“Oh—three cushion?”
That sounded better. In three cushion there were some things that Eddie knew. And, in any event, it was not a runaway game; he could not get beaten without knowing what was happening to him. Unless Findlay was very damn good.
He looked at Bert. Bert was shaking his head “No.”
Eddie grinned at him slightly and shrugged his shoulders.
Then he looked at Findlay and said, “And what do you figure is a good price for a game of three-cushion billiards? Say, twenty-five points?”
Findlay smiled, running his hand gently through his hair, which was thin. “A hundred dollars?”
Eddie looked at Bert. “How does that sound?”
Bert’s face was tight. “Not very good. I don’t think you ought to play.”
“Why not?”
“What kind of billiard player are you? You probably never shot a game in your life.”
“Oh, now,” Findlay said, “I’m sure Mr. Felson knows what he’s doing, Bert. And certainly you can afford a hundred dollars to find out?”
“Sure he can,” Eddie said. He began setting the white balls up for the lag and placing the red ball on the spot at the other end of the table. When he was through he looked over at Bert.
Bert’s face showed nothing. Eddie chalked his cue tip.
“Well,” he said to Findlay, “let’s play.”
They lagged for the break and Eddie lost, by a large margin. The balls seemed big and heavy, and he realized that they were made of ivory—bigger than the composition balls he was used to, and trickier to handle. They might be a problem at first; it would take a while to get used to them.
And the table—the table was too big. He had heard, somewhere, that they had used tables as long as sixteen feet, back when the game first was invented, in Europe. This one was a five by ten, but looking down it, it seemed to be at least sixteen feet. And the rails were strange, tight; and the cloth seemed different, a finer weave. He did not like it. When he shot into the white ball it felt big and heavy and seemed to resist the pushing of his cue, as though the bottom of the ball were sticking to the cloth.
Having won the lag, Findlay took the opening shot. His thin mouth frowning in elegant concentration, he stood, hands on hips, and sighted at the ball very carefully before he bent down to shoot. He made his bridge elaborately, letting the little finger on his left hand flutter several times before settling it down on the green. His preparatory strokes seemed to attempt gracefulness, but were merely wild swoopings for he held his cue too high at the butt and too far back, and the movement of his arm was irregular, jerky. But when he finally shot the cue ball, it hit the red ball, banked off the three proper rails, and hit the other white ball neatly. One point.
“Well,” he said, smiling at Eddie, “that always feels pleasant, doesn’t it?”
Eddie did not answer.
And Findlay made the next one, an easy three-rail air shot—the kind where the cue ball is sent for the three required bounces off the cushions before hitting the other two balls. He shot the same way, with the fluttering little finger, the swooping stroke, the phony frown of concentration. It was disgusting to watch his mannerisms. But he made two billiards.
When Eddie shot, he tried to play calmly, dispassionately, and he succeeded in making a good, smooth stroke and giving the cue ball a clean hit and roll. But he missed.
Findlay made another on his next turn, and then played him safe, by leaving Eddie’s white ball at one end of the table and the other two balls at the other end. This, immediately, was a new problem; Eddie did not know exactly how to play safe from that position, and, irritated, he shot a wild shot which missed by several feet. The cue ball came thunking out of one of the corners and dropped dead in position for a simple three-rail cross shot for Findlay.
They continued playing and after a while Eddie began to make an occasional billiard. But he could not seem to get hold of the balls properly, could not get the feel of the table and of the game; and Findlay beat him. Twenty-five to eleven. When the game was over Bert handed Findlay a hundred-dollar bill, wordlessly.
“Thank you, Bert,” he said, and then smiled at Eddie, the same supercilious, irritating smile. “Play another?”
He tried to concentrate on the simple shots during the next game, avoiding the tricky English—the kinds of spin that added extra variables to the way the ball would roll and bounce—and trying to cinch whatever shots he found. He lost, but he scored fifteen before Findlay beat him. He was not saying anything, was trying to keep himself from becoming angry with the silly, foppish way that Findlay played, trying to concentrate on winning—just winning. And every shot he played he could feel Bert’s eyes, spectacled and quietly disapproving, watching him, his stroke, and the way that the balls rolled. But he did not look at Bert any more; he watched what he was doing.
And in the fourth game he finally began to get the sense of the balls and the table—the old, fine sense that always came to him, sooner or later, and let him know that it was going to be time for him to start to win. He began to loosen up, to put a little more wrist action into his stroke—although it hurt his wrist to do this—and he won the game, by a close score.
He won the next one, and then Findlay stepped behind the mahogany bar and fixed them drinks, strong drinks, and Eddie began to feel better, looser. It was time to bear down now, time to begin thinking of profits. And the game of billiards seemed to open up for him; the balls began to respond to his touch; and he began to enjoy the game, watching the balls fly around the table, enjoying the pretty little click at the end of each successful shot.
He won four out of the next six games and they were even again. He looked at his watch. A quarter to ten. The evening was just beginning; and, at last, he was feeling good, back in his element again. Now Findlay’s exaggerated style of playing seemed only amusing, an opportunity for easy contempt.
After Eddie had won the game that put them even in money, Findlay went behind the bar to mix the drinks, and Eddie walked over to Bert and said, quietly, “When do I raise the bet?”
Bert considered this for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said.
Findlay was clicking ice behind the bar.
“I think I’ve got him,” Eddie said.
“You’re not supposed to be thinking.”
“All right, boss.” He grinned at Bert, amused. “I know I’ve got him, then. I’ll beat him from here.”
Bert looked at him carefully. “I’ll let you know,” he said.
But after the next game, which Eddie won, it was Findlay, surprisingly, who brought it up. He held his lighter out for Eddie’s cigarette, and then, after clicking it dramatically shut, said, “Like to raise the stakes, Mr. Felson?”
Eddie looked at him for a moment, and then turned to Bert, “Okay?”
Bert’s voice was noncommittal. “Do you think you’ll beat him?”
“Of course,” Findlay said, smiling. “Of course he thinks he can beat me, Bert. He wouldn’t be playing me if he didn’t. Right, Felson?”
“It figures,” Eddie said, smiling back at him.
“I didn’t ask him can he beat you,” Bert said. “I already know he can beat you. What I asked him was will he. With Eddie that’s two different things.”
Eddie looked at Bert for a moment, silently. Then he said, his voice level, “I’ll beat him.”
Bert pursed his lips, unimpressed. “We’ll see.” And then, to Findlay, “How much?”
“Oh…” Findlay scratched his chin, delicately. “What about five hundred?”