Уолтер Тевис - The Color of Money

“Jesus Christ,” Roy said.

Eddie ran the rest and banked the eight into the side. Nobody said anything while he did it. Then he handed the rack to Roy. The thing about eight-ball was that you only needed to make eight out of the fifteen. When the balls were ready, Eddie slammed the cue ball into them, pocketed two and proceeded to run out the solids. He played it like straight pool and nudged the eight into an easy lie while making one of the earlier balls, and then pocketed it on a simple shot. During all this his cue ball never touched a rail. His position on every ball was perfect.

“Jesus Christ,” Roy said when it was over. “Do you need a manager?”

Arabella spoke up. “He’s Fast Eddie, Roy.”

“Come on….” Roy said.

“He’s Fast Eddie. You’ve been hustled.”

Afterward, when he was taking her home, Eddie said, “There are thousands of guys like him. They all play eight-ball.”

“How many are there like you?”

He hesitated. “Not many.”

“I should think not.” She stopped at the door of her building. “You looked anything but bored.”

“I wanted to beat him.”

“Maybe that’s the secret.”

He spent the next day practicing. His shoulder ached from the day before and by noon his feet were tired, but he took an hour break before lunch to work out in the gym and that made his shoulder and feet feel better. He drove directly back to the poolroom afterward and banked balls up and down the long rails for several hours. It was only when he stopped for a break at three-thirty that he realized the glasses were no longer a problem. He could see clearly and he no longer had to tilt his head in an uncomfortable way to use them.

He had not spoken to Martha for weeks and had no idea how long the last tables would be there before being sold. The Coke machine and the cigarette machine were gone. The telephone had been taken out. On the faded brown carpet with its cigarette burns and dust were large dark rectangles where the other tables had sat for fifteen years. It would be at least a month before the pasta-and-croissant place moved into the room; he knew they were having trouble financing. Martha’s lawyer’s ad, offering pool tables for sale, still appeared daily in the classifieds. He always checked it in the morning paper and it always tightened his stomach to see it: FIRST QUALITY POOL TABLES, IN EXCELLENT CONDITION.

There wasn’t any point in thinking about it. It had wiped him out for a week after the settlement, and that was enough. There was a certain pleasure in getting it done with, and another kind of pleasure in being out here himself with the blinds drawn and a Closed sign in the window, shooting balls into pockets. He kept it up until the pain in his shoulder came back and got worse than ever. But he felt better leaving the room than he had the day before. His game was sharper. The day had gone by quicker, even if he allowed for the workout at the gym. He would be playing Fats on Saturday in Denver. Maybe things would go differently.

It was another supermarket opening, outdoors like the first had been, but this time they played in front of packed stands and with three TV cameras. During the middle of the game, Eddie broke loose after a string of safeties and ran sixty before being forced to play safe again. When Fats stepped up to shoot, he said to Eddie, “You’re hitting them better,” and Eddie said wryly, “Practice.”

But Fats had already scored over ninety balls—fifteen or twenty at a time—before this, and when he stepped up he ran the rest of them out. The score was 150–112. There was no time for talk afterward; Eddie’s flight to Lexington via Chicago was leaving in an hour. Fats would be going to Miami a few hours later.

He planned to practice the next day in Lexington but woke with a sore throat and a tenderness in his joints that meant fever. It turned out he had the flu and was sick for three days. He called Arabella on the second morning, after Jean was out of the apartment. “I get over things like this pretty quick,” he said.

“It’s a nuisance anyway,” she said. “Can I bring you something?”

“Arabella,” he said, “I should have told you. I’m living with somebody.”

“That’s another nuisance.”

“It’s not a permanent thing, with Jean. I should have told you.”

“Eddie,” Arabella said, “I don’t have time to talk.” Her voice was like ice.

“I’ll see you around,” Eddie said, and hung up.

On the fourth day he was still weak, but he took his Balabushka and drove out to the poolroom. Nothing was changed on the outside, but when he unlocked and went in, there were no more pool tables. Not one. He stood there with his stomach knotted for a minute before closing the door and locking it. It was all over. He walked along the mall, past the A&P and Freddie’s Card Shop, and into the little bar-and-grill. They had just opened up and he was the only customer. “Give me a Manhattan, Ben,” he said to the bartender, seating himself. He still had the Balabushka in the case with him; he set it in front of him on the bar.

He was hung over the next morning and did not want to be devious with Jean. He came into the kitchen and said, “I think it’s time I moved out.”

She was rinsing a plate and she went on rinsing for a minute. “Where, Eddie?”

“The Evarts Hotel. I can get a room for twenty-eight dollars a night.”

“And when?” They could have been talking about mowing the lawn.

“This afternoon.”

She put the plate in the dish drainer and looked at him coldly. “I’ll fix you a supply of vitamins.”

Before he unpacked, he found the history department number in the directory and called Roy Skammer. Professor Skammer was just back from class, the secretary said. Could she say who was calling?

“It’s Ed Felson.”

There was a wait and then Skammer came on the phone. “Fast Eddie,” he said.

“I have a favor to ask. I’d like to use the table at the Faculty Club for practice.”

“You aren’t good enough already?”

“The table I was using is gone.”

“Gone?”

“My ex-wife sold it.”

“Jesus!” Skammer said. “Put not your faith in things of this world.”

“How about it—the club?”

“The table isn’t played on much, but the committee takes a dim view of outsiders.”

“What about in the morning?”

“That might work. They open at seven for breakfast. Nobody shoots pool that early.”

“How do I get in?” He might sound pushy, but it was necessary to be pushy. If Skammer wanted so badly to be thought a nice guy, then let him worry about it.

“Well…” Skammer’s voice sounded doubtful. “Why don’t you come by early tomorrow and tell Mr. Gandolf you’re a guest of Professor Skammer. I’ll give him a call when we finish.”

“Where do I find him?”

“In the club library. All the way back on the first floor.”

His room faced a back alley; he was awakened at five by a garbage truck and couldn’t get back to sleep. He had lain awake for hours the night before, looking at the dumb wallpaper and the little sink in the corner of the room and thinking of Arabella. He should have told her from the beginning that he was a pool player. He should have told her about Jean. It was stupid.

He lay in bed now, waiting for daylight, and thought about her. It had never occurred to him that he could have that kind of woman, with her high-toned good looks—the clear jawline, the look of amused intelligence. He was crazy about her voice, her accent, the words she chose in the sentences she made. And she liked him. She even admired his pool game. He had almost blown it, but it wasn’t blown yet. He began to want her strongly, more than he had ever wanted Martha or Jean, more than anyone since that afternoon at Esalen when Milly—overtanned and sweaty in the sun—had bent down and taken him in her mouth. He felt like a teenager in the first throes of lust; he couldn’t get the thought of her out of his head. He got up, washed his face in the sink, and shaved. He rinsed the lather off in the shower, and by the time he had dried off and was getting his clothes on, there was gray light at the window and his desire was gone.