A Good Story and Other Stories

Last-Minute Shopping

When O’Brien answered the doorbell, it was Officer Keenan standing there. “Oh, no!” O’Brien cried. “Not on Christmas Eve! Besides, I didn’t do anything!”

“Take it easy, O’Brien,” Keenan said. “I’m not here to arrest you.”

“You’re not?”

“I’d like to come in,” Keenan said.

“You’re in,” O’Brien agreed, and shut the door behind him.

Keenan looked around the neat but sparse living room. “Huh,” he said. “Crime really doesn’t pay.”

“Is that why you came here, to tell me that?”

“No, O’Brien,” Keenan said. “We’ve known each other over the years.”

“You’ve arrested me over the years, you mean. And a lot of times it didn’t stick.”

“I do my job, you do yours.” Keenan shrugged, and said, “Now I need your help.”

“I don’t fink,” O’Brien said.

“Oh, you would, if the circumstance was right,” Keenan said, “but that’s not what I want. You may not know this, but I’ve had a steady lady friend for a few years now.”

“She hasn’t done much for your personality.”

“I guess not,” Keenan said, “because two weeks ago we had a major fight, we broke up, that was the end of it, and it was all my fault.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” O’Brien said.

“Fellow feeling. I’ve always liked that about you.” Keenan nodded and said, “An hour ago, ten P.M. on Christmas Eve, she calls me. She’s sorry we broke up, she’s been thinking about me, why don’t we try to get back together. Sure, that’d be great, I been miserable for two weeks, I didn’t know I’d ever get another chance. She’s a waitress at a place in midtown, she took the Christmas Eve shift because there wasn’t anybody for her to go home to, she’ll get off at eleven-thirty, she wants me to come to her place at midnight.”

“An hour from now.”

“That’s the problem,” Keenan said. “Laurie says — that’s her name, Laurie. Laurie says she’s been thinking about nothing but me for the last two weeks, but like a dope I’ve been trying to think about anything except her, making myself miserable. So what this means is, I know she’s gonna have a really thoughtful terrific Christmas present for me when I get to her place, but I got nothing for her, and everything’s closed, and I don’t want to look like a bum when we’re supposed to be making up and getting back together again.”

“Tough,” O’Brien said.

Keenan cleared his throat. “There’s a jewelry store,” he said, “called Henderson’s.”

“Hey, wait a minute!” O’Brien said, backing up. “We been getting along so well up to now.”

“Take it easy, take it easy. I believe you know this jewelry store.”

“Believe what you want,” O’Brien said.

“I believe you’ve made a number of unofficial visits to Henderson’s over the years,” Keenan said.

“Prove it.”

“I don’t want to prove it,” Keenan said. “Not now, not tonight. What I want is to get into Henderson’s in the next half hour.”

O’Brien looked at him.

“Not to steal anything,” Keenan said. “You can’t give a person stolen goods for a Christmas present.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Keenan said. “What I want to do, I want to go into Henderson’s, pick out something really nice, and leave the money for it.”

“And you want me to get you in.”

“Without busting anything. The kind of neat work you always do.”

“Keenan,” O’Brien said, “this is looking an awful lot like entrapment.”

“I wouldn’t set you up,” Keenan said. “Come on, O’Brien, you know me. I’ve always been straight with you, and you’ve always been crooked with me. I’m not gonna change now. And after this, I’ll owe you one. The time’ll come, down the road, I’ll take care of you.”

“Call the owner of the store, ask him to open up.”

“He’s away for the holidays. You’re my only hope.”

O’Brien pondered. “You want me to break into Henderson’s with you watching.”

“I’ll turn my back until the door’s open.”

“A cop standing right there, and I’m breaking into a jewelry store.”

“It’s my future happiness, O’Brien.”

“And I’ve got no choice, do I?”

“Sure you do.”

O’Brien brooded. Keenan said, “Don’t you have a lady friend?”

“Yeah?”

“While we’re in there, pick her up a little something.”

O’Brien perked up. “I can?”

Keenan gave him a look. “And pay for it.”

“Oh, right,” O’Brien said. “You can’t give stolen goods for a Christmas present.”

“That’s right.”

“It’s very hard,” Keenan whispered, “to pick out a nice piece of jewelry in the dark.”

“Usually in this situation,” O’Brien told him, “the perpetrator just takes a couple handfuls and goes.”

“This isn’t the usual situation,” Keenan said. “Can’t we have a little more light from that flash?”

“You wanna spend Christmas at the precinct, explaining your love life?”

“Well, aim it better, anyway.”

Keenan leaned over the counters of brooches and rings, and O’Brien leaned over Keenan, shining the flashlight at the trays. Two strips of electrician’s tape on the lens left only a narrow slit for light to come through. Gold and silver and semiprecious stones gleamed murkily in that amber light.

“Maybe over on this side,” Keenan said, and they bumped each other as they turned to cross the store.

More trays of underlit goodies. O’Brien whispered, “How you gonna pay for this stuff? You can’t use a credit card when the store’s closed.”

“I got cash. I grabbed what I had, and borrowed from guys at the station.”

“Plan ahead, huh?”

“Yeah. Ouch! That’s my foot under your foot, O’Brien.”

“Sorry.”

Finally, after a longer time than O’Brien usually spent in Henderson’s, Keenan chose a nice bracelet, gold filigree with garnets, a nice Christmasy glow. “Six hundred bucks,” he said, reading the tag. “Good, I thought it’d be more. I’ll just leave the money where the bracelet was.” He did, and said, “What about you, O’Brien? Find anything for your lady friend?”

“I think over on the other side there was something. Hold the flashlight for me, okay?”

“Right. Ow!”

“Sorry.”

Rubbing his shin, Keenan said, “I thought you’d be better than that, in the dark.”

“You mean, get like permanent night vision? It doesn’t work that way. Shine it here, will you, Keenan?”

It wasn’t long before O’Brien found what he wanted, a pretty brooch. “That goes with Grace’s eyes,” he said. “How much is it?”

Keenan squinted at the tag. “Four fifty.”

“I think I can do that.” O’Brien pulled out a wad, thumbed through it. “Yep. And thirty bucks left over.”

He left the money, then eased them out of the store and hooked up the alarm again. “I appreciate this, O’Brien,” Keenan said.

“It was easy,” O’Brien said.

When Grace opened the door, her smiling face was framed by the lustrous Christmas tree across the room. It made her look like an angel. O’Brien said, “Grace, you’re beautiful.”

“What a sweet thing to say,” Grace said, and shut the door, and kissed him.

O’Brien took the little box out of his pocket. “Merry Christmas,” he said.

Grace looked at the little box and her smile faded. “What did you do, Harry?” she asked him.

“I got you a Christmas present. It’s Christmas.”

“You didn’t — Harry, you promised me. You didn’t...”

“Steal it?” O’Brien laughed. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “You can’t give stolen goods for a Christmas present.”

“That’s right.” Grace opened the box and gazed in pleasure at the silver brooch with the green stones. “It’s beautiful!”

“Like you.”

Doubtful again, she said, “Harry? You don’t have any money, I know you don’t. How’d you pay for this?”

“I did some consultancy work for a cop tonight,” O’Brien said, “and he paid me. He doesn’t know he paid me, but he paid me.” In his mind’s eye came the memory of Keenan stumbling around in the dark, his pockets full of he couldn’t be sure how much money. “The thing is,” O’Brien said, as he pinned the brooch on his lady friend, “I got great night vision.”