“I remember you. Hard not to. Geez. You’re built like a stack of boulders. I knew your dad a bit. Good Hog. Knew his way around a concrete mix.”

Skinny Rope lifts the other eyebrow. “Pearl. You mean Brosie Pearl?”

“Nah,” Santa says, waving a hand that Mookie can see has the crinkly flesh of a burn scar all up the back of it. “Ambrose was the old man. I’m talking about Henry. The son. Rocky, we called him. And that makes you…” He snaps his crusty fingers. “Little Mikey.”

“Mookie. I go by Mookie these days.”

“Right. Right. You worked with Davey Morgan down there.”

“Uh-huh.”

Santa leans in. “I remember it right, you bailed on us. Left the union.”

“I had other things to do.”

“I bet you did. I bet you did.” The way Santa is sizing him up, he knows. “You were with Davey, that means you were with the 147½. That right?”

“That’s right.” The 147-and-a-half: the union inside the union, a cabal of Sandhogs who know what’s down there and who serve as the first line of defense between the city above and Hell below. They don’t usually run afoul of the Organization, but it happens – the Organization wants the resources the Deep Downstairs has to offer, but the Sandhogs think all of it should stay corked up and kept from the light. “What of it?”

Mookie doesn’t bother answering.

“So then you know Davey’s busy. And you know that there’s no way I’m letting a quitter like you down in the dark on our territory. Davey’s not your business. OK? His business is not your business. So, go home, Little Mikey. Go back to your other friends.”

He knows. He knows who Mookie works for. Santa Claus knows that he’s been naughty, not nice. Skinny Rope doesn’t know elf-piss from egg-nog: he’s following the conversation the way one does when the other speakers are talking a different language. But not Santa. Santa sees all.

Mookie growls. He’s not fond of being told “no”.

“Ease off the stick, Cochise,” Santa says. “You’re a big ape used to throwing your weight around, and I don’t doubt you could punch my fat old head into next week. But you got a whole trailer of mean sonofabitches behind you, and worse, this site is watched by Homeland Security. We got big projects going on. Important projects. Not to mention an unholy hell’s load of dynamite down there. You go knocking guys around here and they’ll throw your ass in an unlabeled hole for the rest of your years. That what you want?”

Homeland Security? Jesus. Things have really changed since 9/11.

Mookie just shakes his head.

“Then let’s just cut this short and say goodbye. Goodbye, Mikey Pearl.”

“Mookie.”

“Whatever, kid. Get outta here.”

Kid. The old lump of bearded fat called him “kid”. Mookie’s a couple years shy of his fiftieth birthday, and even still, some senior citizen Sandhog calling him “kid” gets under his skin, lays eggs there, eggs that hatch and whose larvae burrow deep.