Empire Falls

quick, easy exchange suggested he was missing something. It was the same way he often felt on Martha’s Vineyard around Peter and Dawn, who, like most married couples, had developed a kind of verbal shorthand, a system of quick allusions that required no further referencing. This was just one more way, Miles supposed, that his own marriage had fallen short. He and Janine had always had trouble making themselves understood to each other, even when they spoke in complete paragraphs. It was Janine’s position that if they hadn’t fucked that dozen times or so, there would’ve been no reason for them to go through the motions of divorce. They could have just had the marriage annulled, the church’s acknowledgment that in twenty years no intercourse of any significance, sexual or even verbal, had taken place between them.
    Settling on his brother, Miles asked, “Why would Jimmy Minty have his eye on either of you?”
    “Didn’t you know?” David grinned. “Charlene here is my distributor.”
    “I don’t get it,” Miles said. “Why would Jimmy Minty think that?” If true, this wasn’t funny.
    “That’s not the half of it,” David continued. “According to Jimmy, I’m a major grower. I’ve cornered the whole damn pot market in central Maine. I caught him tramping around the woods behind my place yesterday trying to find my patch.”
    This really wasn’t funny either, though David seemed to think it was. “What’d you do?”
    “I suggested he wear orange, this being moose season.”
    “Miles is right, David. You shouldn’t fuck with him,” Charlene said, as if, despite this advice, she fully understood the impulse. “He’s a cop. It’s not like these guys have a sense of humor.”
    David shrugged. “Actually, we got along fine. I invited him in for a cup of coffee so he could tell me about all his suspicions. Turns out he’s fond as hell of us Robys, our families going all the way back to the old neighborhood and all. Hell, his kid’s sweet on Miles’s kid.”
    David was good enough at mimicking Jimmy Minty’s smarmy voice and obsequious mannerisms that Miles could feel the rage rising from the pit of his stomach. Clearly, the policeman had paid no attention to Miles’s warning to stay out of his family’s affairs. Worse, to judge from what David was saying, he’d taken the warning as a challenge.
    “Hell, the last thing in the world he wants is trouble,” David was saying. “That’s how come he was out in my woods. Just trying to head off trouble. You know the way he looks at it? He figures his duty is to be a good neighbor first and a police officer second.”
    Charlene guffawed. “What’d you say to that?”
    David shrugged. “I may have told him I thought he was an asshole first, last and in between. I may have hurt his feelings.”
    “This is not funny,” Miles said, meaning it.
    “So I guess you didn’t see his car parked across the street from the restaurant tonight?” David said, meeting his brother’s gaze.
    Miles hadn’t seen any police cars that night, not that he was sure he’d have noticed if there had been one, busy as they were. “The cruiser?”
    “No, his car,” Charlene said. “The red Camaro.”
    Miles just looked at her.
    “I’m sorry, Miles. I can’t help it,” she said. “You know I always notice guys in fast cars.”
    He turned his attention back to his brother. “Are you growing marijuana?”
    “Mind your own business, Miles.”
    “It is my business, David,” he said, feeling a lifetime’s worth of resentment welling up dangerously. Every time he allowed himself to imagine that his brother had finally turned the corner, that ingrained irresponsibility would surface again. “Minty probably thinks you’re dealing out of the restaurant. Probably that’s why the dimwit thinks we’ve gotten busy.”
    “We are dealing out of the restaurant, Miles,” David said, suddenly serious and more than a little pissed, as if he too had just recalled something about his brother’s character that he despaired would never change. “What we’re dealing is flautas . And you know what? I was just talking to Audrey back in the kitchen and she said this place was slow tonight. So was the Eating House out on Ninety-Two. The only restaurant in Dexter County that did any volume tonight was the Empire Grill. Instead of worrying about Jimmy Minty watching the restaurant and me growing weed, think about this. Even on a slow night this place will outgross