Empire Falls

feeling guilty about having kept the secret and no longer seeing that much harm could be done, finally told Miles what he’d witnessed out at the old house last month. The howling dog had been chained to the stake, and the boy himself had also been emitting terrible, throaty noises, as he beat it with a stick. The animal, trying desperately to escape, raced around in ever-shortening circles of panic, the chain bunching up around the stake until it was completely gathered in a ball and the side of the dog’s head was held flat to the ground. Even then the poor thing had tried to get away, strangling itself in the process. Only when it finally understood the hopelessness of flight did the boy toss the stick away and begin trying to soothe the terrified creature, staying well clear of its frightened, snapping jaws until it began to calm down and whimper pitifully. Then the boy himself got down on all fours, crawling closer and closer, cooing at the animal, gently stroking its wounded flanks, until the dog finally forgave his attacker and licked his face. Horace realized that the boy was weeping and begging the animal’s forgiveness, still careful, though, because it was bewildered and conflicted, and something would cause it suddenly to quit licking and snap. Then it would resume its whimpering, the boy all the while cooing, “I know, I know,” as if in perfect understanding.
    It was, Horace said, the most horrifying and heartbreaking thing he had ever seen. His first impulse was to report what he’d witnessed—and knowing what he knew now, he wished he had. But he’d seen the boy around town, and knew something of his family and his standing at the high school, and Horace himself knew what it felt like to be considered a freak. Had he reported what he’d seen, the boy probably would’ve been removed from his grandmother’s home and sent to the juvenile correctional facility in Sunderland, a truly gruesome place.
    Horace also told Miles something that had not made it into the news reports: that in the same area of the landfill where Charlotte Owen’s decaying remains were uncovered, they’d also found the bodies of several dogs, each exhibiting signs of having been tortured or beaten to death.
    Miles had shared none of this with his daughter, of course, knowing how upset she already was by the boy’s disappearance, but he did tell her about the laundry bag and made her acknowledge, for her own safety, what he believed to be true—that John Voss was a tragically abused boy, that something in him was broken and that simple kindness might not be enough to fix it. Tick had nodded in something less than complete agreement and in the end he wasn’t sure how much of it had taken root. The whole conversation reminded him of the one earlier that year about the separation that would ultimately end in his and Janine’s divorce. In both cases his daughter’s greatest need had seemed to be for him to stop talking.
    Horace and Walt were playing gin when Miles and David came in. Walt had already stripped down to his white-ribbed muscle shirt. How many of these, Miles wondered, did the man own?
    “Hello, Walt,” he sighed. “Hi, Horace. Buster.”
    “No more double shifts,” Buster said. Though his eye had cleared up almost completely, he looked like a man who’d spent every last nickel of his strength and energy.
    “You want to go home?”
    “And never come back,” Buster added, stripping his apron off over his neck.
    “Just let me take a quick shower,” Miles said. “Then you can split.”
    “You see that white limo, Big Boy?” Walt wanted to know. “The one with the Mass plates?”
    Miles nodded.
    “Drove right down the middle of Empire Avenue all the way to the mill. Don’t tell me there isn’t something in the works, neither. Go outside and sniff. You can still smell the money in the air.”
    Through the front window, Miles saw Charlene’s Hyundai, its signal blinking while she waited to make her turn into the lot. There would be six on tonight, Miles serving as host and floater, David at the stove with an assistant for salads and desserts, Charlene and another girl working the floor, plus the new busboy he’d hired to replace John Voss. For the Empire Grill, a full crew. At Bea’s, with nearly three times as many tables, they’d have to double or triple their staff. David would have to train at least one other person how to cook noodles twice, and Charlene had already volunteered. That was