"Background checks?" I repeated anxiously. "Um . . . that time I got arrested in Harlem won't show up, will it?"
"No, there's no record of that." He kept his expression carefully blank. "I made sure of it."
"Good." In one of those little misunderstandings that can so easily arise when you're confronting Evil, one night in summer the cops of the 25th Precinct had taken me for a prostitute who was disturbing the peace and assaulting people on Lexington Avenue. Although he had broken up with me several months earlier, Lopez answered my middle-of-the-night cry for help and ran the gauntlet of laughing cops to get me out of that mess. I added, "Thank you."
"My pleasure." He looked over his shoulder to frown at Karaoke Bear as he said, "And now, on top of everything else, I think I'd better get a city inspector in here to check out the electrical system before someone gets seriously hurt." He glanced at his watch and added, "First thing tomorrow. I won't find anyone now." When he caught my concerned frown, he prodded, "What?"
"Nothing," I lied.
If something mystical was in the system, would it attack an intrusive presence-such as an inspector poking around?
"And we need to get Maintenance here right now to disconnect the bear and shut down this display," Lopez added.
"That's a good idea," I agreed.
After he finished that call (and complained to me about how casual Fenster's management was being about a prominent main-floor display short-circuiting and nearly injuring people), he said, "Stay here, okay? Keep people away from the whole karaoke setup, just in case there's a dangerous current."
"Where are you going?" I asked.
He squared his shoulders. "I'm going to get rid of my parents."
I was all in favor of that plan, but I refrained from saying so. I smiled as I watched Mr. Lopez's little perrito walk purposefully across the store, his black hair gleaming under the fluorescent lights.
And that's when a Christmas tree spoke to me.
14
"Psst. Esther!"
"Urngh!" I nearly jumped out of my skin and started coughing on the surprised shriek I swallowed.
"Whoa, are you okay, kid?"
I looked around for the source of that familiar voice.
"Over here," said a tree at the center of the display. "No, don't look. Act casual!"
"Lucky?" I said hoarsely, gaping at the tree. "What are you doing?"
"Hiding from your boyfriend."
I looked over at Lopez, whose back was to us as he approached his parents. "Oh! Right." I said to the tree, "Good thinking."
"Jesus, look at something else, would you? Do you want him and his folks to see you talking to a tree? What are they gonna think?"
"Nothing they haven't thought already," I said wanly. I turned so that my back was to the Lopez family and pretended to be examining my costume for wear and tear. "I guess Jeff told you where to find me?"
"Yeah. I come to report our findings," said Lucky, keeping his voice low. "I got here just in time to see the cop's mom telling the guards to put you in stir. She's a beauty, ain't she? Got a temper on her, though."
"Uh-huh."
Lucky continued, "Wish I'd been here in time to see you drop-kick his dad. That musta been something."
"Yes, if only someone had thought to take pictures," I said. "Then I could share the moment with you."
"Yeah, I been avoiding the elves with cameras," said Lucky.
He was referring to the photo duty elves, whose job it was to capture the joy of Christmas moments in Solsticeland. (I had been permanently eliminated from photo duty after just half a shift; predictably, since I am not good with gadgets, I had mostly captured blurry images of feet or elbows.) The photos were uploaded to computer monitors on the fourth floor, where shoppers could order copies of their fun-filled moments for a "nominal" fee.
The old hit man added, "I don't think anyone would recognize my picture in this beard, but it don't pay to be careless."
"Good thinking," I said.
"So the bear went polter-scary on you?"
"Yes." I realized Lucky had eavesdropped on my whole conversation with Lopez. I tried to remember whether we'd said anything embarrassingly personal.
"His old man calls him ‘puppy,' huh?" said Lucky.
Okay, I tried to remember whether I had said anything embarrassingly personal.
Lucky added, "It's nice that they're still close."
"Uh-huh."
"And the cops are searching the whole place now?"
I replied to the tree, "No, just the-"
"Don't look at me!"
"Sorry." I turned my back to him and gazed absently at the passing crowd-some of whom seemed to wonder why I was speaking into thin air as I said, "Just the employee areas, I think. For tonight, anyhow."
"Hmph."
I suddenly realized whose belongings were being pawed through besides mine right now, and I gasped in alarm. A nearby shopper gave me a surprised look.
I turned slightly toward the Christmas trees and said, "Lucky, please tell me the cops aren't going to find anything, uh, awkward in your locker."
"What am I, an idiot? I'm gonna bring my piece into a store that I know is crawling with cops who are investigating armed robberies that they're blaming on the Gambellos?" He sounded offended.
"Just checking," I said. "What about ID?"
A random patrolman might overlook the name of Alberto Battistuzzi if he checked Lucky's wallet when searching the locker I had unofficially allocated to him today; but if any OCCB detectives saw that name, they'd immediately realize a high-ranking Gambello was in the store and masquerading as a Fenster's employee. Lucky was famous in his world even when OCCB wasn't quite so intensely focused on the Gambello family.
"You think I'd bring my real ID to a place infested with cops?" he demanded.
"Okay, never mind." And, fortunately, it was very unlikely that anyone but Lopez, who was down here rather than searching the fourth floor locker rooms, would recognize Max's name if his ID was in his locker. Which reminded me . . . "Where is Max?"
"Nelli needed to go outside for a few minutes. The doc asked me to check in with you while he's walking her." Lucky asked, "So what happened with the bear? It looks like it set itself on fire from inside."
He was right. That was exactly how it looked.
I warned a curious kid who was approaching the platform, "Don't go near Karaoke Bear. He's having electrical problems."
The boy's father took his hand and pulled him away, giving me a nod of acknowledgment. I positioned myself closer to the platform so no one could touch it before I stopped them.
Then, not wanting passersby to hear this next bit and report me to a psychiatric ward, I turned toward Lucky's tree and bent over, pretending to adjust my stockings and fiddle with my boot buckles as I described Karaoke Bear's terrifying transformation.
But when I told Lucky my theory about electronic objects-or possibly Fenster's whole electrical system-being targeted by the mystical activity, he said, "No, that won't wash, kid. We had a very non-electrical experience up on the fourth floor a little while ago."
"What happened?"
"You know Chérie the Chef? That nice doll on display near the menorah?"
"Nice? You think that doll is . . . Never mind. Yes, I know it."
"I like her little kitchen," he said. "I was looking at Chérie, thinking she'd be a good gift for a granddaughter."
Sure. A Madonna-whore complex in a kitchen-porn apron. Perfect present for a little girl. Maybe we could throw in a pair of mink handcuffs, too.
Lucky continued, "Well, a nice gift for a grandchild if, you know, my daughter and that schmuck she married would get on the ball and start a family already. I'm beginning to think I'll be in my grave before-"
"I just know there's a point to this," I said, in no mood to hear more complaints about my generation's failure to produce grandchildren soon enough to satisfy our parents' generation.
"Oh. Right. So I'm standin' there, thinkin' what a nice gift she'd make for a kid . . . and Chérie all of a sudden tries to turn me into veal piccata."
"What?" I whirled around in surprise.
"Don't look this way!"
I turned back. "Lucky! What happened?"
"Huh?" said a shopper.
"Nothing." I waited until that person had moved on, then prodded, "Well?"
"All of sudden, from one second to the next, Chérie's eyes start glowing red, and she grows these sharp pointed teeth that are dripping with her drool-and, Jesus, the smell coming from her."
"A foul smell! Yes, I noticed the same thing!"
"What smell?" asked a shopper, looking ready to take offense.
"Merry Christmas!" I said. "Be sure to visit Solsticeland while you're here!"
"Hmph."
Lucky said, "‘Foul' don't begin to describe it. I'm tellin' you, kid, I've relocated decomposing corpses that didn't smell that bad."
"Moving quickly past that point," I said, "what happened next?"