Birds chirped.
More accurately squawked. Green parrots. Flying over the light poles in the parking lot of the new Tampa Bay Mall.
The stores hadn’t opened yet. Just janitors and power walkers with hand weights. Security bars began cranking up in front of the Cutlery Castle. Someone else turned on a stove at the Magic Wok.
A mall cop strolled along the second level, past one of the power walkers who got a little ambitious.
“No running!” said the security guard. A corridor approached. The guard walked past the restrooms and knocked on the last door. He stuck his head inside. “You wanted to see me?”
“Come in and have a seat,” said the assistant mall manager. Serious mouth. Holding a report in his hands.
Five minutes later. “Son of a bitch!”
“We can’t have personnel yelling at children, and especially not mothers. They’re our best customers.”
“What’s her name?” The guard lunged from his chair with an outstretched arm. “Let me see that fucking complaint!”
The assistant manager yanked the complaint out of reach high over his head. “It’s anonymous.”
The ex-mall cop stood. “I’m going to find out who reported me if it’s the last thing I do!”
He flung the office door open. Someone was waiting in the hall; that person jumped out of the way as the fired guard stormed past.
The assistant mall manager slipped the complaint in the top drawer of his desk, then smiled and waved for the person waiting in the hall to enter the office. “Come in, come in, Mr. Beach. Corporate told me you’d be here.”
“Please call me Jensen,” said Jim Davenport.
“Okay, Jensen, pull up a chair.” The assistant manager took a seat behind his desk and leaned forward on elbows. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“I’m sure you know that retail is in a slump.”
The manager leaned back in his chair with fingers interlaced behind his head. “Yeah, everyone’s a little off. Sausage World pulled out last month. But it all goes in cycles; everyone bounces back.”
“I’m happy to hear you see it that way.” Jim opened his briefcase on his lap. “That’ll make this go a lot easier.”
“What do you mean by that?…”
Five minutes later:
“Motherfucker! You’re firing me? Do you know anything at all about mall administration?”
“Not remotely.”
“So you have no real basis to fire me instead of one of the other assistant managers.”
“Not that I can think of.”
“What about Johnson? He hasn’t been here half as long as me. It isn’t fair!”
“You’re right,” said Jim. “It’s not.”
“Get out of my office.”
“Actually they said you had to leave…”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“… And if you said you weren’t going anywhere, I was instructed to call mall security.”
“We’ve got one guy working today,” said the assistant manager. “And he isn’t working here anymore-”
A cell phone rang. Jim held up a finger to wait a second. He recognized the numerical display as the number of his supervisor at Sunshine Solutions. “Hello?… Yes, actually I’m here right now
… Another hiring job?… They’re short-staffed?… But why do they need to fill the position so fast?… An urgent human resources problem has come up?… I’ll get right on it.”
Jim closed the phone.
The manager was standing. “Now, are you going to leave by yourself, or will I have to kick your ass?”
“No, I’m going,” said Jim. He picked up his briefcase and left the office, looking to hire a security guard to remove the assistant manager from the building.
The front curtains parted a slit.
Binoculars poked through. “Jim, come here,” said Martha.
Jim drilled a wall anchor to hang the newest Davenport family portrait taken at Just Portraits. “What is it?”
“They’re back.”
Jim walked across the living room. “Martha, are you going to spend your whole life at the window?”
“They’ve got a bunch of stuff in the trunk.”
“That’s a mystery. People moving in, having stuff.”
“Don’t trivialize me.” She opened the curtains wider. “Those men are dangerous. I wonder what’s in all those bags?…”
Across the street, Coleman hoisted a sack out of the trunk. “What’s in all these bags?”
“Christmas!” said Serge, grabbing his own bag. “This is going to be the best ever!”
They headed for the front door.
Coleman set his bag down and leaned against the house. “I’m tired.”
Serge got out his keys. “You only walked from the driveway to the porch.”
“Maybe it’s the marijuana.”
“Gee, you think?” They went inside and Serge dumped the bags’ contents on the floor. Then five more trips to the car until the pile in the living room was a mountain.
“Why so much shit?” asked Coleman.
“Because I love Christmas! But usually I’m too busy with all my business travel and outstanding warrants. Not this year! My new motto: ‘I’m taking Christmas big!’ ” Serge dropped to his knees and pawed through the mound on the floor. “Here’s the plan: We do everything, all the traditions, and we do it grander than anyone ever dreamed! Here are the houselights, which will require extra generators so we don’t smash the power grid, the holiday music CDs that will need weatherproof outdoor concert speakers, the train set with extra boxes of tracks to connect all the rooms of the house, the bicycle whose assembly on Christmas Eve will make us use profanity like Kid Rock, the toys where we forget the batteries, several gingerbread house kits we’ll combine to form a mansion, DVDs of all the classic Christmas specials to run nonstop, mistletoe for all the doorways, the manger scene with a little Jesus that glows in the dark to emphasize the Holy Spirit third of the Trinity because he’s the shy one who gets the least press, all the presents we’ll wrap together and give each other as Secret Santas…”
Coleman popped a special holiday-edition Budweiser. “But if we wrap the presents together, I’ll already know what you bought me.”
Serge untangled a strand of lights. “You won’t remember.”
Coleman took a gulp from his beer. “I love surprises.”
Serge jumped up. “Let’s get the tree!..”
Across the street: “Look at the size of that tree tied to the roof of their Chevelle,” said Martha. “It’s almost as long as the car.”
“I don’t think they’ll be able to get it in the house,” said Jim.
Moments later: “Push!” yelled Serge.
“I’m pushing as hard as I can,” said Coleman. “The door’s not big enough.”
“Then we’ll figure something else out… Pull!”
“I’m pulling as hard as I can. I think it’s stuck.”
“Let me get out there and help.” Serge crouched on his hands and knees and crawled through the front door under the tree. He stood up next to Coleman. “Get a good grip and pull as hard as you can on three
… Three!”
Grunting and more grunting.
“It’s stuck good,” said Coleman.
Serge let go. “Fuck it. Leave it there. Can’t let this slow down the yuletide juggernaut.”
They crawled under the tree and into the house. Coleman grabbed another cold one. “Why was it so important to rent a house near Jim’s place, anyway?”
“Because he’s my hero.” Serge began nailing stockings to the wall. “The courage of holding down a family. I want to be just like him, and what better way than to live as close as possible and observe his secrets? We’ll tap into their rhythms and mimic everything they do until it becomes natural.”
“What’s the point?”
“I’m taking it to the next level!” Serge grabbed a nail from his teeth and resumed hammering. “Don’t get me wrong. Fleeing all over the state from the cops, staying in crappy motels, and stealing shit has its place. But you need to raise a family to grow as a human. And what better time to start than Christmas?”
“But we’re not a family,” said Coleman.
“But we are!” said Serge. He went to the dining table. “Just need to get some chicks in the mix, and the whole family dynamic will take care of itself.”
“Who are you thinking of?”
Serge just smiled.
Coleman took a step back. “You don’t mean…”
“That’s right. City and Country!”
Coleman took an extra-long guzzle from a bottle of Jack to steady his nerves. “Those are some badass babes. But they’re still on the run for that murder.”
“Except they didn’t do it. They’re innocent.”
“Maybe they were innocent back then, but all the years on the lam. Who knows how many crimes?”
Serge began tapping on the laptop. “We’re judging?”
“No. I wouldn’t mind seeing them again. They’re smokin’ hot!” Coleman took a slug of whiskey and cracked open two beers. “But they’re in deep hiding. How are you going to find them?”
“How all fugitives keep in touch. Facebook.” Serge typed a few more minutes. “There, found them. Now I’ll just send our new address, then poke them and hit them with snowballs for good measure… They’ll be here in no time.”
Serge closed the laptop and walked to the front window.
Coleman followed, snorting off the back of his hand.
“Is that cocaine?” asked Serge.
Coleman’s eye sparkled. “White Christmas, dude!” He leaned in for another snort. “What do we do until the babes get here?”
“Study the Davenports’ lifestyle so we’ll know how to start a family. Of course we’ll have to invade their privacy, but it’s what everyone does in the suburbs. I didn’t make the rules.” He raised a pair of binoculars and aimed them across the street, where he saw Martha staring back at him with her own binoculars.
Serge smiled and waved.
One of the assistant managers barricaded himself in his office, but nobody had noticed yet.
A mall cop arrived.
Not the new recruit Jim Davenport had just hired.
He pounded on the door. “Give me that anonymous complaint!”
“No!”
“I want it now!”
“Go away!”
“I’ll kick the door in!”
“I’ve got a gun!”
“You do not!” The fired security guard began crashing into the door with his shoulder until it finally gave and splintered off the hinges.
The guard ran to the front of the desk. “Give me that complaint!”
The assistant manager took up a defensive position on the other side. “I don’t have it!”
“It’s in that top drawer, isn’t it?”
“No.” The manager opened the drawer and grabbed it.
The guard faked left and right on the front of the desk. “Give it to me.”
The manager countered, right and left. “Stay away from me!”
“Then I’ll chase you!”
“You can’t catch me!”
“Right!” The guard took off around one end of the desk. The manager ran around the other. Circle after circle.
“Give it to me!”
“Can’t have it!”
The guard closed in, right on the manager’s heels. He reached and snatched. But missed the complaint.
“Hey! My toupee!”
“Give me the complaint!”
“Not a chance.”
“Fine.” The guard took out a cigarette lighter and set the hairpiece on fire. “See what you get?” He dropped the still-burning rug in the wastebasket.
The bald man used the opportunity to make a break for the door. He turned the knob and opened it a half foot before the guard caught him from behind and slammed it shut.
The manager crumpled the page into a ball.
“Give it to me!”
“Mmmm-mmmm!”
“You better not be sticking that in your mouth!”
“Mmmm-mmmm!”
The guard spun him around and punched him in the stomach.
“Ahhhh!”
A ball of paper flew across the room. The guard ran after it. The manager tackled him from behind and twisted his ankle. The guard kicked him in the face. The burning toupee set off the sprinkler system. “Let go of my leg!”
Another twist, another kick. “Ow! Ow!”
The guard dragged the manager until he finally reached the ball of paper.
The bald assistant manager let go and reached in the trash can. He held up something that looked like roadkill. Tears began to roll.
The guard sat up on the ground and uncrumpled the page. “Martha Davenport… But where’s the address? Trigger-something. Shoot, it’s smeared too much from the sprinklers… Hold everything. Davenport, Davenport. Where have I heard that name before?” The guard suddenly snapped his fingers. “I got it. Those elves! This Davenport woman got me fired and beat up. Well, I better destroy this report so nobody can trace it back to me after I exact my revenge-”
An ax came through the door. Then two firefighters. They looked down at an assistant mall manager crying and wearing a melted toupee, sitting cross-legged next to a mall cop with a bleeding ankle and a mouth full of paper.
One of the firefighters looked at the other. “Not again.”