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Teddy had no idea what a micro-motorcycle was, but the boy’s mother was shaking her head violently and mouthing “No!”
“You bet!” Teddy said, and the woman looked shocked. “If you’re really good, I’ll bring you two.”
He couldn’t very well take off the Santa suit on the bus; the kid would go nuts. He waited until he got off at 63rd Street before he stepped into a doorway, stripped off the costume and dumped it into the nearest trash basket, then he continued east, toward Lexington and his shop.
LANCE STOOD ON THE STAGE of the little theater on the twelfth floor of the Barn and stared at his agents. Kerry Smith sat beside him, looking depressed.
“Holly, what’s the story on Rockefeller Center?”
“Some cab driver went nuts,” she said. “He abandoned his taxi in the middle of Forty-eighth Street and walked into the Plaza with a gun in each hand. He shot a skater and two people in the arcade before Ham shot him. Oh, Teddy Fay shot him, too. Twice.”
“What happened with Teddy?” Lance asked. “I thought we had him trapped in Saks.”
A man stood up. “We sealed the place immediately, like you said, and when backup arrived, we scoured every floor. We found nothing.”
“Then he couldn’t have been in the store. Maybe he went up one flight, then came back down and left the building.”
“We had it sealed very quickly,” he said. “I can’t explain what happened.”
“Any theories?” Lance asked the group.
Holly tentatively raised her hand.
“Yes, Holly?”
“Maybe a Santa Claus suit,” she said.
“You think he was wearing a Santa Claus suit?” Lance asked incredulously.
“Maybe. There was a Santa Claus going down as I was going up. On the fifth floor there was a commotion; apparently, somebody had found an unconscious man in the men’s room. I’m just connecting the dots.”
Another woman stood up. “A Santa Claus walked right past me at the Forty-ninth Street exit and wished me a Merry Christmas,” she said.
Holly raised her hand again. “We found a red shopping bag in the sixth floor men’s room,” she said. “It was full of gift-wrapped, empty boxes. It’s being checked for prints right now, but I’m not holding my breath.”
Another agent stood up. “Listen,” he said, “how are we ever going to take this guy without a description? I mean, we had a good description this time, but nobody was looking for a guy in a Santa Claus suit.”
Lance wished to God he had an answer to that one.
FIFTY-TWO
IRENE FOSTER WAS BACK from New York in time for work on Monday morning, but she was a little late getting to her office at Langley. As she passed Hugh English’s office, she saw him looking through a stack of papers on his desk. “Morning, Hugh,” she said, sticking her head through the doorway. “Sorry I’m late; I just got back from New York.” She didn’t like it when Hugh got in before she did. Every time that happened, something invariably went wrong.
“Irene,” English said, “do you know somebody in Operations called Charles Lockwood?”
She did not, and she immediately had an awful thought. “Sounds familiar,” she said, trying to breathe normally. “Why?”
“I got a memo from payroll this morning, saying Lockwood is three weeks behind on his time sheets, and they won’t pay him, until he’s up-to-date. That’s what troubles me.”
“What’s that, Hugh?”
“If he’s turning in time sheets, that means he’s executive level, not just a clerical worker, and I swear, I know every mother’s son at the executive level who works for me.”
Irene walked forward and held out her hand. “Give me the memo,” she said. “I’ll sort it out.”
“Thank you,” he said, handing it over. English hated dealing with any administ
rative matter.
