Crime at Christmas (28 page)

Purvis'
heart leaped. The thought of parole had dominated him night and day. But he had
hardly expected to get it, for the Parole Board had been none too friendly. But
Red had known; she'd been tipped off. That was what she had meant, then, by the
letter she'd sent, the letter in his cell now.

Dear Ed:

Just to wish you a merry Xmas and to say
that we're preparing a swell present for you, something you want very much.
Can't tell you now, but you'll know soon and you'll be tickled. I know you
will.

Love,

Red

She'd meant
the parole, of course. The thousand bucks to the crooked Board member had
turned the trick, and he must have told her so. Naturally, she couldn't pass
the news along to Ed in a letter. No one was supposed to know the decisions of
the Parole Board until they were announced, and it wouldn't look good for a
prisoner to hear in a letter something he wasn't supposed to Find out for a
month.

But she'd
wanted him to know he'd be free soon, though she could hardly have guessed it
would be this soon.

'You see,
Purvis,' the warden said, 'it was the thought of the Parole Board that since
you were going to go free, it would be a nice gesture to free you in time for
the Christmas festivities. Well, you know and I know how much you deserve
freedom. But I have my orders, and I have to obey them. Remember, though—'

There was a
lot more—guff about parole regulations, working, reporting monthly, and being
subject to re-imprisonment for association with former companions.

It went in
one ear and out the other. In an hour formalities having been expedited by the
unexpected order, Purvis and half a dozen others were on their way to the city.

Once there,
he had wasted no time in issuing stern injunctions to himself. A room, rented
in a good neighbourhood, first. Then hole up there until after dark. Don't even
try to get in touch with Red. Don't risk being seen by newspaper reporters who
might follow for a story, or dicks who might think it a good idea to tail a
parolee on general principles.

No, he'd
hole up in a respectable room until dark. Then he'd make a cautious sally to a
certain number where a guy could rent a gun for the ten bucks, which the state
had given him as a goodbye present.

After that
a catlike approach to Melton Street, through back alleys and backyards. An
unseen entrance into an empty loft building. From the roof of that across the
roof of the Saint Francis Foundling Home. Then nothing to do but wait.

Peace on earth, and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled!

Purvis
cursed under his breath as the cold bit at his nose and ears. But he could
wait. He'd waited a long time, and as his revenge came closer and closer, it
tasted better and better. McElroy would be along any minute now, all tangled up
in red pants and loaded down with a sack of toys. He'd come right past this
chimney, never dreaming of what was waiting behind it for him. He'd come by,
and Purvis would raise the taped pipe, bring it down—’

He
straightened. Was that a footstep? As he strained his ears the 'El' thundered
by in the street and drowned out any noise he might have heard. When it had
gone, leaving his ears ringing, he listened again.

This time
it was clear. Footsteps, muffled by the snow, where unmistakably coming toward
him.

Hark the herald angels sing. . .

Purvis
tensed. Then the figure he had been waiting for appeared beyond the obscuring
bulk of the chimney. Santa himself, with his bulbous stomach, baggy pants,
fluttering beard, and tassled cap. Santa, with a lumpy pack on his back,
stepping jauntily across the roof, shaking a little string of sleigh bells in
his hands to make the kids below think he was stabling his reindeer.

Glory to the new-born King!

Purvis'
lips twisted. The pipe descended. A sound like a customer thumping a ripe
watermelon was lost in the night, and with a little surprised jangle of sleigh
bells Santa stopped, his knees buckled, and he slid silently faced downward on
the flat stone roof.

Purvis
loosened the pack of toys and set it to one side. Then he rolled the
unconscious Figure over and ripped loose the false whiskers. From his coat
pocket he took the flashlight he'd brought, and, muffling the beam with his
hand, shined it on the unconscious man's face.

'Now,
McElroy—' he began and stopped.

The man on
the roof was not Smiling Jim McElroy.

Hideous
disappointment rose in Purvis, so acute he could taste it. Disappointment and
rage. He clicked the flashlight on again for a moment. But the beam of light
still showed a face he did not know. It was a round face, a red, jolly face,
but it was not the face of McElroy.

Purvis
thrust pipe and flashlight back into his pocket.

Kneeling,
he savagely slapped snow into the face until the eyes fluttered and opened.
Then his features hidden by an upturned collar, his voice muffled, he snarled a
question.

The open
eyes fluttered vaguely.

'McElroy?'
the man in Santa Claus costume said in a gasping voice. 'He's downstairs. Asked
me to come along—play Santa—fool the kids. Thought they'd know
him.
Wanted it to seem real."

The eyes
closed. The voice stopped. The man he had hit was unconscious again, breathing with
thick, stertorous gasps.

God rest ye merry gentlemen. . .

Purvis
knelt there beside him and cursed. McElroy had made a last minute change in
plans. So the kids would believe Santa was real! He'd be down there now, safe
and in the brightly lighted gymnasium, surrounded by half a dozen women and a
hundred brats—there were no men connected with St Francis, except the
janitor—helping 'em sing the carols Purvis had been hearing for the last half
hour.

Let nothing you dismay. . .

And then
Purvis was suddenly calm again.

McElroy was
clown there, surrounded by dames and kids. Unsuspecting, unarmed. Suppose
Purvis slipped down the Fire escape Santa had been about to descend. Suppose he
came out from that fireplace into a room full of startled kids and before
McElroy could even—’

No, wait!
Suppose Santa himself came out from the fireplace, as everyone expected him to?
Suppose that Santa, pack on his back and everything, came out and walked over to
McElroy and said: 'Here's a present for you, copper, that I've been waiting a
long time to give you!'

Then the
thing in Santa's hand would smoke and flame, and McElroy would go down with a
bullet in his heart and death eating at all his stalwart strength. And Santa
Claus would scram—right back to the North Pole itself, as far as anybody would
ever know.

For Jesus Christ our Saviour. . .

Back
through the fireplace, out the window, down the fire escape. At the bottom a
weighted length of ladder swung about a dark alley. Down that length, down into
the alley. Rip off the Santa Claus suit, stuff it into an ash can, and be gone
into the darkness before the dames and the kids stopped screaming. Be back in
his room all the way across town, perhaps, before they even had the sense to
call the cops.

What would
be easier? He could kill McElroy that way in view of a hundred witnesses, and
the Santa Claus outfit would be a perfect disguise.

Was born on Christmas Day!

Quickly he
set to work to strip the costume off the unconscious man at his feet. The guy
had a suit on underneath. He wouldn't freeze. Not that Purvis cared. He got the
coat, the pants, the beard, and the cap, letting the boots go, and in the
darkness hurriedly slipped into them.

His heavy
build fitted the garments well enough. Attired, he took the unconscious man's
handkerchief, necktie, a torn-off shirt tail, and with these bound his wrists,
his ankles, and gagged him. They'd find him soon enough. Purvis could have
killed him but it wasn't worth his time. He hadn't seen his attacker. And
bigger game was below, down that fire escape and the dames and kids couldn't
stop him.

Purvis
shouldered the pack, got it steady on his back, and made sure his gun was
ready. Then he picked up the little string of sleigh bells and jangled them. At
the shrill tintinnabulation they gave off he grinned, and stepped over the roof
coping onto the fire escape.

'Reindeer,
huh?' he said aloud. 'But the guy who drives them carries a scythe, not a pack
of gifts.'

Lippy, a
little man with a large, loose mouth and ferret eyes, crouching at the
glassless window of the building across the 'El' tracks from the St Francis
Home, heard the childish voices of the singing orphans rise on the night air
and grinned.

It came upon a midnight clear. . .

'The kids
are a little early,' he remarked. 'It ain't hardly nine-thirty. But they're
right about its coming. Any minute now.'

He coughed.
The room smelled of paint and plaster, and since there was no window in the
frame, it was bitterly cold.

'Hasn't he
come yet?' the girl asked tensely. She ground a cigarette beneath her shoe and
tossed it out the window. 'Oh, I wish he'd come. I want to get this over with.'

That glorious song of old. . .

'We don't
have to do it if you don't wana,' Lippy said, and pulled his coat tighter about
his throat.

'Yes, we
do!' the girl whispered shrilly. 'We have to do it. We have to!'

'Well, if
we have to, we have to,' Lippy said, 'Personally, if it's got to be done, we
couldn't think of no better way. Here we are in a building no one else is in,
not thirty yards away. Nobody to hear us, nobody to see us come or go.

'Then
there's the "El." A train's bound to go by the right time. We
couldn't want a sweeter setup.'

'Oh, I
don't want to do it,' the girl half-sobbed. Then her voice stiffened with
desperate resolution. 'But we have to Lippy! We have to, don't we?'

'Yeah, I
guess we do,' Lippy agreed, and turned his attention again to the building
across the street where the fire escape cut a black spidery line past tall
lighted windows.

From angels bending near the earth. . .

'Hey!' he
said suddenly. 'Listen!'

They both
heard it plainly—the little jingle of sleigh bells. Then they both saw the
figure that appeared above the roof coping across the street, silhouetted for a
moment against the sky—the bulbous-stomached figure with the beard, the tasselled
cap, and the pack on his back, starting carefully down the spidery black fire
escape toward the lighted windows below.

'Here comes
a train,' the girl whispered shakily.

'I hear
it.' Lippy Hung away a cigarette and kneeled at the window. 'He'll get opposite
the first window just as it comes by,' he announced.

To pluck their harps of gold. . .

Then the
downtown 'El' train came roaring along, and suddenly it was opposite them,
filling the canyon of the narrow street with thundering sound. And at the same
moment the bulky figure on the fire escape opposite became silhouetted clearly
against the first lighted window.

Red leaned
forward, her throat so tight she could hardly breathe. Unhurriedly, Lippy
lifted the rifle in his hand to his shoulder, gave a little mmm, and tightened
his finger. A tiny pencil of flame leaped outward and was gone. The noise of
the shot was sucked away by the roaring elevated express.

But across
the street the figure on the lire escape was swaying, tottering. Then it fell.
It fell headlong down the iron steps, the pack on its back splitting open and
tumbling small white packages into the air like a flurry of monster snowflakes.