Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [13]
Billy thought for a moment. “How about that Rialto? I heard a lot about it in Seattle. Is there anybody up there can beat me?”
Denny laughed. “Oh, man, you’re good, but you’re not that good. There’s plenty of guys up there can beat you. What’s your high run?”
“Fifty-five,” Billy said.
“Fifty-five. You ever hear of Joe Cannon? He owns the Rialto. You think you can beat him with your fifty-five? And not only him. How about Reuben Menashe? Bobby Case? Bobby’s only about fourteen but he can wipe your ass. He went down to Frisco about a month ago and made eighteen hundred playin nine-ball at Corcoran’s, and they were spottin him the seven eight cause he’s so young-lookin. Can you beat these guys? You better stick to snooker. They got a bunch of snooker fiends up there that think they run the world; it’d take em a month to decide you were too goo for em, and by then you’d have all the money.”
“I don’t want to play no snooker,” Billy said. He did not know why; there was something in his mind about being the best, but he did not want to face that. Because, he thought, it’s not the truth. I don’t want to be the best. I aint the best. I’ll never be the best. But he did not want to play snooker, take the sucker’s money, while all the time the really good players were laughing at him. As a matter of fact, he had forgotten all about Joe Cannon; he could not understand why. Everybody knew about him. He was a really good player, and one of the few who had made money at the game, enough to buy his own pool-hall and cardroom. The very thought of playing him frightened Billy; he knew his hands would feel heavy, the cue foreign to his grip, the balls distant. And Joe Cannon wasn’t even the best. He was just the best in the Pacific Northwest, and already people were saying he was getting too old, spending too much time playing poker, and his stroke was way off lately. Yet Billy was afraid to play him. I’m only sixteen, he told himself angrily. What’s all the fuss?
“How do I find this Rialto?” he asked Denny.
“Let’s go,” Denny said. “I’ll take you up there. I wanna hamburger anyhow. They aint got hamburgers in this joint.” He called out, “Hey, Levitt, I’m goin up to the other joint.”
Jack hardly looked up. He was beginning to feel desperate; he had played and played, and all he did was lose his money. This morning he had left his hotel for breakfast, and returned to find a padlock on his door. He knew that he would not be able to get his stuff out of the room until he had paid the fifty-odd dollars he owed, but instead of sitting down and planning what to do, he had gotten into a game of pool. He wondered now why he was so stupid. He missed an easy shot, and swore angrily, throwing his cue down on the floor. John the houseman came up to him and said, “Don’t bust the equipment, sonny.”
“Aw hell, I quit,” Jack said. “How about puttin my time on the wire?”
John looked at him carefully, and said, “Okay. One time.”
Jack grinned. “How do you know I’ll pay?”
“Shee. You’ll pay. You got to, or you don’t get to hang out in here.”
Still grinning, Jack shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, I guess you got me by the balls.”
“I guess so.”
Jack went back outside. It was drizzling slightly, and the cold moisture felt good on his face. He walked up toward the Corner, up Sixth Avenue, and stopped once in a record store to listen to some new Stan Kenton. It was one of the things you could do if you didn’t have any money. But it got boring, finally, and he went on. Everything seemed out of kilter. It hadn’t been like this at the orphanage; there you had something you were supposed to be doing all the time. He hadn’t expected to miss that. But he did. He had to admit it. He went past the Orpheum Theater on Broadway. A war picture was showing, and he wondered if he wanted to see it. He knew a way to get in without paying; you went up to the guy taking tickets and said, “I’m supposed to pick up my kid sister,” and just walked past him. If he had any guts he’d throw you out, but