Christmas Crime

by Alex A King

  I stepped into my bedroom—my empty bedroom.

  No bear.

  If it wasn’t the bear making the floors creak, what was it?

  Something cold, round, and metal touched my temple. The open end of a gun. This particular gun was in Francis’ss hand. He moved around until the gun was pointed right at my forehead.

  “Surprise,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes—hard. “Oh for crying out loud, you really are a villain?”

  He scoffed. “You didn’t know.”

  “I knew you had a crooked nose,” I said. “I knew it the minute I met you. Damn it, I hate it when stereotypes turn out to be right. If you guys could prove me wrong and surprise me for once, that would be swell because this is boring and predictable.”

  “Yeah, right. If you didn’t like me it’s because you thought I was fucking your ex. I didn’t, by the way. Not my type. Too much of a sissy. I like a man with some man in him.”

  “What do you want? Dogas’s box? Too late. His wife took it. You want to fight someone for his old Greek underpants, go talk to her.”

  “I don’t care about some deadbeat criminal’s box of shit. That stupid bitch he married took it—she can have it. She’s harmless enough.”

  “Harmless? She left threatening notes—some of those were really mean. I’ve never been skanky. She blew up my work place—two of them. She killed Todd.”

  “The notes … I can’t take credit for those. Hipster Burger, the pet food place, that pussy Todd, those were all me. His car fire, too. That was practice. Not every experiment works out.”

  Until now I’d forgotten about Todd’s little car fire.

  “The notes though, they were all that Terri psycho.” He shook his head. “That bitch is insane. Me, I’m a man of action. I get shit done.”

  Black spots blotted my vision. Fear turned my blood to ice. Anger made it boil. My body didn’t know what to do except curl my fists into tight balls. I wanted somewhere to put them, like Francis’s smirking mouth. “You blew up Todd? Why?”

  “Don’t act like you’re not happy about it. The man cheated on you.”

  “I’m not happy! Okay, I might have been a bit impressed if you’d done it when I caught him scarfing sausage, but I was over it. Way over it. Years over it. Todd was a decent man—well, a mostly decent man. He didn’t deserve to wind up sprayed across a PF Chang’s parking lot!”

  He sniffed like he expected me to bow down while simultaneously singing his praised. “I figured I was doing you a favor.”

  “Don’t do me any more favors, and by the way, I quit. Wait—I’m not quitting. This way I can collect unemployment—I think. Is that how it works?”

  I’d avoided it up until now, but if I survived this then I’d be forced to apply. If I didn’t then I might start imagining my cow divvied up in to steaks.

  “Nah, you’re definitely fired. The best part—one of the best parts—is that I won’t have to pay you. You were a joke, scrambling to get bullshit interviews with organized crime’s shittiest assholes. I worked hard to maneuver you into a bullshit job and give you bullshit duties.”

  My heart began to hammer. I’d put it through hell these past few months, tossing it from one dire situation to the next. “Do I at least get severance?”

  “Call it that if it makes you happy.” He glanced around, eyes cold, calm, serpentine. “The plan was to make a big splash when I kill you, but if you prefer I can make it look like mostly natural and only slightly suspect circumstances.”

  Fear shook me between its cold teeth. “Wow, what a choice. I just can’t decide.”

  “Hmm…” He pretended to think about it. “Let’s make it big and showy. That’s what dear old Grandma would do.”

  “What does she have to do with this?”

  “That’s what this has all been about. The fire. The explosions. The murder.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  He drew a box in the air.

  “You’re going to have to art better,” I said. “Not that I’m criticizing you. I can’t even make a stick figure look like it’s supposed to be a person.”

  “Frame,” he said, exasperated. “It’s a frame.”

  “I don’t know, it looked more like a wonky rectangle—practically a parallelogram.” My teeth chattered. Pronouncing geometry words was tricky at the best of times.

  “You try drawing better air art!”

  “Well, okay.” I raised my finger.

  “That wasn’t an order! Jesus Christ, I was going to kill you to frame your grandmother, but now I think I’m gonna kill you just to make you shut up.”

  I laughed. Frame Grandma? Who did he think he was? Some kind of criminal mastermind? Grandma could think circles around this little pipsqueak—in her sleep.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “You! You’re ridiculous.”

  “If I’m so ridiculous why are you on the wrong end of this gun?”

  “That does keep happening,” I admitted. “It’s a real problem. So how about you put it down and we talk about why you want to frame Grandma?”

  I had a plan. That plan involved me chatting like a parrot on cocaine until Elias showed up with his own gun. The rest of the plan was hazy, but it involved Xander, ropes, and a kick-ass soundtrack.

  Francis didn’t know about my plan. From the dreamy look on his face he was clearly fantasizing about his own deluded plot.

  “Think about it.” He swiped his hand in a wide overhead arc. “Notorious mob boss slaughters heir and only granddaughter.”

  “Was that meant to be a headline?”

  “What else would it be? I’m a newsman.”

  Where was Elias?

  Keep talking, Kat. Keep talking.

  “Wow,” I said, following my own advice, “that’s a terrible idea. Even worse than your air art. Have you thought about going back to school, maybe learning a trade? Why would anyone believe Grandma would kill me? She loves me. She bakes cookies for me. Have you seen my kitchen? It’s full of Grandma-baked food. Grandmas don’t do that for granddaughters they’re about to murder.” I thought about it for a moment. He didn’t know dick about Grandma’s other law-abiding side. To him she was a stone cold murderer who wouldn’t think twice about snuffing a granddaughter. The Grandma I knew would think about it at least three times before pulling the trigger—and even then the bullets would likely be rubber. Or tranquilizer darts, like the time she faked my death.

  Francis wore the smug smirk of a guy who thought his plan was solid and manly because he’d come up with it. “You took a job working for a popular website dedicated to revealing gossip and information about Katerina Makri’s—without the pretentious s—business. You finagled an interview with her. You turned the information in that interview over to me, the one person who could disperse details of her private life to a wide audience.”

  “It’s not that popular,” I muttered. “So I wouldn’t go around bragging about your wide audience.”

  “How would you know? We have thousands of members who sign in daily. The site is already a big moneymaker. Our memberships and page hits will soar when the cops identify your charred body parts and only the Crooked Noses have the inside scoop. You’re one of our employees, after all.”

  “And your motive for doing this is what, exactly? That part is really hazy.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “You’re about to kill me. The least you can do is tell me why. It’s common courtesy for the villain to fess up.”

  He looked dubious. “Really? I thought that was only a thing in movies.”

  “Oh no, real life villains do it all the time, too. That’s one thing movies get right. So if you want to be authentic and all …” I waved an encouraging hand at him and hoped he wouldn’t notice the tremor.

  “Well, all right. Do you know how hard it is to stand out these days? Being on the ground floor of this event will catapult me into the stratosphere. Everyone gets five minutes and now I’m ready for mine.�
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  “Is this because you’re short? Because I know a lot of sexy short guys. You’re not one of them on account of how you’re holding a gun in my face and that really turns a woman off—except, now that I think about it, the Terri Dogases of the world. Hey, she’s single now. Maybe today is your lucky day.”

  Francis ignored me. “Influencers can make a fortune. People pay attention to them, give them televisions shows, money, access.”

  This guy was pathetic--pathetic and homicidal. “So you’re killing me because you want to be a Kardashian? Dude, that is the lamest thing I’ve ever heard. If you weren’t about to kill me I’d feel sorry for you.”

  “Maybe it’s lame to you, but that’s because you’re a spoiled brat who doesn’t appreciate what she’s got. Everything got handed to you thanks to a DNA fluke. The rest of us? We gotta work hard for the money and all the trappings. As soon as I heard you threw some kind of tantrum in Greece and stormed back to Oregon, I knew I had to meet you and set a plan in motion.”

  “That’s why you set up shop in Portland?”

  He shook his head. “That was dumb luck. No, I engineered a meeting with Todd, who fell all over himself trying to get some of this.” He groped his own crotch. Eww. “Then I followed you to that lame burger place. “The Crooked Noses isn’t my brainchild, I told you that. It was already conveniently here. You want to know more, you’re gonna have to ask the boss.”

  “Love to, if you’ll pony up a name.”

  “No can do. I get the feeling the guy will put a bullet in me if I try.”

  “So it’s a man? Good to know. Because my next question was going to be: animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

  “Fuck me, you’re annoying!”

  “I do my best because you bad guys seem to hate it.”

  “I’m not the bad guy here!” He considered that for a moment. “Okay, maybe I’m a little bit bad, but it’s for a good cause—my cause.”

  During the course of the conversation I’d slowly been moving sideways until Francis’s back was to the stairs. The air shifted. A gun appeared around the corner of the top step.

  Elias. Finally.

  Except it wasn’t Elias. It was Marika and her unpredictable hand. Francis leaped like a kernel of popping corn when Marika shoved the gun’s business end up against his spine.

  “You better be careful,” she said in Greek. “I used to be a housewife and a mother, but then I became a bodyguard, then an assassin, and now I am a freelancer and also a supervisor, which means I am qualified to do anything except hit a target with this gun.”

  “True story,” I said. “Marika shot holes in a Ferrari once.”

  “I got Katerina a very good deal on that Ferrari,” Marika said proudly.

  “You have no idea how cheap a Ferrari gets when it’s shot up.”

  Francis glanced from me to Marika and back again. “I didn’t understand a word your stupid friend said except ‘Ferrari’.”

  “He doesn’t speak Greek,” I told Marika in Greek.

  “Barbarian.”

  I couldn’t disagree with that. Now that the psychopath in the hallway was distracted I eyeballed his groin and its lack of defenses.

  “Where is Elias?” I asked Marika.

  “In the attic,” she said. “He climbed up the side of the house and in through the roof as soon as he realized this malakas was here. I think he plans to drop down like a spider and snap the malaka’s spine.”

  “I don’t have an attic, just a crawlspace.”

  “You do not have an attic? I thought all American houses have attics.”

  “Speak English,” Francis said, waving his gun at me.

  “She started it,” I said.

  “What did he say?” Marika wanted to know.

  I looked at her over his shoulder, which wasn’t difficult. There wasn’t an overabundance of Francis. “Now would be a good time to shoot him.”

  Marika’s eyebrows shot up. “He wants me to shoot him?”

  “Tell the fat bitch to speaking fucking English!” Francis yelled.

  Marika’s face turned red, then purple. Her understanding of English warped in and out conveniently. “Did this tiny pretend man call me fat?” She squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. She turned the weapon around until she was violating one of the main tenets of gun safety by squinting down the barrel. “You know what I think?”

  I hazarded a guess. “That you’re out of bullets or rounds or whatever they call the projectiles that go in that particular gun and now we’re in serious trouble and maybe going to die?”

  She smacked it against the wall. “No—I think my husband has been interfering with my work. As soon as I see him he is never getting tiganites again. Ever. Especially not with fried eggs.”

  That seemed fair.

  Francis used her lack of gun safety to his advantage. He whipped around, seizing my hair and dragging me until Marika and I were both on the wrong end of his gun. Tears of rage and pain rolled over my lower eyelashes.

  “You are the worst,” I told him. “Well, maybe not the worst because I’ve met a lot of awful criminals, but you’re definitely one of the middle worsts.”

  He laughed. It was a cruel sound from a stupid mouth. “Downstairs. On the couch, both of you.” He shoved Marika and kicked me, the mid-sized meanie. No doubt he was on Santa’s “Coal Only” list. If I got the opportunity I’d cut off that leg and shove it up his nostril—sideways.

  “Let Marika go,” I said. “She’s not part of this.”

  “No.”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  He snorted. “Someone stuck it in her on purpose? Wow. I’d hate to be that guy.”

  “Do you know Grandma’s henchman Takis?”

  He paled slightly. “That’s his wife?”

  “And mother of his children. They have a lot of children and one on the way. Takis won’t take it well if you hurt her.”

  Francis paced for a moment, gun slack by his side. “Give me a minute, I need to think.”

  My breath caught. Maybe Takis’ reputation as a ruthless henchman would save the day.

  “Okay, I thought about it. You’re both dying anyway. This is double the story now. The mobster’s granddaughter. The henchman’s pregnant wife. And I’m the guy who gets to tell the story.”

  Marika and I huddled on the couch. This couch had seen things. It knew Dad, it knew me, it remembered Mom. We had movie nights here. Mom made beds for me on this couch whenever I was stricken with the latest plague. Now there was a good chance I was going to die here with Marika.

  “There’s no way you’ll get away with this,” I said. My teeth chattered, clipping the crisp edges off my words.

  Francis grinned, his nose more crooked than ever. “Of course I will. I’m attractive, I’m charming, and as far as surveillance tapes are concerned I’m in my office right now.”

  “Okay, maybe you’ll get away with it, but you’ll have to live with it. Well, until the Family catches you. And they will, sooner or later. I’ve heard Takis decapitate a grown man and watched him carry the head away in a sack. That head belonged to a serial killer and former cop. You’re just a keyboard jockey.”

  He moved around behind us. There was a sick thud, and then Marika went, “Oof,” and slumped on my shoulder. The ass-clown had whacked her with his gun. The same thud echoed in my head, and the world went black.

  Chapter 16

  I opened one eye, then the other. Then I opened them both again because it hadn’t worked the first time.

  “Marika?”

  There was a groan. “Katerina?”

  “I’m here,” I said. “But the bad news is that I think I’m blind.”

  She gasped. “So am I.”

  I bumped against something. Pain shot up my leg. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think being blind is going to work for me.”

  “Do not worry, Baboulas will get you one of those dogs. Me, I want a stick so I can smack my children when they do not behave.”


  She’d wear the cane down to a nub in no time.

  I bumped into something else. I crouched down and felt around. My fingers touched porcelain. Scuttling sideways, I felt around until I reached the door. I jiggled the handle. Nothing. I twiddled the lock. The door didn’t open.

  Helpless, I slumped against the door and drew my knees up to my chin.

  “The good news is that we’re not blind. The bad news is that we’re trapped in the master bathroom. Francis must have broken the lock.”

  “That is bad news.”

  The door was thick, solid, a replacement for the original door which had a hollow core. Dad said he wanted a place to klasimo in peace without us gagging and mocking him for his gas eruptions. No way could we Kung Fu it open. Dad installed that door like he meant it. In a nuclear winter this door would be enduring in its frame, a DIY cockroach.

  “There’s no way out,” I said.

  Not entirely true. Several feet away, behind the medicine cabinet, Dad’s handgun was tucked into its cool bed of money and passports. If I had light I could open the safe and get to the gun. The gun could shoot out the broken lock. If I had light.

  Light. Duh.

  “Marika, never tell anyone about what I’m going to do, okay?”

  The air shifted as she crossed herself in the dark. “I promise I will do my best never to tell anyone what you are about to do. Is it a crime? You can tell me.”

  I reached up and flicked the switch above my left ear. Clear bright light poured into the room.

  After a whole lot of eyelash fluttering as we adjusted to the light, Marika said, “You are right, I will never tell anyone that you are a vlakas, except maybe Takis—and only after he does that thing to me that I like.”

  Way too much information. “You didn’t think about the light switch either! Close your eyes.”

  “Why? I only just realized I am not blind. Now I want to look at everything.”

  “Because I have to do a thing. A private thing.”

  “Could you let me out first? My sense of smell is very sensitive while I am pregnant. I can smell chocolate from a kilometer away.”