But though he fell asleep quickly, that horrible Ho! Ho! Ho! haunted his dreams, as did a giant bottle of Scope that lumbered after him like Frankenstein's monster, chasing him through one Starbucks after another.
When the alarm went off at 5 a.m., he felt like he hadn't slept at all.
Thursday, December 18
It was a new experience for Bigelow-being the first one at work. He didn't like it. The office was quiet and dark, not the bright, bustling place where people other than himself were always hustling to and fro accomplishing things. The stillness was something he couldn't quite accept, and he moved through the hallways half-expecting someone to pop out of the shadows and shout, "Bigelow! What the hell are you doing here?"
But he managed a smile when he stepped into his office. There was no gift on his desk. He was the one Ho! Ho! Ho!-ing now. Whoever his Secret Santa was, he'd beat him in that morning. And now Santa was about to see who had the real claws.
Jarry's office was the closest, so Bigelow started there. It took him 10 minutes to go through every desk drawer and filing cabinet. He found nothing more incriminating than a shot glass and a bottle of Jim Beam. They wouldn't help him solve his mystery, but they were illuminating discoveries nonetheless. Bigelow began to wonder why he'd never done this before.
Chris McCoy, the editor of DVD Now!, was next. His cubicle posed more of a challenge, as it was overflowing with proofs and plastic sleeves stuffed with slides. Bigelow was careful not to get anything out of order, for though McCoy's work area looked like utter chaos, his magazine never missed a deadline, and Bigelow had to assume there was some kind of system involved even if it escaped his powers of detection.
He found a stash of snacks in one drawer, and he reached in and pulled out a variety pack of Quaker Oats granola bars. He'd been so anxious to get to the office, he hadn't stopped off for coffee and doughnuts that morning, and all this sneaking around was making him hungry. He sorted through the granola bars until he found what he was looking for-a S'mores bar. He took one and then, after a moment's reflection, a Chocolate Chip and a Cookies'n'Cream for later. Then he started to put the box back.
He stopped, suddenly gripping the box so hard one corner caved in. In the drawer was a small, folded slip of white paper that had been buried underneath the granola bars. It looked just like the one he'd pulled out of Marcy's Santa hat the week before. Bigelow picked it up and unfolded it. Written on it were two words.
"JOYCE STARR."
Bigelow grinned. He was down to six suspects now. And he knew exactly which one he wanted to focus on next. He put the slip of paper and the granola bars back in place, then he headed to the office of Alex Sandberg.
Which was locked. It was such a shock to Bigelow he stood there jiggling the door handle for half a minute before he finally accepted the infuriating fact of it. He stood there a while longer, staring through the glass at Sandberg's desk like a Victorian waif pressing his soot-covered nose against a pastry shop window.
What kind of paranoid jerk locks his office door? What did Sandberg have to be worried about? What did he have to hide?
Bigelow gave the door a kick before moving on to the cubicle of DVD Now!'s art director, Tom or Tim Somebody. Bigelow barely knew the guy, usually thinking of him only as "the designer with the pierced nose"… when he thought of him at all. He couldn't imagine Tom or Tim hating him as much as his Secret Santa obviously did, and he stopped his snooping mid-drawer to return to Sandberg's office and squander a few more seconds struggling with the door-handle. When he went back to Tom/Tim's desk, he resumed his searching without enthusiasm, certain now that the answers he sought were on the other side of that locked door.
Pierced Nose Guy's cube yielded nothing of use, though Bigelow had been reminded of his name, having seen it on a credit card bill he'd come across: Todd Hubble. He also discovered that Todd owed MasterCard $539.32, and that $142 of it was going to "The Hottie Hook-Up Hotline." That discovery should've brought Bigelow some kind of twisted chuckle, but it didn't. He couldn't stop thinking about what he might find in Sandberg's desk, and everything else now seemed like a waste of time.
He was able to eliminate another suspect when he moved on to the next cubicle, this one belonging to DVD Now!'s associate editor, whom Bigelow knew as Curt the Kid with Freckles. Tucked away behind a stack of reference books was a bar of pink soap-on-a-rope shaped like a Teletubby. A red ribbon had been taped to the package.
It was a lame gift, but not an evil one. And there was no HO! HO! HO! wrapping paper in sight.
So Freckled Curt was off the hook, and there were still two more cubes to go. Bigelow began putting the soap and books back in place.
"Yo, Curt!" a voice called out. "You made it in pretty… oh."
Bigelow spun around to find Chris McCoy standing behind him, a look of embarrassed shock on his face.
"I came in early and I wanted to take a look at the proof of your masthead but I couldn't find it so I went looking for it but I still don't know where it is so maybe you'll go get it for me because there's just one little thing I need to check," Bigelow said, the syllables coming out so fast and choked-throat-guttural they almost sounded like one impossibly long German word.
Bigelow watched McCoy's gaze move from his face to the mess on Freckle Boy's desk to the granola bars bulging out of his pocket and finally to something just below his mouth. Bigelow reached up and felt a smudge of half-melted S'more chocolate on his lower lip.
"Sure," McCoy said, using the slow, soothing tone most people reserve for speaking to over-excitable children and the criminally insane. He began backing away. "I'll be right back."
By the time McCoy returned with the proof, Bigelow had finished cleaning up Curt's cube (and his own chin) and had scurried back to his office. Bigelow had time to affix a look of bland, businesslike calm on his face, yet McCoy still seemed unnerved. He came at Bigelow with his arm stretched out and the proof page extended before him like a sword. When Bigelow took hold of the heavy paper, McCoy stutter-stepped away quickly, not turning his back.
"Let me know if you need anything else!" McCoy said as he moonwalked out the door.
Bigelow knew what was coming next. Other staffers would begin drifting in, both alone and in carpool bunches, and McCoy would greet them all the same way: "Guess who I caught going through our stuff this morning!"
Bigelow had been staring at them all with suspicion the last few days. Now they'd be staring at him the same way. He didn't think he could face it.
And then he realized he didn't have to. He had an office with a door, not an open-air cubicle. He could stay right here at his desk all day. And instead of going out to hunt for his Secret Santa, he could just sit and wait for the S.O.B. to come to him.
Like Sandberg's office, his had a glass wall running along the hallway. It had vertical blinds that hung from ceiling to floor, and Bigelow got up and closed them. Then he went back to his desk, sat facing the doorway and began to wait. Sooner or later, he hoped, he'd see a face peeking around the door or someone casually moseying past his office with an innocent-looking bag in his hand. That would be Santa, scouting for an opportunity to drop off his latest slap in the face. And Bigelow would have him. All he had to do was wait and watch.
He lasted 51 minutes. The only cube he could see from his desk was Marcy's, and she arrived half an hour after he began his vigil. She gave him a wave when she first showed up, then shot increasingly quizzical glances his way as he continued staring in her direction.
"Do you need something, Erik?" she called out to him.