Billy looked at no one.
Nine in a row, but still nobody said anything except hey, and yeah-yeah, with a bit more applause offered up. Billy waited for the ball to come back, rubbing his feet on the floor dirt just beyond the runway, dusting his soles with slide insurance, then picked up the ball and sidled back to the runway of alley nine for his last frame. And then he rolled it, folks, and boom-boom went the pins, zot-zot, you sons of bitches, ten in a row now, and a cheer went up, but still no comment, ten straight and his score (even though Martin hadn’t filled in any numbers yet) is 280, with two more balls yet to come, twenty more pins to go. Is Billy Phelan ready for perfection? Can you handle it, kid? What will you do with it if you get it?
Billy had already won the match; no way for Scotty to catch him, given that spot. But now it looked as if Billy would beat Scotty without the spot, and, tied to a perfect game, the win would surely make the sports pages later in the week.
Scotty stood up and walked to the end of the ball return to wait. He chalked his hands, rubbed them together, played with the towel, as Billy bent over to pick up his ball.
“You ever throw three hundred anyplace before?” Scotty asked.
“I ain’t thrown it here yet,” Billy said.
So he did it, Martin thought. Scotty’s chin trembled as he watched Billy. Scotty, the nervous sportsman. Did saying what he had just said mean that the man lacked all character? Did only relentless winning define his being? Was the fear of losing sufficient cause for him to try to foul another man’s luck? Why of course it was, Martin. Of course it was.
Billy threw, but it was a Jersey hit, his first crossover in the game. The ball’s mixing power overcame imprecision, however, and the pins spun and rolled, toppling the stubborn ten pin, and giving Billy his eleventh strike. Scotty pulled at the towel and sat down.
“You prick,” Morrie Berman said to him. “What’d you say that to him for?”
“Say what?”
“No class,” said Morrie. “Class’ll tell in the shit house, and you got no class.”
Billy picked up his ball and faced the pins for the last act. He called out to Bugs, the pinboy: “Four pin is off the spot,” and he pointed to it. Martin saw he was right, and Bugs moved the pin back into proper position. Billy kissed the ball, shuffled and threw, and the ball went elegantly forward, perfect line, perfect break, perfect one-three pocket hit. Nine pins flew away. The four pin never moved.
“Two-ninety-nine,” Martin said out loud, and the mob gave its full yell and applause and then stood up to rubberneck at the scoresheet, which Martin was filling in at last, thirty pins a frame, twenty-nine in the last one. He put down the crayon to shake hands with Billy, who stood over the table, ogling his own nifty numbers.
“Some performance, Billy,” said Charlie Boy McCall, standing to stretch his babyfat. “I should learn not to bet against you. You remember the last time?”
“Pool match at the K. of C.”
“I bet twenty bucks on some other guy.”
“Live and learn, Charlie, live and learn.”
“You were always good at everything,” Charlie said. “How do you explain that?”
“I say my prayers and vote the right ticket.”
“That ain’t enough in this town,” Charlie said.
“I come from Colonie Street.”
“That says it,” said Charlie, who still lived on Colonie Street.
“Scotty still has to finish two frames,” Martin announced to all; for Scotty was already at alley ten, facing down the burden of second best. The crowd politely sat and watched him throw a strike. He moved to alley nine and with a Jersey hit left the baby split. He cursed inaudibly, then made the split. With his one remaining ball he threw a perfect strike for a game of 219, a total of 667. Billy’s total was 668.
“Billy Phelan wins the match by one pin, without using any of the spot,” Martin was delighted to announce, and he read aloud the game scores and totals of both men. Then he handed the bet money to Morrie Berman.
“I don’t even feel bad,” Charlie Boy said. “That was a hell of a thing to watch. When you got to lose, it’s nice to lose to somebody who knows what he’s doing.”
“Yeah, you were hot all right,” Scotty said, handing Billy a five-dollar bill. “Really hot.”
“Hot, my ass,” Morrie Berman said to Scotty. “You hexed him, you bastard. He might’ve gone all the way if you didn’t say anything, but you hexed him, talking about it.”
The crowd was already moving away, back to the bar, the sweeper confronting those cigar butts at last. New people were arriving, waiters and bartenders who would roll in the Nighthawk League, which started at 3:00 A.M. It was now two-thirty in the morning.
“Listen, you mocky bastard,” Scotty said, “I don’t have to take any noise from you.” Scotty’s fists were doubled, his face flushed, his chin in vigorous tremolo. Martin’s later vision of Scotty’s coloration and form at this moment was that of a large, crimson firecracker.
“Hold on here, hold on,” Charlie McCall said. “Cool down, Scotty. No damage done. Cool down, no trouble now.” Charlie was about eight feet away from the two men when he spoke, too far to do anything when Morrie started his lunge. But Martin saw it coming and jumped between the two, throwing his full weight into Morrie, his junior by thirty pounds, and knocking him backward into a folding chair, on which he sat without deliberation. Others sealed off Scotty from further attack and Billy held Morrie fast in the chair with two hands.
“Easy does it, man,” Billy said, “I don’t give a damn what he did.”
“The cheap fink,” Morrie said. “He wouldn’t give a sick whore a hairpin.”
Martin laughed at the line. Others laughed. Morrie smiled. Here was a line for the Broadway annals. Epitaph for the Scotcheroo: It was reliably reported during his lifetime that he would not give a sick whore a hairpin. Perhaps this enhanced ignominy was also entering Scotty’s head after the laughter, or perhaps it was the result of his genetic gift, or simply the losing, and the unbearable self-laceration that went with it. Whatever it was, Scotty doubled up, gasping, burping. He threw his arms around his own chest, wobbled, took a short step, and fell forward, gashing his left cheek on a spittoon. He rolled onto his side, arms still aclutch, eyes squeezing out the agony in his chest.
The mob gawked and Morrie stood up to look. Martin bent over the fallen man, then lifted him up from the floor and stretched him out on the bench from which he had risen to hex Billy. Martin blotted the gash with Scotty’s own shirttail, and then opened his left eyelid. Martin looked up at the awestruck mob and asked: “Anybody here a doctor?” And he answered himself: “No, of course not,” and looked then at the night manager and said, “Call an ambulance, Al,” even though he knew Scotty was already beyond help. Scotty: Game over.
How odd to Martin, seeing a champion die in the embrace of shame, egotism, and fear of failure. Martin trembled at a potential vision of himself also prostrate before such forces, done in by a shame too great to endure, and so now is the time to double up and die. Martin saw his own father curdled by shame, his mother crippled by it twice: her own and her husband’s. And Martin himself had been bewildered and thrust into silence and timidity by it (but was that the true cause?). Jesus, man, pay attention here. Somebody lies dead in front of you and you’re busy exploring the origins of your own timidity. Martin, as was said of your famous father, your sense of priority is bowlegged.
Martin straightened Scotty’s arm along his side, stared at the closed right eye, the half-open left eye, and sat down in the scorekeeper’s chair to search pointlessly for vital signs in this dead hero of very recent yore. Finally, he closed the left eye with his thumb.