The Hustler

by Walter Tevis

  “Okay. Okay.” A trace of irritation insinuated itself into Charlie’s voice. “Nobody can beat you.”

  They passed through a suburb, then another. Eddie kept smoking continually, and he was beginning to feel intensely a thing that he had felt many times before, but never before quite so strongly: a kind of electric self-awareness, a fine, alert tension. And a sense of anxiety, too, and of expectation. He felt good. Nervous; his stomach tight; but good.

  5

  Eddie sat on the edge of the bed, dressed only in his expensive shorts, in which he had slept. His bed was beside the window of the room and he was looking out, into the afternoon sunshine and into a tangle of the flat sides of buildings. Behind him, Charlie was still sleeping, his face, even in sleep, comic and impassive.

  Eddie lit a cigarette, in a more leisurely way than he usually lit them. He felt good. He had just awakened from a long, mildly alcoholic sleep; but his mind had been instantly clear, the meaning of the time and the place understood.

  He looked around the hotel room. It was very clean, modern-looking, with blond furniture and pastel walls; and this pleased him. He began whistling through his teeth.

  Then he went to the bathroom and took a hot shower, washed his hair, scrubbed his fingernails with a pink nylon brush that he carried in his shaving kit, shaved, sat on the edge of the bathtub and began shining his shoes.

  Charlie padded into the bathroom, wearing pajamas, and seated himself on the commode. He blinked at Eddie a minute, and at length spoke. “For Chrissake who—who else in God’s green world in the morning would sit on the bathtub, naked as sin and with his ribs showing, and polish his goddamn shoes?” Then he fell into a classic pose of contemplation, elbows on knees.

  Eddie finished with the shoebrush. “Me. And it’s afternoon. Two o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “Okay,” Charlie said. “Okay, so it’s afternoon and that makes it just fine to parade your anatomy and shine your shoes in the bathtub. Okay. Now get out. I want privacy.”

  Eddie picked up his shoes and walked out of the bathroom, intentionally not closing the door. Charlie said nothing, but managed to reach a fat foot out far enough from his throne to slam it shut.

  Eddie put on a pair of clean shorts and sat back down on the bed. Then he called out, as casually and as jokingly as he could, “How much money am I gonna win today, Charlie?”

  He hadn’t expected an answer; but he waited for one. Then he said, louder, “Who’s gonna beat me?”

  This, too, got no answer. Not from the sitting Buddha. But he felt high, and he felt like talking, like needling Charlie. He knew he had talked it up much too much already; but he wanted to talk it up more, wanted Charlie to try to puncture his ego for him more, wanted to laugh at Charlie and to know, too, that everything that Charlie said about him was right.

  “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.”

  6

  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 t
ired, 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.

  And then, after he had finished running a group of balls, he looked up and saw, leaning against the next table, an extremely fat man with black curly hair, watching him shoot—a man with small black eyes.

  He picked up the chalk and began stroking his cue tip with it, slowly, looking at the man. It couldn’t have been anyone else, not with all of that weight, not with the look of authority, not with those sharp little eyes.

  He was wearing a silk sport shirt, chartreuse, open at the neck and loose on his wide, soft-looking belly. His face was like dough, like the face of the full moon on a free calendar, puffed up like an Eskimo’s, little ears close to his head, the hair shiny, curly, and carefully trimmed, the complexion clear, pinkish. His hands were clasped over the great belly, above a small, jeweled belt buckle, and there were brightly jeweled rings on four of his fingers. The nails were manicured and polished.

  About every ten seconds there was a sudden, convulsive motion of his head, forcing his chins down toward his left collar bone. This was a very sudden movement, and it brought an automatic grimace to that side of his mouth which seemed affected by the tic. Other than this there was no expression on his face.

  The man stared back at him. Then he said, “You shoot pretty good straights.” His voice had no tone whatever. It was very deep.

  Eddie, somehow, did not feel like grinning. “Thanks,” he said.

  He turned back to the table and finished up the rack of balls. Then when the cashier, the man with the black-rimmed glasses, was racking them up, Eddie turned back to the fat man and said, smiling this time, “You play straight pool, mister?”

  The man’s chin jerked, abruptly, “Every once in a while,” he said. “You know how it is.” His voice sounded as though he were talking from the bottom of a well.

  Eddie continued chalking his cue. “You’re Minnesota Fats, aren’t you, mister?”

  The man said nothing, but his eyes seemed to flicker, as if he were amused, or trying to be amusing.

  Eddie kept smiling, but he felt his fingertips quivering and put one hand in his pocket, holding the cue stick with the other. “They say Minnesota Fats is the best in the country, out where I come from,” he said.

  “Is that a fact?” The man’s face jerked again.

  “That’s right,” Eddie said. “Out where I come from they say Minnesota Fats shoots the eyes right off them balls.”

  The other man was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “You come from California, don’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Name of Felson, Eddie Felson?” He pronounced the words carefully, distinctly, with neither warmth nor malice in them.

  “That’s right too.”

  There seemed nothing more to say. Eddie went back to his game with Charlie. Knowing Fats was watching him, adding him up, calculating the risks of playing him, he felt nervous; but his hands were steady with the cue and the nervousness was only enough to make him feel alert, springy, to sharpen his sense of the game he was playing, his feel for the balls and for the roll of the balls and the swing of the cue. He laid it on carefully, disregarding his normal practice of making himself look weak, shooting well-controlled, neat shots, until the fifteen colored balls were gone from the table.

  Then he turned around and looked at Fats. Fats seemed not to see him. His chin jerked, and then he turned to a small man who had been standing next to him, watching, and said, “He shoots straight. You think maybe he’s a hustler?” Then he turned back to Eddie, his face blank but the little eyes sharp, watching. “You a gambler, Eddie?” he said. “You like to gamble money on pool games?”

  Eddie looked him full in the face and, abruptly, grinned. “Fats,” he said, grinning, feeling good, all the way, “let’s you and me play a game of straight pool.”

  Fats looked at him a moment. Then he said, “Fifty dollars?”

  Eddie laughed, looked at Charlie and then back again, “Hell, Fats,” he said, “you shoot big-time pool. Everybody says you shoot big-time pool. Let’s don’t be chicken about this.” He looked at the men standing by Fats. Both of them were bugged, astonished. Probably, he thought, nobody’s ever talked to their big tin god like this before. He grinned. “Let’s make it a hundred, Fats.”

  Fats stared at him, his expression unchanging. Then, suddenly, with a great moving of flesh, he smiled. “They call you Fast Eddie, don’t they?” he said.

  “That’s right.” Eddie was still grinning.

  “Well, Fast Eddie. You talk my kind of talk. You flip a coin so we see who breaks.”

  Eddie took his leather case from where it was leaning against the wall.

  Someone flipped a half dollar. Eddie lost the toss and had to break the balls. He took the standard shot—two balls out from the rack and back again, three rails on the cue ball to the end cushion—and he froze the cue ball on the rail with only a bare edge of a corner ball sticking from behind the rack, to shoot at. Then Fats walked very slowly, ponderously, up to the front of the poolroom, where there was a green metal locker. He opened this and took out a cue stick, one joined at the middle with a brass joint, like Eddie’s. He picked a cube of chalk up from the front table and chalked his cue as he walked back. He did not even appear to look at the position of the balls on the table, but merely said, “Five ball. Corner pocket,” and took his position behind the cue ball to shoot.

  Eddie watched him closely. H
e stepped up to the table with short, quick little steps, stepping up to it sideways, bringing his cue up into position as he did so, so that he was holding his cue, standing sideways to the table, out across his great stomach, the left-hand bridge already formed, the right hand holding the butt delicately, much as a violinist holds his bow—gracefully but surely. And then, as if it were an integral, continuous part of his approach to the table, his bridge hand settled down on the green and almost immediately there was a smooth, level motion of the cue stick, effortless, and the cue ball sped down the table and clipped the corner of the five ball and the five ball sped across the table and into the corner pocket. The cue ball darted into the rack, spreading the balls wide.

  And then Fats began moving around the table, making balls, all of his former ponderousness gone now, his motions like a ballet, the steps light, sure, and rehearsed; the bridge hand inevitably falling into the right place; the hand on the butt of the cue with its fat, jeweled fingers gently pushing the thin shaft into the cue ball. He never stopped to look at the layout of the balls, never appeared to think or to prepare himself for shooting. About every five shots he stopped long enough to stroke the tip of his cue gently with chalk; but he did not even look at the table as he did this; he merely watched what he was doing at the moment.

  He made fourteen out of the fifteen balls on the table very quickly, leaving the remaining ball in excellent position for the break.

  Eddie racked the balls. Fats made the break shot, shooting effortlessly but powering the cue ball into the rack so that it scattered balls all over the table. He began punching them in. He was good. He was fantastically good. He ran eighty balls before he got tied up and played Eddie safe. Eddie had seen and made bigger runs, much bigger; but he had never seen anyone shoot with the ease, the unruffled certainty, that this delicate, gross man had.

  Eddie looked at Charlie, sitting now in one of the big, high chairs. Charlie’s face showed nothing, but he shrugged his shoulders. Then Eddie looked the shot over carefully. It was a good safe, but he was able to return it, freezing the cue ball to the end rail, leaving nothing to be shot at. They played it back and forth, safe, leaving no openings for the other man, until Eddie made a small slip and let Fats get loose. Fats edged up to the table and started shooting. Eddie sat down. He looked around; a crowd of ten or fifteen people had already formed around the table. A neat man with pink cheeks and glasses was moving around in the crowd, making bets. Eddie wondered what on. He looked at the clock on the wall over the door. It was eight-thirty. He took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly.