The man indicated a chair opposite him with a nod of his head. He said, "I'm about to order breakfast. Would you care to sit down and join me?"
Longarm pulled out a chair and sat down. He said, "Don't mind if I do."
The man stuck out his hand. He said, "The name is Bob Greene, that's green with an e on the end."
Longarm shook the man's hand and gave his name, Custis Long. He said, "Glad to meet you, Mr. Greene. It's a shame we had to be involved in that scruffy business yesterday with Mr. Colton."
Mr. Greene nodded. "Yeah, I can't say that I cared much for that, myself. I'm a peaceful man by nature and don't care much for trouble."
Longarm looked around the dining room. He said, "You staying here at the hotel, Mr. Greene?"
Greene shook his head quickly. "No, Mr. Long, I'm a widower and not much of a hand in the kitchen. I take my breakfast here at the hotel and sometimes my dinner. There's a little cafe down the street, near the bank where I work, where I generally eat the noon meal." Longarm said, "Ah, you're a banker?"
Mr. Greene shrugged. "You might say that. Actually, I was a land speculator before I kind of got in the banking business in a left-handed way. Before that, I was mainly in the timber business."
"So you were in the businesses that needed capital. I guess that's the way you got to know the banking business."
Mr. Greene smiled. "Not many would understand that, Mr. Long. My congratulations."
"Well, without seeming nosy, is that what you do down at the bank? Make loans?"
A little frown flitted across Mr. Greene's face. He said, "Not exactly, Mr. Long. I, well, I sort of advise them on different investments."
Longarm said, "I see." But he didn't really. It was an odd sort of work for someone to advise banks on how to run a bank. At that moment, a waitress came up and their conversation ceased while they ordered. Longarm asked for ham and a half dozen fried eggs with biscuits and brown gravy on the side and coffee and he decided to order a slab of apple pie to top it all off.
Mr. Green looked amused. He was not a very big man, but he was carrying a little extra weight. He said, "Oh, Mr. Long, I remember the days when I could eat like that. Now, with this sour stomach of mine, I've got to be careful. I'm just going to have some soft scrambled eggs and some dry toast."
Longarm nodded sympathetically. "It's a shame when a man's stomach goes to acting up on him. I guess that's the second most tender area a man hates to see put out of business."
Mr. Greene said, "Ain't that the truth."
When the waitress was gone, the thought fluttered through Longarm's mind that Mr. Greene, who appeared tohave been a longtime resident of the Little Rock area, might be a source of information about the whiskey. He intended to pass himself off as a buyer, just as Billy Vail had suggested, and Mr. Greene seemed to be an innocent enough person to begin with. He had no earthly idea if the man would talk to him, but it was certainly worth a try. He intended to ask very openly around town and get some word circulating until someone came up to him and started talking whiskey.
But during the meal, Longarm kept the talk general. At one point, Mr. Greene inquired what business might have brought Longarm to Little Rock. The deputy marshal had sidestepped the question, passing up the opening and giving some inconsequential answer. He had earlier in the conversation described himself as an investor, a man who looked for an opportunity to make money in any variety of ways. He said he was from Phoenix, Arizona, and had investments in land and cattle.
Mr. Greene had looked up at him with a slight twinkle in his eye. He said, "You seem to have come over quite a lot of ground to end up in a place like Little Rock looking for business opportunities."
Longarm answered comfortably, "Oh, I'm a traveling man. Once I got started, it seemed easy enough to stay on the train and visit friends here and there. I figure I might eventually end up going on up into Tennessee, perhaps."
When they had finished eating and were taking their time over coffee, Longarm casually said, "I understand they do a little business in whiskey around here, Mr. Greene. Would you know anything about that?"
Mr. Greene looked away for a second and then came back to Longarm. He said, "Oh, I suppose everyone that has ever been in this part of the country knows something about whiskey. I take it that you're talking about the kind of whiskey they make back in the hills that some people call white lightning or moonshine?"
Longarm nodded. "That would be the kind of whiskey that I'm inquiring about."
Mr. Greene said, "Well, there's no secret that it's a pretty brisk commodity around here. No law against it, as far as I know. Not so long as a man buys some to drink for himself."
"Well, that kind of whiskey ain't exactly my choice for drinking purposes," Longarm said. "I was thinking more along the lines of pretty large quantities of the stuff, quantities a man might be able to sell for a profit."
Mr. Greene's eyes twinkled slightly again. He said, "Mr. Long, that's illegal. I'm a banker. I wouldn't know anything about that sort of thing."
Longarm smiled again. "As I understood you, Mr. Greene, you said that you were an advisor to a bank. That doesn't necessarily make you a banker."
Mr. Greene laughed. He had a pleasant laugh that seemed to poke fun at both himself and the situation. He said, "Well, you may be right, Mr. Long. I'm really not a banker. I suppose in some ways, we are a lot alike. I've spent most of my life searching out opportunities in land and timber, and I guess I've done the odd livestock trade here and there."
"But you don't know anything about the whiskey trade?"
"I didn't say that, Mr. Long," said Mr. Greene. "I just said that the kind of whiskey trade you're talking about was illegal."
"Well, it's been my experience that a thing that don't hurt nobody and don't scare the horses and the law don't find out about ain't exactly illegal."
Mr. Greene said, "I believe you have a good point there, Mr. Long."
"Call me Custis."
"Most folks call me Bob."
"All right. Let's just say you were me and you were in town kind of interested in getting into the whiskey business with an eye for reselling it for a profit. You didn't know anybody, but you had heard about the transactions--kind of like a rumor. If you were me and in that situation with no contacts, how would you start in on this business?"
Mr. Greene laughed. "Well, one of the first things I wouldn't do is stick a gun into the face of the man who is right in the midst of it."
"That fellow Colton?"
"That fellow, Morton Colton. Yes, you've picked the wrong man, Custis, if you wanted a shortcut into the business."
"He's got a lot to do with it then?" said Longarm.
Greene shook his head. "Not directly, no. He sort of runs a protection outfit that makes sure the flow of whiskey and money don't get interrupted."
"Is that a fact?"
Mr. Greene nodded again. "Like I told you yesterday, Custis, he's a bad man to fool with on either side of the law. That's what makes him valuable to the whiskey trade around here. He's some kind of friend to the sheriff and it's the sheriff that allows the business to go around here. I'm not telling you anything you can't find out on the street. It's all pretty well known. It's a business that's been going on quite a few years, even back when Arkansas was just a territory, so it's not like it's something that's not an old, established operation. What I'm trying to say is that there is a lot of buyers that come down here looking for a quick profit, so the fact that you're willing to buy some whiskey doesn't make you special to these folks. They are damned near selling all they can make right now."