Spook
Page 21
“Merry Christmas to you too, cat.”
The lingering throb put Tuesday afternoon back into my thoughts. I shoved it out again, but not before I remembered Tamara looking at the smashed chandelier and saying, “Place’ll never be the same again.” She was right, and not just because of the chandelier. We’d counted five bullet holes in the walls and ceiling, and there was what would likely be a permanent bloodstain on the floor where Thomas Valjean’s broken nose had leaked. There was also a leftover aura of violation and violence. It wouldn’t be easy to work there now. Not for Tamara and me, anyway.
Well, why should we have to? We’d outgrown the place as it was, with the addition of Jake Runyon; a larger space, a better address with more modern, upscale trappings would be beneficial for business and morale both. We could afford it, we were on a monthly rental basis rather than a lease, and it was almost the end of another year. New year, new start. Tamara would be all for it, and Runyon wouldn’t care, so why not?
Kerry came in with a breakfast tray. Hot chocolate for Emily, coffee for us, croissants, Christmas cookies she’d baked herself. When she set the tray down she saw me rubbing my knuckle, but she didn’t say anything. She hadn’t said much about Tuesday, other than “Thank God none of you were hurt” and “You manage to get yourself into the damnedest situations even when you’re not working at it.” Runyon and Tamara and I had downplayed the incident to the media; I’d downplayed it to Kerry and really downplayed it to Emily. Nobody but the three survivors knew just how close we’d come to dying that day. Maybe Kerry suspected it and maybe she didn’t. In any case she had the good loving grace to keep her thoughts to herself and let me do the same with mine.
We dug into the food and drinks. Then we dug into the pile of presents. Emily squealed when she unveiled her state of the art, AT&T model 3360 cell phone with the Vesuvius red faceplate; ran over and kissed me and kissed Kerry. I got another kiss when Kerry opened her package of French perfume.
As the family patriarch, or maybe as its oldest and only male member, I got to open my two presents last. Emily’s was a ceramic sculpture she’d made in her crafts class at school; she said it was an egret and I took her at her word, but I would’ve loved it if it had been a cockroach. And Kerry’s was—
A cell phone.
Emily let out a little whoop. “It’s a Nokia, just like mine. Only basic black.”
“His and hers,” I said. “Now we can both be noisy in public.”
“Cool! That is so cool.”
I looked at Kerry. She shrugged and said, “Well, you must be the hardest man in the world to buy for. Besides, now you won’t have to hang out in parking garages.”
She moved closer, and I put my arm around her. Emily came over and snuggled on my other side. Pretty soon she said, “This is the best. The best Christmas ever.”
Best Christmas ever for me, too. One to cherish, to be thankful for. A special Christmas for a very lucky man.