The applause, when the referee announced the score, was better than before. Two down. One more win would put him in the money.
In the evening he played a kid on Number Two, in the corner to the left of the official’s table. The kid’s name was Parsons; he was some kind of boy wonder of seventeen. He had come in third in the World Open at straight pool, but this was his first nine-ball tournament. He was pretty good—far better than Makepiece—but not good enough. Eddie stayed ahead of him throughout, and the final score was ten-seven. A kid like this was no problem. Out of the hundred twenty-eight players maybe a dozen would be a problem.
He unscrewed his cue, got his case from under the table, slid the two cue pieces into it, fastened the lid. He looked up. The air conditioning must have been repaired; there was no more smoke below the ceiling. He felt tired. It was good to be in the money—a real start. Pushing his way through the crowd to leave, he was congratulated by several strangers: “Way to go, Fast Eddie!” and “Good stroke!” As he left the ballroom he began to whistle.
It was ten o’clock and he had not eaten. That hardly mattered here, where time seemed without reference in the world and the casino never closed. He stopped at a near-empty blackjack table with a betting minimum of twenty-five dollars, bought four chips and hit a blackjack on his first hand. By the time he quit at midnight, he had won nine hundred. He tipped the dealer a chip and went to the hotel’s Polynesian restaurant for dinner, sat by an artificial waterfall that burbled between enormous ferns and ate sugary pork with chopsticks. He ignored the drinks that came in coconuts and ordered a half bottle of new Beaujolais with his meal, as Arabella would have done. Good old Arabella. With the money he had just won at blackjack he could bring her out here. He thought about that a moment as the waiter poured his wine and decided not to. Being alone was all right. He did not need help, or company, or sex. He needed to roll with the good feeling inside him, the feeling that came from winning money, and he needed to practice nine-ball.
At one o’clock he went back to the ballroom, found an empty table behind the bleachers, racked only nine, and practiced until the ballroom closed at three. His game, despite the wine and the deep fatigue he felt, was even better. He could see in glimpses the entire gestalt of the table, see the nine different balls as one patterned entity. He could run out a game as a unit. It was something he once had at straight pool and then forgot. It was mystical. Intuitive. The balls fell in for him as if charmed.
Later he lay between crisp sheets, listening to the nearly inaudible deep whirr of the air conditioning, seeing through open draperies the glow in the night sky from the huge neon sign of the Sahara. He had won three nine-ball matches in two days, had worked out each morning in the gym alone, had swum a dozen laps in the huge pool, eaten in the hotel restaurants, played blackjack in the hotel casino. His soul was easing into peace. The frenetic days working for Mayhew and then buying quilts and sculptures and wood carvings, then painting, wiring and cleaning the gallery were all past him, along with the confusions of middle age: sex, money and love. He belonged here, in this room. He belonged in the ballroom downstairs, in the casino, in the long mirrored hallways like a maze running by unworldly shops. He had not stepped outdoors and he did not plan to. This hotel was like an anthill or a starship, a dwelling offering everything in life that Eddie wanted. This week was like a religious retreat. Between these sheets at four in the morning, his shoulder faintly throbbing from the swing of his splended cue, he let his heart experience the fine old ecstasy of the gambler’s life: his dedicated life, lived at the edge of the world and partly in dream, where polished balls spun across a brilliant green, where his skill shone in a room beneath layers of smoke. He could see himself now as a monk, a sleepwalker in life. As a monk was drawn by God—or was in those moments in which he was permitted to be—Eddie was drawn by money. He played pool for money and he loved money deeply and truly—loved even the dark engraving on the splendid paper of fresh bills. He could love the game of pool and the equipment of the game, the wood and cloth, the phenolic resin of the glossy balls, the finish of his phallic cue stick, the sounds and colors of pool. But the thing he loved the most was money.
On the next day the losers had come to dominate the tables, and Eddie, if he won, would play only once. It worked like this: after the first round there were sixty-four winners and the same number of losers; after the second, thirty-two winners remained; and after the third round, sixteen. That would become eight, then four, then two, then one—requiring one day for each reduction in numbers, each narrowing of the winners’ field.
That would not end it. Whoever survived would have to play the winner of the losers’ bracket in the finals, since this was double elimination. The losers’ play-offs were going on from ten in the morning until midnight, each of the five tables continuously in action, like a chorus to the dwindling stars of the winners’ bracket. Eddie was one of the sixteen undefeated, as were Borchard and Cooley. So, for that matter, was Boomer—although Boomer was barely hanging on.
His game was at ten that morning. Downstairs, he ate, swam, worked out lightly with the machines, swam more laps, and had coffee while he lay in the whirlpool bath and let the jets of hot water massage his shoulders. It was nine by then. He got out after fifteen minutes, dried off and had scrambled eggs in the restaurant at a poolside table, watching a couple of young women in bikinis who had begun swimming. Nice small breasts; nice asses. He had a second cup of coffee and watched them as they climbed out of the pool and stood, knowing they were being watched, laughing and pushing the wet hair out of their faces. The speakers were playing Mozart. Eddie finished his toast and left.
The match was very, very tough, and to win it he had to be lucky. He was. On the third rack the young man made the nine-ball but scratched on an unlucky kiss; on the fifth, Eddie was left a simple combination when the cue ball made a long, unexpected roll. And twice, when Eddie simply missed a ball he left the table safe by luck. The final score was ten-seven, and this time the applause was loud. The crowd had been watching his game more than the others, and they clapped loudly and whistled when he pocketed the nine for his tenth game. He was now one of eight. The luck didn’t matter for now; he was getting there.
As he started to leave he saw Boomer coming in, still morose, screwing his cue together.
“Good work,” Boomer said. “I’m next.”
“Who’s your man?”
Boomer grimaced. “Borchard.”
“I’ll pull for you.”
“Just break his arm when he comes in.”
Eddie managed to crowd in at the bleachers; they made room for him. It didn’t last long; Boomer didn’t have a chance. Borchard shot like a wizard, clipping balls in with a nerveless placidity while Boomer sweated and grumbled under his breath and chalked his cue and cursed and missed. The score was ten to one and the applause was thunderous.