The Winter Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

skills.”
    Tony burst out laughing. “You do have a point,” he conceded. “I’ll try to mellow before I go to see her. Any news from your detective friend?”
    â€œNot yet. He anticipated me, it seems.” He chuckled. “He already had his men working on the gang angle, tosee if anybody hired a shooter. Maybe he’ll turn up something.”
    â€œMeanwhile, I’ll do what I can to safeguard Millie,” Tony replied. “See you.”
    â€œYeah.”
    * * *
    Tony dressed casually for the visit to the library, hoping he wouldn’t attract too much attention if anyone was watching Millie. He wore jeans and a cotton shirt under a leather jacket. He looked outdoorsy, like a cowboy, but he refused to put on a wide-brimmed hat. He’d never liked to cover his black wavy hair, and he still wore it in a ponytail. He wasn’t going to be conservative, no matter what the job called for. He was too much of a renegade.
    He walked to the desk and asked for Millie, smiling at the clerk. She smiled back, obviously interested in him. She picked up the phone, pushed a button and told Millie she had a visitor out front.
    As she spoke, she was sorting mail. “Oh, and you got a package,” she added, still talking to Millie on the phone, her hand reaching toward a flat but lumpy-looking brown envelope with spiky writing on the front.
    â€œDon’t touch that,” Tony said at once, whipping out his phone. He dialed the emergency services number and requested a squad car and the bomb squad.
    The clerk looked at him as if she thought he’d gone nuts.
    â€œGet everybody out of the building,” he told her in atone bristling with authority. “Don’t waste time,” he said when she hesitated. “There’s enough explosive in there to blow up a city block. Hurry!”
    She rushed into the back as Millie came out front. She stopped at the desk, where Tony was still arguing with the dispatcher about the bomb squad.
    â€œListen, I work for the government,” he said in a deep, steady tone. “I’ve seen letter bombs before. I know what I’m talking about. Do you want to read in the newspapers tomorrow morning that a library blew up because you didn’t take the threat seriously? They’ll even spell your name right…yes, that’s what I said, the bomb squad. And hurry!”
    He glanced at Millie, his face hard, his eyes glittering. “We have to get out of here,” he told her. “Out? I’ve got a package there…”
    He caught her hand as she reached for it. “If you like having two hands and a head, you’ll do what I tell you. Come on!” he called to the clerk, who was hurrying several patrons and a couple of employees out the front door.
    â€œYou are out of your mind,” Millie said primly. “I’m not leaving…!”
    â€œSorry,” he said as he whipped her up in his arms and carried her right out the front door, which a grinning patron held open for him. “I don’t have time to argue.”
    * * *
    A squad car rolled up along with the bomb squad. Tony went to talk to the sergeant in charge.
    â€œIt’s a letter bomb, on the counter in there,” he told the man. “I worked a case in Nairobi with one that looked just like it, but I couldn’t get anybody to listen to me. It killed two foreign workers when it went off.”
    The sergeant sighed. “Okay. We’ll check it out. But if you’re wrong, you’re in a lot of trouble.”
    â€œI’m not wrong,” Tony told him, and showed his credentials. The sergeant didn’t say another word. He went straight to work.
    The librarians were skeptical; so were Millie and the patrons. But they all stood patiently in the cold while the bomb squad went hesitantly into the building and looked for the brown envelope Tony had described.
    The sergeant came back out, grim-faced. “I’m