When Elves Attack by Tim Dorsey Read Free Book Online

frozen turkey, LEGOs. I’ll be watching. That is all. You may go.”
    â€œYou’re insane! . . . and dead!” The guard began rolling up his sleeves. “Both of you.”
    â€œYou can’t hit me. I’m in an elf suit. I’m calling it.”
    â€œOh, I can’t hit you, eh?”
    â€œNo, look, see? Elf hat.” Serge took the hat off, twirled it on his left index finger, then his right, then quickly placed it over the guard’s face and smashed his fist as hard as he could in his nose. Plus a knee to the groin. The guard went down like a sack of concrete, clipping his chin on the edge of the porcelain and sending two teeth into the urinal cake.
    Thus Serge began a vicious stomping—kidneys, ribs, spleen—kicking away with hands on his hips like a demented river dance. Coleman peed on the guard.
    â€œColeman, watch out! You’re hitting my elf shoes!”
    â€œSorry.”
    A final kick in the throat. “Don’t you ever be mean to kids again! And stay away from the Davenports, who are called something else.”
    The mall cop’s face lay sideways on the tiles. Blood streaming from his nose and mouth, finally managing to open his eyelids a slit, seeing four green elf shoes walking out the door to the sound of the jingle bells on their curled-up toes.

Chapter Four
    TRIGGERFISH LANE
    A phone rang.
    â€œI got it.” Jim Davenport set down tools to hang a painting and picked up the receiver. “Hello? . . . Yes, this is the Davenports’ . . . Uh-huh, right, we were there yesterday . . . What? . . . No, we don’t know anything about that . . . I see . . . That’s unusual . . . I don’t know; I’ll have to ask her . . .”
    â€œWho is it?” Martha yelled from the kitchen.
    â€œExcuse me a second.” Jim covered the phone. “It’s the mall.”
    â€œWhat do they want?”
    â€œAbout your complaint. They got your message and want to talk.”
    â€œGood.” Martha walked out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel. “I’m glad to see at least someone takes this sort of thing seriously.”
    â€œI think they’re actually more interested in something else. That mall cop is in the hospital. They suspect some kind of fight in a restroom, although he’s claiming he was attacked. They’ve put him on suspension until they finish the investigation.”
    â€œWhat does that have to do with me?”
    â€œYou left your complaint about the same time. They just want to know what you might have seen.”
    Martha held out her hand. “Let me talk to him . . . Hello? Yes, this is Martha Davenport . . . But it will be completely confidential, right? . . . Okay, I saw him behaving unprofessionally toward a group of small children. And he was extremely rude to me . . . No, nothing about any attack . . . Well, who does he say attacked him? . . . Elves? . . .”
    Jim fell into a chair, knocking over a lamp.
    â€œJim, are you okay?”
    â€œJust slipped . . . I’ll get the dustpan. Don’t step on the lightbulb pieces.”
    Back into the phone: “No, I’m still here . . . As a matter of fact I do remember some elves . . . Yeah, and I was remarking to my husband that they seemed to be following him . . . A tall one and a chubby one . . . What do you mean your mall doesn’t employ elves? I wasn’t seeing things . . . Could you repeat that last part? . . . The guard claims the elves mentioned our name? That’s weird . . .”
    Jim returned with the dustpan. Martha covered the phone. “Jim, they say the elves mentioned our name.” Then into the phone: “I’ll have to call you back. There’s something wrong with my husband. But I demand that man be fired for his earlier behavior,