"Daddy called and said he had to work late," Lisa said. "He'll be home soon. Go to sleep, darling. Everything is all right.

"And guess what? Tomorrow is Christmas!

"Not only will Daddy be here to watch you open your presents but Santa will have come! Have you been a nice girl?"

Lexie sniffed. "I think so..."

"Well there you are." Lisa kissed the child and then looked toward the window, distracted. "There you are, little love. Everything will be all right tomorrow. Christmas day."

The child snuggled into her blankets. She looked up at her mother and asked: "Mommy, are you sure everything will be all right tomorrow? Are you sure Daddy will be here?"

"Certainly," Lisa said. "Daddy promised, didn't he? Has Daddy ever broken a promise?"

The lights flickered. Then they went out.

"Mommy!"

"It must be the fuse box," Lisa said. "I'll check it. Rest easy, darling. Everything is all right."

Of course they'd have a blackout on Christmas Eve. That was what was so great about living in this town, nothing worked anymore. The streets were full of potholes, the electricity was spotty summer and winter, the buildings were boarded up or crumbling in fifty percent of the place. The whole town was full of ex-cons, soon-to-be-cons, or freaking bums. Even the cops looked like bums. Their cars and uniforms had to date back to the Reagan era. It didn't make any sense to buy a new car in a place like this, somebody might mistake you for a guy with a good-paying job and knock you over the head to take the money you didn't have.

Jack wanted to get Lisa and the kid out of this place so bad he could taste it. Who knows, if Daddy Warbucks was as heeled as he always bragged about being, maybe with this score he could. But Jack was not counting any chickens yet.

Tony was in the back seat of Jack's car cracking his knuckles. It was a bad habit the guy had picked up somewhere, probably in the joint. But you didn't complain about it; nobody ever complained about any of Tony's bad habits. You just knew better. Not that the guy had a short fuse or anything. It took a lot to get the guy riled because he was so thick. Thick as a brick. Most insults flew right over his head like jet-liners --- unless someone else was stupid enough to laugh and tick the guy off.

They still had to pick up Arvin. Jack was to meet him at some other bar, on the other side of town, on the way to Warbuck's crib. He was still runnin' late and silently prayed that Arvin was not getting too fucked up to work.

"Hey, Tony," Paco said. "I got a joke for you, man."

Tony stopped cracking his knuckles. "Go ahead."

"What do most people say before a traffic accident?"

"I don't know."

"Oh shit!"

"What happened?"

"No, puto, that's what they say, 'Oh shit!'" Paco said.

Tony started laughing. It sounded kind of like a cough. "Pretty funny, Paco."

"No, man, that ain't the end of the joke!"

"It's still pretty funny," Tony said.

"So what's the end of the joke?" Jack asked.

"What do they say in West Virginia?"

"What do they say in West Virginia?" Tony asked.

"Hold my beer and watch this!" Paco started snickering.

"You don't have a beer," Tony said.

"No, man, no! That's what they say before gettin' in a wreck in West Virginia: 'Hold my beer and watch this!'"

"I thought 'Oh shit!' was funnier," Tony said.

"You would," Paco muttered. "Where the hell we going to pick up Arvin, man? The next state?"

"I told you the place was across town," Jack said. "Keep your drawers on."

The lights suddenly came back on all over town. Jack sighed.

"Wow! Look at all them Christmas decorations! Ain't they pretty?" Tony said. "Guys, how can you not like this time of year? Really!"

"All I know is I'm getting thirsty again, man," Paco groused. "I'm comin' in an getting a shot of tequila when we get there."

"Just wait in the car. I won't be long."

"Just wait in the car? You expect me and Tony to freeze our balls off out here in your piece of shit car while you unwrap Arvin from around that drink? You do, you got another think comin', Gringo. No way! Me and Tony is comin' inside with you.

"Besides, it's Christmas Eve, right Tony? Me and the big man deserves some Christmas cheer like every other citizen! Right, Tony?"

"Oh yeah!" Tony exclaimed like the thought had slipped his mind. "Merry Christmas, guys."

"Felize Navidad, man."

"I ain't yer Daddy," Jack said. "You fucks wannah come in and have a drink, have at it. It'll give the mark more time to get to sleep. Just don't start bitchin' to me, Paco, if you don't get home to Brenda and the kids by four, okay? Just don't bitch to me."

"Since when do I bitch? I never bitch about nuthin', man," Paco asserted.

They drove on in silence. Well almost. Tony started cracking his knuckles again while he admired the Christmas lights in the store windows they passed.

"Ya know," Tony said, "it don't seem right us doin' this job on Christmas.

"Guy expects to get up in the morning, still feelin' good about his party and instead he finds out some mooks broke in and cleaned him out. That's a fuck of a Merry Christmas, ain't it? It don't seem right to me, Jack."

"Look, you don't even know this guy," Jack said. "He's a turkey! He's a big, fat, rich blowhard. He robs people blind in that store and then laughs about it. Take it from me, I been workin' for the guy for three years. He's a prick. He deserves this.

"Besides, if it makes you feel any better, rich guys like him always got insurance. He'll probably lie about the swag and say it was worth two, three times as much and make a profit on this deal! I know the rat-bastard and I'm tellin' you that's exactly the kind of shit he'd love to pull. It will like breathin' to a fuck like that."

"Yeah, okay. But why can't we hit his store instead of his house? Hittin' his store would be more like a real job and not so --- so personal like. He wouldn't even know it happened until like after Christmas day. You know what I'm sayin'?"

"We don't rob his store," Jack shot back, getting a little irritated, "because I work at his store. We rob his goddamned store the cops might start thinkin' maybe it's an inside job and the first person they'll look for is the guy what has a jacket, like me! We rob his house, it could be anybody. It could be some random shit. Then the first people they look for is guys who are still in the life, not 'reformed' citizens like us. You got that, Tony?!?"

"Sure, Jack, sure. Jack the Brain. You're always thinkin'."

Paco clipped some of the liquor bottles left out on display just for shits and grins. Paco thought it was funny. Tony was just extra baggage. He got his cut for just standing around and then hauling shit out to the car. The cost of doing business, Jack figured.

It was a nice haul. Better than Jack figured. Looked like Warbucks wasn't just bragging about being in the chips. The wife's jewelry alone would probably bring them six large from a good fence.

What Jack hadn't figured on was these envelopes Arvin had found in the safe down in the basement rumpus room. Behind the picture of the card-playing dogs near the pool table was a small safe Jack's crew hadn't figured on finding. In the safe was a piece, some insurance papers on the old guy, and these other envelopes. One of the envelopes had Jack's name on it.

While they were splitting the loot in the Motel 6 Jack just stared at that envelope a long time before he could even open it. What the fuck?

It seems old man Warbucks was opening two more stores. One in a nice neighborhood across the river, which he was gonnah make Jack the manager for. He was giving Jack a big raise and a cut of the profits if the store did well.

The letter was dated New Year's Day and went on and on about how Jack was a great example of people who had a bad start and then paid their debt to society and came back better citizens for it. Warbucks went on about his admiration for a man like Jack who had had a rough beginning and "risen above early adversity" to reveal his "true character."

Jack felt like he would puke. That sanctimonious bastard! What did he know about "rough beginnings?"

"We gottah take this stuff back," Jack told the crew.

"AWw--right!" Tony cheered. "Now you're talkin', Jack! It's fuckin' Christmas!"

"What!?!" Paco shrieked. "Have you gone loco, Dude?"

Arvin's eyes, which always looked big behind them thick, coke bottle glasses of his, suddenly looked like saucers. "Am I hearin' you right?" he asked in his growling, boozed-out voice. "You want us to break into the guy's house again to put shit back in? Tell me this is one of your sick jokes, Jack-off."

"No, guys, he's serious!" Tony insisted excitedly. "Even Jack the Brain has got to have some kindah heart on Christmas! It's beautiful, I tell ya'!"

"It's fucked," Arvin said. "I ain't breakin' into nobody's pad to put shit back!"

"You lucky I don't have a piece, Jack," Paco said, "or I would shove it so far up your ass it would make it back out to daylight."

"What's your cut here worth? Figure it out,"Jack said. "I'll cover your time and expenses."

"You lost your mind, cabrone."

"What the fuck that letter say?" Arvin asked. "Dude makin' you his son and heir or some shit?"

"Forget about the letter," Jack said.

"Uh-uh, Babycakes, I don't think so. Listen up, ladies," Arvin said. "Any letter that makes Jack the Brain, as he fashions himself, suddenly become Little Mary Sunshine has 'money' written all over it. Big money.

"The way I figure it, since the three of us went in on the job with Jacko here, we all deserve our slice of pie, too. Am I right?"

"It's just Christmas, guy," Tony said. "Ain't you got no fuckin' heart, Arvin? Or is that turned into a computer chip, too?"

"Shut up, Tony!" Arvin said. "You want us to take this stuff back, Jack, you gottah show something besides 'time and expenses.' You read me?"

"What's in the letter, man?" Paco challenged, now up and pacing in front of the fake gold and yellow curtains of the little room. "What it say?"

"Fuck the letter, you guys!" Jack said. "It's no big deal. Warbucks is just giving me a better job, my own store, that's it. I'm not gettin' rich offah this. It's --- okay, it's just the idea of what the letter means."

Arvin cut him off. "Gimme a break, Jacko! You really expect us to believe you've had a change of heart over a job promotion? Do we all look as stupid as Tony or what?"

"I ain't stupid, you prick!" Tony hissed, getting to his feet now.

"Fuck!" Jack shouted. "Will you guys listen to me? It ain't the job. It's the idea! The guy thinks I got something on the ball, believe it or not! Nobody since my old man ever thought I was worth shit before Lisa.

" 'Jack the Brain!' Most people looked at me all my life and saw nuthin' but LOSER besides my old man until Lisa came along! Guess what? I got a heart, too. That shit hurt me, okay?

"So I'm thinkin' maybe takin' this shit back, just dumping it inside his door --- we ain't gottah do the safes again or nuthin' --- it'll make the old fucker think. He'll get a better alarm system so cons like us can't break into his crib again and AND maybe he'll think some more and see the value in some other guy and give him a break, too!

"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but that's what I'm thinking! You want a piece of me? Okay, carve away, Arvin! You got me over a barrel. I broke into the man's house --- with YOU. So I go down, you go down with me, Computer Whiz. How you like me now?

"But think about it: I told you I'd cover your time. It ain't costing you shit to take this stuff back! And maybe I can make some kindah life for Lisa and the kid... That's all. That's it..."

Paco wagged his head. "Oh man! I never thought I'd see the day of Jack the Brain going soft. Never," he muttered.

Tony smiled. "I keep tellin' ya', guy. It's Christmas. We ain't gottah hurt nobody. We ain't gottah worry about getting caught. In and out. Drop the shit in the man's front room and go home to Momma. Badda-bing, badda-boom."

"Shut up, Tony," Arvin said. "Lemme think about this. Jack, I hope you're not runnin' some trick-bag on us here, Bro. I'd hate to have to hurt your ass."

"Paco, you can keep the booze," Jack said. "Merry Christmas."

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