Yuletide

Death Stalks the Mistletoe Mall

Sometimes it takes attempted murder for true love to blossom

You can count on coal in your stocking, too. Illustration: Mark Armstrong

It all starts when Stevie squeals on the mob. He was looking at ninety-nine years, maybe even life, so he figured he’d sing and take his chances.

So the feds put him in a safe house. But he gets antsy just sitting around all day, eating Chinese take-out and watching The Grinch and A Christmas Story and all the other Who Hash they keep showing over and over.

So he says, You gotta let me out or I’m not gonna testify. I need some air. It’s Christmas. I wanna get out, sing some carols, do a little shopping.

So Cathy, the beautiful U.S. Marshal who’s guarding him at the safe house, she checks with her bosses, and they work out a deal: they’ll let him out for eight hours a day to play Santa at the Mistletoe Mall.

They’ve run all sorts of background checks on him. They know all the dirt, including the fact that he got kicked out of his middle school drama club for smoking dope when they were doing Cheerleaders vs. Aliens.

But they missed something, and Cathy has decided to keep quiet about it. Namely, that she and Stevie went to school together, and that they shared a secret first kiss during the play before Stevie got kicked out…