money like what Big Nick pays me? Where?”

A tall, urbane gentleman with a small mustache came up to
the adjoining counter, trailed by a wife in mink and a son. The son was Willy’s
age, and was snuffling and peering apprehensively over his shoulder at the
front door.

The clerk excused himself and went to serve the genteel new
arrivals.

“Hey,” said Bernie, “there’s Mr. and Mrs. Pullman. You remember
them from last Christmas, Wan.”

“Big Nick’s accountant?” said Wanda.

“Naw, his lawyer.” Bernie saluted Pullman with a wave of his
hand. “Hi, Mr. Pullman.”

“Oh, hello,” said Pullman without warmth. “Big Nick’s bodyguard,”
he explained to his wife. “You remember him from the last Christmas party.”

“Doing your Christmas shopping late like everybody else, I
see,” said Bernie.

“Yes,” said Pullman. He looked down at his child, Richard. “Can’t
you stop snuffling?”

“It’s psychosomatic,” said Mrs. Pullman. “He snuffles every
time he sees a Santa Claus. You can’t bring a child downtown at Christmastime
and not have him see a Santa Claus somewhere. One came out of the cafeteria
next door just a minute ago. Scared poor Richard half to death.”

“I won’t have a snuffling son,” said Pullman. “Richard!
Stiff upper lip! Santa Claus is your friend, my friend, everybody’s friend.”

“I wish he’d stay at the North Pole,” said Richard.

‘And freeze his nose off,” said Willy.

“And get ate up by a polar bear,” said Richard.

“Eaten up by a polar bear,” Mrs. Pullman corrected.

“Are you encouraging the boy to hate Santa Claus?” said Mr.
Pullman.

“Why pretend?” said Mrs. Pullman. “Our Santa Claus is a
dirty, vulgar, prying, foulmouthed, ill-smelling fake.”

The clerk’s eyes rolled.

“Sometimes, dear,” said Pullman, “I wonder if you remember
what we . were like before we met that jolly elf. Quite broke.”

“Give me integrity or give me death,” said Mrs. Pullman.

“Shame comes along with the money,” said Pullman. “It’s a
package deal. And we’re in this thing together.” He addressed the clerk. “I
want something terribly overpriced and in the worst possible taste, something, possibly,
that glows in the dark and has a barometer in it.” He pressed his thumb and
forefinger together in a symbol of delicacy. “Do you sense the sort of thing I’m
looking for?”

“I’m sorry to say you’ve come to the right place,” said the
clerk. “We have a model of the Mayflower in chromium, with a red light that
shines through the portholes,” he said. “However, that has a clock instead of a
barometer. We have a silver statuette of Man o’ War with rubies for eyes, and
that’s got a barometer. Ugh.”

“I wonder,” said Mrs. Pullman, “if we couldn’t have Man o’
War welded to the poop deck of the Mayflower?”

“You’re on the right track,” said Pullman. “You surprise me.
I didn’t think you’d ever get the hang of Big Nick’s personality.” He rubbed
his eyes. “Oh Lord, what does he need, what does he need? Any ideas, Bernie?”

“Nothing,” said Bernie. “He’s got seven of everything. But
he says he still likes to get presents, just to remind him of all the friends
he’s got.”

“He would think that was the way to count them,” said Pullman.

“Friends are important to Big Nick,” said Bernie. “He’s
gotta be told a hunnerd times a day everybody loves him, or he starts bustin’
up the furniture an’ the help.”

Pullman nodded. “Richard,” he said to his son, “do you remember
what you are to tell Santa Claus when he asks what Mommy and Daddy think of Big
Nick?”

“Mommy and Daddy love Big Nick,” said Richard. “Mommy and
Daddy think he’s a real gentleman.”

“What’re you gonna say, Willy?” Bernie asked his own son.

“Mommy and Daddy say they owe an awful lot to Big Nick,”
said Willy. “Big Nick is a kind, generous man.”

“Ev-ry-bo-dy loves Big Nick,” said Wanda.

“Or they wind up in Lake Michigan with cement overshoes,”
said Pullman. He smiled at the clerk, who had just brought him the Mayflower
and Man o’ War. “They’re fine as far as they go,” he said. “But do they glow in
the dark?”

Bernie O’Hare was the front-door guard at Big Nick’s house
on the day of the party. Now he admitted Mr. and Mrs. Pullman and their son.

“Ho ho ho,” said Bernie softly.

“Ho ho ho,” said Pullman.

“Well, Richard,” said Bernie to young Pullman, “I see you’re
all calmed down.”

“Daddy gave me half a sleeping tablet,” said Richard.

“Has the master of the house been holding high wassail?”
said Mrs. Pullman.

“I beg your pardon?” said Bernie.

“Is he drunk?” said Mrs. Pullman.

“Do fish swim?” said Bernie.

“Did the sun rise?” said Mr. Pullman.

A small intercom phone on the wall buzzed. “Yeah. Nick?”
said Bernie.

“They all here yet?” said a truculent voice.

“Yeah, Nick. The Pullmans just got here. They’re the last.
The rest are sitting in the living room.”

“Do your stuff.” Nick hung up.

Bernie sighed, took a string of sleighbells from the closet,
turned off the alarm system, and stepped outside into the shrubbery.

He shook the sleighbells and shouted. “Hey! It’s Santy Claus!
And Dunder and Blitzen and Dancer and Prancer! Oh, boy! They’re landing on the
roof! Now Santy’s coming in through an upstairs bedroom window!”

He went back inside, hid the bells, bolted and chained the
door, reset the alarm system, and went into the living room, where twelve
children and eight sets of parents sat silently.

All the men in the group worked for Nick. Bernie was the
only one who looked like a hoodlum. The rest looked like ordinary, respectable
businessmen. They labored largely in Big Nick’s headquarters, where brutality
was remote. They kept his books and gave him business and legal advice, and
applied the most up-to-date management methods to his varied enterprises. They
were a fraction of his staff, the ones who had children young enough to believe
in Santa Claus.

“Merry Christmas!” said Santa Claus harshly, his big black
boots clumping down the stairs.

Willy squirmed away from his mother and ran to Bernie for better
protection.

Santa Claus leaned on the newel post, a cigar jutting from
his cotton beard, his beady eyes traveling malevolently from one face to the
next. Santa Claus was fat and squat and pasty-faced. He reeked of booze.

“I just got down from me workshop at the Nort’ Pole,” he
said challengingly. ‘Ain’t nobody gonna say hi to ol’ Saint Nick?”

All around the room parents nudged children who would not
speak.

“Talk it up!” said Santa. “This ain’t no morgue.” He pointed
a blunt finger at Richard Pullman. “You been a good boy, heh?”

Mr. Pullman squeezed his son like a bagpipe.

“Yup,” piped Richard.

“Ya sure?” said Santa suspiciously. “Ain’t been fresh wit’
grown-ups?”