The children who were gathered near the platform saw the transformation and started rumbling in frightened confusion. Karaoke Bear’s normally benign expression was a ferocious snarl, and his plastic brown eyes were now red and glowing.
I froze with startled fear and dropped my microphone, staring in stunned horror at the bear.
Apart from the scared children right by the platform, the audience seemed a little puzzled, but not alarmed. With Karaoke Bear crouched down on the little stage, most people couldn’t see him now. They seemed to assume the kids were squealing because the bear had over-balanced during his mechanical dance and fallen down.
Karaoke Bear’s predatory gaze zeroed in on the nice gentleman who was looking across the store, waving a hand as he tried to catch his wife’s attention. The man’s back was to the possessed bear, with its dripping fangs and sinisterly glowing eyes.
“Mister! Watch out!” I shouted.
The man started to turn my direction, still not seeing the bear. He looked puzzled rather than alarmed.
The bear lunged for him.
Without thinking, I did a sort of flying dropkick to knock the man out of the leaping bear’s path while the children near us screamed. I had never executed a move like that before. It’s amazing what a combination of mortal terror and adrenaline can accomplish on short notice.
I hit the floor with a heavy thud and rolled over a few times, carried by my own momentum. People were startled into panicky reaction all around me, and I was trampled by the feet of shoppers fleeing the scene.
I lay there for a moment, winded and dazed.
A woman was screaming, “Carlos! Carlos!”
Then I realized that I might be next on the possessed bear’s menu, and I scrambled to my feet, heart pounding with shock and fear.
Karaoke Bear was lying on the stage, as if he had keeled over. He looked normal now, except for the fact that smoke was rising from his garishly clad little body. I stared warily at the bear for a moment, but he didn’t move at all. Whatever force had invaded the apparatus was gone. Around his platform, to my relief, the cluster of Christmas trees still looked completely innocuous and inanimate.
I turned to examine the gentleman into whom I had just flown feet first. He was lying motionless on the floor nearby. Shoving my way past a few confused and curious bystanders, I stumbled over to him, stepping on the blue stocking cap and pointy ears that had fallen off during my tumble to the floor, and sank to my knees. I grabbed his shoulder and bent over him, trying to see his face.
“Mister! Mister? Are you okay?” I asked urgently.
He groaned, conscious but dazed.
“Carlos!” a woman screeched right behind me.
I flinched and started to turn around, but something heavy hit me in the head.
“Ow!” I collapsed on top of the man, instinctively shielding my skull from the additional blows that were raining down on me now.
“No! No! No!” the woman was shrieking.
Confused, startled, and in pain, I was trying to shield the man from this attack, too. He was struggling beneath my sprawled weight, conscious but disoriented, while someone continued beating the crap out of me with a solid object.
I think that’s her purse.
“Let him go! Let him go!” the woman shrieked.
Then I heard a man’s voice. A familiar one. “Jesus Christ! What the hell?”
“Let go!” the woman shouted, still clobbering me.
I’m gonna kill her, I decided.
I took an instinctive guess at where her legs would be and lashed out with one foot. I connected with a satisfying thud—but instead of the woman, I heard that familiar male voice howl in pain.
“OW! Goddamn it!”
Oops.
“Connor!” the woman cried, then hit me again.
“Stop! STOP!” he shouted at her. “What are you doing?”
There was a scuffle, and the pummeling on my head finally ceased. I lay there breathing hard, not sure it was safe to look up yet.
“Let me go!” the woman insisted. “That lunatic is trying to kill your father!”
Oh, no . . .
“Mom, will you let me handle this?” Lopez snapped.
The struggling man beneath me spoke a few breathless words in Spanish. Lopez responded in the same language. I heard him call the man “papá.”
Shit.
A pair of strong hands grabbed me by the shoulders and hauled me to my feet. I faced Lopez and his beautiful, redheaded mother.
Lying on the ground at my feet, Mr. Lopez said in frantic confusion, “What happened? What’s going on? Perrito! Qué pasa?”
“No one really knows, Pop.” Lopez gave a heavy sigh. “Hello, Dreidel. I assume there’s a perfectly logical explanation for all this?”
13
She wore just enough eye makeup to flatter her wide eyes, which were long-lashed and very blue . . .
He’d certainly inherited his eyes from her. You could see it easily when they were side by side like this.
Holy crap, I thought, recognizing the customer from the cosmetics section of the store who’d identified me as a dangerous lunatic even before she’d subsequently seen me drop-kick her husband.
Lopez’s mother.
I’d always had a feeling that I might not want to meet her. Now I was sure.
Fine-boned, fair-skinned, and elegant in her sensible coat, she thumped her son with the same purse she’d been using to clobber me. “Don’t just stand there,” she said to him. “Arrest her!”
“Mom, will you please—”
“He can’t arrest her,” said an interested spectator, stepping on my foot as he moved closer to us. “You need a cop for that.”
“Ow,” I said, trying to free my foot.
“I am a cop.” Unaware I was being stepped on, Lopez tightened his grasp on my shoulders when he felt me trying to wriggle away. “Now move along, folks. Nothing to see here. The fun’s all over.”
A few people ignored this, clearly hoping there’d be more violence. But most of the jostling crowd started to melt away, including the guy standing on my foot, carried along on the tide of busy shoppers rapidly passing through this area.
I asked Lopez hopefully, “Can I go now, too?”
“You were supposed to be upstairs,” he said accusingly to me. “You were assigned to the fourth floor for the rest of the shift!”
“You know this madwoman?” his mother demanded. “Is she someone you’ve arrested before?”
Still holding me by the shoulders, Lopez gave me a sharp shake. “What are you doing down here? You weren’t supposed to be here.”
“I got reassigned. Stop that!” I jerked myself out of his grasp before he could shake me again. As I staggered backward, I accidentally kicked his father, still on the floor, who groaned in reaction.
“Oh, nice,” Lopez said to me in exasperation.
“Carlos!” Mrs. Lopez shoved me aside and knelt beside her prone husband. “Are you all right?”
I looked down at the couple, thinking it was just as well that Lopez and I weren’t dating. It could never work out between us. Not after this.
“What happened?” Mr. Lopez asked again.
“This crazy person attacked you!”
“What?” he said.
“I did not attack him,” I protested. “I was trying to . . . to . . .” I glanced at the performance platform, where Karaoke Bear lay innocently on his side.
Trying to rescue him from the possessed ravening bear might not sound entirely sane, I realized.
“Trying to . . . ?” Lopez prodded.
“Protect him,” I finished feebly. “I thought he was in danger.”
“Of course,” Lopez said, to no one in particular.
“Protect him?” Mrs. Lopez raged. “Protect him? You kicked him in the head—”
“No, no, it wasn’t my head, querida,” Carlos Lopez said placatingly, trying to sit up. “The young lady hit my shoulder.”
�
��Lady? Lady?” his wife repeated in outrage.
“Ah!” The gray-haired man winced as his aches and pains started introducing themselves. “And my jaw, too, I think.”
“What are you people still doing here?” Lopez said to the few remaining stragglers who’d stuck around to see what else might happen. “Go about your business. Now.”
He didn’t even have to show them his badge. They did what he told them to do. I envied him that handy skill.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” I said, reaching out to help Carlos Lopez off the floor.
His wife slapped away my hands. “Don’t touch him!”
Their son looked up at the ceiling and prayed, “God, please let this be just a nightmare. If You’re truly merciful, then any minute now, I’ll wake up in a cold sweat and vow never again to eat a chili dog so late at night . . .”
As Mrs. Lopez helped her husband rise shakily to his feet, she informed me shrilly, “I intend to press charges!”
Two security guards shoved their way through the crowd of shoppers still entering and exiting the building, finally arriving on the scene after being alerted to the commotion. Given how rarely we saw security around here during an emergency, I was starting to think that Fenster’s would be a good place to commit a murder.
I regretted the chilling idea as soon as I had it, half-afraid that the Evil menacing the store could hear my thoughts.
I needed to find Max and Lucky, I realized, and tell them what had just happened.
“What’s going on here?” demanded a pale, pot-bellied security guard.
“This insane woman attacked my husband, and I want—”
“NYPD,” Lopez said loudly, giving his mother a warning glare. Looking distracted, he patted his pockets, searching for his badge, as he said to the two guards, “There was a little mishap.”
His mother blanched. “A little mis—”
“But it’s all under control now.” He found his gold shield and flashed it at them. “Detective Lopez, Organized Crime Control Bureau. I’m investigating the hijackings.”
“Hijacking?” the guard bleated. “Has someone taken Mr. Fenster’s helicopter?”
“What? No. I meant . . . Never mind,” Lopez said. “We’ve got it covered. And I’ll deal with this situation, too, guys. But I appreciate your alert response.”
“Alert response?” I repeated incredulously. “Are you kidding me?”
“Not now,” Lopez said to me between gritted teeth.
“Oh, yeah, detective, now I recognize you. From yesterday, on the fourth floor,” said the other guard, an older man. “Wait a minute. I recognize that elf, too! She’s the one who caused all the trouble there!”
“That’s not fair,” I protested. It was hardly my fault that I’d been attacked by a possessed tree.
“Did she? Well, I’m not surprised to hear it,” Mrs. Lopez said to them. “A little while ago, I saw her attack a store manager!”
Lopez gave me a sharp glance.
“I didn’t,” I told him.
“Good,” he said.
“I was attacking Naughty and Nice,” I explained.
“What?” he snapped.
“You see?” said his mother.
“Mom, will you please stop?”
“Well, no, I wasn’t attacking them,” I amended. “I was trying to, um, apprehend them, I guess. They . . .” I sighed. “Never mind. It’s not important now.”
“Then, by all means, let’s cross it off our agenda,” said Lopez.
“Detective, should we escort this elf from the store?” asked the older guard.
Bridget Lopez gasped in protest. “You can’t just unleash her on the general population! I insist that you lock her up!”
“Mom, that’s enough.”
“I guess we could put her in the holding cell on the sixth floor,” said the pot-bellied guard, perking up at the idea of incarcerating someone.
His partner said, too enthusiastically for my taste, “Hey, that’s right! That cell is mostly used for shoplifters, but if the elf is causing trouble, we could—”
“No,” I said, taking a step back as he took a step toward me.
Mrs. Lopez said to them, “That’s an excellent idea.”
“Mom.”
“Querida, I think you should let your son handle this.”
“Thank you, Pop.” Lopez said firmly, “No one will be locking up anyone.”
“Damn right,” I said.
The security guards looked a little deflated. Mrs. Lopez looked miffed. Her son sent me a glance warning me to keep my mouth shut.
Lopez said to the security guards, “Guys, I’ve got control of the elf. The singing bear. The whole situation. So you can leave it in my hands. Really.”
“Well, okay, if you’re sure . . .”
“I am. Thanks again for your help.”
“Their help?” I said.
“Not now, Esther,” he muttered as the departing guards left us to our own devices.
“In what way have they helped? Now or yesterday?” I demanded, attracting curious glances from fresh passersby in the crowded store. “I could have been—”
“Esther!” he snapped, hoping (in vain) to make me shut up. “Let it go, would you?”
His mother drew in a sharp breath. “What did you call her?”
Lopez blinked. “Huh?”
“Did you just call her Esther?” his mother demanded.
“Uh . . .” Lopez sighed and his shoulders sagged. “Shit.”
His father said, “I don’t like to hear you using language like that in front of ladies, mi perrito.”
“Sorry, Pop,” Lopez said, looking warily at his mother.
“Esther?” Mrs. Lopez said, gazing at me with an appalled expression. “The chorus girl with ties to the mob? That Esther?”
“Yes,” Lopez said darkly.
“No!” I was offended. She’d gotten that description of me from the tabloids after I witnessed Chubby Charlie Chiccante getting murdered at Bella Stella.
Seeing my outrage, Lopez amended, “She’s an actress, not a chorus girl, Mom. I told you that.”
I was about to add that I also didn’t have ties to the mob . . . but since my relationship with the Gambello crime family was undeniably complicated, I decided to leave that subject alone.
“This is Esther?” Lopez’s mother said to him in undisguised horror. “This is who you . . . you . . .”
“Eh?” Carlos’ eyebrows lifted in surprise as he looked at me. Then he asked a few quick questions in Spanish, and his son replied in the same language. The gist of it seemed to be that, yes, I was the woman whom Lopez had told his parents about. His father looked bemused and concerned; but at least he didn’t look stricken with simultaneous nausea, vertigo, and stunned rage—the way, for example, that Mrs. Lopez looked right now.
“This half-naked lunatic is the woman you’ve been seeing?” she demanded of her son.
“I am completely clothed,” I said irritably. Sure, my costume was uncomfortably brief for that chilly store, but it wasn’t as if I was showing a depraved amount of flesh.
“Now, querida, your son is a grown man, and—”
“She is the reason,” Mrs. Lopez continued, pointing at me, “that you wouldn’t even call Kathleen O’Malley’s daughter when I asked you to? That you refused even to meet Jennifer Gonzalez when I suggested it?”
“You’re still using me as an excuse to get out of dating her friends’ daughters?” I asked Lopez.
“It’s convenient,” he said with a shrug. “Anyhow, just because you and I aren’t dating doesn’t mean I don’t still . . . still . . .” He fell silent as he realized that his parents and I were all three staring at him with varying degrees of surprise, waiting for him to finish that sentence.
His father asked, “Do you mean that you’re not still seeing Miss . . . ?”
“Diamond,” I said. “Esther Diamond.”
“You are no longer involved with Miss Diamond?” Carlos asked.<
br />
“I’m still involved with her,” said his son. “I’m just not seeing her.”
Since that was a pretty accurate description of our relationship, I let it stand.
“I don’t understand,” said his father.
Lopez sighed. “I’m not dating her. We haven’t been on a date in . . . months.”
“You lied to us?” his mother exclaimed.
“I lied,” he confirmed.
“You lied?” she repeated.
“Yes, I lied,” Lopez said wearily. “Can we move on now?”
“But why?” his father asked in bewilderment. “Why did you lie, perrito?”
“What did you call him?” I asked.
“Oh, why do you think, Pop?” said Lopez, gesturing to his mother.
“Ah. Yes.” The old gentleman nodded.
“What does that mean?” Mrs. Lopez snapped at her husband.
“It means,” said her son irritably, “that no matter how much you nag, I’m not going out with any of the women you try to throw in front of me, Mom! Not ever. Never. How can I make this any clearer to you?”
“You shouldn’t talk to your mother in that tone,” his father chided.
“And, what’s more, you can both just stop asking me for grandchildren!” Lopez included his father in his diatribe now. “Because you’re not getting them!”
“My son!” Carlos exclaimed, looking wounded.
“I mean, not anytime soon,” Lopez said more calmly. “So just stop asking, would you? Enough already! Because I don’t even feel like going out with anyone else while I’m still . . . still . . . while . . .”
“Yes?” his mother prodded coldly.
Lopez glanced around the busy store. Happily, people had ceased paying attention to us. After all, now we seemed pretty much like anyone else at Fenster’s in this festive season of joy—tense, tired, bickering, and stressed.
“Go on,” said Mrs. Lopez, though her tone was not encouraging.
“No, we’re stopping there,” her son said firmly. “I’ve just exceeded my annual quota of discussing this subject with you.”
“Well, I’m not through discussing it,” she said, gearing up.
Polterheist: An Esther Diamond Novel Page 17