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.
He would think about Bert. Bert was an interesting man. Bert had said something about the way a gambler wants to lose. That did not make sense. Anyway, he did not want to think about it. It was dark now, but the air was still hot. He realized that he was sweating, forced himself to slow down the walking. Some children were playing a game with a ball, in the street, hitting it against the side of a building. He wanted to see Sarah.