"Good thing we saw that tree lot so you could get a tree, too," Lula said. "You can't have Christmas without a Christmas tree. Boy, I love Christmas."

Lula was dressed in knee-high, white fake-fur boots that made her look like Sasquatch. She had her bottom half stuffed into skin-tight red spandex pants that magically had gold glitter embedded in them. She was wearing a red sweater with a green felt Christmas tree appliqué. And she had it topped off with a yellow-dyed rabbit-fur jacket. Every time Lula moved, yellow rabbit hairs escaped from the jacket and floated on the air like dandelion fluff. Behind us, the tree lot was lost in a yellow haze.

"Okay," Lula said, stopping for a light. "We got Christmas knocked. We're on our way to Christmas." The light turned and the guy in front of us hesitated. Lula leaned on the horn and gave him the finger. "Move it," she yelled. "You think we got all day? It's Christmas, for chrissake. We got things to do." She reached the highway and took off, ripping into "Jingle Bells" at the top of her lungs. "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the wa-a-a-ay," she sang.

I put my finger to my eye.

"Hey, you got that eye twitch again?" she asked. "You should do something about that eye twitch. You should see a doctor."

Lula was on the third chorus of "Silent Night" when she parked next to the black Jag. I got out of the Firebird and bent to talk to Diesel.

"Lula and I can take the next watch," I told him. "If anything happens, I'll call you."

"Sounds good," Diesel said. "I could use a break. It's been quiet all day, and that's the way I like it. If there aren't any more disturbances, Sandor will eventually come back to his workshop."

"Don't you worry, Diesel honey," Lula said from behind me. "We'll watch the heck out of this place. Peace and Quiet's my middle name."

Diesel checked Lula out and smiled.

"So what's the deal?" Lula wanted to know when Diesel left.

"I'm after an FTA named Sandy Claws. He owns this toy factory."

"And what's with the car next to us? It's got a big booster seat behind the wheel. And what are those levers on the steering column?"

"Most of the employees here are little people."

Sometimes when Lula got excited her eyes opened wide and popped out like big white duck eggs. This was one of those duck-egg-eye times. "Are you shitting me? Midgets? A whole building full of midgets? I love midgets. I've had this thing for midgets ever since I saw The Wizard of Oz. Except for that guy, Randy Briggs. He was a nasty little bugger."

"Briggs is here, too," I said. "He's working in the office."

"Hunh. I wouldn't mind kicking his ass."

"No ass kicking!"