Longarm frowned. "I can't believe that there ain't a way I can't get my foot in the door. I don't know what the going price is for whiskey in big lots, but I reckon if I raise that price, I can do business. That's the way we do business in Arizona, and I doubt seriously if it'll be any different here in Arkansas."
Mr. Greene shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you can always get your foot into the water and see how cold it is... or how hot."
Longarm said with careful casualness, "You wouldn't care to tell me where that water is or what that lake's name is, would you?"
Greene regarded him from across the table. "Are you asking me for the name of somebody in that business?"
"You could say that would be what I'm asking you."
Greene shook his head slowly from side to side. "Mr. Long, meaning no disrespect to you, sir, but I don't know you from Adam. I never saw you before yesterday. You are as complete a stranger to me as most of the people in this room. I hope you understand that I am a fifty-year-old gentleman, and I would like to get older. Some of the people involved in this whiskey business are a rough crowd. Some of them are just plain ignorant, and some of them are just plain mean. The combination isn't a good one. No, sir, I'm afraid that I can't help you."
Longarm shrugged. "Well, I can't blame you for looking after your own hide. I reckon I'd do the same were I in your shoes. These people are in the business of selling whiskey to outsiders; surely they would want the word to get around to a prospective buyer like me."
Greene said carefully, "They want the word to get around to people that they know and trust, if you take my meaning. They're not anxious to have the whole of the county and part of the state knowing their business. Some of those folks back up in the hills have been inbreeding for so long that they are all kin to one another. It's not a good combination. It doesn't breed a family of intelligent, free thinkers. They are a suspicious, calculating, bushwacking, deadly lot. You met one of them yesterday. Take the fine clothes off of him and he wouldn't be any different than any of the others that you would find were you to ride fifty, seventy-five, or even one hundred miles northeast of here, maybe even a little closer."
Longarm said, "Well, without calling names, could you tell me where I might find that gentleman I met yesterday?"
Again, Mr. Greene shook his head. He said, "Mr. Long, again, if you will pardon me and not take offense, I beg to be no longer a part of this conversation on that subject. I have said my last on the matter."
"I can appreciate that, Mr. Greene, and I respect it. I reckon I can figure a way into that inner circle somehow."
"I don't know whether to wish you good luck or not. Good luck trying to get in might turn out to be bad luck trying to get out."
Longarm laughed without much humor and reached over and picked up the check. "At least I can buy breakfast, Mr. Greene. You will accept that much from me?"
Mr. Greene shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not a man to argue, as I explained earlier."
For much of the rest of the day, Longarm wandered around the city, stopping in different saloons, leaving word of his interest in purchasing some large amounts of whiskey. The information was uniformly received by the people he talked to, mostly by bartenders or other patrons, with blank faces and stony stares. In the afternoon, he sought out the saloon where he had played poker in the back room the day before. To his disappointment, no game was in progress. The table sat empty, the chairs back, and a deserted deck of cards spilled across the table's top. When Longarm inquired as to where he might find Morton Colton, the bartender just shook his head and said, "Wouldn't know him."
Longarm glanced down the way at the second bartender, the same man who had brought the tray in the day before. He said, "Yeah, I bet you don't."
The second bartender gave him a hard look. He said, "Mister, your trade ain't welcome here. I'd reckon you'd do better doing your drinking other places."
To his great distress, Longarm decided on a plan of sampling different brands of whiskey in different saloons to see if he could tell which were colored moonshine. He managed to find quite a few in several saloons. He left each one feeling like he'd just had a good drink of kerosene. He had found the whiskey, but he was still no nearer to the source.
That evening, he went back to the hotel for a dinner of smothered steak and mashed potatoes with green beans and stewed tomatoes. Mr. Greene was not in attendance nor was any other familiar face. As he ate, Longarm reflected on the way Bob Greene had characterized the whiskey makers as inbred, mean, vicious, suspicious bushwackers. It was virtually the same description that Billy Vail had given him. He was going to have to ask, once he got back to Denver, how Billy Vail came to know so much about the breed of people who lived back in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains and tended their stills in the little hidden groves and hollows and cutbacks.
That night, he went out again, selecting a new section of the city in which to wander, going again from saloon to saloon. Once, he sat in on a poker game for a while, but it was slow-moving and such small money that he quickly became bored. He had managed to introduce the subject of whiskey into the game, but he got no takers. It was amazing to him how close-mouthed the whole town could be on a subject that was most probably their chief source of income. Yet, to a man, the people in Little Rock seemed to be unaware of the existence of any whiskey trade. He thought possibly the next day, if he could find one, he'd hunt up a church and ask one of the preachers about it. It was his observation that outside of bartenders, preachers generally knew more about whiskey and how much of it was in their town than anybody else.
At about ten o'clock that night, he gave up on the last saloon and started walking back toward his hotel. The Albert Pike Hotel was on Main Street, very near the center of town. As Longarm turned onto Main, returning from his wandering quest for information, he was about a block from the hotel entrance. As he cut across the street, he could see a vaguely familiar figure approaching from the opposite direction, cutting across the street just as he was. Even though it was still relatively early at ten o'clock, the town was quieter than most towns of its size that he was used to. He crossed the street, stepped up on the boardwalk, and headed for the hotel.
The other man did likewise. As they approached each other, Longarm recognized Frank Carson. They met almost at the hotel door, both of them illuminated by the light shining through the big plate-glass windows.
Longarm said, "Well, Mr. Carson, I'm surprised to see you out. From what you said, I thought you'd have been on down the road apiece."
Frank Carson gave him a friendly smile. He said, "Well, Mr. Long, I thought I'd hang around a few more days and maybe get a chance to play you some more poker."
Even though it was May, there was a nip in the night air and Frank Carson was wearing a leather coat over his vest. Longarm, who had on a corduroy jacket, said, "Well, that can damned sure be arranged, but let's not stand out in the cold. Why don't we go in and have a drink or so at the bar. Are you staying here at the hotel?"
"Oh, yeah. I've got a room up on the fourth floor. Highest I've ever been."
Longarm laughed faintly. He said, "If that's the highest you've ever been, then I reckon you'd better change your brand of whiskey."
Frank Carson shook his head. "Oh, are you back on that subject again?"
"I never left it, but I ain't having much luck."
They went through the hotel doors together and walked across the hotel's lobby, their boots echoing in the deserted common room. The bar was almost deserted, too. Longarm said, "What the hell is this? I thought this place was the capital of Arkansas, or at least the largest town. These folks go to bed with the chickens around here?"
Frank Carson gave him a wink. "Well, you've got to go to bed with the chickens if you're going to get up early enough to gather the eggs."