X is for Xmas Read online

  “Got it,” he said.

  * * * *

  I returned to the high-stakes table and found Mr. Smith had replaced Cowboy-hat. My chips had not been touched. Fortunately for me, most of the watchers had dispersed.

  Our dealer began shuffling new decks of cards.

  “Is everything going as planned?” Smith asked.

  “I think so.”

  “I saw your friend leave. You should have let Mr. Jones remove him for you, you know.”

  “Human life has value,” I said.

  “You should watch out for yourself, not someone who’s trying to kill you.”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps I made a mistake. But I like him, and I think he’s basically a decent guy. He just took a wrong step somewhere.”

  “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”

  “I’m more stubborn than sensible. Besides, it’s almost Christmas. ’Tis the season of brotherly love, and all that mushy holiday stuff. I couldn’t have his ‘removal’ on my conscience.”

  “What’s next?” Smith asked.

  “Bob is out buying tickets to Rio de Janeiro. He’ll be on the afternoon plane. That’s where you come in.”

  “I suppose he needs a lift to the airport?”

  “I’m going to cash out when he returns. I’ll give instructions at the cashier’s booth for the winnings to be wired into a nonexistent Brazilian bank account. Then, on my way out the door, someone can grab me, force me into a car, and drive off with me. Bob will think I’m being kidnapped and take off for Brazil alone.”

  “Why would he?”

  “Because,” I said smugly, “he’s going to have my little black notebook with all the pass codes and bank account numbers. He’ll think he’s struck it rich.”

  “Until he gets there and finds out there’s no money.”

  “Right.”

  “Then he’ll come back, hunt you down, and kill you for making a fool out of him.”

  “He’ll stay there. I’m sure he’ll call once he gets to Rio and finds out he’s been duped. I’ll simply tell him he’ll be arrested for conspiracy to commit murder if he returns to the United States. I imagine you still have that recording.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll borrow it and play it back for him. He won’t dare return. End of problem!”

  Smith shook his head. “You overly complicate things, Pit. Remove him and move on with your life.”

  “That’s not an option.”

  “Your plan is ridiculous.”

  “But you’ll help me,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I find it fairly amusing. But once it’s done, I have a real job for you in Las Vegas. One for which you are uniquely qualified.”

  “As long as I don’t have to break the law,” I said, “I’ll go. I always keep my word.”

  The dealer asked, “Ready, gentlemen?” He had finished stacking the cards in the shoe.

  Smith excused himself. The prince and I both anted, and our game began anew.

  * * * *

  By the time Bob returned, I had won another hundred and forty thousand. A new crowd gathered beyond the velvet ropes. Bob eased his way to the front and signaled me by tapping his wristwatch. Time to catch our plane.

  “That’s it for me,” I said, rising. I tossed the dealer a $1,000 chip. “Thanks for everything.”

  “Thank you, sir!” he said, beaming.

  I gathered my winnings onto a tray, then limped to the cashier’s station. Mr. Smith sat comfortably ensconced behind the brass grill.

  “How much did you win?” he asked in a low voice as I passed him my chips.

  “One-point-two million,” I whispered smugly, “plus change.”

  “It’s a good thing you were playing with the house’s money. How soon do you want to be abducted?”

  “As we leave. We’ll go through the doors onto Atlantic Avenue. Do you have a pen and paper?”

  “Here.” He slid them over to me.

  I jotted down wiring instructions for the money and passed it back.

  “Might as well go through the motions,” I said. “May I have a receipt for the wire?”

  Chuckling, he made one up. I tucked it into my little notebook, which I kept in hand as I limped off for the Atlantic Avenue doors. There Bob Charles waited impatiently, pretending to study a marquee. I paused beside him. From the corner of my eyes, I saw men in black suits starting to converge on us.

  “I already wired the money to my Brazilian account from the courtesy counter. But I don’t think they’re going to let me leave here safely.” Casually I dropped the notebook. “Cover that with your foot. Pick it up when I’m out the door—they can’t find it on me. It has the pass codes for my anonymous bank accounts. If I can, I’ll catch up at the airport.”

  Without bothering to retrieve my coat or bag from the checkroom, I headed for the door. The bellman opened it for me, and shivering at the sudden cold, I stepped outside.

  Smith’s men followed on my heels—goons built like refrigerators. I had seen both of them before at Smith’s illegal casino outside of Philadelphia.

  A white Town Car sat idling in front, and they grabbed my elbows and hustled me inside. I didn’t struggle.

  As I twisted around, we accelerated into traffic. I glimpsed Bob running out the front door. He stood there, staring after me, a look of anger on his face.

  He cared what happened to me. I saw it, and in that moment I knew I had made the right decision. Better to handle him myself than let Smith and Jones do it. He was basically a decent guy.

  “Thanks, fellows,” I said to the goons.

  Mr. Smith sat in the front passenger seat. He opened a small window in the bulletproof partition separating our seats.

  “Where next?” he asked. “The airport?”

  “Take a ten minute drive, then back to the casino. I have to pick up my coat and bag. Then I’ll catch the bus home.”

  “You heard the man,” Smith said to our chauffeur.

  “Yes, sir!” he said.

  The goons and I settled back.

  * * * *

  We didn’t even make it five blocks—police cars with blinking lights cut us off, front and back. Our driver slammed on the brakes; we fishtailed, then came to a screeching halt.

  As uniformed officers leaped from their cars with drawn weapons, Smith’s goons reached for their guns.

  “Don’t do that,” I said in a low voice. “This has to be a mistake.”

  A bullhorn blared: “Get out of the car with your hands up!”

  “I’m not happy, Pit,” said Mr. Smith. He got out of the car and raised his hands. The chauffeur and goons did the same.

  Slowly, painfully, I followed.

  “You are in big trouble,” Smith told the policemen who advanced. “Do you know who I am?”

  None replied. They forced his hands onto the roof of his Town Car and began frisking him. Another officer began reading us all our Miranda rights.

  That’s when I spotted Bob Charles sitting in one of the patrol cars. He must have gone running to the cops instead of taking off for Brazil with my money. I nodded to him, and he grinned back.

  “That’s him—that’s Peter Geller!” he said, climbing out and pointing at me. “They were kidnapping him!”

  A police lieutenant took my elbow and drew me to one side. “Mr. Charles flagged down a patrol car,” he said, “and reported your abduction. He said you won big at the casino and they weren’t going to let you keep it. Is that true?”

  “No,” I said emphatically. I gestured at the Town Car and Mr. Smith. “This is some kind of misunderstanding. I work for the casino. These men are all friends of mine. We were taking an early supper.”

  The lieutenant frowned. “What about the money he said you won? More than a million dollars, wasn�
��t it?”

  “Nonsense. I was playing with the casino’s money. Here—see for yourself!”

  I pulled out the yellow copy of the form I’d signed. The lieutenant scanned it, snorted, then said to the other cops:

  “Let them go. We’ve made a mistake.”

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Smith. He straightened his tie and jacket.

  The lieutenant stalked back to Bob, and they exchanged heated words. Bob read the yellow form, then stared at me in disbelief. When the lieutenant made Bob get out and lean up against the hood of the police car, I watched with amusement.

  Of course, the officer turned up two wallets—one of them mine—plus the notebook of bank account numbers and plane tickets. He studied them, then stalked back to me.

  “Is this yours?” He held out my wallet.

  “Yes. Bob was holding onto it for me.”

  He frowned. “And two tickets to Rio?”

  “Also mine.”

  “Notebook?”

  “Yep. Mine.”

  His eyes narrowed. He knew something odd had gone down, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure it out.

  “I think you all had better come with me to the station,” he said.

  I shrugged. “As you wish.” To Mr. Smith, I said, “Perhaps you can recommend a good lawyer?”

  “He’ll meet us there,” Smith said grumpily, reaching for his cell phone.

  * * * *

  I rode in the back of the police car with Bob. The cops hadn’t bothered to handcuff either one of us. Mr. Smith and his goons were following in their Town Car.

  “Are you insane?” Bob demanded. “I just saved your life! Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Maybe I’m a little bit cranky, but I’m hardly insane.” I chuckled. “You asked me to kick your tires, Bob. Congrats. You passed the test.”

  His breath caught in his throat. “A…test. This whole thing….”

  “That’s right. And I can almost recommend you to Davy Hunt.”

  “Almost?”

  “There’s one matter you still have to take care of.”

  He looked puzzled. “I don’t understand….”

  “Janice.”

  He paled. “How—how do you know—”

  “Trick brain, remember?” I grinned. “Tell the police how Janice tried to set up Davy using the two of us, and I’ll get you cleared of all charges by morning.”

  * * * *

  Once Bob started talking to the police, he had quite a story to tell. When he got out of the Marines, an old girlfriend contacted him, got him to come to Philadelphia, and told him she worked as the private secretary for a billionaire sleazebag named David Chatham Hunt.

  A year ago, Janice had a romantic fling with her boss. Presents were given, promises were made…apparently, she expected the relationship to go farther than Davy did. When he broke things off and started dating a supermodel named Cree, she took it very hard.

  Janice planned her revenge with meticulous care. As his private secretary, she knew Davy’s position on the Board of Directors at Hunt Industries was provisional. Any hint of a scandal, and he’d get the boot. Davy couldn’t allow that to happen.

  And that’s where Bob came in. Janice knew about my friendship with Davy, and she thought my personal recommendation would get Bob hired as bodyguard, cutting through a lot of red tape. Apparently she believed she could lure Davy into a final romantic tryst…one where Bob would be present to take blackmail photos.

  It could have worked. Davy might well have fallen into her trap. I could easily envision my old friend having one last fling with his secretary, just to get her off his back.

  Once Janice was arrested, she collapsed into hysterics at the police station, confessed everything, and ultimately pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. Her case would never go to trial, saving Davy a lot of embarrassment.

  Thanks to Mr. Smith’s lawyer, Bob Charles ended up with probation and stern warnings from a judge. He never spent a single night in jail. Best of all, on my recommendation, Davy hired him as his personal bodyguard. I thought they would go well together. Bob had certainly proved himself to my satisfaction.

  * * * *

  “And that’s the whole story,” I said to Davy and Cree over Christmas dinner. Cree had cooked it herself—a beautiful roast goose with cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and a delightful selection of home-baked pies.

  “Incredible,” Davy said, shaking his head. “You know what the worst part of this whole mess is?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Janice was the best secretary I ever had.”

  Cree punched him on the arm—hard.

  “But my new secretary seems just as good,” he added quickly.

  “Better,” said Cree. She turned to me. “I picked him out myself. No more office romances, right, Davy?”

  “Right!” he agreed. But he seemed a little wistful.

  I chuckled. “It took a long time and cost a small fortune, but what do you think of my present?” I asked.

  “Present?” Davy scratched his head and looked at Cree, who shrugged. “Did I miss something?”

  I raised my wineglass in salute. “For the man who has everything—a new secretary and a new bodyguard. Merry Christmas, Davy!”

  _______________

  John Gregory Betancourt is a best-selling science fiction and fantasy author, as well as a mystery writer. His Peter “Pit Bull” Geller series is his most popular creation, and one story, “Horse Pit,” won the Black Orchid award from the Nero Wolfe Society and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

  MR WRAY’S CASH BOX, by Wilkie Collins

  OR, THE MASK AND THE MYSTERY

  A Christmas Sketch

  I

  I should be insulting the intelligence of readers generally, if I thought it at all necessary to describe to them that widely-celebrated town, Tidbury-on-the-Marsh. As a genteel provincial residence, who is unacquainted with it? The magnificent new hotel that has grown on to the side of the old inn; the extensive library, to which, not satisfied with only adding new books, they are now adding a new entrance as well; the projected crescent of palatial abodes in the Grecian style, on the top of the hill, to rival the completed crescent of castellated abodes, in the Gothic style, at the bottom of the hill—are not such local objects as these perfectly well known to any intelligent Englishman? Of course they are! The question is superfluous. Let us get on at once, without wasting more time, from Tidbury in general to the High Street in particular, and to our present destination there—the commercial establishment of Messrs Dunball and Dark.

  Looking merely at the coloured liquids, the miniature statue of a horse, the corn plasters, the oil-skin bags, the pots of cosmetics, and the cut-glass saucers full of lozenges in the shop window, you might at first imagine that Dunball and Dark were only chemists. Looking carefully through the entrance, towards an inner apartment, an inscription; a large, upright, mahogany receptacle, or box, with a hole in it; brass rails protecting the hole; a green curtain ready to draw over the hole; and a man with a copper money shovel in his hand, partially visible behind the hole; would be sufficient to inform you that Dunball and Dark were not chemists only, but “Branch Bankers” as well.

  It is a rough squally morning at the end of November. Mr Dunball (in the absence of Mr Dark, who has gone to make a speech at the vestry meeting) has got into the mahogany box, and has assumed the whole business and direction of the branch bank. He is a very fat man, and looks absurdly over-large for his sphere of action. Not a single customer has, as yet, applied for money—nobody has come even to gossip with the branch banker through the brass rails of his commercial prison house. There he sits, staring calmly through the chemical part of the shop into the street—his gold in one drawer, his notes in another, his elbows on his ledgers, his copper sho
vel under his thumb; the picture of monied loneliness; the hermit of British finance.

  In the outer shop is the young assistant, ready to drug the public at a moment’s notice. But Tidbury-on-the-Marsh is an unprofitably healthy place; and no public appears. By the time the young assistant has ascertained from the shop clock that it is a quarter past ten, and from the weather-cock opposite that the wind is “sou’-sou’-west,” he has exhausted all external sources of amusement, and is reduced to occupying himself by first sharpening his penknife, and then cutting his nails. He has completed his left hand, and has just begun on the right hand thumb, when a customer actually darkens the shop door at last!

  Mr Dunball starts, and grasps the copper shovel: the young assistant shuts up his penknife in a hurry, and makes a bow. The customer is a young girl, and she has come for a pot of lip salve.

  She is very neatly and quietly dressed; looks about eighteen or nineteen years of age; and has something in her face which I can only characterize by the epithet—lovable. There is a beauty of innocence and purity about her forehead, brow, and eyes—a calm, kind, happy expression as she looks as you—and a curious home-sound in her clear utterance when she speaks, which, altogether, make you fancy, stranger as you are, that you must have known her and loved her long ago, and somehow or other ungratefully forgotten her in the lapse of time. Mixed up, however, with the girlish gentleness and innocence which form her more prominent charm, there is a look of firmness—especially noticeable about the expression of her lips—that gives a certain character and originality to her face. Her figure—

  I stop at her figure. Not by any means for want of phrases to describe it; but from a disheartening conviction of the powerlessness of any description of her at all to produce the right effect on the minds of others. If I were asked in what particular efforts of literature the poverty of literary material most remarkably appears, I should answer, in personal descriptions of heroines. We have all read these by the hundred—some of them so carefully and finely finished, that we are not only informed about the lady’s eyes, eyebrows, nose, cheeks, complexion, mouth, teeth, neck, ears, head, hair, and the way it was dressed; but are also made acquainted with the particular manner in which the sentiments below made the bosom above heave or swell; besides the exact position of head in which her eyelashes were just long enough to cast a shadow on her cheeks. We have read all this attentively and admiringly, as it deserves; and have yet risen from the reading, without the remotest approach to a realization in our own minds of what sort of a woman the heroine really was. We vaguely knew she was beautiful, at the beginning of the description; and we know just as much—just as vaguely—at the end.