TWO
Stepping in through the revolving doors of one of Manhattan's many department stores Kate winced as though she'd been sprayed directly in the face with the perfume being peddled by bubbly blonde women in sleek black suits. Christmas décor on the streets was bad enough, but at least she could distract herself with the sounds of engines and honking horns and the dozens of people bumping into her as they passed by, but this? This felt like being assaulted.
As a general rule, Kate avoided department stores beginning in early November for this exact reason. She did not need to be assailed with Christmas trees, brightly colored packages, angels, candy canes, and certainly not anything related to Mr. Claus or his extended family. It was over the top and just too much to bear. Generally, it was easy to avoid those stores, for she doubted she entered them more than a handful of times during the remaining ten months of the year. Unfortunately, her job once again resulted in her breaking her seasonal rule.
With a sigh, Kate made her way passed the jewelry counters and tables stacked high with perfume and lotion sets pre-boxed and wrapped for holiday ease until she reached the escalator. According to dispatch, she was to ascend to the second floor, where a fistfight had broken out when two shoppers wanted the last available item. What kind of item it was, Kate did not know, but she also didn't care whether it was a Barbie doll or a gold bar; nothing justified a fight—in the middle of a high-end store, no less!
Kate did not have to search too far to find the perpetrators. The store manager had them both seated at opposite ends of a bench just outside the homewares section as though they were misbehaving toddlers. She estimated the one to be in his mid-thirties and the other around a decade older. The younger one had a split and bleeding lip, but the elder appeared undamaged.
After speaking to the manger, Kate found out that the fight had broken out over the last Kitchen Aid mixer offered at a deep discount. Initially, the manager wanted to press charges, which was why he'd called the police, but by the time she arrived he'd had a change of heart. To complete her assignment, Kate separately interviewed each of the men involved to make sure neither wished to press charges of their own; they did not and were then escorted from the store from which they had been banned for the remainder of the holiday season.
With the men out on the street going their separate ways, Kate returned to the second floor to get the manager to sign his statement and then collected her notebook and documents with the intention to leave. On her way back to the escalator, she passed the store's Santa meet-and-greet area, which now had a sign stating that the jolly man had returned to the North Pole for the night, but he would be back soon. Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, Kate continued on her way, only to bump in to the man in red as they both went for the escalator at the same time.
"Ahh, we meet again Officer Beckett."
Kate's brow furrowed. Santa knew her? But how? Gazing up at him, she wondered who could possibly be beneath the beard and red-hat when the ice-blue eyes she spotted struck a chord of recognition. No, she didn't know the man—not exactly—but she had met him a few days earlier during the purse snatching call in Central Park. "Santa? I mean, you're the same Santa from the park?"
"I am indeed. So what brings you here, Officer? Checking off some items on your Christmas list?"
"Ah, no…didn't you see the fight break out?"
Santa's eyes widened and he allowed her to step on the escalator before joining her on the step behind. "Fight? No!"
She almost smiled at his disappointment. "Well two men went at it over a discounted mixer—Merry Christmas," she said with notable sarcasm.
Santa stroked his beard and hummed. "Guess those two will be getting coal from me this year."
"Guess so."
When they reached the bottom of the escalator, they walked together towards the store exit. Kate was unsure of how far "Santa" would follow her, but it wasn't much further than the sidewalk outside, where he walked to the edge to hail a cab. "It was nice to see you again, Officer."
"Ah…yeah…" she said distantly before turning to walk down the street to where she'd left her cruiser. She wasn't sure about calling the encounter "nice" as it hardly had been an encounter at all. Unusual—she would call it unusual. After all: what were the odds of running into the same Santa at two different locations inside of a week? That time of year it seemed very unlikely, but maybe there weren't that many Santas in New York after all.
"Thank you for your donation…Thank you for your donation…Happy holidays…Thank you…"
With each repetitive gratitude and well wish, Rick's voice grew progressively wearier. Rubbing his gloved fingers over his eyes, he was not sure what was worse: the persistent 'thank you's or the incessant bell ringing. Sighing, he switched the large brass bell from his right hand to his left in order to give his wrist a break then almost winced when the clanging sound started up once more.
He didn't mind helping, really. He was an on-call Santa that season and as such had to take work wherever a Santa needed to fill in. (Because of course there was a New York City Santa collective. This was a fact he only became recently aware of, but, really, he should have known.) Bell ringing, however, was quickly becoming his least favorite. It was giving him a headache…and felt like a slow decent into madness. Oh well, only a few more hours.
When he and Alexis first began plotting their Christmas project, Rick thought he could just pick a place to volunteer to be a Santa, get himself a costume, and that would be all. He quickly learned that such thoughts were far over-simplifying the situation. Apparently, there was quite a Santa cooperative in place already with a hierarchy and everything. Some Santas had decades of experience and they did not look kindly upon a "newbie" such as himself—even if he did have altruistic reasons for wanting to be a Santa.
Several weeks of string pulling and making donations followed until he'd landed his post as a floater Santa who filled in whenever a full-bellied jolly fellow was needed. Unlike some other Santas, he did not have a set location or schedule. On one hand, this added to the fun, but on the other it complicated things quite heavily. His daughter was still too young to be left home alone and his mother was doing a holiday show, meaning he needed to use his readied rolodex of babysitters, which was fine—it was all part of the experience.
"Thank you for your donation; have a happy holiday." Rick said when a man walking by dumped a fist-full of change into his collection bucket.
Fighting a yawn, the man gazed down the sidewalk at his fellow bell-ringer a few hundred feet away. He had introduced himself to that Santa upon arrival for his shift and found that his name was Charles. Charles was a postal worker, who liked donating his spare time to collecting money for those less fortunate. He had two kids and two grandchildren with one more on the way and Rick was all too happy to share a sidewalk with him as Charles seemed to be a good man.
When thanking another busy New Yorker for donating a one dollar bill to his pot, Rick lifted up his right leg and rolled his ankle, fighting a wince. As his usual job involved him sitting at a desk and typing on a keyboard all day, he was not used to being on his feet standing in one position for almost four hours straight. He was wearing comfortable loafers in anticipation of said standing, but he decided that if he were to pull a bell ringer shift again, he may need to invest in those comfortable air-pillow shoe insoles that were always advertised on television.
Before he could think too much more about his aching feet, Rick was distracted by a horrifying scene unfolding before him. A scrawny individual wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head and down across his brow ran into Charles from behind, knocking him and his pot of collected money to the ground. As gasps and yelps arose from the surrounding crowd, the hoodie-clad man gathered up all the change and bills he could, stuffing them into the pouch of his sweatshirt before sprinting off again, leaving destruction in his wake.
Abandoning own post, Rick rushed over and knelt down next to Charles, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Charles, buddy, are you okay?"
The downed man groaned. "I-I think so. Probably. Knocked the wind out of me, though."
Scowl on his face, Rick looked in the direction the man had taken off before digging out his phone from his pants pocket and calling for the police.
By the time the officer arrived twelve minutes later, Rick had helped Charles to his feet and righted the collection stand. Kind passersby had helped scoop up the change and what few bills remained to return it to the bin. Meanwhile, Charles, whose shoulder and arm felt sore after he landed on them during the fall, rested against the side of the nearby building.
"Excuse me, are you the man that called for police assistance?"
Rick did a double-take when he saw the uniformed woman, her brown hair in a bun below her black cap, step up beside them. "Officer Beckett?!"
"I…you," she said, her tone indicating disbelief. "Are you the only Santa in this city?!"
He chuckled. "Far from it, but seeing as this is the third time we've met up I'm beginning to think its fate."
"Or you have terrible luck."
Though he knew the officer was referring to the incidents he was involved in—or at least adjacent to—he heartily disagreed. Running in to her again and again meant he had very good luck.
"Sir, are you injured?" she asked Charles. "Would you like me to call you an ambulance?"
Charles shook his head. "No, no; I'll be fine. Just a little banged up."
"Could you tell me what happened please?"
The men tag-teamed their response, but unfortunately were not very helpful. Charles had not seen the perpetrator at all since he was approached from behind. Since the man wore a hoodie, Rick's description was weak at best, and he was once again forced to apologize to the officer for being unhelpful. She assured him it wasn't his fault before telling them she was going inside to see if the neighboring store had security cameras on that part of the street.
As Charles seemed rather weary, Rick told him to go home and that he would take care of turning in the money remaining in his collection bin. The elder man thanked him and was gone by the time the officer returned to say with disappointment that the store had no functioning cameras on the street, so they were at a dead end with their Christmas donation money caper.
"I'm really sorry I didn't get a better look at the guy," he said with a sigh.
She shook her head. "Don't worry about it; you did what you could. Just one more thing before I go—I realize I don't know your actual name and I need it for my report."
"Kris Kringle." He deadpanned, but then a second later said, "No, I'm kidding—it's Rick Rodgers."
She jotted it down in her notebook and nodded. "Thanks."
"No, thank you—for all that you do. And it's nice to officially meet you, Officer Beckett."
She placed her hand in his when he extended it and said, "Kate; my name is Kate."
He smiled and shook her hand firmly. "Kate Beckett; it's nice to officially meet you."