department store: “Tuesday, December 15—I have just come from killing my second Santa Claus of the Christmas season. The deaths of Bajon and Averly were meant as a demonstration. A third Santa Claus will die in your store, in full view of the children, unless you are prepared to pay me one million dollars in cash within forty-eight hours, by noon Thursday.” There was no signature.
“Sounds like a crackpot,” Nick decided, returning the letter. “He doesn’t even give directions for paying the money.”
“This letter was hand-delivered by a messenger service Tuesday afternoon. A second letter came yesterday, with instructions. They haven’t shown me that one.”
“You’ve been hired by Kliman’s store?”
Culhane nodded. “Frankly, it’s the first major client I’ve had. Even though the police have been called in, the store is paying me as a personal bodyguard for Santa.”
“Or Mrs. Santa.”
He smiled. “She’s an unemployed actress named Vivian Delmos. I just met her yesterday after I talked with you. There are some female Santas around. They’re good with children. If their voices are deep enough and the suit is padded enough, no one knows the difference. I didn’t know the cops would be guarding her too.”
“How much are they paying you?” Nick asked.
“That’s proprietary information.” the young man answered stiffly.
“I figure fifty thousand, at least, if you can afford to pay me twenty-five.”
“I don’t get a thing if the Santa strangler kills her.”
“You thought he’d strike right at noon, so you needed me to keep her from going out there then. That means they decided not to pay.”
“It’s not just them. There are other stores involved. The killer is trying to shake down the largest stores in New York.”
“The police must have a description from the messenger company that delivered this note.”
Grady Culhane shook his head. “They deny any knowledge of it. One of their messengers was probably stopped in the street and paid to deliver it. Naturally he won’t admit it now and risk losing his job.”
“What happens after the smoke is cleared out?”
“The Delmos woman puts on her beard and goes back out there. I’ll probably have to be standing next to her, and I’m too big for those elves’ costumes.”
“Don’t worry,” Nick promised. “This time I’ll get the beard.”
On his second visit to the store Nick Velvet wore a grey wig and a matching false moustache. He was taking no chances on coming face-to-face with one of those detectives again. In the atrium at the center of the main floor where Santa’s throne was in place, a sign announced that he would not return until noon the following day due to the illness of one of his reindeer. Nick found a pay telephone and called Culhane at his office.
“You’re off the hook until tomorrow,” he said.
I just heard from the store.”
“Do you still want the beard?”
“Of course—unless the police come up with the extortionist by then.”
Nick hung up and decided he should know more than he did about the Santa Claus killings. He went down to the subway newsstand and bought all the local papers. It wasn’t the lead item anymore but the unsolved killings still filled several columns inside each paper. The first victim, Russell Bajon, was a young homeless man—a would- be actor—who’d been staying at the men’s dorm maintained by a charitable organization. He’d been collecting money for the charity at one of their Christmas chimneys when he’d been strangled. One of the other Santas, a man named Chris Stover, had come by in a van a few minutes later to find a crowd gathering around the fallen man. No one admitted to having seen the actual killing.
The second victim had followed less than twelve hours later, on Tuesday morning. Larry Averly lived in a rundown hotel on the fringes of Greenwich Village, a place where Nick had grown up. His Christmas job as a Santa Claus for a local radio station’s holiday promotion involved coming to work in costume that day. since they were doing a remote broadcast from the Central Park skating rink. He’d been heading for a subway exit near the park when the killer struck. This time two people saw the attack and scared him off, but not in time to save the victim. The killer was described as a white man of uncertain age wearing a bulky coat. Averly hadn’t been carrying any identification in his shabby wallet and it had taken police most of the day to trace his room key to the hotel where he’d been staying. The radio station had hired him through an employment agency and didn’t even know his name. They’d finally learned it just in time for the six o’clock news.
The papers, of course, carried nothing about the extortion plot. That would have been enough to get the story back on page one. Nick read them all and then tossed them aside. He had his own problem to consider. Stealing Santa’s beard the following day would be next to impossible in Kliman’s store, but the alternatives were equally impossible. He knew Vivian Delmos carried her costume to work in a large canvas bag, but he wasn’t about to mug her on the way to work. Still...
Culhane had mentioned that the lady Santa Claus was an unemployed actress. Nick phoned Actors’ Equity and had her address within minutes. Vivian Delmos resided on East Forty-ninth Street. He called her number and got the expected answering machine. Next he phoned Gloria to say that he wouldn’t be home till late.
The address on Forty-ninth was past Third Avenue, in an apartment building across the street from the Turtle Bay block. The Delmos woman must have been successful at some stage of her career to afford the moderately high rents in the neighborhood. There was no answer to Nick’s ring so he took up a position down the block on the other side of the street. Within twenty minutes he saw Vivian Delmos appear, walking briskly and carrying her canvas bag. He crossed the street to intercept her at her door, but she was a bit faster than he’d realized. She was halfway through the door by the time he reached it.
Blocking its closing with his hand, he began, “Miss Delmos—”
She turned, recognized him instantly, and acted without a word, yanking on his wrist and pulling him inside but off balance. He felt himself falling forward as she twisted his arm behind him. Then he was on the floor, his cheek pressed against the hall carpeting, while she pulled painfully on the arm. Her foot was on his neck.
“Mister, you just made your second big mistake. I hope you don’t mind a broken arm.”
“Wait a minute! I just want to talk!”
“How’d you find me? Did you follow me home?”
“Through Equity.”
“Got a job for me?” She gave his arm a painful wrench. “I’m real good in action parts.”
“I don’t doubt it! Please let me up.”
“Nice and slow,” she warned, relaxing the pressure on his arm. “We’re going upstairs while I call the police.”
“All right.”
She led him ahead of her up the stairs, keeping a grip on his arm. They paused outside a door at the top while she put down the canvas bag and got out her key. “Inside!”
The apartment was large but plainly furnished, as if in some sort of limbo while awaiting its permanent decor. “I’m not trying to kill you,” Nick assured her. “When you saw me earlier I was only trying to steal your beard.”
“My what?”
“The beard from your Santa Claus outfit.”
She released his arm and gave him a shove toward the sofa. “What’s your name?”
“Nick Velvet. I steal things.” He decided to stay on the sofa for the moment. Facing her now, he had a chance to confirm his earlier impressions. She was into early middle age but still had a good figure. By the strength she’d shown in overpowering him, he guessed that she worked out regularly. It had been an unlucky day from the start.
“I’m Vivian Delmos, but I guess you know that. You called me by name.” She walked to the phone without taking her eyes off him.
“I was hired to steal your beard.” he told her. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
“The people at Kliman’s weren’t too happy when you set off that smoke bomb.”
“I only did it to escape. If I hadn’t needed it I’d have returned later and removed it.”
“What does all this have to do with the Santa strangler?”
“The killings are part of an extortion plot against the big department stores. My job was to keep you from
