Ivan Tykovsky stood with arms crossed over his chest, watching the crowds of shoppers as they streamed into Hinkleman’s Department Store. It was early morning, the day after Thanksgiving: the day traditionally known as Black Friday. The day was so named because a good profit on this day signaled a successful shopping season, keeping the retailer’s financial ledgers in the black.

For Ivan, it was Black Friday for quite a different reason. This was supposedly the official start of the holiday shopping season. Of course the monotonous, repetitive Christmas music had been playing in the store for the entire month of November, much to Ivan’s displeasure. It was supposed to subliminally tempt shoppers to spend, spend, spend. But to Ivan it was an irritation. It was just another reminder he was now deep into the season he hated most of all.

Hated might be too strong a word. It was not that he despised Christmas per se. It was just that it made his job even harder. Ivan was a plainclothes security guard. The holiday season, presumably the season of Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men, was fraught with thieves. And worse, ill-tempered, obnoxious shoppers, whose stress often ignited altercations. It was Ivan’s job to catch shoplifters and break up disputes over coveted merchandise.

Ivan was well equipped to do just that. He was six foot six inches of solid muscle. Having been a professional bodybuilder in his younger days, Ivan had kept up with his workouts and thus had maintained an impressive physique. While not ugly, he was not what anyone would consider good-looking either. He usually sported a stern expression that emphasized his crooked nose—broken when his spotter was distracted while Ivan was doing bench presses and dropped the bar. He had dark, almost black eyes. He also had a shaved head. So imposing was the man’s presence that his merely walking up to someone involved in a shoplift or squabble was usually enough to squelch whatever was going on, and reduce the participants to quivering masses of jelly.

The store had been open for only fifteen minutes when Ivan’s pager went off, summoning him to a disturbance in Electronics.

Fuck! I hate this damn Bait and Switch. They only put five fuckin’ TV’s on sale and there’s always a fight over them, Ivan thought as he did his best to hurry toward the department through the crowded store.

When he got there, he had to muscle his way through a crowd which was gathered around two men wrestling on the floor. Each was claiming possession of a box laying nearby that contained a flat screen TV. He fought his way to the men, grabbed each by the collar, and easily lifted them into the air. As he held them, dangling in front of him while the loud speakers played “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas,” Fred Jenkins, another security guard, came running up to him.

“Hotchkiss wants to see you in H.R. immediately!” he announced panting. “He sent me to replace you.”

“Now?” Ivan asked, the two combatants still suspended in his grip.

“He says it’s a class five emergency,” Fred said, trying to catch his breath.

“What the fu…” Ivan looked around at the crowd. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

The man shrugged. “I don’t know but he sounded really panicky.”

“Here, you take care of this,” Ivan said as he handed the two squirming men to the much smaller Fred.

Unable to hold them up, Fred promptly dropped them to the floor and fell on top of them where all three lay in a heap. Ivan stepped over them and headed for the elevators.

* * * *

Ivan got off on the floor housing the administrative offices and walked toward Human Resources, wondering what Hotchkiss meant by a class five emergency. He entered the H.R. office.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” the pretty, red-haired receptionist said as she looked up and saw Ivan. “He’s in a real state. You’d better get in there.”

“Rhonda, what’s going on?” Ivan asked.

“I haven’t the foggiest, but he’s been ranting for the past half hour.”

Ivan shook his head and headed for Hotchkiss’s door. When he entered the room Mr. Hotchkiss was pacing the floor, wiping his sweaty face, which was red and blotchy, with a handkerchief. He turned and saw Ivan. “Thank God!”

“You sent for me?” Ivan asked.

“Yes, yes, we’re in a class five emergency!”

There was that phrase again. “What’s the emergency?”

“It’s Black Friday and the idiot who was to be Santa showed up drunk as a skunk!”

Ivan was puzzled. So the guy was sloshed. What did that have to do with him?

Hotchkiss was continuing. “The Christmas Parade welcoming Santa to the store starts at noon. That’s less than,” he checked his watch, “five hours away and we need a Santa!”

“You want me to go out and find you one?” Ivan asked uncertainly, still not seeing how he was involved with this crisis.