"You want me to, what?" I asked.
"Go to the North Pole and interview Santa Claus," James Rolands, said. He was the editor-in-chief of Plus magazine, a half serious, half trashy magazine geared toward one thing and one thing only, sales.
Mr. Rolands, 45, was a driven man in a world so competitive for stories that there was no room for compassion or morality or common sense. You hesitate you lose. Find a story the public will latch onto, like Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah Winfrey's couch, and you better be the first to get that on your cover or it could cost you millions in sales.
The pressure was enormous and Mr. Rolands, ever the consummate professional, thrived on it. Even to the point of ludicrousness.
"Word is out he's willing to do some interviews and lord knows it's been eons since he's granted one. He's angry about what's going on in the world or something like that. Quite frankly I don't give a shit,the point is, Max, we need to get that interview. That's prime time material. Short of God or Jesus granting an interview, S Claus is next in line. Know what I'm saying?"
"No," I said.
Mr. Rolands got up from behind his desk and started to pace his office. He loosened his tie, a sure sign what he was about to say was serious. "You know this business, Max. I don't need to tell you how cutthroat it is. You've seen the worst of it. But this interview is beyond all of that. This is bigger than Monica Lewinsky. You remember how we were first in line for that mess?" Mr. Rolands, as always, got a kind of twinkle in his eye as he reminisced. "This interview will make the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal seem like a stubbed toe. And that's why we have to be first on the scene. It's that big. There's no guarantee he'll give more than one interview."
"Why are you asking me? Why not get the creative to come up with a story?"
"The creative team?" Mr. Rolands asked, astonished.
I was confused. "I'm not good at coming up with that kind of story, Jim," I said. "I work the field, remember?"
"We can't make up anything," Mr. Rolands said, aghast at the prospect. "This is St. Nick we're talking about, Max. Christ almighty. Make something up? Are you out of your mind? That would ruin us. This interview has to be printed verbatim. Claus says he "pissed off" about something, that's exactly how we print it."
I made the mistake of laughing. I couldn't help myself. I was used to Jim Rolands passion for his job - you don't run a magazine like Plus without it - but I thought this was overkill. He was sounding like he actually believed there was a Santa Claus.
"This is no laughing matter, Max," Mr. Rolands exclaimed. He looked desperate at this point. "I hope you're giving me the raspberries, because I'm getting the serious impression you think this assignment, this assignment I'm offering you, the assignment of a lifetime I might add, is not on the up and up."
"I don't mean to laugh, Jim," I said. "I'm trying to get into this. Really, I am. I mean I can see the monetary value and all, given the season, but I don't think I'm the man for the job."
"Not the man for the job?" Mr. Rolands said in disbelief. "You're the best field man we have, Max. Bar none. This story came across my desk and you're the first, and only one I might add, I thought of. No one can get me this story but you."
"If you need to use my name for credibility I'm willing to play along," I said.
Then Mr. Rolands stopped and just stared at me. "Why are you doing this to me, Max?"
"I told you, Jim, I'm not good at this. You ask me to go interview Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and I'm on the next flight with exclusives on what that son of a bitch eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But I can't do this. I can't make up an interview with Santa Claus. It's not in me."
Mr. Rolands shoulders slackened and he sat down on the edge of his desk. "So that's what this is all about?" He sounded relaxed now, almost relieved. "You don't believe, do you?"
"Believe what?"
"In Santa Claus," he said. I laughed louder than I meant to, but I could see in Jim's eyes he wasn't taking me seriously. "You don't believe there is a Santa Claus, do you, Max?"
"Do you?"
"I'd love to get into a long discussion about this, Max, really I would, but time is of the essence here." Mr. Rolands leaned over his desk, grabbed a map and unrolled it. "Now the closest I could get you is an airport in the small city of Columbia. That's in Greenland by the way." Mr. Rolands pointed to a spot on the map, the northern most tip of Greenland. "There is a chartered dog sled team waiting to take you as far as the border of St. Nick's palace, which I understand, is just beyond this cleft in the mountains," he said pointing to the gap. "They won't go any further than that however."
I sat there dumbfounded. "Why not?"
"Wouldn't say," Mr. Rolands said breezing over the subject. "But the important thing is that gets you at his front door and that's further than anyone else will be by the time they catch wind of his decision. I'm guessing it will be a first come, first serve proposition. First one there gets the interview. And who better than Max Albright?"
"I'm speechless, Jim," I said.
"No need to thank me right now, Max. There will be time enough for that after you get back. Now your flight..."
"Hold on a second, Jim," I said curtly. "You bring me in here and feed me some crap about interviewing Santa Claus and traveling to Greenland with a dog sled team and you... and you expect me to believe this? I play along for awhile, laugh it up, I mean it's the season and all, but enough is enough."
Mr. Rolands looked hurt. Like a ten year old who finally finds out Santa Claus is not for real.
"You only have forty-five minutes to catch your flight," he said.
"I'm not catching any flights until I quit getting dicked around," I said, firmly.
Mr. Rolands took a deep breath and exhaled. "I sort of figured it would come to this. Dim those lights, would ya."
I reached over and turned down the lights. Mr. Rolands grabbed a remote control on his desk and the television in upper corner of his office came to life.
"What I'm about to show you is for your eyes only. Understood?"
"Sure," I said, unconvincingly.
A grainy image appeared on the screen in black and white. I moved up in my seat to get a closer look. It looked like a gargoyle.
"What the fuck is that?" I asked.
"We're not completely positive but we think it's a worker elf," Mr. Rolands said. "It's hard to tell. Nobody has ever seen one."
"That's one of Santa's elves?" I asked, skeptically.
"Listen," Mr. Rolands said. He turned up the volume and the elf spoke in a gruff, scratchy voice.
"I haven't much time, but I should think this information may be of some importance to the outside world. The man is not happy and it would be a good bet he might be willing to talk about it," the elf, or whatever it was, said, before the screen went blank.
Mr. Rolands turned the television off.
"It's a hoax," I said.
"It's not a hoax, Max. Santa Claus is real and I have proof."
Mr. Rolands went to his safe hidden behind the Monet print on the far wall. He dialed in the combination and opened the safe. He reached inside and came out with a manila folder. Oh, god, here it comes, I thought, an authentic letter from the North Pole signed by the man.
"I would have thought you, of all people, would have stumbled across something like this already, considering every place you've traveled," Mr. Rolands said. He laid the manila folder on his desk and reached inside. "But apparently not. Here." He handed me an 8 x 10 photograph.
"What's this?" I asked. "A picture of..." But I didn't finish. I stared at the photograph. It was a black and white photo of me as a child on Christmas morning. I was maybe ten years old and I was opening a gift I still remembered to this day. It was a Daniel Boone rifle. When I opened that gift - a gift I had hoped for but never thought I would get - I had this wonderful feeling flow through me. It was a small gift, but the feeling it gave me was immense.
"What do you see?" Mr. Rolands asked.
My thoughts were racing like a marathon of runners jostling for the lead. I had never seen this picture in the shoe box of old photos my mother used to keep in the bottom of her dresser drawer. And this was not a picture I would have forgotten.
Looking at the picture made me feel like I did that morning. It was my fondest Christmas memory. The lights on the tree illuminating the living room, the early morning darkness as the snow fell lazily, as if it were in slow motion, and everything that morning, that whole day, fell into place. It was my perfect Christmas day.
I wanted to accuse Jim of stealing this photo and using it against me. But how can you steal something that doesn't exist? I wanted to accuse him of something, some kind of trickery, anything, but I was too stunned to make accusations.
"What did you see?" I finally asked Mr. Rolands.
"My fondest childhood memory from Christmas," he answered. "That's what everyone sees who looks at the photo. And there's only one person in the world who would know that. Santa Claus."
I wanted to ask Mr. Rolands where he got this photograph, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was he was telling the truth. No matter how much I tried to rationalize it, there was no denying the flood of emotions that photograph had caused to wash over me. There could be no other explanation.
"You'll be flying out of O'Hare," Mr. Rolands told me when I finally came down from out of the clouds.
"What about a photographer?" I asked.
"One is meeting you there," Mr. Rolands said quietly.
I stopped and turned to him. "Who?" I asked.
"Charlie," Mr. Rolands answered tentatively. "Now before you react we needed the best, and Charlie is the best."
That was true, Charlie was the best freelance photographer around. The problem was Charlie and I had a past. A past torn apart by the fact we both traveled the globe and trying to piece together a relationship under those circumstances is impossible.
"This assignment is full of surprises," I said. But I was glad. I had longed to see Charlie. I was just hoping she felt the same way. "Does she know I'm along for the ride?"
"That's why she agreed to it."
On the way to O'Hare I reminisced. I had met Charlie for the first time five years ago on an assignment in Tucson to interview Julia Roberts, who was on hiatus from film making and was about to reenter the world of celebrity. It was front cover news and Charlie and I had been assigned to make as much of it as we could.
It was an unusual assignment because it was taking place the day before Thanksgiving. Miss Roberts was having friends and family flown out for a huge dinner at the posh Western Desert Spa - a place she frequented for both mental and physical rejuvenation.
We met at the Tucson International Airport. I was waiting at the baggage claim area with our driver when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught this ball of fire rushing toward us. She was pulling her luggage behind her like she was in a Nascar race, and she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
