Double Deck the Halls Page 4

  I said, “Bianca, I have an idea.”

  She looked hard at my EZ Mini in my hand. Then she hummed, low and slow, “You better watch out.”

  I had to get my pineapple coin purse first, because my Fixodent was mostly under it.

  I was good with my EZ Mini because I used it a lot. I was forever dropping something or another—a dish towel, the lid of my Pond’s Cold Cream, my Jitterbug—and instead of going all the way to the floor for whatever I dropped, I used my EZ Mini to bring it back to me.

  I clicked it open, Bianca watching me sideways the whole time.

  It wasn’t thirty seconds before I had my pineapple coin purse back in the chair.

  And I know it wasn’t thirty seconds because I could see the bomb numbers in a big way with my lighted magnifiers.

  Next, I pinched my Fixodent and brought it back.

  I laid down my EZ Mini across my lap.

  What I couldn’t figure out was how to get the Fixodent on the dots.

  It’s not like my EZ Mini would squeeze the tube for me.

  It was good, but it wasn’t that good.

  I’d been still too long, thinking, and I heard Bianca breathing faster and faster beside me.

  “What’s your favorite Christmas carol, Bianca?” I asked her. “Think about when you were a little girl.”

  I’d never thought about Bianca as anything but a grown woman, but the truth was everyone, no matter who or what they grew up to be, was someone’s baby one time.

  “Close your eyes,” I told her. “Think about the first Christmas you remember, and sing me a Christmas song, Bianca. One that’s special to you.”

  I was trying to get into my coin purse to see what else might be in it when, from beside me, I heard the faint strains of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

  She hummed it sad and slow, like she was pining for home and family.

  I didn’t know where Bianca’s home was. Not here, for sure. She didn’t have a Southern way about her. And other than her husband, who traveled a lot, and her baby boy, and an older boy I’d only met once or twice, I didn’t know Bianca’s family. Or even if she had any more family than that.

  I had family. Lots of family. I loved them and they loved me.

  Here was Bianca, strapped to a bomb, in a house full of servants.

  No family.

  At Christmastime.

  Made me feel sorry for her.

  If I’d had time, I’d have felt sorry for myself right about then too.

  Bianca hummed the next line. I could count on her.

  It was beautiful.

  I emptied out my coin purse into my hand.

  Pennies.

  I had six.

  Bianca hummed about snow.

  I chimed in, singing, in the same high key, about mistletoe.

  She finished, with a little more pep in her step, about presents. ’Round the tree.

  Round. The pennies were round and the dots were round.

  I’d put the round pennies on the round dots.

  Good idea, Dee, I told myself.

  I’d use my Fixodent to make them stick.

  Real good idea, Dee.

  I stole a second to look at the clock.

  It was down to 24:13.

  I lined the pennies up on my knees, past my EZ Mini, and right off the bat, one slid off and bounced across the white carpet farther than my EZ Mini would go.

  That penny was gone.

  I didn’t have time to get up and get it.

  Beside me, her head resting on the chair and her eyes closed, Bianca hummed, Christmas Eve would find her.

  I unscrewed the lid on my Fixodent, put the lid down beside me, then reached for a penny. It slipped between my fingers and skipped down my leg into my white sneakers. My sneakers are Happy Feet Senior Walkabouts. They have extra support, Velcro fasteners, and they were no-skid. Now the right one had a penny in it.

  I stared at the four pennies I had left and sang out loud and strong about lovelights gleaming. Then I moved the pennies closer to me. More on my lap than on my knees.

  I couldn’t afford to lose another penny.

  I’d said that to myself in this building a few times before, but that was downstairs in the casino playing the slot machines.

  I had fun losing those pennies.

  These pennies might mean the difference between life and death.

  I heard Bianca take a deep breath, let it out slowly, then hum, “I’ll be home for Christmas—”

  On “I’ll,” I squeezed out a good drop of Fixodent on one of the four pennies. On “be”—I got another fat drop on another penny. On “home” I had three dots on three pennies. And on “for” I got the last drop on the last penny, just in time to hear, off-key and more caterwaul than singing, “GRANDMA GOT RUN OVER BY A REINDEER!”

  He was back.

  “What is that? What the hell are you doing, old woman?”

  He could see me.

  I got my Medicaid card off Rudolph’s nose in a hurry, and the elf didn’t like it a bit. “NO! Turn that light off!”

  I took a second to get my wits about me.

  It was hard to do twelve things at once.

  Twelve.

  I started singing. Loud. “On the first day of Christmas—”

  “Hey!” the elf hollered. “Shut up. Shut up and turn the light off.”

  “—my true love gave to me—”

  I went for my EZ Mini.

  “—A PARTRIGE IN A PEAR TREE.”

  As loud as I could.

  Between my loud singing and the elf’s louder curse words, I heard Bianca make a noise that sounded almost like a chuckle through the silk scarf. I took a second to look at the television to see the elf stomping, hollering, and pitching a hissy fit.

  “I don’t know what he’s so mad about,” I said to Bianca, just as I got a Fixodent penny in the grips of my EZ Mini. “We’re the ones with the bomb.”

  “STOP WHISPERING.”

  I slowed down long enough to tell that elf, “Kiss my butt.”

  “I CAN’T SEE YOUR OLD BUTT TO KISS IT! TURN OFF THAT LIGHT. AND SHUT THE HELL UP.”

  “On the second day of Christmas!”

  “SHUT UP.”

  I used both my hands, steady as I could, and eased the Mini over to the red dot the farthest from me.

  It’s always been my rule, do the hardest job first.

  I lined it up perfect, then let go of the button.

  I held my breath the whole time.

  The penny dropped crooked.

  But it stuck.

  Bianca, trying her best to watch me without moving, hummed, “Joy to the world!”

  Now we were down to three dots.

  I loaded up my Mini with another penny, the elf demanding to know where Davis was the whole time, then steady Eddie, I eased it over and went through the middle of the safe space, then down a half inch. I pushed the release button on my end and the penny laid across the red dot perfect.

  I was so nervous, I couldn’t sing, and when I brought my Mini back to my lap, I had to wait for my hands to stop shaking before I could load up another penny.

  Bianca laid her head back too.

  The elf, still squealing like a pig, said, “That’s it, you old fart. Now you’ve pissed me off.”

  Bianca’s leg jerked again and her head snapped up. I looked at the clock.

  When I got the second penny on the second dot, the clock said 22:02.

  Now it said 10:00.

  Then 9:59.

  Bianca hummed, “On the third day…” Then she hummed, “third day.” Then again, “third day.” Every time, she went up an octave.

  “I’m coming, Bianca. I’m coming.”

  The clock was down to 6:19 when I got
all the pennies on.

  The dots were gone.

  I just about collapsed in that big chair.

  Bianca started bucking ninety to nothing in hers.

  I got going again as fast as I could, almost everything in my lap spilling at my feet, and started for the white desk where I got my hands on the ivory-handled letter opener. I cut Bianca out of one of her hand ties, and as soon as she got loose, she reached up and ripped off the tie across her face. She fell into me and sobbed like it was the end of the world.

  I cradled her like one of my own.

  You don’t live as long as I have and not know how to comfort a soul in need.

  Bianca was a soul in need.

  And she still had a bomb on her that said 5:52.

  I consoled her for the fifty-two.

  Which left me five minutes to figure out how to get the bomb away from us or us away from the bomb.

  “Let’s get you up, Bianca.”

  I’m about as strong as a newborn kitten and even though Bianca only weighed about two feathers, still, it wasn’t easy. I pulled her out of the chair and up on wobbly legs. She fell into me, draping her arms around my neck. We almost wound up on the white floor.

  She lifted her head up, looked straight into my eyes, and screamed, “GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!”

  I pushed her back from me an inch, trying to see what we were dealing with.

  It looked like the wires didn’t have anything to do with the bomb. The wires were just what was holding the bomb on Bianca. And they were holding it good.

  “Raise your arms, Bianca!”

  That’s when I noticed her breasts.

  There was nothing getting past those breasts.

  I mean nothing.

  Those were some mighty breasts.

  “We’ve got to cut it off, Bianca. We have to cut those wires. Where’s something that cuts?”

  The whole time, she said one thing, about a hundred times and right in my ears. “GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!”

  She reared back and clawed at her middle; that bomb was on tight.

  The clock on the bomb said 4:22.

  Bianca was dancing a jig, tearing at the wires.

  And that’s when I heard my Davis.

  Bianca heard her too.

  Davis’s voice was coming from the little television on the desk. “Kelsey? Have you seen my grandmother?” Then a second later, real surprised, she said, “Bradley?”

  Next, we heard my handsome grandson-in-law, who was just as surprised to see her as she was to see him. “Davis?”

  She said, “Are you looking for Granny too?”

  Then he said, “I’m looking for Bianca. Security can’t reach her.”

  This whole time, Bianca and I were taking precious seconds we didn’t have, listening to them and looking at the small television. What we saw next was the very worst: Sugar and Sugar skittering across the playroom for Bianca’s little boy.

  Who was sitting on the elf’s lap.

  “Well, hello!” that nasty elf said.

  Bianca slumped in my arms.

  It took all I had to hold her up.

  We’d been too busy to notice that evil elf had gone into the room with Bianca’s baby, but there he was. Not only were we minutes from blowing up, now the elf had Davis, Bradley, and the babies.

  We had to get to them.

  We couldn’t get to anyone, because we still had a problem. A big problem. Strapped around Bianca’s waist.

  I untangled myself from her enough to push her back an inch. The clock was down to 3:57. “We need a knife, Bianca. Scissors. Wire cutters.” I had to get a little firm with her. I had to shake her shoulders a little bit.

  She tore her eyes away from the little television and stared into mine.

  Blank as a clean canvas.

  I’d seen that look before. She was shell-shocked. She could’ve had a dozen pairs of wire cutters in her bedroom and she wouldn’t have had enough wits about her to tell me where one pair was.

  Then I had a flashback. Just real quick. A sixty-year-old memory came to me like it was yesterday. I could see in my head, clear as day, Quinton coming home from work and finding me on the porch swing holding wire cutters, and the second I saw him, two big tears dropped out of my eyes and landed on my belly, swollen with our son. And that wasn’t all that was swollen. I hadn’t been able to get my wedding band off in a month, and now I couldn’t feel my finger. It was just a thin gold band, but it was the most precious thin gold band that ever was. I’d been on that porch since lunch trying to work up my nerve to cut it off. I showed Quinton. He took the wire cutters from me and said, “You wait right there, Dee.” He set his lunchbox down. The screen door slammed. It slammed again a minute later, and there was my husband standing in front of me with my bacon drippings tin from on top of the stove.

  He eased my ring off my finger with bacon grease.

  It just slid right off.

  I wore it on a chain around my neck until Samuel was born a week later.

  But I didn’t have any bacon grease. I doubted Bianca even had bacon.

  What I did have was my Gold Bond Healing hand cream.

  I could use my hand cream to grease up the wires holding the bomb on her and slide it down. That way I didn’t have to get past those mountains on her chest.

  The clock said 3:08.

  Behind me, from the little television, I heard my Davis say, “But the North Pole is at my house. Why in the world would Bianca want Davy’s picture taken in her bedroom?”

  Then I heard the rotten elf. “Not just her kid,” he said. “Yours too. She’s waiting.”

  The elf was shooing Davis and the babies in here with the bomb.

  When his words sank in, Bianca started up with the screaming again. “GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!”

  I got the top off my tube off my Gold Bond, was what I got off.

  “Be still, Bianca!” I had to yell so she could hear me over herself. I got a line all over the front of those wires. “Turn around!”

  She spun like a top.

  I hadn’t even dropped my empty Gold Bond tube before that bomb slipped. Then slid. It slowed down on her hips, then flew down her legs.

  I barely caught it.

  I wound up on my rear end.

  The clock said 2:12 when we heard my grandson-in-law say, “Wait just a minute.”

  He was talking to the elf. And he was talking to him like maybe he had that elf’s number. Then he said to Davis, “Take the children. Find your grandmother and check on Bianca.”

  That scared Bianca to death.

  She didn’t want Davis coming in here with the babies.

  And the bomb.

  Neither did I.

  Bianca grabbed that bomb out of my hands and just about jumped over the white desk to get to the French doors. She flung them open, ran like a jackrabbit, and threw the bomb in her swimming pool.

  She came flying back to me. “Get in the chair, Grandmother! Get in the chair!”

  She gave me a lift and a push into the big chair she’d been in for more than an hour, then she got in right beside me. I peeked around one side and she peeked around the other and we watched as the water shook, then every drop of it came out of that pool and rose higher than the roof, hung in the air like a huge wet toadstool, then splashed back down over every single thing.

  I don’t think we did anything at all after that but hold onto each other for dear life. Until I heard my Davis. “Granny? Bianca?”

  Me and Bianca untangled and looked around.

  Across the room, in the doorway, was my Davis. She was pushing Sugar and Sugar in a pram built for two with one hand and holding Bianca’s boy on her hip with her other. My handsome grandson-in-law was behind them.

  And he was holding that horrible elf up by his
collar.

  His pointy elf shoes were kicking in the wind.

  Bianca played in the Winter Wonderland Senior Slot Tournament with me.

  We won third place. Seven hundred and fifty dollars.

  She said for me to keep it.

  I told her I planned on saving half for the next year.

  She said she’d see me then.

  All told, I had a very holly jolly Christmas.

  About the Author

  Gretchen Archer is a Tennessee housewife who began writing when her daughters, seeking higher educations, ran off and left her. She lives on Lookout Mountain with her husband, son, and a Yorkie named Bently. Double Whammy, her first Davis Way Crime Caper, was a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist and hit the USA TODAY Bestsellers List. You can visit her at www.gretchenarcher.com.

  The Davis Way Crime Caper Series

  by Gretchen Archer

  Novels

  DOUBLE WHAMMY (#1)

  DOUBLE DIP (#2)

  DOUBLE STRIKE (#3)

  DOUBLE MINT (#4)

  DOUBLE KNOT (#5)

  DOUBLE UP (#6)

  Bellissimo Casino Crime Caper Short Stories

  DOUBLE JINX

  DOUBLE DECK THE HALLS

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