Eddie said nothing, turning back to his Manhattan.
The main floor of the hotel was laid out like one of those supermarkets where it is impossible to buy what you want without being given opportunity to buy what you do not want: you had to go through the entire casino to get anywhere else. The ballroom where the tournament would be was at the end of a long hallway; and to get to the hallway from the elevators or the restaurants, you had to walk past the slot machines, the crap tables, the baccarat, twenty-one, roulette, chuck-a-luck and wheel of fortune. Keeno, of course, was everywhere; its numbered boards caught the eye wherever one happened to stand, and its green-skirted runners were ubiquitous.
The ballroom was not so big as Eddie expected, but it was big enough. The five tables were surrounded by rows of wooden bleachers. At the far end of the room was a platform with a speakers’ table holding microphones.
The pool tables were beautiful and new. A few well-dressed young men with leather cue cases were standing near them; one was rubbing the palm of his hand over the clean green as Eddie came in, but no one was shooting. A few dozen people sat in the bleachers. A man at the speakers’ table was adjusting a microphone with one hand while holding a drink in the other. There would be no games today, but a ceremony was scheduled for nine-thirty; some players had not arrived yet and it wouldn’t be necessary to attend it. It was seven-thirty now.
Eddie stood between two sets of bleachers for several minutes, looking at the tables. Several younger men entered the room, pushing eagerly past him. He looked to his right; beyond the bleachers was a sign reading PRACTICE AREA: PLAYERS ONLY; and just as he looked, seeing the corner of a pool table and a patch of its new green, he heard the sound of a rack of balls being broken. Someone was beginning to practice. For a moment, in his stomach, he felt ill. He turned and left the room.
He ignored the telephone and switched on the big TV set. He had told Arabella he would call when he got there, but he did not want to call anyone. It was dark outside the window now, except for the neon on the Sahara. He should go eat supper, attend the opening ceremonies and then practice, but he did not want to do any of those things. He did not want to shoot pool or watch it being shot. He did not want to hear the names of the other players or hear about their trophies and titles and championships, hear the names of the referees, the expressions of gratitude to the pool-table manufacturer who had supplied the equipment, the officials who would keep score, the man who was directing the tournament and his assistants. But most importantly—dismayingly—he did not want to take his Balabushka and shoot pool with it.
A cop show had appeared on the TV screen, with pale blue cars screeching around corners in San Francisco and then roaring downhill in low, bouncing undulations toward the Bay Bridge. The sound on the set was low—barely above a whisper. Eddie picked up the phone, dialed Room Service and ordered a medium-rare hamburger with two Manhattans. He lay back in bed watching the screen. There was the bay from closer now. There was Alcatraz, pale in the distance, shimmering and insubstantial.
One problem with Babes Cooley was he reminded Eddie of Arabella’s dead lover. So sure of himself. So young.
Halfway through the second Manhattan, he fell asleep. He awoke with a sore throat at six-thirty, with pale light in the sky outside the still-open draperies. The air conditioner had been set high and he had not gotten under the covers; he still lay on the burnt-orange bedspread with his Balabuska beside him. A teacherly woman on TV was lecturing in Spanish. He felt stiff. He was catching cold.
For a moment he felt like getting under the covers with his clothes still on and going back to sleep. He was drugged already by sleep, had probably slept for ten hours, but he could sleep more. It was too early in the morning to be up. He had done this kind of thing before, on weekends when married to Martha—sometimes sleeping for sixteen hours at a stretch and then taking the rest of the day to wake up on coffee and cigarettes.
He shook his head sharply at the memory of that, and sat up. It was visibly brighter outside. He took off his wrinkled shirt, walked to the bathroom and began to shave, soaking his face awake with hot water. It was time to get on with it. Maybe he could get into the ballroom and practice.
But the ballroom was closed and locked. The casino certainly wasn’t. Although the action was light at seven in the morning, it was still action. Five weary crapshooters were huddled around one of the tables; there were a half-dozen blackjack games going; and a crowd circulated among the slot machines—most of them women, most of them motherly. Eddie pushed past them, found the coffee shop and had breakfast. After that he explored the main floor of the hotel, which was like a city in itself. He found a long mirrored arcade of shops; some were just opening up. Expensive clothes were displayed in windows: bathing suits from France, tweed jackets from Italy. One shop sold Krön chocolates; another, Cartier watches. He kept walking, carrying his cue case. At the end of the arcade, a sign over a doorway read HEALTH CLUB AND POOL. He walked in.
The pool was huge and free-form, under a skylight. It was surrounded partly by gray boulders, to give the effect of a grotto—in fact, there was a real grotto entrance across the water from him, with the boulders making an opening like a cave, where you could swim in. There were a few small palm trees. Off to one side was a tiled whirlpool bath big enough for a dozen people at once. Behind this stood a row of trees; through them was a glimpse of a glass door and a tiny bit of sky. It was the only natural light he had seen from the main floor of the hotel. On the other side of the pool was a restaurant, closed now, with pink cloths on its poolside tables. From speakers somewhere came classical music.
To the left of the restaurant was the entrance to the health club; through the glass door he could see a woman at a desk. He walked along the concrete margin of the empty pool and pushed open the door.
There was a gym—also empty—a few yards past the desk. In it sat a half-dozen new Nautilus machines, their chromium glistening, their leather seats and benches polished, deep red. Beyond the gym a sign read MEN’S LOCKER ROOM AND SAUNA.
He turned and looked at the woman. “Can I get trunks?”
She smiled like a stewardess. “Sure.”
He showed her his room key and she handed him a pair of disposable shorts with the same houndstooth pattern he and Arabella wore at the Holiday Inn the day they had decided to go into business. There was a pile of big yellow towels on the counter. He took two, headed back to the locker room and changed. The supporter in the trunks was no good. He left his Jockey shorts on under them, stowed his clothes, padded out to the concrete, took a deep breath and dove into the pool. There was still no one else there. He began doing laps, swimming in long, powerful strokes.
After twenty minutes of that he dried off and worked his way slowly through the Nautilus machines, using the same weights he used at the gym back in Lexington: the hip and back machine, the leg curl, the leg extender, the triceps and biceps, the chest and shoulder. They were better machines than he had ever used before, just as the pool was the best indoor pool he had ever seen. Their gears worked quietly; the weights moved smoothly and did not clank. He kept at each machine until he had exhausted the muscle group, sweating profusely. The music from the speakers stopped and a cultivated voice announced the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, and Mozart music began. Eddie pumped the weights up and down, wearing his wet bathing suit, sweating. Only on the overhead press did he cut back on the drag, reducing it by twenty pounds from what he was accustomed to. He did not want to overwork his shoulders; they had to be smooth for shooting nine-ball.