An Act of Persuasion(108)

He unfolded the paper and extended it to her. She took it as if she were in a trance before finally glancing down.

It was a check.

She blinked.

It was a check for two million dollars.

Signed by Malcolm Henry, Jr.

The Malcolm Henry, Jr., of Henry Department Stores.

She blinked. “I don’t understand. Where did you get this?”

He grinned. “My child, you are the Spirit of Christmas.”

A flash of light blinded her, forcing her to squinch her eyes together. When she opened them, she found another man emerging from behind the Dumpster. The light was so blinding and her feet were now so numbed by the cold, she stumbled back, tilted and fell, landing hard on the icy pavement.

She tried to get up, but her legs failed to comply, so she sat there feeling water seep through the seat of her newest skirt, no doubt ruining the charcoal tweed and her favorite silk panties.

The elderly man stood and shrugged into a long cashmere coat the cameraman handed him while shoving feet still clad in the garish Christmas socks into a pair of lined hunting boots stored within one of the cardboard boxes. Then he extended one hand to her. She took it, bobbing her glance nervously toward the man filming the oddest thing that had ever happened to her—and she’d had plenty of oddness in her life…she’d once been bitten by a llama, for heaven’s sake. She still held the check, so she shoved it toward the older man, who didn’t look so much like a bum anymore. His coat probably cost a week’s salary. Maybe a month’s.

He waved the check away. “No, no. That’s all yours. I feared we wouldn’t find a kind soul at all. Been doing this for four straight days.”

She didn’t say anything. Merely stood there. Shocked.

“By the way, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Malcolm Henry, and I must tell you I love these socks.”