Уолтер Тевис - The Hustler

“What do you think Bennington’s boys are gonna do when they see me?” He leaned back on the bed, grinning; but his grin was a little tense, strained.

Charlie opened the door, waddled in, and began searching through his suitcase. “I already told you what I think about Bennington’s,” he said.

“Sure. But what about Bennington’s boys? George the Fairy? Fats? They couldn’t of helped but hear of me. And somebody’ll finger me if they don’t know me when they see me. What’s gonna happen?”

Charlie found his toothbrush in the bag and held it up, pulling the lint out of it. “Look,” he said, “you know as much about that as I do. And you know more about hustling than I ever did.”

“Sure, but…”

“Look, Eddie.” Charlie stood up, holding the toothbrush. The combination of pajamas and toothbrush made him look ridiculous, like a fat child in an advertisement. “This is all your idea. I said I’d take you around on the road, because I been on the road myself. And I taught you all I knew about scuffling in the little rooms—and it didn’t take me a week to do that. But I didn’t say I could steer you in this town. I heard of Minnesota Fats for fifteen years. I heard him called the best straight-pool player in the country for fifteen years, but I wouldn’t know him on the street if I saw him. And I don’t know how good he is—all I know is his reputation. For Chrissake,” he began heading back for the bathroom, “I don’t know yet how good you are.”

Eddie watched him walk toward the bathroom and open the door. Then he said, softly, “Well, I don’t either, Charlie.”

They had to take an elevator to the eighth floor, an elevator that jerked and had brass doors and held five people. It did not seem at all right to go to a poolroom on an elevator; and he had never figured Bennington’s that way. Nobody had ever told him about the elevator. When they stepped off it there was a very high, wide doorway facing them. Over this was written, in small, feeble neon letters, BENNINGTON’S BILLIARD HALL. He looked at Charlie and then they walked in.

Eddie had with him a small, cylindrical leather case. This was as big around as his forearm and about two and a half feet long. In it was an extremely well-made, inlaid, ivory-pointed, French-leather-tipped, delicately balanced pool cue. This was actually in two parts; they could be joined for use by screwing together a two-piece, machined brass joint, fastened to the maple end of each section.

The place was big, bigger, even than he had imagined. It was familiar, because the smell and the feel of a poolroom are the same everywhere; but it was also very much different. Victorian, with heavy, leather-cushioned chairs, big elaborate brass chandeliers, three high windows with heavy curtains, a sense of spaciousness, of elegance.

It was practically empty. No one plays pool late in the afternoon; few people come in at that time except to drink at the bar, make bets on the races or play the pinball machines; and Bennington’s had facilities for none of these. This, too, was unique; its business was pool, nothing else.

There was a man practicing on the front table, a big man, smoking a cigar. On another table further back two tall children in blue jeans and jackets were playing nine ball. One of these had long sideburns. In the middle of the room a very big man with heavy, black-rimmed glasses—like an advertising executive—was sitting in an oak swivel chair by the cash register, reading a newspaper. He looked at them a moment after they came in and when he saw the leather case in Eddie’s hand he stared for a moment at Eddie’s face before going back to the paper. Beyond him, in the back of the room, a stooped black man in formless clothes was pushing a broom, limping.

They picked a table toward the back, several tables down from the nine-ball players, and began to practice. Eddie took a house cue stick from the rack, setting the leather case, unopened, against the wall.

They shot around, loosely, for about forty-five minutes. He was trying to get the feel of the table, to get used to the big four-and-a-half-by-nine-feet size—since the war practically all pool tables were four by eight—and to learn the bounce of the rails. They were a little soft and the nap on the cloth was smooth, making the balls take long angles and making stiffening English difficult. But the table was a good one, level, even, with clean pocket drops, and he liked the sense of it.

The big man with the cigar ambled down, took a chair, and watched them. Then after they had finished the game he took the cigar out of his mouth, looked at Eddie, very hard, looked at the leather case leaning against the wall, looked back at Eddie and said, thoughtfully, “You looking for action?”

Eddie smiled at him. “Maybe. You want to play?”

The big man scowled. “No. Hell, no.” Then he said, “You Eddie Felson?”

Eddie grinned, “Who’s he?” He took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket.

The man put the cigar back in his mouth. “What’s your game? What do you shoot?”

Eddie lit the cigarette. “You name it, mister. We’ll play.”

The big man jerked the cigar from his mouth. “Look, friend,” he said, “I’m not trying to hustle. I don’t never hustle people who carry leather satchels in poolrooms.” His voice was loud, commanding, and yet it sounded tired, as if he were greatly discouraged. “I ask you a civil question and you play it cute. I come up and watch and I think maybe I can help you out, and you want to be cute.”

“Okay,” Eddie grinned, “no hard feelings. I shoot straight pool. You know any straight pool players around this poolroom?”

“What kind of straight pool game do you like?”

Eddie looked at him a minute, noticing the way the man’s eyes blinked. Then he said, “I like the expensive kind.”

The man chewed on his cigar a minute. Then he leaned forward in his chair and said, “You come up here to play straight pool with Minnesota Fats?”

Eddie liked this man. He seemed very strange, as if he were going to explode. “Yes,” he said.

The man stared at him, chewing the cigar. Then he said, “Don’t. Go home.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you why, and you better believe it. Fats don’t need your money. And there’s no way you can beat him. He’s the best in the country.” He leaned back in the chair, blowing out smoke.

Eddie kept grinning. “I’ll think about that,” he said. “Where is he?”

The big man came alive, violently. “For God’s sake,” he said, loudly, despairingly, “You talk like a real high-class pool hustler. Who do you think you are—Humphrey Bogart? Maybe you carry a rod and wear raincoats and really hold a mean pool stick back in California or Idaho or wherever it is. I bet you already beat every nine-ball shooting farmer from here to the West Coast. Okay. I told you what I wanted about Minnesota Fats. You just go ahead and play him, friend.”

Eddie laughed. Not scornfully, but with amusement—amusement at the other man and at himself. “All right,” he said, laughing. “Just tell me where I find him.”

The big man pulled himself up from the chair with considerable effort. “Just stay where you are,” he said. “He comes in, every night, about eight o’clock.” He jammed the cigar in his mouth and walked back to the front table.

“Thanks,” Eddie called at him. The man didn’t reply. He began practicing again, a long rail shot on the three ball.

Eddie and Charlie returned to their game. The talk with the big man could have rattled him but, somehow, it had the effect of making him feel better about the evening. He began concentrating on the game, getting his stroke down to a finer point, running little groups of balls and then missing intentionally—more from long habit than from fear of being identified. They kept shooting, and after a while the other tables began to fill up with men and smoke and the clicking of pool balls and he began to glance toward the massive front door, watching.