Polterheist(5)

Miles said, "Never fear, ma'am. We maintain heavy security on this floor to prevent such a problem."

"We do?" I blurted. This was certainly the first I had heard of it. I'd been working here for two weeks and seldom even saw a security guard on this floor.

Miles' cold glance warned me to keep my mouth shut. He continued, "At this time of year, we also have extra security at all the exits from Fenster's." He neglected to mention that the guards at those doors were looking for shoplifters, not kidnappers. "But in case Jonathan did encounter someone who poses a threat-"

"I saw Santa," the boy insisted.

"-I'll have security scour this floor right now."

"If you can find security," I muttered.

Attempting to close the matter, Miles said loudly, "Now, if you and Jonathan are willing to accompany me to our Customer Relations office, Fenster & Co. would like to offer you a special holiday gift to express our heartfelt apologies for your trouble today. Right this way, please."

"Well . . ." The woman tightened her arms around her distraught son. "All right."

Miles gave me and Satsy a "get back to work" look before he escorted the pair out of the North Pole toward the escalators at the other end of the fourth floor, making sure to avoid going through the Enchanted Forest. We called our farewells to Jonathan as the threesome departed, leaving Satsy and me alone here.

As soon as we were alone, I turned to Satsy and said, "Now tell me. What happened to you?"

"Oh, Esther . . ." He wiped his forehead with his other white cuff, ruining that one, too. "It was a nightmare!"

"Go on."

"I'm the relief Santa for this shift-or I was. I got into my costume and clocked in on time, but it's usually at least forty minutes into the shift before we do the first swap. So I figured I had plenty of time to go down to the shipping and receiving docks for a friendly smoke."

I frowned. "Since when do you smoke?"

Satsy performed nightly as a drag queen at the Pony Expressive downtown, and he was sensibly protective of his voice, as far as I knew.

"Oh. Ah . . . not cigarettes," he said, looking a little sheepish, his long purple lashes fluttering. "The guys down at the docks have some primo weed. And I enjoy a few tokes now and then."

"Wait a minute," I said, outraged. "I can't even say ‘God' when I'm on the floor, but they're smoking pot down in shipping and receiving? I totally signed up for the wrong job here!"

"But when I got into the-"

"And you guys were having a joint at this hour?" I said incredulously.

"I know, I know," said Satsy. "But I wanted something to soothe my nerves after I got here. Haven't you noticed how tense it is around here this year?"

"You mean it wasn't like this last year?"

"Not like this." Satsy waggled his hand. "Oh, sure, kids cry, families fight, couple breaks up. That's just what people do at Christmas."

"You gentiles really know how to celebrate," I said.

"But the atmosphere is different this year. I wouldn't have taken this job again if I'd known it would be like this. I wouldn't have helped you get this job if I'd realized in time that something was wrong here."

Satsy and I had bumped into each other a couple of weeks ago at Zadok's Rare and Used Books in the West Village. The occult bookstore was owned by our mutual friend, Max-the friend who specialized in confronting Evil. I spend a lot of time with Max, especially when I'm out of work, as I was then. He and I have formed a close friendship despite our age difference: Max is at least three-hundred-twenty years older than I am. Saturated Fats is a regular customer of the store, and he sometimes looks after the place for Max in exchange for free books on magic and mystical phenomena.

Upon hearing, during our reunion    that day, that my only income until January would be from a few scattered shifts at Bella Stella, Satsy had told me about the attrition rate among Fenster's elves and suggested I come along to the department store with him to apply for a job, supported by his personal endorsement. I did so, and Fenster's hired me on the spot.

"I still can't decide whether I'm grateful to you for the overtime I'm earning here," I said to him now, "or if I blame you bitterly for getting me into this seasonal nightmare."

The hiring process took a full day. To become an elf, I'd had to fill out a mountain of paperwork, submit to drug testing, and be evaluated for psychological stability. The evaluation was done by a pale, pimple-faced guy so painfully shy that he trembled and seemed on the verge of tears every time I spoke to him. There was also an audition to test my performance skills. Then the training process took another couple of days. I was assigned an elf identity, fitted for my costume, and rotated through various floor assignments as a trainee under the supervision of Jingle, who was working his fourth Christmas season in a row here.

Although Jingle took this job more seriously than I really thought a grown man should, he certainly knew Fenster & Co. well. The veteran elf was a font of experience and information, and he'd helped me get into the swing of things pretty quickly.

"So you're down at the docks getting high with your new butch friends," I said to Satsy. "What happened next?"

"Oh! Speaking of which," he said, enthusiastically distracted from the subject, "there's a really cute guy down there-very butch, indeed. His name is Lou. Much more Jersey Shore than I usually go for, but I really like him. And you should see his arms! He keeps saying he wants to come see my show. I think that's code for something."

"Code for what?" I asked. "I'm on the down-low? Or: I want to experiment with my sexuality? Or: There's a hot girl I think I can get in the sack if I show her how cool I am by taking her to a downtown club where I know one of the queens?"

"I'm not sure," Satsy admitted. "I'll keep you posted."

"Anyhow . . ." I prodded.

"Anyhow . . . So the boys have some unloading to do, and I realize it's about time for me to go back upstairs, so I get on the elevator-"

"Oh, that's why you were on the freight elevator. Because you were coming from the docks."

He nodded. "It lets me off on the other side of the floor, of course. But I'm usually able to sneak behind the solstice mural and get into the break room without being seen."

"But something went wrong in the elevator today?"

"Uh-huh. It suddenly stopped right between the third and fourth floors. At first I thought it was an ordinary malfunction, and I was just worried about how I'd explain being in there instead of where I was supposed to be. I waited a minute to see if it would start moving again on its own, but it didn't. So I figured I had no choice, and I pressed the emergency button."

When he did so, the lights went off. The elevator was suddenly shrouded in complete darkness.

"I didn't think that was supposed to happen, but it's not as if I know," he said. "So I wasn't scared right away, just surprised."

Then he heard deep, heavy, excited breathing. Right there beside him. And since he knew he was alone in the elevator . . .

"That's when I got scared," said Satsy. "And then all hell broke loose."

His gasp of fear and the pounding of his heart seemed to set off a whole chain reaction of horrifying events. He heard ferocious growling in the darkness-

"Growling?" I repeated.

"Uh-huh."

-and felt hot, foul-smelling breath on his face. He screamed like a girl (he said), and this incited a long, loud burst of maniacal, menacing laughter. The elevator was shuddering and quaking, bobbing wildly up and down, as if threatening to fall four floors and crash into the ground. And then it burst into flames.

"Flames?" I said.

"Flames." Satsy nodded emphatically. "All around me. I was drenched in sweat, screaming in terror, and certain I'd die in there!"

"So . . ." I looked in the direction of the freight elevator. "Did it burn up? It is a charred wreck now?"

"No. It's perfectly fine. I'm not." He gestured to his damaged costume. "But suddenly the whole crazy thing stopped cold. Just like that. As if it had never happened. The lights came back on, the elevator stopped rocking and shaking, and everything around me looked perfectly normal. Then the doors opened and I was ejected by an unseen force-one that was still laughing!"

I stared at my friend, dumbfounded. Now it was easy to understand why he had careened screaming with mad terror into Santa's throne room, looking like a demented nightmare and creating a stampede among the volatile visitors.

"Satsy." I gave him a hug. "How horrible!"

"Esther, there's something here at Fenster & Co.," he said in a low voice. "Something that shouldn't be here. Something . . . evil."

* * *

Realizing that Satsy had endured a mind-boggling shock, I decided I'd better get him off the floor and into quiet surroundings. I escorted him into the men's locker room, helped him remove his costume, got him dressed and then wrapped in a blanket that I found, and then gave him a cup of hot cocoa in the break room.

While I was handing the cocoa to him, the Russian elf came into the room. She was a sullen, dour woman about my age, with dark hair, a pretty face, and a strong foreign accent. All I knew about her was that she came from Moscow and seemed to hate everyone and everything. I had worked with her only once and couldn't remember her name. Holly? Ivy? Merry?