“Joe, it’s the spirit of the times. Entertainment. Baseball hasn’t stopped. There’s a one-armed outfielder playing for the St. Louis Browns right now. Hasn’t stopped baseball.” After years of wearing his white planter’s hat, like a girl holding a parasol against the sun, Hilario’s brown skin had become bleached to a pallor that made his eyes, which were black as tar, all the more piercing. “Joe, when you’re as old as I am, you find out that people lead very short lives.”

“I noticed that on Bataan.”

“Then the experience wasn’t wasted. Now it’s time again for fun. I want you to meet a fan of yours.”

“Harry Gold.” Hilario’s friend popped out from behind the stool. Gold was short, swarthy and so fat that he looked inflated inside his double-breasted suit. He wobbled on new boots and removed a new Stetson to shake Joe’s hand. His hair was dark and wavy.

“Harry’s a New York Jew,” Hilario said.

“I saw you play with Charlie Parker on Fifty-second Street,” Gold told Joe. “And a couple of weeks ago, at the Casa Mañana. I always wondered what happened to you.”

“Joe used to be the Indian Joe Louis until that nigger music got to him. Joe, you’re still popular. That boy has beaten everyone in the state. You’re the only action left.”

“Hilario, I haven’t fought for two years.”

“That’s not so dangerous for a fighter of your quality. Anyway, you’re like a thoroughbred coming down in class.”

“The comeback of Chief Joe Peña?”

“Don’t laugh, I can set it up in two days and guarantee you two thousand dollars just for showing up and lying down.”

“I’m looking for investment opportunities in New Mexico,” Gold said to Joe.

“Why don’t you just put your money directly into Hilario’s pocket?”

“That’s your problem, Joe,” Hilario said. “You don’t know how to boost your own home state. Word is, some black marketeer is dealing high explosives to the Indians. There are legitimate businessmen who can’t get explosives during wartime—contractors and developers, men with money. I want to give you this opportunity, Joe, because that Texas boy is going to beat the shit out of you.”

As Joe worked his way back across the lobby the special agents were rereading their sports pages. The headline folded over was B-29S POUND NIPS. A circle of ladies in crocheted dresses were retreating from an Indian selling necklaces. His hair tied back in a single gray braid, his dirty shirt buttoned at the neck, he offered them first one arm draped with turquoise strands, then the other. Together, ladies and Indian moved past the poster of a flamenco dancer and through the doubleglass doors that led to the La Fonda dining room.