feet and squeezing me with one hand while he dug for a ten-dollar bill and left it wadded on top of the check.
His face was bloodless. “Your schoolwork.”
Numbly I picked up my biology book and Harnett steered us away. Already Boggs was up and blocking our path, over a foot shorter than my father but, due to his fantastic breadth and the startling incongruity of his three-piece suit, just as imposing. Harnett pulled back, holding me in check with an elbow. Boggs’s pink face broke into a heedless grin.
“Kenny,” he said. “Lord, it’s good to see you.”
“Step aside.”
Boggs shook his head as if there had been some terrible misunderstanding.
“This is silly. We shouldn’t fight. If you could just give me a minute I’d be—”
“Get out of my face.”
A burly man in chef’s whites was leaning over the counter.
“There some problem here, folks?”
Oldies still blared from speakers, but beneath the music the dissonance of the diner was smoothing as families broke off their conversations and began to take note. Boggs straightened his vest and adjusted his rumpled tie. He gestured apologetically at a vacated corner booth. If there was anything a Digger feared it was attention, and the longer we stood there the more we got. With a single flex of his jaw, Harnett forced a tight smile at the cook, took three giant steps, and landed on the far bench of the booth. I wandered after and he tugged me down next to him.
Coattails rippling, Boggs slid onto the opposite bench. He pushed aside the uncleared plates and dirty utensils and smacked the book down before him. It was large and nondescript and bulged with its untitled contents. Boggs’s little hands stroked the faux-leather cover.
“Two minutes.” Harnett flicked his eyes at a nearby clock, where a second hand lazed past bad caricatures of Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, and James Dean. “Time enough for these people to get back to their business.”
“You’re getting bent out of shape,” Boggs said. “There’s no reason. It’s just me, Baby. Do you know how far I came to see you? Two thousand five hundred seventy-five—”
“Tick tock.” Harnett kept his eyes on Marlon, Marilyn, and James.
Boggs sat back and frowned. “Right. Down to business. That’s how it always is with you. I guess I’d forgotten. Well, fine. We can make this a business meeting if you want. I do have some business to transact.”
“That’s up to you,” Harnett said. “One minute.”
Boggs spoke faster. “You’re going to be glad we had this conversation. You’re going to see that this is exactly where you belong. Right at this table with me. With me and Joey. The three of us—you remember how it used to be? With me and you and Valerie? We were family then, and the three of us here now, we can be—”
“Don’t talk about her. Don’t talk. I’ve got nothing to say to you.” But Harnett couldn’t resist. “Go back to your hellhole. Your ditch. Wherever you’re squatting now.”
The words were like bullets. Boggs flinched at each one. He hid his face, turning to the dirty dishes for guidance. When at last he spoke, the syllables were tentative and imploring. “She’s gone now. I know it, I heard. And I’m so sorry, Kenny. You don’t know how sorry. But you don’t need to be like this. I’ve done nothing to deserve it. I’m trying to make things better with us. You’re my brother and nothing can change that.”
“We were never brothers.”
Boggs’s voice shattered. “How can you say that? Of course we are! All those years growing up—what was that? Did that not happen? You need to remember it, Kenny. One of us has to, and my brain is falling out my head. Did I tell you that? It’s true. You’re probably glad. But you shouldn’t be. No one should feel that way about his brother.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t feel anything at all.” He glanced at the clock. “Time’s up.”
“Wait. Now you just wait. I know you like I know me. We think the same. You may not want to admit that, but it’s true. We both know, for instance, that when a rotter dies, that’s it. There’s no fantasy land of heaven or hell. It’s like that old saying we used to say: You can’t take it with you. Except here’s the thing. You ready? You ready for our business transaction? Turns out they do get away with something. Don’t they?” He shifted his despairing gaze to me. “Don’t they, son?”