Empire Falls

this time he didn’t bother to put it down or wipe his mouth before speaking. “Something nice,” he repeated. “Is that what you think? That having money makes people nice?”
    “Ah, to hell with you,” Walt said, dismissing both men with a single wave of his hand. “Here’s what I’d like to know, though, smart-ass. How can you sit here and eat one greasy hamburger after another, day after goddamn day? Don’t you have any idea how bad that junk is for you?”
    Horace, who had one bite of burger left, put it on his plate and looked up. “What I don’t know is why you have to ruin my lunch every day. Why can’t you leave people in peace?”
    “Because I care about you,” Walt said. “I can’t help it.”
    “I wish you could,” Horace said, pushing his platter away.
    “Well, I can’t.” Walt pushed Horace’s platter even farther down the counter and took a worn deck of cards out of his pocket, slapping it down in front of Horace. “I can’t let you die before I figure out how you’re beating me at gin.”
    Horace polished some hamburger grease into the countertop with his napkin before cutting the deck. “You should live so long. Hell, I should live so long,” he said, watching the deal, content to wait until he had his whole hand before picking up any cards. He always gave the impression of having played all these hands before, as if the chief difficulty presented by each one was the boredom inherent in pretending over and over again that you didn’t know how everything would eventually play out. By contrast, when Horace dealt, Walt picked up each card on the fly, identifying it eagerly, each hand promising an entirely new experience.
    “Nope,” he now said, arranging the cards in his hand one way, then another, uncertain as to which organizing principle—suits or numbers—would be more likely to guarantee victory. “I’m your best friend, Horace. You just don’t know it. And I’ll tell you something else you don’t know. You don’t know who your worst enemy is, either.”
    Horace, who seldom seemed to move more than a card or two before his hand made sense, rolled his eyes at Miles. “Who might that be, Perry?” Horace asked, the way a man will when he already knows what’s coming. It wasn’t just these gin hands he’d played before.
    Walt nodded at Miles. “It’s Big Boy here,” he said, to no one’s surprise. “You keep eating his greasy burgers, you’re going to look just like him, too, if you don’t have a coronary first.”
    “You want some coffee, Walt?” Miles asked. “I always feel better about you undermining my business after I’ve coaxed eighty-five cents out of you.”
    “You need more customers like me,” Walt replied, tossing a twenty on the counter. Among the many things Miles held against the Silver Fox was his compulsion to break large bills at every opportunity; even if his wallet was full of singles, he always paid for his coffee with a twenty or a fifty. Occasionally, he’d try to get Miles to break a hundred, enjoying the sport of Miles’s refusal. “A cup of coffee costs you … what? A dime? Fifteen cents? And you get almost a buck for it, right? That’s eighty-five cents profit. Not too shabby.”
    Miles poured each man a cup, then took Walt’s twenty to the register. There was no point calling the Silver Fox on the intentional vagaries of his arithmetic. “After I refill it four or five times, how much have I made then?”
    When the bell over the door jingled again, Miles glanced up and saw his younger brother enter, a newspaper tucked under his ruined arm. Noting where Walt Comeau was seated, he located a stool at the other end of the counter. When Miles poured him a cup of coffee, David, who had already unfolded the front section and begun reading, met his eye and glanced down the counter at Walt Comeau before returning to his paper. For the most part the brothers understood each other perfectly, especially their silences. This one suggested that in David’s view Miles had not returned from his vacation any smarter than he was before he left.
    “You’re pretty well prepped,” Miles said, referring to the private party David was catering that evening. “I brought you back a couple jars of that lobster paste for bisque.”
    David nodded, pouring milk into his coffee with his good hand. “Tell me something,” he said. “Why do you allow him in here?”
    “It’s against the law to refuse service.”
    “So’s