Holiday Grind Read Online Free PDF Page B

stretch, and the few commercial businesses I’d passed were shuttered. Uneasy on this desolate street, I was about to throw in the towel and abandon my search when I spied a familiar sight a little farther up the block: Alf’s bright green Traveling Santa sleigh!
    For a moment, I was elated. Then I saw that the green sleigh was parked alone on the sidewalk, its red wheels propped against the curb, white powder piling up on its surface.
    Okay, this makes no sense.
    Under the weak glow of a streetlamp, I could see that the cash box was still on Alf’s little cart. The box was really a round plastic container about the size of a large soup pot. The top of the container was molded to look like a pile of presents, and it slid into a much larger plastic case on the sleigh that was shaped to look like Santa’s big red bag. Pedestrians threw their cash donations through a small hole at the top of the cash “present” box. Because it was removable from the sleigh by a hidden handle, Alf always brought the plastic cash box into the Blend with him. He never let it out of his sight. So there was no way he’d leave it unguarded on the street like this.
    Alarmed now, I approached Alf’s sleigh along the slippery sidewalk. The structures on this street were mostly brick, their ground-floor windows either curtained or shuttered, emitting little light. The sleigh had been left at the mouth of a narrow alley between two seven-story apartment buildings—twin century-old warehouses that had been gutted and remodeled into high-priced lofts.
    Reaching the sleigh, I finally saw that Alf’s plastic cash box was broken open, only a few coins left inside. More coins were on the ground, making little round sinkholes in the snow. There were footprints in the powder— two sets of prints. Both led away from the sleigh, into the alley. Only one set of footprints came out again. They continued down the sidewalk in the direction of the river.
    Those can’t be Alf’s footprints , I decided. Why would he head toward the river and leave his sleigh behind?
    I decided to follow the other tracks of footprints in the snow, the ones leading into the shadowy alley. I had to make sure Alf wasn’t lying at the end of those prints, hurt, bleeding, even unconscious.
    I couldn’t see much as I moved toward the narrow passage between the buildings, just a gunmetal gray garbage Dumpster. But as I moved farther in, I realized the alley eventually opened up into a snow-covered courtyard.
    “Alf?” I called. A wind gust suddenly howled, swallowing my voice. I called out again, stronger this time, but there was no reply, no movement.
    I dug into my pocket and pulled out my keychain flashlight. The beam was weak, but it was better than the dingy dark. I stepped forward, paralleling the two sets of snow prints that led into the alley. Both sets of tracks were larger than my own small boots, and I took care not to disturb either one.
    As my flashlight beam glanced along the white surface, a flash of cheery red color suddenly made me stop. I pulled the light back and saw the Santa hat.
    “Hello!” I shouted, more urgently than before. “Alf! Are you here?”
    Again no one answered.
    I stooped to pick up the hat, and that’s when I saw the shiny black boots. They were sticking out from behind the gray Dumpster.
    For a moment, I stood still as a gravestone, staring at Alf’s boots, vaguely aware of St. Luke’s bells ringing the hour. The church wasn’t far—not physically—but in that frozen flicker of time those clear, innocent, beautifully pure peals sounded as if they were coming from another world.
    A second later I was down, kneeling over my red-suited friend sprawled in the snow. “Alf, can you hear me? Alf!”
    He couldn’t. Choking back a scream, I realized Alfred Glockner was dead.

FOUR

    IN the frigid air, my breath was still forming little pearl-colored clouds. No steam was coming from Alf’s lips or nose because there was no surviving the