Уолтер Тевис - The Hustler

When he got back to Sarah’s she had already finished dinner: her dishes were piled, dirty, in the sink. She was in the living room, writing, the typewriter on her lap, when he came in.

He went into the kitchen, washed out a frying pan, and fried himself a frozen steak. He put this on a coffee saucer—one of the few remaining clean dishes in the cabinet—poured himself a glass of milk, got two slices of bread, stale, from the box on top of the stove, came into the living room, and sat beside Sarah on the couch. He made a sandwich with the bread and meat and began eating.

When he finished he looked at Sarah, grinned, and said, “Women, they tell me, are supposed to be real good at washing dishes.”

She didn’t look at him. “Is that right?” she said.

“That’s right. And cooking too.” He set the saucer down, reached over and patted her on the butt.

“Well, not this woman,” she said. “And I wish you’d quit patting my rear. It doesn’t thrill me in the least.”

“It’s supposed to,” he said. “Maybe you’re just different.” And then, “You’re funny, Sarah. Are all the women in Chicago like you?”

“How should I know? I don’t know all the women in Chicago.” She finished pecking a line out on the typewriter, and then looked at him, peering up over her glasses, her arms crossed over the typewriter in her lap. “I’m probably different, I suppose,” she said, “‘a horrible example of free thought.’”

“That sounds bad.”

“It is. Fix me a drink.”

He got up and poured her a glass of Scotch and water. He did not make one for himself. Then, when he gave it to her, he said, “I’ll see you around,” and headed for the door.

“Hey!” she said, and he turned. She was still looking up at him over her glasses. Her skin, in the light, seemed very white, transparent. Her blouse was thin, and beneath it he could see the outline of her small bosom, moving gently as she breathed.

“What is it?” he said.

She took a sip of her drink. “You’ve been out all afternoon.”

Immediately he felt a thin edge of irritation in his voice. “That’s right.”

“So why go out now?”

He hesitated a moment, and then said, “So why not?”

She looked at him thoughtfully, a little coldly—there was a hardness that could come into her eyes—and then she said, softly, “No reason at all. Good night.” She went back to the paper she was typing.

“Don’t wait up for me,” he said, going out the door….

It was getting late when he walked into Wilson’s, and there were only a few men there. On the back table was a very tall, elderly man, a straight-backed, white-haired man with a double-breasted gray suit. He was practicing and Eddie, standing at the counter in the front of the room, watched him for several minutes. The man shot stiffly—he looked to be at least sixty years old—but he was good. He was practicing at straights, and he knew the game; Eddie could tell from the way he controlled the cue ball, making it lie down when he wanted it to without any wild English or long, haphazard rolls. He did not seem to have the stroke of a real first-rate player, for he lacked the smoothness and the gentle, precise wrist action; normally he would have been considerably below Eddie’s league.

Eddie asked the withered man behind the counter for a package of cigarettes, and when he got them asked quietly who the man on the back table was.

The old man grinned like a conspirator and wheezed, in the obscene voice that some old men have, “That man’s a real pool hustler,” he said. “That’s Bill Davis from Des Moines. Probably just come from up at Bennington’s. He’s one of the real big boys.”

Eddie had heard of him somewhere; he was supposed to be, as well as he could remember, a small-time hustler.

“What’s his game?” he asked.

“How’s that?”

“What’s his best game? What does he play?”

“Oh.” The man behind the counter bent closer to him. “Straights,” he said. “Straight pool.”

That’s nice , Eddie thought, walking back toward where the man was practicing. But then you had to be steady to play good straights. He was not certain that he could trust his hands that much yet. Maybe it would be smarter to try getting him into a game of one-pocket. In one-pocket you depend more on brainwork and on patience—qualities that you don’t have to rely on your hands for. And every straight pool hustler plays one-pocket; the old man was sure to know the game. And, then, that made Eddie wonder, suddenly, if the tall man would know him, Fast Eddie Felson, by reputation, or had seen him play somewhere else. The thought of it, of losing his first chance for a good, workable game in weeks, made him suddenly feel tight, even nervous. But in a moment he laughed at himself; he was thinking as Bert must think, analyzing, planning out the angles, figuring the odds. It amused him to think of little, tight, lip-pursing Bert, sitting on one of those stools back there, eating potato chips and telling him how he had everything figured out. But then, Bert did drive a new car. Every year.

He leaned against the near table and watched Bill Davis shoot out a rack of balls. When Davis finished he racked up the fourteen of them into the triangle and attempted a straight-pool break shot off the fifteenth, banking the colored ball into the side of the triangle and trying to make it skid off into the near corner. The ball hit the rail a few inches short of the pocket. Davis worked with great intensity at the shot, bending over the cue ball grimly, and then swooping down on it like a hawk. When he had missed he let out his breath in a great gasp, and began wiping his forehead.

Eddie tried to look sympathetic. “That sure was a tough one,” he said.

The man turned around, facing him, looked at him a moment, and then grinned. His teeth were huge, white and even. Eddie wondered if they were false. “You sure right,” the man said. His voice practically boomed, and he spoke with a thick accent. “That shot is sure one tough shot of pool.” His voice was loud and he spoke with what sounded like great conviction, earnestness.

Eddie smiled at him. “You can’t make ’em all.”

“That’s right. You sure can’t make ’em all.” The voice and the grin were both enormous, and Eddie was a little dumbfounded by them. “I only wish you could. I been playing this goddamn game fifteen years and I sure don’t know one man yet make all those goddamn balls, I sure don’t.” The man’s voice was softer now, and Eddie was relieved, although he still was not certain what to make of him. It struck him that perhaps Davis should be a con man of some kind; he seemed to be one of the most trustworthy types Eddie had ever seen—his voice vibrated with honesty and seriousness.

Eddie watched him rack the balls and then he said, “You like to play a game or two?”

“Sure, I like to play. What game?” He slammed the rack on the table and began piling the balls fiercely into it. His hands were huge, strong-looking, and rough, and he handled the balls as if they were golf balls.

“Is one-pocket all right?”

“ Fine .” The man fished vigorously in his pocket and withdrew a half dollar. He threw this in the air, over the table. “Which side comes up?” he said.

“Tails.”

It came up heads; Davis would break. In one-pocket, unlike straight pool, the break is an advantage; with it you can nudge a good many balls over to the side of the table where your scoring pocket is, and if you know how to do it right you can invariably leave the other man perfectly safe—without a possible shot.

The man began chalking his cue and said, “You want to play for some money? A few dollars?”