Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [10]
“I’ll have a hot dog and coffee with cream,” Billy said to him.
The counterman’s hands were on the bar, and he drummed his fingers once and sighed. “Okay,” he said.
When he brought back the sandwich, a thick, rubber-skinned hot dog cut in half and placed between thin slices of white bread, he had to tap Billy on the back to get his attention.
“Here’s your sangwich, kid. Thirty cents with the coffee. Eat it and go, okay?”
“Did you think I wanted to sleep here?” Billy said innocently. Then he smiled his big show-off smile at the counterman, and pointed a long bony finger at the mustard pot down the bar. Automatically the counterman reached for the mustard and slid it to Billy. “You know what I mean, kid,” he said.
Billy ate his sandwich and sipped at his coffee, pretending to watch the billiard game; but actually he was casing the place, looking over all the tables to see where the gamblers were and what the action was. To his right was another billiard table, only with a keno rig on it—a wooden rack with a brass edge at one end of the table, with numbered holes in it for the balls. Keno was a purely gambling game, and a sign above the light rack of the table said, “Open Game, Ten Cents Per Cue,” which meant that anybody (well, practically anybody, Billy thought) could get in. He debated whether to make his stand here, and then decided against it. Because at one of the pool tables in the middle of the room there was a nine-ball game going on, between players not too much older than Billy, and there were plenty of watchers, sitting or leaning against other tables, whispering and making side bets. That would be the place.
After he finished eating he wiped his mouth daintily with a paper napkin, crossed the room to the toilet, and washed. When he came out, he went to the middle of the room, near the nine-ball game. He eased himself into a high-backed wooden chair, hooked his feet into the rungs, crossed his hands over his belly, wanting to laugh, wanting to let out a yip of joy, and said in a boyish, niggery voice that could be heard all over the poolroom, “Be fo you-all tho me out, who wants to take my money? Who wants a black boy’s hard-earned money?”
The place went dead for a moment as everyone stopped what he was doing and turned to look at him. Then slowly, some embarrassed, some uninterested, they went back to their games and talk, and the noises of the poolhall resumed. But Billy expected this; he knew that among them, probably around the nine-ball or keno table, some people were wondering what his game was and how good he was at it; wondering if they couldn’t take his money before the houseman threw him out. Billy also knew the houseman, wherever he was, would be over soon to do just that unless one of the regulars begged him not to, at least not until he had trimmed Billy.
As it turned out, the houseman himself made the offer. He was a medium-sized, well-built man of about thirty, with a leather apron on. He came up behind Billy and said, “What’s your game, boy?”
Billy turned and looked up at him. “I’ll play anything.”
The houseman said, “Why don’t you stay over on Williams Avenue, where you belong.”
“I’m from Seattle,” Billy said. “I never heard of Williams Avenue.”
“Colored neighborhood,” the houseman said. He stood patiently, his hands in his hip pockets.
“Sure,” Billy said. “Warped cues, ripped-up tables, dented balls, and ten cents on the nine. What do I want with a place like that? I got a future in pool.”
“Nobody’s got a future in pool,” the houseman said. “But I’ll play you, just to see what you got. Straight pool all right with you?”
“That would be just fine,” Billy said.
“Two dollars a game? Fifty points?”
“Just fine.”
“How about letting me see your money?”
Billy laughed softly and took out a fold of bills, with a ten on the outside. “Now how about I see yours?”
“Smart little fucker, aint you,” the houseman said.
“You want me to beg