"We wa.s.s s'pose' to stay with my cousin," Jose said. "He says he ha.s.s a room for us."

"Where's that?" Parker asked.

"Eleven twenny-four Mason Avenue, apar'men' thirty-two."

"But there's no room for us," Maria said. "Cirilo, he's--" She caught her breath. Her face contorted in pain again.

Jose took her hand. She looked up at him. "D' lady lives ness door," he said to Parker, "she tells us Cirilo ha.s.s move away."

"When's the last time you heard from him?"

"La.s.s' month."

"So you don't think to check, huh? You come all the way up from Puerto Rico without checkin' to see your cousin's still here or not? Brilliant. You hear this, Bert?" he said to Kling. "Jet-set travelers we got here; they come to the city in their summer clothes in December, they end up in an abandoned building."

"They thought the cousin was still here, that's all," Kling said, watching the girl, whose hands were now spread wide on her belly.

"OK, what's the big emergency here?" someone said from the railing.

The man standing there was carrying a small black satchel. He was wearing a heavy black overcoat over white trousers and tunic. The snow on the shoulders of the coat and dusted onto his bare head was as white as the tunic and pants. "Mercy General at your service," he said. "Sorry to be so late; it's been a busy night. Not to mention two feet of snow out there. Where's the patient?"

"You'd better take a look at the girl," Carella said. "She's in--"

"Right here," Carmody said from the cage.

"Me, too," Knowles said.

"Somebody want to let them out?" the intern said. "One at a time, please."

Hawes went to the cage and threw back the bolts on the door.

"Who's first?" the intern said.

Carella started to say, "The girl over there is in la--"

"Free at last," Carmody interrupted, coming out of the cage.

"Don't hold your breath," Hawes said and bolted the door again.

The intern was pa.s.sing Parker's desk when Maria suddenly gasped.

"You OK, miss?" he said at once.

Maria clutched her belly.

"Miss?" he said.

Maria gasped again and sucked in a deep breath of air.

Meyer rolled his eyes. He and Miscolo had delivered a baby right here in the squad room not too long ago, and he was grateful for the intern's presence.

"This woman is in labor!" the intern said.

"Comes the dawn," Carella said, sighing.

"Iss it d' baby comin'?" Jose asked.

"Looks that way, mister," the intern said. "Somebody get a blanket or something. You got any blankets up here?"

Kling was already on his way out of the squad room.

"Just take it easy, miss," the intern said. "Everything's gonna be fine." He looked at Meyer and said, "This is my first baby."

Terrific, Meyer thought, but he said nothing.

"You need some hot water?" Hawes asked.

"That's for the movies," the intern said.

"Get some hot water," Carmody said.

"I don't need hot water," the intern said. "I just need someplace for her to lie down." He thought about this for a moment. "Maybe I do need hot water," he said.

Hawes ran out of the squad room, almost colliding with Kling, who was on his way back with a pair of blankets he'd found in the clerical office. Miscolo was right behind him.

"Another baby coming?" he asked Meyer. He seemed eager to deliver it.

"We got a professional here," Meyer said.

"You need any help," Miscolo said to the intern, "just ask, OK?"

"I won't need any help," the intern said, somewhat snottily, Miscolo thought. "Put those blankets down someplace. You OK, miss?" He suddenly looked very nervous.

Maria nodded and then gasped again and clutched her belly and stifled a scream. Kling was spreading one of the blankets on the floor to the left of the detention cage, near the hissing radiator. Knowles and the black man moved to the side of the cage nearest the radiator.

"Give her some privacy," Carella said softly. "Over there, Bert. Behind the filing cabinets."

Kling spread the blanket behind the cabinets.

"She's gonna have her baby right here," Knowles said.

The black man said nothing.

"I never experienced nothin' like this in my life," Knowles said, shaking his head.

The black man still said nothing.

"Maria?" Jose said.

Maria nodded and then screamed.

"Try to keep it down, w.i.l.l.ya?" Parker said. He looked as nervous as the intern did.

"Just come with me, miss," the intern said, easing Maria out of the chair, taking her elbow and guiding her to where Kling had spread the blanket behind the cabinets. "Easy, now," he said. "Everything's gonna be fine."

Hawes was back with a kettle of hot water. "Where do you want--" he started to say, just as Maria and the intern disappeared from view behind the bank of high cabinets.

It was three minutes to midnight, three minutes to Christmas Day.

From behind the filing cabinets, there came only the sounds of Maria's labored breathing and the intern's gentle a.s.surances that everything was going to be all right. The kid kept staring at the clock as it threw the minutes before Christmas into the room. Behind the filing cabinets, a sixteen-year-old girl and an inexperienced intern struggled to bring a life into the world.

There was a sudden sharp cry from behind the cabinets.

The hands of the clock stood straight up. It was Christmas Day.

"Is it OK?" Parker asked. There was something like concern in his voice.

"Fine baby boy," the intern said, as if repeating a line he'd heard in a movie. "Where's that water? Get me some towels. You've got a fine, healthy boy, miss," he said to Maria and covered her with the second blanket.

Hawes carried the kettle of hot water to him.

Carella brought him paper towels from the rack over the sink.

"Just going to wash him off a little, miss," the intern said.

"You got a fine baby boy," Meyer said to Jose, smiling.

Jose nodded.

"What're you gonna name him?" Kling asked.

The black man, who'd been silent since he'd entered the squad room, suddenly said in a deep and sonorous voice, " 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.' "

"Amen," Knowles said.

The detectives were gathered in a knot around the bank of filing cabinets now, their backs to Carmody. Carmody could have made a run for it, but he didn't. Instead, he picked up first the shopping bag of pot he and Knowles had been busted for and then the valise containing the loot Kling had recovered when he'd collared the black man. He carried them to where Maria lay behind the cabinets, the baby on her breast. He knelt at her feet. He dipped his hand into the bag, grabbed a handful of pot and sprinkled it onto the blanket. He opened the valise. There were golden rings and silver plates in the valise, bracelets and necklaces, rubies and diamonds and sapphires that glittered in the pale, snow-reflected light that streamed through the corner windows.

"Gracias," Maria said softly. "Muchas gracias."

Carella, standing closest to the windows, looked up at the sky, where the snow still swirled furiously.

"That's not a bad name," Meyer said to Jose. "Emmanuel."

"I will name him Carlos," Jose said. "After my father."

Carella turned from the windows.

"What'd you expect to see out there?" Parker asked. "A star in the East?"

AN EARLY CHRISTMAS.

Doug Allyn.

LIKE THE NEW YORK YANKEES DURING THE MICKEY MANTLE era and the Boston Celtics when Bill Russell and John Havlicek played, Doug Allyn has had a stranglehold on the prestigious Reader's Award given annually by Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. It is a poll voted on by readers of the magazine for their favorite story of the year, and ten of his stories have come in first, and over twenty have been in the top three. "An Early Christmas" was selected as the favorite story of the year in 2009; it was published in the January issue.

An Early Christmas.

DOUG ALLYN.

JARED SNAPPED AWAKE TO THE sound of laughter. On the bedside TV, Jay Leno was yukking it up with a ditzy blonde celeb. Jared sat up slowly, dazed and groggy from too much brandy, too much s.e.x. Fumbling around, he found the remote control, and killed the tinny TV cackling, then looked around slowly, trying to get his bearings.

A bedroom. Not his own. Sunny Lockhart was sprawled beside him, nude, snoring softly with her mouth open, her platinum hair a tousled shambles. At fifty-one, Sunny had crow's feet and smile lines, but her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were D-cup and she made love like a teenybopper. Better, in fact.

Grat.i.tude s.e.x. The best kept secret in the legal profession. After settling cases involving serious money, clients were often elated, h.o.r.n.y, and very, very grateful to the guy who made it happen.

Thanks to Jared's legal expertise, Sunny Lockhart was financially set for life, a free and independent woman of means. Unfortunately, she was also crowding fifty. Too old for Jared by a dozen years. And he had to be in the office to meet with a client at nine sharp.

d.a.m.n. Time to go.

Stifling a groan, Jared slid silently out of Sunny's rumpled bed and began gathering up his clothes.

Roaring down the sh.o.r.e road in his Mercedes SL500 through a gentle snowfall, Jared set his radio on scan, listening to the momentary snippets of songs flashing past. Mostly Christmas carols or country. Finally caught a tune he liked. Back in Black, AC/DC. Cranking the volume, he slapped the wheel on the back beat, getting an energy surge from the music.

Couldn't stop grinning. Wondering if he could arrange a weekend getaway with Sunny. Getting hot and bothered again just thinking about it.

He paid no attention to the rust-bucket pickup truck rumbling down the side road to his left. Until he realized the truck wasn't slowing for the stop sign! The crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d was speeding up, heading straight for him!

Stomping his brakes, Jared swerved over onto the shoulder, trying to avoid a crash. Knowing it was already too late!

Blowing through the intersection at eighty, the pickup came howling across the centerline, sheering off at the last second to slam broadside into Jared's roadster, smashing him off the road.

Airbags and the windshield exploded together, smothering Jared in a world of white as the Benz plowed into the ma.s.sive snowdrift piled along the highway, then blew through it, hurtling headlong down the steep embankment.

Fighting free of the airbag's embrace, Jared wrestled the wheel, struggling to control the roadster in its downhill skid. He managed to avoid one tree, then glanced off another. For a split second he thought he might actually make it-but his rear fender clipped a towering pine, snapping the car around, sending it tumbling end over end down the slope.

Bouncing off tree trunks like a pinball, the Benz was being hammered into sc.r.a.p metal. The side windows shattered inward, spraying Jared with gla.s.s fragments. For a heart-freezing instant, he felt the car go totally airborne, then it slammed down nose-first into the bottom of the gorge with stunning force.

A lightning strike of white-hot agony flashed up Jared's spine, driving his breath out in a shriek. Freezing him in place. He was afraid to breathe, or even blink, for fear of triggering the G.o.dawful pain again.

Christ. He couldn't feel his legs. Didn't know what was wrong with them, but knew it was serious. Total numbness meant his back might be broken or- "Mister?" A voice broke through Jared's terrified daze. "Can you hear me down there?"