Уолтер Тевис - The Color of Money

“Who do I play next?” Eddie said.

“You’re not going to like this,” the man said. He reached out and printed the name in the blank space: COOLEY.

No one answered when he called Arabella, even though he waited until five-thirty, when she was usually home. He did not feel like eating out and ordered a hamburger with coffee from Room Service. He turned on the television. But he didn’t watch and didn’t finish the overcooked hamburger. His head ached and his palms were sweaty. He felt jumpy. If only Fats were around, or somewhere where he could be called. He would like to talk to Fats about Babes Cooley.

Eddie’s lag was very good, but Cooley froze his ball to the end rail and won the break. They were on the first table, and every seat in the bleachers was filled, with a row of standing men craning to watch from behind the bleachers and another row squatting in front.

Babes Cooley wore shiny black pants that fit his narrow butt as tight as elastic, draping with a Las Vegas crease to the tops of alligator shoes. His shirt was collarless and of pale blue silk; around his neck hung a slender gold chain. His black hair was feathery from blow-drying; his face electric from cocaine. He stepped up to break and, just before swinging his cue, looked over at Eddie, who stood leaning against the covered table next to theirs. “This is a privilege, Fast Eddie,” he said, and slammed into the cue ball. The break was magnificent: four balls fell in and the yellow-striped nine ricocheted completely around the table. Babes was thin and small; it was astonishing to see such power coming from his body.

“Thanks,” Eddie said. Some people in the stands laughed.

“It seems rude,” Babes said, “to do this to a living legend.” He made the remaining five balls with elegant dispatch, firing the nine ball into a corner pocket with finality. The referee racked the balls and Babes smashed them open again, made three this time, ran the rest. His body seemed to be wired with a quiet, electric arrogance, and his position play was immaculate. Eddie stood and watched, knowing that to seat himself would be weakness.

In the middle of the third rack, with the score two-nothing, Babes got an unlucky roll on the five ball and was forced to play safe. He did it neatly, leaving Eddie snookered behind the seven with the five completely out of sight. Eddie walked to the table; it was his first shot of the evening and he would be lucky just to hit the ball. What he had to do was clear: the cue ball must be banked off two rails, through a cluster of balls and into the five. Eddie bent and shot it and—to his surprise—did it perfectly. When the white ball hit the five it sent the orange ball up the table and stayed where it was. There was applause. He had not only avoided giving Cooley the ball in hand but had played him safe.

Cooley raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He stepped up and shot a safety without hesitation, leaving eight feet of green between cue ball and five. The five might be cut in, but it was a killer. Eddie sucked in his gut and stepped up to shoot it, not wanting to but knowing he had to. He could not go on playing safe, not on a shot like this, without giving Cooley control of the game. He had to spring for it.

Eddie adjusted his glasses, took his stance behind the end rail, glared at the distant five ball and stroked hard. The cue ball clipped the five and the five arrowed into the center of the pocket. The white ball continued to carom around the table, coming to rest in position for the six. The bleachers behind burst into applause.

“A legend in his own time!” Babes Cooley said.

“You got it.” Eddie bent and shot in the six. Then the seven and eight, giving himself a cinch on the nine. He drove it into the pocket without hesitation and waited, through applause, for the referee to rack the balls.

But on the break he could not get the power he wanted and no balls fell in. There was nothing to do but stand back and watch Babes size up the layout. It was terrible to dog the break, to lose his momentum; that was one of the infuriating ways this game differed from straight pool. In straights, if you were hot you kept right on going; in nine-ball you had to get over this goddamned hump of a break shot.

Babes had a tough lie on the one, but he made it and sent the cue ball around the table in a way that Eddie would never have thought of, for position on the two. From there it was simple; he had to separate the six and eight, frozen together near the side pocket, but he tapped them apart on a carom and then cleaned up, firing the nine in smartly and then stopping to tuck his shirt in while the referee racked them. He looked over at Eddie and smiled faintly, with cold eyes.

Just as he stepped up to the head of the table and drew back his cue for the break, someone in the stands shouted, “ On the snap, Babes !” and Babes, his face distorting with the effort, slammed into them like a sledgehammer, bellying up to the table as the balls rolled crazily. The nine, heading sideways into a rail, was pursued by two balls. They hit into it and seemed to shepherd it toward the corner pocket where, almost out of power, it hesitated a moment and then fell in. Eddie looked away. The score was three-one.

As Babes got ready for the break the same voice shouted, “ One more time !” and Babes rammed them open just as hard but the nine did not fall. Two others did, though, and the one ball stopped near the side for an easy shot. Eddie watched with furious impotence as Babes took them off the table one at a time. It was not like straight pool; Babes played a kind of position that was extravagant and unfamiliar, sometimes stopping his cue ball for surprising angles on the next shot. But the positions made sense and they worked. He ran out without even getting close to trouble. Four-one. Eddie sat down.

The whole crowd was clearly with Babes, and he flirted with them between shots, going to one person or another and whispering something brief, with a tight smile, looking at them boldly while they applauded. He was like the MC of the game and Eddie himself only one of the minor performers. Eddie saw it and felt it and could do nothing about it. Babes kept making balls, avoiding trouble, playing elaborate and deadly positions. He moved around the table fast and certain, as though his small feet hardly touched the carpeted floor, sometimes running the fingers of one hand through his fluffy black hair. Eddie overheard someone in the stands say, as Babes was doing this, “He sure is pretty.” It was said with admiration.

Babes was pretty, and his nine-ball game was more than pretty. It was beautiful and lethal. The next time Eddie had the table, the score was eight-one and the shot was unmakable. Wanting to kill somebody, Eddie held his breath and played it as safe as he could; but the safety Babes came back with was devastating, and on his return Eddie missed the object ball. Babes took the cue ball in hand, palmed it a moment, looked at Eddie and said, “ Coup de grace city.”

“Shoot the balls,” Eddie said.

“On my own time, my legendary friend,” Babes said, “on my own time.” Someone in the crowd laughed.

Babes set the cue ball down and made the shot, and then another. He ran them out as easily as breathing, not even bothering to chalk his cue or study the table, plunking in the nine ball at the end of it as though it were child’s play. Eddie’s feet hurt and his shooting arm was tired, but he was hardly aware of these things. He was being beaten remorselessly; he would have given his soul for Babes to miss.

“ One more time, Babes honey! ” It was the same voice. Babes shotgunned the rack apart like a clay pigeon. The nine careened around the table but did not fall in. However, the three, five, seven and eight did fall. The one ball had to be banked across the side. Babes did not hesitate; he rifled it in, stopped cold for position on the two and had the two ball pocketed before the applause from the bank shot had died out. He could not be stopped except by a miracle, and no miracle occurred. He tapped the remaining balls in, hesitated a moment before shooting the nine, looked behind him at the bleachers and then back to the nine ball. He drove it in hard, stopping the cue ball dead. The applause was very loud.