Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{“If he isn’t downstairs, then I wouldn’t know,” John said. It was a barefaced lie, as was plain in his tone of voice and his smug, smirking demeanor. And there was shit-for-all that Longarm could do about it.}

_{“John!” Aggie chided.}

_{“Sorry, Miss Agnes. I don’t happen to know, that’s all.”}

_{“You know, of course, it won’t do any good for the police chief or the mayor or whoever else to hide from me,” Longarm said. “I’ll serve my writ on whoever is guarding those Indians, and they will be released on the spot.”}

_{“I wouldn’t know about any of that,” John insisted. “You asked me a question, I gave you an answer. Is there anything else you want?”}

_{“No, I suppose not,” Longarm said, conceding an impasse if not exactly a defeat.}

_{The clerk nodded smugly and went back to whatever it was he did on behalf of the good citizens of Snowshoe. “Well?” Aggie asked.}

_{“Let’s go get those people out of custody,” Longarm said.}

_{“Shouldn’t we have breakfast first?”}

_{He thought that sounded like a damned strange question coming from the Indians’ own lawyer. He would’ve expected her to be even more eager to get the paper served than he was. Apparently that wasn’t quite so.}

_{Not that he wasn’t hungry at the moment. It seemed that Lawyer Able had many talents—he was sure that she must, otherwise she never would have made it into the practice of law—but cooking was no more her forte than screwing was. At least she was aware that she couldn’t cook, and therefore didn’t bother trying.}

_{“We’ll have breakfast later,” Longarm insisted.}

_{“A cup of coffee on our way?”}

_“Later.”

_{“You needn’t snap at me like that. After all, dear, it is your own fault that I’m so famished this morning.”}

_{“Quit batting your eyelashes at me, Aggie. You ain’t the type for it.”}

_{She sulked up into a pout, but the expression lasted only for a moment. Then she laughed and took his elbow. “All right, Longarm. I give up. We shall tend to business first and have our pleasures afterward.”}

_{“Fine.” He hoped—but of course couldn’t say—that Aggie’s notions about pleasures after duty weren’t going}

_{to extend to any more sweaty two-party masturbations on that bed of hers. Which was about the way he viewed having to hump the woman. It was no better, and in some ways not so much fun, as screwing Five Finger Mamie.}

_{‘This way,” she said crisply.}

_{Aggie led him not directly to the mine where the Utes were being kept, but to a ramshackle livery bam on the edge of town. “I don’t own a carriage,” she explained, “but I pay a retainer fee for first call against the rigs Marty has here.”}