Diesel scanned the room. Toys were scattered around, in various stages of completion. “You shut down the factory.”
“He’s out there,” Claws said. “I can feel the electricity in the air. I couldn’t take a chance on endangering the workers, so I sent them away.”
“Good riddance,” Lester said. “Nasty little slackards. They were more trouble than they were worth.”
“The elves?” I asked.
Claws made a derisive sound. “We trucked them in from Newark. I rented this space sight unseen and then found out it used to be a daycare facility. Everything is sized for kids. I thought it would cheaper to hire little people than to change out all the toilets and sinks. Problem was, we got a bunch of crazies. Half of them actually claimed to be elves. And you know how unmanageable elves can be.”
We all nodded. “Yeah,” we said in half-assed unison, “elves are flighty. You can’t count on an elf.”
“What will you do now?” Diesel asked.
Claws shrugged. “I’ll make the occasional special toy. It’s what I most enjoy, anyway.”
“I’d like to put you and Elaine in a safer place until I get Ring under control,” Diesel said.
“As long as Ring is at large, no place is safe,” Claws said.
I cleared my throat and cracked my knuckles. “I sort of hate to bring this up right now, but I’m supposed to apprehend you.” I reached into my bag and dragged out a pair of cuffs.
“Jeez,” Briggs said.
“It’s my job, remember?”
“Yeah, but it’s Christmas Eve day. Cut the guy some slack.”
“You don’t get paid until I get paid,” I told Briggs.
“Good point,” Briggs said. “Cuff him.”
I looked over at Diesel.
“It’s your job,” Diesel said.
I looked at the cuffs dangling from my hand. This was my last shot at Christmas present money. And bringing Claws in was the right thing to do. He’d broken the law and failed to appear for his court hearing. Problem was, it was Christmas Eve, and there was no guarantee I’d be able to get Claws bonded out again and released before everything shut down for the holiday. I thought about his house, bursting with baked goods and Christmas spirit, decorated with twinkle lights, blinking out best wishes to the world.
“I can’t do it,” I said. “It’s Christmas Eve. Elaine would be alone with all those cookies.”
Claws and Lester let out a whoosh of relief. Briggs looked conflicted. And Diesel grinned at me.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now we hunt down Ring,” Diesel said.
I didn’t have to look at my watch to know it was midmorning. Time was oozing away from me. I had half a day to make Christmas happen. And some or all of that time was going to be spent hunting Ring. I could feel the panic sitting thick in my throat. I didn’t even have the gloves I’d gotten for my dad. They’d gone up in smoke with the CRV.
“You could bail,” Diesel said to me, reading my thoughts. “We’d understand.”
Before I could make a decision there was a clap of thunder, the building shook, and a crack angled across the ceiling. We started for the door, but we were stopped midway by another boom. Plaster rained down from above, and we dove under a large butcher-block workstation. A couple large chunks of ceiling broke loose and crashed to the floor. More ceiling followed. The light blinked out, and demolition dust swirled around us. The workstation table had saved our lives, but we were buried under debris from the roof.
We did a head count and concluded we were all okay.
“I could dig my way through this mess,” Diesel said, “but I’m afraid it’s unstable. It needs to be cleared from the top.”
We all tried our cell phones, but we had no reception.
“I don’t get it,” Briggs said. “What was that? It felt like an earthquake, but we don’t get earthquakes in Jersey.”
“I guess it was a . . . phenomenon,” I said.
We sat there for a half hour, waiting for the sound of fire trucks and emergency equipment.
“No one knows we’re trapped here,” Claws finally said. “We’re separated from the other businesses by parking lots and roadways. And most of the businesses here are storage facilities with minimum traffic.”
“And it’s possible the ceiling collapsed but the walls are still standing,” Lester said. “If someone doesn’t look closely they might not see the damage.”
I inched closer to Diesel. He felt big and safe and solid.
He playfully tugged at a strand of my hair. “You aren’t scared, are you?” he asked me, his lips skimming across my ear.
“Not me. Nope. I’m cool.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire. I was scared beyond all reason. I was trapped under a ton of rubble with four men and no bathroom. My heart was beating with a sickening thud in my chest, and I was cold to the bone with fear and claustrophobia. If I got out alive I’d probably have a few uncomfortable moments remembering the way Diesel’s mouth had felt on my ear. Right now, I was trying to keep my teeth from chattering in panic.
“Someone needs to go for help,” Claws said.
“I guess that would be me,” Diesel said. “Don’t anyone freak.”
There was a sound like a soap bubble bursting. Plink. And I no longer felt Diesel beside me.
“Holy crap,” Briggs said, “what was that?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” I said.
“We’re all still here, right?” Briggs asked.
“I’m here,” I said.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Lester said.
“Yeah, me either,” Briggs said. “I didn’t hear anything.”
We sat and waited in the eerie quiet.
“Hello,” Briggs called after awhile, but no one answered, and we all fell silent again.
There was no way to assess time in the pitch-black cave. Minutes dragged by, and then suddenly there was a faraway sound. Scraping and clunking. And muffled voices carried in to us. We heard sirens, but they were faint, the sound deadened by the debris.
Two hours later, after I’d made a lot of deals with God, a large piece of ceiling was hauled off our table, and we saw daylight and faces peering in at us. Another piece was removed, and Diesel dropped through the opening.
“I’m thinking that I just imagined you were trapped under the ceiling with us,” Briggs said. “You were actually on the outside all the time, right?”
“Right,” Diesel said, reaching for me.
He gave me a boost, a couple firemen pulled me through the hole, and a cheer went up. Briggs came next, then Lester, then Claws, and finally Diesel emerged.
Pretty much the entire roof had collapsed, but as Lester had suggested, the walls were still standing. The lot was filled with emergency vehicles and the curious. I stood in the lot and shook my head and plaster dust flew off. My clothes were caked with it, and I could still taste the dust in the back of my throat.
I looked over at Claws and realized for the first time that he’d taken his toy-in-progress with him when the building started to collapse. He had it cradled in his arm, held close to his chest. It was a small, half-carved block of wood, covered in dust, just like the rest of us. Too early for me to tell what sort of toy he was making. I watched him slip past the first line of rescue workers and quietly get into his car and drive off. Smart move, since he was wanted for failing to appear.
I looked around the lot. And then I looked into the sky.
“He isn’t here,” Diesel said to me. “He doesn’t hang around after he strikes.”
“What does he look like?” In my mind I was envisioning the Green Goblin.
“Just a normal, little old guy with cataracts.”
“No utility belt? No lightning bolt embroidered on his shirt?”
“Sorry.”
An EMT draped a blanket around my shoulders and tried to guide me to a truck. I looked at my watch and dug my heels in. “Can’t get checked out right now,” I said. “Gotta shop.�
�
“You don’t look that great,” the guy said. “You’re kind of pale.”
“Of course I’m pale. There are only four shopping hours left before I’m due at my parents’ house for Christmas Eve dinner. You’d look pale too if you were in my shoes.” I turned to Diesel. “I had time to do some serious thinking while I was trapped under the table, and things became very clear to me. My mother is more of a threat to me right now than Ring. Take me to Macy’s!”
It was midafternoon and the roads were relatively empty. Businesses had shut down early. Kids were on vacation. Shoppers were retiring their credit cards. Jersey was at home, preparing the holiday beast for Christmas Day dinner, gearing up for an evening of toy assembly and package wrapping. In eight hours, when the stores are all closed, the entire population of the state will be in desperate search for batteries, wrapping paper, and tape.
In eight hours, children statewide will be listening for reindeer hooves on the roof. Except for Mary Alice, who no longer believed in Christmas.
Anticipation hung in the air over the mall, the highway, the Burg, and every house in every town that mashed together to form the megalopolis. Christmas was almost here. Like it, or not.
Diesel swung into the lot and got a space close to the mall entrance. No problem with parking now. Inside the mall, the silence was oppressive. Shell-shocked salesclerks stood motionless, waiting for the closing bell. A few customers staggered from rack to rack. Men, mostly. Looking lost.
“Cripes,” Diesel said. “This is frightening. This is like being with the living dead.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Is your Christmas shopping all done?”
“I don’t do a lot of Christmas shopping.”
“Wife, girlfriend, mother?”
“I’m currently without.”
“I’m sorry.”
He tweaked my nose and smiled. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
“Did you get me a present?”
Our eyes locked, and his expression warmed a couple notches. He raised his eyebrows every so slightly in question, and I felt my temperature rise.
“Do you want a present?” he asked. Both of us understanding what he was offering.
“No. Nope.” I sucked in some air and busied myself, brushing some dust off my jacket. “Thanks, anyway.”
“Let me know if you change your mind,” he said, his voice back to playful.
Ordinarily, two people walking through Quakerbridge covered in construction dust would attract some attention. At four o’clock on Christmas Eve, no one would have noticed if we’d been naked. I didn’t waste time on details such as the right size or color. I went with Lula’s method. Fill your bag with stuff close to the register. I finished up at five-thirty, and I wrapped the presents on the way to my parents’ house.
Diesel jerked to a stop at the curb, and we tumbled out of the car with our arms full of boxes and bags.
Grandma was at the door. “She’s here,” she called to the rest of the family. “And she’s got that hunky sissy boy with her again.”
“Sissy boy?” Diesel asked.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“Omigod,” my mother said when she saw us. “What happened? You’re filthy.”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “A building fell down on us, and we didn’t have time to change.”
“A couple years ago I would have thought that was unusual,” my mother said.
“You’ve gotta help me,” Grandma said. “My studmuffin is coming to dinner, and I still haven’t got my teeth.”
“We’ve looked everywhere,” my mother said. “We even looked through the garbage.”
“Someone stole them,” Grandma said. “I bet a good set of teeth would bring a pretty penny on the black market.”
There was a knock at the door, and Morelli let himself in.
“Just the person I want to see,” Grandma said. “I want to report a crime. Someone stole my teeth.”
Morelli looked over at me. The first look said, help. And the second look said what the hell happened to you?
“A ceiling sort of fell in on us,” I told Morelli. “But we’re fine.”
A muscle worked in Morelli’s jaw. He was trying to stay calm.
“Where were your teeth when you saw them last?” I asked Grandma.
“In a glass, getting cleaned.”
“Did you lose just the teeth? Or is the glass gone, too?”
“The lousy rotten robber took everything, glass and all.”
Mary Alice and Angie were in front of the television.
“Hey,” I said to them. “Either of you see Grandma’s teeth? They were in a glass in the kitchen and now they’re missing.”
“I thought Grammy was throwing them away, so I took them for Charlotte,” Mary Alice said.
Charlotte is a big lavender dinosaur that lives in Grandma’s bedroom. Grandma won Charlotte at the Point Pleasant boardwalk two years ago. Grandma put four quarters down on number thirty-one, red. The guy spun the game wheel. And Grandma won Charlotte. Charlotte had originally been intended for Mary Alice, but Grandma got attached to Charlotte and kept her. Some of the stuffing has shifted in Charlotte’s big dino body, so she has lumpy spots now . . . kind of like Grandma.
Mary Alice ran upstairs and retrieved Charlotte. And sure enough, the teeth were nicely set into Charlotte’s gaping mouth.
“Charlotte’s teeth had lost their stuffing,” Mary Alice said. “And Charlotte was having trouble eating, so I gave her Grandma’s teeth.”
“Isn’t that something,” Grandma said. “I never noticed.”
We all look more closely at the teeth. They were decorated with flowers and tiny rainbows and colorful stars.
“I made the teeth more pretty with my markers,” Mary Alice said. “I used the waterproof ones so they wouldn’t wash off.”
“That’s nice, honey,” Grandma said, “but I need my choppers on account of I’ve got a hot date tonight. I’ll get Charlotte some teeth of her own.”
Grandma took the teeth from Charlotte and put them into her mouth. Grandma smiled, and we all tried to stifle ourselves. Except for my father.
“Holy crap,” my father said, staring transfixed at Grandma’s decorated teeth.
The phone rang and Grandma ran to answer it. “It was my studmuffin,” Grandma said when she hung up. “He said he had a hard day, and he needs to take a nap and recharge his battery. So we’re going to meet up at Stiva’s after dinner. There’s going to be a special Christmas Eve viewing for Betty Schlimmer.”
We always had baked ham for Christmas. The ham was hot on Christmas Eve, and for Christmas Day my mom would set out a big buffet with cold sliced ham and macaroni and about a billion other dishes.
Kloughn arrived just as we were sitting down to the table. “Am I late?” he asked. “I hope I’m not late. I tried not to be late, but there was an accident on Hamilton Avenue. A really good one. Legitimate neck injuries and everything. I think they might hire me.” He kissed Valerie on the cheek and blushed bright red. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Did you throw up a lot today? Are you feeling any better? Boy, I sure wish you’d feel better.”
Grandma passed Kloughn the mashed potatoes. “I hear those neck injuries can be worth a lot of money,” Grandma said.
Kloughn looked at Grandma’s teeth, and the potato spoon dropped out of his hand and clattered onto his plate. “Ulk,” Kloughn said.
“You’re probably wondering about my teeth,” Grandma said to Kloughn. “Mary Alice decorated them for me.”
“I’ve never seen decorated teeth before. I’ve seen decorated nails. And people get tattoos all over the place, right? So I guess decorated teeth could be the next big thing,” Kloughn said. “Maybe I should get my teeth decorated. I wonder if I could get fish painted on them. What do you think about fish?”
“Rainbow trout would be good,” Grandma said. “That way you could have lots of colors.”
Mary Alice was fidgeting in her ch
air. She was softly talking to herself, twisting her hair around and around her index finger, wriggling on her seat.
“What’s the matter?” Grandma asked. “Do you need to gallop?”
Mary Alice looked to my mother.
“Go for it,” my mother said. “It’s been too quiet around here. I think we need a horse to liven things up.”
“I know there isn’t any Santa Claus,” Mary Alice said, “but if there was, do you think he’d give presents to a horse?”
We all jumped right in.
“Absolutely.”
“Of course.”
“You bet.”
“Darn tootin’, he’d give presents to a horse.”
Mary Alice stopped fidgeting and looked thoughtful. “I was just wondering,” she said.
Angie watched Mary Alice. “There might be a Santa,” Angie said, very seriously.
Mary Alice stared at her plate. There were weighty decisions to be made here.
Mary Alice wasn’t the only one caught between a rock and a hard place. I had Diesel on one side of me and Morelli on the other, and I could feel the pull of their personalities. They weren’t competing. Diesel was in an entirely different place from Morelli. It was more that their energy fields were intersecting over my air space.
Grandma jumped up halfway through dessert. “Look at the time,” she said. “I gotta go. Bitsy Greenfield’s picking me up, and she’ll go without me if I’m not ready. We gotta get there early for this one. It’s a special ceremony. It’ll be standing room only.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t do too much talking,” I said to Grandma. “People might not understand about the artwork on your teeth.”
“No problem,” she said. “Nobody in that crowd can see good enough to know anything’s different. What with everyone having macular degeneration and cataracts, I don’t have to even wear makeup. Being old has a lot of advantages. Everybody looks good when you got cataracts.”
“Okay, so tell me again why this guy is your new best friend,” Morelli said. We were outside on the small back porch, flapping our arms to keep warm. It was the only place to have a private conversation.
“He’s looking for a guy named Ring. And he thinks Ring is somehow connected to me. But we don’t know how. So he’s staying close to me until we figure it out.”
Between the Plums Page 9