She doesn’t want to see you.
The words of Solly Quintz, the petty crook who had set himself up real cozy as Father Christmas, echoed in my ears as I flew four flights down to ground level.
I jumped the final five steps, a mistake for a guy of my advancing age. I landed hard, twisting my ankle and slamming my shoulder into the musty wall. The cheap pine slats split with a vicious crack. Beyond came a few startled snorts and the prancing and pawing of hoofs backing away in fright. Through the crack in the wall I saw wide eyes and flared nostrils. A half dozen shadowed antlers stretched out like crooked TV antennas on an old rooftop slum at dusk, back when rooftop slums weren’t all satellite dishes and high-speed cable. Turns out they didn’t make Christmas, Santa Claus or poverty like they used to.
Mannix’s tour hadn’t included the stables, but I was quick to get the lay of the land. I pushed off the wall, straightened up and staggered forward, favoring my right leg as I limped along.
A wide avenue divided rows of gates. The dirt and hay floor stank. At the far end of the corridor was a raised wooden track; the launching pad for Santa’s sleigh. The track ended at a huge door, open wide on the North Pole night. Beyond the door was a howling white sheet, impenetrable to the eye.
The raging storm had come up fast. At first, the door was open on what seemed like a waterfall of snow, but the wind suddenly shifted and long tendrils of white burst up the passage, scattering hay and stinging my exposed hands and face.
Over the wind I caught the faint tinkle of jingle bells, but they quickly became a memory, swallowed up by the growing fury of the Christmas blizzard.
The door slammed hard like a gunshot, then blew open once more on creaking hinges. Quintz had escaped with the deed. The rabbit would have the workshop in his greedy paws in no time. No way to follow him. Unless…
I raced back to the stall at the bottom of the stairs, the pain in my ankle forgotten, and snapped up the latch and flung open the gate.
It was stupid of me to think frightened animals wouldn’t react instinctively.
The reindeer were no longer cowering in a corner. An antler exploded out the partially open door and caught my chest. The next moment I was airborne, then dropping hard to the floor. Hoofbeats pounded near my ear and I rolled fast against the wall before I was trampled in the stampede.
I saw as they pounded past that the three captive reindeer had been starved. They were practically skin and bones, with ribs and hips clearly defined as they clomped furiously up the ramp and launched themselves up into the air and out into the storm. Three dark shapes melted into the swirl of white and were gone.
I was ready to give up hope when I spotted a large crate shoved up against the rear of the stall into which I’d fallen. Something stirred within it and I spied a Roman numeral V stenciled on the side. I’d seen that mark on a crate in the backyard.
My heart pounded a symphony in my ears as I snatched up a mallet and crowbar from a workbench and raced to the back of the stall.
My injured shoulder ached and my right ankle was beginning to swell up and tighten inside my Florsheims.
With all my strength I attacked the padlock on the front of the crate. It bent and groaned and finally snapped, clattering to the floor and sliding under a clump of soggy hay. With a mighty tug I yanked the side off the crate. It fell to the floor, launching a cloud of dust to the four corners of the stall.
The great animal clomped from the box and surveyed the slovenly stable with a haughty disdain. Comet didn’t run like the others. It was clear why he was chosen for the main team, why Teeny had selected him to flee south for my help.
With great dignity, he lifted his antlers so high they nearly brushed the ceiling.
Comet still wore a harness and reins. He shivered down the length of his muscled back, and the reins flopped down right in front of me like a rope ladder from a hot air balloon.
“You know, I’m from the city. Guys like me usually only bet on guys like you, and then curse you out afterwards for blowing it out of the gate.”
He nuzzled me under the arm and I sighed. “Fine, just don’t tell Doris we’re dating. Dizzy dame like her will never appreciate you and me got something special.”
I grabbed up the crowbar from the floor and stuffed it in my pocket before climbing up on Comet’s back. I carefully looped the reins around my hands.
Gene Autrey I’m not, but with Comet I didn’t have to be. I didn’t even have to nudge the reindeer in the sides. The instant I was settled, the powerful beast launched like a rocket in a burst of glitter out the open stable doors.
Snow and sleet burned my eyes and stung my skin like a swarm of furious white hornets. I couldn’t see five feet in front of me. There was no way we were going to find Quintz in this blizzard. In two seconds I was ready to admit defeat and turn back around. That’s when I suddenly heard a soft sound carried back on the wild wind.
Jingle bells.
At first I was sure it was my imagination, but the noise quickly grew louder. Comet had been trained to locate Santa’s sleigh on the worst winter night, and a couple of second string reindeer pulling a sleigh loaded with Easter eggs were no match for a determined A-team Christmas deer and a down on his luck P.I. In less than a minute we’d caught up to Solly Quintz and his getaway sleigh.
The two yoked reindeer kicked furiously at empty air, dragging the huge red sleigh and their fat crook bundle behind them. In the cargo area behind Quintz was a huge burlap sack. A chocolate Easter egg offering for Don Bunny.
Lucky for me Quintz was slouched down behind the Plexiglas windshield. His bruised face was twisted in a scowl and he stabbed his thumbs angrily at the keyboard of his BlackBerry. I hoped he wasn’t contacting the rabbit for a meeting spot. I had enough on my plate to deal with without Quintz dropping us down in the middle of Easter Town in front of a warren of heavily armed cottontails.
I nudged Comet in the sides with my heels and he shot forward until we were parallel with the rear of the sleigh, out of Quintz’s field of vision. Comet glued himself to the spot, as if he and the sleigh were manacled together.
As for my own view, I was lucky the storm kept me from seeing the ground. Somewhere down below were huge, towering glaciers. They could have been a thousand feet beneath me or twenty. Neither was a comfort.
Slowly, carefully, I stretched out one foot and hooked my beat-up shoe over the side of the sleigh. I eased the crowbar out of my pocket. I might have made it if at that moment a sudden huge shape hadn’t leapt out of the night ahead of us.
The glacial mountain came out of nowhere. The reindeer pulling the sleigh banked right. Quintz dropped his CrackBerry in horror and jumped like a madman for the reins. My shoe whacked loudly against the inside of the sleigh and I was thrown back hard onto Comet’s back. The crowbar slipped from my freezing fingers, and the last I saw of my only weapon it was flipping end over end and vanishing into the storm.
We passed the blue mountain of ice by a whisker, and as soon as we were clear Quintz spun around for the source of the racket. His jaw dropped open in shock, the gap where his teeth had been bubbled blood, and he dived for the glove compartment.
“Down!” I snapped. I had to assume the flying reindeer learned basic directional commands; left, right, up down. I mean, Santa Claus -- the real Santa Claus -- must’ve had to say “down” over a couple billion rooftops every Christmas Eve.
Lucky for me, Santa trained his reindeer in good old-fashioned American English and not some nancy-assed St. Nicholas ancient Greek.
At my one-word command, Comet dropped like a stone. It took all my strength holding onto the reins to keep from sailing off his back.
The reindeer was fast. Just not fast enough.
I saw the flash through the sheets of whirling snow, felt the blinding, searing pain in my shoulder. The only thing that kept the bullet from knocking me from the reindeer’s back were the reins that were biting so hard into my hand I thought my fingers would tear off. I loosed one hand and grabbed for my shoulder. It came back slick with blood.
“Banyon!”
We were flying low near the sleigh’s skids. I looked up and saw Quintz’s twisted face staring down, triumph amid the blood and broken bones. He held a revolver in his mitten, aimed straight at my chest.
“Some kids’ll do anything to get on the nice list,” Quintz bellowed over the howling wind. “Consider yourself crossed off for good.” He cocked the gun.
Comet whinnied, as if to get my attention. Now wasn’t exactly the best time to scratch him behind the ears, seeing as how I was about to get my head blown off by a crazy mall Santa. I would have said it to him, but then I noticed that the reindeer had tipped his head ever-so-slightly and that the ends of his huge antlers were now hooked around the sleigh’s runners.
At that moment I could’ve kissed the damn reindeer and run off into the sunset with him to happily bear his kids, but I had one matter to attend to first.
“You sure about that, Quintz?” I shouted, gritting my teeth to avoid grinning. “I only want one thing for Christmas. Consider it my last request.”
“If it’s a parachute, you’re stuck. We’re fresh out up here.”
“Nope. I just wanna see how many acres get covered in half-digested fried chicken and cole slaw when a fat tub of worthless guts like you goes splat.”
I yanked the reins, Comet jerked his head, and Santa’s sleigh was suddenly flipping sideways through the air.
Another flash from the gun. The second bullet fired wild, nailing one of Quintz’s reindeer in its hindquarters. The animal jumped high and twisted sideways and, added to the English Comet already put on it, the sleigh was up and over. The burlap bag burst open and the air was suddenly filled with falling Easter eggs. I had to hold onto the reins for all I was worth as the hail of tinfoil-wrapped chocolates exploded around me.
“No!” Quintz screamed. He lunged at the bag to close the neck but wound up tumbling end over end along the entire length of the out-of-control sleigh. Belly, boots, arms and terrified face flew past and I heard him slam hard against the interior wall.
My heels ground Comet’s sides and we were zooming up.
The tandem reindeer had briefly managed to right the sleigh, but the one Quintz had shot was losing altitude. The sleigh listed heavily to one side and Quintz flopped over onto his back, desperately grabbing for something -- anything -- to hold onto. He saw the great shape of Comet looming above him before he even realized what it was.
When he saw me looking down at him, Quintz’s face flooded with loathing. The burst blood vessel gave his red right eye a demonic aspect as he suddenly realized he had lost his gun in the chaos of the previous seconds. His eyes darted desperately around the sleigh and finally locked on the weapon wedged under a spring in the corner beneath the seat. Quintz dove for the gun. Too late.
I’ve lost most of what little grace I had in my youth, but while I’m not exactly a Flying Wallenda one bit of acrobatics that I can still manage is falling straight.
I slid from Comet’s back and dropped straight down onto Solly Quintz’s.
Quintz had the gun, but I had him by the arm and there was no way I was letting the bastard loose. I slammed his hand viciously against the back of the seat. Another single crack of a pistol firing sounded sharply over the howling wind.
The bullet missed me. Lucky me. Not so lucky was the already injured reindeer. The chunk of flying lead slapped audibly into the back of the reindeer’s head. The animal slumped in its harness and the sleigh lurched forward. The second reindeer in harness tried desperately to pull the load up on its own. Glitter exploded desperately around its ass and for a second as we started to rise I thought it might actually pull it off.
But when the blue peak of another mountainous glacier abruptly appeared in its path, the reindeer instinctively slammed on the air brakes. The sleigh flipped up and over and Quintz, sleigh, reindeer, and luckless P.I. were suddenly flying end over end through the air. The next few seconds I held my breath and waited for the world to remind me how much it enjoyed kicking the shit out of me.
And then I was slamming ice. Hard. Bits of glacier chipped off and flew off in every direction. Then I was sliding, tumbling. Dead reindeer all around me.
And all of us falling, falling into a snow-choked abyss…