“He misses the war,” Virgil said.

“He would still be in it,” Narcissa said, “he wasn’t shot that time.” She said to Carl, “You lucky, you know it?” And said, “Virgil tell you the FBI man called?”

“I tried him, he was gone for the day,” Carl said, busy with his chicken and rice. “I’ll see him tomorrow.”

“How come he asked for Carlos Webster?”

Carl saw his dad stop eating his supper to watch him.

“I told Kevin I was Carlos. I’m thinking of using it again while I’m in Detroit.”

“Nobody’s called you that since you were a boy,” Virgil said. “Or up to when you joined the marshals and they started calling you Carl. You’d tell ’em you’re Carlos and come near having fist-fights over it till your boss calmed you down. You recall why you wanted to stick with Carlos?”

Carl said, “’Cause it’s my name?”

“Still a smarty-pants,” Narcissa said.

“You were wearing it like a chip on your shoulder,” Virgil said. “You know why?”

“I know what you’re gonna say.”

“’Cause a long time ago that moron Emmett Long took your ice cream cone and called you a greaser. I told you he couldn’t read nor write or he wouldn’t be robbing banks.”

“He said I was part greaser on my mama’s side,” Carl said. “I told him my grammaw’s Northern Cheyenne and asked him if having Indian blood made me something else besides a greaser.”

Narcissa shook her head saying, “Don’t you want to hug him?”

“He told you it would make us breeds,” Virgil said, “me more’n you. Six years later with a marshal’s star on your person, you shot Emmett Long for insulting your ancestry. That’s how I tell it to the soldiers in the bar, the ones from the camp they got the Huns in. Then I say, ‘Or did the hot kid of the marshals shoot the wanted bank robber for taking his ice cream cone?’”

“The soldiers buy the three-two and the shots,” Narcissa said, holding a cold bottle of Mexican beer in each hand. “He tells one story after another and comes home looped.”