three embarrassed agents in tow.
“No traveling bags?” a bellman asked.
“Just my saddlebags and the lady’s small valise,” Longarm said, handing them over to the man who led them toward their room.
As soon as they were alone again, Longarm and Diana tore off their wet, rumpled clothes and jumped into bed to make love. This time they did not hold back, but quickly brought each other to a lusty climax that left them both limp and gasping.
“Boy,” Diana said, grinning happily as she rolled over on top of Longarm, “you sure handled that stuffed-shirt Blake and his grouchy friends!”
“I never have liked the Washington boys,” Longarm admitted. “When they come to the West, as they do on occasion, I try to avoid them. We mix like oil and water.”
“Screw ‘em all,” Diana said. “Who needs them?”
“I could use their expense money,” Longarm said. “But other than that … you’re right. Still, I’m expected to cooperate.”
“Tonight,” Diana said, laying her head on his bare chest, “let’s just have a wonderful meal, a hot bath, and then make love for a couple of hours and fall asleep. In the morning, after a leisurely breakfast and more lovemaking, maybe we can get dressed and go down to see those irritating sonofabitches.”
“I’d better go down and talk to them tonight,” Longarm said. “But after our dinner and the bath.”
“And another session of lovemaking,” she added.
“All right.” Longarm chuckled. “Diana, you win.”
“No,” she said, tracking a faint scar on his cheek with her fingernail. “You win.”
It was nearly midnight by the time Longarm entered the hotel bar. By then the younger federal agents were all slightly drunk. Supervisor Blake had a difficult time looking serious and sober.
“All right,” Longarm said, taking a seat at their table and signaling for a whiskey, “let’s get down to the facts and leave the personalities out of it, okay?”
“Okay,” Jones said with the utmost respect.
“Shut … up,” Blake ordered his man.
“Well, screw you, Vincent!” Jones swore, grabbing his drink and swaying off in a huff.
“You hurt his damned feelings,” Longarm said, trying very hard not to smile.
Blake scrubbed his face. “We’re all just tired. We haven’t had much sleep since leaving Washington three days ago.”
“Then why don’t we postpone this meeting until tomorrow morning?”
“No!” Blake lowered his voice. “So what does the woman really know about Nathan Cox?”
“She knows how he moves.”
Blake blinked. “What did you say?”
“How he moves,” Longarm repeated.
“That’s bullshit!” Blake exploded, slapping his hand down on the table so hard, whiskey spilled out of their glasses.
Longarm fired up a cheroot and gazed at them through the steel-blue smoke. “Do any of you hotshots realize that Nathan Cox was once an actor?”
The surprised expressions on the federal agents’ faces told Longarm that they did not know Cox had been a thespian. “Who cares?” Pollack demanded to know.
“You ought to care,” Longarm told them, “because Nathan Cox has the ability to create many faces. Miss Frank has told me that he is an expert in disguise and that he could even be … that old gentleman sitting with his distinguished friends across the room from our table.”
The Washington agents all swung their heads around and stared at the obviously wealthy cattle baron or banker with his fine Stetson, tailored suit, and fancy boots.
“No way!” Matthews said. “We know that Nathan Cox is only thirty-one years old.”
“I have little doubt that Cox could make himself look seventy,” Longarm replied. “Miss Frank told me that he once surprised her wearing a wig and woman’s dress. She said that she would have sworn he was a young lady.”
“Sounds like a pervert in addition to all the rest,” Blake replied contemptuously.
“Don’t underestimate either the man’s courage or his intelligence. I’m convinced that Nathan Cox is anything but a weakling,” Longarm said. “He broke his accomplice’s neck, and Miss Frank says that he’s a marksman as well as a vicious fistfighter when cornered. Don’t forget, he grew up on a ranch in Arizona. He’s not citified like you boys.”
Blake didn’t like that comment, but he let it ride. “What else can you tell us?”
“Miss Frank says that he is extremely intelligent and won’t do anything stupid to make my job easier.”
“Our job,” Blake corrected. “Don’t forget, we’re working together on this case.”
Longarm could see that this was not the time or the place to argue the point. But the truth was, he had no intention of working with these men. The only reason he’d not yet given them the slip was that he needed to learn if they had a few bits of information that might help him find Nathan Cox.
