It was Christmas time at Chichester’s Emporium in Diamondville. The walls were decorated with candy canes and wreaths, and there seemed to be a Christmas tree in every corner. Carols and other melodies of the season filled the air, along with the muted conversation and occasional laughter of the shoppers, who moved briskly from department to department, to be aided in their search for the perfect yuletide gift by even more briskly-moving sales people.
And on the third floor, an elf bent down on shapely red stockinged legs beside a small tyke and said cheerfully, “Are you ready to see Santa now?”
The small tyke’s lower lip trembled as if he weren’t sure at all.
Nora Casey started to say something comforting but at that very moment, out of the corner of her eye she saw the floorwalker, Mr. Randle, motioning her to speed things up. He’d been warned by Donald Chichester himself not to interfere with the detectives, but that didn’t stop him from hovering on the outskirts like a mother hen. It was two days before Christmas and there was a line to see St. Nick this afternoon.
With a sigh she put aside her good intentions, brightly said, “Well, Old Santa’s sure ready to see you,” and hauled the tyke up onto Old Santa’s lap.
“Ho, ho, ho,” said the toughest private detective in the mid west, underneath a phony looking white beard. The cotton ball on his red Santa hat flopped across his face and he brushed it brusquely aside with the back of his hand.
The tyke began to squall.
Manning was game. He grinned and said, “Oh, it’s not that bad, young fellow.” He tried bouncing him on his knee and had to catch the kid to keep him from falling. “Ho. Ho, ho, don’t you recognize me? I’m Sandy Claus, that’s who I am, by, er, George. Now you just tell old Sandy what you want for Christmas.”
The young fellow squalled even louder.
“I’m so sorry,” said a young harried looking woman – obviously the child’s mother – as she rushed up and plucked the tyke off Santa’s knee. He was screwing up his face now, a real cloudburst in the offing. And then the dam burst and suddenly the tears flowed like rain, the screams rolled like thunder. Manning looked almost as upset as the kid did but somehow he neither began to scream nor burst into tears. He called after the kid, “Well, don’t you worry, I know what it is you want for Christmas, and when you get up Christmas morning, you just look for it under the tree. After all, I – I – actually – ”
But the child was out of hearing range.
“Actually,” said Manning, in a low tone. “I need a drink.”
“Milk,” said Cathy Casey. “You need a drink of milk. You’re Santa Claus, and you only drink milk. It goes good with cookies.”
She was on the other side of Santa’s throne, and she was dressed in an identical red outfit with the short skirt and sexy red stockings, to the one her sister wore.
Manning made a low grumbling sound. “Whose idea was this, anyway?”
“Yours,” Nora said.
“My idea was to pretend to be Chichester’s employees. We had another Santa Claus, then,” he muttered. “I was going to go under cover in Randle’s job.”
“You were not,” said Cathy. “Your idea was that you would wander around the store in hope of stumbling across a clue.”
“While we,” Nora said, “cavort in skimpy red elf costumes.”
“Cavort?” Manning said. “One thing I’ve never seen either one of you do is cavort.”
“Have you forgotten about Cathy’s turn as a strip tease dancer?” Nora said. She was referring to a case where Cathy had gone undercover at a roadhouse to catch a murderer. She’d danced an infamous routine to “Minnie the Moocher.”
“Well, there was some cavorting there,” Manning admitted.
Cathy stuck her tongue out at him and otherwise ignored the topic. More children were approaching Santa’s throne.
“Hello, sweetie,” said Cathy as a small girl came reluctantly forward. Manning clamped his mouth shut and forced it into a smile. He reached forward. “Hello, hello. Did you come to see old Sandy? Ho, ho, ho!”
The little girl burst into tears, drowning out the carolers who were singing “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” three aisles away.
Half an hour later, Stokes came in, a plump, grim-looking man about ten years older than Manning, not quite so tall. He nodded as he passed Santa’s throne, kept going to the dressing room where his Santa suit was hanging neatly from a clothes rack next to the empty hanger that had held the costume Manning now wore. Manning started to say, “Thank God,” but Nora caught his eye just in time. The little girl with blonde ringlets who sat on his knee was still reciting her list of Christmas wants.
The blonde girl finished. Nora scooped her off Santa’s lap and set her on the floor. The little girl went running happily toward her mother and her scowling older brother. Nora bent over and whispered in Santa’s ear, “It’s break time, you Jolly Old Elf.” The brother of the girl with blonde ringlets stopped scowling and burst into a grin as he gazed avidly at Nora’s rear end.
Cathy was explaining to the three or four children in line that Santa had just gotten an important phone call from the North Pole regarding the care of his reindeer, and he’d be right back. Meanwhile, the carolers were strolling over. “While Santa’s away, they’ll entertain you with all your favorite Christmas carols,” she said brightly.
As Cathy and Nora headed back to the employee’s lounge behind Santa’s throne, the carolers began with their rendition on “Bicycle Built for Two.”
“That’s always been my favorite Christmas Carol,” said Nora.
“Just so long as they don’t play ‘Minnie the Moocher,’” said Cathy.
Back in the dressing room, Stokes was already in his red pants. A pillow was strapped to his stomach, as padding.
Manning found a cigar in one of his pockets and lit up. Stokes glowered at him. “What are you doing?”
“They won’t let me smoke cigars out there,” Manning said.
“Of course they don’t. Santa smokes a pipe. You’re getting out of character. Worse, you’re gonna set fire to the beard.”
“Oh,” Manning said. He removed the cigar from his mouth and took the beard off and tossed it to Stokes. “Since when do you worry about being in character?”
Stokes ignored him with the air of a great artist, offended. He grabbed the beard. “Gimme that. It’s the only beard we got.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have been wearing it at all if you hadn’t come in late,” Manning said.
“I was taking care of business,” Stokes said.
There was a loud clearing of a throat behind them. Manning looked around and saw Randle the floor walker.
“You were supposed to be here at eight o’clock,” he said, sternly.
“Sorry,” Stokes said. “Something came up. It won’t happen again.”
“It should not have happened this time,” Randle began.
Manning interrupted. “I thought Mr. Chichester told you to leave us more or less to ourselves.”
The floorwalker’s jaw dropped. “This – this man is one of your people?” He sounded shocked.
“He is,” snapped Manning.
“He is?” gasped Randle.
“I am?” said Stokes.
“Sure he is, and we’re lucky to have him. He used to be a G-Man. Helped bring down Al Capone. You’ve heard of Al Capone, haven’t you?”
“Scarface Al Capone?” said Randle in a quavering voice.
“How do you think Capone got the scar?” Manning said.
He couldn’t tell whether Randle seemed impressed or terrified. Randle sputtered something unintelligible and backed out of the room.
“I never was no G-Man,” said Stokes, but not until Randle was gone.
“You weren’t?”
“I did a stretch at a federal pen, once.”
“In that case,” said Manning, “I don’t feel like such a bald-faced liar.”
After Stokes left to begin his day’s adventure as Santa Claus, Manning sat down at the dressing room table to finish his cigar. He’d barely taken his second puff when Cathy came in and sat down beside him.
“Well, anything going on?” he asked.
“The carolers are singing ‘Home on the Range.’”
“Don’t they know any Christmas songs?”
“Their version goes ‘Where the reindeer and antelope’ play.” She smiled. “Thanks for doing this, Jack. It means so much to Nora that you’re helping us out.”
“It’s no big deal,” he said.
“Yeah, but you’re used to big time earth-shaking cases, what with working for that mysterious New York based crime fighting group. A little case of small-town blackmail must seem pretty trivial to you.”
“Not so much,” said Manning. “So this guy isn’t poisoning some big city’s water supply. He’s still a rat. Blackmailers poison families, and that’s just as bad in my book. Besides, you went to school with Donald Chichester, didn’t you?”
“No, he was in college when I was in high school. But his wife, Wanda, was in the same grade as Nora, so it comes down to the same thing, I suppose. You spotted anything?’
Manning shook his head. “Nothing conclusive. Some suspicious characters. That’s why I had them hire Stokes to play Santa. He knows the local players much better than I do.”
“So did he see anything?”
“There was one guy wandering around the store yesterday he thought was suspicious. The guy did spend a lot of time in the toy department but that’s nothing unusual this time of year. Tall guy, yellow hair, glasses, big nose, ears stick out. Wore a blue suit and a Christmas tie with a big holly leaf on it.”
“I remember him. You think he’s our blackmailer?”
“Stokes said he was a bunko artist named Clooney. It’s not so big a leap from bunko to blackmail. But like I said, nothing conclusive. Stokes did say he’s a mean one.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for him,” Cathy said.
“You gotta be mean to go in for either bunko or blackmail,” said Manning, almost growling. “Both of them are stealing and rubbing it in so it hurts more. You ever gonna tell me what he’s got on old Donald?”
“Nora didn’t tell you?” Cathy seemed surprised. “I guess she’s worried about poor Wanda. They were good friends in high school. There’s some photos.”
“Who of?”
“Wanda. Before she and Donald started dating, she went with a sculptor of all things. He did a statue of her. Nice statue, classical and all that, of her as Aphrodite. Donald bought the statue, actually.”
“He’s blackmailing her over a statue?”
“Well, it’s a nude statue.”
“Even so,” Manning said, “I don’t get it. Her husband owns the statue, doesn’t he?”
“Well, it’s not the statue. Apparently the sculptor made some photos of her to work from. I gather he got her drunk when he made them and three or four of them are pretty racy.”
“Oh.”
“Sure,” said Cathy. “The guy demands $10,000 or he says they’ll end up being sent to various people, including Donald’s father.”
“Donald’s father?”
“He founded the department store. He’s retired now, and supposedly lets Donald run things, but he keeps a pretty tight rein on the family fortune, I understand. And he’s really old-fashioned. If he sees those photos, Donald says he’ll blow his top.”
“What’s Donald afraid of? Being written out of the will?”
“I suppose it could happen,” Cathy said. “But I suspect Donald just doesn’t want the grief. Wanda had her wild moments before she met him, and there was some opposition to the marriage. He doesn’t want that started up again. He really loves Wanda.”
“Like I said,” Manning remarked. “These bastards poison families. It’ll be a pleasure to bring one of them down, if we can.”
“If we can do it without stirring up a lot of scandal,” she said.
“Cops are pretty understanding about these things. They can be discreet when they need to. And this time of year cops see so many really lousy things going on, they’ll be happy to put a lousy blackmailer away. So will I.”
The afternoon wore on and lines of excited – and occasionally terrified – youngsters formed to wait their turn to sit on Santa’s lap. Manning wandered around the floor, watching for the man known as Clooney. Every so often he would stroll by Santa’s Throne and spend a few moments watching Stokes talk to the kids. Damned if the old pick-pocket wasn’t a pretty good Saint Nick. He did manage to stay in character. And the kids never cried, not even the scared ones. Thank God he showed up, Manning thought.
As for Nora and Cathy, they were as natural little elves as Santa could ever hope for, and damned cute in those outfits. While they hadn’t worked here in a couple of years, back when they were in school this was a regular holiday job for them, and they had the routine down pat. Of course the routine wasn’t the big thing. Handling the kids was the big thing, and they seemed to have that knack also. Even straitlaced Nora seemed to be enjoying herself, and she didn’t seem the least bit self conscious about the elf costume. And that was despite the way the older boys and all the fathers gaped at her. And, Manning admitted, she was worth a stare or two.
He was just beginning to think the assignment had somehow gone sour when he spotted Clooney making his way through the afternoon crowd of last-minute shoppers.
It was Clooney all right. His suit was dark green this time but he wore the same Christmas tie with the holly leaf on it. He made his way through the crowd toward the back of the room. Manning saw Chichester Jr., standing there waiting for him.
Santa was finishing up with a kid who wanted a model plane that really flies. He looked up. Saw Clooney talking to Donald Jr. and gave a signal to Cathy. She brightly announced that it was time for Santa to take a short break to check up on his reindeer, up on the roof. Santa bribed the kids in line by tossing out a handful of lollipops and then moved away from the throne.
He didn’t head toward Clooney and Chichester, but he kept his eye on them and when Chichester gave Clooney a thick envelope and took a thinner one in return, Stokes reset his course to intercept the blackmailer on his way out. 
Chichester went through a door in the back wall, his shoulders lumping dejectedly. There was nothing dejected about Clooney as he made his way toward the elevator.
Stokes came back. When he was close enough to be heard, Manning asked, “Did you get it?”
“Worked perfectly,” Stokes said.
Nora was right behind Manning. “I didn’t even see you bump into him.”
“His mind was a million miles away, spending all this money,” said Stokes, handing Manning the envelope Donald had given Clooney.
“Yeah,” said Nora. “But I’m afraid that won’t keep him from demanding more.”
“Oh,” said Stokes. “One more thing. He’s got something in his jacket pocket. I think it’s a necklace.”
Randle was bustling up. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.
“Find a store detective and follow us,” Nora said, turning on her heel and heading toward the stairs.
“Make it snappy,” Manning said. “We’re after a shoplifter.”
“Oh my God,” Randle said. There was probably more but Manning was following Nora and didn’t hear it.
He took the stairs as if he were a boulder in an avalanche but even so, he didn’t catch up with Nora. As they reached the first floor, she spotted Clooney heading toward the exit. She pointed and Manning yelled, “Got it,” and put on more speed.
Even so she reached the door before he did. But he tore through it right behind her and was rewarded by seeing her catch up to Clooney, grab his arm, and toss him over on his back on the sidewalk.
Late afternoon shoppers stared in utter surprise. Santa’s little helped bent down beside the astonished Clooney and patted his pockets. She reached into one and took something out. It gleamed brightly in the afternoon sunlight. She tossed the diamond necklace to Manning.
Randle was running up, a fat department store bull right behind him. Manning handed the jewelry over to Randle and asked, “This look like something from your store?”
“My God,” said Randle. It still has the price tag on it. That should have been removed when they sold it to him.”
“I don’t think he bought it,” Manning said.
Randle and the store detectives handled the cleanup and Manning and Nora went back inside the store as if nothing had happened.
An hour later, Stokes’ shift over and the evening Santa ready to take over, they met in the employee’s lounge.
Stokes was still in his Santa suite, but his beard was off and lying on the table next to him. Manning said, “Well, they nailed Clooney for shoplifting and it’ll get him a few weeks in the pokey. But if we can’t find the negatives to those photos, I’m pretty sure he’ll be back as soon as he’s out of jail.”
“Oh,” said Stokes. “I almost forgot.” He reached into a pocket and took out a small manila envelope, which he handed to Nora.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“It’s the negatives/”
“Wait a minute,” Manning said. “Where did you get this?”
“I picked it out of his pocket when I recovered the boss’s money.”
“He had it on him?” Manning said, astonished. “What sort of blackmailer carries the negatives around with him?”
“That,” said Stokes, “might have something to do with the fact somebody tried to break into his apartment this morning.”
Manning said, “Oh ho. And would that have something to do with why you were late today?”
“It just might. Of course I’ve given up on breaking and entering, but when he found that someone tried to jimmy his window, I figured he wouldn’t want to leave the negatives wherever he’d hidden them in the place. And I hoped he wouldn’t have time to find a new hiding place before he came to collect the blackmail.”
“Well, this is pretty good,” Manning said. “Of course there still might be some copies at his place.”
“He’s not going to be at his apartment for a few months. I figure somebody who hasn’t given up on breaking and entering can check out that part of it.”
Manning tossed the negatives back to Nora. “We’ll burn these later,” she said.
“Meantime, I think I’ll buy my old pal Stokes a drink,” said Manning. “Just to celebrate the holiday.”
“That’s nice of you,” Stokes said. “But I give up drinking. I don’t touch the sauce any more. But I’ll tell you what,” he added. “If you can talk these two magical little elves into coming with us, I’d be willing to let you buy me a steak dinner.”
Manning said, “Sure, why not. It’s only Christmas once a year.”
Cathy said, “God bless us everyone.”