Hanging Lights by Joseph Hirsch

Ex-con Arlo is hanging Christmas lights with his buddy Conant, but the job goes south when he is hired by a man he knew from prison.

Image generated with OpenAI

Arlo sat in the driver's seat of the Santa's Helpers van, staring through the windshield. The window was rimed with frost mixed with hardened dirt, but there was still enough clear glass for him to see through it. Across the street stood a nativity scene fronting Saint Ignatz High. The manger looked to be made of treated lumber, the straw bedding torn from one of those big Home Depot bales. Baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were made of plastic and glowed with electric light, while the wisemen and a dumb-faced donkey looked on, beatified by the baby god's glow.

The passenger door opened and Conant got in. "Got you your hot chocolate, Santa."

"'Preciate it." Arlo held out a hand without taking his eyes off the scene.

"You know, you really should think about it, man. You've got the great big bushy white beard, so your initial outlay's not going to be as big as the other Santas."

"Can't," Arlo said, taking his hot chocolate from Conant. "Not allowed to work with kids."

"Why?" Conant eased into his seat - its vinyl upholstery cringing beneath him. "It's not like you're a chomo. Hell, what you did was kind of badass."

Arlo shook his head. "I got victims, too. Not kids, but innocent tellers. There are people probably still waking up with PTSD, getting night sweats on account of me. You commit a violent crime, it puts limits on you forever." Even if the violence was only ever implied, a threat that remained in the background as long as no one got stupid or courageous, and thankfully they never had.

Explaining that to Conant wouldn't have helped, though. The kid was already on to the next thing.

"Look at this." Conant extended Arlo a paper flyer. It was still crisp, as if just printed; it must have been hanging inside the coffee shop where he'd just gone, taped to a window.

Arlo didn't look, or even pretend; he had seen the things hung all over town, mostly stapled to telephone poles, but some shops apparently weren't ashamed to hang them inside, either. Father Celsus, despite his long trail of victims, still had his defenders, people who believed he'd been wrongly accused and imprisoned.

So the bastard was missing now. Boohoo.

When it became clear Arlo wasn't going to take the sheet or even look closer, Conant scrunched the paper up into a ball. Tossed it to the floorboards. "I figure someone was waiting for him to get out to get even for what he did to them back at Ignatz. Either that, or the Catholic Church sent some other diddler priest to town to pick him up, shuffle him off to the Vatican with the rest of them. Those guys never have to face the music, you know." Conant reached into the back of the van, picked up the tablet, powered it up. The LED screen glowed to life and the image of the next house on their list appeared onscreen. "He was in Coshocton with you, wasn't he?"

"Some overlap on our bids." Arlo lifted the hot chocolate to his lips, took the most tentative drink, scalding his tongue. Even through the burn he could tell it was going to be some of the best hot chocolate he'd ever had. They had powdered stuff in Coshocton you could buy with commissary money, but it tasted like Ovaltine mixed with chalk and gave you the runs.

He set the hot chocolate in the cupholder, took the lid off, letting it cool down. "He was in PC so none of us could get to him." And even the ones who could reach the priest always had the same pat answer ready when asked why they didn't shiv him. He didn't touch none of my babies so it ain't my problem, and I only got X amount of years left.

"Alright..." Conant touched the screen with the stylus and immediately the house, naked of lights until now, lit up in strings of festive reds and greens. "No eyebrow dormers, very little pitch to the roof, and no bushes. This shouldn't take more than two hours. Last one of the day, then we can go home."

"Sounds good." After this, Arlo planned to stop by Julie's and give Junior his gift. Julie and Arlo were taking it slow, because that was how she preferred it, and he couldn't blame her. They might not even be taking it slow if she hadn't had Chris, and he hadn't been curious about his grandpa.

Arlo had the gift in a little bag - something festive with red peppermint candy canes and gingerbread men cascading down its wax paper sides. Despite the storebought packaging, the gift was homemade, something from his personal woodshed, an operation he hoped to expand into a real workshop once he got the money together.

"Oh..." Conant dug in the right pocket of his workpants, came up holding a little ornament, glowing with a coat of shellack, almost like a polished apple.

"What's this?"

"Present for you. Found it somewhere on one of our jobs and picked it up. Must have spilled out of some cardboard box or fallen off a tree set up for an outdoor display."

Conant handed it over to Arlo.

"I'd give it back to them," Conant said, "but I'm not even sure which house I picked it up at now. Whole day's been a blur of hanging lights, trying not freeze my balls off and fall off roofs. Can't wait for this crap to be over."

"A hundred bucks a day ain't bad work," Arlo said.

"It isn't til you find out what Santa's Helpers is making on the deal."

"Beats making fifteen cents an hour building furniture for the warden's office." Arlo twirled the little ornament by its silver eyelet. It was a baby Jesus, not quite identical to the larger one resting in his straw bed before Saint Ignatz, but constructed along the same basic lines. Same blondish spit curls plastered to the head, same rosy cherubic cheeks and elfin points for ears.

He stuffed it in the top left pocket of his dungaree overalls, snapped the pocket's brass button closed, patted the lump where the little baby Jesus slept. "Thanks."

"No prob."

---

It took them a while to find the house. It was well-set back from the road, with only a small marker for the address - about the size of one of those DUI roadside wreaths - staked at the curb. They passed it three times, with Conant cursing the GPS, Santa's Helpers and his own mother in that order with each subsequent pass they made.

Finally they found it, and Arlo navigated what passed for the backroad, its frozen mud rutted to deep treads that made the work van rollick back and forth. They came to the yard before the house and Arlo parked. Then both he and Conant stared through the window. They had to squint and lean, as more frost had accumulated on the windshield in the interim, blocking their view through the glass.

"Man, this place doesn't look as good as it did in the realtor's photo," Conant said. "This place looks like a dump."

"They paid the deposit, didn't they?"

"Yep," Conant said, but lifted his tablet just to check. "Yep." He looked out through the window again, trying to square the down payment - the mark of a trustworthy citizen - with the shabbiness of the house. It was two stories, paneled in sagging clapboard, once probably white and now grey with water damage, tinged green from accumulated scum.

Fronting the house was a massive tree, mossed with a growth the same color as whatever had sporulated over the clapboard. Dangling from one of the tree's massive branches was a tire-swing, the tire frozen in place, treads filled with hard blue ice. Lain in the crotch between some higher up branches was an old treehouse, sans roof and three walls, more like a platform. At the base of the tree was a standard barbecue grill, the model with the firetruck-red lid familiar from a million backyard Fourth of July parties.

"Well," Arlo said, "let's get to it."

He stepped down from the driver's seat, the cold air refreshing after the stuffed confines of the van.

He trudged around back, turned the silver handle that popped one of the twin rear doors. Then he hopped up in the rear and from there began handing things down to Conant: first the ladder, its stabilizer legs coming unstuck and flopping free as he passed it off; then a spool of wintergreen-colored SPT1 wire; and lastly the big bucket of screw-in red and green lights.

Arlo slung his glue gun and staplegun into their holsters, hoisted his toolbelt over his ironing-board flat stomach, and jumped down from the van.

"That's one thing you're lacking for the Santa gig," Conant said, slapping the ladder's stabilizer legs until they locked back into place.

"What's that now?"

"The gut." Conant took the liberty of slapping at his stomach. Ten, maybe even five years ago, Arlo would have swung on him on general principle, especially if there were witnesses. You simply did not touch another man without his consent, and that consent was rarely given. But now things were different. And, thinking of Julie and Chris, Arlo only smiled, took a deep breath, and said, "I could just stuff a pillow down there. The kids wouldn't notice."

"They'd notice," Conant said, grinning, unaware how close Arlo had come to swinging, how hard he'd had to resist the urge. "It wouldn't jiggle. And when I went through the training at the mall, they said you need to be ready for the kids to touch you. Grab your belly, tug your beard. Why..."

Conant suddenly stopped jawboning. Arlo was grateful, but also curious. He walked around to the front of the van, eager to see whatever had shut Conant up.

The customer was coming out of the house. He wore a cable-knit shaker sweater with a high turtleneck. His grey sweatpants matched the sweater, their white looped drawstring dangling almost down to his kneecaps. The man's face was already red from the cold and he hid his hands in the sleeves of his heavy garment. Over one shoulder he held a coil of what must have been Christmas lights bunched in a tight lasso. Under his other arm, he held a thick book pinned with his elbow tight to his ribcage.

He lifted his hand hidden in its bulky grey sleeve, waved toward them.

Conant lifted a lazy wave in return, then muttered, "He's a little underdressed for the weather, ain't he?"

The man didn't bother coming over to them, instead heading for the big tree. He stopped once he reached the base of its trunk, and turned to them. "Sorry I kept you guys waiting. I was in the basement finishing up a project so I couldn't hear you too well. Don't worry about lights. Got my own."

"Should have specified," Conant said. "We're obligated to bring them along unless you tell us in advance."

They were also obligated to charge the customer for the light rental if they neglected to mention they had their own set, but Conant left that part out. If it came down to an argument, it was best to have it afterward, when the lights were already hung and the credit card had been processed.

The man didn't seem to care one way or the other, and began to ascend the tree, using the boards nailed in place there to climb.

"You don't want us to do the house?" Arlo asked.

The man half-turned, spoke without ceasing to climb. "Don't sweat it, Kerf. I just want you guys to do the tree. I'm gonna give you a big tip, too."

Conant turned toward Arlo, squinting. "Kerf?" His single word blew a white cloud into the air.

It was what guys had called Arlo in prison industries, on account of the accuracy of his precision cuts, whether by hand or with the machines. He didn't explain that to the kid, though. He didn't owe him an explanation.

Arlo felt, however, that the man climbing the ladder owed him one.

"Wait here," Arlo said, and began walking toward the tree, following behind the man, who had already climbed the final rung to reach the treehouse.

"Fine by me," Conant said.

From behind Arlo came the sound of a lighter's wheel striking to spark, then a whiff of stale Marlboro light smoke hitting cold air.

---

Arlo didn't bother with the ladder, instead taking the wooden plank handholds nailed to the tree, the same ones used by Greydon. At least he thought it was Greydon. He wouldn't know for sure until he got up into the treehouse.

"You almost there?" the voice asked. It definitely sounded like Greydon.

"I'm coming."

"You need some help?" the kid asked, from behind him.

Arlo paused on the handholds, turned back toward Conant standing on the ground and smoking his cigarette. The light was fading and the coal stood out as he puffed. "I'm good."

Arlo turned back around and resumed climbing until he reached the treehouse.

"Come on up."

Arlo had expected Greydon to help him the final length, but both Greydon's hands were full. In one he held a Bible, in the other, a gun. The Bible had a red vinyl cover, its cotton-weight pages thick and showing a gold gilt edge. The gun looked like a Walther, shining cobalt from a recent bluing.

"That the James Bond gun?" Arlo asked. He'd read a lot of Fleming in the can, had borrowed the books from Greydon, in fact.

"It is."

Arlo nodded toward the string of lights coiled at Greydon's feet. "You gonna shoot me if I don't do a good job hanging those?"

"These are just for show."

"Aren't all Christmas lights just for show?" Arlo laughed, strangely not nervous. Greydon had been in prison, like him, and had pointed a lot of guns at a lot of people, also like him. But just like Arlo he'd never pulled a trigger, except to fire at a ceiling to motivate recalcitrant tellers, wake them from their fear-induced trances.

"I mean the lights were just the excuse to get you up here."

"Well, I'm here." Arlo looked at Greydon closely, for the first time since their little reunion.

There was a rust-colored smear on his cable-knit sweater, wet and deep enough to wick the fabric to his chest. He didn't look to be bleeding, so the blood must have belonged to someone else. Maybe his girlfriend, or even a wife, assuming he'd become that much of a citizen since Arlo last saw him.

"What now?" Arlo asked.

"Now reach behind you and snag the rope that tire swing is on. And pull it up here."

"You got it, boss."

Arlo crouched down, leaned over, knees hitting the cold wood of the treehouse platform.

Below him Conant still stood among the snow and shadows, watching. "You mind if I have some of your hot chocolate while you two do whatever it is you're doing?"

"Go nuts!" Arlo shouted, then reached his arm out, trying to snag the dangling hemp rope lashed to the tire. It looked like a high quality tire, despite how worn the rubber was, the treading close to bald. "Is that a Pirelli?"

"It was," Greydon said. His was seemed to convey more about what had passed between them, less about the prosaic history of some worn-out piece of rubber.

"Seems a waste of such a good tire."

"Just pull it up."

"I'm pulling."

"I requested you by name from Santa's Helpers, you know."

"I figured," Arlo said. He almost had the tire with him in the treehouse.

"I'm settling a lot of accounts today, and I want to settle with you."

"That sounds ominous," Arlo said, and pulled the tire the rest of the way up, hefting it in his hands. Its half-deflated state made it unwieldy, and the ice stuck to the treads scalded his hands like fire, made him feel like he already had frostbite.

"Screw how it sounds. I mean, literally. I still owe you ten g's for that Key Bank job."

"Don't need it," Arlo said, though the truth was he could use it. What he couldn't use was the headache, the memories associated with that money. Arlo slapped the tire on its side. "The hell you want me to do with this?"

"Untie it, and toss it back down. But keep the rope."

Arlo nodded, shrugged.

"What's going on up there? You guys putting lights on a tire swing?"

"Just drink your hot chocolate!" Arlo shouted, before muttering, "My hot chocolate."

The hemp knot on the tire had grown stiff from long exposure to the cold, and Arlo's fingers - increasingly chilled - lacked dexterity. Still, he was nimble enough to finally get the knot loose.

He tossed the tire down from the treehouse and it landed in a snowbank that sent up an off-white drift, a powdery ejecta of bluish fluff, sparkling and soundless.

"Watch it!" Conant shouted

Arlo ignored him, looked back to Greydon. "What now?"

"You know how to tie a noose?"

"You going to hang me?"

"No," Greydon said, shaking his head. "You're going to hang me."

"The hell I am."

Greydon shrugged. "Then I'm going to shoot you."

Arlo faltered, swallowed hard, mouth cotton-dry, throat sore. "I thought you said you were going to give me ten grand? Not that I want it, mind you, but there's quite a bit of daylight between you paying me and you plugging me."

"Tell your friend to take the top off the grill down there."

Arlo shook his head. Madness, but if the madman had the gun, you had to pretend to see the logic even where it was lacking.

Arlo crawled to the edge of the treehouse, knees crepitating with arthritic little pops as he went. He leaned down, shouted, "Conant!"

"Yeah, boss?"

The kid was multitasking, drinking Arlo's hot chocolate and smoking a cigarette while staring at the tire. Pondering the curious mystery of its presence at his feet.

"Do me a favor and lift the lid off that grill over there." Arlo pointed toward the grill with the red metal cover.

Conant pointed at it with the hand holding the cigarette, the coal even brighter now that night had almost fallen. "That one?"

There were no other grills around and Arlo wanted to tell him as much in the choicest words, but restrained himself. "Yes," he said, flatly, breathing through the spike of rage roiling in the form of acids through his chest and stomach.

Conant walked over to the grill, lifted the lid. Lain across the charred grates of the grillwork was a vacuum-sealed plastic package. It was too dark and Arlo had the wrong angle from up here to see it, but he could guess what was inside.

"Oh shit!" Conant shouted.

Now he didn't even have to guess.

"Cut it up with your little crimie down there however you want," Greydon said. "But you're only going to get your piece if you shove me. Otherwise, you get a bullet in your ass and the kid gets the whole knot for himself."

Arlo spun back toward Greydon. "If you want to hang yourself, then hang yourself. Why put that on me?"

"I can't do it myself and you know why."

"Why?"

Greydon waved the Bible. "Hangover from Saint Ignatz. You go to Hell if you commit suicide."

"You still believe, then?"

"Pascal's Wager," Greydon said. He'd read voraciously in the can, and clearly a whole lot more than just Fleming.

"Fair enough."

"Get to tying."

"You're the customer."

"He's giving us ten grand to put up lights?" Conant shouted upward.

So the little bastard had not only already torn the seal, but counted the dough.

"Something like that!" Arlo shouted back. He moved quickly, tying the knot from memory. It had been many moons since he'd contemplated slipping the hemp around his own throttle - though the "hemp" had been plain white government-issued sheets, shred into strips. Those nights in Coshocton, desperate and full of shadows, ghosts. He made the "S" shape of two bights, under and over, then doubled back and coiled upward seven times.

"You'll thank me later," Greydon said.

"I doubt it."

"You're setting at liberty them that are bruised."

Arlo was about to toss Greydon the other end of the rope, when he thought of something.

"What's the holdup?" Greydon asked.

"Nothing." Arlo went for his upper left breast pocket, undid the snap, pulled out the little baby Jesus, holding the ornament by its silver eyelet. He lifted it for Greydon to see.

Greydon squinted until he saw it, at which point his eyes went wide, and he smiled.

"Just gonna weave it into the line," Arlo said. "Think of it as a good luck charm, a little extra ante to go with your wager, Mr. Pascal."

"Go ahead." Greydon waved the pistol, almost giving a benediction with it.

Arlo slipped the Baby Jesus's silver eyelet over a frayed bit of hemp strayed from the main lashing, and knotted the ornament snugly there. "Got it."

"Good," Greydon said. "Now give the whole thing here."

Arlo tossed the rope so it hit the floor at Greydon's sneakered feet, the ceramic baby Jesus clattering hard on the wooden planks.

"Hope you know what you're doing," Arlo said. "If you measured that length wrong and you break your legs, I'm not driving you to the hospital."

"I measured it right. I know what I'm doing."

Greydon began to wind the free end of the rope around one of the sturdy branches bowering the roofless treehouse.

Arlo closed his eyes, not wanting to see his old friend making such preparations.

"Alright," Greydon said, at last.

Arlo opened his eyes.

The noose was now snug around Greydon's throat.

Greydon took a deep breath, spoke quickly so the words fogged the air in icy blasts. "Either kick me or shove me, but you're not getting down from here before me."

"You do realize my prints are all over that rope." Arlo pointed at the hemp noosed around his friend's neck.

"And? I want you to call the cops after this. You and old boy are going tell them I committed suicide, jumped. Your prints should be on the rope, since you tried to cut me down and resuscitate me. Remember?"

"You trying to make this easier on me is making it even harder."

"Just shove."

"And what about him?" Arlo jerked his head toward the kid on the ground. "I don't much care for him but I don't think he's ever seen the kind of stuff we've seen. You want to traumatize him? This close to Christmas?"

"He's being well-compensated for his scarring."

Arlo's heart began to beat hard in his chest. He had almost exhausted every argument he might proffer to talk the man down. He searched his brain, but the inside of his head was a jumble. "You want people to think you killed yourself?"

Greydon shrugged. "They don't mention that in obituaries. And God knows better."

"You think he's going to appreciate you cheating your way into Heaven on a technicality?"

"If He's Catholic, he will. It's not a hell of a lot worse than buying indulgences, or paying a pilgrim to walk shoeless for you to the Holy Land."

"Is that what that ten grand is for?"

"I already told you," Greydon said. "That's some of the bank money I 'lost' in the chase. The rest I blew at Indian casinos on the res. Me screwing you over should be sufficient incentive for you to give me a little nudge." Greydon spun around, then, showed Arlo his posterior, waggling it back and forth, brandishing his butt like an immature drunken teenager mooning passersby. "Póg mo thóin, me friend. I faded your half on the felt, betting it all on one go of craps, laughing at you the whole time."

"It's still not enough," Arlo said.

"Kiss it, it's Irish." Greydon was still wagging it, the seat of his sweatpants wedgied in his rear to produce two well-delineated hemispheres. He paused then, seized, it seemed, by inspiration. "Kiss it like you kissed the padre's hinder in the vestry, Arlene. Remember how they called you that when they found out you were his new favorite? Arlene the Altar Girl, the comeliest Catholic lass around."

Arlo felt the surge, tried to breathe through it. But the surge moved faster than his breath could blow the rage free of his body this time. Hate was a fuel like steam, using his limbs like coal-stoked pistons to perform their pneumatic work.

He rushed forward, no longer in control of his actions, this not a rationale but a simple matter of being blacked out. One moment there was snow and sky; the next moment darkness.

And when the snow and sky returned and darkness abated, Greydon was already gone, disappeared over the edge of the treehouse.

There was a snap, a break as when a ceramic pot hits concrete and shatters. Then the groan of rope tested to its tensile limits but holding fast, the strained moan of taut fibers almost like an animal wail. Then screams, coming in rapid succession from Conant, shrill enough to sound comical under other circumstances.

---

He threw the work van in park in front of Julie's place on Elmwood. The home, while not much more than a small box, still looked inviting. Cozy. Both the windows out front glowed with warm light, and the tinsel draped over the Christmas tree shone with a silver gleam.

Arlo turned toward Conant, sitting there in the passenger seat, staring at nothing, eyes blank. He hadn't said much when the police came, let Arlo do the talking (smart). He'd only recovered slightly by the time the ambulance showed up, enough to smoke his first post-incident cigarette. And of course he'd taken his five grand.

"You good?" Arlo asked.

"No."

"I mean, to drive this home."

Conant blinked, as if just waking from a fog. "Yeah." But then he shook his head, as if disagreeing with himself. "I'm not going in to work tomorrow."

"You don't have to. Macon doesn't expect us to. But he does want his company van back. Someone else needs it to hang lights."

"Fine, but..."

"What?"

"What about you?" Conant asked. "Your car's still there, in the Santa's Helpers lot."

"Julie will give me a ride to it in the morning."

Conant just stared at him, so Arlo added, "My daughter," while nodding toward the house.

"Oh, yeah."

"Talk at you later." Arlo patted him on the shoulder and Conant flinched. Slowly, then, so he wouldn't scare the kid again, Arlo picked up the little giftbag set between driver and passenger seat. He stepped out of the van, crunching his way over the freshly fallen snow blanketing the lawn.

A shadow passed across the window where he'd seen the Christmas tree. It flitted, then, toward the front, visible through the pebbled glass of the lunette window above the door. Arlo trudged onto the porch, his boots heavy - socked feet wet and cold - body sore.

The door pulled inward with a creak, and Julie stood there in her tattered terrycloth robe. "It's too late to come in. Don't act like I'm being unreasonable, either. You said 'ten.' It's two."

"You got a garage I can sleep in, or maybe a car? I don't mind being in the doghouse, figuratively speaking, but I'm not keen on freezing to death."

The sound of the van roaring to life came from behind him. Julie looked over her father's shoulder, watched as the van drifted off into the night. Then her eyes drifted back, found her father. "You too drunk to drive?"

"Do I smell like booze?"

He lifted his face toward hers, eyes closed, taking the last step toward her so she could sniff his breath.

She leaned forward. Against all hope, he prayed she would kiss him on the cheek - that some errant sprig of mistletoe dangling from above might mandate it - but she only inhaled deeply. When he opened his eyes, she was wincing, eyebrows furrowed, suspicion replaced by confusion.

"What's your excuse, then?" she asked, trying to muster a little anger, managing only disappointment. That hurt more, as it reminded him of the past, the one or two times her mother had brought her to Coshocton. Those meetings in the visiting room, at one of those hard plastic tables, their lunch from the vending machine usually a sticky bun and some cheese crackers.

"I have a story, which is true, but it's so crazy it's worse than an excuse."

She sighed. He didn't blame her. His words sounded like spontaneously generated nonsense, the equivocating hedge of a man who didn't want to get caught in a lie.

He lifted the bag. "I brought something for Chris. I mean, I made it."

Julie sighed again. "Come in." She held the door open.

He stepped through before she could change her mind, leaned down to take his boots off. There was a rubber mudguard on the floor, already coated with slush drained from a pair of knockoff Uggs. They were a matching set, one for Mom and one for son, probably bought on-sale.

"Go sit in the living room," she said. "You want some coffee?" she asked, raising her voice slightly above a whisper while heading to the kitchen.

"Do you have any hot chocolate? I lost mine today."

"Oh? You misplaced it?"

"One of Santa's obstreperous elves got it."

"They're bastards," she conceded.

After getting his boots off, Arlo went into the living room, settled into place on the couch. The pleasant light from the lamp and that from the fully decorated tree comingled in a gentle golden haze. The warm nimbus made him feel like a character in a nativity scene. Something numbed and inanimate, well-lit with no purpose but to sit on display and spread seasonal cheer.

The TV was on, but its blue rays made no claim on the golden light.

"What did you get Christo?" Julie returned from the kitchen, bringing the coffee and hot chocolate with her.

"It's in here." He opened the bag, slowly pulled out the lantern. Somehow - perhaps in being jostled - the little battery-op tealight nestled inside had gotten toggled on. The angels he'd carved into the sides of the thing glowed, threw silhouettes that splashed onto the plaster walls, over the stucco ceiling to form shadow puppets.

"Christ, Dad, it's beautiful." She set the two mugs down on the glass coffee table, stared at the angel shapes carved in the face of the wood.

Arlo looked on proudly. "That's not laser-cut, either. Didn't use a router or molds. Old Kerf did it by hand."

"Who's 'Old Kerf'?"

"I am." He didn't bother explaining and she didn't press him.

He leaned forward, took the mug filled with hot chocolate. It wasn't hard to tell which was his, as several of those miniature marshmallows bobbed along its milky surface.

He took a sip. It was good, not as good as the storebought stuff the kid had taken from him, but he wouldn't tell her that.

Julie reached for her coffee, walked away from her father where he sat on the couch. She took a seat in a recliner upholstered in frayed grey polyester.

"How's your Christmas going?" Arlo took another drink.

"Hmm..." She had a gulp of coffee, seeming to mull over his question, or maybe just savoring the morning's first shot of joe. "I shouldn't be having caffeine this late, early."

"How's his Christmas going?" Arlo nodded toward the hallway, which presumably led to the bedrooms. He was brave enough to stare down a gun barrel, crazy enough apparently to kill a man he knew well. But taking those several steps to meet his sleeping grandson terrified him, and he was glad Julie didn't offer.

"He wants this ten-speed bike, but I don't know."

Arlo set his hot chocolate down, reached into his jacket pocket. He had the five grand in a knot - still relatively dry thanks to the vacuum seal. "Here." He handed her the money. He could spare it, as he still had the dough he'd made from hanging lights with Santa's Helpers.

"Dad..."

She didn't gasp, but only because the sight of the money knocked the wind out of her. Then she blinked, and her eyes narrowed to feline slits. The suspicion again, the distrust of money from him, especially when it came in bands of hundreds like this.

"You didn't relapse, did you?"

"No," he said, knowing they weren't talking about booze. "You can make thirty grand a month hanging lights, you know?"

It felt good not to lie, since it was technically true. If he had his own business and wasn't kicking back so much to Santa and his sticky-fingered helpers, he probably could have netted half that much by now.

"Dad..."

She set the five grand on the table, then, so that she could two-hand her coffee. He'd never seen someone like her, except his wife. Someone who could let go of money like that a moment after having it in-hand. And to think he'd taken part in creating this creature. Hopefully her son - his grandson - was more her than him. Hopefully the outlawry skipped at least two generations, or had somehow been bred out of the blood entirely by now.

Julie brought the mug to her lips, gulped, then gagged as she saw something on TV that almost made her do a spit take. "Oh, God..."

"What?" Arlo looked with her at the tube.

"That old pervy priest."

A picture of Father Celsus appeared onscreen. Him in his white Roman collar with a dalmatic purple vestment on, smiling fiercely, baring his teeth in what he must have thought a smile. The photo had been taken decades ago at some gala charity event, before he'd started dyeing his eyebrows while inexplicably letting his hair go all-white. In the picture, he was surrounded by local swells, men in black ties, women in bauble-heavy necklaces, everyone holding fluted glasses.

"Wonder where he is..." Julie said.

Arlo shrugged, took a sip of his hot chocolate. "Beats me."

But he had a pretty good idea. And since the cops hadn't checked Greydon's basement, he figured the body would be a long time in being found. By then it would have decomposed, maybe becoming host to a family of rats looking for an easy meal and a place to nest for winter's remainder.

Greydon probably hadn't even stopped to administer Last Rites to the pervy padre.

"Good," Arlo said, but to himself, and under his breath, while taking another sip of his hot chocolate, savoring a tiny marshmallow as it dissolved on his tongue.