The newsletter's circulation grew and grew, making a particularly large jump after a marketing consultant convinced Crowley to change the name to something that didn't sound like a guide to local leather bars. So Muscle Men became Muscles Now!. It also became a magazine. And it made Crowley rich enough to start magazines devoted to the two other great loves of his life: movies and antique Mason jars. (Jars Now! became Antiques Now! after one disastrous issue.) When Crowley's company grew large enough to require an office manager, he'd hired his old high school buddy Bigelow, who'd been handing out pictures from behind the desk at a Wal-Mart Photo Developing Center. Through a tenacious campaign of b.u.t.t-kissing and back-stabbing, Bigelow had risen to circulation a.s.sistant, then circulation manager, then director of circulation and finally, after one more carefully orchestrated character a.s.sa.s.sination, director of circulation and production.

Of course, he wasn't through rising yet, as there was one more director-level position that naturally belonged on his resume. But for every chance he got to slag off Sandberg, he had to endure 20 minutes of talk about weightlifting and a brutal 30 minutes about Mason jars. The only relief came when he and Crowley talked about movies, but even then he was hemmed in and frustrated. Once upon a time he could-and would-tell Crowley he was an idiot to think that Return of the Jedi was the best Star Wars movie and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was better than Raiders of the Lost Ark. But that had been in high school. These days, Crowley could say Attack of the Clones was better than Citizen Kane and Bigelow would have to nod thoughtfully and say, "Yeah. That lightsaber duel with Count Dooku was sweet."

And even that simple, if irritating, act of yes-man boot-licking seemed to be beyond Bigelow just now. As Crowley droned on and on about how many "reps" he'd managed in the gym that morning, Bigelow's mind wandered the hallways of the Now! office, stopping at the desks of his seven suspects. Five of them would be easy to deal with. They were designers and editors, mere bugs to be squashed beneath his managerial boot heel. But what if his Secret Santa was Peter Jarry, the comptroller? Maybe Jarry had noticed the charges for pay-per-view p.o.r.n and room-service filet mignon that always piled up on Bigelow's bill when he went on company trips. Maybe he even knew those company trips were completely bogus, as Bigelow only insisted on doing personal press checks for Antiques Now!, which was printed at a plant 25 miles from Disney World.

Or perhaps it was Sandberg. He couldn't be as innocent as he appeared. His image was squeaky clean-never gossiped, worked hard, took care of his staff, blah blah blah, exactly the kind of goody two-shoes b.s. that reminded Bigelow what a fraud he himself truly was.

It had to be an act. Or maybe Sandberg had simply seen the writing on the wall, toughened up and launched a pre-emptive strike. He could be trying to throw Bigelow off, psych him out.

Well, if that was his plan, he . . . .

"Bro, are you even listening to me?"

Bigelow blinked away the pleasing vision of Sandberg roasting over a barbecue pit.

"Of course," he said. "And I couldn't agree more."

What he'd agree with, he soon found out, was that Atlas Strong Shoulder Jars might indeed replace Ball Perfect Mason Jars as the most popular fruit jar collectibles in their cla.s.s. Seemingly satisfied that Bigelow would back him up on this controversial a.s.sertion, Crowley plowed on. But Bigelow had the uncomfortable feeling that the publisher was watching him closely now, looking for signs that he wasn't paying attention. Bigelow overcompensated by laughing a little too uproariously at Crowley's strained pun on the phrase "Ball Perfect" and becoming a little too incensed when his boss described attempts to pa.s.s off irradiated selenium jars as amber.

Mercifully, Crowley eventually drifted off jars and onto business. That gave Bigelow the opportunity to insert not one, not two, but three separate digs at Sandberg into the conversation before Crowley finally arose-nearly two hours after he sat down-and went off to his own office to look over dummy covers and sign checks.

Bigelow felt drained by the meeting, but he had no choice. With Crowley hanging around the rest of the day, he actually had to stay in his office and at least keep up the appearance of diligence. He made half-hearted progress on his in-box (which was more progress than he usually made), all the while trying to figure out how to strip Santa of his secret.

In the end, he could only come up with one solution. He'd always hated logic puzzles and guessing games. No one was going to tell him, and he didn't want to ask. He didn't have a spycam or a fingerprinting kit. He didn't know how to rig a grenade with a trip-wire and he wasn't sure where to get a grenade or a trip-wire even if he did.

He would have to rely on simple snooping. And with nearly everyone working extra late to hit their deadlines, that wouldn't be an option today.

So Bigelow somehow stuck it out to five o'clock, and then he went home. He took Bantha for her pre-bedtime walk at 8:30, when he was usually popping in his second DVD of the evening. He was under the covers by 9.

But though he fell asleep quickly, that horrible Ho! Ho! Ho! haunted his dreams, as did a giant bottle of Scope that lumbered after him like Frankenstein's monster, chasing him through one Starbucks after another.

When the alarm went off at 5 a.m., he felt like he hadn't slept at all.

Thursday, December 18 It was a new experience for Bigelow-being the first one at work. He didn't like it. The office was quiet and dark, not the bright, bustling place where people other than himself were always hustling to and fro accomplishing things. The stillness was something he couldn't quite accept, and he moved through the hallways half-expecting someone to pop out of the shadows and shout, "Bigelow! What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

But he managed a smile when he stepped into his office. There was no gift on his desk. He was the one Ho! Ho! Ho!-ing now. Whoever his Secret Santa was, he'd beat him in that morning. And now Santa was about to see who had the real claws.

Jarry's office was the closest, so Bigelow started there. It took him 10 minutes to go through every desk drawer and filing cabinet. He found nothing more incriminating than a shot gla.s.s and a bottle of Jim Beam. They wouldn't help him solve his mystery, but they were illuminating discoveries nonetheless. Bigelow began to wonder why he'd never done this before.

Chris McCoy, the editor of DVD Now!, was next. His cubicle posed more of a challenge, as it was overflowing with proofs and plastic sleeves stuffed with slides. Bigelow was careful not to get anything out of order, for though McCoy's work area looked like utter chaos, his magazine never missed a deadline, and Bigelow had to a.s.sume there was some kind of system involved even if it escaped his powers of detection.

He found a stash of snacks in one drawer, and he reached in and pulled out a variety pack of Quaker Oats granola bars. He'd been so anxious to get to the office, he hadn't stopped off for coffee and doughnuts that morning, and all this sneaking around was making him hungry. He sorted through the granola bars until he found what he was looking for-a S'mores bar. He took one and then, after a moment's reflection, a Chocolate Chip and a Cookies'n'Cream for later. Then he started to put the box back.

He stopped, suddenly gripping the box so hard one corner caved in. In the drawer was a small, folded slip of white paper that had been buried underneath the granola bars. It looked just like the one he'd pulled out of Marcy's Santa hat the week before. Bigelow picked it up and unfolded it. Written on it were two words.

"JOYCE STARR.".

Bigelow grinned. He was down to six suspects now. And he knew exactly which one he wanted to focus on next. He put the slip of paper and the granola bars back in place, then he headed to the office of Alex Sandberg.

Which was locked. It was such a shock to Bigelow he stood there jiggling the door handle for half a minute before he finally accepted the infuriating fact of it. He stood there a while longer, staring through the gla.s.s at Sandberg's desk like a Victorian waif pressing his soot-covered nose against a pastry shop window.

What kind of paranoid jerk locks his office door? What did Sandberg have to be worried about? What did he have to hide?

Bigelow gave the door a kick before moving on to the cubicle of DVD Now!'s art director, Tom or Tim Somebody. Bigelow barely knew the guy, usually thinking of him only as "the designer with the pierced nose" . . . when he thought of him at all. He couldn't imagine Tom or Tim hating him as much as his Secret Santa obviously did, and he stopped his snooping mid-drawer to return to Sandberg's office and squander a few more seconds struggling with the door-handle. When he went back to Tom/Tim's desk, he resumed his searching without enthusiasm, certain now that the answers he sought were on the other side of that locked door.

Pierced Nose Guy's cube yielded nothing of use, though Bigelow had been reminded of his name, having seen it on a credit card bill he'd come across: Todd Hubble. He also discovered that Todd owed MasterCard $539.32, and that $142 of it was going to "The Hottie Hook-Up Hotline." That discovery should've brought Bigelow some kind of twisted chuckle, but it didn't. He couldn't stop thinking about what he might find in Sandberg's desk, and everything else now seemed like a waste of time.

He was able to eliminate another suspect when he moved on to the next cubicle, this one belonging to DVD Now!'s a.s.sociate editor, whom Bigelow knew as Curt the Kid with Freckles. Tucked away behind a stack of reference books was a bar of pink soap-on-a-rope shaped like a Teletubby. A red ribbon had been taped to the package.

It was a lame gift, but not an evil one. And there was no HO! HO! HO! wrapping paper in sight.

So Freckled Curt was off the hook, and there were still two more cubes to go. Bigelow began putting the soap and books back in place.

"Yo, Curt!" a voice called out. "You made it in pretty . . . oh."

Bigelow spun around to find Chris McCoy standing behind him, a look of embarra.s.sed shock on his face.

"I came in early and I wanted to take a look at the proof of your masthead but I couldn't find it so I went looking for it but I still don't know where it is so maybe you'll go get it for me because there's just one little thing I need to check," Bigelow said, the syllables coming out so fast and choked-throat-guttural they almost sounded like one impossibly long German word.

Bigelow watched McCoy's gaze move from his face to the mess on Freckle Boy's desk to the granola bars bulging out of his pocket and finally to something just below his mouth. Bigelow reached up and felt a smudge of half-melted S'more chocolate on his lower lip.

"Sure," McCoy said, using the slow, soothing tone most people reserve for speaking to over-excitable children and the criminally insane. He began backing away. "I'll be right back."

By the time McCoy returned with the proof, Bigelow had finished cleaning up Curt's cube (and his own chin) and had scurried back to his office. Bigelow had time to affix a look of bland, businesslike calm on his face, yet McCoy still seemed unnerved. He came at Bigelow with his arm stretched out and the proof page extended before him like a sword. When Bigelow took hold of the heavy paper, McCoy stutter-stepped away quickly, not turning his back.

"Let me know if you need anything else!" McCoy said as he moonwalked out the door.

Bigelow knew what was coming next. Other staffers would begin drifting in, both alone and in carpool bunches, and McCoy would greet them all the same way: "Guess who I caught going through our stuff this morning!"

Bigelow had been staring at them all with suspicion the last few days. Now they'd be staring at him the same way. He didn't think he could face it.

And then he realized he didn't have to. He had an office with a door, not an open-air cubicle. He could stay right here at his desk all day. And instead of going out to hunt for his Secret Santa, he could just sit and wait for the s...o...b.. to come to him.

Like Sandberg's office, his had a gla.s.s wall running along the hallway. It had vertical blinds that hung from ceiling to floor, and Bigelow got up and closed them. Then he went back to his desk, sat facing the doorway and began to wait. Sooner or later, he hoped, he'd see a face peeking around the door or someone casually moseying past his office with an innocent-looking bag in his hand. That would be Santa, scouting for an opportunity to drop off his latest slap in the face. And Bigelow would have him. All he had to do was wait and watch.

He lasted 51 minutes. The only cube he could see from his desk was Marcy's, and she arrived half an hour after he began his vigil. She gave him a wave when she first showed up, then shot increasingly quizzical glances his way as he continued staring in her direction.

"Do you need something, Erik?" she called out to him.

"No!" he shouted back. "I'm fine!"

A couple minutes later, she turned to look at him again. "Are you sure you don't need something?"

"I'm fine!"

He wasn't fine. His bladder had been tormenting him for nearly 40 minutes. He'd toyed with the idea of moving his garbage can under his desk and attempting a clandestine potty break, but the risks were too great. Finally, he had to jump up and make a dash for the men's room, every step sending searing spasms across his groin.

When he got back to his desk, there was a package sitting on it.

"HO! HO! HO!" it said.

Bigelow rushed up the hallway and around the corner. The door to Sandberg's office was open, and the light inside was on.

Bigelow cursed, and a few heads popped up over cubicle walls to goggle at him. He turned, hurried back to his office and slammed the door shut behind him.

In seconds, the wrapping paper was shredded and the box ripped open to reveal a bottle of Oxy 10, a tube of Clearasil and a booklet touting the benefits of membership in the Hair Club for Men. Bigelow howled and sent the box and its contents flying across the room to crash into the gla.s.s wall.

He should've toughed it out. Or at least locked the door behind him so Santa couldn't get in and . . . .

Wait. Yes. His door had a lock. Just like Sandberg's.

A new plan took shape in Bigelow's mind. He headed out to Marcy's cube.

"You know what?" he said. "There is something I need. I lost the key to my office the other day and I have to go make a copy. Could you loan me the masters?"

"Sure," Marcy said. She reached into her purse and pulled out a key ring with five keys on it. "Here you go. I'm not sure which one's for your door."

"Don't worry," Bigelow said, smiling. "I'll figure it out."

He was so eager to set his plan into motion, he didn't even bother going back to his office to grab his hat and coat before dashing for the elevator. An hour later he was back from the locksmith's shop, feeling chilled but brilliant. When he gave the keys back to Marcy, he had copies of all five tucked away in his pocket.

Waiting to try them out proved to be almost as painful as resisting the urge to pee had earlier. His patience frayed further with each pa.s.sing hour, and he found it more and more difficult to keep up the pretense that he was working. Crowley was around again, so he had to try. But Bigelow spent most of his day just sitting at his desk watching the clock tick off a countdown to revenge. When Crowley stopped in to blather about steroids and the Federation of Historical Jar Collectors, Bigelow couldn't even work up the energy to look interested, and the excuses he found to throw jabs at Sandberg lacked their usual slick subtlety.

He watched the time crawl by with agonizing slowness until 5 o'clock. Then he went home and watched it crawl even slower until 9. Then he went back.

He looked for lights or signs of movement before going into the building. The third floor-Now!'s floor-was dark. Both DVD Now! and Antiques Now! had been close to wrapping up a day early. It looked like they'd made it. If they hadn't, a few designers and editors would still be up there racing toward the finish line.

Well, hooray for you, McCoy, Bigelow thought. Hooray for you, Starr. Hooray for you, Sandberg.

You b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

It didn't take him long to find it once he got up to the office. Sandberg, thinking his treachery safe behind a locked door, hadn't even bothered to hide it.

Sitting under Sandberg's desk was a cardboard box. In it were scissors, Scotch tape and a roll of HO! HO! HO! wrapping paper.

And a bar of Irish Spring soap.

And a stick of extra-strength Right Guard deodorant.

And a catalog of Russian mail-order brides.

A shudder of rage pa.s.sed over Bigelow, but it faded quickly. Justice was at hand. Vengeance was his.

He'd brought a box with him from home. It wasn't large, having originally contained a small bust of Jean-Luc Picard that was now hanging from Bigelow's Christmas tree. But it was heavy.

He wrapped it with the HO!-covered paper and left it on Sandberg's chair with a note taped to the top.

"For Alex," the note read, "from your Secret Santa."

Bigelow locked Sandberg's office again on his way out. Then he went home and got the first decent night's sleep he'd had in days.

Friday, December 19 There was no gift waiting on Bigelow's desk when he moseyed in at 9:30 the next morning. At first that puzzled him, but then he understood.

Sandberg knew he'd been busted. Why bother with the final insults if Bigelow had already seen them the night before?

It had been a war of nerve and intellect, and Bigelow had won. Sandberg had conceded.

Or maybe not, Bigelow thought a moment later. Maybe Sandberg was out right now dredging up some fresh mud to hurl his way. Maybe the gift Bigelow had left had inspired him to cook up something truly demented-or even dangerous.

Bigelow felt a twinge of the old anxiety, a tightening of the knot in his stomach. He stood and stalked up the hallway past Sandberg's office.

Sandberg was in, of course. Mr. Dependable.

But there was no sign of the package Bigelow had left for him twelve hours earlier. He walked past the office again just to be sure. And then again two more times, in case Sandberg wanted to say something to him-preferably something that would bring things to a definitive conclusion, like "Curse you and your wily ways, Bigelow! That's the last time I tangle with the likes of you!"

Sandberg either didn't notice him or chose to ignore him. The same couldn't be said of the DVD Now! staff. Bigelow had been pacing back and forth in front of their cubicles without even realizing it, and now they were watching him bounce this way and that like the crowd following the ball at Wimbledon.

"Is there something I can do for you, Erik?" McCoy asked him.

"No, I'm just . . . you know."

Bigelow began beating a retreat up the hall. Freckled Curt said something as he left. Bigelow couldn't quite make out what it was, though he was certain he heard the phrase "granola bars." And laughter.

He closed the door when he got back to his office, and the door stayed closed for the next two hours. Bigelow spent that time frozen at his desk imagining the million humiliating ways Sandberg could one-up him. He was fixating on the nasty things Sandberg could do to the Hot Pockets he sometimes kept in the refrigerator in the staff lunchroom when there was a knock on his door.

"Who is it?" Bigelow screeched. He hardly recognized his own voice, it was pitched so high.

The door opened and Marcy leaned in. Marcy leaning into a room was one of Bigelow's favorite sights, especially if she happened to be wearing a loose-fitting blouse. Today she had on a bulky turtleneck sweater with Santa's face crocheted across the front, but Bigelow was so agitated the obstructed view didn't even bother him.

"Why aren't you down in the conference room?" Marcy asked.

"Why should I be in the conference room?"

"Didn't you read the memo?"

"What memo?"

Marcy rolled her large, brown eyes. "The memo that said we're having the Christmas party today instead of Monday if DVD Now! and Antiques Now! get done early."

"Oh. The staff party." Thoughts of cardboard cookies, alcohol-free "punch" and awkward small-talk with the little people danced in Bigelow's head. "Well, I don't think I can-"

"Crowley's there."

"-be there for more than a minute or two with everything I've got going on but of course I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Good. See ya' there."

Bigelow felt the sudden urge to burst into Peter Jarry's office and demand a shot of Jim Beam. He settled for a few fistfuls of freebie fancy nuts instead. He hoped the weight of the cashews and almonds would settle his stomach, help him feel less like a Macy's parade float on a particularly windy Thanksgiving morning. It didn't work, though, and he set off for the conference room feeling queasy and over-salted.