Hard Rain Falling (26 page)

There was no question about it, Billy was beginning to despise himself; with desperation he cast around for something, any part of himself, he could admire. At about this time, when Billy could hardly shave for fear of seeing his own eyes in the mirror, the high-roller hotshot from Phoenix hit town and began knocking off all the poolshooters.

Billy heard about him long before he saw him; how he had come into the Two-Eleven downtown one afternoon, this short, stubby Arizona guy, and had bulled and bragged around about what a great eight-ball player he was, and then had finally been challenged to a game of straight pool by one of the hangerson and been beaten out of twelve dollars and fled, claiming he had to “get out to the horses”; had come back the next day and gotten into a snooker game with old Larkin on the big English table, telling everyone he had never played snooker “on a football field” before, and betting two dollars a game, and sent old Larkin to the rack in five games. Nobody in Seattle could beat Larkin at snooker. After Larkin went to the rack, the Arizona guy bellowed out that snooker was a kid’s game and anybody could win, especially against a man at death’s door like old Larkin. He, the Arizona guy, preferred a game with some skill to it, like eight-ball. Naturally, Billy and all the other poolshooters were intrigued. Eight-ball is to snooker what checkers is to chess. Then, before the Arizona guy ever showed up at the bowling alley (everyone just naturally assumed he would come looking for Billy), a rumor was started that he had been on television in Chicago,
demonstrating
snooker, and that he had beaten Willie Mosconi and Joe Bachelor at straight pool, Hollywood Slim and Alabama Shorty at one-pocket, and finally, that Hoppe himself refused to play him. Nobody knew what to think. Billy, personally, discounted all the rumors. He had never heard of this guy. Surely, he reasoned, I ain’t been off the road that long.

Billy was behind the check-out counter tipping cues late one night when there was a stir of conversation over at the theater seats by the pool section. He looked up and saw old Larkin, his face twisted in old man’s sour distaste, pointing toward the entrance. Billy turned and saw a very short plump man in a blue short-sleeved shirt and white slacks striding in, followed by two large mean-looking LA-type hoods in windbreakers. Billy went back to his work, but kept his ears open. After a bit, this is what he heard, in a vibrating basso, almost a bellow:

“Is
this
the famous all-night bowling alley? I don’t see any shooters. I said I’d play eight-ball all night for any price and you all just sit there and look at me. What is this? I heard Seattle was a money town, but I guess it’s just another
dollar
town. Who wants to play a thousand points of billiards for ten cents? Split the time. That’s the game for this town, billiards. Couple old men fussing around an old table that ain’t even got any pockets! Who wants to bet on two whales fightin a sardine? I’ll take either side of the bet. Where’s the quick money? I’m a sport, where’s all the other sports? Eight-ball? I’ll play anybody!”

Billy knew this long speech had been directed at him, although he had not looked up once, and he knew the fat man was not looking at him. He came out from behind the counter in a Stepin Fetchit shuffle, his voice high and niggery: “
Eight
-ball? Wha fo youall wont to play that lil ol kid game? Ah’ll risk mah ol black hide own one-pocket,
maan!
” Billy hoped the fat man disliked Negroes; it would be to his advantage.

“I didn’t come all the way to Seattle to play the shoeshine boy,” the fat man declared. So Billy knew the Uncle Tom routine wouldn’t work. He said, “Well, then I guess you come all the way to Seattle just to
talk
. All talked out back home, ey?” Billy grinned at one of the LA hoods, and the hood grinned back, and winked.

“Aint I seen you in the movies?” Billy said to the hood.

“Damn right,” the hood said proudly. “I been a killer in two pictures. They got me in Central Casting.”

“What a fuggin lie,” said the other hood. He was younger, not much over twenty-two. He said to old Larkin, “Hey, you want to play some snooker here? Three dollars?”

Larkin muttered to himself and then said, “No, I want to watch the big show.”

“You aint scared of me, are you?” persisted the kid. “I don’t even know how to play. But I’ll play you.”

The fat man looked discomfited. “Talk? Money talks. I reckon I’d play eight-ball with the king of Sweden if the money was right.”

“Eight-ball?” Billy sneered. The crowd was enjoying this. Nobody was playing pool any more; everyone was gathered around listening and grinning slyly at each other. Among the kids there was the certain belief that nobody could beat Billy Lancing, and they were all looking forward to seeing the fat braggart stranger put in his place.

“You don’t want to play.” The fat man dismissed Billy. He said to the crowd, “He don’t want to play.” He looked strangely baffled. “I guess I’ll have me a sangwich.”

“You do look a little undernourished,” Billy said.

“Oh, that’s all. That’s all. Get your stick, Sambo.” He headed for the wall racks where the house cues were kept. Billy shrugged and went back of the counter for his Willie Hoppe Special, returned to the number one table, screwing the shaft of the cue into the butt, running his hand over the high gloss of the wood, checking the firmness of the leather tip with his thumbnail, chalking up, while the fat man rummaged over the cues, testing, weighing, sighting, and finally returned with a 22-ounce club with a billiard tip. “This’ll do,” he declared. “Warped as an old lady’s sexlife. Ha ha.”

Billy happened to look over in old Larkin’s direction, and for the first time began to feel apprehension; old Larkin’s face was screwed up in an insufferable smirk. He must have hated Billy and been looking forward to seeing him beaten. Billy felt a twinge of doubt, and he had to keep his fingers from reaching up and touching his caseroll through his pocket. He grinned tightly at the fat man. “How much we goin to play for, tubby?”

“A friendly game, that’s all I ever play,” the fat man said. “But I reckon you got a flock of little pickaninnies runnin around dependin on you for food and whatall, so let’s just play for a couple dollars. Sound like a friendly game to you? Make it easy on yourself, boy.”

“Win, place, or show?” Billy said acidly. Quickly he swallowed his anger. That was the worst thing he could do. He smiled. “Two dollars is fine,” he said.

There was a murmur of disappointment from the crowd. Billy tossed a coin, lost, and racked the balls for eight-ball. He backed away from the table to watch the fat man shoot. Everyone was quiet now; all Billy could hear were two hard-core bowlers over on the other side, and the faint, insipid music from the speaker system. He felt the coldness of the air conditioning on his cheek, and he suppressed an urge to rub his hand across his mouth. He wanted a cigarette very badly, but refused to light one.

The Arizona guy looked like a plump child bending seriously over the table, his fat fingers dead white in the glare. He broke with a
thwack
, drawing the cue ball back toward the end rail, and sank the twelve and the four. He walked around the table rapidly, choosing the striped balls, and sank them one after the other, following the fifteen past the side pocket for perfect position on the eight, called it in the corner and sank it. His lips, which had been pursed in concentration, went flaccid again and he straightened up and grunted. “Huh. Lucky.
Rack!
”

Billy dropped the two bills on the table, and began fishing balls out of pockets and rolling them toward the end. “We rack our own balls here,” he said.

“Some joint,” the fat man reflected. He chalked up and waited for Billy to finish racking. It was winner break, of course. The fat man stepped up, broke, and ran out again. He won six straight games, and Billy did not shoot once.

“That’s all,” Billy said. He felt remote, almost as if he were dead. He unscrewed his stick, as if he had been driven to the rack.

“You’re right,” said the fat man. “Two dollars a game. What’s the matter with us? The house is winnin all the money. Let’s play for something.”

“No more eight-ball,” Billy said.

The fat man looked surprised. “Name your game,” he said.

“One-pocket,” Billy said. With something near dread, he added, “For any amount you choose.” He glanced at the crowd. You’re waiting to see me die, you sons of bitches. It was as if he had never seen them before. They had disgusting, stupid, greedy faces. They were not his friends. He was just entertaining them. He should pack up his cue and quit. He did not want to play the fat man. He did not want to play at all. He was tired. But no, that wasn’t true. He
did
want to play, not for the crowd or for the money, but because for the first time in a long time he felt the
challenge
. There was no question about it; this man was
good
. But in his heart, Billy knew he could beat him. When he had this feeling, he never lost. And he had it now. He laughed aloud. “Come on, butterball. Less play one-pocket.”

“
One
-pocket?” The fat man was hurt. “One-pocket?”

“For twenty a game,” Billy said. Somebody tittered nervously.

“I don’t play one-pocket,” the fat man said. “It’s the dullest goddam game ever invented. How do you stay awake?”

“Well, what’s your best game? We done played your
road
game, now, what do you play at home?”

“Eight-ball. That’s all I play. I’ll play you eight-ball for ten or twenty a game. I’m a sport. I know I got no chance against you.”

Billy was flabbergasted. “No chance? Goddam, man, I aint even shot!”

“That’s right; I never did see you shoot. How do I know how good you are?”

“You don’t want to play,” Billy said. “You got my twelve dollars. You go back home and tell everybody you beat Billy Lancing out of twelve dollars.”

“Why should I tell em that?” the fat man asked. “Who ever heard of you?”

“I’ll tell you what, you chicken-livered tub of guts; I’ll play you any game on any kind of table in this joint; but I won’t play you eight-ball. I’ll play nine-ball, six-ball, bank pool, cribbage, one-pocket, straight pool—either rack or lineup; I’ll play you rotation or snooker, balkline or three-rail billiards, pee-pool, golf; I’ll play you one-handed or ten or no count; anything you want—
but
, I don’t want to waste your time or mine, so the minimum price per contest is twenty dollars, and the maximum price is whatever you think you can handle. Now, do you want to play pool or do you want to go have your dinner?”

The fat man did not say a word for at least a minute. He looked as if he was in shock. Then he bellowed, “Twenty dollars?
Twenty dollars?
I feel like I’m being nibbled to death by a duck! I come in here to play some friendly pool among strangers; but you don’t want to play friendly pool, you want to
gamble!
Now, if you want to gamble, I’m willin, but let’s
gamble
, not piss and fart away our time at twenty dollars! Let’s play for money!”

“There he is, folks,” Billy said to the crowd, “the world’s champion bullshit artist; he don’t have no
foldin
money; all he’s got is
talkin
money; cause if he had the
green
kind he’d make a game with me. He
knows
he can beat me; what’s he
scared
of?” Grinning happily, he turned to the fat man. “How about fifty a game, sportsy?”

The fat man rolled his eyes. “Fifty? How long has it been since you saw fifty dollars all in one heap? I hear you talk but I don’t see your money. Have you got fifty dollars and fifty cents all mixed up in your woolly old head?”

“How about a hundred?” Billy asked happily. He did not reach for his pocket yet, but leaned back against the table and pretended to inspect the tip of his cue.

“We talkin mouth bets, I raise it to a million,” said the fat man. “Hell, two million, I aint proud.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Billy said. “I always carry a little
caseroll
on me, just in case, you know. If you can match it, less play for it.”

“Match it? Why, son, if I couldn’t match anything you carried around in your little old pocket, why I’d just naturally die of humiliation. Haul out your thirty-four dollars and fifty cents and let them bills get a breath of fresh air. I’ll not only match it, I’ll play you any game you choose for it. I hate to waste time.”

Billy removed from his shirt pocket ten one-hundred-dollar bills, unfolded them, and fanned them out on the table. He smiled wolfishly. “You’re gonna look awful fuckin stupid if you can’t come up,” he said.

The fat man stared at the thousand dollars.

“Match it, or just die of shame,” Billy said.

After a reflective pause, the fat man drew his two friends aside and they talked quietly, getting their rolls out and putting them together. The fat man came back to Billy and laid a gigantic heap of bills on the table. “There’s four hundred and twenty here,” he said. He looked sheepish. “That’s all we got on us tonight. The fuckin horses, you know.”

Old Larkin got up and came over to them. He did not look at Billy. “I’ll back you for two hundred,” he told the fat man. He got out his roll and peeled off ten twenties, leaving the roll thin as a pencil. Billy did not mind at all, but he grinned at the crowd and said, “I love a
patriot
, don’t you?”

“Six-twenty, then,” the fat man said. It was actually a question.

“You’re sure greedy, aint you,” Billy said. “You see my money, and you’re just so goddam sure you can beat me, you just
got
to play. Well, okay, we’ll play.” He got a twenty out of his pocket, from his regular roll, added it to six of the hundreds, and crammed the other hundreds into his pants pocket. “We’ll play, baby. One game of one-pocket, for six twenty.”

“You want to play for all of it?” the fat man asked.

“Sure,” Billy said. “Why fuck around? Lag for break, or flip a coin?” He grinned at old Larkin, whose face had gone gray.

It was really over before the game started. Billy knew it, he knew he had defeated the fat man’s spirit, and all that was left was to win the actual game. The fat man won the toss and broke safe, as one always does one-pocket, and then Billy sized up the lay of the balls very carefully, his whole body burning with a kind of calm ecstasy, shot what would have been a safety even if he had missed, a two-rail bank that dropped into his pocket without even touching the side rails. Then he made two more balls and left the cue ball frozen to the far rail. The fat man shot safe, and Billy made another bank, this time three rails and the cue ball safe anyway, made the shot, and ran out. The game was over. Billy took all the money, counted it, put his thousand dollars back in his shirt pocket and the rest in his pants pocket. Then he went back to the counter and began tipping another cue. He did not even see the fat man and his friends leave.