in Manhattan. Snow almost always melted to rain upon entering the heat and intensity of this crowded island. But tonight—for a little while, anyway—the world was mine again, a blank canvas, fresh and clean for me to mark as I pleased. And block after block, I did make my mark, each footfall breaking through the frozen crust to leave its momentary print in the soft powder.
When I finally reached the corner of Bank and Hudson, I sighed, stamped the snow off my boots, and reluctantly rejoined civilization. The White Horse Tavern was crowded despite the weather, and I knew Alf often stopped here for a burger or Coke. (Being an ex-alcoholic, he told me he no longer drank alcohol, but he still loved the atmosphere of pubs.) Unfortunately, I didn’t see him inside.
I chatted with the bartender, who told me he’d served Santa a cranberry juice. “He came in to get warm, wait for the snow to ease up, you know? And we were just hanging out, shooting the breeze when he jumped up all of a sudden and left in a big hurry.”
“Which way did he go?” I asked.
“West,” said the man, pointing. “Toward the river.”
That sounded wrong on a night like this, but I didn’t say so. I simply thanked the bartender, left the tavern, and returned to the chilly sidewalk. Moving off the bright main drag, I headed purposefully down the side street. Within two blocks, however, my firmness faltered.
The picturesque charm of the officially designated historic district was gone now. This close to the river, there were no more legally protected Italianate and Federal-style town houses. The buildings here were mostly remnants of the nineteenth-century industries that once supported the working waterfront.
Protected or not, however, the location of these former factories, garages, and warehouses put them right next door to a real estate bonanza. With the West Village commanding some of the highest rents in all of New York City, developers had taken advantage over the years, converting these old white elephants into residences for new money.
To make matters worse, the flurries started changing back into serious snowfall again. The clouds had thickened once more, and the icy flakes were getting heavier and more frequent. Even the halogen streetlamps were straining to cut through the returning blizzard.
With a shiver, I flipped up my parka’s hood. But my mood didn’t get any warmer. Traffic was nonexistent on this stretch, and the few commercial businesses I’d passed were shuttered. Uneasy on this desolate street, I was about to throw in the towel and abandon my search when I spied a familiar sight a little farther up the block: Alf’s bright green Traveling Santa sleigh!
For a moment, I was elated. Then I saw that the green sleigh was parked alone on the sidewalk, its red wheels propped against the curb, white powder piling up on its surface.
Okay, this makes no sense.
Under the weak glow of a streetlamp, I could see that the cash box was still on Alf’s little cart. The box was really a round plastic container about the size of a large soup pot. The top of the container was molded to look like a pile of presents, and it slid into a much larger plastic case on the sleigh that was shaped to look like Santa’s big red bag. Pedestrians threw their cash donations through a small hole at the top of the cash “present” box. Because it was removable from the sleigh by a hidden handle, Alf always brought the plastic cash box into the Blend with him. He never let it out of his sight. So there was no way he’d leave it unguarded on the street like this.
Alarmed now, I approached Alf’s sleigh along the slippery sidewalk. The structures on this street were mostly brick, their ground-floor windows either curtained or shuttered, emitting little light. The sleigh had been left at the mouth of a narrow alley between two seven-story apartment buildings—twin century-old warehouses that had been gutted and remodeled into high-priced lofts.
Reaching the sleigh, I finally saw that Alf’s plastic cash box was broken open, only a few coins left inside. More coins were on the ground, making little round sinkholes in the snow. There were footprints in the powder—two sets of prints. Both led away from the sleigh, into the alley. Only one set of footprints came out again. They continued down the sidewalk in the direction of the river.
Those can’t be Alf’s footprints, I decided. Why would he head toward