"Lamar's going to be back around?"
"Don't expect to see him soon at First Assembly."
"Do y'all have a narcotics officer working inside his gang? An Indian girl with blond streaks in her hair?" I said.
"You got some nerve, don't you?"
"I thought I'd ask. Thanks for your time," I said.
"Don't thank me. I wish you'd go home."
I left his office and walked out of the courthouse toward my truck. It was windy, and the sky was blue, and above the university I could see an enormous smooth-sided mountain, with a white "M" on it and pine trees in the saddles and lupine growing in grass that was just turning green.
I heard heavy steps behind me, then a big hand reached out and encircled my upper arm.
"I get short with people. It's just my nature," the sheriff said. "This is a good town, by God. But there's people here with fingers in lots of pies. Dr. Voss hangs with some of those Earth First fanatics and he's gonna get hisself hurt. The same can happen to you, son."
"I appreciate it, Sheriff."
"No, you're a hardhead. Talk with a man name of Xavier Girard. At least if you get broadsided by a train, you can't say I didn't warn you."
"The novelist? His wife's an actress?"
"Maybe it's different where you come from, but most people's public roles hereabouts are pure bullshit. That don't exclude me," he replied.
The SHERIFF told me that by noon I could probably find Xavier Girard, unless the Apocalypse was in progress, at a low-rent bar down by the old train depot. The last I had read of his escapades was about two years ago in People magazine. A photo showed hi
m being escorted out of a Santa Barbara nightclub by two uniformed policemen, the tangled pieces of a broken chair draped over his head and shoulders, a maniacal grin on his bloodied face.
The cutline, as I recall it, had stated something like: "Famed Crime Novelist Takes on Crowd That Boos His Poetry Reading."
I walked into the bar, a long, high-ceilinged place with brick walls, and saw him eating at a table by himself in back. His girth and beard and thick, unbrushed hair and big head made me think of a cinnamon bear. His hands even looked like paws. The bar was full of derelicts, Indians, a few college kids, and a group who looked like they had just bought their Western fashions in the shopping malls of Santa Fe. Xavier Girard watched me approach him as he upended a mug of beer.
"Mr. Girard, my name's Billy Bob Holland. I'm an attorney from Deaf Smith, Texas. The sheriff said I should talk to you," I said.
"Oh yeah? About what?" he said.
"About Tobin Voss." I pulled out a chair from the table and sat down.
He picked up his paper napkin and looked at it and dropped it. "Why don't you just plunk yourself down without being invited?" he said.
"I need some help, sir. If I've intruded, I'll leave."
"You that private detective my film agent hired?"
"Pardon?"
"Got some ID?"
"Are you serious?" I asked.
He thought about it and let his eyes rove over my face.
"I guess that Southern-fried accent didn't come out of Laurel Canyon," he said. "Tobin Voss is on the right side, but he's busting up the wrong people. Over-the-hill meth heads aren't the problem in Montana." Then he raised his voice and looked in the direction of the group dressed in stylized western clothes. " California douche bags buying up the state with their credit cards are a different matter."
"You know a guy named Wyatt Dixon?" I asked.
"No. Who is he?"