Empire Falls

shrugged, as if to suggest that only time would tell. He reminded Miles a little of Harpo Marx, who wouldn’t dispute the ownership of a twenty because he knew something you didn’t when you put it in your pocket—that the bill was on a string. In fact, the resemblance between his father and Harpo was so uncanny just then that Miles patted his pocket to make sure the bill was still there. “You’d have swiped it, too, wouldn’t you? Even though you got paid five minutes ago and the money’s still warm in your pocket, all you can think about is what might be in my glove box since the last time you looked.”
    Max ignored this. He’d taken out the real-estate booklet again and was leafing through the pages of million-dollar houses on the Vineyard like a prospective buyer. “Wasn’t it you who was just telling me I should remember my future needs?”
    At the red light, Miles stopped, grabbed the pamphlet, stuffed it back in the glove compartment and slammed the door shut. No doubt about it. Max could bullshit God Himself. In fact, Miles wondered if God would even know what He was up against. When the time came, he hoped He would attend to the matter first thing in the morning, because at the end of a long day, Vegas odds would make Max the runaway favorite.
    “If I was you,” Max offered, “I’d start courting that crippled Whiting girl.”
    “And you wonder why I never come to you for advice,” Miles said. He had absolutely no intention of revealing that he and Cindy Whiting were going to the homecoming game tomorrow. Perhaps Max would forget about the game and not go. Perhaps no one would see them there together and report back to the old man. Perhaps pigs would fly.
    Max didn’t say anything until Miles failed to dodge a pothole and the glove box door dropped open again. “If all I had to do to get my hands on ten million dollars was marry a cripple, I’d marry her.”
    “I know you would, Dad. Then you’d leave her.”
    “No, I wouldn’t,” Max said, fiddling with the lock mechanism. “I might take a vacation or two when I felt like it, though.” He closed the door again, but it immediately popped open.
    Miles just looked at him until the light turned green.
    “You had a screwdriver in there, I could probably fix that for you,” Max offered.
    “You already fixed it great, Dad,” Miles said, accelerating through the intersection and recalling that Mrs. Whiting herself had pointed out how much easier his life would be if he married Cindy. “Just do me a big favor and don’t fix anything else, okay?”
    Max crossed his legs and stared out the window, the sprung door of the glove box resting on his knee. He contented himself with this view for about a minute, then pulled out the real-estate guide again. “You married that cripple, you could buy this place you want so bad.”
    “Dad?” Miles said. “Could you not refer to her that way?”
    “What way?”
    “As a cripple. Could you not do that?”
    “What should I call her?”
    “How about this? Don’t call her anything. In fact, I can’t think of any reason for you to refer to her at all. She’s nothing to either one of us.”
    Max paused. “Same family. The Robys and the Robideauxs.”
    “Don’t start in again,” Miles warned him. “You’ve got even less chance of getting your hands on their money than you have of getting the twenty in my shirt pocket.”
    When Max didn’t say anything to this, Miles again discreetly checked his shirt pocket to make sure the old man didn’t have it already. The bill crinkled reassuringly against the fabric.
    “I knew a guy in the Keys used to call himself a cripple all the time,” his father said. “ ‘Max,’ he’d say. ‘Don’t ever be a cripple.’ ”
    “Good God,” Miles said.
    “Don’t get mad at me, is all I’m saying,” his father said. “It wasn’t me that ran over her.”
    “No,” Miles agreed, “you were lucky. All you hit was the mayor’s little dog.”
    “Unlucky, you mean,” Max said. “It was his daughter’s, not his. Ran out right in front of me—couldn’t have been helped even if I was sober. Happened right over there.” Max pointed at a quiet, shady neighborhood of once elegant homes, most of which, lately, had gone slightly to seed. One of them, Walt Comeau’s, had a For Sale sign out front.
    “No, I meant lucky,” Miles insisted. “If it had been a child, you wouldn’t have been able to help that, either. You got off