Greenberg nodded. “That reads. I heard some weird shit about that whole business. Heard you became a millionaire when that judge got clipped in Triboro?”
“That judge was my ex-wife. We’d gotten back together when that happened. Frankly, I’d rather have her back.”
“Oh,” he said. “That why people think you took a fall?”
“My boss in Manceford County had some good advice. He said my enemies would think the worst, and my friends would know better. What strangers thought didn’t make a shit either way.”
Greenberg considered that for a moment. “So why’d she call you?” he asked. His left foot was doing this tapping routine, and I wondered if maybe this guy had gotten a little too close to his trade. He was positively wired.
“Like you said, she called me. Said that the Howard case has gone cold and that the Park Service head-shed is afraid of stirring up the ten-gauge, black-hat crowd in Robbins County. Local law here isn’t on speaking terms with the sheriff next door. She basically asked me to look around.”
“You licensed?”
I nodded.
“Okay,” Greenberg said. “My turn. We got called into the Howard case because the Park Service thought she’d maybe stumbled onto a meth pit. There’s never been a case of a park ranger being assaulted up here, not like that, anyway.”
“You think that’s what happened?”
“Who the fuck knows-we’ve got zip-point-shit. That girl was so traumatized she can barely remember her name, so we don’t even know where the hell it happened, in the park or in Robbins County. Which is definitely a place of interest.”
“Meth?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Meth, indeed,” Greenberg said. “It’s becoming a fucking epidemic. No, not becoming-we’re there. And most of the crank in this region is coming out of these here hills; apparently it beats the shit out of picking ginseng roots when you’re looking for cash money.”
“How in the world can the DEA infiltrate the coves and the hollers in these mountains?”
Greenberg finished his scotch. I pointed at the bottle, but he shook his head. “Short answer-we can’t, of course. Oh, we can do the usual techie shit: night flights looking for infrared plumes, analysis of geo-science satellite imagery, the occasional roadblock collar. But going among the great unwashed, undercover? Fuh-geddabout it. All my guys have most of their teeth and can speak using the occasional two-syllable word.”
“So how do you work it?”
“We look for an angle, anything that can justify us going into Robbins County.”
“Like the Howard assault?”
“That would be nice. If we can’t get a search warrant based on a rumored drug deal, we get one in connection with an ongoing investigation of this assault on a federal officer. Or we can sample creeks and lakes where they throw their used chemicals and then file environmental charges. Anything we can hang our hats on. Which, admittedly, ain’t much.”
“And the last thing you need is for some Lone Ranger to come in and stir the pot.”
“Right again.”
“Unless maybe I stir it your way?”
Greenberg sat up and gave me a thoughtful look. “You made your manners with Sheriff Bill Hayes yet?” he asked.
“First thing tomorrow morning,” I said. “We’ve met before.”
“Why don’t you do that,” Greenberg said, fishing out one of his cards. “See how much he’ll reveal about the local two-legged wildlife. Especially next door in wild and wonderful Robbins County. If he gives you the okay to work his patch, then maybe you and I can do some business. How’s that sound?”
“Like the makings of a deal, Special Agent. By the way, my name’s Cam.”
Greenberg nodded and got up. “Name’s Ruthe,” he said, looking me right in the eye.
“Ruth.”
“That’s right. But with an e on the end.”
“And if I say anything at all, I’m going to get hurt.”
“Yup.”
“Lemme guess-you go in low and fast.”
“Drop to one knee, left hook into their nuts, and then I stand up as their face comes forward and down. Trick is to remember to keep your teeth together.”
“Ruth.”
“Yup.”
“Nickname?”
“Can’t you guess?”
I thought for a second. “Baby?”
“There you go.”
I nodded, trying not to grin. I thought we were going to get along. “So, Special Agent Ruthe Greenberg, glad to meet you.”
“Look,” Greenberg said. “One thing I’ve learned up here is that the outlaws are networked better than fucking IBM. Dollars to doughnuts somebody who cares already knows you’re on their web.”
“We hear you,” I said.
Greenberg glanced toward the front room and rubbed his beard. “I hear you,” he said. “But one of my guys stopped on the road to nosh a greaseburger two weeks ago? Little roadside pull-off, you know, park benches, trees, burbling fucking brook? He’s sitting there, scarfing fries, and this. 65-caliber Civil War minie ball comes down the mountain and blows up his Happy Meal bag.”
“One of those ‘we could have if we’d wanted to’ love notes?”
“Right. Bullet first, then the boom. Three-, four-hundred-yard shot.”
“Long guns are the scariest,” I said.
“Okay, then, just so you know,” Greenberg said. “They like to reach out and touch someone once in a while. Call me.”
“Call you what, exactly?” I asked.
Greenberg grinned, cocked and fired a finger gun at me, and left. After he’d gone, I wondered if that had been too easy. Most of the information flow had come from me, not Greenberg. On the other hand, the meth problem nationwide was big and getting bigger, so it made sense for the DEA to be out here along the Georgia-North Carolina-Tennessee wilderness nexus. I made a mental note to see if any of my friends in the North Carolina SBI knew “Baby” Greenberg. Either way, the chances were good that the DEA guys would try to use me to their best advantage. Fair enough, I thought. I was perfectly capable of using them right back.
The setting sun had made the porch uncomfortably warm, so I decided to go down to the creek bank, find a rock, and put my feet in the water. As I was sitting on my rock, enjoying the sunset and my scotch, I saw a figure coming down the creek who appeared to be walking on the water. I checked to see how much scotch I’d had and then realized he was wading in the water. I couldn’t make out his features because he was up-sun and there was one hell of a glare in that pristine mountain air. He was wearing hip waders and carrying what looked like a mesh laundry bag and a stick. I realized he was fishing for trash in the creek and, based on the lump of debris in the bag, succeeding.
When he got about ten feet away, I finally said howdy. He turned to see where I was, and I just had to stare. He had the face that you see on the back of a buffalo nickel, and I mean identical-the stereotypical American Indian face, complete with sculpted nose, thick lips, pointed cheekbones, and pretty much the same expression. It was such a resemblance that he was probably not surprised by my reaction.
“Scary, isn’t it?” he said with a small smile, resting on his pickup stick for a moment. I had to laugh. He was heavy in the chest and shoulders and had to be at least six-foot-something in height. He had jet black hair pulled back in a short ponytail and was wearing a buckskin shirt above the rubber waders. I had half-expected a grunt or even a Hollywood “How,” but his accent was not even remotely western Carolina. The shepherds appeared just then from the underbrush and looked him over.
“Nice dogs,” he said. “You staying here at the lodge?”
I said yes and asked him what he was doing out there in the creek.
“My contribution to the environment,” he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. That water had to be very cold. “All this natural beauty, people come out here, gawk at it, ooh and aah, then throw their shit in the creek.” He glanced at the drink in my hand.