Empire Falls (73 page)

“Jesus,” Horace Weymouth said, as if he’d just been dealt a hand of gin the likes of which he’d never seen before.

“Say go, Horace,” Miles commanded without looking at him.

“Go,” said Horace, and Miles slammed the back of Walt’s hand onto the Formica so hard that three water glasses leapt off it and shattered on the floor, so hard that the Silver Fox’s legs shot straight out and, for a split second, his whole body was parallel to the counter, a victim of a sudden levitation, the stapled hand his only connection to Mother Earth. At that moment Miles released him, and it was his hips that struck the hard linoleum floor first, then the back of his head, then both feet, which bounced just once. Then the Silver Fox lay still, his eyeballs having rolled up in their sockets.

Miles was already out the door.

·  ·  ·

T
HE GATE WAS STILL OPEN
, but Miles parked outside on the street and walked between the stone pillars. In all the years his mother had worked at the shirt factory, he’d never passed beyond the arch, a fact that now seemed astonishing. After Grace’s death, of course, there’d been no reason to come, but as he entered the courtyard, he couldn’t help feeling that he was finally attending to some long-ignored obligation.

The white limo was still parked there, and on the other side of the brick wall sat Mrs. Whiting’s Lincoln, invisible from the street. Motionless on the shelf behind the backseat was what Miles thought at first glance must be one of those mechanical animals that nodded rhythmic agreement when the vehicle was in motion, but he then realized it was Timmy the Cat. The animal was regarding him curiously, marking his progress along the courtyard and smiling, it seemed, if cats other than the Cheshire variety can be said to smile. When he heard a car door open, Miles saw that the flash of red he’d noticed earlier was Jimmy Minty’s Camaro, which had been blocked from view by the limo.

Mrs. Whiting and the limo men had made their way from the shirt factory down to the adjacent textile mill that overlooked the falls. The group was clustered just outside the main entrance, sighting along Mrs. Whiting’s extended arm, first looking up at the old building, then out across the river. What was she pointing out? Her own house, a quarter mile upstream? Was that, too, for sale?

At the end of the courtyard a brick walkway led around the shirt factory and down the slope to the mill, and it was here that Jimmy Minty had planted himself. “You’re on private property, Miles,” he said.

“I thought all this belonged to the town.”

“We won’t argue.” Jimmy Minty shrugged. “It’s posted, anyhow.”

He wasn’t wearing the plaid sport coat he usually wore while on duty. Still, Miles thought he’d check. “Who am I talking to here, Jimmy?”

“Come again?”

They were face-to-face now. “Are you on duty?”

“Sort of. I do a little private consulting.”

“Like your father used to.”

He nodded. “Old Mr. Honus Whiting hired my dad now and then. I saw him beat the tar out of a fella one night not far from where we’re standing. I was the only witness, in fact. Stubborn little fucker. It was a beating he could’ve avoided.”

“How about your mother? Could her beatings have been avoided?”

Minty took a moment before answering. “No,” he said sadly. “I don’t think so. You all probably heard a lot of that over in your house, huh?”

“We should’ve called the cops.”

This seemed to stimulate a memory. “I ever tell you about the time your mom came over? You must not have been there. Hot summer afternoon, all the windows open. My old man was going to town on Ma like he did sometimes when she pissed him off, then all of a sudden he turned around and there was your mother standing right in the middle of our living room, like she paid rent. Told my old man he was going to stop what he was doing ‘right this instant’ and wasn’t ever going to start up again. ‘Right this instant’—her exact words. She had a hammer in her hand, turned around so the claw end faced the front.”

Miles had no trouble conjuring up the scene. “Right this instant”
had
been one of her pet phrases. He’d only seen Grace mad once or twice, but he could imagine her there with the hammer, and could also imagine William Minty backing up a step when he saw her.

“Hard to say what would’ve happened if Ma hadn’t spoke up,” Jimmy chuckled. “She’s settin’ there on the floor with a busted lip, takes one look at your mother standing there with that hammer and tells her to go fuck herself and mind her own business. See, your mom, being so pretty, was what my mom feared most, even more than my old man.” He paused. “She never told you about that day, huh?”

“Not a word.”

He shrugged. “Ah, fuck the past, right?” And when Miles offered no opinion on whether this was either possible or advisable, his eyes narrowed. “My boy Zack’s thinking about quitting the football team, did you know that? I keep trying to talk him out of it, but I don’t know. Coach won’t play him no more, so maybe he’s right. What’s the point? All that shit in the newspaper about him being a dirty player. I guess everybody figures he’s a bad kid now. Your friend the principal’s trying to blame him for what happened to that old woman they found.”

Miles had no desire to hear any of this. “I’m here to see Mrs. Whiting, Jimmy. It won’t take long.”

The other man seemed almost grateful for the change of subject. “She said for me to tell you tomorrow.”

“She knew I was coming?”

“There ain’t much that lady doesn’t know, Miles. Several steps ahead of people like you and me. She’s kind of disappointed in you, is my impression.”

“I’m sure she’ll tell me all about it,” Miles said and started around the policeman, who grabbed him by the left elbow.

“Except not today.”

When Miles hit him, as hard as he could, Jimmy Minty held on to his elbow for balance, but finally had to let go and sit down on the curb that bordered the walkway. His nose was broken, that much Miles could tell. It took the blood a moment to start, then it began to flow freely, soaking the front of his white shirt. Miles could see from where he stood that Timmy was racing frantically around inside the Lincoln, from window to window, as if she had a fat wager on the outcome of these hostilities.

Down at the mill, Mrs. Whiting and the limo men had gone inside. Miles stood over Minty, unsure what was supposed to happen next. The policeman was leaning back on both hands now and staring up at the gray sky, probably in the hope that his blood wouldn’t flow uphill. He sniffed four or five times, then sneezed mightily, dappling both Miles and himself.

“Well, how about that?” he said. “Ol’ Miles Roby committing a violent act. Won’t people be surprised.”

Miles stared down at him, recalling his father’s advice about cops: the worst they could do to you wasn’t that bad. Miles found it more than a little disconcerting to be following his father’s counsel in an important matter, but he was still a very long way from regret, which he had a feeling there’d be plenty of time for later on.

After a minute, the worst of the nosebleed having stopped, Jimmy Minty got to his feet. He was wobbly, but also, Miles saw, determined. “Come on over to the car,” he said. “Let me put the cuffs on you.”

“Not until I’ve talked to Mrs. Whiting.”

“I have my orders.”

“Well.”

Minty drove his fist into Miles’s midsection, doubling him over. Another punch he didn’t even see dropped him to one knee. He was still trying to get his breath back when Jimmy hit him behind the left ear, setting off an explosion in his skull. He slumped onto the brick path then, and when no further blows followed, he rolled over and saw that Minty had returned to the Camaro and was rooting around in the glove box, which suggested to Miles that he must’ve blacked out, at least for a few seconds. By the time the policeman had located the handcuffs, Miles had managed to get back to his feet.

“You’d do better to just
set
back down, Miles,” Minty advised. His nose was swelling and turning gray. “You created your disturbance, and now I’ve quelled it.”

It occurred to Miles that despite his broken nose, this was a richly rewarding experience for Jimmy Minty. He easily slipped the next punch Miles flung, and then Miles was back on his knees, cradling his stomach, retching onto the bricks.

“Now straighten up and put out your wrists,” Minty said, but instead, twice more Miles struggled to his feet, and twice more found himself back on the ground.

By the time Mrs. Whiting and the limo men returned up the walkway, one of Miles’s eyes was completely closed, the other a mere slit. Both men were seated, facing each other, on opposite curbs, looking like they’d been on the same losing side of a fight, the victors having unaccountably run away. The handcuffs still dangled from the policeman’s fingers, and Miles could tell it embarrassed him. “You go on along, Mrs. Whiting,” Minty said, his breathing sounding strangled. “I’ll finish up with this after I’ve caught my breath.”

The businessmen, clearly nervous, gave the two locals a wide berth, walking well off the brick path onto the grass to circle around them.

“You amaze me, dear boy,” said Mrs. Whiting. “What was so important that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

Across the courtyard, Miles could hear the limo’s doors open and close, the solid, well-made sound of money sealing itself off. Since she was probably expecting him to say something about Callahan’s, he decided to disappoint her. “I just came by to give you my notice,” he told her. “You’ll have to find someone else to run the Empire Grill.”

Jimmy Minty quit fingering his broken nose to listen to this.

“You appear to have been visited by some sort of revelation, dear boy,” Mrs. Whiting observed. “Here’s my suggestion, though. Why not think things over? Passionate decisions are seldom very sound.”

“When did you ever feel passion?”

“Well, it’s true I’m seldom swept away like those with more romantic temperaments,” she conceded. “But we are what we are, and what can’t be cured must be endured.”

“What can’t be cured must be avenged,” Miles said. “Isn’t that what you mean?”

She smiled appreciatively. “Payback is
how
we endure, dear boy. Now, before you say another word in anger, for which I should have to punish you, you’ll want to stop and consider not just your own future but your daughter’s. She may require assistance with her university expenses in a couple of years, much as
you
did.” She paused to let this sink in. “And of course there are your brother and the others who depend upon the Empire Grill for their admittedly slender livelihoods. In the end, though, it’s up to you, just as it always has been.”

“Power and control. Right, Francine?”

It was the first time he had ever called her by her first name. In fact, over the years he’d nearly forgotten it. Strange that it should return to him at this moment.

If being addressed so intimately offended Mrs. Whiting, she took pains to conceal it. “Ah!” she said, in mock delight. “You
were
paying attention to my little lessons, weren’t you, dear boy! I could never be sure.” And with that she turned and stepped nimbly around and toward the Lincoln.

“He preferred my mother, didn’t he, Mrs. Whiting?” Miles called after her. “That’s what all this is about, right?”

She stopped—stock-still for a moment—then returned to where he sat. “And am I not a model of Christian forbearance, dear boy? Did I not forgive your mother her trespass? Did I not welcome her into the very home she destroyed? Did I not offer her every opportunity for the expiation and redemption you Catholics are forever going on and on about?”

“Redemption? Wasn’t it really retribution?”

“Well, as I once explained to my husband, there was a little something in the relationship for each of us.” She started away again, then stopped and turned back. “Having said that, I wouldn’t want to leave you with the wrong impression, dear boy. I was
very
fond of your mother, just as I’m very fond of you. In the end I think she was glad things didn’t work out quite as she’d hoped. I like to think she came to understand life’s great folly.”

Then she looked down at the policeman. “Do you think you can manage to lock up, Jimmy? The padlock on that gate is a little stiff. It requires no end of coaxing.”

“I’ll take care of it, Mrs. Whiting.”

Miles couldn’t help but smile, having made more or less this same promise to the woman for twenty-five years—the precise destiny his mother had feared above all others. When the Lincoln glided out between the stone pillars, followed by the limo, Miles felt something rub against his elbow, and when he looked down there was Timmy, who must’ve escaped when Mrs. Whiting opened the car door. The animal seemed satisfied with the damage already inflicted on Miles and offered no additional malice.

Jimmy Minty got to his feet and offered Miles a hand, which Miles accepted and then held out his wrists to be cuffed. Jimmy led him over to the Camaro, kicking the cat out of the way, hard, when she tried to follow.

Miles tried without luck to remember the last time he’d been in a sports car. The engine growled like a caged animal directly beneath his feet. Charlene had once confessed that she considered this a sexy sound. Human folly indeed. Outside the gate, Minty put the Camaro in Park and went back to close and lock the gate. As Mrs. Whiting had predicted, this was not an easy job, and Miles could hear him swearing at the lock.

“You never should’ve come back here, old buddy,” Jimmy Minty said when he got back in the car. “Your mother was right about that. I’ll never forget how she screamed at you. I guess that’s what I was trying to say before all this started.” By “all this” he seemed to mean everything that had happened since he’d found Miles parked outside his boyhood home back in September. “I felt real bad when I heard her screaming at you like that, all those things she said when she was dying, and you just trying to help.”

Miles closed his eyes and listened to her, the memory still fresh, horrible.
Go away, Miles. You’re killing me. Can’t you understand that? Your being here is killing me. Killing me
.