NIGHTMARE ON 34TH STREET: A XMAS GROTESQUE

Words + Music by Geordie McElroy

Part Four

In a parking lot, Dunn waited

Desperate, fleeing gallows

In the backseat of a federal fleet

Obscured among shadows 

When agent Jones entered her car

Dunn made himself known

“Please, this whole things is a setup

Couldn’t reach out by phone”

Dunn produced the North Pole matchbook 

The burden that he lugged

Who could these markings belong to 

These fingerprints in blood

"How did you know where to find me?”

“I know what your routine is”

"I need your help to search this thumb

No way it’s Joe Martinez”

***

Jones and Dunn worked in underground lab

Federal agent convinced 

Needed to find the owner of 

These bloody fingerprints

The system ran a billion thumbs

To try to make a match 

With a ding as it landed on 

A perfect pair at last 

“It’s just like you said,” Jones showed him

“These prints are Joe Martinez”

“But he’s been dead 13 years

Any explanation for this?”

“Let’s check Martinez’s first arrest

In analogue era

If system hits another print 

We can pin-point error”

Jones pulled up Martinez’s file 

From 1993

There was a different ink thumb 

For anyone to see 

“What happens if we run this one?

It might land on our Joe 

But if its a sloppy hacking job 

The culprit’s one may show”

Jones ran the print from ’93

“I think that there’s a glitch”

A face and name appeared on screen

"Not sure how this was missed”

“His name is Kolya Kalmykov

With deep alias list

Nicky Green Eyes, Ochi Nefrit

Others call him: St. Nick”

“13 years ago he vanished

Gave Interpol the slip 

How did he and Joe Martinez

Get their fingerprints flipped?”

Agent showed a grainy photo

From years and year long past

A man with topknot, golden teeth

And dangling mustache 

“I know I’ve seen that face somewhere

Doppelgänger for Kohl 

But that man can’t be our sergeant

He’s decades way too old”

“Could Kalmykov be Kohl’s father?

Fingerprints passed to son?”

“No, every set is unique 

That’s just not how its done” 

“If these prints belong to Kolya 

Could be a lighting trick 

Or perhaps plastic surgery 

But your sergeant is St. Nick”

***

Kohl and Noel entered banya 

Obscured in clouds of...

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