Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [12]
“I did.” The speaker was a grinning young man with dark red hair and freckles, and a dimple in the middle of his chin. He pulled a fold of money out of his shirt pocket and waggled it at Billy. “Want a piece of this?”
“I’ll take five for ten,” Billy said.
“The kid is a hustler! Okay, you’re on.”
Billy ran thirty-eight balls before he missed, feeling the charge mounting in him as ball followed ball into the pockets and rattled hollowly down the return troughs beneath, until the pressure was finally too great and he missed what should have been an easy cut into the side, and left the cue ball in the open. John the houseman, his face tightened into concentration, bent over the table and began to run, but missed his breakshot on the next rack and left Billy wide open. John sighed, put his cue down on top of an unused table and went to the back of the place and collected the time from some snooker players who had quit playing, and by the time he got back to his own game it was over; Billy had run out.
“Who said you could shoot while I wasn’t lookin?” he said angrily.
“You didn’t say nothin,” Billy said. “I didn’t even see you leave.”
“Christ Almighty, John, he win fair and square,” one of the watchers said. The red-headed kid handed Billy a five and five ones with an expression of disgust, and John paid Billy his two dollars.
“Another game?” Billy asked him.
“You’re too good for me, kid,” John said. Somebody yelled “Rack!” and John moved off to answer the call. Billy threw some balls out on the table and began shooting them, waiting for somebody to challenge him. But it was quiet now, around his table, and he began to wonder if maybe he wasn’t going to get thrown out anyway. The action-feeling was deserting him, and he began missing easy shots. After a while he quit in disgust, racked the balls, put his cue away and found John.
“How much do I owe?”
John rubbed his face. “Nothin. It’s free if you win.”
“I mean for the practice,” Billy insisted.
“Shit. Two minutes? Be two cents.”
“I wouldn’t want to owe nobody anything,” Billy said. I’m pushing it too far, he thought. What the hell’s the matter with me? But he dug into his pants pocket and came up with a nickel. He handed it to John, who stared down at the coin with puzzlement, almost disgust.
“Hell,” he said. “I’ll just take it and buy me a Coky-Cola. Thanks, kid.” He went off toward the bar, and Billy waited a moment and then sat down and watched the nine-ball game. There was nothing else for him to do. For eight hours on the bus he had been preparing himself for this entry into Portland, this triumph, and it had come and gone so quickly that it did not seem to have happened at all. It should have been more dramatic; somebody should have yelled about a nigger in the joint, people should have taken sides, and he should have silenced it all by his brilliant play. But it didn’t happen that way at all, and now he sat there, twelve dollars richer, ignored, another idle watcher. Almost as if he already belonged.
The red-headed kid flopped down in the chair next to his, crossed his legs, and began picking his teeth, watching the game before them.
“You could beat all these guys,” he said to Billy. “You just get in from Seattle?”
“Just got off the bus,” Billy said. The red-headed kid had lazy green eyes and an easy smile; Billy liked him right away. He got out his cigarettes and offered one to the redhead.
“Thanks. You ever play at the Two-Eleven up there?”
“Yeah. All the time. You know Seattle?”
“I been up there a couple times with my old man. You ever play on them big snooker tables? You play good snooker?”
“Well enough,” Billy said. “I play all games.”
“You want to make some money playin snooker?”
“Do I have to lay off to do it? I never lay off.”
The redhead chuckled. “You don’t have to do nothin but play. They got snooker players up at the Rialto; you don’t have to lay off or fake it or anything. All you got to do is go up there and get in the game. You don’t have to hustle; they’ll hustle you.” As an afterthought