Christmas Grit - Santa Noir by David Harry Moss.

Under a shabby, red Santa’s suit, thirty-six year old, ex-con William “Willie” Norris packed an extra twenty pounds of beer gut. A fake white beard and fake white hair, yellowed from age, partially covered his ruddy face. A sign written with a red marking pen saying, “Santa is broke. Reindeers need fed”, draped Willie’s neck. He had a silver bell in one bare, white hand and a big Styrofoam cup in the other.

On the busy street corner, Willie shivered from the cold and watched a white, middle-aged man in a dark overcoat approach him in the falling snow. The man greeted Willie with a tough sneer.

“Nice to see you’re gainfully employed,” the man named Keating, Willie’s parole officer, said.

“I try.”

“Don’t forget to come in tomorrow for your urine test.”

“Yeah, sure.” Willie blew some warmth on his numbed hands. “ You got something to put in this fucking cup?”

Keating reached into a pocket, pulled out a wrinkled fin, and stuffed it into Willie’s cup. “I’m not here to remind you to come in an piss for me. The police want me to contact my people in hopes of getting a line of the scumbag that snatched that little kid yesterday.”

Willie shouted, “Ho Ho Ho”, and tinkled his bell as a pair of women rushed by. One of the women paused, laughed and coughed up a dollar bill.  “Santa loves you,” Willie said in his guttural voice. “And so do his fucking, I mean friggin’, reindeers.”

Keating shuffled his feet and patted his gloved hands together. “No one knows the mean streets better than you. Got any ideas?”

“I’m not thinking about ideas until Nadine gets out of jail.”

“What’s she in for?”

“She lifted a bottle of perfume from Macy’s.”

Keating scowled. “It’s a little four year old kid we’re talking about.”

Willie blinked his eyes and sniffled. “I read about it. But Nadine comes first.”

“She’s a fucking druggie and a worthless whore.”

 “I’m done talking.  See you tomorrow for that piss test.”

Keating shrugged. “I’m not sure I can get Nadine out.”

“Fuck you, then. When I see Nadine next to me in her elf’s outfit, I’ll try to find that kid for you.”

Keating left, and Willie trudged along in the piling snow. It was dark, but the city glowed with holiday decorations. He had made up his mind to stay out until the streets emptied. He guessed he had panhandled over $100, and Christmas was still a few days away.

Willie went into a bustling outdoor plaza adorned with a tall glittering Christmas tree and a big skating rink and took in another fifty bucks. The little girl that got kidnapped occupied his mind. How the fuck could the mother let her wander off like that? The mother was busy trying on coats and when she looked around her little girl was gone. Somewhere in the city, a Christmas present arrived early for some fucking perv. Willie’s eyes got wet, from the snow probably. NO, from thinking about that little girl, scared and helpless, in what might be some pedophiles lair.

Another hour passed, and Willie had drifted to another street corner. A glowing clock in a store window told him it was after ten. He’d give himself another hour and then go home and cook some canned beef stew. His toes and fingers screamed from the cold. Images of a frightened little girl haunted his mind. He muttered, “fuck it” and reached a decision.

In his Santa clothes, Willie made the rounds, interviewing every street hustler and vagrant he knew. He went into bars and flophouses and under bridges where homeless outcasts slept on cardboard and huddled around the flickering fires burning in big tin drums. Willie had two hundred dollars in his pocket, and he offered it all for a lead. At three A.M., feeling exhausted, he dragged himself over the bridge that would take him home. Snow kept falling and crunched under his frozen feet. Below, in the river, he viewed splatters of red and yellow city light reflected on slabs of ice floating in the black water. He heard footsteps from behind and wheeled around.

A stocky white man in a worn, army surplus store jacket faced him. Rather than a scarf, the man had a ragged, brown bath towel wrapped around his neck. From across the bridge a lone figure watched.

“Is the two hundred for real?”

“As real as you and me.”

A long bladed knife flashed in the man’s hand. “Hand it over, mother fucker.”

Willie lunged forward and slugged the man hard in the jaw.  He felt bones breaking in the man’s face from the punch. The man went down. Willie backed up and hurried away. At the end of the bridge the lone figure that had been watching, a thin black man in a tattered gray hoodie, joined Willie.

 “You’re bleeding.”

“That prick cut my hand.” Willie bit into his lower lip, scooped up snow, and caked the iced snow over the wound. “You try a stunt like that and I’ll kill you.”

The black man held his hands up as a gesture of peace. “For 200, I send you to an empty warehouse not far from here where a crazy looking white dude is keeping a little girl.”

“Why didn’t you go to the cops?”

“I’m on the lam for assault with intent to kill.  I caught my woman with another man and used a baseball bat on them.”

A moment before Willie found the warehouse, his cell phone rang.

“They let me out, honey,” Nadine said. “Can you believe that? A cop came a minute ago and said they dropped the shoplifting charges. It’s a miracle.”

Willie’s breath caught. “You get your ass home and wait for me, understand?”

“Sure sweetheart. Will you be there?”

“I’ll be there, but I got something to do first.”

Willie made a silent entrance into the warehouse. Dull light shined from a corner. For heat, oily rags burned in a squat metal barrel. He picked up a rusty lead pipe and approached. He saw the little girl, clothed and trembling in a wooden crate. Peering through the slats he saw that the little girl’s eyes were red and swollen from crying.  A big white man, hugging a half empty whiskey bottle and wearing a surprisingly new blue parka, lay on an old mattress, either asleep or passed out. The new parka explained how he could maneuver, unnoticed, in a busy department store.

Willie unlatched the crate and the little girl crawled out. She uttered, “SANTA,” and leaped into his arms.

David Harry Moss writes ficton and acts in movies. Currently he lives in Pittsburgh but he has also lived in Phoenix and Minneapolis. His story, "Angels With Guns", was published on The Flash Fiction Offensive earlier this year and is set in New York City. Has he been there? Many times, including having run and finished two marathons.

Kill Them All by David Harry Moss.

Downing realized that he had acted irrationally.  He had put himself into a trap, but he couldn’t turn back now. He squinted against pin rays of sun light leaping over the horizon, sharp sun rays that painted the Iraqi desert a gruesome red.

He wore a brown burlap camo outfit and carried an Army issue M110 sniper’s rifle, fifteen pounds, semi automatic, with a twenty round magazine. He sighted three of the enemy combatants packing AK47’s 200 yards away in a doorway of a mortar-gutted mosque.  He zeroed in and squeezed the trigger three fast times. Heads splattered against the crusty stonewall like smashed tomatoes, and Downing quickly moved on, using the cusp of the roof line as a shield until he leaped through two empty yards of space, barely making it, to another rooftop. A dozen insurgents sprang from the mosque and opened fire on the empty rooftop Downing had just abandoned.

Downing planned on killing them all, that’s why he disobeyed orders to rejoin, before dawn, the Scout team waiting for him in their Humvees a safer distance away. 

Downing took a swig of warm, acrid-tasting water from his canteen and peeked over the lip of the rooftop. He spotted a trio of insurgents scurrying like rats through the rubble, caught one with the rifle’s red aiming dot, and drilled him in the chest. He shot another insurgent diving through an open doorway, and then darted to another rooftop. Seconds later an RPG, a rocket propelled grenade, blasted to rubble the rooftop he had left. 

Downing doubted he’d get out of this alive. At that moment he didn’t care. All he wanted to do was kill. He crept down some rickety wooden steps and through the dust and rubble of what might pass as an alley and up a broken ladder to another rooftop. The heat had the impact of a massive pounding sledgehammer beating on him, crushing him to near collapse.  

Forty-eight hours earlier Downing had had his best time during his stay in Iraq. Her name was Sherri Lynn, a fresh-faced, twenty year old blond, an Army PFC. That morning they lifted weights together and then fucked until late afternoon. In a busy market they passed out candy bars to young kids, Downing on one end, Sherri Lynn on the other. From the crowd a skinny teen boy strolled by, waved and grinned, and when he got close pulled the pin on a suicide bomb. Downing moaned, “Holy fuck,” cradled the gory mess of the dead Sherri Lynn in his arms and sobbed.

He killed another insurgent and clambered down the ladder. The ogreish sun hovered above him, low and red and sizzling like a welder’s torch. In the distance he saw the desert punctured with gopher holes and shimmering under wavy grotesque blue heat haze.

The enemy had him almost pinned down but a large chunk of concrete debris shielded him. He managed to get across the street and duck into and hurry out of a shell of a building an instant before an RPG blasted it.

Downing stopped long enough to shoot the insurgent lugging the RPG. He ducked into the remains of another building and slumped against a collapsing wall. This would go on until he killed them or until they cornered and killed him.  His side burned. He touched the spot of pain, the bullet hole, and felt a warm sticky wetness.

He did this to save American lives and to avenge Sherri Lynn. For an instant her smiling face hovered in the gloom. He winced at the thought that she was gone forever. Where the fuck were the politicians who sent her far from home to die, he wondered?  If the cause was so glorious why weren’t they and their sons and daughters wearing camo and packing M110’s?

He leaned his shoulders against the coarse wall and let the comforting shadows embrace him. Nearby, in a corner, he spotted the decomposed remains of a human body. Flies snapped at the shards of meat clinging to bones. The rank air stunk of the rotting flesh.  He moved his eyes, watery from dust, away. An eerie moment of silence settled over him.

He rammed another 20 round magazine box into the M110. He wanted to be home, in the States, drinking beer, playing slow- pitch softball with his pals.

He heard sudden movement in the doorway and jerked his eyes in that direction. Standing there, sunlight at her back, he saw a thin young girl, Sheri Lynn’s age, with a rifle, her pretty black hair half covered with a dirty gray scarf.  She looked unsure and frightened. Her body shook. She should be going to college or falling in love, not standing in a murky doorway clutching a gun in the bleakest part of the world. 

He stood upright. For some crazy reason Downing asked, “Have you ever killed before?”

She shook her head.

From behind he heard boots scraping dust and stone. He heard a “pop – pop – pop.”  He jerked as if in spasm and slumped forward but steadied himself. His back burned as if a swarm of bees had stung it. He didn’t know if it was the right thing to do or not killing this girl but he pulled the trigger of his M110 and the face of the pretty Iraqi standing in front of him became a pulpy pink mask. Men with guns jammed the doorway. He kept pulling the trigger until the clip emptied. Before he died he wondered if anyone would care about or understand what had happened here.

David Moss is a writer and an actor. He writes about maladjusted characters making ambiguous decisions. He lets the reader judge.

Angels With Guns By David Harry Moss.

At night, in heavy rain, Nick Hardin and Louie Grillo drove uptown in a gray Mercury Grand Marquis. When they passed Yankee Stadium, Louie said, “We got to see a Yank’s game this year.” Nick said, “Fuck those baseball players. They’re all money hungry pricks.”

Nick and Louie were collectors for a Brooklyn loan shark. Nick, twenty-eight, 6’5”, 280, and a vicious street fighter, drove. Louie, thirty-seven, 6’2”, 320 pounds, an ex pro wrestler, filled the passenger’s seat. When Nick and Louie went looking for someone it meant broken bones or worse. Nick chewed gum. Crumbs from a steak hoagie Louie munched on sprinkled his raincoat.

Under the #4 subway tracks near Burnside and Jerome, Nick pulled behind a parked police car. Two burly white cops got out. Nick rolled the window down. “Any sign of that little bitch?” Nick said, referring to a nineteen year old white hooker. One of the cops said, “None.” The other cop said, “We’ll keep looking.” Nick handed each of them a 100 dollar bill and drove off.

“A slut calling herself Lollipop is another contact,” Nick said. “She works under the overpass on Hunts Point Avenue. We’ll try there.”

Louie said, “You think she’ll be out on a night like this?”

“She’s a druggie. She’ll be out.”

On Hunts Point Avenue Nick spotted the burning red tip of a cigarette, and pulled in as Louie finished the hoagie. A thin black girl shivering in a pink raincoat came to Louie’s side of the car. Louie rolled the window down. “What do you call yourself?”

“Lollipop. You want pussy or a blow job?”

Louie recoiled from the heavy scent of lilac perfume. “We want Lorraine.”

Lollipop tossed the cigarette away. “Poco sent you didn’t he? That fool girl never should have been a witness to Poco shooting up that Bodega in that drug war and killing those three innocent people.”

Nick leaned toward her. “Where the fuck is she?”

Lollipop shrank back as if pulled. “I don’t know. I swear on my baby’s grave I don’t. But I can tell you where the pimp she does business for hangs out. That all night diner a couple streets from here. You can’t miss it. He goes by Leon. And I’ll tell you something else. There’s two black dudes flashing badges looking for her too.”

Nick made a U turn and started back on Hunts Point Avenue. He didn’t get far before a black Escalade pulled in behind the Grand Marquis.

Louie reached down at his feet and lifted two loaded 12 gauge sawed-off shotguns.

The Escalade cut them off. As Nick hit the brakes, three men with automatic hand guns jumped out of the Escalade. Nick and Louie tumbled from the Grand Marquis, and got off all four rounds from the sawed off shotguns. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Only one of the three shooters managed to return fire. The driver of the Escalade, leaving three dead bodies behind, laid rubber on the wet concrete speeding away.

Louie said, “You hit?”

“No. You?”

“No.”

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”’

They found the diner without any trouble. They went inside and saw a counter and a half dozen booths. A chubby Puerto Rican waitress came up to them.

“We want Leon,” Nick said.

She sucked on her lower lip sizing Nick and Louie up and down. “He’s do.” She pointed to the booth closest to the rest rooms. “That’s his office, but people know better than to sit there.”

Nick and Louie piled into the booth. Outside, sirens screamed as police cars and ambulances raced toward the scene of the killings. Half an hour later a husky black guy wearing a black hoodie entered the diner. When he saw Nick and Louie he paused, stiffened, shrugged, and shambled to the booth. He squeezed in next to Nick. Spots of white powder showed under his nostrils.

Louie said, “Where’s Lorraine?”

“I wish I knew. But see that gas station across the street?”

Nick had to squint peering through the rain wet window. “It’s boarded up.”

“There be a car parked there. A blue Chevy Impala. Two black dudes wait inside. Flash your lights twice and they come out and talk to you.”

“Are they cops?” Nick asked.

“No way. Fake badges. They work for Poco.”

Nick drove across the road and flashed the head lights twice. Two tough looking black guys got out of the Impala, arms raised. Nick and Louie eased out of their car, the loaded shotguns resting on their hips.

“Peace brothers.”

The other black guy said, “We’re on your side now. That white skank you be after is hiding in a flop house in Mott Haven. We’ll give you the address and room number.”

“Remember from where the cooperation came,” the first black guy said. “That’s all we ask.”

Louie stayed in the car. Nick took the stairs two at a time, stepping over rat droppings and broken glass from a wine bottle. When he found 2B in the dim light, he knocked once and then kicked open the door.

A pretty white girl, with a blanket wrapped around her, huddled on a bed against a wall. Her body shook from fear. “Don’t kill me, please.”

“Get up and let’s go.”

The outreach shelter for prostitutes was near Yankee Stadium. A black ex-con named Edwin Early ran it.

“I heard about what happened to Poco.”

“We don’t know nothing about that,” Louie said.

Early made a swallowing sound. “I owe Vince six grand on a loan and there’s another twelve for finding Lorraine. Now she can tell what she saw to the police. It was nice of Vince sending you two angels to do this job for me.”

Louie took the money. Nick said, “Where did you get this kind of dough?”

“A Yankee baseball player came by and donated $25,000 for the shelter.”

Louie winked at Nick. “I told you baseball players were good people.”

Nick smiled. “I stand corrected.”

David Harry Moss writes ficton and acts in movies.  Currently he lives in Pittsburgh but he has also lived in Phoenix and Minneapolis.  "Angels With Guns" is set in New York City.  Has he been there?  Many times, including having run and finished two marathons.