Polterheist(37)

"Out!" I said. "Out of the store!"

"All right." He shrugged. "It's not like I have to help with the search. I'm off duty now."

"You are?" I asked distractedly, shoving through the crowd of shoppers as I towed him by the hand.

"Yeah. I was supposed to have dinner with my parents. But . . ." He stopped in his tracks. "Hey, Esther, why don't we go out that way? It's closer. And then we wouldn't have to fight our way through this-"

"No!" When he tried to turn around to head back to the western entrance, I tugged on his arm so hard he stumbled into me. "It's . . . We should . . . The north entrance!"

"Huh?" He didn't back away after bumping into me. Just stood very close, looking down into my face.

Gazing up into his eyes, fringed by thick black lashes, I immediately lost my train of thought-such as it was. My heart gave that unexpected, inconvenient little lurch! it sometimes did when I looked at him. Especially when he stood so close that I could feel his body heat. The wool of his coat brushed against my skin.

He smiled and murmured, "What about the north entrance?"

"It's, um . . ." Much to my surprise, a coherent thought entered my head. "It's closer to the park."

"You want to walk in the park?" he asked in surprise. "Now?"

"No, but I really want to get some air, you know? And walking up to the park is nicer than . . . walking the other way."

"Okay," he said easily. "Sure. Let's go."

I turned and led the way. The herd of shoppers was by now so dense that I could easily crowd-surf my way to the north entrance, if they'd cooperate. So we just moved along with the throng, not saying much until we were outside on the sidewalk.

It wasn't mind-numbingly cold outside tonight, but it was certainly brisk. I was still carrying my coat, so Lopez took it from my grasp and held it open for me as I slipped my arms into it. While I fastened it, he asked if I wanted to go anyplace in particular to eat.

"It'll have to be someplace quick," I said. "I only get a half hour for dinner." I wasn't supposed to go on my meal break without telling anyone, and I especially wasn't supposed to leave the store for it-let alone go outside in my costume. But removing Lopez from the scene had been an emergency measure. Besides, it wasn't as if I feared Miles would fire me for this; not with a skeleton staff and two days left in the season.

Lopez pulled on his gloves as he said, "Well, you said you wanted to get some air, and it's not that cold tonight. Want to see if we can find someone selling chili dogs by the park?"

"All right." I smiled and took the arm he offered me. "I gather you've got a weakness for those?"

"I'm in control," he said as we turned and headed toward the park, which was so close to Fenster's we could see it from here. "I can quit whenever I want."

"Hah! I've said that about Ben and Jerry's ice cream, but I spiral into a panic if there's an emergency and I haven't got that stuff handy to keep me calm."

He grinned at that. "But as vices go, it seems like a harmless one."

"Not if you have to parade around in an elf costume," I said gloomily. "Every extra bite shows up in this outfit."

"That thing is disturbingly sexy on you," he said, which made my heart give a little skip. "Are Santa's elves really supposed to have that effect? I think it might have rocked my world if I'd met Dreidel at a tender age."

As we approached the light at West 58th Street, we came upon a Santa Claus who was ringing a bell and soliciting donations for charity.

I said, "Speaking of things that evidently rocked your world at a tender age . . ."

Lopez grimaced as he dropped a dollar into Santa's bucket, and he said grumpily to me, "God, they're everywhere at this time of year."
                       
       
           



       
15





As we crossed 58th Street, our arms still linked, I asked, "So what's that all about, Lopez? Why are you phob . . . Why do you find Santa Claus so startling? Did you have a bad experience when you visited him as a child?"

"Well, yes, but I had a . . . a thing about Santa even before that."

"Why?"

"Hey, look at that." He pointed to an upscale store window on the corner. "Who pays fifteen hundred dollars for a purse?"

"People like the Fensters," I said. "Don't change the subject. When did your thing about Santa start? Do you remember?"

He sighed, realizing I wasn't going to drop it. "Okay. As soon as I was old enough to understand the concept, I found it very suspicious. I don't really remember this, but my parents say I was full of questions about why we were allowing a total stranger to roam our house at night while we slept."

"That sounds exactly like you," I said, laughing.

"And I was very disturbed about the notion of someone, um, breaking and entering via the chimney."

"Wow, you haven't changed a bit since you were a little boy, have you?"

"So I tried to booby-trap it."

"Booby-trap the chimney? I'm impressed! How did you do it?"

"I made a big pile of sharp things in the fireplace. You can't expect something elaborate," he added defensively. "I was three years old."

"Three years old and trying to do grievous bodily harm to Santa Claus. Does the NYPD know about this?"

"Oh, there's plenty they don't know about my youth," he said with a gleam in his eyes.

He's really not the altar boy he pretends to be, is he?

I heard her voice in my head again; the woman who had nearly killed him, because he had come to Harlem that hot, storm-tossed night looking for me, trying to save me from her. She'd been correct in her observation that Lopez wasn't exactly what he seemed-in more ways than she realized, too. But I really wished I could banish her, once and for all. I felt cold all the way through for a moment.

"Are you okay?" He'd noticed that shiver and misunderstood its cause. "Do you want to go back? I guess it's colder out here than I-"

"No, elves are made of tough stuff," I said. "We live in the North Pole, along with You Know Who."

"You're sure?" he asked, rubbing my hand to keep it warm.

"So Santa survived your attempt to perforate him, and he left Christmas presents under the tree that year, I assume?"

"I think if I'd been an only child, my parents would have let me think I'd succeeded in keeping him out of the house. Apparently I was very . . . focused on this problem."

"I can see this whole story so clearly," I told him in amusement.

"But my brothers both wanted Santa Claus to visit, of course, so my parents kept trying to get me to come round."

"And that always works so well on you."

He smiled wryly. "So the next year, when I was four, my parents decided to bring us all into the city to visit Holidayland at Fenster's, where I'd meet Santa in this fairytale setting and finally realize what a great guy he was." Lopez paused before continuing, "You know how some kids have a bad reaction to clowns?"

"Clowns are scary," I said with a nod.

"That was pretty much my reaction to Santa Claus. I thought his bright outfit was creepy and his jovial behavior was sinister. I thought the way he hid behind that obviously fake beard and wig was suspicious and menacing. I imagined an evil face lurking behind all that fake hair."

The word evil reminded me. "Actually, since learning of your Santa, uh, startle reflex-"

"I just don't like it when they creep up on me."

"-I've developed a theory."

"I don't want to hear it," he said as we began crossing 59th Street, with Central Park right in front of us now.

"I think you dislike Max because of his resemblance to Santa Claus."

Lopez looked surprised for a moment, then amused. "Actually, I never noticed a resemblance. I still don't. He seems too small for Santa. I always think of Max as looking like a mad professor, or maybe like the ancient wizard in an old fairytale. What's wrong?"

He'd noticed my startled reaction to that. "Nothing," I said.

"But Max as Santa?" Lopez shook his head. "I don't see it."

"Even so," I persisted as we reached the curb, "I think your unconscious reaction to his round face, with his white beard and hair, is why you have such a negative attitude about him."

"No, I have a negative attitude about him because I think he's a whack job who encourages you to believe crazy things and, more to the point, to act on those things-and to get into a lot of trouble, as a result."

Well, that was direct. And hardly a surprise. I decided to revert to his childhood.

"So what exactly happened when they put you on Santa's lap in Holidayland?" I prodded. "Being one of Santa's helpers, I ask this strictly out of professional interest, you understand."

"Well, that's where the story resembles a criminal investigation: Everyone remembers it differently."

We were on the sidewalk at the edge of the park, which spread lush and romantically dark before us, its glowing lamps peeking through the bare branches. People passed us, entering the park, maybe going to Wollman Rink to watch the skaters or to take a spin on the ice. On the next block over, we could see a hot-food cart under the street lights, so we started walking that way, arm in arm.