My Golden Trades

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I HEARD A familiar voice coming over the phone. 'Santa Claus here. Got an hour this afternoon?'

I had.

'Sensational,' said the voice on the other end, in an inimitable accent that could only belong to someone with a Mexican father and an Indian mother. Then he hung up. He obviously believed that the briefer our conversation was, the less suspicion it would arouse in anyone listening in. Whenever he announced himself as Santa Claus, it meant that he'd returned from one of his frequent business trips abroad and was bringing me books.

It was eleven-thirty and snowing heavily. My wife had taken the car earlier that morning, and it would be noon before I could reach her. I'm not very fond of driving, but I had no idea how many bags of contraband St Nicholas had purchased and brought in. He was hard to fathom. There could well be more than I could carry.

I had met Nicholas by accident. The water-pump on my ancient Renault had given up and, after the car had been immobile in the garage for three months, someone gave me Nicholas's name and address, saying that he often travelled out of the country and would certainly bring me

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