A Christmas Tail

Charles J. Greaves |

12/22/2007 - 12/23/07

First Place, adult stories

Every once in a while our six contest judges unanimously agree on a winning selection — and Charles Greave's well-spun tale is one of those. His pitch-perfect parody of the distinctly American hard-boiled detective genre melds seamslessly with the details of a specifcally Santa Fe Christmas — and the universal themes of peace and joy that underlie this most important of Christian holidays.

It was a dark and stormy night. I was nursing a black eye, an old grudge and my third Cuervo añejo as slatted light from the window blinds flashed across my desk to the low tympany of rolling thunder. I listened to the rain as the ceiling fan turned languid circles through the blue smoke rising from the ashtray. After a while I began to doze, until a knock on the door jolted me back to my senses.

"It's open!" I called, and before my brogans hit the floor the door swung wide and the backlit figure of a dame filled the doorway. And even in the dim glow of the hallway light, I could see that she filled it in all the right places.

She wore ostrich-skin boots and a cowboy hat, so I knew right away she was a tourist. Her hair was long and black, her eyes were Cerrillos turquoise, and her jeans were so tight I could read the room number on the hotel key in her pocket.

"Mr. Marlowe? My name is Joy."

"Come in, Miss ...?"

"Just Joy."

She crossed to the chair and sat. I fished another shot glass from the drawer and slid it across.

"Drink?"

"No, thank you," she replied. "I'm driving tonight."

Just as I thought. She wasn't from around here.

"Tell me, doll face, what brings a classy skirt like you out on a night like this? Shouldn't you be home wrapping presents or cooking tamales?"

She gave a little snort, the kind that said she thought wrapping and cooking were cities in China.

"I'm looking for a friend. A close and dear friend."

"Now hold on, sister. We only just met."

"No, you imbecile. I already have a friend, only he's missing. I want to hire you to find him."

She took a business card from the desk and slipped it into her breast pocket. It was a tight squeeze.

"So what's his name, this friend of yours?"

"His name is Peace, Mr. Marlowe."

I leaned back and let out a low whistle. I'd heard of this Peace, all right. He'd gone missing in around 2002. Somewhere in the Middle East, I thought. It had been in all the papers.

"And what makes you think you might find him in a town like Santa Fe?"

She stood and walked to the window. When she pinched the blinds I saw that the rain had turned to snow.

"I'd heard you were a cynic," she said.

"I'm a realist, sweetheart. There's a difference."

She watched the little lights twinkle in the Plaza, and it wasn't long until her breath had fogged the window. Or maybe it was mine.

"Call it a hunch, Mr. Marlowe," she finally said, turning to face me. "Or a woman's intuition. And maybe, before tonight is over, we'll both learn something new."


By the time I put shoe leather on pavement the moon was low over the Cathedral and the night air was colder than a stepmother's kiss. I flipped my collar and lit a smoke, then started eastward through the snow.

I'd warned Joy that finding a guy like Peace in a town like this wouldn't be easy, but she'd insisted he was out there somewhere. And for two hundred Semolians a day plus expenses, I was more than willing to look.

A crowd thronged the corner as I jaywalked Peralta and headed up Canyon. The galleries were closed at this hour but the street was lit like a wrong-way driver, thanks to thousands of little candles in brown-paper bags. You wouldn't expect to find a character like Peace in a mob scene like this, but Joy had insisted I check here first.

My first lead came by a little bonfire at the corner of Garcia Street. There was a girl playing "Silent Night" on a fiddle, and a dozen or so people had stopped to listen. It was an odd mix of Las Campanas swells and saggy-pants homeboys, the cashmere coats rubbing elbows with the torn denim jackets. After a while the crowd began to sing along, tentatively at first, but the next thing you knew they'd all locked arms and were swaying back and forth with the music.

And it was there, in the crush of passing bodies and the amber glow of farolitos, that I caught my first real glimpse of Mr. P.

I tailed him then, through the piñon smoke and laughter, past the snowmen and the luminarias to a gathering of rosy-cheeked carolers on Monte del Sol, where I stopped to stamp my feet and light another smoke.

In the flare of the match I saw him heading down Acequia Madre, where tortillas were flying, children were laughing and volunteers poured hot Joe for the strollers. From there I followed him all the way back to Canyon, where a horn section oom-pahed its way through "Deck the Halls." And everywhere I went, it seemed, there were laughter and hugs, snowballs and smiles, music and candles, cheerful songs and solemn prayers. And then, somehow, I lost him.

But that's when I saw her.

She was silhouetted against a bonfire, an ostrich boot propped on the edge of the curbstone. She was singing, and when I called to her she turned, her eyes glinting clear and blue in the light of the fire. She started to speak and then, suddenly, she screamed.

I'd been hit harder before, and by bigger men, but this one had a sap and he knew how to use it. The next stars I saw were inside my head, swirling faster and faster in a bottomless vortex. And after that, everything was just night.


It was light when I awoke. Christmas morning. There was rain on the window and a business card stuck to my face as I sat upright and stared numbly at the ceiling fan. My head rang like a church bell, and the tequila bottle lay on its side, empty.

"Feliz Navidad," I said. It didn't answer.

The snow outside had melted somehow, but the rhythmic tattoo of the wipers helped to quiet my throbbing head. I parked the Packard and grabbed the mail, then hip-checked the front gate as I fumbled for my house keys. But as I hung my fedora on the coatrack, the sound of a crackling fire froze me in my tracks.

"Who's there?"

There was no reply. I jerked the .38 from its holster and pressed myself flat against the wall. Then I spun from the hallway into the living room and tripped over something on the floor.

Boots. Ostrich boots.

"Hello, Mr. Marlowe. How's your head?"

She sipped from a mug and watched me through the steam, the firelight still dancing in her eyes.

"Hiya, doll face. I thought you'd have left by now. You and your friend."

She studied the inside of the mug.

"We thought we might stick around for a while. It's a nice little town, Santa Fe. Who knows, maybe we'll make a home here. A permanent home."

"That would be nice," I told her.

She sipped again and nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "That would be nice."