and at last he glanced up at me with bright eyes and said, “Oh, Opal.”
He put my ornament on a side table and got up and then he hugged me so hard I almost squeaked. Then I knew everything would be all right, no matter what everybody else said.
THE CHRISTMAS CRAZIES: A GRIFF & FATS STORY, by Gary Lovisi
For most people Christmas is the best time of the year. For Fats and me, on the job back in the old days—it was the worst. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day—a time of peace, joy, happiness, and love. It’s also a time when more people kill themselves, shoot their fathers, stab their mothers, beat their brother to death, or go out on some damn killing spree and murder their entire family. We called it the Christmas Crazies. It was true back then, it’s truer today.
Fats and I had our strangest case of the Christmas Crazies back on Christmas Eve in 1962.
It all began when the kid came over to our car. We were parked. The engine off. It was mid-morning, Christmas Eve. A slow time. I figured, okay it’s cool, we’ll have an early night. Boy, was I wrong.
I was sitting in the driver’s seat, trying to sip some of Jackie’s killer coffee. Fats was beside me, chomping down on a handful of donuts, guzzling a quart of real coffee from, of all things, a Thermos. I don’t know where he got a Thermos, I thought he loved Jackie’s old rot-gut brew. Meanwhile, my partner worked on his food like a bulldozer digging a trench. The donuts were soon gone and Fats began looking around with that hungry look upon his fat puss like he still had room in that big gut of his for more stuff to eat. Which I am sure that he did.
I don’t know how he could eat an entire box of those damn greasy things but I figured he was just about to ask me to take another trip to the donut shop when the kid came over to the car. He was a real little guy, just four or five years old. I figured he must have been lost, couldn’t find his mommy or something, but he wasn’t crying and then I noticed some woman standing behind him. Patient, and obviously his mom, but not in real great control of the boy just then. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew I’d find out before too long.
The kid tugged on my partner’s sleeve. Fats’ great ham of an arm rested on the open car window sill. The kid tried hard to get the Fatman’s attention.
I was certain that whatever the kid had to say, it did not concern food, which I knew at that point was uppermost in Fats’ mind, so I gently gave my large partner a sharp shot to the ribs with my right elbow saying, “Hey, you big lug, I think the kid’s trying to tell you something.”
Fats looked over at the kid with a blank look.
The kid looked at Fats hard.
It was stare for stare now.
I thought, now this might be interesting.
“You’re a cop?” the kid asked my partner. It wasn’t exactly a question. More like a statement of utter disbelief or astonishment. I couldn’t help laughing.
Fats laughed too, said, “Sure, kid. I’m a cop. Now what can I do for you?”
“It’s Santa Claus. He’s disappeared. My mom took me here to see Santa and now there’s no Santa. We looked all over. Do you know where he is?”
Fats burped, not even trying to hide the sound from the kid and his mother. “Ah, you mean Santa’s missing?”
They looked at Fats with incredulous eyes, and for a second I got the impression the wee tyke was thinking that my partner might have gobbled down Santa—red suit and all—in some kind of out-of-control eating binge. Fats was certainly big enough and hungry enough to eat a horse, so Santa wouldn’t be much of a problem. Fats was a giant-sized adult compared to the tiny kid. Lucky for the kid he’d never seen my partner on a real eating binge. It was not a pretty sight.
The mother came over. She was a worn-out, worked-out lady, thin, pinched face, nervous eyes. She’d seen hard days. “My name is Gwen Smith, and this is my son, Robert....”
“Bobby!” the kid corrected.
Fats nodded, “You can call me Fats, Bobby.”
Bobby smiled, said, “The name fits you.”
Fats just broke out in laughter, said, “See, Griff, what I gotta put up with from some wisenheimer kid?”
I nodded. I watched Bobby’s mother. She was concerned about something. Something that bothered her and didn’t seem right to her. I began to wonder about it, said, “So tell me, what’s the problem, Mrs. Smith?”
She looked at me closely, then back to Fats, then to her son, Bobby, and said, “Every Christmas Eve they have a Santa on the corner of Dumont and Sixth. The Salvation Army Santa, you know? He rings his bell by a big black kettle set on a tripod. You know, for donations?”
“Yeah, I know the corner,” Fats said. “I know the Santa there too.”
“Well,” Mrs. Smith blurted, “He seems to have.... He’s not there any more.”
I said, “You mean he walked off?”
Fats laughed, “That’d be Jimmy McConnell. Remember him, Griff? He’s got a serious jones for the sauce. He probably took some of the cash and walked off for a quick belt. Or ten.”
Mrs. Smith took Bobby aside, told him to wait for her at the other end of our car. Then she told us, “Santa was talking with a man. They had an argument. They went to the man’s car. The man’s car was parked a few spaces up the block and the man showed Santa something in the trunk. When Santa looked into the trunk, the man made a motion and Santa got into the trunk of the man’s car. Then the man closed the trunk lid on Santa and drove away. It was all very strange.”
“Did the man have a gun?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so. I didn’t see one, but he could have had one in his pocket, I guess. His right hand was in his pocket,” Mrs. Smith added, remembering.
Fats said, “Did the man rob Santa?”
Mrs. Smith gave us a most curious look then. I hate those kinds of looks. She said, “That’s what’s so strange. Santa seemed to know the man who put him in the trunk of his car and he left his kettle full of donations standing right there on the corner. Right out on the sidewalk. It’s still there. And there was plenty of change and bills in it too.”
“Okay, Mrs. Smith, we’ll look into it,” I told her. Fats got the rest of the info from her. Before we left I said to her, “Why don’t you take little Bobby to see Santa at Thompson’s Department Store? They have an entire Christmas Land set-up with Santa, elves, and everything.”
Mrs. Smith grew quiet. She looked so sad. I noticed a tear streaming silently down her cheek but she ignored it. Tough broad.
Fats looked at her, said, “Ma’am, it’ll be all right. Everyone goes through hard times. Been through a few myself. It will all work itself out. You have to hold out, and have faith, for Bobby’s sake.”
Mrs. Smith nodded, then silently walked away with her son.
“Damnit!” Fats growled.
“What was that about, Fats?”
Fats
