Stallion Gate by Martin Cruz Smith Page A

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.
    Joe meant to only glance in. There were about twentytables, enough to assemble a miniature, artificial Santa Fe: society Spanish in heirloom mantillas, artists who had fled New York, cultists who had fled California, lawyers not sharp enough to practice anywhere else, all sitting in the glow of stamped-tin chandeliers. The ladies found a table. The Indian stood at it, bringing forth silver rings and pins in his hand. From the table nearest the kitchen Harvey waved a clarinet. With him were Klaus Fuchs and the woman from the car, Anna Weiss. They were having after-dinner coffee.
    “Back in business.” Harvey held the instrument out for Joe’s inspection. It was a used PanAmerican with a chrome-edged bell, the basic high-school model. “Picked it up in the pawnshop.”
    “This ought to strike terror in the Emperor’s heart,” Joe said and handed the clarinet back. “Feeling okay?”
    “We had a premature detonation on the test range this afternoon,” Harvey explained to Anna. He looked up at Joe. “Just the bloody nose. I’m fine. Sit down.”
    “The sergeant has other duties, I’m sure,” Fuchs said.
    Anna Weiss said, “Sit, please.”
    She wasn’t a rosy English fair. Not pallid, either. More of a smooth china paleness, made all the more startling by her hair, black as an Indian’s but finer, and rakishly set off by a red lacquer comb. She wore a Hawaiian shirt with red palm trees. The ensemble had a go-to-hell quality that would test the nerve of any escort, let alone a stuffed shirt like Fuchs. At least her accent was softer than his.
    “Through his clear thinking and quick actions, Dr.Pillsbury saved the lives of a great many men this afternoon,” Joe said as he sat. He laid his newspaper on the table.
    “You didn’t tell us, Harvey,” Anna said.
    “Tell them, Harvey,” Joe said. “How you doused the cordite.”
    “No, no.” Harvey had been drinking. A blush rose from his neck up. “Joe’s the real war hero.”
    “I saw him in action this morning,” Anna said. “He defeated a car.”
    “It’s unbelievable they let him in.” Fuchs had yet to acknowledge Joe’s presence, and now he stared at a new irritation.
    The old Indian stood at the table and displayed his arms laden with necklaces, nodules of blue and green turquoise on knotted string. Cleto was a Santo Domingo man, and the Domingos sold jewelry up and down the Rio and even into Navajo country in Utah. His eyelids were low and his shirt was stained with trails of brown chili sauce, but the ribbons