The Fat Man (16 page)
Authors: Ken Harmon
“Rosebud!” I shouted. “The man’s dying and we still don’t know what’s going on!”
“You’re skating on thin ice at the equator, Gumdrop Coal, so shut your pudding hole if you know what’s good for you!” she said and then whirled back on Cane. “Now, Charles ‘Candy’ Cane, spill every bean you got before Death’s Kelly Girl here sings your final lullaby. Tell us who else is in this crazy scheme with you? Who set Gumdrop up? What are they planning to do to Santa next? What were you going to do with all these toys? And finally, tell of your great love for a crackerjack reporter with a great brain, bedroom eyes and the gams of a Rockette. You’ll start with the last first, if you have any sense.”
Cane looked scared stiff because he was a stiff. Even in his weakest moment, the elf would have answered Rosebud’s questions, or at least blinked, but Cane was as still as a church.
“He went early,” Ghost said. “That’s strange, but perfectly agreeable. I wanted him to snap things up, but you never really expect them to go before their assigned time. Of course, I can’t hardly blame the sot, what with Jezebel here making staying so utterly frightening.”
“He’s dead?” Rosebud said. She gave Cane a frantic poke that would have sent most into the fetal position.
“Rigor mortis has taken up residence early and has its feet in recline,” Ghost said.
“You say it’s unusual for most to check out before their time?” I asked. Something was squirrelly.
“Oh, quite,” said Ghost. “Most all hang on to dear life for dear life like something primeval would cling to a shank of protein, but Mr. Cane released a full five minutes early. Five more minutes he could have spent with his beloved Rosebud.” If Ghost had had a face, you would have seen him smirk at that.
The nonsled Rosebud wheeled around and gave the phantom the evil eye. “You’re quite the chatterbox, bub,” she said to him. “I don’t remember Dickens letting you yap so much. Now I know why. You’re nothing but a big blabbermouth!”
“Sticks and stones, my truffle,” Ghost said. “If Chuck would have let me meet and converse frankly with Ebenezer in the beginning, his masterpiece could have gone on the back of a menu. I could have illuminated quite clearly what awaited in Scrooge’s future and booked his epiphany on an earlier train, but Dickens was paid by the word and wouldn’t hear of it. He convinced me my silent brooding in the final act would boost the dramatic tension and endear me to fans forever. I have, however, discovered the opposite is true. Through stage adaptations of the work, fans have experienced so much ham in Stave Four, they tend to doze or skip pages until the Cratchits get goosed. I could have waxed poetically about the wages of sin and added a dash of brimstone to make things sparkly, but no. Through my cursed silence, most associate the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come as a moody druid with arthritis. I blame them not, but how I would have loved to be allowed to speak. Or sing.”
“Singing is where I get off the bus,” Rosebud said, leaving. “Gumdrop Coal, I do not want to speak to you for a few days. I’m mad, bad mad. The idea that you could think such things about me makes me sick. The girl wants to be alone for a spell and wonder if you’re half the elf I thought you were. See you around. But if I say ‘go,’ I mean go. Momma doesn’t chew cabbage twice.”
Dingleberry watched all of this quietly. Steady, solid Dingleberry. I knew he wanted to dig a hole in the ground and hide from all of this bad business, but he would never leave me, his buddy, unless I told him to. I told him to. “It’s all right,” I said. “I need to take care of something.” I saw Dingleberry to the door and watched him go.
When I turned back, Ghost was pulling the sheet over Cane. “Wait,” I said. “I wonder if the reason you didn’t expect Cane to die so early is because there was a change in the cause of death.”
“Heart attack is listed,” said Ghost, but something told me different. I gave Cane the once-over, looking for wounds, but came up empty. I was about to give up, but I looked inside Cane’s mouth. That’s when I saw it. It had been lodged in his throat, slowly choking him to death and stopping his ability to talk. It was probably poison too.
Zsu Zsu’s petals.
As I pulled the leaves out of Cane’s mouth, I could hear the surprise in Ghost’s voice. “What does it mean?” he asked.
It meant I was one unlucky son of a blitzen. It meant that Cane was murdered and I knew where the killer was hiding.
“It means I have to go to Pottersville.”
CHAPTER 18
Baby, It’s Cold Outside
THE MARSHMALLOW WORLD GAZETTE
Charles Foster “Candy” Cane Dead! Deathbed Scandal Uncovers a Life Not So Sweet
Rosebud Jubilee
Kringle Town’s Kublai Khan is gone. Charles Cane, nicknamed “Candy” for his uncommon sweetness, died alone in his fairy-tale mansion, Xanadu, surrounded by secrets, scandal and shame. The elf tycoon was discovered to have a clandestine stash of millions of toys. Though the investigation is in its initial stages, sources believe Cane’s ambition was to stage a coup d’état and force Santa Claus out of the toy business. Authorities believe Cane then planned to become the giver of toys, the beloved elf of children around the world once Santa was disposed. Sources also told me that Cane used his considerable influence with Santa to remove Gumdrop Coal from duty. Coal was fired as enforcer of naughty children. With Coal out, all children would receive toys so production would have to increase, causing the elves to be hurried and less organized, and Cane was allowed to steal undetected. “I am very sad at both Candy’s death and what was apparently a very selfish plan,” Santa Claus said. At this moment, Cane cannot be directly linked to the murder of Raymond Hall and the other assaults connected to Gumdrop Coal, so the search for the fugitive elf continues. Although why anyone would ever want to see the good-for-nothing rat loser ever again this reporter cannot understand.
I
f I were an honest elf, I would admit that, deep down, I was maybe made to live in Pottersville. Pottersville was cold and bleak, sucking all hope and happiness into its shadows. It was the complete opposite of Kringle Town, my elf world in reverse. Just across the tracks, Potter lorded over the town like a buzzard, circling and smiling at the suffering down below. The old man took everything good in Kringle Town and twisted it into despair in Pottersville, creating a world where getting through life was an empty, joyless chore. In Potter’s world, they would not exchange presents in
The Gift of the Magi
. They would exchange lead. The moon was big and full when I arrived, but it didn’t add any romance to the view. In any light, Pottersville was ugly, crooked and in bad need of a coat of paint. But pastels would have been wasted on the place. Pottersville was quicksand to anything light or bright or happy. Because of my dark mood, the truth was that I felt right at home when I stood in Potter’s Field looking at the sorry excuse for a town across the river.
f I were an honest elf, I would admit that, deep down, I was maybe made to live in Pottersville. Pottersville was cold and bleak, sucking all hope and happiness into its shadows. It was the complete opposite of Kringle Town, my elf world in reverse. Just across the tracks, Potter lorded over the town like a buzzard, circling and smiling at the suffering down below. The old man took everything good in Kringle Town and twisted it into despair in Pottersville, creating a world where getting through life was an empty, joyless chore. In Potter’s world, they would not exchange presents in
The Gift of the Magi
. They would exchange lead. The moon was big and full when I arrived, but it didn’t add any romance to the view. In any light, Pottersville was ugly, crooked and in bad need of a coat of paint. But pastels would have been wasted on the place. Pottersville was quicksand to anything light or bright or happy. Because of my dark mood, the truth was that I felt right at home when I stood in Potter’s Field looking at the sorry excuse for a town across the river.
I should have seen Potter was behind this all along. The warped, frustrated old man always hated Santa and would do anything to tarnish what the Fat Man stood for. Potter recruited Cane and told him to get me out of the way and start stashing toys. Then Potter double-crossed Cane and slipped him a couple of Zsu Zsu’s petals as a funeral wreath. Genius. The worst part was that I was afraid once I was around Potter’s scum, the pool and hooch halls with their hard hearts, that I would like it and never come back. My wonderful life, so called, wasn’t doing much except kicking me in the duff and I was tired, real tired. If the wonderful life was going to be this hard, why not live in a place where the music and a bottle numbed your guts until it didn’t matter? Why not fade away where you could slap anyone who looked at you cross-eyed? I knew it would break Santa’s heart to hear me say those kinds of things, but I was starting to feel like St. Nick was slipping. Before, in Cane’s mansion, when I thought Santa was dying, I was scared, but a little part of me was glad that all the trouble that came with doing good would be over. And I felt a little something like relief.
I hated myself for thinking like that, but the cold wind that blows through Pottersville cuts pretty deep. It carries little voices that carve up your brain. “Rosebud doesn’t love you,” one said. “Dingleberry’s a fool,” said another. “Santa’s a bigger one.” “The kids aren’t worth it,” the breeze whispered. “You’ve always known it.” You stand in the wind long enough in Pottersville and you start to believe those things. It was all I could do to ignore it. I knew there would be no Angel Clarence, no bells ringing and no toast to the richest man in town. I was alone. Poor.
I was cold, so I thought maybe slapping the old man around would warm me up. I couldn’t find a path, so I took off through the cemetery toward town, zigzagging in the dark around tombstones and marble archangels, trying to get to the road. It was a pretty bleak place, gray markers, gray snow, so when I spotted some blue, red and yellow on one grave, I got curious.
When would I ever learn?
The tombstone belonged to a guy named Van Doren Stern, but now he had company. It was Sherlock Stetson and someone had kicked the stuffing out of him. The old Misfit sleuth had a few pieces missing and his pull-string was wrapped around his throat. I wondered if this was the cowpoke the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was talking about? I wondered if Sherlock was really on to something with that Misfit Mafia talk. I wondered if Zsa Zsa knew her ever lovin’ was dead and if she would finally appreciate his fine, sweet soul. I also wondered if I was imagining things or if whoever did this to Sherlock was watching me.
My gut told me to skedaddle.
Between the wind and the crunch of the frozen ground, it was hard to hear, but I was pretty sure someone or something was following me, so I walked faster. Whatever it was kept right up with me, darting to my left one minute, and then I’d hear it on my right the next. Because I was turning my head back and forth like someone trying to cross a busy highway, I never saw a thing until it was too late.
The next thing I knew, I bumped right into Uncle Billy.
This was not the “old Building and Loan pal” Uncle Billy. This was the Uncle Billy of Pottersville, the coot who’d been locked up in the booby hatch until the old man made him the town’s watchdog. Uncle Billy even foamed at the mouth. He towered over me by a good three feet and he was dressed in rags. Colored, frayed strings were tied around each finger and thumb, causing Billy’s appendages to turn blue from lack of proper circulation. I wondered if one of those strings was there to remind Billy to take Sherlock Stetson off the case. Uncle Billy’s right eye gave me a wild stare while his left did a little jig in his noggin. “Boy oh boy oh boy! Where do you think you’re marching to in a fine hurry on such a wicked frigid night, my little man, eh?” he asked.
“Hi, Billy,” I said. “My name’s Gumdrop Coal. I came from Kringle Town.”
“Is that a fact, Mr. Gumdrop Coal of Kringle Town?” Uncle Billy asked. “Have you lost your way or do you have some denizen business within our tawdry streets?”
“I came to see Potter,” I said. “Any idea where I can find him?”
“You came to see Potter, but Mr. Gumdrop Coal, Potter can’t see you!” A switch had flipped and now Uncle Billy’s face was red with temper. “Came to see Potter my aunt Fanny!” Uncle Billy stomped around in the snow and puffed a little bit.
“Listen, Uncle Billy,” I said. “I didn’t mean to rile you. Did Potter tell you he didn’t want to see me?”
Uncle Billy discovered me all over again. “Who are you?”
“Gumdrop Coal. Kringle Town.”
“Has the circus come to Kringle Town?” Uncle Billy asked. “Are you one of the magical midgets? Let’s see a trick!”
“Not until I see Potter,” I said.
“Ohhhhhh! You want to see Potter!” Uncle Billy said. “Of course you do, of course you do. Do you know where he is?”
Somewhere, deep inside of me, I heard a nerve say
, “I’m all you got left and the crazy man is on it!”
I took a breath and said, “No. Can you help me?”
, “I’m all you got left and the crazy man is on it!”
I took a breath and said, “No. Can you help me?”
Uncle Billy smiled like it was his birthday. “Oh boy, I might indeed, indeed I might. I know just the place to look!”
Uncle Billy may have been old and I would have hated to be hanging since the coot was sober, but he was as strong as an ox. He picked me up by the scruff of the neck and carried me down the hill to the road that led to the sad glow of Pottersville.
Uncle Billy’s grip was pretty tight, so I didn’t fight him. Being a passenger also gave me the chance to study the lay of the land in case I needed to plot an escape or hiding place. What I saw was a pretty sad sight. Most of the houses were dark shacks with broken windows and peeled paint. The yards were purgatories for junk and rotten trees.
As we tromped closer to town, I started hearing the screams. That mean wind carried the sounds from every direction, roars of pain, sobs of regret and helpless shrieks. You could even hear the hushed weeping of despair and that was the worst of all. Kringle Town didn’t have these sounds. When I delivered coal to the naughty, I admit part of me enjoyed the crying and the fits. But I really loved when those temper tantrums were later replaced by stiff upper lips and sturdy promises to do better. The joy of the season always overcame darkness; there was no stopping it. But for some reason, it was always midnight in Pottersville, an hour as lonesome and low as a lost dog.
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