Naughty-Nine Tales of Christmas

SECRET SANTA

Monday, December 15, 2003

In his own way, Erik Bigelow was a stickler for punctuality. According to the employee manual, everyone who worked for Now! Publishing was supposed to arrive no later than 8:30 a.m. So when Bigelow came in at his usual time-9:20-he had his eyes peeled for anyone as lax and late as he was. Those he caught he lectured on the importance of team spirit and playing by the rules and giving one's all. He gave the same speech to any Now! employees he saw trying to sneak out earlier than his usual departure time, which was 4:50.

Bigelow would have no time for lectures this particular morning, though, as he was exceptionally late, even by the standards he set for himself. A new batch of screener DVDs had arrived at the office on Friday, and Bigelow had snagged them all before they could make their way to their intended destination-the cubicle belonging to Chris McCoy, editor of DVD Now! magazine. Bigelow wasn't exactly McCoy's boss. He was director of circulation and production, and technically none of the editors worked for him. But Bigelow made a lot more money than McCoy, and that counted for something. And since management gets to allocate resources and such, Bigelow had allocated the DVDs straight into his vast private collection. As a result, he'd stayed up extra late Sunday night, unable to turn off the commentary track to the Star Trek V Director's Edition until he'd heard every last thing William Shatner had to say.

So Bigelow woke up late and tired, much to the consternation of his Rottweiler, Bantha. He couldn't leave for work without taking Bantha around the block, letting the dog leave behind evidence of her presence so large and hard to ignore it could easily convince experienced animal trackers that a herd of buffalo had recently moved through the area. And he couldn't pass the neighborhood Starbucks without stopping in for a vente mocha latte. And he couldn't have a vente mocha latte without having two Krispy Kreme doughnuts to go with it. And he couldn't very well have two old Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which might have been sitting in the display case for as long as twenty minutes. So he had to kill time letting Bantha terrorize squirrels in the park across the street until the sign lit up announcing that the fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts were ready.

All of which meant he walked into the office nearly an hour and a half later than the Now! employee manual mandated. No one said anything to him about playing by the rules or giving one's all, however. The only person higher than Bigelow in the Now! food chain was the publisher, Dave Crowley, and he almost never showed up before noon. And Bigelow's only equal/potential rival-the company's editorial director, Alex Sandberg-was too busy actually working to notice Bigelow's comings and goings, not to mention too wimpy to say anything even if he did. (Sandberg was the company's resident Mr. Nice Guy, which was one more reason Bigelow hated him.)

But Bigelow didn't make it to his desk without any censure whatsoever. It just didn't come from his boss, and it had nothing to do with his tardiness.

"You forgot, didn't you?" Marcy Albright asked as Bigelow hustled past her cubicle.

Bigelow skidded to a stop.

"Forgot what?" he said, which answered his secretary's question.

(Officially, Marcy wasn't his secretary. He just liked to think of her that way. She was actually an executive assistant/office manager. The fact that he had to share her with Crowley was fine, a necessary bit of economizing. That he had to share her with Sandberg was a galling injustice he would rectify one day.)

"The 'Secret Santa' thing. It starts today," Marcy said. "Don't tell me you're giving somebody a cup of coffee."

The only thing Bigelow held in his hands was his Starbucks cup. All that remained of the doughnuts was a sugary film that coated his fingers and lips.

"Oh, that," Bigelow said. "Hold on."

He set his coffee down on Marcy's desk, pulled out his wallet and removed a wrinkled five-dollar bill.

"Run across the street and buy me… oh, I don't know. A sandwich or something."

"You're gonna give somebody a sandwich for Christmas?"

"The sandwich is for me. I didn't have time to grab anything for lunch this morning. I'll take care of the present later."

"What kind of sandwich do you want?"

"Oh, whatever. You know me."

Bigelow leaned in to get his coffee, taking the opportunity as he did so to try for a peek down Marcy's blouse.

"I'm easy to please," he said.

Marcy stood and wrapped a coat around herself, and Bigelow headed into his office whistling "Sleigh Ride." His in-box was overflowing and the message light on his phone was blinking, but first things first. There were goodies to unwrap.

Power was always sweet, but in December it had the especially satisfying flavor of chocolate. Now! published three magazines, which meant come the holidays three different sets of vendors and publicists and freelancers tried to curry favor by showering the office with edible bribes. Bigelow saw to it that the cornucopia spilled out in his direction, giving Marcy standing orders that all large packages should be delivered to his office first. The truly choice gifts went home with him. The second tier he passed along to Crowley as part of his ongoing efforts to keep his lips locked to the publisher's posterior. The dregs-tins of stale popcorn, tacky ornaments that had shattered in transit, etc.-ended up in the staff lunchroom with a Post-It note attached.

Merry Christmas, gang! Help yourselves!

– Erik Bigelow

Today's haul seemed to be shaping up nicely. Several big boxes had already arrived via Fed Ex and UPS, and the regular mail would undoubtedly bring more. Bigelow was about to tear into the most promising package-a small but satisfyingly heavy box with the unmistakable rattle of gourmet nuts-when a brightly wrapped package caught his eye. There was a tag attached.

"For Erik," it read. "From your Secret Santa."

Bigelow rolled his eyes. Giving anonymous gifts to a randomly chosen coworker was bad enough. Why should he waste his time and money on somebody he didn't even need to kiss up to? But to make the whole thing even more aggravating, when Marcy had come by with the little red Santa hat full of names, he'd drawn out the one he wanted to see least of all: Alex Sandberg. So now he had to find cutesy presents for the man he considered the only real threat he faced at Now!.

He leaned over and looked in his trashcan. The picture he'd dumped there Friday hadn't been cleared out yet. It was a small, tacky, plastic-framed painting of cats caroling outside a snow-covered home while a Scrooge-ish basset hound glowered at them from an upstairs window. It had been a gift from the printer who handled Antiques Now!, Bigelow's least-favorite publication in the Now! stable (mostly because it drew such feeble freebies). Bigelow had been so disgusted with the lame painting, he hadn't even bothered walking it to the staff lunchroom.

But now it had its uses. Bigelow pulled the picture from the garbage can just as Marcy stepped into his office holding a brown paper bag.

"Clean this up and throw it on Sandberg's desk when he's not looking," Bigelow said.

"Hey! You're not supposed to let anybody know who you're-"

Bigelow was already rooting around in the paper bag, which he'd snatched from Marcy when she'd reached out to take the cat painting.

"What's this? Pastrami?" he asked.

"Corned beef."

He handed the bag back to her. "You know what would really be good? Roast beef. With horseradish. Ooooh, and a pickle."

Marcy opened her mouth to say something, but Bigelow managed to close it with the droopy-eyed, tight-lipped, It-Won't-Make-Any-Difference-What-You-Say-So-Why-Bother? boss look he'd mastered since his latest promotion. She turned and left without saying a thing, and Bigelow got back to the business at hand: opening presents.

He saved the one from his Secret Santa for last. The wrapping paper covering it was red with the word "HO!" in chunky white letters repeated over and over again. The gift beneath was flat and rectangular and stiff-obviously a book. Not being edible or formatted for a DVD player, it was of little interest to him. Still, free was free.

Once he'd ripped the wrapping away, he sat for a long moment, blinking down at his present, confused.

It was DON'T Steal This Book! Controlling Your Kleptomania by Dr. Avi Birnbaum.

Tuesday, December 16

Bigelow had almost forgotten about his Secret Santa when he came to work the next morning. He'd spent a few minutes wondering about the "gift"-what did it mean and who could have sent it and was it someone he could fire? But he'd had a good day after that. Crowley hadn't bothered showing up at all, which meant Bigelow didn't even have to pretend to work. Instead he'd surfed the 'net, done some Christmas shopping, caught a matinee showing of The Matrix Revolutions, hovered around the cubes cute girls worked in. Then he'd called it a day early, leaving the office with two shopping bags stuffed with plundered goodies.

Once again, Bigelow's desk was piled high with boxes when he arrived. And once again, one of them was red with "HO! HO! HO!" in white letters and a little card from his Secret Santa. This time, Bigelow opened that package first. It was another book.

Dirty Work: How White-Collar Criminals Are Destroying Corporate America.

Bigelow's balding head went instantly slick with sweat.

Was this some kind of accusation? Maybe even a blackmail attempt? All over a few measly DVDs?

Well, a few hundred DVDs, when you added up all the screeners he had piled in his bedroom closet at home. And then there were all the Christmas presents he'd appropriated.

Oh, and those little liberties he sometimes took with his expense reports. And he'd stolen someone's leftover pizza out of the fridge one day. It was covered with pepperoni and mushrooms and he just couldn't resist…

No, he was being silly. Bigelow shook these disturbing thoughts out of his head as effectively as he shook off his conscience. Someone was turning this "Secret Santa" thing into a sick joke, that was all. And it was time he found out who. He walked out to Marcy's cube.

"Did you see someone sneak into my office this morning?"

Marcy smiled and shrugged. "Maybe."

"Who was it?"

Marcy shook her head. "Secret Santas are supposed to stay secret. What'd he give you, anyway?"

"Well," Bigelow said, about to spew some bile about the immature jerks they had to work with.

He stopped himself just in time. The situation was humiliating enough without having the whole office know about it.

"Just some knickknacks," he said.

"So did you have time yesterday to perform your Secret Santa duties?" Marcy asked, arching an eyebrow.

It took Bigelow a few seconds to get what she meant.

"Oh, sure," he said.

He went back to his office and came back a minute later holding a chipped mug with the words "Merlin Distribution Services-Working Newsstand Magic" printed on the side. It came from a gift set of gourmet coffee beans and chocolate-coated stir-spoons. Bigelow liked gourmet coffee beans and chocolate-coated stir spoons. Chipped mugs he could do without.

"Throw that in Sandberg's office when you get a chance."

Bigelow took a slow tour around the office after that, making note of who was in, who was out and who shot him nervous or resentful glances, which was just about everyone. The Muscles Now! staff had wrapped up a tight deadline the previous Friday, so they'd already begun their Christmas vacations. But Antiques Now! and DVD Now! had issues to get to the printer by the end of the week, so both magazines' editors and designers were showing up early, leaving late and doing lots of frantic keyboard pounding in between.

Bigelow ambled from cubicle to cubicle, dribbling "constructive criticism" behind him like stale bread crumbs.

"Is that the best picture you've got?"

"Why is that blue?"

"That font's too disco. Try something techno."

"You're putting what on the cover?"

"Crowley's gonna hate that."

"That sucks."

Anytime he saw what looked like a Secret Santa gift on someone's desk, he'd snatch it up and say, "Heeeey! Cool! Where'd this come from?" But these questions didn't get him far. Like his advice, his conversational gambits were usually ignored.

Even Sandberg brushed him off. Most days, he was all smiles for everyone, even Bigelow. But now he was hunched over his desk sifting through piles of proofs, "just pitching in" to "help out the troops." The Pollyanna show-off. Bigelow smiled and wished him good luck and silently prayed for God to smite him with a bolt of lightning.

So the only staff member to give Bigelow more than a one-word response was Joyce Starr, the editor of Antiques Now!. And even then she wasn't saying anything he wanted to hear, which was typical for her.

"Hey, Erik!" she called out when she noticed him being an especially persistent pest around her associate editor, who just happened to be 23, female and cute as a button. "Next year instead of scheduling two deadlines the week before Christmas, why not go for all three? Or better yet, how about if we all have to go to the printer on Christmas Eve? Wouldn't that look neater on your little calendar?"

Starr immediately became his number-one suspect. But then Bigelow remembered Marcy's comment that morning about the Secret Santa.

"What'd he give you, anyway?"

He.

Damn.

Starr was the only staff member who consistently criticized him to his face. It would be just like her to slip these nasty little digs onto his desk, as well. Finding a way to get her fired (for he couldn't admit the real reason lest it raise uncomfortable questions) would've been a pleasurable challenge.

And now the challenge he faced was no pleasure at all. Eliminate the women, eliminate the staff of Muscles Now! and he was still left with…

Bigelow couldn't quite get the figure worked out in his head, so he retreated to his office and hunkered down over the staff telephone list.

Seven men. Seven potential enemies.

He would narrow them down to one, and then he would strike.

Starting tomorrow. He was feeling a bit depressed, so he went to a matinee to cheer himself up.

Wednesday, December 17

Bigelow meant to get to work early. He had his alarm set for the ungodly hour of 7 a.m., and he'd turned off his Two Towers Special Edition DVD at 11 on the dot. He should've arisen at 7 rested and ready for action-the "action" being getting to the office before his Secret Santa.

But he'd been fidgety the night before, and he'd tried to calm himself with a box of chocolate-covered pretzels sent to DVD Now! by the flacks at Warner Home Video. The pretzels knotted his stomach and twisted his dreams, and all night long he heard the same faint echo.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!

When the alarm went off, he smacked the snooze button. Ten minutes later, he smacked it again. Ten minutes later, again.

He ended up "snoozing" a dozen times. By the time he finally got up not only was he late but Bantha, annoyed by all the false alarms, had left a large, unwrapped gift under the Christmas tree.

When Bigelow finally got to work, that knot in his stomach pulled even tighter.

"You must've been a good boy this year," Marcy said as he rushed by her cube.

Bigelow whipped around to face her. "What do you mean?"

Marcy blinked at him a moment, looking surprised by the heat in his voice. "I mean Santa's been in to see you, that's all. Just a joke."

"Oh."

"You might want to lighten up on the Starbucks, Erik," Marcy said as he stomped off to his office.

He slammed the door. Now even Marcy was giving him a hard time. Sweet, loyal Marcy. Sweet, loyal, shapely Marcy. What was she wearing today, anyway? He was so worked up he hadn't even noticed.

This insanity had to end!

The package was waiting for him on his desk. It had the same note, the same mocking gift wrap. But it wasn't a book this time. It was square, and it rattled when he shook it. He attacked the box like Bantha attacking a Nike, sending scraps of wrapping paper flying up over his head.

Inside the package he found a small bottle of mouthwash, a tin of Altoids, a tube of "extra-strength super-mint" toothpaste and a brochure entitled "Overcoming Halitosis: Five Steps to a Fresher You."

Bigelow brought his hand up to his mouth, puffed into it, then sucked in deeply through his nose. Yes, O.K., maybe there was a little staleness there. But he'd had another vente latte on his way to work that morning. Surely his breath would freshen itself up over time. He didn't have halitosis-did he?

No! He wasn't going to let some anonymous peon psych him out. He was going to march out of his office and lay a serious smackdown on… whoever.

He started for the door, hoping a brilliant plan would form in his mind before he reached the other side. Instead, the door opened and Marcy leaned in.

"Crowley's here," she said.

Bigelow froze. "So early?"

"Well, it is after 11."

Bigelow swiveled around and hurried back to his desk. He snatched up the phone and started making calls he'd been putting off for days. When Crowley dropped by a few minutes later, Bigelow was on the line with a printer's rep.

Bigelow held up a "just-a-sec" finger as Crowley took a seat.

"Don't give me that!" Bigelow barked, even though he and the rep had been having a perfectly pleasant conversation about the weather just a moment before. "That last cover looked like mud!"

"What?" the rep said, perplexed by the sudden abuse.

"Alright then! That's better!" Bigelow slammed the phone down and shook his head. "Those Lantern Graphics guys-you have to ride their asses every step of the way. So what can I do you for, boss?"

Crowley kicked his tiny feet up on the edge of Bigelow's desk and shrugged his muscle-bound shoulders. "What's goin' on?"

Bigelow passed a hand over the clutter on his desk like one of those models on The Price Is Right who specialize in gesturing seductively over cars and boxes of Turtle Wax.

"Same ol' same ol," he said. "How 'bout with you?"

"I caught the new Matrix flick Saturday."

"Oh yeah? What did you think?"

And they were off.

This was how Bigelow really earned his salary-yakking with Crowley. Sometimes he thought it was much, much harder than a real job.

He'd known Crowley since high school, when his now-pumped up boss had been a 101 pound pipsqueak with braces and thick glasses and bad hair. The hair had never improved, but the braces and the glasses eventually went away, as did Crowley's pipsqueak status. During his college years, Crowley had discovered competition bodybuilding, and he eventually dropped out to devote himself to the "sport" full-time. He didn't get far, his crowning glory being fourth place in the Tri-State Mr. Olympus Muscle Show. But he didn't retire from competition with nothing to show for it. For one thing, he now had a body that would do Vin Diesel proud, even if his face would still send Howdy Doody running for plastic surgery. More importantly, he'd laid the foundation for his future empire by publishing a monthly newsletter called Muscle Men.

The newsletter's circulation grew and grew, making a particularly large jump after a marketing consultant convinced Crowley to change the name to something that didn't sound like a guide to local leather bars. So Muscle Men became Muscles Now!. It also became a magazine. And it made Crowley rich enough to start magazines devoted to the two other great loves of his life: movies and antique Mason jars. (Jars Now! became Antiques Now! after one disastrous issue.)

When Crowley's company grew large enough to require an office manager, he'd hired his old high school buddy Bigelow, who'd been handing out pictures from behind the desk at a Wal-Mart Photo Developing Center. Through a tenacious campaign of butt-kissing and back-stabbing, Bigelow had risen to circulation assistant, then circulation manager, then director of circulation and finally, after one more carefully orchestrated character assassination, director of circulation and production.

Of course, he wasn't through rising yet, as there was one more director-level position that naturally belonged on his résumé. But for every chance he got to slag off Sandberg, he had to endure 20 minutes of talk about weightlifting and a brutal 30 minutes about Mason jars. The only relief came when he and Crowley talked about movies, but even then he was hemmed in and frustrated. Once upon a time he could-and would-tell Crowley he was an idiot to think that Return of the Jedi was the best Star Wars movie and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was better than Raiders of the Lost Ark. But that had been in high school. These days, Crowley could say Attack of the Clones was better than Citizen Kane and Bigelow would have to nod thoughtfully and say, "Yeah. That lightsaber duel with Count Dooku was sweet."

And even that simple, if irritating, act of yes-man boot-licking seemed to be beyond Bigelow just now. As Crowley droned on and on about how many "reps" he'd managed in the gym that morning, Bigelow's mind wandered the hallways of the Now! office, stopping at the desks of his seven suspects. Five of them would be easy to deal with. They were designers and editors, mere bugs to be squashed beneath his managerial boot heel. But what if his Secret Santa was Peter Jarry, the comptroller? Maybe Jarry had noticed the charges for pay-per-view porn and room-service filet mignon that always piled up on Bigelow's bill when he went on company trips. Maybe he even knew those company trips were completely bogus, as Bigelow only insisted on doing personal press checks for Antiques Now!, which was printed at a plant 25 miles from Disney World.

Or perhaps it was Sandberg. He couldn't be as innocent as he appeared. His image was squeaky clean-never gossiped, worked hard, took care of his staff, blah blah blah, exactly the kind of goody two-shoes b.s. that reminded Bigelow what a fraud he himself truly was.

It had to be an act. Or maybe Sandberg had simply seen the writing on the wall, toughened up and launched a pre-emptive strike. He could be trying to throw Bigelow off, psych him out.

Well, if that was his plan, he…

"Bro, are you even listening to me?"

Bigelow blinked away the pleasing vision of Sandberg roasting over a barbecue pit.

"Of course," he said. "And I couldn't agree more."

What he'd agree with, he soon found out, was that Atlas Strong Shoulder Jars might indeed replace Ball Perfect Mason Jars as the most popular fruit jar collectibles in their class. Seemingly satisfied that Bigelow would back him up on this controversial assertion, Crowley plowed on. But Bigelow had the uncomfortable feeling that the publisher was watching him closely now, looking for signs that he wasn't paying attention. Bigelow overcompensated by laughing a little too uproariously at Crowley's strained pun on the phrase "Ball Perfect" and becoming a little too incensed when his boss described attempts to pass off irradiated selenium jars as amber.

Mercifully, Crowley eventually drifted off jars and onto business. That gave Bigelow the opportunity to insert not one, not two, but three separate digs at Sandberg into the conversation before Crowley finally arose-nearly two hours after he sat down-and went off to his own office to look over dummy covers and sign checks.

Bigelow felt drained by the meeting, but he had no choice. With Crowley hanging around the rest of the day, he actually had to stay in his office and at least keep up the appearance of diligence. He made half-hearted progress on his in-box (which was more progress than he usually made), all the while trying to figure out how to strip Santa of his secret.

In the end, he could only come up with one solution. He'd always hated logic puzzles and guessing games. No one was going to tell him, and he didn't want to ask. He didn't have a spycam or a fingerprinting kit. He didn't know how to rig a grenade with a trip-wire and he wasn't sure where to get a grenade or a trip-wire even if he did.

He would have to rely on simple snooping. And with nearly everyone working extra late to hit their deadlines, that wouldn't be an option today.

So Bigelow somehow stuck it out to five o'clock, and then he went home. He took Bantha for her pre-bedtime walk at 8:30, when he was usually popping in his second DVD of the evening. He was under the covers by 9.

But though he fell asleep quickly, that horrible Ho! Ho! Ho! haunted his dreams, as did a giant bottle of Scope that lumbered after him like Frankenstein's monster, chasing him through one Starbucks after another.

When the alarm went off at 5 a.m., he felt like he hadn't slept at all.

Thursday, December 18

It was a new experience for Bigelow-being the first one at work. He didn't like it. The office was quiet and dark, not the bright, bustling place where people other than himself were always hustling to and fro accomplishing things. The stillness was something he couldn't quite accept, and he moved through the hallways half-expecting someone to pop out of the shadows and shout, "Bigelow! What the hell are you doing here?"

But he managed a smile when he stepped into his office. There was no gift on his desk. He was the one Ho! Ho! Ho!-ing now. Whoever his Secret Santa was, he'd beat him in that morning. And now Santa was about to see who had the real claws.

Jarry's office was the closest, so Bigelow started there. It took him 10 minutes to go through every desk drawer and filing cabinet. He found nothing more incriminating than a shot glass and a bottle of Jim Beam. They wouldn't help him solve his mystery, but they were illuminating discoveries nonetheless. Bigelow began to wonder why he'd never done this before.

Chris McCoy, the editor of DVD Now!, was next. His cubicle posed more of a challenge, as it was overflowing with proofs and plastic sleeves stuffed with slides. Bigelow was careful not to get anything out of order, for though McCoy's work area looked like utter chaos, his magazine never missed a deadline, and Bigelow had to assume there was some kind of system involved even if it escaped his powers of detection.

He found a stash of snacks in one drawer, and he reached in and pulled out a variety pack of Quaker Oats granola bars. He'd been so anxious to get to the office, he hadn't stopped off for coffee and doughnuts that morning, and all this sneaking around was making him hungry. He sorted through the granola bars until he found what he was looking for-a S'mores bar. He took one and then, after a moment's reflection, a Chocolate Chip and a Cookies'n'Cream for later. Then he started to put the box back.

He stopped, suddenly gripping the box so hard one corner caved in. In the drawer was a small, folded slip of white paper that had been buried underneath the granola bars. It looked just like the one he'd pulled out of Marcy's Santa hat the week before. Bigelow picked it up and unfolded it. Written on it were two words.

"JOYCE STARR."

Bigelow grinned. He was down to six suspects now. And he knew exactly which one he wanted to focus on next. He put the slip of paper and the granola bars back in place, then he headed to the office of Alex Sandberg.

Which was locked. It was such a shock to Bigelow he stood there jiggling the door handle for half a minute before he finally accepted the infuriating fact of it. He stood there a while longer, staring through the glass at Sandberg's desk like a Victorian waif pressing his soot-covered nose against a pastry shop window.

What kind of paranoid jerk locks his office door? What did Sandberg have to be worried about? What did he have to hide?

Bigelow gave the door a kick before moving on to the cubicle of DVD Now!'s art director, Tom or Tim Somebody. Bigelow barely knew the guy, usually thinking of him only as "the designer with the pierced nose"… when he thought of him at all. He couldn't imagine Tom or Tim hating him as much as his Secret Santa obviously did, and he stopped his snooping mid-drawer to return to Sandberg's office and squander a few more seconds struggling with the door-handle. When he went back to Tom/Tim's desk, he resumed his searching without enthusiasm, certain now that the answers he sought were on the other side of that locked door.

Pierced Nose Guy's cube yielded nothing of use, though Bigelow had been reminded of his name, having seen it on a credit card bill he'd come across: Todd Hubble. He also discovered that Todd owed MasterCard $539.32, and that $142 of it was going to "The Hottie Hook-Up Hotline." That discovery should've brought Bigelow some kind of twisted chuckle, but it didn't. He couldn't stop thinking about what he might find in Sandberg's desk, and everything else now seemed like a waste of time.

He was able to eliminate another suspect when he moved on to the next cubicle, this one belonging to DVD Now!'s associate editor, whom Bigelow knew as Curt the Kid with Freckles. Tucked away behind a stack of reference books was a bar of pink soap-on-a-rope shaped like a Teletubby. A red ribbon had been taped to the package.

It was a lame gift, but not an evil one. And there was no HO! HO! HO! wrapping paper in sight.

So Freckled Curt was off the hook, and there were still two more cubes to go. Bigelow began putting the soap and books back in place.

"Yo, Curt!" a voice called out. "You made it in pretty… oh."

Bigelow spun around to find Chris McCoy standing behind him, a look of embarrassed shock on his face.

"I came in early and I wanted to take a look at the proof of your masthead but I couldn't find it so I went looking for it but I still don't know where it is so maybe you'll go get it for me because there's just one little thing I need to check," Bigelow said, the syllables coming out so fast and choked-throat-guttural they almost sounded like one impossibly long German word.

Bigelow watched McCoy's gaze move from his face to the mess on Freckle Boy's desk to the granola bars bulging out of his pocket and finally to something just below his mouth. Bigelow reached up and felt a smudge of half-melted S'more chocolate on his lower lip.

"Sure," McCoy said, using the slow, soothing tone most people reserve for speaking to over-excitable children and the criminally insane. He began backing away. "I'll be right back."

By the time McCoy returned with the proof, Bigelow had finished cleaning up Curt's cube (and his own chin) and had scurried back to his office. Bigelow had time to affix a look of bland, businesslike calm on his face, yet McCoy still seemed unnerved. He came at Bigelow with his arm stretched out and the proof page extended before him like a sword. When Bigelow took hold of the heavy paper, McCoy stutter-stepped away quickly, not turning his back.

"Let me know if you need anything else!" McCoy said as he moonwalked out the door.

Bigelow knew what was coming next. Other staffers would begin drifting in, both alone and in carpool bunches, and McCoy would greet them all the same way: "Guess who I caught going through our stuff this morning!"

Bigelow had been staring at them all with suspicion the last few days. Now they'd be staring at him the same way. He didn't think he could face it.

And then he realized he didn't have to. He had an office with a door, not an open-air cubicle. He could stay right here at his desk all day. And instead of going out to hunt for his Secret Santa, he could just sit and wait for the S.O.B. to come to him.

Like Sandberg's office, his had a glass wall running along the hallway. It had vertical blinds that hung from ceiling to floor, and Bigelow got up and closed them. Then he went back to his desk, sat facing the doorway and began to wait. Sooner or later, he hoped, he'd see a face peeking around the door or someone casually moseying past his office with an innocent-looking bag in his hand. That would be Santa, scouting for an opportunity to drop off his latest slap in the face. And Bigelow would have him. All he had to do was wait and watch.

He lasted 51 minutes. The only cube he could see from his desk was Marcy's, and she arrived half an hour after he began his vigil. She gave him a wave when she first showed up, then shot increasingly quizzical glances his way as he continued staring in her direction.

"Do you need something, Erik?" she called out to him.

"No!" he shouted back. "I'm fine!"

A couple minutes later, she turned to look at him again. "Are you sure you don't need something?"

"I'm fine!"

He wasn't fine. His bladder had been tormenting him for nearly 40 minutes. He'd toyed with the idea of moving his garbage can under his desk and attempting a clandestine potty break, but the risks were too great. Finally, he had to jump up and make a dash for the men's room, every step sending searing spasms across his groin.

When he got back to his desk, there was a package sitting on it.

"HO! HO! HO!" it said.

Bigelow rushed up the hallway and around the corner. The door to Sandberg's office was open, and the light inside was on.

Bigelow cursed, and a few heads popped up over cubicle walls to goggle at him. He turned, hurried back to his office and slammed the door shut behind him.

In seconds, the wrapping paper was shredded and the box ripped open to reveal a bottle of Oxy 10, a tube of Clearasil and a booklet touting the benefits of membership in the Hair Club for Men. Bigelow howled and sent the box and its contents flying across the room to crash into the glass wall.

He should've toughed it out. Or at least locked the door behind him so Santa couldn't get in and…

Wait. Yes. His door had a lock. Just like Sandberg's.

A new plan took shape in Bigelow's mind. He headed out to Marcy's cube.

"You know what?" he said. "There is something I need. I lost the key to my office the other day and I have to go make a copy. Could you loan me the masters?"

"Sure," Marcy said. She reached into her purse and pulled out a key ring with five keys on it. "Here you go. I'm not sure which one's for your door."

"Don't worry," Bigelow said, smiling. "I'll figure it out."

He was so eager to set his plan into motion, he didn't even bother going back to his office to grab his hat and coat before dashing for the elevator. An hour later he was back from the locksmith's shop, feeling chilled but brilliant. When he gave the keys back to Marcy, he had copies of all five tucked away in his pocket.

Waiting to try them out proved to be almost as painful as resisting the urge to pee had earlier. His patience frayed further with each passing hour, and he found it more and more difficult to keep up the pretense that he was working. Crowley was around again, so he had to try. But Bigelow spent most of his day just sitting at his desk watching the clock tick off a countdown to revenge. When Crowley stopped in to blather about steroids and the Federation of Historical Jar Collectors, Bigelow couldn't even work up the energy to look interested, and the excuses he found to throw jabs at Sandberg lacked their usual slick subtlety.

He watched the time crawl by with agonizing slowness until 5 o'clock. Then he went home and watched it crawl even slower until 9. Then he went back.

He looked for lights or signs of movement before going into the building. The third floor-Now!'s floor-was dark. Both DVD Now! and Antiques Now! had been close to wrapping up a day early. It looked like they'd made it. If they hadn't, a few designers and editors would still be up there racing toward the finish line.

Well, hooray for you, McCoy, Bigelow thought. Hooray for you, Starr. Hooray for you, Sandberg.

You bastard.

It didn't take him long to find it once he got up to the office. Sandberg, thinking his treachery safe behind a locked door, hadn't even bothered to hide it.

Sitting under Sandberg's desk was a cardboard box. In it were scissors, Scotch tape and a roll of HO! HO! HO! wrapping paper.

And a bar of Irish Spring soap.

And a stick of extra-strength Right Guard deodorant.

And a catalog of Russian mail-order brides.

A shudder of rage passed over Bigelow, but it faded quickly. Justice was at hand. Vengeance was his.

He'd brought a box with him from home. It wasn't large, having originally contained a small bust of Jean-Luc Picard that was now hanging from Bigelow's Christmas tree. But it was heavy.

He wrapped it with the HO!-covered paper and left it on Sandberg's chair with a note taped to the top.

"For Alex," the note read, "from your Secret Santa."

Bigelow locked Sandberg's office again on his way out. Then he went home and got the first decent night's sleep he'd had in days.

Friday, December 19

There was no gift waiting on Bigelow's desk when he moseyed in at 9:30 the next morning. At first that puzzled him, but then he understood.

Sandberg knew he'd been busted. Why bother with the final insults if Bigelow had already seen them the night before?

It had been a war of nerve and intellect, and Bigelow had won. Sandberg had conceded.

Or maybe not, Bigelow thought a moment later. Maybe Sandberg was out right now dredging up some fresh mud to hurl his way. Maybe the gift Bigelow had left had inspired him to cook up something truly demented-or even dangerous.

Bigelow felt a twinge of the old anxiety, a tightening of the knot in his stomach. He stood and stalked up the hallway past Sandberg's office.

Sandberg was in, of course. Mr. Dependable.

But there was no sign of the package Bigelow had left for him twelve hours earlier. He walked past the office again just to be sure. And then again two more times, in case Sandberg wanted to say something to him-preferably something that would bring things to a definitive conclusion, like "Curse you and your wily ways, Bigelow! That's the last time I tangle with the likes of you!"

Sandberg either didn't notice him or chose to ignore him. The same couldn't be said of the DVD Now! staff. Bigelow had been pacing back and forth in front of their cubicles without even realizing it, and now they were watching him bounce this way and that like the crowd following the ball at Wimbledon.

"Is there something I can do for you, Erik?" McCoy asked him.

"No, I'm just… you know."

Bigelow began beating a retreat up the hall. Freckled Curt said something as he left. Bigelow couldn't quite make out what it was, though he was certain he heard the phrase "granola bars." And laughter.

He closed the door when he got back to his office, and the door stayed closed for the next two hours. Bigelow spent that time frozen at his desk imagining the million humiliating ways Sandberg could one-up him. He was fixating on the nasty things Sandberg could do to the Hot Pockets he sometimes kept in the refrigerator in the staff lunchroom when there was a knock on his door.

"Who is it?" Bigelow screeched. He hardly recognized his own voice, it was pitched so high.

The door opened and Marcy leaned in. Marcy leaning into a room was one of Bigelow's favorite sights, especially if she happened to be wearing a loose-fitting blouse. Today she had on a bulky turtleneck sweater with Santa's face crocheted across the front, but Bigelow was so agitated the obstructed view didn't even bother him.

"Why aren't you down in the conference room?" Marcy asked.

"Why should I be in the conference room?"

"Didn't you read the memo?"

"What memo?"

Marcy rolled her large, brown eyes. "The memo that said we're having the Christmas party today instead of Monday if DVD Now! and Antiques Now! get done early."

"Oh. The staff party." Thoughts of cardboard cookies, alcohol-free "punch" and awkward small-talk with the little people danced in Bigelow's head. "Well, I don't think I can-"

"Crowley's there."

"-be there for more than a minute or two with everything I've got going on but of course I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Good. See ya' there."

Bigelow felt the sudden urge to burst into Peter Jarry's office and demand a shot of Jim Beam. He settled for a few fistfuls of freebie fancy nuts instead. He hoped the weight of the cashews and almonds would settle his stomach, help him feel less like a Macy's parade float on a particularly windy Thanksgiving morning. It didn't work, though, and he set off for the conference room feeling queasy and over-salted.

Did he imagine that a hush fell over the room when he entered? Was it just paranoia that told him everyone was watching him as he walked to the snack table and loaded a plate with cookies and Hershey's Kisses? Bigelow wasn't sure. But when he took a bite of a star-shaped cookie, the crunch seemed to echo through the room like thunder. The silence that followed was so profound he was almost afraid to chew.

He'd spotted Crowley and Jarry huddled together in a corner, and he was heading for that oasis of management-level camaraderie when Marcy walked to the center of the room with two large shopping bags.

"Well," she said, "now that everyone's here, we may as well let the fun and games begin. So… we're all just dying to find out who our Secret Santas are, right?"

There was a smattering of applause and one half-hearted "woo-woo," but Bigelow could barely hear it over the high-revving thump-thump of his heart.

"Great," Marcy said. "Because today's the day all is revealed. I took the liberty of collecting the last Secret Santa gifts this morning." She raised up the bags in her hand, then set them on the floor. "I'll just pick one out at random, and we'll see who it's for."

Bigelow's blood pressure shot so high he felt like his head would explode like those screaming bastards he'd just seen in the Scanners Anniversary Edition DVD.

Marcy pulled out the box he'd left on Sandberg's desk the night before.

This can't be happening, Bigelow thought. This can't be happening!

By the time he'd accepted that it was happening, right in front of him, Marcy was reading the note attached to the box out loud-"For Alex, from your Secret Santa"-and walking the present to the other side of the room, where Sandberg had been chatting with McCoy and Starr.

"Wait," Bigelow tried to say, but his mouth was still full of cookie, and all that came out was a spray of moist crumbs.

He started to move toward Sandberg, but it was too late. By the time he got there, Marcy, McCoy and Starr were all staring in horror at the open box in Sandberg's hands.

"'This is what people get when they mess with me,'" Sandberg said, reading out the note taped to the inside lid of the box. "'Erik Bigelow.'"

Other staff members crowded around, all of them quickly backing off with a loud "Ewwwww!" when they saw what Bigelow had stuffed into the package. The "Ewwww!"-ing grew even louder when the stench began to waft into the room.

Bantha was a very large dog, and the contents of the box were still reasonably fresh.

"That is sick, Bigelow," Starr said.

"What is it?" Crowley asked.

Starr told him in a single, blunt word. It hit Crowley like a slap, and his muscular neck tensed up tight.

"What is wrong with you, man?" he snapped at Bigelow.

"Wait," Bigelow said. "You don't understand. Look at this."

He ran to the shopping bags in the middle of the room and began pulling out presents, tossing the ones he didn't want over his shoulder. Some of the boxes made hard, ugly, shattering sounds when they landed, and voices were calling for Bigelow to stop, but he knew he had to act fast. He found what he was looking for at the very bottom of one of the bags.

"You think that was bad?" Bigelow grabbed the package with the HO! HO! HO! wrapping paper and held it aloft. "Well, look at this!"

He tore off the wrapping and clawed open the box underneath.

A Snickers bar fell out.

And a bag of Peanut M &Ms.

And a ten dollar Red Lobster gift card.

"What?" Bigelow screamed. "What is this crap?"

"Well, Erik…," replied a quiet, trembly female voice.

Bigelow turned to find a teary-eyed, frightened-looking Marcy huddling behind Sandberg.

"You're always forgetting your lunch," she said.

And at last Bigelow knew who his Secret Santa really was. It was the person who could monitor his comings and goings better than anyone because her cubicle was right outside his office. The person who'd watched as his insecurities had pushed him to destroy anyone he thought could be a rival. The person who sat near his door and heard him tell Crowley what a waste Sandberg was. The person who'd heard him say the same things about everyone else he'd managed to get fired. The person who knew he stole people's mail, because she was the one who brought it to his desk. The person who already had her own key to Sandberg's office. The person who knew his neuroses well enough to find a way to exploit them. The person who had walked into his office with a hatful of paper slips that all had the same name written on them.

The person who had set him up.

He saw the hint of a smile behind the mask of fear she was wearing now, and he knew everything. But it was all too much to explain, so he didn't try. Instead, he just howled like an angry monkey and lunged at Marcy.

He knew he wouldn't make it, and he didn't. Sandberg and Starr and McCoy stopped him. He flailed at them, spitting obscenities, until Crowley stepped up and ended the fight with one powerful punch from his little child-like fist.

Words and phrases floated in and out of Bigelow's consciousness as he lay there amidst the gifts he'd scattered across the floor. "911." "Police." "Weird." "Klepto." "Grudge." "Obsession." "Sandberg." "Granola bars."

There were other things he didn't hear, things no one was saying, though they bounced around inside his skull nonetheless. "Freak." "Fired." "Wal-Mart." And the sound of Marcy's voice as she looked up into Sandberg's eyes later that day, after Bigelow had been carted away.

"Merry Christmas, boss," she would say.