Crime at Christmas (27 page)

Y
OUR name is
Purvis—Edward Purvis. You 're in your late thirties—a solid man, with a cold
solid face and small, unwinking eyes. Just now you're crouching in the darkness
beside a massive chimney on the broad, flat roof of an old building in the city
slums. From time to time you stamp your feet in the light snow. It's Christmas
Eve, and it's cold, and you've been waiting for an hour. But you know you won
't have to wait much longer.

The children on the floor below have begun to sing Christmas carols,
and the thin, high sweetness of their voices rises into the wintry night,
reaching you with sharp clarity except when the roar of a passing elevated
train, rushing by in the street well below the roof level, drowns them out.
Yes, it can't be long; the children are on their third carol now. . .

Silent Night, holy night,

All is calm, all is bright. . .

Purvis
shifted impatiently. He was warm and sweating inside the heavy sweater that he
wore beneath his suit coat. He wore no overcoat. He didn't have one, and if he
had, it wouldn't have been suitable to cat-footed creeping across roof tops. But
though the wind, when it came, was raw, and the night was crystal sharp with
the snap of a real Christmas Eve, he was sweating. Sweating with impatience,
maybe, because the blood was running so hot in this veins.

Round yon Virgin mother and Child. . .

Below him
was a gymnasium. Though he could not see through the snow-covered gravelled
roof under his feet, he knew it. Because this was the building of the St
Francis Foundling Home, and Ed Purvis had been a St Francis orphan.

Holy Infant, so tender and mild. . .

But that
had been a long time ago, before Purvis had become a member of a teen gang,
then a youthful mugger, then a dope peddler, and finally a killer.

Now it was
only important because it meant he knew the building thoroughly. Knew the
shabby gymnasium below where a hundred parentless children were singing,
joyously, as they waited for Santa Claus. Knew the fire escape that angled down
the side of the building next to the 'El' tracks, past the long frosted glass
windows.

And
especially because it meant he knew how to reach this roof from the roof of a
building three numbers away—exactly how to reach it unseen and unsuspected, so
that he could crouch in the shadows with a loaded gun in his pocket, and a
tape-wrapped length of pipe in his gloved hand, waiting, like the kids below,
for Santa Claus to come.

Sleep in heavenly peace,

Sleep in heavenly peace!

That needs explaining, doesn't it? Yes, of course it does. Because it's
a somewhat complex series of events that has brought you here to the roof to St
Francis Foundling Home on Christmas Eve, Ed.

So let us shift time and space about a bit. Let's turn the calendar
back to early December. And now the scene is the State Penitentiary, a hundred
miles to the north. It's Visitor's Day. And you, Ed, have a visitor. You 're a
convict, you 're not free and you don 't expect to be. But you have a visitor.
A girl. Her name is Red. Just Red. Your girl. It's foolish of her to love you
as desperately as she does. But that's how girls are. . .

They sat at
one of those long tables with the little fence down the middle and stared at
each other hungrily. Purvis' square, brutal face was set and tight. Red's face
was white and pinched with too much rouge on her cheeks to cover the pallor and
too much lipstick on her lips. But her eyes were dark and sunken, needing no
eyeshadow, a look in them of fierce yearning.

'Ed,
honey,' she whispered. 'Ed, honest, I'm doing everything I can. You known Ed, I
want you out of here just as much as you want to be out. You know how I miss
you.'

Her eyes,
as she spoke, proclaimed her desperate sincerity. He was a killer, but she was
his girl, and she wanted him back.

'Money!'
Purvis rasped. 'That's all it takes to get a wise guy out of this joint. Four
or Five grand. Nothing else! If the boys—'

Red shook
her head, her lips tight. 'Ed,' she said huskily, 'the boys can't. McElroy got
them. He killed Willie Rand and wounded Nick and Gander Johnson. They're
waiting for sentence now. They'll get ten to twenty.'

Purvis's
face darkened. 'McElroy!' he whispered. 'Smiling Jim McElroy! That copper!
Someday I'll—'

'Ssh!' Red
warned sharply. 'The guard will hear you. What I wanted to tell you was this.
Lippy's left. Lippy and me. We managed to raise a thousand dollars. That's all.

'I took it
last night to you-know-who on the Parole Board. I told him it was all I could
raise. He wanted four grand. But I promised him more after you're out. He said
he'd do what he could.

'I don't
know if he means it or not, but it was the best I could do,' she added
desperately. 'Oh, Ed, I want you back so much—'

There were
tears in her eyes, winking bright as she leaned as close as the little fence
would let her. 'Ed, the Board meets tomorrow. You'll go up before them. You've
been here three years now. Surely they'll let you go! I got to have you back,
Ed. I'll die if you don't come back to me soon!'

Purvis
drummed softly with thick knuckles on the wooden table. His face was still dark
with the congested blood of anger.

'Okay,
Red,' he said, 'if that's the best you can do, that's the best. Even if it
works out, it'll mean I'm here another thirty days at least. But when I do get
out, there'll be one cop less who wants to see me fry. McElroy!

His voice
lowered, but in a whisper it was still savage. 'I'm going to kill him, see,
Red? I'm going to choke him with my own hands! I'll strangle him until his eyes
bulge, and his tongue sticks out of his mouth and he wants to beg for mercy but
can't! I'm going to kill that copper if it's the last thing I ever do!'

Red shook her
head frantically, so that the cheap permanent came loose and her hair straggled
down her face.

'No, Ed,
no,' she begged, brushing it back. 'Don't say that. Don't even think it!
They'll get you if you do it, Ed, and they'll send you to the chair. They'll
take you away from me, not for just a few years, but forever! Forever, Ed! And
that'd kill me. That'd—'

'Aaaaahhh!'
Purvish said, and it was like a long strangled curse deep in his throat. 'Not
me, they won't. If I could only get loose from here. Red, only get loose from
here before Christmas, I'd show them.'

From his
pocket he extracted a folded newspaper clipping, raggedly cut from a newspaper
with a thumb nail.

'Look at
this,' he said.

He raised a
hand, and the attendant guard ambled over. Suddenly Purvis' voice was mild.

'Can I show
this to the lady just for a minute?' he asked. 'It’s only a newspaper clipping
about a friend of ours.'

The Guard
scanned the clipping and grunted. 'Okay,' he said. 'Against the rules, but
there ain't anything harmful in it, I guess.'

He passed
the clipping to Red, and the girl spread it flat and read it. It was just a
headline and a few inches of text.

SANTA TO VISIT ORPHANS

Santa
Claus will visit without fail this year the St Francis Foundling Home, on
Melton Street. Not always has he stopped there on his annual visits, but from
now on his yuletide presence will be assured thanks to Sergeant James McElroy,
of the local police department, who took an interest in the institution when he
and his wife adopted a child from it recently.

Smiling Jim McElroy,
as he is called, is the most popular man in the department, and among the most
courageous, as was evidenced by his recent exploit of apprehending two fur loft
thieves and killing a third. So the response of the department when he took up
a collection to buy toys for kiddies who might otherwise go unremembered was
generous.

Thanks to Smiling
Jim, no kiddie in the St Francis Home will be neglected on Christmas Eve. Santa
will be there on schedule, and will even come in through a real fireplace, and
leave by the same route. Under Sergeant McElroy's expert direction, a large
imitation fireplace has been erected in the gymnasium, in front of a window
that leads to a fire escape.

Dressed as Saint
Nick, Sergeant McElroy, some time before midnight on Christmas Eve, will
descend the fire escape from the roof, emerge through the fireplace, and
delight the hearts of a hundred parentless tots with presents from the pack on
his back. Needless to say, the pack will be of ample dimensions.

There was
more to it, and a picture of a large man with a square chin, level gray eyes,
and a wide generous mouth that seemed made to grin good-naturedly. The girl
read it quickly. Then the guard handed the clipping back to Purvis and moved
away again to his post.

I don't
understand,' she said. 'What—'

'Don't be
dumb,' Purvis exclaimed impatiently. 'Don't you remember—I'm a St Francis
orphan myself. I didn't have any Santa Claus bringing
me
presents down a fake chimney, like
those dirty-nosed brats will. I got thrown out on my ear when I was twelve, and
thrown right in again—into the reformatory. But that isn't what I mean.

'What I
mean is, I known the St Francis home like I know the back of my hand. And if I
was on the outside, I'd be there waiting for McElroy when he came out on the
roof dressed as Santa Claus and started down the fire escape. I'd be waiting,
and I'd wipe the smile from his face and escape, and nobody would ever know who
did it. If you custom-tailored a bump-off, you couldn't arrange one that would
be any easier.

Catch on?'

Red nodded.
'Yes, Ed,' she said pleadingly. 'But please, Ed, please don't think about it. I
know McElroy sent you up, I know he broke up the gang. But think how lucky you
were he only got you for concealed weapons. If he'd ever found that witness he
was looking for, the one who saw you kill the watchman, you'd have gone to the
chair. Think how lucky you were, Ed, and forget about hating McElroy. Forget
him,
please!

'Tell me
what you'd like for Christmas instead. Tell me what you'd like, and I'll send
it to you. We'll just think about each other this Christmas and pretend we're
together like we will be when you get out.'

'He's still
looking for that witness,' Purvis said implacably. 'Some day he'll find him.
And so he has to die. If you want to know what I want for Christmas, I want
McElroy's life. That's what I want.'

'Oh, Ed,
Ed,' the girl cried, the tears wetting her thin cheeks, 'you'll get out and
kill him and they'll catch you and take you away from me forever—'

'Time!' the
guard said curtly. 'Time's up. You gotta go, lady.'

Red went,
still weeping, and Purvis put the clipping back in his pocket and opened and
shut his hands softly, thinking of what he'd do if only he were free to do it.

Well, now you 're free, Purvis. Free to hide on a snow-covered roof on
Christmas Eve, and stare at the crimson reflection of neon signs in the uptown
sky or at the glassless window of the tenement across the street where, from
time to time, a cigarette tip glows in one of the empty upper windows. Free to
crouch there waiting for Santa Claus, a St Nick who will be Jim McElroy dressed
up in crimson pants and false whiskers.

And when he comes you'll be able to give McElroy the present you've
brought him—the present of death. . .

It had been
completely unexpected when the guard had come for him only that morning and
said the warden wanted to see him. Purvis had stood scowling in the warden's
office, wanting to be insolent, but not quite daring to speak his mind, while
the little man behind the big desk stared at him with level, frosty eyes.

'Purvis,'
the warden said, tapping the desk with a pencil, 'You're surprised to be here.
And I'm just as surprised to see you before me.'

He smiled
bleakly. Purvis waited, wondering.

'We're both
surprised. And frankly, for me the surprise is unpleasant. But the Parole Board
has granted your request, and ordered me to turn you loose. You may regard it,
if you wish, as a Christmas present from the state.'