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Chapter 1 Two Santas   The astringent December sunlight looked, as always at this time of year, like it had been ladled into the smog with a teaspoon, like vinegar. The watery light and the goop in the air had softened shadows so that the whole composition seemed as flat as a painting, perhaps titled “Field with Lump and Cars.” The lump, a hulking, windowless, three-story ellipse with a flat roof and stains shaped like dirt icicles running down its oute…