“Yah, I stole them,” Herzog said.

“No shit,” Lionel said, beer in one hand, skewer in the other.

“Pardon?” Bellow said.

I stifled a laugh.

“These are photocopies I made,” Herzog said with pride. “At first, I collected documents willy-nilly, no system to speak of. None of it means spit to me, nohow. Don’t you worry, though. I’ll suss out the address you want.”

“What use are these to you?” Bellow said.

“I’d say my foresight is paying me back.” Herzog winked and patted his coat pocket where he’d folded my cash bribe. “Knowledge is a big stick.”

Lionel added hot dogs to the pile on a paper plate. Bellow stalked to the edge of the yard and turned his back on us. Grandad’s patented I’m-counting-to-ten pose.

“I opened mail and wrote it down,” Herzog said blithely. “Private doctor stuff, sex stuff too. Carried a camera under my coat. People get up to embarrassing things when they don’t realize Lenny is standing outside their window, watching the whole shebang.” He laughed breezily and kicked back with a beer. “Shebang!”

Bellow sidled over, abruptly interested in the conversation. His expression was dangerously neutral. I feared he contemplated reaching for his cuffs. Too many law enforcement agents possessed a carefree disregard for citizens’ private information. He stood firmly on the opposite side of that line in the sand—constitutional rights were sacred trusts.

It was an inopportune moment for Bellow’s elevated moral standards to be triggered by our hayseed pal. I adroitly changed the subject and asked Herzog what he meant about the Valley being heaven one minute, hell the next, and instantly rued the question. A breeze whispered in the branches and the lantern wavered. I’d instinctively edged nearer the lantern as the woods and everything in them merged into a colossal black shape at the uncertain boundary of light.

“The Valley’s old and it’s mean,” Herzog said. He’d drained several beers and it was hitting him hard.

I’d gotten a taste of the prevailing eeriness, its “colorful” characters, and had no desire to see much more of the Valley’s fabled dark side. Reason one hundred and one to conclude my investigation and slap a bow on it as soon as possible.

“What’s your opinion on the supercollider project?” I said. “Were you sorry to see it fail, or good riddance to bad rubbish?”

“Oh, they’re still screwing around over there on the sly. Seen lights, heard noises at all hours.” He sucked on his pipe and belched tire-fire smoke. “Tell you this much: whatever plans were in store for the finished site weren’t nice.”

“Such as?”

He shrugged.

“I dunno. Redlicks were involved; it was something bad.”

“Whoa, there. Aren’t you friends?”

“Their company gives me shit money to do a shit job. The way it’s always been with our families. Doesn’t make us friends, does it?”

“Seems lonely here in the hills,” Lionel said. “I mean, it’s peaceful.”

“Lonely? No. I have my fun too. I play jokes on my dog.”