The Hustler Read online

There was something cranky, fanatical, about the serious, lip-pursing way that Bert spoke, and it made Eddie uneasy. The words, he knew, were directed at him; but he did not like the sound of them and he did not let himself reach for their meaning. The bartender had finished with the drinks and Bert paid for them—giving the exact change. Eddie lifted his and said, “Cheers.” Bert said nothing and they both sipped silently for a few minutes. The bartender—the old, wrinkled man who was also rackboy, bookmaker and manager—went back to his chair and his reveries, whatever they were. There was no one else in the place. Some broad puffs of hot air came from the open doorway, but little else; nothing seemed to be going on in the street. A cop ambled by the door, lost in thought. Eddie looked at his wrist watch. Seven o’clock. Would Sarah feel like eating now? Probably not.

  He looked at Bert and, abruptly, remembered the question that had been on his mind, hazily, all afternoon. “Where have I seen you before?” he asked.

  Bert went on sipping his drink, not looking at him. “At Bennington’s. The time you hooked Minnesota Fats and threw him away.”

  That was it, of course. He must have been one of the faces in the crowd. “You a friend of Minnesota Fats?” Eddie said it a little contemptuously.

  “In a way.” Bert smiled faintly, as if pleased with himself for some obscure reason. “You might say we went to school together.”

  “He’s a poker player too?”

  “Not exactly.” Bert looked at him, still smiling. “But he knows how to win. He’s a real winner.”

  “Look,” Eddie said, suddenly angry, “so I’m a loser; is that it? You can quit talking like Charlie Chan; you want to laugh at me, that’s your privilege. Go ahead and laugh.” He did not like this leaving-the-fact-unnamed kind of talk. But hadn’t he been thinking that way himself, for a week or more—leaving the fact unnamed? But what was the fact, the one he wasn’t naming? He finished his drink quickly, ordered another.

  Bert said, “That isn’t what I meant. What I meant was, that was the first time in ten years Minnesota Fats’ been hooked. Really hooked.”

  The thought pacified Eddie considerably. It pleased him; maybe he had scored some sort of victory after all. “That a fact?” he said.

  “That’s a fact.” Bert seemed to be loosening up. He had ordered another whiskey and was starting on it. “You had him hooked. Before you lost your head.”

  “I got drunk.”

  Bert looked incredulous. Then he laughed—or, rather, chuckled—softly. “Sure,” he said, “you got drunk. You got the best excuse in the world for losing. It’s no trouble at all, losing. When you got a good excuse.”

  Eddie looked at him, levelly. “That’s a lot of crap.”

  Bert ignored this. “You lost your head and grabbed the easy way out. I bet you had fun, losing your head. It’s always nice to feel the risks fall off your back. And winning; that can be heavy on your back too, like a monkey. You drop that load too when you find yourself an excuse. Then, afterward, all you got to do is learn to feel sorry for yourself—and lots of people learn to get their kicks that way. It’s one of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry.” Bert’s face broke into an active grin. “A sport enjoyed by all. Especially the born losers.”

  It did not make very much sense; but it made enough, dimly, to make him angry again, even though the whiskey was now filtering through his empty stomach, placating him, busily solving his problems—the old ones and the ones yet to come. “I made a mistake. I got drunk.”

  “You got more than drunk. You lost your head.” Bert was pushing now, in a kind of delicate, controlled way. “Some people lose their heads cold sober. Cards, dice, pool; it makes no difference. You want to make a living that way, you want to be a winner, you got to keep your head. And you got to remember that there’s a loser somewhere in you, whining at you, and you got to learn to cut his water off. Otherwise you better get a steady job.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said. “Okay. You win. I’ll think about it.” He did not intend to think about it; he wanted to shut Bert up, vaguely aware that the man, ordinarily quiet, was loosening himself from some kind of tension, some kind of personal fight of his own, was sticking pins into him, Eddie, to drive out his own private devil. And he had thought about it enough already.

  Bert had finished his second drink and was saying, “So what do you do now?”

  “What do you think? I hustle up enough capital so I can play him again. And this time I leave the bottle and concentrate on what I’m doing.”

  Bert peered at him, not smiling this time. “There’s plenty of other ways to lose. You can find one easy.”

  “What if I’m not looking?”

  “You will be. Probably.” Bert waved—an incomplete, supercilious wave—at the bartender, signaling for another. “I don’t think you’ll be ready to play Fats again for ten years.” His voice sounded prissy, smug, as he said it.

  Eddie looked at him, astonished. “What do you mean, ten years? You saw me hook him before.”

  “And I saw you let him go, too.”

  “Sure. And I learned something. I’ll know better next time.”

  “You probably won’t. And you think Fats didn’t learn something too?”

  Somehow, he hadn’t thought of that one before. “Okay. Maybe he did.” The bartender was pouring another drink. Eddie took out a cigarette, offered one to Bert. Bert shook his head. “And maybe he learned the wrong things. Maybe he thinks the next time I play him I’ll get drunk again and throw away the game. Maybe I wanted him to learn that.” That was a fantastic lie, and he realized it even as he said it.

  Bert’s look became mildly contemptuous. “If you think that’s right you’ll never learn a thing. How many times do I have to say it, it wasn’t the whiskey that beat you? I know it, you know it, Fats knows it.”

  Eddie knew now, what he meant; but he persisted in not understanding him. “You think he shoots better than I do, is that it? You got a right to think that.”

  Bert had got a pack of potato chips from a rack on the counter. He chewed on one of these, nibbling at it thoughtfully, like a careful, self-conscious mouse. Eddie noticed that his teeth were very even, bright, like a movie star’s. Then Bert said, “Eddie, I don’t think there’s a pool player living that shoots better straight pool than I saw you shoot last week at Bennington’s.” He pushed the rest of the potato chip past his thin lips, into the pretty teeth. “You got a talent.”

  This was pleasant to hear, even in its context. Eddie had hardly been aware of how impoverished his vanity was. But he tried to make his tone of voice wry. “So I got a talent,” he said. “Then what beat me?”

  Bert pulled another potato chip from the bag, offered him one, and then said, his voice now offhand, casual, “Character.”

  Eddie laughed lightly. “Sure,” he said. “Sure.”

  Bert’s voice suddenly returned to its prissy, schoolteacherish tone. “You’re goddamn right I’m sure. Everybody’s got talent. I got talent. But you think you can play big money straight pool—or poker—for forty straight hours on nothing but talent?” He leaned toward Eddie, peering at him again, nearsightedly, through the thick, steel-rimmed glasses. “You think they call Minnesota Fats the Best in the Country just because he’s got talent? Or because he can do trick shots?” He pulled back from Eddie and took his drink in hand, looking now very pompous. “Minnesota Fats,” he said, “has got more character in one finger than you got in your whole goddamn skinny body.” Bert looked away from him. “He drank as much whiskey as you did.”

  The truth of what Bert was saying was so forceful that it took Eddie a moment to drive it from his mind, to explain it away. But even this was hard to do, for Eddie had a kind of hard, central core of honesty that was difficult for him to deal with sometimes—a kind of embarrassing awareness that only a few people are afflicted with. But he managed to avoid the fact, to avoid capitulation to what Bert was saying, that he, Eddie, was—simply enough—not man enough to beat a man like Fats. But, not knowing
what else to say, he said, aware that it was feeble, “Maybe Fats knows how to drink.”

  Bert would not let him go now, knew that he had him. Eddie became abruptly aware that Bert talked like he played poker, with a kind of quiet, strong—very strong—pushing. “You’re goddamn right he knows how,” Bert said softly. “And you think that’s a talent, too? Knowing how to drink whiskey? You think Minnesota Fats was born knowing how to drink?”

  “Okay. Okay.” What did Bert want him to do? Prostrate himself on the floor? “So what do I do now? Go home?”

  And Bert seemed to relax, knowing he had scored, had pushed his way through Eddie’s consciousness and through his defenses—although Eddie still only partly understood all of what Bert had said, and was already prepared to rationalize the truth out of what he did understand. But Bert had suddenly quit pushing, and seemed now to be merely relaxing with his drink. “That’s your problem,” he said.

  “Then I’ll stay here.” For the first time in several hours Eddie grinned. The conversation seemed to have become normal now, the usual kind of understandable conversation, where the challenges are so deeply hidden or buried that you only accept them when you feel like taking a challenge, and then only to the degree that you choose. Eddie liked things to be that way. “I’ll stay until I hustle up enough to play Minnesota Fats again. Maybe by then I’ll develop myself some character.”

  Bert’s voice was amused, but not pushing, “Maybe by then you’ll die of old age.” He paused. “How much do you think you’re gonna need?”

  “A thousand. Maybe more.”

  Bert set his drink down. “No. Three thousand at least. He’ll start you out at five hundred a game.” His tone was analytical now, detached and speculative. “And he’s gonna beat your ass at first, because that’s the way he plays when he comes up against a man who already knows the way the game is. He’ll beat you flat, four or five games. Maybe more, depending on how steady your nerve is.” He hesitated, “And he might—he just might—be a little scared of you. And that could change things. But I wouldn’t count on it.” He began chewing another potato chip. “And, either way, he’ll beat your ass at first.”

  “How do you know? Nobody knows that much.” There was something preposterous about this little prissy god sitting beside him, passing judgment on him, now affably and dispassionately. “I might beat him the first five games.”

  “Sure you might. But you won’t. And how do I know?” Bert raised a finger significantly and pointed towards the door. Eddie turned, looking out. “See that Imperial out there? That’s mine.” Parked across the street was a long, new-looking black car, with large white-wall tires. “I like that car and I get a new one every year because I make it my business to know what people like Minnesota Fats—or like you—are gonna do.” Then he smiled, with an afterthought. “And if I hadn’t already paid for it I could of with the money I won in side bets. When you two were playing last week.”

  For a moment Eddie felt himself angry, remembering now for the first time the neat little man who was taking bets while the games were starting. Then he grinned, sipping his drink. “I guess you owe me these drinks after all.”

  “I told you I did.” Bert gave his rare grin again. And, with the whiskey, Eddie began to feel a pleasant sense about Bert. Bert was smart; he knew the answers. Now he was saying, “And maybe I can help you out,” almost as if he had at the same time begun to feel friendly. “With that three thousand.”

  But Eddie hesitated. Maybe there was an angle. “Why?” he said.

  “Ten reasons. Maybe fifteen.” He smiled, “Also, there’s something in it for me.”

  Eddie grinned back at him. “That’s what I figured. Go ahead.”

  “Well,” Bert said, “I’ve been thinking about a game for you. A little game of pool, with a man named Findlay…”

  ***

  Eddie had the bartender give him two hard-boiled eggs on a dish with some soda crackers. He peeled the eggs, made a little white mount of salt on the plate and began eating, while Bert told him about James Findlay, in carefully phrased detail. Findlay lived in Kentucky, in Lexington, and had a fame that was becoming wide-spread in gambling circles. Once a poker player notorious for his ability to lose, he had recently turned to pool, at which he was even more of a born loser. James, it seemed, was very rich; he owned twenty per cent of a tobacco company, through the graces of God and a dead aunt. He also owned a large house, and in the basement of this house he had a pool table. He seemed to enjoy thinking of himself as a hustler, a quaint aristocrat who took on all the passing hustlers in the genteel quiet of his own basement, while he smoked cork-tipped cigarettes and drank eight-year-old bourbon and invariably lost his ass. Fortunately, he apparently never kept books. And, fortunately for himself, he seldom let himself lose more than a few thousand. Also, he was a reasonably good player; it took a certain amount of skill to beat him—more skill than that of the average second-rate hustler. And he played no one but the best. Eddie found all of this interesting; Bert told it well and with the evident relish of a born arranger, a matchmaker.

  After Bert was finished and Eddie had eaten the eggs, Eddie said, “How do we get to Lexington?”

  “In my car.”

  “Fair enough.” It would certainly be an improvement over the old Packard—although he would have preferred traveling with Charlie. “What’s your percentage?”

  Bert blinked at him. “Seventy-five.”

  Eddie set down the napkin he had been wiping his mouth with. “What did you say?”

  “Seventy-five. I get seventy-five per cent. You get twenty-five.”

  That was impossible. Fifty-fifty maybe, at the most… “What do you… Who do you think you are, General Motors? That’s a very large slice.”

  Bert’s smile vanished abruptly. “What do you mean, a large slice? What kind of odds do you think are right for these days anyway? I’m touting you on this game; that’s worth ten per cent anywhere by itself. I’m putting up the paper. I’m supplying transportation. And I’m putting up my time, which isn’t exactly worthless. For this I get a seventy-five per cent return on my money. If you win.”

  Eddie looked at him scornfully. “You think I can lose?”

  Bert’s voice was calm. “I never saw you do anything else.”

  “You saw me beat Minnesota Fats for eighteen thousand.”

  There was irritation in Bert’s voice again. “Look,” he said, “you want to hustle pool, don’t you? This game isn’t like football. Nobody pays you for yardage. When you hustle you keep score real simple. After the game is over you count your money. That’s the way you find out who was best. The only way.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said, “Then why back me at all? Back yourself. Find you a big, fat poker game and get rich. You know all the angles.”

  Bert smiled again. “I’m already rich, I told you. And poker happens to be slow these days.”

  “You probably picked up fifty this afternoon.”

  “That’s business. I want action. And one thing I think you’re good for is action. Besides, like I say, you got talent.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So we go to Lexington?”

  Eddie looked at him. It occurred to him that Bert had probably been working up to this since he had first offered to buy him a drink. “We don’t.”

  Bert shrugged his shoulders. “Suit yourself.”

  “I will. Maybe if you cut that slice down to bite size we might talk some more.”

  “Then we won’t talk. I don’t make bad bets.”

  Eddie started to get up. “Thanks for the drinks,” he said.

  “Wait a minute.” Bert looked at him, standing now. “What are you gonna do about that money?”

  “I’ll scuffle around. Somebody told me about a room called Arthur’s where there’s action.”

  Bert looked concerned. “Stay out of that place,” he said. “It’s not your kind of room. They’ll eat you alive.”

  Eddie grinned down at him. Bert seemed
very small from where he was standing, next to him and over him. “When did you adopt me?” he said.

  Bert looked back at him, peering at him closely again, through the thick glasses. “I don’t know when it was,” he said, quietly.

  11

  He did not go to Sarah’s apartment, but to another bar, a place where there was a great deal of noise and some kind of unfathomable gambling game, a game where a girl sat in a high chair and shook out dice from a cup while a group of men stood around her making bets for drinks and noisily losing, all of it under the shrill overlay of a persistent, grinding jukebox. And then, on his second drink, he realized abruptly that this wasn’t doing any good, that it never had and never would—not for him. He would have to find something else, something to break him out of the trap that this city of Chicago had laid for him, the trap that had already twisted—not killed, but twisted—his confidence, and that was already making him a whining, two-dollar scuffler. Or that would make him an employee, somebody else’s man. He paid for his drink and left. It seemed to take a long while to walk out of range of the jukebox; and even when he could no longer hear it, its loud insistence still rung, an imbecilic, thumping melody, in his head.

  He walked to the bus station where he had left his cue. He did not think it out, but this seemed to be the best thing to do, the only step he could make in the direction he wanted to go.

  He had the key in his pocket, found the right locker and took the round case from it. And instantly he felt foolish, standing there in the bus station holding a pool cue in a satchel. What was he going to do? Go to Bennington’s, beat on the desk, shout for Minnesota Fats, find him, and start a game of pool? With two hundred dollars?

  He was more drunk on the whiskey he’d had than he realized. He bumped into an old woman as he was going out the door, a ragged, shriveled woman with a copy of Photoplay under her arm. She glared at him. He scowled, pushed by her and went out the door.

  He walked the three blocks to Sarah’s, hands stuffed in his coat pockets, the cue stick under his arm, his silk shirt open at the collar, listening to the sound of his leather heels hitting the concrete, letting them hit it hard, as if he were trying to drive something out of himself. It was not Bert, he was aware of that, although Bert was part of it, part of the cat and mouse. But Bert was not a bloodthirsty cat; but a reasonable, reasonably greedy one. Nor, even, was it Minnesota Fats, not entirely; for Fats was only an accessory to, a witness of, his humiliation. But he had won so much money, had been so high, and had never touched Fats. Had never shaken him, moved him, pushed him, had never altered the quiet and quick look of his little eyes, almost hidden by the enormous face. And something had happened to him, Eddie, something deep and shameful and hidden. What then? Why did he not want to think about Minnesota Fats, about the night at Bennington’s—why not think about it? It was supposed to help to think about things like that, supposed to keep you from making the same mistake twice.