Уолтер Тевис - The Color of Money

He stood, then padded barefoot to where his suitcase was and took the cue case from beside it. He slid out the solid, beautifully wrought Balabushka, walked back to the window and stood there screwing the two pieces together, looking at the sky and a distant row of dark pines behind the Sahara.

He had flown to San Francisco, picked up a rented car at the airport and had driven the two hundred miles across California, starting with the Bridge and then a four-lane highway through Oakland. There were miles of Oakland, the city where he was born, and yet none of it meant anything to him. There was not even the name of a familiar street on the exit signs, no tall building seen from the road that he had seen before. Only the light in the morning sky and the glimpses of the bay caught through heavy traffic on the Bridge were familiar. The house he had lived in was off the road somewhere, behind gas stations and gritty buildings. He had no idea where. Despite this, driving a bypass that was like any other American bypass, he knew he had come home for a moment at least. On the backseat were his suitcase and his cue stick; in his pocket was money. He had nothing to do for two weeks except play pool as well as he could.

At the hotel now he took a long, slow shower, standing in the tub in the center of the room with only half the curtain drawn, letting hot water run down his body for a long time before soaping up. He had turned on the huge TV that faced the bed, and as he showered he could hear the voice-over detailing the ways of placing bets on a roulette table: “Each player is given his own color of chips,” the plausible voice explained, as though to children, “and he keeps them throughout his time at the table. Your croupier will answer any questions.” The picture on the screen showed a young woman croupier handing chips to a bettor. Money was not mentioned. Everything was cheerful. It was just the thing to be watching while taking a shower in the middle of the bedroom. The Balabushka lay on the bed, its bright chrome-plated joint gleaming in the light from the bright Nevada sky, ready for use.

Just keeping the glass clean could have occupied the labors of half the Mafia. The elevators were walled with mirrors, and when you stepped out on the main floor you found yourself walking along a hallway lined with hundreds of large, diamond-shaped mirrors without a spot or a grain of dust on them. Then you turned left, went down a few carpeted stairs, and you were in the casino, facing an acre of chromium-and-glass slot machines—all clean, polished, in immaculate condition despite the hordes of glassy-eyed people who moved among them, wandering from the nickel slots to the dollar ones, threading their ways past the fifty-cent and quarter machines. All the machines had fronts of colored glass lit brightly from inside. Some people stood fixed before one machine for hours at a time, taking silver from a paper cup, dropping it in the slot, pulling the handle, letting the coins that sometimes fell into the chute at the machine’s bottom accumulate until the cup was empty and then refilling the cup. Terrible odds, Eddie thought, but they didn’t seem to care. Maybe they were afraid of doing something stupid or wrong in front of the croupiers and dealers at the games where you had a better chance. The only blunder with a slot machine was deciding to play it.

Powerful air conditioning sucked smoke from the air faster than the crowds could produce it. Not one ray of natural light penetrated the casino from sunlit Nevada outside; a million watts of electricity spread itself around the enormous room in luminous blue, gold and red glass like the setting for an endless, vaguely pornographic, musical.

Beyond the acre of slots sat the tables—craps and blackjack, covered in pool-table green. Off to the left in a quiet backwater cordoned by velvet ropes and monitored by men and women in tuxedoes and stage makeup, with frilled electric blue shirts, was baccarat. No sheiks or movie stars sat at those tables, but that was where they were supposed to be if they ever came to Caesar’s Tahoe. The sounds of slot machines, hushed by the thickness of the red and blue carpet, penetrated to this quieter area as a kind of atonal Muzak. The only loud noises came from the odd crapshooter instructing his dice.

Beyond craps and baccarat were restaurants and a sushi bar. Eddie headed for the sushi bar.

He started to seat himself at an empty table that overlooked the casino when he saw a Reserved sign. Annoyed, he went on through the drinking crowd and found himself a small table against the wall. He ordered a Manhattan from a waitress with fishnet hose and a skirt about three inches long; the name on her tag read “Marge.” The sushi sat in crushed ice on a buffet table in the center of the room where a piano would have sat a few years ago—before sushi joined the croissant as chic.

Just as Marge returned with his drink, he looked up to see a familiar face coming across the room toward him. It was Boomer. “You still got that electronic Balabushka?” Boomer said.

“In my room.” Eddie signed the check for the drink. “Sit down.”

“Let me have a Drambuie on the rocks, Marge.” Boomer seated himself with a sigh. “If I draw you in the first round I’m complaining to the management.”

Eddie took a sip from his drink, which turned out to be far too sweet. “Have you seen the tables yet?”

“I just got here.” Boomer did not seem to be putting on one of his acts. His voice was genuinely morose. When his Drambuie came, he drank it off fast and ordered another. Eddie’s eyes followed Marge’s legs idly as she headed for the bar, until he saw three slim young men, brightly dressed and looking wired, coming up the steps from the casino. The one in front was Babes Cooley. With him was Earl Borchard. Under his breath Boomer said, “The sons of bitches.”

The young men were laughing together. They walked to the table marked Reserved and seated themselves. Two waitresses came over, all smiles, and began taking their orders for drinks.

“Fucking kids,” Boomer said morosely.

Eddie said nothing, turning back to his Manhattan.

The main floor of the hotel was laid out like one of those supermarkets where it is impossible to buy what you want without being given opportunity to buy what you do not want: you had to go through the entire casino to get anywhere else. The ballroom where the tournament would be was at the end of a long hallway; and to get to the hallway from the elevators or the restaurants, you had to walk past the slot machines, the crap tables, the baccarat, twenty-one, roulette, chuck-a-luck and wheel of fortune. Keeno, of course, was everywhere; its numbered boards caught the eye wherever one happened to stand, and its green-skirted runners were ubiquitous.

The ballroom was not so big as Eddie expected, but it was big enough. The five tables were surrounded by rows of wooden bleachers. At the far end of the room was a platform with a speakers’ table holding microphones.

The pool tables were beautiful and new. A few well-dressed young men with leather cue cases were standing near them; one was rubbing the palm of his hand over the clean green as Eddie came in, but no one was shooting. A few dozen people sat in the bleachers. A man at the speakers’ table was adjusting a microphone with one hand while holding a drink in the other. There would be no games today, but a ceremony was scheduled for nine-thirty; some players had not arrived yet and it wouldn’t be necessary to attend it. It was seven-thirty now.

Eddie stood between two sets of bleachers for several minutes, looking at the tables. Several younger men entered the room, pushing eagerly past him. He looked to his right; beyond the bleachers was a sign reading PRACTICE AREA: PLAYERS ONLY; and just as he looked, seeing the corner of a pool table and a patch of its new green, he heard the sound of a rack of balls being broken. Someone was beginning to practice. For a moment, in his stomach, he felt ill. He turned and left the room.