Killing off the Ho,Ho,Ho's

For me?

I had to sit there for a long time to answer that. I listened to Leia wake before dawn, move about her morning wake-up routine. I heard a one-sided phone call; all mumbled words from down here. Then her front door opened and closed. Silence. That maddening silence that had once haunted my days. Endless hours spent with a book clutched in tight hands trying to direct my mind down some other human's daydreamed fantasy.

For me?

"A man like you can never change; A man ... such as you ..."

Getting to my feet, I made my way clear of the musty basement and walked out into the cold Christmas morning. Time to go find a killer. I had no idea just how I was going to do it, but I knew it had to be done. Not for Miss Behave, Mad Donna, or Bubbly-Squeek ... those three bitches could get fucked. And not even for Candy. Because as wonderful as her lips had been, I can't say I even felt any great compassion for her loss. The sun had come up this morning and it would set tonight. Her death hadn't done anything to alter that, so perhaps the world will keep spinning without the lovely Candy Samples selling her tainted wares to the likes of me.

So just for me?

"Yeah, me. 24601."

It's mother fuckin' Christmas; time to go open my presents.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

I focus.

That's both my blessing and my curse. Give me some random clues, I am like a mental pit-bull on a rope. An injury when I was a child broke my brain. Severe skull fracture, internal hemorrhages, cerebral edema leading to a large portion of my skull being removed--it was about like broken cornbread at that point anyway--and a steel plate put in its place. I woke up from my little two-month nap with the ability to focus.

I could die in a house fire reading a good book kind of focus.

Fact: Santa killed Candy. Evidence? Candy's last words from her phone.

So I need to find Santa. Well, if you need to find where the dog buried the bone, pretend you're a dog with a bone to bury and got where a dog would go.

So where would Santa go? Well, the North Pole.

Alright, costume shops. Costume shops that have a Santa suit for rent.

There are four in this city. All the suits are rented out today, of course. A total of twenty jolly fat elves are running around my town, one is a killer. The other nineteen are most like pedophiles but that not my case. Now most costume shops don't want to give out things like addresses to their customers, but if you ask nicely, and explain that you think their merchandise was used to commit murder, they may make an exception.

Three out of the four did anyway. The fourth had his rental book open and I read the page upside down. It's perfectly normal to hand write out a page upside down, that you've seen once, for all of ten seconds, and then turn it around to be able to read it. Right?

Anyway.

By noon I had burned up a lot of cash on expensive cab rides around town checking on addresses and verifying that none of the rented suits had huge blood splashes.

Nix on that.

So, custom made Santa suit, one bought out of town, or perhaps one pieced together from non-Christmas-approved pieces.

Wig shops? Closed on Christmas.

"Anything on the beard yet?" I asked Leia on the phone.

"And good fucking morning to you too, John."

"It's not morning any longer. So anything?" I repeated.

"Yeah, John, it's a beard. Candy's blood is all over it. We've got some possible skin samples and some off chemical traces but not much else so far. I just got here and had been working my tits off since I walked in the door. Any idea how many suicides happen on Christmas Eve?"

"10.8 suicides per hundred thousand people annually, with a 2% increase during the holidays," My mouth was spouting facts before I could stop my lips from moving.

"How do you get a point eight suicide?" she asked.

"How the fuck should I know. What chemicals? The traces?"

"Polyethylene glycol. Imidazolidinyl urea .Ethylene oxide and small traces of lead."

For a moment my brain did the Power Ball tumble.

"Makeup."

Leia's breath caught for a moment. "Yes. Very well could be. I can test for that."

"I'll get back to you."

"John --" Click.

Oh, yeah I'm scoring major brownie points with my lovely Princess. Very little pissed her off

more than being hung up on. Oh well, oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clément's. I'll make it up to her.

Fucking somehow. Some day.

Santa had makeup on? Ah, yeah the rosy cheeks. So the killer has a perchance for historical poem accuracy. So, I need to be looking for someone with a little round belly that shakes like a bowlful of jelly.

Ah, the chief of police is a perfect suspect!

No ... his nose looks nothing like a cherry. More like some odd form of squash. Humph.

Okay, Santa suits seem to be a dead end. The beard is not much help. Timmy only saw Santa, I won't question him. Childhood trauma re-inducement is not my bag of tea. The autopsy report was ...

Slowing to a pause, I stood standing in the snow for a moment.

Candy was knifed in the throat. Her larynx destroyed in the first strike to silence her. My imagination pictured that far too accurately for my stomach. I felt my nausea rise. Not because I have the world's greatest imagination but because I had seen the exact same thing done once before.

When I had worn a uniform and saluted way too much.

Standing there, with snow piling up on my head, I knew that the killer was ex-military. Possibly Marine or even Seal. Both taught a more silent form of take down than some others. All those years ago I had watched a Shayetet 13 navy officer take down a man in the dark with just this technique. I didn't for a second though consider that this fake Santa was Israeli special forces trained ex-military. Mostly because, if he was, I was never going to catch him and, if I did, I would most likely die. Quickly. Painfully.

Rather like Candy.

I managed all of two steps before that thought stopped me.

No, Candy's killer had taken his time. Opening her up like a Christmas present. Then, his fun had, he discarded her just as quickly as a spoiled child leaving undesired new toys. Nobody wants a Charley in the box, after all. Santa walked across the street, tossed the beard and ...

Got into a car?

Well, obviously Santa couldn't walk around in the middle of the night covered in bloody clothes. He had to make his getaway; the body was public. When did it go public?

Stepping over to an open convenience store, I shook off the snow on my head and asked for a copy of yesterday's newspaper. They happily sold me old news.

It took an effort of will that was herculean to look through the paper and find the story of Candy's crime. Things like crossword puzzles are human time traps to me. I can and will get sucked in and spend hours working one. Also, the normal headlines and bylines help to feed the mental trivia furnace that is my mind. But honestly, how many times do I have to see and read about the Kardashians? I had their whole sordid spiel memorized years ago.

There it is.

"Daniel Dickenson, age twenty-seven, blonde, resident of the Wonderland apartments on La Bianca and Cielo Drive. Found murdered at ... yadda, yadda, yadda. ... okay, she was discovered by a street sweeper at 3:00am."

I paused for a moment, my mind flying off on a completely different angle where the Santa Killer was possibly a street sweeper, but I tossed that out the window almost instantly. My eyes skimmed the paper as I thought.

"Four across ... six letters ... marine robbery ...God, damn it, John! Fucking focus. Dead girl remember?"

Folding the paper under my arm, I left the relatively dry, snow-free place under the convenience store awning. I was about ten feet down the sludge encrusted sidewalk when I stopped.

"Candy lay there undetected for three hours?" I flipped back the paper to the snowfall total yesterday night. I knew it had been more than a few inches. I found the weather report.

"Snow accumulation ... 7 inches. What a nice early Christmas Eve present for the people of this grand city."

In my mind, I saw again the pictures of Candy strung up like a butcher's nativity scene, surrounded by her own human-flesh garland. There was almost no snow on that picture. Almost like a frosting of fake snow on a plastic tree. Either she had been found and photographed earlier ... wait a damn minute.

"Leia!"

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded tired. "No shouting at me, John. I'm getting a migraine. Now, what do you want?"

"Who took the photos of Candy on the scene?"

She sighed.

"Our normal Forensic Photographer. John, what's all this--"

"It snowed. There was no snow on Candy's body. She hung there for three hours, but didn't get any snow on her?"

"It's more like two hours forty minutes."

"I don't care if it's two or three, Candy should have had a heavy coat of snow on her head."

There was a pause. "John, no. Just no. Doss has worked forensics for ten years; he was CSI for five before that."

I tried to keep my voice persuasive and not demanding. "I'm not calling him a suspect, Leia; I'm simply trying to find out how he took a photo of her with no snow on her when it was three hours before she was found and it was snowing heavily?"

Again Leia paused. I could hear her mind trying to figure out a response. The wheels turning. I've always tried imagining what a normal human mind must be like. I picture a gun. Pull the trigger and you get a pop. Now with some people, say the Mensa level, are like a semi auto. Pull the trigger and get a pop, or maybe three pops. Then you have the Stephen Hawkins floor and we're talking a full auto. Just a buss saw sound; a woodpecker on a steel flag pole.

Me?

I'm an M134 Minigun. On Caffeine.

Not because I'm some world boss level physics professor--although I'll give any one of them a good run for his grant money if you give me a six-month head start to learn-- but because I know stuff. Now some of it is probably useless stuff that would only be helpful if used in a game of Trivia Pursuit. Things like, the airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow is 25 mph.

You know the really important shit.

"Leia?"

"His name is Craig Doss. He's a lead forensics photographer."

"Thanks."

"And ..." the pause was pregnant. "If you harass him on Christmas I will pin you to a wall with a nail gun and hump you with a railroad spike.

Ouch. Alrighty, then.

"John, bad news. One of the lab guys worked late. The DNA report will hit the captain's desk tomorrow. I've already been given my pre-copy, by fax. It's going to point at you like Uncle Sam."

"Joy to the world. Look, don't bring up my question to Doss. At the moment I don't like the feel of this."

"He's a harmless, middle-aged guy, with a great eye for photography."

"So was Heinrich Hoffmann," I said.

"Who?" she asked, with that tired boredom of those long associated with me.

"Never mind. Just stay clear of him till I get this worked out in my mind," I said.

"Sure. Now, about dinner and that apology--"

Click.

Oh, yeah I am scoring so many negative points it's going to be like an episode of "Who's line is it anyway." But then that's my normal default mode I guess. My whole life is made up and my points don't really matter.

My mind may be a Minigun, true, but without ammunition even a water gun is useless. Standing in the snow, cold and wet and asking to get the damn flu--if not shot in a revenge drive by--I felt exactly like a revolver clicking on an empty chamber. Hollow, spent, and smelling faintly of something burnt.

Why there was no snow on Candy would be on my mind for the next few hours. I liked none of my answers.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

My phone began screaming at me. Not a ring or a chime but a scream. The Wilhelm scream. Over and over till I decide to spare the other bus passengers.

"Taline, it's your Euro."

"JOHN!"

Ah, the sweet dulcet tones of Miss Behave.

"Well, yes I have always wanted to be deaf as a post in my right ear, MB. How did you know?"

"Screw that sarcasm, Taline. There are two more dead Sister's of No-Mercy. What the fuck are you doing about all this shit?"

"Since when am I fucking Saint Nicholas of your street gang all of a sudden?" I looked at my fellow bus riders and shrugged.

"You're supposed to be some great avenger of the downtrodden. Or does that shit only mean anything when it's your lover that's been kidnaped?"

Before I could say anything she hung up on me.

Steamed, I punched in a code. Leia's number.

"Yes, John? What now?"

"Just had a call from Candy's sister. Are two more prostitutes dead? Is it a similar M.O. to the first?"

"I've not received any calls telling me we've got new arrivals, well nothing that brutal anyway." I heard her shift something in her hand. "Yeah, just normal Holiday fair so far. Car crash. A too much honey ham heart attack. One guy died fixing his Christmas lights; electrocution via an ancient C7 light set."

I sighed and swore and then I took the time to say goodbye before I hung up on her, this time.

"What?" Miss Behave's tone hadn't improved.

"You know, when you drop a fact like two dead hookers on someone, on Christmas day no less, it needs to be true, Miss Behave."

"It fucking is true, you maggot! I'm calling from the bar across the street."

Sigh. "Location, please?"

Of course, it would have to be three blocks behind me. Getting up, I had the driver pull over and I heel-toed it back to the street where the ball-breaking bitch I was talking to said she was.

"Yep, two leather-clad dead fille de joie on the ground. And on the fence. And on the tree."

Have I mentioned that I have got to have a cigarette in my mouth, and the powerful dokha-blended Arabic tobacco in my lungs, when I see a human dissection project like this? Yeah ... I'm a bit weak stomached when it comes to the inner workings of the human body. Now blood I don't mind, I've certainly seen enough of my own. It's all those squiggly bits.

Anyway, I was throwing up in the gutter when I heard the car approaching at high speed. The siren didn't turn on till it rounded the corner and bore down on the point where I was standing.

Next to two murdered women.

John, you absolute fucking idiot.

"FREEZE!"

With a sigh I placed my hands behind my head, staring down the drawn guns of what had to be two rookie cops, I looked across the street. There wasn't a bar across the street.

Imagine that.

"ON YOUR KNEES, GET ON YOUR KNEES!"

Kneeling down into half melted snow-slush wasn't fun. It was even less fun when my face was driven into it. The handcuffs were old friends, can't say I mind them. I've had enough fun with cuffs that no amount of time in them for authentic reasons can cause me grief. However, I have to protest the use of an Explorer as a police car. The backseat is much smaller than the old Caprice or Crown Vics. Every bump drove the back of my head into the cage behind me, and that part of my skull is still tender from getting shot there by a .22 pistol, a couple months back.

And the arm lock into the police station was uncalled for. I was walking between them calmly, after all. Rookies. Hell, I've spent more time in this police station than they have. Proof of fact, I recognized the captain at a glance.

"Three dead in two days, that's some kind of record for you isn't it, Taline? Normally you only leave a corps for us every few months." He ignored me and turned away before I could speak. "Process him through and get him in a cell. This will be a reporter's wet dream; I want him incommunicado with the press."

"Ah, come on, you know I've got no love for those pen pushers." I looked to the guy at the desk. "Hey, Elbert, can I get a cup of coffee?"

They completely ignored my eminent coma-like state due to lack of caffeine. My good buddy Elbert Vanwikle--I shit you not that's his name--treated me like I was some kind of criminal. Took everything I was carrying, then my belt and shoelaces. Then it was fingerprints and all the mug shot crap. If I saw a rubber glove make an appearance I was planning to resist arrest. Strenuously ... resist arrest. But luckily for them ... and for my ass, literally ... they skipped that part.

** ** ** ** ** **

Bored, I was whistling "Do you hear the People Sing" when I looked up to see a police officer I didn't know standing in front of my cell. Now the man behind him ... him I knew.

Fuck.

"Going to be one of those kind of Christmas days, huh?" I asked, eyeing the bald man with no neck and more tats than a Latino street gang. "Well let's deck the halls and all that jazz, shall we?"

"This is going to be a pleasure, Taline."

I nodded and let a slow smile creep up onto my face. I gave no further snark as the officer put his hand up to my cell door. He was going to open it so the bald guy could kill me.

The bald man ... oh, who is he?

Lucas Bundaberg. He's the former hired muscle for a fellow named Mike the Bike. Mr. Bike was a capo. Who had once been scheming to be the underboss of a small organization called the De Rossi family. A nice lethal group of spaghetti-eaters all around; with vice crimes being their normal payday. But they also had a hand in human trafficking. I take a dim view of slavery when it's not voluntary. So when I had my little crises of conscious a dozen years back and started naming names, the De Rossi family was among that incredibly long list.

With my memory, as you can imagine, my naughty list made Santa jealous.

It also made John Taline an equally long list of enemies. Men with huge amounts of illicit money to offer to the happy camper that manages to kill said John Taline. Hell, I could see Lucas and this trash-cop beside him already planning out how to spend the money. Just before the door opened, I spoke to the cop.

"Just curious, after I kill him what's your plan for getting his dead corpse out this cell? Baldy, there has to weight a good quarter ton."

The growl from Lucas would have made King Kong beat his chest. I blew him a kiss but didn't look away from the cop. I was memorizing his features down to the last pimple.

The policeman smiled at me. He took out a sharpened toothpick with a taped handle and handed it to Lucas.

"I'm going to shoot you and say it all happened when you attacked the prisoner I was escorting past your cell." He nodded for the muscle-head to do his dirty work.

I held up one finger catching both their attention.

"I just needed to be sure so I know which one to take out first." My finger rolled downward to point at the officer. I made trigger motions with my thumb. "Pew, pew."

Pissed at my mocking, the cop grabbed the bars of my cell door to yank it open, but my hand--pointed right at him after all--caught his wrist before it touched metal. I fell backward with all my weight.

Useless trivia time children.

I ... the incredibly handsome private detective John Taline, weighs approximately one hundred and ninety-five pounds. The tensile strength of steel cell bars can withstand 40,000 pounds of force. And a gravity assisted human, of 195pounds, generates 1170 pounds of kinetic force when falling five feet. The human jaw bone breaks at around 8 pounds of pressure.

Nice Officer take nap now.

Amazing thing ... a convicted multiple felon, standing over a downed police officer, while holding a makeshift shiv, in plain view of the security camera in the hall outside my cell, will bring almost instant response. And when said tattooed-thug stands there dumbfounded--looking at me as if I will tell him what to do--and completely ignores the officers telling him to drop the plastic shiv ... he gets shot.

Imagine that.

I sat down on my bunk and watched the life leave Lucas' eyes.