“Who is she?” a tall, grim-faced man in his fifties demanded to know.
“Who are you?” Longarm shot back.
The man’s eyes flashed with annoyance. He glanced at his three grim companions and then back to Longarm before dragging out his badge. “I’m Federal Treasury Agent Supervisor Vincent Blake. These men are my agents— Matthews, Pollack, and Jones. We have identification.”
“Not necessary,” Longarm said, waving the offer aside. “As you have correctly guessed, I’m Deputy Marshal Custis Long, and this is my friend, Miss Diana Frank.”
The four feds gave Diana better than a good looking over, and then Blake said, “We weren’t expecting you to bring company. Nobody said anything about a woman.”
“That’s rather surprising,” Diana said acidly. “I would have imagined that the telegraph lines between Denver and Cheyenne would have been fairly buzzing with juicy gossip.”
“All the telegraph lines in and out of Cheyenne are out of commission,” Blake said. “Downed by lightning.”
“Well,” Longarm said, shaking the rain from his Stetson, “what do you boys want?”
“I’m in charge of the investigation,” Blake said. “We arrived from Washington, D.C., this morning. We have a coach waiting to take you to the hotel, where we can discuss this … mess in some detail.”
“That’ll be fine,” Longarm said. “I hope that you people are paying the freight. Things happened so fast that I didn’t have time to draw any travel money out of our Denver office.”
“You expect us to pay for your room?” Jones, a sour-looking man, asked.
“Sure,” Longarm said, not appreciating the combative attitude of these well-fed federal paper-pushers. “Also our food and whatever other expenses we need paid.”
Jones blanched. “Well, the hell with-“
“Fair enough,” Blake said, cutting off his man’s protest. “We’ll pay everything until you can get money sent up from Denver or we decide your information and involvement in this case is worthless.”
“Worthless!” Diana snapped. “Why, I doubt that you even know what Nathan looks like! Don’t talk like such an ass, Mr. Blake. You desperately need us.”
The man’s cheeks reddened. “We’ll find out about that real soon. Let’s go.”
They took a carriage straight to Drover’s Hotel, one of Cheyenne’s finest, and not a word was spoken in the cold, wet silence. There was confusion at the checkin desk because the desk clerk had booked Longarm’s room for one, not two people.
“We’ll share the bed,” Longarm said, appreciating the envy in the younger agent’s eyes.
Diana slipped her arm through his. “Yes,” she said, grinning brilliantly at the feds, “in fact, we would prefer to go to bed right now and have our little group discussion tomorrow morning. I’m feeling … well, rather exhausted.”
“Sorry about that,” Blake said, “but time is of the essence. We’ve got big trouble.”
“The lady said she was tired,” Longarm told them, his voice hardening. “I’ll have a few words with you after we’re comfortably settled, but-“
“Gawdammit!” Blake exclaimed. “We haven’t got time to coddle her!”
The muscles in Longarm’s jaws corded. It took some effort to turn to the hotel desk clerk and say, “Room key, please.”
“Number fourteen, Marshal Long,” the clerk said. “Haven’t seen you in here in about a year now.”
“Our budget has been a little tight,” Longarm said, “but these federal boys seem to have plenty of expense money. So send up some food. Roast turkey, steak … I don’t care. A bottle of whiskey and-“
“Now, wait just a damn minute!” Blake protested. “Don’t you think that you’ve pushed your luck just about far enough already?”
“No,” Longarm said as the four federal agents confronted him. “I don’t think so at all. In fact, I’ve taken an immediate dislike to all four of you, and you are really stretching the boundaries of my civility. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
Blake was livid. But, to his credit, he maintained his composure and managed to say, “The very minute you get the lady settled, please do your damnedest to join us in the hotel bar, Marshal Long.”
“I’ll eat first,” Longarm said, almost starting to enjoy himself. He glanced over at the hotel desk and added with a wink, “On second thought, I once had roast pheasant under glass and some excellent white wine and-“
“We will take care of it,” the clerk said, returning the wink. “Thank you, gentlemen.”
“You sonofabitch,” Agent Jones hissed. “You’re really asking for it.”
Longarm smiled. “Didn’t he say that your name was Jones?”
“That’s right.”
“If you keep pushing me, Jones, you’ll need to wear a bib and a tag so that you can still remember your own name. Catch my meaning?”
Jones was a big man, but not as big as Longarm, and now that his bluff had been called, he folded, nodding and backing away a little. “It’s just that-“
“Shut up,” Longarm told the Washington agent. “Don’t say any more.”
“Yes, sir.”
Blake snorted with anger and disgust, then spun on his heel and marched off toward the saloon bar with his
