Part of Bertha’s frustration came from want of privacy. Since Petey’s return they hardly had a single moment. What with cars backing up halfway to Timbuctoo, and with the usual run of tourists who managed to feel lost on a road where you couldn’t get lost; and what with logging drivers mildly suicidal and longing for a beer to settle nerves, privacy became a memory. Quiet afternoons playing pool with Petey belonged to a past so remote somebody should have written books about it.
That afternoon Petey almost got something said. Now, with the lengthening shadows of evening, Bertha sat at the end of the bar watching him run a routine hustle on a logger. She had to admit Petey was not the handsomest man in the room. He was not, for example, as pretty as his dog. On the other hand, he had appeal no other man could touch. Bertha, a Scandinavian descended from Norsemen, held an appreciation for piracy… she hesitated… suddenly remembering the women from the housing project. Those women really might start something poolish.
It didn’t figure. Women like that generally competed against each other, but might gang up for revenge or profit. Or, they might let that beetle lady run a number just for the fun of seeing somebody get burned. And… what were those women doing in a beer joint in the first place? That never happened before.
Bertha knew her joint and knew her guys. Most acted like civilians until placed behind a pool cue. The majority of men at Beer and Bait were not particularly courageous, and not good at fighting, even when pumped up by adrenalin and beer. Put them behind a pool cue, though, and they wouldn’t leave two sticks nailed together when it came to dismantling bank accounts of rich guys at the development. Behind a pool cue Bertha’s boys turned into a bunch of heathen savages.
She figured the development could not handle savages. If her boys romped too freely it would eventually mean cops. Rich guys had a way of getting back. Rich guys were not a hell of a lot different than regular guys. They took themselves serious.
She did not know which part of life was the biggest mess. She looked at Petey, and, to give him credit, knew he suffered from the same problems of privacy. That afternoon, alone and studying a complicated layout on the table, he muttered, “Thinking of settling down a little. Go into business, maybe.” His voice had nearly been a whisper, and he blushed. Since there was nothing to blush about when it came to going into business, he had to be blushing about something else.
“A business can be fun.” Bertha had spoken carefully, although she couldn’t picture Petey behind a bar or a counter. Her head was telling her “Go Slow” and her heart was saying “This is it. This is the big It.”
“Because,” Petey whispered, “this bein’ on the road gets to a guy.” He hid behind his shot, banking three rails on the seven ball that sat like a purple blush two inches off the pocket. The ball fell with a little click, an itsy sigh, and a thump.
“What kind of business?” Bertha made a point of keeping her back to him. She stepped behind the bar where she picked up a fresh piece of pool chalk.
“I dunno,” Petey said, and then almost choked. “I figured maybe we could talk about it.” He sounded, to Bertha, like a man strangling.
“We can do just that,” she whispered. “I know about business stuff…”
That was as far as she got. They were so concentrated on each other they did not hear tires crunching gravel in the parking lot.
Heels clicked on the front steps and a stranger appeared. He was slick-haired, suited, vested, shoe-polished, wearing a red tie and a smile so cheery as to brand him severely retarded, or a phony. He stood taller than Petey, tried to appear languid, and could not even look relaxed. Everything about him said “failed hustler.”
Bertha figured him for an electronics guy, pinballs and videos. She wiped the counter, ready to say that she called the tunes in Beer and Bait, not some drunk with a buck for a jukebox.
“Passing through?” she asked.
“Business in the area.” He tried to sound reasonable, but still looked like someone peddling pukey-green refrigerators to Eskimos. He passed Bertha his card. Real estate.
“I have a buyer. Wants to retire. Looking for a small business in a quiet place.”
“Cemetery lots in Miami,” Bertha told him. “Big market. Lots of quiet.” She said it, but sounded mildly interested.
“…thinks a bar would do nicely. We’re talking money in front.” The real estate guy named a figure only slightly higher than reasonable.
“Whose shot?” Bertha asked Petey. To the guy she said, “I make my mortgage.” She turned to the table and looked at a reasonably easy shot. Instead, she chose to show off. She popped the cueball between the eight and nine, a really narrow space. The cueball Englished its way two rails off the corner, ran the length of the table, caromed off the ten and tapped the eleven into the pocket. “Suppose I sell the joint for a wad,” she told the guy. “I have to move someplace, buy another joint, and joints don’t come cheap. There’s no profit in it.”
“I might come up with a deal on the other end.”
“Do that.” Bertha said. “Make it a major, major deal, or give it to your retired guy.”
“You’ve got my card.” The guy sort of slithered from the barstool and disappeared into the dry and windy day. Bertha turned to Petey, and she saw Petey was lost in some kind of Hustler’s Revelation. Their magic moment was lost as Petey put together plans.
“One of the problems with business,” Bertha said to Petey, “is you got no privacy. We’ll talk.” She said it just as gravel crunched in the parking lot. Two guys from the phone company arrived, guys on their third lunch hour of the day.
Now she sat in early evening and listened to wind bang and holler against windows. She wondered why she had been dumb enough to say something dumb about business. Then she wondered if she still felt good about Petey, or if he was just habit. She did not wonder about her own shyness, because Bertha, being of the Norwegians, prided herself on being “old school.” Some things are done, some things are not. It was up to the gentleman to get matters started. Bertha knew little of the last twelve centuries of Norwegian history, but she knew a lot about Lutheran guilt.
She did not exactly trust her premonitions, but she did not distrust them. It seemed like all the bad stuff that got tossed up in the air since last spring was about to land. Cops closed in on Sugar Bear’s little problem. Annie was acting her age, which was dangerous. A forest fire would drive away tourists, and while she might joust with a real estate guy, it was true that bank balances got thin during slow seasons. And, if a pool tournament took place at the development, all hell would pop. She looked toward the open doorway while keeping an eye on Chantrell, or rather, on how Chantrell handled the cash register. Sunlight still lay behind the western ridges, so shadows crossed the road before running into a line of golden light reflected from high clouds. The tape deck played pop tunes of the ’40s and ’50s. A couple stood in the middle of the dance floor, swaying somewhat, mostly rubbing, while swirling light from a beer sign crossed their married faces; married, but not to each other.
Bertha became aware of unrest near the doorway. At her elbow Petey studied a shot and said something to a logger.
“The police radio,” Petey said to the logger, as Petey made a little run and the logger cussed, “claims another car dunked. Hambone radio.”
“That won’t do nothin’ to the baseball standings, either way,” the logger said. “This late in the season…”
“A Mariners fan,” Petey told him, “is the hopefulest damn fool in the nation. Tell me you ain’t a Mariners fan.”