Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{The lady cut him off once again, but this time she sighed and turned away. She went to the rolltop desk that was the dominant piece of furniture in the small room, sat down there, and swiveled the chair to face him.}

_{“You are determined to keep it up, aren’t you?” she asked.}

_{“Ma’am?”}

_{“Oh, never mind. It isn’t your fault. I daresay it isn’t even my fault. It is no one’s. And everyone’s.” The lady looked sad now.}

_{“Ma’am?” he repeated, feeling more confused than ever.}

_{“As I say, Marshal, the fault is not yours. The misconceptions are just so ... infuriatingly common. Something I must face over and over again every day of my life. Sometimes I tire of it, that’s all.”}

_{“I’m sorry, Mrs. Able, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Longarm decided to take the lady up on that offer to smoke in her presence. He pulled out a cheroot, nipped off the twist, and rolled the tasty leaf on his tongue. There was a jar of broom straws provided on the table, so he didn’t have to waste a match to light his smoke. He lit a}

_{straw in the lamp flame and used that to light the cheroot. “My point exactly, Marshal,” the woman said.}

_{“I hate t’ repeat myself, ma’am. But what you talkin’ about?”}

_{“I am not Mrs. Able, Marshal.”}

_“No?”

_{“There is no Mrs. Able.”}

_{“Ma’am, really now, I didn’t come here t’ pry into any private, uh, situations. Between you an’ Mr. Able, that is. Or, um, anybody else.”}

_{“I’m not making myself clear, am I?”}

_{“No, ma’am, I would have to say that you are not,” he agreed.}

_{“Marshal Long, the point I am trying to make here is that there is no Mister Able either,” the lady said. As if that was supposed to explain everything. Longarm would’ve been satisfied if it had just explained something.}

_{“Are you tryin’t’ tell me, ma’am, that Judge McFee back in Nebraska has issued a writ o’ habeas corpus on behalf of a lawyer that don’t exist?” He whistled and shook his head. “Lordy, ma’am, I don’t know how that one is gonna set when they find out about it.”}

_{“Marshal. Longarm. May I call you Longarm?”}

_{He nodded.}

_{“You still misunderstand. There is an attorney named Able. A. B. Able. Agnes Bertha Able.”}

_{“Is that what you been hemming and hawing about, ma’am? Good grief, you been wasting my time for nothing. What I wanta know, Miss Able, is where the hell the Utes are that I’m supposed to serve papers for? 1 just been over to the jail, and it’s empty ’cept for a couple drunks. Now would you please quit fretting about gender and get down to some business with me here?”}

_{Chapter 16}