"I was just about to start calling the hospitals, for Christ's sake! Are you all right?"
"I'm all right," my brother replied in the same distant tone.
"Nothing happened to you?"
"No. Nothing happened to me."
There were times, I thought, when Garth could make the Sphinx seem like a loquacious party animal. I laughed with equal parts nervousness, relief, and annoyance. "Then where the hell have you been? One of your reindeer throw a shoe? Where the hell are my five letters?"
Garth's response was to reach into the pocket of his gray, snow-speckled overcoat and remove an envelope, which he held out to me. "I think this one letter is about all you and I are going to be able to handle this Christmas. Read it and see what you think."
The first thing I did was examine the business-size envelope, front and back; the paper was cream-colored, textured, heavy bond-the expensive kind of stationery that usually has a personal or corporate name and address tastefully embossed in the upper left-hand corner, or on the back. This envelope was unadorned, the stamp standard post office issue. The postmark was New York City, and the envelope was addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole. The handwriting was a child's light, uncertain scrawl.
The folded letter inside was of a matching heavy bond, with no return address. There were a number of dark smudges on the paper, and in the creases of the envelope were tiny specks of what appeared to be dirt. The letter was written in the same child's handwriting. It read:
Dear Santa,
Please bring me a puppy to keep me company because it is very lonely in here and Mommy and Daddy won't let me go out and other kids can't come in because it is a secret place but I know you will be able to find me because you know where every boy and girl in the world lives. I would like a girl puppy but a boy puppy will be all right if that is all you have.
Also please bring me something real nice I can give to Reverend Billy so he will stop hurting me between my legs and sticking his big thing in my mouth and behind. Reverend Billy says God will not let me into heaven with Mommy and Daddy if I tell them and sometimes he hurts me very much and I bleed.
I have been a good girl Santa.
I love you.
Vicky Brown
P.S. If you do bring me a puppy I promise to take very good care of her and before I go to heaven with Mommy and Daddy I promise I will find her a good home where she can stay until the demons come and Dear Jesus and Satan fight and the world ends. I think Jesus will win.
With something approaching disbelief I reread the letter a second and then a third time, and felt within me a great upwelling of sadness, rage, and frustration. With tears filling my eyes, I slowly refolded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. I looked up to find Garth gazing steadily at me. His brown eyes gleamed with resolve, and the hard set of his features belied the softness of his voice.
"Agreed, Mongo?"
"Oh Jesus, Garth. Agreed."
With Vicky Brown's words throbbing in my head and heart, I suddenly felt slightly dizzy and nauseous. With Garth following behind me, I turned and walked back into the living room. I sat down at a chess table set up next to a window and stared out into the snow, trying to calm down so that I could think. Garth went to my bar and, to my surprise, poured himself a drink-straight bourbon. He downed that, then poured himself another before coming over and sitting down across from me.
"You've been all this time trying to track down the letter, haven't you?" I asked the king on the chessboard in front of me.
"You want me to get you a drink?"
I looked up, shook my head. "I've had enough. Could you find out anything?"
Garth absently sipped his bourbon, then set the glass down at the side of the board. "You noticed that there's no return address." It was not a question.
"I noticed. New York City postmark, though."
Garth sighed; it was a soft, sibilant sound that was in total contrast to the tension clearly etched in his face and the stiffness with which he sat in his chair. "Christ, Mongo, that postmark covers upwards of eight million people in the five boroughs-and that may not be all; a lot of letters to Santa that are mailed in Yonkers, Rockland, and Westchester end up here."
"With a New York City postmark?"
"I'm told it can happen; sometimes Santa letters are grouped together and handled differently. I didn't even bother looking in the phone book, since there are probably hundreds of Browns in Manhattan alone."
"And not one of them would be likely to admit knowing-if they did know-that their daughter was being sexually abused."
"Right."
"Whatever you've been up to, Garth, you should have called me. I'd have given you a hand."
Garth shrugged his broad shoulders. "I didn't know how long you'd be tied up in meetings, and by the time the sun started to go down I was pretty much into what I was doing. It was a one-man job, anyway. But I should have checked in. I'm sorry I caused you to worry."
"Yeah. The sexual abuse is clear. I assume you notified the various social service agencies?"
"Sure, but that's a dead end too. There are lots of people named Brown on the welfare rolls, and lots of girls named Vicky. Welfare has no record of any Vicky Brown being reported as sexually abused-and there's no way of knowing if the family of this Vicky Brown is on welfare to begin with. Finally, even if some agency did have an address for a family that seemed like likely candidates, the child probably wouldn't be there."
"Because she's in a secret place," I said quietly.
"Yes."
"I assume you've been to the police. What did your former colleagues have to say?"
"Considering the lack of information and the fact that there's been no formal complaint, there's not much they can do, Mongo," Garth replied in a flat tone. "At least not officially. They said they'd take note of it."
"You'd have done more than that when you were a cop, Garth."
My brother slowly shook his head. "No, Mongo. I'd have been upset, just as I am now; I'd have worried, and I'd have taken note of the information-but there wouldn't have been a whole hell of a lot more I could have done, at least not on city time. The NYPD has a lot more to do than to investigate suspicious letters to Santa Claus."
"They could have checked out known sexual offenders."
"They did that for me. There are dozens with the first name Billy, or William, but no Reverends in the bunch."
Deciding that I wanted another drink after all, I rose from the chess table and went to the wet bar across the room. I put ice in a clean tumbler, splashed in some Scotch, swirled it around. "I can think of a certain Reverend, first name William, who's displayed some perverse sexual behavior in the past," I said, peering into the amber fluid as I held my tumbler up to the light over the bar. "I don't recall his being accused of child abuse, but I wouldn't put it past him. He's one crazy son-of-a bitch, and history teaches that a lot of people who believe they have divine inspiration also tend to believe they have divine permission to do just about anything they want."
I turned to find Garth staring at me intently; it seemed I'd sparked his interest. "Kenecky?" he asked quietly.
"Just a thought. They still haven't found the lousy, neo-Nazi prick. Nobody's suggested that he's dead, so he's still out there someplace. But your guess is as good as mine."
"Not always, brother; you can be a hell of a good guesser. I hadn't even thought of Wild Bill Kenecky, and I should have. It would tie in with that demon and end-of-the-world business in the girl's letter."