New Year's Eve Kill (5 page)

   “I would never steer a friend wrong, Ethel. I’m offering you my best tree at an honest price.” Ham smiled like a dirty old man with a front row seat at
Annie
.

   “For $200 you can stick it. This tree is worth $60, and that’s being kind. You must be out of your mind if you think we’d pay you that. Look! The bottom branches just disintegrated!” Ethel fumed as she went down Ham’s trees, followed by a shocked Jim and a sweating Ham.

   “How about $185!”

   “And this one has no right side…this one here is crooked…”

   Jim tried not to laugh as they followed Ethel down the line of trees.

   “$150!” Ham yelled.

   “This one isn’t even a Christmas tree, looks like an over-grown cactus.”

   “$130!”

   “If this tree here was a horse, they’d shoot it…”

   “$100!”

   “Charlie Brown wouldn’t even buy this tree…”

   “Okay, you’re killing me…$80 dollars for you, Ethel!” Ham shouted, overcooked.

   “I don’t think any of these trees are worth it. I’m sorry.”

   “Screw you both, and the horse you rode in on! You’ll regret you didn’t buy from me!”

   Ethel walked as fast as she could, making crunch sounds in the snow. They found themselves at the corner again. Ethel was trying to understand what, ‘
Screw you both and the horse you rode in on’
meant, when Jim almost slipped on some hidden ice.

   “I hate this snow! Why don’t we just get the first one he showed us? He seems desperate. I bet we could get it for $50 bucks.

   They looked back over to Ham as another victim seemed interested in one of his trees. Maybe this customer’s eyesight was off.

   Annka welcomed them with a tight smile and cigarette in her mouth.

   “I see you come to Annka now. Ha! Annka have best trees in New York. Pedro! Open—open! This tree for fine peoples.”

   Little Pedro moved fast in the snow, wearing only sneakers, a light jacket and cigarette, that was dangling out of the corner of his mouth.
Another smoker
. Ethel couldn’t tell his age, but he could be anywhere from nineteen-to-forty-years old. Ethel wondered how he could be out in the cold dressed like that. She thought of offering him an old jacket or something, but dismissed it when the fear of being laughed at entered her mind. Pedro also could be insulted, and she guessed Annka probably had him running around so much he didn’t need a heavy coat. Still, his gloveless hands made her feel sad and uncomfortable.

   The tree was a good size, about nine feet and had a pretty green color. The tree actually smelled like pine and not some chemical. When a couple of light snowflakes fell Ethel suddenly thought of Seattle and how they had the best trees for Christmas. You could drive over to Nutley’s Nursery on 15
th
Ave and pick the most beautiful tree and chop it down yourself if you wanted. Most single women who went there usually had a worker or male companion chop theirs down. Ethel wouldn’t hear of it. Of course she always got splitters in her hands and wood chips in her hair, but damn it, she did it herself.

   Ethel started listening to Jim and Annka bargaining over the tree. She looked over to Dick to see a young couple walking away from him cursing. Dick was watching Ethel keenly. She turned away to see Ham helping two women put one of his crazy trees into a cart. She was glad he made a sale, though felt sorry for the women when that tree would fall apart as soon as the Christmas lights were on.

   Ethel didn’t know it, but Ham was watching them with Annka as well.

   “One-hundred-three-five is good price. You buy it now!” Annka said.

   “We were looking to spend around $100.”

   “My trees are the best in New York! Okay. Annka give you best price, one-two-five.”

   Ethel looked at the tree more as Pedro tried to hold it up straight. She noticed his hands were small and pinkish-brown from the cold. She felt a branch and it came off in her hand.

   “You broke it!” Annka growled, “You hurt it, you buy now!”

   Ethel picked up the fallen branch, brushing the snow off. Jim was digging in his pocket for money, telling Ethel later that he was over the tree business and just wanted to buy any tree by then. Ethel noticed something and put her hand over Jim’s money as Annka’s hungry eyes darted from the money to Ethel’s face.

   “OK, sale today. One-ten. Take now!” Annka shouted as some tiny snowflakes fell on her frizzy pigtails.

   Ethel showed Jim the branch. Green electoral tape was holding the branch to the tree, and on further inspection, several other branches were taped to the tree.

   Best trees in New York, indeed.

   They walked away from Dr. Frankenstein, her art project trees and Russian curses and wound up on the corner where they started. All six eyes of the tree salespeople were on them. They waved their options, they could go somewhere else in New York. This time of year you would find trees on every third or fourth block, but then who knows what they would have. It was the end of the year, and Ethel always worried about money. So saving on a Christmas tree would be ideal.

***

Annka marched over to Ham’s tree stand. Dick was talking to Louise and stopped abruptly when he saw Annka put her hands on her hips. Dick crossed over slowly because of his limp and stood behind her. Annka turned to look at Dick but saved her wrath for Ham.

   “You take my customers. When you steal from Annka, you steal from my family.”

   “Oh shut up already, Natasha,” Dick said.

   “I tell you one-zero-zero times. Name not Natasha. My name, Annka.”

   “Could you both leave? You’re chasing away my customers,” Ham shouted as the snow started falling more rapidly.

   Dick walked over to Ham and felt one of his trees.

   “Look at this shit! What customers? You were lucky to get that one. Those bimbos were turned down by me and wandered over to this weed sale you call a tree stand. You are a complete failure in everything you do! I don’t know how you get out of bed in the morning.”

   The ham hit the frying pan. Ham grabbed Dick by his blue striped scarf and started strangling him. Annka watched with a satisfied smile and crossed arms. Jim and Ethel were there in a minute and Ham ended up on his back as Dick struggled to breathe again.

   “I will fucking kill you!” Ham shouted as Jim held him back. “Mark my words you are going down like the Titanic!”

   “Ha!  Yes. Kill each other. Solve Annka’s problem.”

   “Would you shut your Vodka hole!” Ethel shouted at her. Annka didn’t get it and mumbled something about Americans.

   Between coughing and wheezing a red-faced Dick regained his voice and stood up with Jim’s assistance.

   “My trees told me you were a filthy man. My trees are always right.”

   “You are crazy and should be locked up. Only an unbalanced person talks to trees,” Ham said, wiping snow off his back.

   Dick walked back over to his trees for a long conversation. Annka threw another price at Jim before walking off. Ethel wondered how she had no shame.

   “Ethel, let’s go. I have a headache.”

   Jim and Ethel made it over to the coffee shop, and her college-student employee, Eric, was working his tail off. Both of them got straight to work, forgetting the whole situation until the rush descended. The whole scene played out in her head several times. Ethel couldn’t forget how beautiful Louise was. She had to have that tree, but kept telling herself that Dick would rather be dead then let her buy it…

Hudson Taylor
is the author of the best-selling
Ethel Cunningham
mystery books,
The Priest Wore One Green Sock
.
Killer Workout
.
New Year’s Eve Kill
and
Death Of A Christmas Tree Man
. Plus the upcoming,
New York Rents Can Be Murder.
His newest book,
There's A Bastard Born Every Minute
, a memoir, is out now. He is also the author of
Your Hair Looks Like Crap!
A humor book about everyone's obsession with hair.
Taylor
has written numerous original television scripts, over two hundred songs and is the force behind
hudsontayloryourmind
.blogspot. He enjoys baking and the gym, sometimes in the same day. He lives in Manhattan, New York, in a little place called, Clover Court.