IV.

“Mrs. Claus,” the naked elf said. “My name is Aleph. I believe you spoke to my associate, Gimel.”

Diana stood up and offered Aleph her hand. “Hi, nice to meet you. Yes, I talked to Gimel this morning about my husband.”

Aleph shook her hand quickly. He looked at Smitty and then back at Diana. “Before we get down to business, are you available to speak now? What I mean to say is, I’m not at liberty to speak about this in front of anyone but you.” “Oh, yes well, Smitty was just leaving,” she said. She smiled at the squidfoot. “I’ll talk to you later, hon, okay?” Smitty nodded and walked into the street, sliding across the snow on his tentacle-feet.

Diana said, “So, yes, I talked to Gimel this morning.” “Yes, unfortunately he wasn’t able to meet with you personally. Being his supervisor, I’ll brief you on the current situation.” Aleph pointed to a chair. “May I?”

“Of course.” Diana motioned with her hand for him to sit. When he did, she noticed that, despite his having a rather long penis, he lacked a scrotum.

Aleph handed her a folder and said, “Though our organization is known for solving these sorts of.. .problems, we really get no pleasure in relaying this information. It’s simply a job that needs to be done and we are willing to do it. I know it’s a rather difficult thing to deal with, being a spouse of—”

Diana said, “I don’t need the ‘poor wife’ speech. Just tell me what you have to tell me.”

Aleph sighed. He opened a folder that appeared out of thin air. “Okay. Here’s where we’re at.”