08bis Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich

Diesel said.
    I cut my eyes to him. "Is there something you're not telling me?"
    "Lots of things."
    I put my finger to my lower lid.
    "You have a problem?" he asked.
    "Eye twitch."
    "I bet that would go away if you got a Christmas tree."
    "All right. Okay! I'll get a Christmas tree."
    "When?"
    "When I have time. And you're driving too slow. Where'd you learn how to drive, Florida?"
    Diesel stopped the car in the middle of the road. "Take a deep breath."
    "What are you doing? Are you nuts? You can't just stop in the middle of the road!"
    "Take a deep breath. Count to ten."
    I took a breath, and I counted to ten.
    "Count slower," Diesel said.
    The guy behind us honked his horn, and I cracked my knuckles. My eye was twitching like mad. "This isn't working," I said. "You're giving me heart palpitations. People in Jersey don't do slow down."
    "We're sitting in traffic," Diesel said. "Notice that the car in front of us is less than a car length away and not moving. The only way to drive faster would be to drive on the sidewalk."
    "What's your point?"
    "I can't fit on the sidewalk."
    "So do something supernatural," I said. "Can't you tip the car sideways or something? They do that in the movies all the time."
    "Sorry, I flunked levitation."
    My luck, I get a guy who flunked levitation.
    Twenty minutes later, we parked across from a hole-in-the-wall storefront office. The makeshift sign in the window advertised IMMEDIATE OPENINGS FOR MASTER TOY MAKERS. I wanted to take a closer look, so we left the car and crossed the street.
    We stood on the sidewalk and looked through the dusty plate-glass window. Inside, the place was wall-to-wall little people.
    "Are they elves?" I asked Diesel. "I don't see any pointy ears."
    "Hard to tell at this distance, and I heard somewhere that elves don't necessarily have pointy ears."
    "So elves could be walking around in our midst, disguised as normal, everyday, vertically challenged citizens."
    Diesel looked at me and grimaced. "You don't really believe in elves, do you?"
    "Of course not," I said. But the truth was that I didn't know what I believed in anymore. I mean, what the hell was Diesel? And if I believed in Diesel... why not believe in elves? "Do you see Briggs?" I asked him.
    "He's at the back, talking to a big guy with a clipboard. And I don't see Claws."
    We watched for a moment longer and then retreated to the Jag and worked our way through my mother's food bag. After a while Randy Briggs came out, walked halfway down the block, and got into the passenger side of a waiting car. The car pulled away, and we followed. Before we'd gone two blocks my cell phone buzzed in my bag.
    "Cripes, is that you behind me in the Jag?" Briggs asked. "You bounty hunters must do okay to be riding around in a Jag."
    "Diesel isn't a bounty hunter. He's an alien or something."
    "Yeah, whatever. Man, I've never seen so many little people in one place. It was like they came out of the woodwork. I thought I knew everyone in the area, but I didn't know any of these guys."
    "Did you get hired?"
    "Yeah, but I'm not going to make toys. I got a job in the office, setting up a Web site."
    "What about Claws?"
    "Didn't see him. No one said anything to me about anyone named Claws. I start work tomorrow. Maybe I'll see him at the factory."
    "Factory?"
    "Yeah, that's what this is... a small toy factory. They're going to make handmade toys and advertise that they were made by elves. Pretty cool, hunh?"
    "Do you suppose some of these little people today actually were elves?"
    There was a pause where I could imagine Briggs staring open-mouthed at the phone. "What are you, nuts?" he finally said.
    "So, where is this factory?" I asked Briggs.
    "It's in a light industrial complex off Route 1. You aren't going to screw up this job for me, are you? This is a dream job. The pay is good and the guy who hired me said the toilets are all made for little people. I won't have to climb up on a stool to take a crap."
    "I'm not going to screw