Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2005

There was really no of course about it. It was a guess. That little assassin Giftwrap had been up to something in the tree, hadn’t he? If she were wrong, at that very moment Jingle would be dumping a perfectly good star in the Arctic Ocean while a bomb sat in the workshop, ready to blow the place to peppermint-scented smithereens if the Russians got their hands on the remote control again.

The spymaster laughed.

It took Mrs. Claus a moment to realize that it wasn’t a gloating, “You old fool!” laugh. It was a bitter, “Why me?” laugh. Then she saw the slice of fruitcake he’d drawn from his black trench coat.

“Oh, come now,” she chided him. “You don’t have to take it that hard.”

But it was too late for the spymaster. Within seconds his chin was covered in crumbs, and he was dead.

The tall, sighing spy moved quickly to the cage around the fireplace. He pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the door.

“Go,” he told Santa. He turned to Mrs. Claus. “Hurry.”

He followed them out to the sleigh and helped them both up into the front seat.

“I have to azk you,” he said once Santa had the reins in hand. “At the North Pole, do you have... how you zay? Political azylum?”

“A xylowhat?” Santa asked.

Mrs. Claus smiled. “Get in.” She waited for the tall Russian to get settled into the back seat, then swiveled around to face him. “So tell me, young man. What can you do?”

The secret agent shrugged. “I have been a zpy for zo many years. All I know iz thiz Cold Var.”

“You don’t have any

skills?”

“Vell... I do know one hundred and thirty-zeven vays to kill a man.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Claus stroked her chin for a moment. “Well, maybe Rumpity-Tump could use some help in the stable.”

“Ho ho ho!” said Santa.

The reindeer knew what to do when they heard that. So they did it.

A Crust of Rice

by Martin Limón

The soft flesh of Kim Ji-na’s pudgy fingers shook as she poured steaming barley tea into an earthenware cup.

“He beat me, Older Sister,” she said. “And then he stole my money.”

Kimiko lifted the cup to her nose, savoring the aroma. Ji-na, the much younger woman, knelt on the warm ondol floor on the other side of a short serving table. The man Ji-na was talking about had been her boyfriend of almost six months, an American soldier by the name of Greene. His first name Ji-na didn’t know, something difficult to pronounce. His rank, however, was corporal. One of his tattered fatigue shirts still hung in the wooden armoire. What unit had he been assigned to? Ji-na only knew 8th Army, which didn’t narrow the possibilities much. Less than a mile away from this village of Itaewon stood the huge 8th Army headquarters, Yongsan Compound, teeming with over five thousand American GIs. He worked with engines, Ji-na told Kimiko. That much she knew because almost every night when he came home his fingers were cut and bleeding and covered with grease.

“Why did he leave you?” Kimiko asked.

Demurely, like a well-trained Confucian child, Ji-na lowered her eyes.

“He’s returning to the United States,” Ji-na said. “In a few days. He said we have to finish.”

“But why did he beat you?”

Ji-na stared at Kimiko, black eyes flashing with indignation. “He said he wanted his money back. For the final month he wouldn’t be spending with me. I refused.”

Kimiko nodded her head sadly. She’d heard such things before. Since the end of the Korean War some twelve years ago, the people of Korea had been poorer than they’d been in living memory. Even poorer than they’d been under the Japanese occupation during World War II. And people had been forced to do anything to survive. For a young girl like Ji-na, a young girl from the countryside, to land a rich American to take care of her was thought of as a great victory. A victory against hunger. A victory against begging on the street. What with their steady paychecks and their access to the PX — with its cornucopia of imported American-made goods — GIs were rich. Much richer than the average Korean.

Through a cloud of rising steam, Kimiko studied Ji-na. The young woman’s eyes were blackened and her nose had swollen red and angry to almost twice its natural size. Her entire face was round, flushed with blood, and puffier than Kimiko remembered seeing it before.

Ji-na busied herself with offering a bowl of nurungji, crisp flakes peeled from the edge of an earthenware pot. Kimiko picked out one of the stiff shards of burnt rice and nibbled on the tasteless wafer, staring all the while at Ji-na’s mangled fingernails.

“And why, young Ji-na,” Kimiko asked, “did you call me?”

Ji-na bowed once again.

“Because you have vast experience,” she answered. “With the Americans and with all sorts of foreigners.”