Уолтер Тевис - The Hustler

They were playing two dollars on the nine and a dollar on the five. A respectable game; you could win twelve dollars in maybe two or three minutes. The table was small—a four by eight—and had drop pockets, the kind that have been filed down to make the balls fall in easier. It would have been a lock table for any first rate nine-ball player, a table a good man would have to try hard to miss on. Eddie’s fingers began itching for a cue.

But he did not even have to invite himself in. After about twenty minutes a player quit and the kid looked at Eddie insolently and said, “You want in, friend?”

Eddie looked at him. He had always hated this kind: the sharp kind, the snotty, second-rate punk hustler. “Well,” Eddie said, grinning at him, “maybe I’ll try a couple for kicks.”

“Sure thing, friend.” One side of the kid’s mouth drooped into a practiced casualness, the kind of thing picked up from pictures of hillbilly singers, practically a sneer. “Just watch who you’re kicking.”

The big man, who was now the game’s only watcher, guffawed.

Eddie remained grinning. “I always watch who I’m kicking. Helps my aim.” The big man did not laugh at this.

Eddie picked a cue out of the rack and began playing, using the awkward style that Charlie had rehearsed him in years before, playing it especially carefully this time. He had to fool the kid, because the kid was the one with the money. And to fool another hustler is not always easy. So he played poorly, but managed to make the right shot at the right time every now and then, often enough to stay even with the game. He kept his eye on the kid, who seemed to suspect nothing.

And then, after about an hour, he began acting as if he were getting hot, sweating a little, acting high and strutting—another thing that Charlie had taught him—making enough wild shots to start winning in earnest, but missing enough to make it look convincing. And the kid did as Eddie hoped, making good shots, running balls without trying so much to appear lucky, drilling the money balls in with malice and skill. He always seemed to sneer at the nine ball before he made it, as if to convince himself of his power over it. In another hour they had driven the other men, grumbling, out of the game. Eddie was about sixty dollars ahead; the kid must have won more than that, for he had continued to collect quite often. Once, when he had lost and paid off to the kid, the other man leered at him and said, “That’s tough, friend,” and Eddie thought, You just wait, you son of a bitch , grinning at him.

Now, when the last other player had quit and they were all standing by the big man, watching the two of them, the kid gave him the same look and said, “It’s you and me, friend.”

“Say, that’s right.” He tried to make his voice friendly. “You think maybe we ought to raise the bet?”

The kid did not hesitate. He said, “Five on the nine ball. Two on the five.”

“Okay.” Eddie said.

He let the kid score the nine twice in a row, just to salt the bet well, losing the last game by acting as if he were now, finally, playing his serious game of pool. He did this by cautiously running the balls from the one to the seven, then acting nervous and missing on the eight, making certain that he left a simple shot. This was a routine way of building confidence in the other man—to struggle through the difficult preliminaries and then choke up, letting him pick up an easy victory. It pleased Eddie to see the kid throw off his amateur game completely and try for style when he pocketed the eight and the nine.

“Say, kid,” Eddie said, “you’re one of the best.”

The other player said nothing for a moment, just stood there with the sneer, one hand in his hip pocket, the other lightly holding his cue stick, his little finger sticking out delicately. Then he said, “You quitting, friend?”

Eddie stared at him. When he spoke he was astonished by the anger in his own voice. He did not grin. “No, kid,” he said, levelly, “I’m not quitting.” And then, “Suppose we play a game of hundred-dollar freeze-out. Ten games for ten a game, winner take all. Then we’ll see who quits.”

The kid looked at him coolly. That’s right , Eddie thought, you’ve got me now, boy. You smug little bastard.

“Okay, friend,” the kid said, “you’re on.”

They tossed, and Eddie won the break. And then, while the houseman was racking the balls, Eddie thought, When I win this he’ll quit anyway , and he set his cue stick against the wall and began rolling up his sleeves, carefully, looking around him at the cheap, filthy place he was in, and then at the little easy table. He picked up his cue, chalked it. “Okay, punk,” he said softly, “here we go.”

He stepped up to the table, slipped easily into the old, automatic, easy form, stroked smoothly and powerfully, and slugged the nine-ball in on the break, firing it into the corner pocket on a one-to-three shot. “That’s one,” he said, trying to grin, but his voice sounding strangely hard, grating, even to himself. And the sound of his voice shook him. You weren’t supposed to feel this way, not on the hustle. And it was not wise—it was never wise—to look too good, not in a place like this one. He glanced at the group that was watching. Their faces seemed to have no expressions. I’d better remember to lose a couple.

It would be wiser not to try to make the nine on the break any more; the shot was too unreliable and showy. Instead, he would play this time for a wide spread and a second shot. He got it, slamming two balls in on the break; and then he ran the other seven off the table without pausing between shots or taking his eyes from the table. “That’s two,” he said. There was a little murmur in the group of men who were standing against the wall.

While the balls were being racked, he glanced at the kid, who was leaning against the next table, now, a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

He won the next game by making an easy combination of the nine on his second shot. He ran out the balls, one through nine, in the fourth game. And when he did that something told him that he should not have, that he should not have looked that good. He would miss a ball the next game.

And then, when he was beginning to break, as the winner always does in nine ball, as he was drawing back his cue, he heard the insolent voice, almost drawling, “You better not miss, friend,” and he stopped his stroke, stared up at the kid and, then, laughed, coldly.

“I don’t rattle,” he said. “And, just for trying, I think I’ll beat your ass flat.”

It was simple. It was astonishingly simple. And fast. With the drop pockets and the little table and the quiet fury that he felt even in his cue stick he ran the next six games without even coming close to missing, making every shot perfectly. He slugged them in and eased them in and knifed them in, with dead-ball position.

When it was over the kid’s sneer was gone and there was a buzzing—a fine, exalted buzzing—in Eddie’s ears. When the kid threw the wadded-up bills out on the table, Eddie glanced at them, not picking them up, and said, “Are you quitting now, friend?”

The kid turned away from him and racked his cue. “Hell, yes, I’m quitting,” trying, feebly, to shrug it off. Then he walked out of the poolroom, and Eddie suddenly remembered a time only a few weeks before when he had walked out of a poolroom himself, beaten and staggering and sick in his bowels; and he knew why he had despised, had hated, the snot-nosed, cheap, hustling kid who had seemed to be the same age as himself.

And then he looked up from the table to the five men who had been watching and knew, instantly, that he had made a mistake.