Уолтер Тевис - The Color of Money

“Eight-ball is stupid. There’s nothing to it but slopping around.”

Fats looked at him silently a minute. Then he went to the place at the end of the table where the balls were kept, squatted down and took them out. He racked them into a triangle, with the black ball in the center. “Let’s play a game of eight-ball,” he said. He got his cue case from the bleacher and took his silver-wrapped Joss from it. Eddie watched him in disbelief. You did not think of a player like Minnesota Fats playing eight-ball. Fats tightened his cue, went to the head of the table, took his stance and blasted the balls apart. The weight behind his stroke was impressive. Balls went everywhere and two of them fell in. “In the first place,” he said, “you have to make one on the break.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“On a bar table you can,” Fats said. “I’m going to take the stripes.” A striped ball and a solid one had fallen in on the break, giving Fats his choice. “Do you know why?” He was like a schoolteacher at the blackboard.

Eddie looked over the table. “Those four stripes in the open.”

“Not at all,” Fats said. “In eight-ball the main thing is not to leave a shot. Not in the important games. Sometimes you let him have a few balls when it’s time to. You have to control it. I’m shooting the stripes to control the solids.” He bent down and made the thirteen ball. There was movement in the bleachers. Eddie looked up to see the half-dozen remaining people coming down to the front row to watch.

“I’m going to shoot the nine now,” Fats said, “and I’m going to make my position a few inches off, for the twelve. The kind of thing that happens now and then.” He bent, shot the nine ball in. His cue ball rolled too far, leaving a difficult shot on the twelve. It would have to be banked. “Now, the thing about the twelve,” Fats said, “is that I don’t have to make it. Watch.” He banked the ball across the side and missed it. The cue ball rolled to one side of a cluster of balls, where the only shot was on the fourteen ball. “If I’d made it, I’m fine. If I miss it, he has nothing.”

“I know how to play safe,” Eddie said.

“I’m talking eight-ball safe,” Fats said. “I’m trying to tell you that if you learn how to control this game you can make a living at it.”

“In bars?”

“In bars, Fast Eddie.”

Eddie thought about it, about the games of eight-ball he had played with Skammer. “In the South?”

Fats looked at him. “Winter’s coming on.”

“You’ve been talking nine-ball tournaments,” Eddie said. “Now it’s eight-ball.”

“You have to crawl before you can walk.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re not ready for nine-ball, Fast Eddie. Borchard would walk right over you, and so would a half-dozen others. You can play eight-ball on brains and experience, and you’ve got those.”

“Thanks.”

Fats started taking his cue apart again. The people behind him in the stands were watching him, fascinated. “If you do it for six months, it might put you back where you were. Then you can take up nine-ball.”

“I hate the punks who play nine-ball.”

“It’s that or real estate,” Fats said.

“Where would I play eight-ball for money?”

“When we get to the airport I’ll give you a list. Our car’s coming.” Fats pointed to the parking lot. A blue car was driving up. It had a sign on its side reading AIRPORT SERVICE.

“Where would you get a list of places to play eight-ball?”

Fats put his cue in its case. “How do you think I made the money to retire on? While you were racking balls in Kentucky, I was putting quarters in slots in North Carolina.”

Eddie stared at him. “Wearing that suit?”

“They make blue jeans in my size. It costs twelve dollars extra.”

When he was a kid in Ohio, you never broke the balls with a jointed cue or with the white ball; you used a house cue stick and a special dull brown cue ball. Charlie taught him that, and it was Charlie who bought him his first Willie Hoppe cue, with the black leather wrappings on its butt and the brass joint. “You don’t slug them with this, Eddie,” Charlie said. “The joint can’t take it.” In those days Eddie would pick out a club of a cue—twenty-two or twenty-three ounces—and smash the rack open with it before using the Willie Hoppe. It was all different now. The balls were made of something called phenolic resin, and their colors were brighter: the old dark green stripe on the fourteen was now a bright emerald with a glow to it, and the nine was canary yellow, like something in Walt Disney. You broke the rack with the white ball now and, with a handmade Balabushka cue, slammed them as hard as you could. You couldn’t ruin the steel joint.

Eddie took a deep swing and blew the eight-ball rack open. The three and the seven fell in, but the cue ball stopped near the foot spot and didn’t follow through to rebreak the balls the way he intended. He looked over the spread, checking out the five other solids and then the eight ball, which had to be made last. There was no problem with any of them; on a table this small, they were all simple enough. He concentrated, took care, and ran them out.

“You shoot a good stick.” It was a different bartender from the one yesterday—a blond kid in a white apron. At four in the afternoon, two old men were huddled over boilermakers at the far end of the bar; Eddie was the only other customer.

“Thanks.” Eddie laid his cue stick on the table and walked over. “Let me have a draft.” He tried to be pleasant and casual, although he did not feel that way.

The kid drew one and set it on the bar. “I haven’t seen you here before, have I?”

“I came in yesterday.”

The kid nodded and began drawing a beer for himself. “You shoot eight-ball like a pro.”

Fats had told him not to hold back, to play his best stick, or nearly. Hold back ten or fifteen percent if it seemed smart. He had been practicing for an hour without holding back at all, as he had the day before. No one had shown any interest. The only problem was the oversize cue ball; you couldn’t draw it back right, and sometimes he snookered himself and missed the next shot. Otherwise it was like child’s pool. He fed quarters into the slot, retrieved the balls, racked them up, broke, and shot them in. The main thing was the sluggish cue ball; it took getting used to.

Eddie sipped his beer and then looked at the kid. “I understand you have some good players around.”

The kid grinned. He was about twenty-five and had a pleasant face. “I thought you might have that understanding. When I saw your cue stick.”

“I like to play for money.” It had been true once, anyway.

“There’s a guy called Boomer.”

“Boomer?”

“His real name, I think. Dave or Dwight or something Boomer. He’ll play you.”

“Would he play for a hundred dollars a game?”

The kid blinked. “If he’s got it.”

“Does he have a backer?”

“A stakehorse?”

“Yes. A stakehorse.”

“There’s a man with him sometimes who only watches.”

“Is he likely to come in soon? I mean tonight?”

“I don’t know.” The kid set his beer down and walked to the pass-through that led back to the kitchen. “ Arnie ,” he said.

A thin black face appeared at the opening.

“This guy wants to play pool with Boomer.”

The head nodded and glanced briefly at Eddie.

“Isn’t there a number to call?”

“In the register. Under the checks.”

“Okay.” The kid went to the register, opened it, lifted the bill compartment with one hand and shuffled through papers with the other. He found a folded sheet of notepaper and turned to Eddie. “Do I call him?”