The Day of the Guns Read Free Page A

into and kiss and love ... only I wouldn’t. “Are you hurt that badly?” she asked.
    “It was a long time ago. The hurt is a long time gone.”
    “Revenge?”
    “Nope.”
    “What then?”
    “Satisfaction. I need it. I died too many times since you. All I want is you dead.”
    “I’m here.”
    “Uh-uh. I want your reason first. I want to see you scared again, then you die.”
    She did it too fast for me to stop her. She raised on her toes with her hands behind her head and her mouth was a hot, wet fire that pierced into me with a wild spurt of passion that sucked her body behind it, pressing it flat against mine. Before I could push her away she did it herself, then stood back and smiled, her teeth showing their white edges.
    “Don’t die again, Tiger,” she said.
    And when I smiled her eyes went dark and tightened at the comers because she read me right. “Don’t worry, I won’t,” I reminded her.
     
    The building on Fifth Avenue was a brand-new modem monstrosity that towered over Manhattan and on the sixteenth floor it housed one single office that bore the label, THOMAS WATFORD, IMPORT-EXPORT. I walked in, told the receptionist I’d like to speak to Mr. Watford, and no I didn’t have an appointment, but he’d see me. She made the call, told me to go in and when I went through the door the gimlet-eyed guy in blue with the tight crew cut looked up, leaned back in his chair and said, “Ah, yes, Tiger Mann. Have a seat, Tiger.”
    I sat down.
    “We heard you were in town,” he said.
    “Your agency has big ears.”
    “Not really. The trouble you leave behind you is easy to follow. It isn’t appreciated.”
    “Tough, Mac.”
    The chair creaked forward and I wondered how many guys he had scared to death with that face of his. “We were aware that you knew of us. I don’t like it.”
    “Then don’t try to hide. We’re pros too.”
    “Are you really?”
    “You got a file on me.”
    “The rest of the group you represent, too. Very professional. You call yourselves patriots, don’t you?”
    I shrugged. “Not me. I used to, but no more. Now I just like the trouble. We get clobbered by all the pinkos and the liberals, but I gave up the patriot angle a long time ago. Too damn many patriots are going down the wide-open trail to Communism to suit me. They swallow the garbage, the promises, they lead the country down the garden path singing songs of peace and happiness behind the shoe-pounder and the do-gooders, but not me. I’m just one guy who likes trouble.”
    “Your bunch is going to get slammed by a Congressional investigation, Tiger.”
    “So go ahead. We’re ready.”
    “Listen ...”
    “Who stopped the bit in Nicaragua? Who killed off the uprising in the Honduras? Who went into Colombia and Panama and put the squash on that deal? You slobs tried working it with papers and a couple of money twists when there were guns out in the open. Okay, buddy ... get this, we’re a power. We can push. We go right where it hurts those Commie bastards and we’re not stopping. Like Hitler had commercial money behind him, we have top financing too. It’s no Hitler job, but don’t count us out. You’re a secret tunnel here and we know the secret, so play ball or I’ll blow the lid off this outfit now. Pretty?”
    Watford sat back again, picked up a pencil and tapped it against the desk. “We heard what you had in mind.”
    “You know the way out. You’re too big to break up. You know we can smear you if we want to. I’ll break up this whole goddamn operation unless you cooperate and you can’t afford to lose your cover. Too much is involved.”
    “Mr. Mann ... you are a traitor.”
    “Not yet, friend. Not ever. Maybe in your eyes, but not ever. It’s just that we’re sick of some things and do them our own way.”
    “Illegally.”
    “The terminology is extralegal. We did it in 1776 too.”
    “This is 1964.”
    “So we’ll do it again.”
    THOMAS WATFORD, IMPORT-EXPORT, was fed from