Empire Falls

said, more to Miles than to Walt.
    “Jealous is what he is,” Walt said happily, the gin not having registered fully. “He and Big Boy are both jealous. They’d like to kid me that they aren’t, but I know better.”
    “That must be it,” Horace agreed. “You going to tell me how many points I caught you with, or do you want me to estimate?”
    Walt now stared at the hand Horace had laid down. “You can’t have gin already.”
    “Name one way that isn’t gin.”
    The Silver Fox laid his own hand down and began counting to himself.
    “I’ll make it easy for you. Fifty-two plus the gin is seventy-two,” said Horace, writing it down. “I hope you don’t mind me beating you quicker than usual today. I’m driving over to Augusta for the school budget vote, so I don’t have time to toy with you.”
    “Seventy-two,” Walt said, completing his own count.
    “Open this for me, will you?” Buster said, handing Miles a gallon jar of pickles and rubbing his wrist. Buster’s eye had quit draining, but it was still horrible to look at, red and swollen nearly shut. He looked like he’d lost about thirty pounds since summer. Lyme disease, according to his doctor. “I don’t seem to have any strength anymore.”
    Horace shook his head. “Thirty-five years’ worth of jerking off with that hand, you’d think he could open a jar of pickles.”
    “Go home, Buster,” Miles said. “I’ll finish up here.”
    The fry cook took off his apron, handing it to Miles without argument. “I’ll feel better tomorrow, I promise.”
    “Give that here,” Walt said, meaning the pickle jar. He was already stripping down to his tight, weight lifter’s undershirt, as if playing gin with Horace might require a full, unencumbered range of motion. Despite Walt Comeau’s professed love of all things sexual, Miles suspected there was nothing he enjoyed more than opening a jar someone else had given up on, so he ignored him, located a rubber snaffler, and twisted the lid off the jar.
    “That’s cheating,” Walt complained. “Anybody can open a jar with one of those.”
    “Gin,” said Horace, who again laid down his cards.
    “A damn kid could open a jar with one of those,” Walt told Horace, who for some reason was grinning at him. “What do you mean, gin?”
    “Sixty-nine plus the gin,” Horace explained, writing “89” on the pad between them.
    “Eighty-seven,” Walt said when he’d completed his arithmetic. He pushed the cards toward his opponent in disgust.
    “Count ’em again,” Horace suggested, pushing them back.
    Walt did, and after a minute revised the tally. “Eighty-nine,” he said.
    Horace showed him the pad where he’d written that number down already.
    “It could’ve been you that was wrong,” Walt pointed out. “Did that ever occur to you?”
    Horace shuffled and offered Walt a cut, which he took. “Sure it did,” Horace admitted. “I always prefer to eliminate the more likely scenarios first, though.”
    Walt was too busy picking up his cards, one at a time, and arranging them in his hand to consider this insult. “I hear you’re going to be getting some competition, Big Boy,” he observed, once his hand made enough sense that he could offer up a discard.
    David was at the refrigerator, and when Miles glanced over he saw that his brother hadn’t even broken rhythm. Miles liked to think you couldn’t tell anything from his own demeanor either, but he noticed Horace studying him curiously.
    “How’s that, Walt?” he asked, trying to keep his voice modulated.
    “Janine tells me her mother’s opening up for lunches again over at Callahan’s,” the bridegroom reported, picking up one of Horace’s discards. “Next month sometime.”
    “I wish her luck,” Miles said, meaning it. Actually, he’d spent most of the morning over at Bea’s tavern with an electrician. The news had not been good. There wasn’t an inch of wiring in the kitchen—in the whole building, for that matter—that was up to code, which was fine as long as it was left alone. Renovations, however, as mandated by state law, had to be up to code, which in effect meant that all the old, grandfathered wiring had to be brought up to standard. Neither Bea nor Miles could come up with that kind of money without going to the bank, something neither of them wanted to do, since it would make their plans public. Miles, in particular, was determined to keep them a secret, at least until late October, when Mrs.