He sipped. "I couldn't have asked for a nicer Christmas."
"I could say the same about you." She sipped once, then slapped her glass down and stood up, adjusting her sequined gown around her hips, then leaned over confidently. "I'll soon have you joining my secret musical soirées, too." She pointed at the table. "Now, don't forget your five dollars. Let's go make some Christmas music." Jurgen slipped the bill into his shirt pocket, then followed her out the door and into the spotlights.
* * * * *
On Christmas Day at eleven, Jurgen checked out of the Charleston Residence Hotel. Packing took only a few minutes, as he had little in the way of possessions. When he finished packing, he switched off the light and set his valise and viola case down outside the door. Leaving the door open, he went back into the room and, holding a hand kerchief in his palm, stood on the chair to carefully unscrew the hot bulb from its socket. He closed the door behind him, then crouched in the hallway and put the Hungarian lightbulb into his valise, carefully wrapped inside his silk shirt.
CHRISTMAS CONCERT
It was several nights before Christmas, and all along the freeway, cars were lined up like a vast herd of red-nosed reindeer being led off to slaughter. I glanced away from the sight and reached out to snap off the radio. I'd had far too much of the Messiah since Thanksgiving. You'd think a respectable classical station could think of something more original to saturate the airwaves with. But I knew that even if I changed the station, I'd get White Christmas, or Blue Christmas, or Dixie Christmas, or some other form of musical blasphemy. Traffic moved along sluggishly, inching up a long, curving hill. It was raining heavily—one of those sudden tropical storms, only it was happening in a refrigerator. I had the windshield wipers on full, but still I could hardly see the vehicle in front of me.
Along with every other irate father, uncle, brother, and son who was late for some engagement or another, I was in the fast lane. I had gotten caught in a last-minute sales meeting, and I was going to be late for my daughter's concert if the idiot in front of me didn't hurry up. The offending car was a Jeep, jacked up on all fours with tires big enough to dwarf a road-grader, and had struts and shock absorbers and what-not sticking out all over the undercarriage—a real useful piece of machinery for navigating the treacherous Silicon Valley freeways: when you see a car you don't like, you just roll right over it. The Jeep had one of those typical California vanity plates, held in place by a brass frame which, had I been able to read it in the dark, would have said "My other truck is a Mack." The driver was pumping on his brakes continually, no doubt keeping time to some Country Christmas Hit Classic. Lounging on top of this pinnacle of western automotive engineering was a Christmas tree, lashed with a couple pieces of thin twine—probably on its way to a living room hung with paintings of nudes on black velvet, and soon to be littered with tacky country decorations and strings of popcorn. The tree listed to one side, bobbing over the edge of the Jeep's roof in time with the blinking brake lights. The driver's girlfriend was smooching up to him in the front seat—I could see her outline through the back window, practically sitting in his lap... maybe she _was_ in his lap. I started thinking they probably deserved to lose the whole tree. They'd have a real nice surprise when they got home without it.
I reached over to turn on the radio again, thinking the hourly excerpt from the Messiah might be over by then. I should have brought a tape from home, but I'd barely had time to change my suit. Just when my eyes were averted for an instant, the Christmas-tree bedecked vehicle in front of me decided to drop its load. I felt my car go bump, bump, and slammed on my brakes before I even looked up. The car behind me skidded and swerved to one side, then leaned on his horn as if he'd run into an iceberg. I just hit the emergency lights and leaned on my own horn. The guy in front, perhaps hearing the tooting chorus behind him, stopped just down the road, and like an idiot, put his Jeep into reverse and came hurtling back toward me. He skidded to a stop and put on his emergency lights.