The Threateners Read Online Free PDF Page B

been a tongue-in-cheek Christmas present from Jo, my late lady love. I locked up the gun rack and gestured toward one of the chairs by the fireplace, picked up my drink, and settled into the other.
    Madeleine sipped her drink, watching me. “Matt?”
    “Yes, Madeleine?”
    “Why are you having me followed?”
    We’d taken the long way around, but we’d finally got to it. I regarded her for a moment, thoughtfully.
    “How many people do you think I have following you?” I asked.
    She glanced at me sharply, but answered the question: “I made it four at the last count, but there could be more.” Then she said, angrily, “Damn it, I thought it was all over, five years ago when my conviction was reversed and my record was cleared and full citizenship was restored to me. . . . It didn’t make up for my lost career, or the years of my life wasted in that ghastly federal penitentiary, but goddamn it, at least it was over, or I thought it was. And then, just recently, I started seeing little men trailing me like before, when they were trying to pin all the treason in the world on me, Jesus! It was like a crazy time warp taking me back to that terrible year before the trial. . . . What are you trying to do to me, Matt?”
    “When did you first spot these people watching you?” She glanced at me irritably, but again answered the question: “It must have been three or four weeks ago. And I shouldn’t say ‘men’; there seem to be two of each sexual persuasion—well, of the two standard sexual persuasions. An equal opportunity employer, hah! They could have been following me quite a bit longer. Denver is a big city; and it took me a while to realize that I kept seeing the same cars too often, and the same faces. I guess, after five years, I’d started to forget some of the lessons they taught me at that gruesome spy school of yours.”
    “What makes you think these people are taking orders from me?”
    Madeleine didn’t seem to hear the question; she drew a long breath and went on harshly: "Don’t you have any imagination at all, can’t you understand how being followed like that makes me feel? But to hell with my feelings, don’t you realize that even if my record has been cleansed, purged, completely purified, I can’t afford to be under surveillance? This new law firm has been very good to me, but if it got around that I was being tailed, as we ex-cons say . . . It would destroy everything I’ve built since I moved to Denver. No respectable firm can afford to employ a woman, innocent or guilty, who has teams of government agents following her around.”
    “What makes you think they’re government agents, Madeleine?”
    When she didn’t answer at once, I reached over to take her black purse out of her hands. I’d already noted that she handled it as if it was heavier than it should be. I looked inside and saw one of the smaller Colt revolvers, .38 caliber, with a four-inch barrel. I closed the purse and gave it back to her.
    She spoke defiantly: “It’s perfectly legal. All my civil rights were restored, remember, including the right to buy a gun.”
    Actually, while owning the pistol was legal enough out here in the west, where no pickup truck is properly equipped without a couple of firearms across the back window, carrying it concealed like that probably wasn’t; but it was no time for technicalities.
    I repeated my question: “What makes you think they’re government agents, Madeleine? And how do you know I sent them?”
    “They’ve got to be government agents if you’re involved, don’t they?” She smiled grimly. “One of them told me, Matt. Oh, not willingly, but eventually she spoke up like a good little girl and told me everything.”
    I studied her face carefully and saw the burning anger she was trying to keep in check. “I see. You’re getting tough in your old age.”
    She said harshly, “Remember, when we were traveling across the country together, after you picked me up at Fort