The Hustler

by Walter Tevis

“What does that mean?” Eddie withdrew a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.

  “It means I got confidence that Findlay’s a loser, all the way a loser. And you happen to be only about one-half loser, the other half winner.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  Bert stretched himself behind the wheel and then allowed himself to relax slightly, although he continued to watch the road carefully as he spoke. “I told you,” he said. “I already watched you lose—watched you lose to a man you should of beat.”

  Bert was beginning to take the old line again, and Eddie did not like it. “Look,” he said. “I already told you…”

  “I know what you already told me,” Bert said. “And I don’t want to hear it again, not right now.” And then, when Eddie did not reply to this, Bert took a breath and said, “What I’m thinking about is you and Findlay personally—not the game of pool you’re going to play. Any way he shoots pool he probably shoots good enough to beat you if you want to let him and if he’s got the character for it. But he hasn’t, that’s the point.”

  Bert drove silently for a few minutes, pushing the big car along at a steady sixty-five. Then he said, “Unless you’re in a game with a sap or a drunk, when you’re playing for the large money you play the man himself more than you ever play the game. Like in poker, in a really worth-while poker game, everybody knows how to play the odds, everybody knows how it stands with filling straights and flushes, with figuring the pot and counting out the cards—I knew all that when I was fifteen. But the man who wins the games is the man who watches for the big money and pulls his guts together and gives himself character enough to stare down five other men and make the bet that nobody else would think of making and follow through with it. It’s not luck—there’s probably no such thing as luck, and if there is you can’t depend on it. All you can do is play the percentages, play your best game, and when that critical bet comes—in every money game there is always a critical bet—you hold your stomach tight and you push hard. That’s the clutch. And that’s where your born loser loses.”

  Eddie thought about this a minute. Then he said, “Maybe you’re right.”

  “But you got to know when the clutch in the game is,” Bert said, his voice becoming more insistent now. “You got to know and you got to bear down, no matter what kind of voice is telling you to relax. Like when you were playing pool with Minnesota Fats, when you had him beat and you were so tired your eyeballs were hanging out, and when something was gonna have to give somewhere—either you or Fats.” Bert stopped a minute, and when he spoke again his voice was hard, direct and certain. “You know when that was? When it was that Fats knew he was gonna beat you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you. It was when Fats went to the toilet and you flattened out in a chair. Fats knew the game was in the clutch, he knew he had to do something to stop it, and he played smart. He went back to the john, washed his face, cleaned his fingernails, made his mind a blank, combed his hair, and then came back ready. You saw him; you saw how he looked—clean again, ready to start all over, ready to hold tight and push hard. And you know what you were doing?”

  “I was waiting to play pool.”

  “That’s right,” Bert said. “Sure. You were waiting to get your ass beat. You were flattened out on your butt, swimming around in glory and in whiskey. And, probably, you were deciding how you could lose.”

  For a moment Eddie did not answer, feeling an unreasoning anger, a kind of wild irritation…. Then he said, “What makes you know so goddamn much? What makes you know what I think about when I shoot pool?”

  “I just know,” Bert said. And then, “I been there myself, Eddie. We’ve all been there….”

  ***

  Eddie did not say anything, but sat, the irritation still tight in his stomach and the slight, irritating, itching pain in his hands. He wanted to fight something, to hit out at something, but he did not know what. He watched the road ahead of them, and after a while he began to feel calmer.

  And then, after more than an hour, Bert said, “That’s what the whole goddamn thing is: you got to commit yourself to the life you picked. And you picked it—most people don’t even do that. You’re smart and you’re young and you got, like I said before, talent. You want to live fast and loose and be a hero.”

  “Be a hero? Who the hell said what I want?”

  “I did. You and any decent goddamn gambler wants to be a hero. But to be a hero you got to sign a contract with yourself. If you want the glory and the money you got to be hard. I don’t mean you got to get rid of mercy, you’re not a con man or a thief—those are the ones that can’t live if they got mercy. I got it myself. I got soft places. But I’m hard with myself and I know when not to go weak. Like when you give the business to a woman; you got to give it; don’t hold back. Do your second-guessing afterward. Or before. But with a woman you make a contract—I don’t know what all the words are in the contract but it’s there and if you don’t know about it you’re not human, I don’t care what all the slobs and the bastards and the free love people say. And when you give it to the woman or when you make the contract that says, ‘I’m gonna beat your ass in this game of pool,’ you don’t hold back. Don’t let the little squirrel on your back that says, Keep free of it; don’t give yourself away, talk you into anything. Make the squirrel shut up. Don’t try to kill him; you need him there. But when he starts telling you there wasn’t any contract, make him shut up. And when you come to that certain time in the game he says, Don’t stick your neck out. Be smart. Hold back, not because he wants to save your money for you, but because he doesn’t want to lose you, doesn’t want to see you put your goddamn heart into the game. He wants you to lose, wants to see you being sorry for yourself, wants you to come to him for sympathy.”

  Eddie looked at him. “And if you lose?”

  “Then you lose. When you’re a winner, it hurts your soul to lose. But your soul can take being hurt.”

  Eddie was not certain of what it all meant. But after a while he said, “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right,” Bert said.

  ***

  They passed through Cincinnati late in the afternoon, a crowded, gray city, and crossed a bridge into Kentucky. After a while there were a great many fields of a tall, broad-leafed kind of plant and, passing one of these fields, Eddie said, “What is that stuff, cabbage?”

  Bert laughed. “That’s tobacco.”

  Eddie looked at the big plants for a moment, a huge field of them. “What do you know?” he said. The leaves of the plants were shiny—sticky-looking.

  Later there started to be a great many white, new-looking fences and big white barns. The meadows around these barns, framed by the fences, were very green and smooth. On several of these places there were horses.

  “Those are racehorses, aren’t they?”

  “That’s right,” Bert said.

  “They look like any other horses to me.”

  Bert laughed. “What other kind of horses does a pool hustler see, anyway—except racehorses?…”

  ***

  Downtown Lexington could have been downtown anywhere—all neon and glass and traffic. The hotel was called the Halcyon—there were others, but this was the one that Bert said had a poolroom in it—and they pulled up in front.

  Eddie got out into the warm evening air, stretching his arms. “So this is Kentucky,” he said, looking around.

  “That’s right,” Bert said, walking into the hotel lobby. The lobby was big and elegant, and over on the far wall was a doorway and a sign above this saying, tastefully, BILLIARD ROOM. From this doorway, Eddie could hear the sounds that he always recognized—the crashing of balls and the soft murmur of men’s voices.

  “I’ll pick up the reservations and get you a key,” Bert said. “You can go ahead and check the battlefield, if you want.”

  “Thanks,” Eddie said. He walked over to the door, carrying his little leather case.

  17


  He could feel the tension, the excitement of the place even before he opened the door, could hear the heavy undercurrent of voices, the clickings of many balls, the soft cursing and dry laughter, the banging of cue sticks on the floor. And when he went in he could almost smell the action and the money. He could even feel them, down to his shoes. It was like a whorehouse Saturday night and payday in the mines; the day the war was over and Christmas. He could feel his palms sweating for the weight of his cue.

  Every table was going—two, four, even six-handed games. And on almost every table was a hustler. Near the front was the Whetstone Kid, short, red-headed, and wearing chartreuse slacks; Eddie had seen him play nine ball in Las Vegas. On the table behind him was another small man, an incredibly shabby person who specialized in shooting pool with drunks and in selling playing cards which, on their backs, illustrated the fifty-two classic positions in three colors. This fellow was known as Johnny Jumbo; Eddie had seen him in Oakland. In the middle of the room, surrounded by a small crowd of miscellaneous jockeys and tout types, Fred Marcum from New Orleans, a man with patent-leather hair and olive eyes, was talking with quiet agitation to a man whom Eddie knew only as Frank, and who was supposed to be the acknowledged master at jack-up pool, a seldom-played game. And there were others; he could tell by the styles of playing, by the feel of the games, even though he did not know the players, that there must have been dozens of them.

  It was a panorama, a gallery. Bert had said that they followed the races; but Eddie had expected nothing like this, this convocation of the faithful, this meeting of the clans.

  The room was packed with people. There were a few lost innocents: college boys with sweaters, and on one table a few men who could only be salesmen. These were playing a silly and awkward game of rotation pool, laughing uproariously whenever one of them miscued or knocked one of the balls off the table or shot at the wrong ball by mistake.

  Eddie walked on into the room, was greeted by Fred Marcum and the Whetstone Kid, saw a few men glance at him furtively—and this made him feel very good and important—and found himself a place to stand over by the wall, where he could watch several games at once….

  After a few hours, after the crowd had thinned down somewhat—although the air was still full of smoke and money—Bert came in. He was still neat, but his hair was slightly mussed, and his trousers horizontally creased. He came making his way through the room purposefully—a stern broker walking smugly across the floor of the exchange.

  Eddie looked at him. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Watching a card game.”

  “Were you in it?”

  “Not yet. It won’t get worthwhile until later, anyway. But it should be a good one. There’s some big men in it.”

  “There’s some big men here, too.” Eddie nodded toward the poolroom in general.

  “I know.”

  “Is it like this here all the time? Is this what they do in Kentucky?”

  Bert smiled thinly. “No. I never saw it this way before. These boys follow the races, like I said; but I never saw this many pool players before. Or poker, either. It’s like a convention.” He looked at Eddie. “How’re they doing? How’s the money moving?”

  Eddie grinned down at him. “The money’s moving fast.”

  Bert pursed his lips, thoughtfully, pleased. “That’s nice,” he said.

  “So what do we do?”

  “Well, first,” Bert said, slowly, like a woman about to decide on a hat, “first I put you in a game of pool. A medium-to-small game. Then I’m going back and see what’s happening with the card game.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said, and then, “What about Findlay—the man we came to see?”

  “He’ll be here. Maybe later tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Maybe we should go out to his house. You know where it is.”

  Bert shook his head. “No. That’s not the way to play it. Findlay’s not the kind you go ringing his doorbell and asking please can you shoot a little pool. He’ll be around—just wait. You’ll find enough to do while you’re waiting.”

  Eddie laughed. “Okay, boss. Pick me a game.”

  “That’s what I just been doing. See the jockey on the back table, practicing? His name’s Barney Pierce.”

  “I see him. He doesn’t look very good.” The jockey was an immaculately dressed and loud-talking little man. He shot nervously and too fast.

  “Well, he’s better than he looks. He plays nine ball, and you ought to be able to beat him if you work at it.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said. “Fine. But one thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to play him on my own money. I need the profit.”

  Bert started to answer and then did not. He thought a moment, chewing softly at his underlip, and then said, “All right. But don’t pull that on me when I put you up against Findlay.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Go ahead then. He probably won’t go over twenty a game, in any case. You can start him at five.”

  “Thanks,” Eddie said, walking over toward the end table, carrying his leather case….

  ***

  The jockey was considerably better than he looked, and as Bert had said he would not go past twenty a game. He knew more about nine ball than Eddie did, knew some very nice, safe shots that Eddie had never seen before, and he was very good at cutting balls thin; but Eddie beat him by shooting straight, concentrating on what he was doing, and playing carefully. He was able to win more than a hundred dollars before the little man quit, slammed his cue into the rack, and departed. Eddie had started off in Lexington with a victory, a small one, and he liked the feel of it. Also, he liked the feel of money in his pocket, although that was not the important thing, not yet.

  It was eleven o’clock when they finished and although there was still action in the poolroom it was too late to try for a new game. Bert was not around; there would be no telling when the poker game would be over.

  Restless, he left the poolroom and began walking. It had been raining and the streets were wet and the air cool, clean, and moist. There were not many people out—a few drunks, some newsboys, a cop. The city seemed pleasanter at night than it had when they had first driven in, shortly after supper. He continued walking, looking abstractedly into store windows, his hands in his pockets. Through his mind were circulating, slightly out of focus, images of Sarah, of Findlay—he had already formulated a hypothetical picture of Findlay, although Bert had never described him—and of Minnesota Fats. Somehow none of these people were very important at this moment, and he found himself mulling them over with detachment. It all seemed to have become very simple, walking here, alone, through a clean-washed and new town at midnight; what had been problems did not seem to be problems anymore. Findlay would be easy; he would win a good deal of money from him and that would be that. And Sarah was not really a problem. He did not owe Sarah anything. He would not even go back to Sarah’s when he got back to Chicago; she had nothing more to offer him, nor he her.

  It began to drizzle slightly, and the sprinkling of rain that fell was surprisingly cold. Eddie ducked his head down and walked fast until he found an open café.

  Inside he got coffee and scrambled eggs and listened idly to the juke box while he ate. The eggs were better than Sarah would have cooked them, and he caught himself grinning wryly at the thought of Sarah’s poorly cooked eggs. He looked at his watch. A quarter of twelve. He would probably be having coffee with her now, if he were home. Home? What in hell did that mean—he didn’t have any home. Certainly not with Sarah. But the idea stayed with him for several minutes, the idea of a house somewhere and Sarah, doing whatever women are supposed to do in houses. Him, reading the paper, buying a new car every year. Children—a back yard. At first it was amusing, but after a few minutes thinking it became unpleasant. He had lived in a home for too many years, with his parents, and he did not want any part of it. It had occurred to him once before that the whole institution—marriage, the home, t
he paycheck—was something invented by women, something they grew fat on at men’s expense. What had Bert said—about wanting glory? Maybe that was right, maybe that was what was wrong with the house and the paycheck and the cute wife. Maybe that was why the married men all talked about the war they had once been lucky enough to be near to, while the women could make a whole, stupid life out of the new kitchen and what the baby was doing. He thought of his father, the tired and confused old man who had never quite made it. There were two things his father could talk about with love: what he had done during the first war, and what he was going to do when he got money. The poor bastard was probably right about the war, but he had never done anything about the money. Eddie had not seen him in four years, but he was probably running the same beat-up electrical shop, the We-Fix-It, in Oakland, and still wishing for a new car or a house or whatever tired old men wish for—maybe just a good lay.

  He grinned to himself again—he could use a good lay himself. Then, struck by an unpleasant thought, he asked the man behind the counter, “What time do the liquor stores close?”

  “In ten minutes, mister. Twelve o’clock even.”

  He paid his check quickly and left. For some reason which he did not fully understand he felt that it was very necessary to buy a bottle. He found a store in time and got a fifth of bourbon, which cost him forty cents more than the same brand in Chicago. It was Kentucky bourbon, and the label said, “Made in Bardstown, Kentucky.” It didn’t figure; but the types of hustle used in business seldom did, since the ways of the dollar were always devious. Or maybe it was taxes.

  Bert had given him a key to the hotel room, which he had not been in yet. Still restless, he walked the four floors to the room and, bottle under his arm, unlocked the door.

  The room was the living room of a suite; that was immediately obvious from the long and elegant gold couch, the big, soft armchairs, the little bar in the corner, and the door leading into the bedroom.

  On the couch were two girls, both overdressed, both drinking.

  He stopped in the doorway, holding the cue case, bottle and dangling key, thinking that maybe he had opened the wrong door, entered the wrong room. But one of the girls, the taller one, a blonde, said, giggling slightly. “You must be Eddie.”