Bill Crider: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 1. Whole No. 797, January 2008

“I argued with him in a corridor at the hotel, during the Hamilton Christmas party. They were withdrawing their offer. I shoved him a couple of times, but that was it.”

Ben could feel his body relaxing, and his life coming into focus again. “How come they withdrew the offer?”

“Who knows? What does it matter? I think that bitch Cynthia Phillips put him up to it. She didn’t like me for some reason.”

“I can’t imagine,” said Ben.

“This is no joke. Witnesses saw me bounce Wilson once or twice.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“I can’t make a long-distance call from here. I need you to call my mother. She’s in Omaha. She’ll know what to do.”

Ben wrote the number down, promised to call, and hung up. He got out of bed and took a long, hot shower. Afterwards, he cooked a three-egg cheddar omelet, which he washed down with a half pot of coffee. Finally, he called Sidney’s mother. It wasn’t so hard. She sounded like a small, frail old lady. Ben told her that Sidney was in a lot of trouble.

(c)2007 by Doug Levin

Steve Hockensmith tries to contribute a holiday story to each of our January issues and a Sherlock Holmes-themed story to each February issue. The series that began with his first Holmes-themed story has turned into a success at novel length, with the first book, Holmes on the Range , earning Edgar, Dilys, Anthony, and Shamus award nominations. Look for book two, On the Wrong Track , in paperback now, and The Black Dove (hardcover) in February.

Karen had just spoken blasphemy, plain and simple. Heresy. Sacrilege.

Not that her little brother knew what blasphemy, heresy, or sacrilege were. But he did know poo-poo when he heard it. And to Ronnie, this would be big poo-poo. The biggest.

“That’s not true!” he screamed, popping off his pillow and scrambling over the wadded-up macramé blanket that separated his half of the couch from hers. “You’re lying!”

Karen didn’t even look away from the television.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby. Everybody knows it.”

And she said it again. The blasphemy. The poo-poo. The innocence-scorching truth.

“Santa isn’t real.”

“No no no no nooooooooo!”

Ronnie balled up his fists and pounded at Karen with them. But Ronnie was only six, and small for his age. He might as well have tried beating his sister senseless with a pair of earmuffs.

“Stop it. I can’t hear.”

Karen swiped out a long, thin arm that swept her brother off the couch. She didn’t do it maliciously. It was a casual gesture, like opening a curtain. There were things she wanted to see. Things she wanted to feel.

Cousin Rick hadn’t been in the apartment when she and Ronnie got home from school. And when their scrawny, thirtyish “cousin” (they refused to call him “Uncle Rick,” like Mom wanted) wasn’t around to hog the TV and flick lit cigarettes at their heads and hunch over the phone having hissy-whispered conversations with his creepy friends, Karen tried to make the most of it.

Today, “the most” meant soaking up Christmas cheer.

It was December 23, 1979, and the afternoon reruns were Christmas episodes. Andy Griffith, The Beverly Hillbillies, even The Addams Family — they’d all been wrapping presents and drinking eggnog and learning Very Special holiday lessons. It was totally phony and forced, but even bogus Christmas cheer with a laugh track and soap-flake snow was better than no Christmas cheer at all.

Karen and Ronnie didn’t even have a tree that year. They’d started to put one up with Mom, pulling out the big fake fir Dad used to call “the holly-jolly green giant.” But Cousin Rick put a stop to that.

“Jeez, what are you doin’? A guy can barely turn around in this sardine can, and you’re gonna plop that big S.O.B. in the middle of the room? No way. You want a Christmas tree, decorate the bushes in the parking lot. Now shut up, would you? I gotta keep my cool. The Big Call could come any minute, and those guys ain’t messin’ around.”

The kids turned to their mother.

Cousin Rick had been waiting for “The Big Call” for a week, and something was always getting on his nerves. When he wasn’t out “hustling” — his word for whatever it was he did all day — he paced the apartment like a barnyard rooster, twitchy, herky-jerky, his round, anxious eyes darting from the TV to the phone. He’d already turned off the Christmas carols (he couldn’t bear “B.J. and the Bear”) and nixed the stringing of lights (the bright colors reminded him of “a bad trip,” whatever that meant). Now he wouldn’t let them put up a tree?

Surely, Mom would stand up to him this time. Surely, she’d choose their Christmas over her boyfriend’s weird little tics. Surely.

Without a word, Mom packed up the tree and stuffed it back in the closet. The next day, Karen saw it poking out of a dumpster around the other side of the building.

Which is how Christmas came to be something out there — at school, in stores, on billboards. In the past.

Or on TV.

It was the Bradys’ turn now. Little Cindy was asking a department-store Santa to cure her mother’s laryngitis so she could sing a solo at their church Christmas service. That’s what had brought up the whole Santa Claus thing in the first place.

“Stupid kid,” Karen had snorted. And then she’d said it, blasphemed — and Ronnie had flipped out.

“There is a Santa Claus!” he howled from the floor.

His voice quavered, as if he might cry, but Karen knew it wasn’t the tumble off the couch that had hurt him. Their apartment might have been tiny, but the musty, mustard-colored shag covering the floor was as thick and soft as a dirty old sponge.

No, she’d hurt him, and she wasn’t even sure why. His faith in Santa had been irritating her, rubbing on her nerves like sandpaper, for weeks. She was a big kid — almost ten — and she knew she should let Ronnie have his little-kid dreams. Yet another part of her longed to shake him awake.

She kept her eyes on the Bradys.

“Santa’s fake,” she said.

“He’s real!”

“No, he’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“But how do you know?”

“I just do.”

“Prove it!”

Karen finally tore her gaze away from the screen.

“You want me to? Really?”

Her brother blinked at her. It was up to him now.

If he insisted on this, she’d have to go through with it, right? That’s what big sisters are for — helping little kids learn. And if a lesson stung a little, well, that wouldn’t be her fault, would it?

Ronnie nodded reluctantly.

“All right,” Karen said.

She walked over to the TV and switched it off. The reruns would come around again one day. That’s why they called them “reruns.” But this moment with her brother — it would come only once.

“Let’s go.”

She headed for the bedroom Mom had been sharing with Cousin Rick the past few months. The door was closed. The door was always closed.

“Where are you going?”

Karen looked back at her brother. “Where does it look like I’m going?”

“But... we can’t go in there.”

“Why not? Mom’s at the Tiger tonight — she won’t be home for hours. And you know how it is when he’s supposed to be watching us. He’ll probably show up five minutes before Mom and pretend he was here all day.”

“But if he catches us... you remember what he said.”

Karen did remember — the tone of Rick’s voice, anyway. If he ever found them messing with his things, he’d have to do something... ugly. Karen had understood that much even if some of the words were new to her.