The Santa Claus Agency

An ex-convict helps others to have a Happy Christmas and everyone is a winner.

THE SANTA CLAUS AGENCY

The day that Rory Carlton of the greying hair and forty-five years of age left prison after serving half of his sentence that had been imposed on him by Judge Joseph Franklin for embezzling his ex-wife’s jewels, was the first day in the next chapter of his life. Rory had been in trouble since he was born, and yet his adoring mother always came to his rescue and praised him, saying that he was misunderstood. “He’s a good person really, but he seems to have runs of bad luck.”

The bad luck was never something that Rory had attracted, in his mother’s eyes it came from outside sources. Rory was a man who had ideas all day long and at times all through the night, too. On that special day when he was let out onto the general public once again, Rory’s head was full of ideas, all with the same end - how to make good money in as short a time as possible. He had met up with some old lags and career criminals while inside, and now he had the intention of putting his information to good use. Rory had also learned that the only ones who get put away, are silly for not having thought things through properly. He admitted to himself when lying on his prison bed that he was guilty of being rather stupid. The next time he would do just that - he’d use his brains. He didn’t fancy having another spell working for Her Majesty, however comfortable the lodgings.

Rory took a taxi from outside the prison to his old flat. It was the only thing that his ex-wife hadn’t managed to get off him during the divorce, his mother had seen to that. Good old Mum! The taxi stopped outside an old building that had once served as a home for a large Victorian family now converted into luxury flats. He opened the front door and walked in. His ancient bike was still there in the corridor. He strode into the small flat and saw that everything was under dust covers. He would have to get some kind of daily help. The walk through his home was over in the blinking of an eye. The kitchen was on the right, at the end of the corridor the previous owner had joined the bedroom and the living-room into one long room by removing the door and making the gap in the dividing wall larger. The bathroom had been made up from the original bathroom and a small room in order to have a luxury modern bathroom. Rory was happy to see that nothing had changed since his imprisonment two years ago. He switched on the hot water and the heating. The first thing to do was to get rid of the smell of prison. He had been told this by repeating offenders that the smell is so strong that you get the feeling everyone is staring at you and guessing that you’ve done time. Rory plugged in the television and began zapping. When fed up with that, he switched on his laptop and saw that there was no information for him on it. He then decided to ring his mother.

The phone rang in his mother’s house in the West Country, and then he heard her girlish voice say, “Hello, Darling, how are you?”

“Fine, thanks, Mother. I was let out today, and at present am waiting for the water to heat up and I’m going to take a long, lingering bath, in an effort to get rid of the prison smell. How are you, by the way? Have you got over that horrid cough you had last time we spoke?”

“Yes, I have, now I’m back to normal. Look, I’ll leave you, so that you can have that much desired bath. Did you notice that all the toiletries are new? I got them for you about a month ago when it was certain you’d be let out sooner than later. Hope you like the perfume, it’s supposed to be the latest in a masculine line, nice and woody. Well, bye for now. Let me know how you get on, and see you soon down this way. Bye.”

“Bye, Mummy,” and Rory went into the bathroom and saw that the water was the right temperature for his bath. He had a good smell of the toiletries from his mother first, before throwing in some bath salts and for good measure some bubble bath. So-long prison, he thought to himself as he slid down into the welcoming warm water.

A few days later saw Rory opening the door to his old office, which had escaped detection by the police when he had been done for embezzlement. The office was in a run-down area of London where nobody ever knew anybody else, or at least that’s what the locals always said to the police. The shut-in atmosphere was the worst thing that someone who had recently been released from prison would want to put up with. Rory opened the windows, noticing how dirty and dusty it all was. He ran up a cleaning service to go round as soon as possible. He certainly could not work from there. The next thing he did was to go to a sign maker and ordered what he wanted for his new agency. By the time it would be ready, the office should be clean, he thought to himself.

Within a month of Rory leaving prison, so did some of his other associates as well. Three of them left on the same day, and took a taxi to Rory’s office now gleaming with a new coat of paint to liven it up a bit. They got out of the taxi and went up to the front door of an old office building and rang a bell indicating The Santa Claus Agency. One of the men, called Earnest Ernie, said, “Hang on a minute, there’s a sign up over the door that says the same.”

The other two stepped away from the door to take a look. In large letters stretching from one side to the other of the doorway, was the immortal - The Santa Claus Agency.

“It looks like our old mate is doing well, let’s get inside and see what this is all about,” Proud Perry commented.

Rory was standing by the open door when they left the small lift that took them up to his office.

“Hello, boys. Lovely to see you. Please come in,” and Rory showed them in. He had bought food to make the keenest gourmet die with envy. The three old lags couldn’t believe their eyes at the sight of such a magnificent feast. Rory left them to eat and drink in peace, and went off to see about the rest of his plan.

When he returned he saw that they had eaten everything, and he understood why. “As you all know where to find me and you are all full up, we’ll leave business till tomorrow.”

The men stood up and said their goodbyes and left. Rory knew they were all Londoners and didn’t have to go far in order to get home.

The following day, which was four weeks before Christmas Eve, Rory set out his plan. “I’ve got you all jobs as Santa Claus in various grottos around London in the department stores. You will be joined by elves that come from other agencies or the stores themselves. That is of no importance, you will be sitting on a throne in your grottos, with sacks full of small presents for the children. Now, when you ask the children what they want for Christmas, you keep your eyes open and listen to what they say. Another thing, you’ll record all the children when they speak to you. I need to know where they live, and then at the last moment, we’ll make an entrance in the best houses and see what we can clean up. Are you with me?”

The three old delinquents exchanged glances, before Sad Sam answered, “Don’t you think it’s a bad thing to rob people at Christmas?”

Rory stared at them and said, “What do you think is going on at Christmas anyway? The food is a robbery, the children’s toys another robbery, and so it goes on. Christmas is robbing the gullible, to line the pockets of those whose pockets are already well-lined. My aim is to get some of them to have a good think about Christmas and what they are doing.”

“Yes, but Rory, it’s not our job to do this, is it?” queried Earnest Ernie.

“I don’t see why not. Anyway we’re all in dire straights financially. They didn’t give us a golden handshake on leaving prison, did they?” Rory declared.

The four of them sat and thought for a while about how badly they had been treated by Her Majesty’s prison services. They had been given just enough for the fare somewhere. If it hadn’t been that they all had secret bank accounts and money hidden away, they shuddered to think of what they might have been pushed to, in order to survive. They all decided to go for it, and to do what Rory had suggested. They would record the children talking and somehow or other find out where they lived. Only the well-heeled were to be robbed.

The three went along to their respective department stores on the twenty-sixth of November and sat down in their grottos. The elves were dressed in green clothes and some were female and others male. The shortest had been chosen to look as near the real thing as they were able to. The grottos were all different.

Proud Perry’s grotto was a huge cave made of card and painted in rock colours with dark blue and purple as if it were the sky with stars. The children and parents had to walk through a false paradise of pink and mauve caves with glitter on their walls. There were scenes of elves making toys and wrapping them up. These were all mechanical, but nevertheless gave the small children the illusion of something magical. Mechanical reindeer were also included in the fantasy. The children wandered around the grotto, till they came up to Santa Claus sitting on his throne, and beside him a very large sack of toys and games.

Perry switched on his recorder as soon as he saw the first child reach him, “Hello, little boy, what can I do for you?”

“You can bring me the following toys.” The child handed over to Perry a long list of what he wanted.

“What’s your name and address, so that I don’t forget?”

“My name’s Lance Forrest, and make sure you don’t forget. As last year some of the things on my list never arrived, and so you really mustn’t make any mistakes this year. This is my address.”

Proud Perry put Lance’s list in his pocket and continued with the long queues of parents and children till the store closed for the night.

Sad Sam’s grotto was full of holly and mistletoe and a large Christmas tree. It was all very pretty and a reminder of the countryside in winter. The only downside was that the smell of so many pines and fir trees made the general public have itchy noses - even Sad Sam. The majority of the visitors left the grotto with streaming eyes and runny noses. Even this setback didn’t mean a hindrance to the business of Christmas and Santa Claus. Sad Sam thought he would ask Rory if it would be all right for him to change stores.

Earnest Ernie was a lovely Santa Claus. He was a grandfather, but rarely saw his grandchildren due to his long stays at Her Majesty’s pleasure. He didn’t like them to know he wasn’t up to scratch as a grandfather, so he had asked his children to tell their children he worked away. Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie, was it? He had switched on the recorder for the first child who came through from the grotto, and kept it on, following Rory’s instructions. The thing he dreaded was to see his son’s children come through the grotto. Luckily for him, they had gone to a Santa Claus in Nottingham.

Rory took it upon himself to dress up as Santa Claus and visit some of the better houses in a run up to the big day, when the robberies, or robbery, would take place. Proud Perry told Rory about Lance Forrest and how obnoxious the boy was, and how Santa Claus last year had left some of the things out that had been on his list. “I’m not surprised,” Rory said. “This list resembles the whole of the toy department. Well, let’s see what we can do for young master Lance.”

Rory drove out in a rented car to avoid recognition, and dressed in his Santa Claus outfit. The house was impressive in its size and the cars parked outside. Rory went up to the front door and rang the bell.

A very attractive lady opened he door, “Why, hello Santa Claus. You’re a bit early, aren’t you?”

“I’m here to see if your chimneys are wide enough for me to climb down.”

“My name’s ….”

“No names, please, this is Christmas. May I see Lance’s room? He says he didn’t receive all the presents on last year’s list, and I would prefer to see what he’s got lacking in case he has two of the same thing.”

Lance’s mother showed Rory up the stairs and to Lance’s room, she opened the door for Rory to enter. There were wall to wall presents, and it really didn’t appear that Lance needed any more toys at all. Rory made a mental note to relieve Lance of those toys, when they were doing the big job. He also made a note that Lance’s mother was not a happy woman. She showed him back down the stairs.

When they arrived at the bottom, Rory saw a bunch of mistletoe hanging over the stairs, and grabbed hold of the mother and gave her a long kiss. She smiled at him, not knowing what to think. Neither of them saw Lance come out of the living-room and see the kiss.

Rory left the Forrests’ house and went back to his flat.

That evening Lance told his father that he had seen his mother kissing Santa Claus. His father said to him, “Don’t be so ridiculous, it isn’t Christmas yet.”

The boy insisted, but his father warned him that if he continued with such talk, he wouldn’t get any presents.

With just a few days left before Christmas, Rory got in touch with an old associate from the days before he was caught and sent away to do time.

One evening when he was back in his flat, now clean and gleaming from his home-help’s hard work, Rory had a long and interesting chat with Johnny, who informed him that he was unwell and could he, Rory, help him out of a jam. Johnny would hand over the job of relieving the Forrest family of their possessions to Rory and his Santa Clauses, and in exchange they would let him have the jewellery. Later, he consulted with the other three, to discover their thoughts and whether or not they had changed their minds about the robbery.

Every day the queues to see Santa Claus in the different grottos grew longer and longer, till it seemed that every child in the country had visited one grotto or another. The other departments didn’t do too badly either. Some of the children wrote down jewellery and handbags for their mothers and sisters. These would be paid for from their parents’ store-cards, and would be an extra expense to add to an already costly event. It was one way of emptying the shelves before the New Year Sales began. Everyone was a winner - except the ones who paid.

Some of the stores had staff parties, but Rory had asked his Santas not to join in, as he was afraid they might drink too much, get drunk, and give the game away. So, making anything as an acceptable excuse, none of the three attended the parties. The three had each made plans for the money they would make from the robberies, but they kept their ideas to themselves.

Rory had kept the Forrest home under surveillance, and saw that on the twenty-second of December the family left the house with heavy suitcases. That night the quartet made their entrance and took everything including the antique furniture and all the electrical goods. Rory made good on his promise of taking all Lance’s toys. The house was easy to enter and leave, for the old lags it was nothing new for them. In an extremely short time the house had been emptied and the goods taken away in a large van. There were no nosey neighbours to witness their coming and going, as they were all in party mood, and were busy emptying bottle after bottle of alcoholic Christmas cheer down their throats.

The money was kept by Rory and his merry men, and they also collected from the sale of the antiques by waiting customers. The jewellery was given to Rory’s old friend Johnny, who was also a first-class fence.

On the twenty-seventh of December the four closed The Santa Claus Agency, and left London.

Rory took his mother on a cruise to Brazil for eighteen days. The elderly lady felt supremely happy with her loving son at his generosity, that she was smiling all the way to the giant cruise ship.

Earnest Ernie paid for his whole family to emigrate to Australia. None of them ever asked where the man who had spent so much time inside, had managed to accumulate so much money to give them all a brand new start in life.

Sad Sam went to the Caribbean to see an old friend who’d been after him for years to join him in his hotel.

Proud Perry flew to Switzerland to enjoy winter in the snow with an old girl friend.

All of them felt better for their little adventure. The smell of prison was now just a memory.

The Forrest family got back from their Christmas break to find their home devoid of their lavish items. Lance blamed his father for the loss of his toys and the fact that Santa Claus had left him nothing at all - only empty walls.

Lance’s father, Patrick Forrest, was on the phone, “Hello, Johnny, is that you? I didn’t ask you to take Lance’s toys as well as the rest, you know.”

“Patrick, I never did the job. I’ve been in bed since before Christmas Eve with a terrible dose of flu. You can ask my wife if you don’t believe me,” Johnny answered with a congested throat and nose.

“If you didn’t carry out the job, then, who did?”

“I feel really ill. Sorry, I can’t tell you. But the insurance company will still pay up, I suppose. Happy New Year,” and Johnny rang off.

Patrick was still wondering who it was, that had managed to save him from his creditors.

His wife was standing in the empty hall, staring around her, as if she was in a dream. She had never liked the antiques, and thought that Lance had had too many toys. It was all too perfect for her.

The toys were given to an orphanage in another part of London, to the delight of the children.

Who had given her the Christmas kiss?