Silent Night

3

Jimmy Siddons cursed silently as he walked through the oval near Avenue B in the Stuyvesant Town apartment complex. The uniform he had stripped from the prison guard gave him a respectable look but was much too dangerous to wear on the street. He’d managed to lift a filthy overcoat and knit cap from a homeless guy’s shopping cart. They helped some, but he had to find something else to wear, something decent.

He also needed a car. He needed one that wouldn’t be missed until morning, something parked for the night, the kind of car that one of these middle-class Stuyvesant Town residents would own: medium-sized, brown or black, looking like every other Honda or Toyota or Ford on the road. Nothing fancy.

So far he hadn’t seen the right one. He had watched as some old geezer got out of a Honda and said to his passenger, “Sure’s good to get home,” but he was driving one of those shiny red jobs that screamed for attention.

A kid pulled up in an old heap and parked, but from the sound of the engine, Jimmy wanted no part of it. Just what he’d need, he thought; get on the Thruway and have it break down.

He was cold and getting hungry. Ten hours in the car, he told himself. Then I’ll be in Canada and Paige will meet me there and we’ll disappear again. She was the first real girlfriend he’d ever had, and she’d been a big help to him in Detroit. He knew he never would have been caught last summer if he had cased that gas station in Michigan better. He should have known enough to check the john outside the office instead of letting himself be surprised by an off-duty cop who stepped out of it while he was holding a gun on the attendant.

The next day he was on his way back to New York. To face trial for killing a cop.

An older couple passed him and threw a smile in his direction. “Merry Christmas.”

Jimmy responded with a courteous nod of the head. Then he paid close attention as he heard the woman say, “Ed, I can’t believe you didn’t put the presents for the children in the trunk. Who leaves anything in sight in a car overnight in this day and age?”

Jimmy went around the corner and then stepped into the deep shadows on the grass as he returned to watch the couple stop in front of a dark-colored Toyota. The man opened the door. From the backseat he took a small rocking horse and handed it to the woman, then scooped up a half-dozen brightly wrapped packages. With her help he transferred everything to the trunk, relocked the car, and got back on the sidewalk.

Jimmy listened as the woman said, “I guess the phone’s all right in the glove compartment,” and her husband answered, “Sure it is. Waste of money, as far as I’m concerned. Can’t wait to see Bobby’s face tomorrow when he opens everything.”

He watched as they turned the corner and disappeared. Which meant from their apartment they wouldn’t be able to glance out and notice an empty parking space.

Jimmy waited ten minutes before he walked to the car. A few snowflakes swirled around him. Two minutes later he was driving out of the complex. It was quarter after five. He was headed to Cally’s apartment on Tenth and B. He knew she’d be surprised to see him. And none too happy. She probably thought he couldn’t find her. Why did she suppose that he didn’t have a way to keep track of her even from Riker’s Island? he wondered.

Big sister, he thought, as he drove onto Fourteenth Street, you promised Grandma you’d take care of me! “Jimmy needs guidance,” Grandma had said. “He’s in with a bad crowd. He’s too easily led.” Well, Cally hadn’t come to see him once in Riker’s. Not once. He hadn’t even heard from her.

He’d have to be careful. He was sure the cops would be watching for him around Cally’s building. But he had that figured out, too. He used to hang around this neighborhood and knew how to get across the roofs from the other end of the block and into the building. A couple of times he’d even pulled a job there when he was a kid.

Knowing Cally, he was sure she still kept some of Frank’s clothes in the closet. She’d been crazy about him, probably still had pictures of him all over the place. You’d never think he’d died even before Gigi was born.

And knowing Cally, she’d have at least a few bucks to get her little brother through the tolls, he figured. He’d find a way to convince her to keep her mouth shut until he was safely in Canada with Paige.

Paige. An image of her floated through his mind. Luscious. Blond. Only twenty-two. Crazy about him. She’d arranged everything, gotten the gun smuggled in to him. She’d never let him down or turn her back on him.

Jimmy’s smile was unpleasant. You never tried to help me while I was rotting in Riker’s Island, he thought-but once again, sister dear, you’re going to help me get away, like it or not.

He parked the car a block from the rear of Cally’s building and pretended to be checking a tire as he looked around. No cops in sight. Even if they were watching Cally’s place, they probably didn’t know you could get to it through the boarded-up dump. As he straightened up he cursed. Damn bumper sticker. Too noticeable. WE’RE SPENDING OUR GRANDCHILDREN’S INHERITANCE. He managed to pull most of it off.

Fifteen minutes later, Jimmy had picked the flimsy lock of Cally’s apartment and was inside. Some dump, he thought, as he took in the cracks in the ceiling and the worn linoleum in the tiny entranceway. But neat. Cally was always neat. A Christmas tree in the corner of what passed for a living room had a couple of small, brightly wrapped packages under it.

Jimmy shrugged and went into the bedroom, where he ransacked the closet to find the clothes he knew would be there. After changing, he went through the place looking for money but found none. He yanked open the doors that separated the stove, refrigerator, and sink from the living room, searched unsuccessfully for a beer, settled for a Pepsi, and made himself a sandwich.

From what his sources had told him, Cally should be home by now from her job in the hospital. He knew that on the way she picked up Gigi from the baby-sitter. He sat on the couch, his eyes riveted on the front door, his nerves jangling. He’d spent most of the few dollars he found in the guard’s pockets on food from street vendors. He had to have money for the tolls on the Thruway, as well as enough for another tank of gas. Come on, Cally, he thought, where the hell are you?

At ten to six, he heard the key inserted in the lock. He jumped up and in three long strides was in the entryway, flattened against the wall. He waited until Cally stepped in and closed the door behind her, then put his hand over her mouth.

“Don’t scream!” he whispered, as he muffled her terrified moan with his palm. “Understand?”

She nodded, eyes wide open in fear.

“Where’s Gigi? Why isn’t she with you?”

He released his grip long enough to let her gasp in an almost inaudible voice, “She’s at the baby-sitter’s. She’s keeping her longer today, so I can shop. Jimmy, what are you doing here?”

“How much money have you got?”

“Here, take my pocketbook.” Cally held it out to him, praying that he would not think to look through her coat pockets. Oh God, she thought, make him go away.

He took the purse and in a low and menacing tone warned, “Cally, I’m going to let go of you. Don’t try anything or Gigi won’t have a mommy waiting for her. Understand that?”

“Yes. Yes.”

Cally waited until he released his grip on her, then slowly turned to face him. She hadn’t seen her brother since that terrible night nearly three years ago when, with Gigi in her arms, she had come home from her job at the day-care center to find him waiting in her apartment in the West Village.

He looks about the same, she thought, except that his hair is shorter and his face is thinner. In his eyes there wasn’t even a trace of the occasional warmth that at one time made her hope there was a possibility he might someday straighten out. No more. There was nothing left of the frightened six-year-old who had clung to her when their mother dumped them with Grandma and disappeared from their lives.

He opened her purse, rummaged through it, and pulled out her bright green combination change purse and billfold. “Eighteen dollars,” he said angrily after a quick count of her money. “Is that all?”

“Jimmy, I get paid the day after tomorrow,” Cally pleaded. “Please just take it and get out of here. Please leave me alone.”

There’s half a tank of gas in the car, Jimmy thought. There’s money here for another half tank and the tolls. I might just be able to make Canada. He’d have to shut Cally up, of course, which should be easy enough. He would just warn her that if she put the cops onto him and he got caught, he’d swear that she got someone to smuggle the gun in to him that he’d used on the guard.

Suddenly a sound from outside made him whirl around. He put his eye to the peephole in the door but could see no one there. With a menacing gesture to Cally, indicating that she had better keep quiet, he noiselessly turned the knob and opened the door a fraction, just in time to see a small boy straighten up, turn, and start to tiptoe to the staircase.

In one quick movement, Jimmy flung open the door and scooped up the child, one arm around his waist, the other covering his mouth, and pulled him inside, then roughly set him down.

“Eavesdropping, kid? Who is this, Cally?”

“Jimmy, leave him alone. I don’t know who he is,” she cried. “I’ve never seen him before.”

Brian was so scared he could hardly talk. But he could tell the man and woman were mad at each other. Maybe the man would help him get his mother’s wallet back, he thought. He pointed to Cally. “She has my mom’s wallet.”

Jimmy released Brian. “Well, now that’s good news,” he said with a grin, turning to his sister. “Isn’t it?”