Yet here he was in the state of Arkansas looking at some of the ugliest women he'd ever seen allowed to roam around on the streets. No, that was more of Billy's idea of a good joke. Someone else had named him Longarm, not that Billy didn't use it when it served his purpose. Hell, he'd use anything if it served his purpose.
Longarm was never quite sure how many years he had been working for the white-haired old devil who never stopped complaining about innocent practices, such as Longarm's shipping back horses to Denver at government expense to later sell for profit, and now and again trying to get a square deal on his expense voucher. Longarm was pretty sure that Billy calculated to the penny how much he had lost to Longarm playing poker and then knocked off an amount equal to that on Longarm's expense vouchers. Billy Vail was a good man to have around if you were wounded--especially if you liked salt rubbed into an open wound.
The trip to Little Rock had begun not quite a week before in Billy Vail's office. Longarm had come wandering innocently enough into the chief's office and had made himself at home in a big easy chair. He was confident of a few days' rest and pleasure around home base after having a hard couple of weeks chasing the Gallagher gang in northern Oklahoma.
But then Billy Vail, who had been staring out his office window, had wheeled around in his chair and said, "Custis, I'm damned if I can trust this job to anybody else. No, it's got to be you. I've given it considerable thought, and I don't see any way I can send anybody else."
Longarm had looked at him suspiciously. He knew that particular tactic because Billy Vail had used it enough times already. He said, "Oh, Billy. I'm sure you can think of somebody else. I don't know what the job is, but I can tell you right now, I don't want it, and I'm willing to let another man have the honor of the thing."
Billy was shaking his head. He said, "Nope. Ain't nobody else I can trust with this one. Custis, it's got to be you. As much as I'd like to see you get some rest and put a smile on your different girlfriends' faces, I'm going to have to send you."
Longarm leaned forward in his chair, alert. He said, "All right, Billy. What two-bit, no-good, low-down disgusting trick are you fixing to play on me this time?"
Billy gave him an innocent look. "Why, how you talk. What a thing to say to the very man who has helped make you famous throughout the annals of law enforcement. Who gave you that name, Longarm? Who gave you the jobs that had let you earn it?"
Longarm gave Billy a disgusted look. "Billy, let's quit dancing around the mulberry tree. Get on with this. What kind of raw trick are you fixing to play on me now?"
Billy maintained his innocent look. "Now, wouldn't you agree with me that you probably know as much about whiskey as any man under my command?"
Longarm was not willing to concede a single point to his boss. He said, "I don't know about that."
"Ain't it you that has to have that imported, twelve-year-old Maryland whiskey? Local stuff just ain't good enough for you. Ain't that a fact?"
There had been little enough that Longarm could reply to that charge, mainly because it was true. He said, "I don't see what that has to do with anything."
"It's got everything to do with it," said Billy Vail, nodding his head vigorously. "The business I'm sending you on is whiskey."
"Whiskey?"
"Yep, whiskey, and the government is getting cheated on it. The Treasury Department wants us to take a hand in a matter they don't have the manpower to handle. They need a good, tough hombre that can go into a bad situation and help straighten it out and they have appealed to us for help. Naturally, you were at the top of my list."
Longarm looked at him and said dryly, "Billy, someday I would like to see that list that you're always talking about that I'm always at the top of, because I have a good idea that there's not but one name on that list, and it's mine."
Billy said, "Tut, tut, tut, Custis. How you talk. My goodness, you'd think you were mistreated the way you carry on so. Why, I let you get away with more than any chief marshal has ever let any other deputy get away with in the history of the Marshal Service. I'd like to know how many horses you've bought off somewhere because they were cheap, and then shipped them back up here to sell for a healthy profit. Not to mention those odd items that keep cropping up on your expense vouchers. I've never seen so much money laid out for cartridges and extra firearms and bribes." Billy whistled low and shook his head. "It's just been my word alone and my goodwill that has kept you out from the middle of a serious investigation."
Longarm flopped resignedly back onto his chair. "All right, what the hell is the job?"
Billy Vail hunched forward, his elbows on his desk. He said, "Now you're talking. It seems that there's a bunch of folks up in northern Arkansas making moonshine whiskey and ain't paying no federal taxes on it. I want you to go up there and get the lowdown on the situation and come back here and we'll give the Treasury Department a report on it."
Longarm stared at his boss. He said, "Moonshine? Whiskey? You want me to go up to Arkansas and bust some bootleggers' stills? Bill, don't you think that's a little heavy work for some lightweight like me?"
Billy Vail put his hand up. "Now, hold on here, my friend. This ain't as easy as you may think it is. There's considerable money changing hands over this matter, and the government is taking a right smart interest in it. They don't know for certain, but they've calculated that there is more than several million dollars in federal taxes not being paid on this whiskey that's being made up there."
Longarm looked disgusted. "And I'm supposed to go up there and stop some bunch of old boys back in the hills from running a little whiskey here and there?"
Billy Vail shook his head slowly from side to side. "I wouldn't take this one lightly if I were you, Custis. We're talking about thousands and thousands of gallons. We don't know exactly how it works, but they are making it there in Arkansas and then somehow it is getting into brand-name bottles that have federal stamps on them and those are showing up in a lot of northern cities. It's estimated that there is a bunch of it being shipped right out of Arkansas. The reason I'm sending you is because they don't know a whole hell of a lot about it. That's what you're going to do. You're going to find out how the operation works."
Longarm frowned. "Billy, moonshine is clear. It looks like water. Good whiskey is caramel color; it's dark."
"Yes, and how come good whiskey is dark-colored?"
"Because it's aged in wooden barrels that are laid down for ten or twelve years. It mellows and takes on the color of the wood."
Billy said, "That's where the profits are in it. They're not bothering with the aging, which costs quite a bit of money to do. No, they're putting some kind of coloring into it and then putting it into bottles and selling it for the real stuff. They're getting away with it. It costs them about fifty cents a gallon to make the whiskey and they're selling it, making about a couple thousand percent profit."
"Well, if they would just put federal stamps across the top, then the stamp would be broken when they broke the seal and they wouldn't have this foolishness."
"In the meantime, why don't you just go up there and do your job and let the government worry about how they want to do their seals," Billy said.
"I thought this stuff was supposed to be bottled in a certain place where they could make sure it got those federal stamps on it."
Billy nodded. He said, "That's why they call it bottled in bond. It's bottled in a bonded warehouse where it is guaranteed to pick up a federal tax stamp. Aged in the wood and bottled in bond. Well, unfortunately, this whiskey is being aged in the woods and being bottled in the barn."
Longarm said, "Well, it still seems like a hell of a lot of ruckus to send a man in desperate need of rest out on."
Billy Vail seemed unconcerned. "Oh, I reckon you'll find some woman up there that will give you the rest you need. I've never known you to go very long without getting more rest than you really need."