Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{Miss Mayweather made a pouting face toward Henry, then flashed a radiant smile at Longarm. “I look forward to seeing you again, Mr. Long.” She curtsied.}

_{Longarm returned the gesture with another bow, a rather more shallow one this time, and held the door so the pretty lady could make her exit into the hallways of the Federal Building on the fringes of Denver’s downtown district.}

_{Then he turned back to Henry with a frown. “Omaha? When the ...” He turned back and opened the door a crack so he could glance out and make sure Miss Mayweather}

_{wasn’t within hearing any longer. “What the hell is this about Billy going t’ Omaha? He was right here just a little while ago.”}

_{Henry chuckled. The slight clerk hooked the earpieces of his glasses behind one ear and then the other, and returned his handkerchief to a pocket. “You know as well as I do that Billy is in his office, Longarm.”}

_{“Then what... ?”}

_{Henry winked and handed Longarm the form Miss Mayweather had just signed.}

_{Confused, Longarm took the thing and skimmed over}

_it.

_{Then he laughed. “Shit. You’re kidding.”}

_{“May be,” Henry said with a grin. “But Miss Mayweather isn't.”}

_{“Shit,” Longarm repeated. He looked down and read the official complaint again. “Shee-double-it,” he said this time when he was done.}

_{Henry laughed.}

_{According to the report, filled out in the lady’s own hand and duly signed with Henry as a witness, she was asking the United States Marshal, First District Court of Colorado, to intercept, apprehend, and prosecute a host of demons who were invading her privacy every night. The demons entered her head, she said, by way of her nose. And they were awfully annoying. She, uh, wanted them arrested.}

_{“Sounds like a job for the sheriff t’ me,” Longarm suggested.}

_{“Oh, she’s tried there already. Also the city police. They sent her here.”}

_{"We’ll have t’ do something nice for them someday. Anybody figure out how we have federal jurisdiction over this?”}

_{“I asked her about that,” Henry admitted. “She thinks the demons might get their orders through the mail. That sounds to me like something Jim Sanders over at the police department might have dreamed up and suggested to her. just to get her off his back and onto ours.”}