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it had been a BMW, the year before that a Cadillac limo. The color of the vehicle seemed to alternate between black and white, but the plates were always Massachusetts, which made Miles smile. The hordes of visitors who poured into Maine every summer were commonly referred to as Massholes, and yet when Empire Falls fantasized about deliverance, it invariably had Massachusetts plates.
    “What?” Walt said, indignant. “You weren’t even here.”
    “Let him tell you about it,” Horace advised. “Then it’ll be over.”
    Walt Comeau looked back and forth between Miles and Horace as if to determine who was the bigger fool, settling finally on Horace, probably because he’d spoken last. “All right, you explain it. Three guys in eight-hundred-dollar suits drive all the way up here from Boston on a Sunday morning, park outside the mill, hike down to the head of the falls in their black patent leather shoes, then stand there for half an hour pointing up at the mill. You tell me who they are and what they’re doing.”
    Horace set his hamburger down and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Hey, it’s clear to me. They came to invest millions. For a while they were thinking about tech stocks, but then they thought, Hell, no. Let’s go into textiles. That’s where the real profits are. Then you know what they did? They decided not to build the factory in Mexico or Thailand where people work for about ten bucks a week. Let’s drive up to Empire Falls, Maine, they said, and look at that gutted old shell of a factory that the river damn near washed away last spring and buy all new equipment and create hundreds of jobs, nothing under twenty dollars an hour.”
    Miles couldn’t help smiling. Minus the sarcasm, this was pretty much the scenario he’d been listening to all morning. The annual sighting was born, as far as Miles could tell, of the same need that caused people to spot Elvis in the local Denny’s. But why always autumn? Miles wondered. It seemed an odd season to spawn such desperate optimism. Maybe it had something to do with the kids all going back to school, giving their parents the leisure to contemplate the approach of another savage, relentless winter and to conjure up a pipe dream to help them through it.
    “Hey,” Walt said, sounding hurt. “All I’m saying is something nice could happen here someday. You never know. That’s all I’m saying, okay?”
    Horace had gone back to his hamburger, and 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