by Chris Wiltz
I let my face register nothing. “Did you see Clem Winkler's car over there?” I persisted.
“No,” she said with the slightest edge of aggravation.
“Anybody's?” She shook her head. “Not Larry's?” Another shake. “Your houses are pretty close—didn't you hear anything?”
“I was asleep. My bedroom's on the other side of the house,” she said, not quite so friendly as before.
“How do you know you were asleep while Jackie was being murdered?”
With the look she gave me, her attitude could have changed into open hostility in a flash, but she managed to control herself.
“Because I'd already gone to bed by the time Larry left. He told me he would have come by, but all my lights were off.”
“Did he usually come by?”
“What exactly are you trying to imply?” she snapped.
“Nothing. What do you think I'm trying to imply?”
That made her very nervous. Her legs were crossed and her foot was jiggling so fast that she lost its mule. It clattered to the floor. The sound seemed to freeze her.
I left Pam while I had her off balance. I didn't really think she'd killed Jackie, though the way she'd jerked her kid's arm I'll bet she was strong enough to have done it. And she'd have had about the best motive in the world—she coveted another woman's husband, and the man was getting ready to come into some bucks.
26
The Hustler
Maurice had taken Nita to the Gulf Coast to help her over the trauma of Jackie's murder. Nita was taking Jackie's death fairly hard—it seemed Jackie had been quite good to Nita when she was a child. In the early years of Jackie's marriage, during the long spells when Larry would be offshore for weeks at a time, and before Jackie began to drink so much, she would take Nita to the zoo, on picnics, to movies, sometimes a short trip to Texas or Florida. I remembered a tiny girl preceding Jackie up the aisle at Mater Dolorosa. That had been Nita.
It was mid-afternoon on Sunday and Maurice said Nita was taking a nap. He said she'd been sleeping a lot during the past week, which was not like her.
“I can't seem to snap her out of it,” he told me.
“It'll take time,” I said, trying to be reassuring, “but I would like to talk to her, Maurice. Do you think she's up to it?”
He considered this and came up with an idea. “Are you free tonight? Could you take her out for a few games of pool?”
“Will she go?” I asked.
He thought she would since he was tied up the rest of the day preparing for a trial. I told him I'd call back in a couple of hours, then I went over to the old man's and hit him up for a substantial part of the track winnings I know he has stashed around the house in places where he thinks my mother won't find it. He actually still believes she doesn't know he bets the horses.
Thus bankrolled, Nita and I were going to have some fun at Grady's tonight.
It was a bit tense at first. I didn't know if Nita was only going with me because Maurice had asked her to even though she wasn't up to a crowded bar or becoming a pool hustler. Or answering a few questions.
I asked her if she'd ever read The Hustler or seen the movie. She thought she'd seen the movie—she vaguely remembered Paul Newman—but it had been a long time ago. So I told her the story of Fast Eddie Felson, how he did a lot of small-time hustling until he got a match with the best pool player in the country, Minnesota Fats. He lost to Fats not because he didn't have the eye but because he didn't have the smarts, then spent a lot of time and paid a lot of dues, including having his thumbs broken, before he got a rematch with Fats and won. At the end of a long night Fats told Eddie he was quitting because he couldn't beat him.
“But the best line in the book,” I told Nita, “is when Fats pays off and says to Fast Eddie's manager, “‘You got yourself a pool player, Bert.’” Murphy Zeringue and I used that line for everything. If one of us won a game over at Acy's the other would say, “‘You got yourself a pool player, Bert.’” If there was a good-looking girl watching us play, we'd say, “‘You got yourself a pool player, Bert.’”
I told her how The Hustler became the Bible to Murphy and me. We read it so many times and gave it away so much that we each must have bought close to ten copies.
Nita liked my talking about all this. She seemed to be snapping out of the boredom, depression, or sleepiness she was in the grips of when I picked her up. She told me her two older brothers had been pool fanatics, too, and they'd had a pool table in the basement of their house. That's how Nita had learned to play. Of course, she'd been born with the eye and the hands. She told me her brothers used to take her over to the University Center at Tulane and make pocket change off her by taking bets.
“If they'd been caught, they could have been thrown out of school,” she said.
“Did they give you part of the money?” I wanted to know.
“No way!” She wiped the air in front of her. “They bought me Cokes and candy bars. I didn't care. All I wanted was the attention.”
I asked her if she'd like to turn into a pool hustler for a night and explained that all the guys at Grady's were friends of mine and we could have some fun with them. I told her I wasn't going to lie to them, that I was going to tell them right off she was a terrific pool player. All I asked was that she lose the first game.
“You don't have to play too long either,” I said, “just long enough to stir up a little action over at Grady's.”
“Fine with me,” she said. “I could use a little action.”
Like she wasn't getting enough. Was Nita already getting tired of Maurice's work habits?
Grady's is buried deep in the dark and dangerous recesses of the Irish Channel. Most of Grady's patrons are blue collar workers, pool hustlers, or both. And most of them are men, although the women who go there look capable of wielding both a cue stick and a stiff uppercut to the mouth if anyone gets smart with them.
Grady's doesn't appear to be a very large place, crowded as it is with a bar, tables, chairs, and six pool tables. And people. All the regulars were in attendance. Murphy had his knife-edge of a nose about an inch from the felt as he eyed a tough shot. Murphy's whole face is so thin and sharp it looks as if it could slice straight through the cue ball.
Swain, Swyer, and Lobo, who are always together and affectionately but accurately called the Three Stooges, stood by—Murphy's silent cheering section. Murphy is the best pool player at Grady's.
George, who is actually better on the pinball machines than he is on the pool table, was, however, effectively wiping out someone I'd never seen before. It is rumored that George is the famous science fiction writer, George Alec Effinger, but he vehemently denies this, nearly every night.
I could get carried away talking about the characters at Grady's, not the least of which is Grady himself, who vaguely resembles Winston Churchill except for his thick salt and pepper hair which is curly all around the edges like a lasagna noodle. Grady is always chomping the end of a cigar butt. He doesn't say much, but he laughs a lot, though not always at whatever everybody else is laughing at. Grady seems to have a unique point of comic reference or else a large sense of the absurd. He was standing behind the bar now laughing his slow deep laugh as he drew beer into a pitcher. For all you could tell, the way the beer drew was the source of his amusement.
Nita and I got a beer and watched while we waited for Murphy to score a few bucks off Bob Carmine, who wears muttonchops, is a longshoreman, and works just to pay off his gambling debts. I told Nita that Murphy's strengths were patience and a reserve of stamina for the long haul. Other than that, he tended to make mistakes when he got too cocky or was intimidated, something not many pool players other than myself could manage, and me only because I'd known Murphy most of my life. I told her Murphy would give her the first break, but not to break too impressively that first time. Make it strong, but not the thunderbolt break she might as well have shot me with that night over at Robert's.
Murphy took en
ough money from Bob Carmine to keep Bob working another week and strolled over to where Nita and I were standing.
The Murph is a pretty cool customer with that patience of his and a face that registers nothing to those who haven't known him for thirty years. I, however, could see his eyes flicking at Nita and knew that curiosity was simmering behind them. Murphy, for all his inscrutability, is insatiably curious, though he considers it a great weakness to let it show. He was dying to know who Nita was since I rarely brought women into Grady's and with those girlish looks of hers, she wasn't my usual type.
I didn't do anything to satisfy Murphy's curiosity. I introduced Nita to him by name only, no other explanation as to who she was, and went on with the normal chitchat—who'd been coming in, what kind of money had been around, and so on. Murphy can keep up this kind of patter forever. Every ball in the pocket and every exchange of money is action to him. But he kept one eye on Nita. Nita just stood there saying nothing, looking innocent and shy.
At the first lull in Murphy's weekly pool news digest, I dropped it that Nita liked to play.
“Oh, yeah?” Murphy said, and I could see a smile trying to break out of the corner of his mouth.
I'd expected Nita, articulate as hell, to pick up here and toss in a few words, maybe something about the family pool table. Instead she looked down at her beer, more bashful than ever, almost embarrassed. And it was exactly the right way to play it. Murphy cracked a smile of indulgence. I felt an immediate surge of power.
“Yeah,” I said. “Her brothers had a table. Nita grew up playing pool—when they let her play,” I added.
Nita directed it straight at Murphy, a sardonic, my-brothers-were-a-pain-in-the-ass look.
“Hey,” I said, nudging Murphy with the hand holding the beer can, “don't let me give you the wrong impression—Nita's a shark.” I let that seemingly outrageous statement sink in, then said, “I've been promising to bring her to Grady's so she can play the best.”
Murphy let a moment's worth of silent rebellion pass before he did the polite thing. “Would you like to shoot a game?” he asked.
“Sure,” Nita replied with just the right amount of enthusiasm—too much. I felt great fondness for her.
She went over to the wall rack to pick out a cue stick. Murphy sidled up and jerked his head toward her. “Your latest?” he asked softly.
“Oh no, just a friend.”
This deserved a dirty look and I got one before Murphy moved over to the table, picked up his stick, and stroked the end of it lightly with chalk.
Nita bent over the table, circled the stick with a forefinger and slid it back and forth over her thumb, eyeing down its length for straightness. Murphy wasn't impressed. He asked her what she liked to play. She asked him if nine ball was all right. Nine ball was fine. One of the Three Stooges arranged the nine balls in the front of the rack.
This really wasn't fair. I knew Murphy too well, and it pains him greatly to play a game with no stakes. He looked at me from across the table with that hang-dog expression he can get.
“What do you say, Murph,” I said loudly, “ten dollars a game?”
From behind the bar, Grady laughed. Ten bucks was respectable for anyone but Murphy. Anyway, Grady's laughing sort of clued in a couple of people standing around. Bob Carmine was the first to ask if he could get in—ten on the Murph. Swain, Swyer, and Lobo followed—always in that order—but it wasn't until George tossed in his ten bucks’ worth that the game became serious. George gets respect around Grady's. That's because they all think he's a famous writer. It's crazy because I doubt any of them could tell you the last book they read. Anyway, it wasn't long before I was going to be out a good hundred and fifty bucks. Murphy should have been ashamed of himself.
“You break,” he said cavalierly to Nita.
She came around, put the cue ball slightly off center to the left and broke. It was strong enough to get a few whistles from the Stooges. Grady laughed long and low. If Murphy hadn't been so damn cocky, he would have recognized that laugh as prophetic.
Nita displayed some fine wrist action and got off a few nice shots, but she flubbed on the four ball. Murphy finished the game. I paid everybody off. When Nita said she wanted another game, a few more got in on the action.
The winner breaks in nine ball. Murphy hurtled the cue, spread the balls, and won with a combination of the nine on his third shot. I paid off again, over three fifty in the hole. With all that money floating around, Grady's was getting rowdy.
The only thing I had to worry about was running out of cash. I was good for maybe four more games. I had to count on Murphy's cockiness.
He didn't let me down. The third game, he hitched up his pants on his thin body, a habit he has, like a tic when he plays, and went for making the nine ball on the break, a showy but not always reliable shot. It wasn't this time. A chorus of “Aw shucks, Murph” went up, but nobody was worried. Nita ran down the balls and won with a beautiful Fast-Eddie-Felson shot bouncing lightly off the rail and coming down to slice the nine ball in the right corner pocket. Everybody was very complimentary as they paid off.
Nita caught my eye, a question in hers, asking me if it was time to let go. I nodded.
There it was, the sledgehammer break, slamming in three balls. Then with what can only be described as “a woman's touch,” she put the nine in with the two ball.
What I cannot adequately describe is the look on Murphy's face. I knew he'd never seen a woman break like that before. I loved Nita for giving me a once in a lifetime chance to see the Murph baldly stripped of his inscrutability, unable to keep his mouth shut or his pants hitched. He stared at her with total disbelief.
Everybody paid off. I figured that would be it. I had no idea if Nita could sustain this kind of thing over the long haul; but Murphy wasn't the only disbeliever, they all wanted to see it again, sure it was a fluke. I told them if they wanted to see it again, it would cost them twenty to get in. They all put it up so fast I was mad at myself for not saying fifty.
Nita gave them their money's worth, sledgehammering the nine ball in on the break. It was a beautiful piece of work, and I must say everyone at Grady's was appreciative. After I replaced the old man's bank roll, I gave Nita all the money that was left, four hundred and fifty dollars. With a grin that was good to see on her face after the sadness of the past week, she called for beer all around.
Now I said everyone at Grady's was appreciative, but I wasn't including Murphy. I assumed he would be pissed enough to make sure I never played another game with him for less than a hundred bucks. I looked around, but didn't see him. I excused myself, though Nita was plenty busy talking to all the guys, and went to the restroom. Murphy wasn't there. I got a bit upset, thinking he'd left, and walked out into the night to see if I could catch him.
Murphy was leaning against the wall of the building smoking a cigarette, just outside a circle of yellow light thrown by the street lamp. We were alone.
“Uh, Murphy?” I stepped tentatively toward him.
He looked up at me with yet another amazing expression, if I was reading it right in the darkness—admiration.
“Neal,” he said barely above a whisper, “did you see that sledgehammer break?”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“And that wrist action. A woman.” I nodded some more. “And that Fast Eddie shot. I mean Jesus, Neal, she's amazing.”
“Yeah,” I said.
He pushed himself away from the wall and stood with his feet apart as if getting his balance. He dropped his cigarette but didn't bother to grind it into the pavement. I waited, braced, figuring now I was bound to take some abuse.
“Help me back inside,” Murphy said. “I think I'm in love.”
27
Nita
Murphy took it hard when he found out Nita was Maurice's girlfriend.
Once back inside Grady's, however, he still had to be pried away from her, and then only after she promised a rematch, a long night of straight pool, Mu
rphy's best game.
I told Grady to pour me a shot of Pinch, which made him laugh, and moved Nita to the far end of the bar where it was less likely we'd be interrupted.
“I talked to Mave Scoggins Friday night,” I said for openers.
Nita's face lit up. “Isn't Mave great?”
“I don't know, Nita. To me all those people are murder suspects.”
The brightness vanished. “Oh.”
“Jackie introduced you to Mave?” She nodded. “Why?” I asked.
“Because of the pictures.”
“The photographs you're taking of the prostitutes who work out of the Gemini,” I stated.
“Mave told you?” She sounded disappointed.
“No.” I hesitated, then said, “Diana was with me. We saw one of the girls standing outside, and whatever it was you told her about the women you were taking pictures of, she figured it out.”
I almost didn't tell her it was Diana, afraid it would irk her, but she hunched closer, staring at me out of those big tortoise shell glasses, anticipation widening her eyes.
“What did she think?” she asked, a child asking for approval.
“She thinks it's original,” I lied. “She wants to see what you have.”
She sat back, but straight up, not leaning on the bar at all. “Well, it's not really original. I mean, my photos will be original, but Bellocq did portraits of the Storyville prostitutes back at the beginning of the century. Have you seen them?”
“I think I have, a couple of them anyway.” I vaguely remembered some pictures of the old New Orleans red-light district in the newspaper, but it was long time ago. “You're doing the West Bank version of Storyville?”
“No,” Nita said, “it has nothing to do with the West Bank, it's the girls. These girls are very original, very different from the girls Bellocq photographed.” She was warming to her subject, to telling me about it. I let her go. “When I first thought about doing this, I wanted to see how different the prostitutes today were from the prostitutes then, and how they might be alike, too . . . Neal,” she said, putting her hand on my forearm, her youthful exuberance close to bursting from her in her rush to tell me, “the results are amazing. I had no idea what a good idea this was until I got into the darkroom and then put the photographs next to Bellocq's.”
