The Color of Money

Chapter Nine

He lay back and tried to focus his attention on the hot water coursing across his shoulders and on the bank of ferns along the wall in front of him, but the memory of the lost match would not go away; it was in him like an infection. He could see Willy Plummer at the table making shot after shot, in control of the game, imperturbable, while he himself sat at the little table a few feet away and watched helplessly. He had never heard of Willy Plummer before. Willy Plummer was not the player that Earl Borchard or Babes Cooley were, and he dressed like a pimp. Green sharkskin pants and a gray silk shirt with brown squares on it. Narrow Italian shoes. Pale cheeks and pale hands. Plummer made the nine once on a combination that brought the bleacher crowd to its feet applauding; he made bank shots and kick-ins, sent his cue ball flying around the table to stop on a dime.

“Don’t let it tear you apart.” It was Boomer’s voice. Eddie looked up. There stood Boomer in shorts, slightly bowlegged, a Drambuie in one hand and another drink in the other. “I brought you a Manhattan,” Boomer said.

“The son of a bitch forgot how to miss.”

“It happens,” Boomer said. “The best thing for it is a drink.”

Eddie took the drink and Boomer got into the whirlpool. “The game of pool,” Boomer said, “has been the despair of my middle years. When I was twenty I thought it made me a man. I thought that beating other men at eight-ball was the meaning of life.”

Eddie sat up and took a swallow from his drink. “Maybe you were right.”

Boomer seated himself on the ledge beneath the water and stretched out his arms along the tiles at the side of the pool. “To tell the truth,” he said, “I’ve never found a philosophy to replace it.”

“I haven’t learned much since I was twenty,” Eddie said. He finished the drink and set the glass on the edge of the pool. “I’ve got to practice.”

“I’m going to the Golden Triangle,” Boomer said. “Why don’t you come along?”

“What’s the Golden Triangle?”

Boomer raised his eyebrows. “Where the action is.”

Boomer, who seemed to belong in a Mack truck, drove a dusty Porsche. It was strange to be outside again, although at night the main street of Lake Tahoe was something like a casino, with the lights, and the crowd on the sidewalks. Boomer drove them a mile or so and then abruptly pulled off onto a side street and parked. Neon on a plain brick building read THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE: BILLIARDS. They walked in.

It was a small, smoky place with eight pool tables and a short bar with beer signs behind it. At the back of the room a crowd surrounded the corner table, blocking it from view. On the one next to it, Makepiece was somberly shooting pool against someone Eddie did not recognize. Two other players from the tournament were playing bank pool on the front table. Each barstool held a man with a cue case. One of these smiled when he saw Boomer. “Hello, Boomer,” he said. “How’s the eight-ball game?”

Boomer frowned at him. “Play you for fifty,” he said.

The man unfastened his leather case and stood. One of the front tables was empty. They walked over to it. Boomer could not have much more than fifty dollars. He had better not lose the first game. Eddie followed and watched for a few minutes until Boomer sank the eight ball and racked them up for the next game. Eddie took two fifties out of his pocket and unobtrusively handed them to him. “Just in case,” he said, and went to the back of the room, where the crowd was. Two of the people watching recognized him and made way. He was able to push in far enough to see what was going on. Babes Cooley was bent over a shot; standing at the side of the table carrying his stick and watching was Earl Borchard. They were playing nine-ball. Both men were silent, intense, concentrated. Babes shot out the rest of the rack, pocketing the nine with care. Someone racked the balls. Eddie turned to the man next to him. “What’s the stake?”

“Five hundred,” the man whispered.

“For how many games?”

“Five hundred a game.”

Babes broke and made the nine. The man racked them again, Babes broke again, left himself snookered, played a delicate and perfect safety.

Eddie watched for an hour, while the lead went back and forth. He felt a growing dismay. They both played beautiful pool; both were in dead stroke. But even that wasn’t so bad. What made Eddie more and more uncomfortable was that not only did both of these men look unbeatable—these kids who seemed to own the room they were in as they seemed to own the ballroom back at the hotel—but it seemed to him that they both shot pool better than Eddie himself had ever shot it. Even at his best, when he was in his twenties and pool was nearly all he knew in life.

During the second half of the hour Borchard started pulling ahead, making the nine more frequently on the break or running the balls out, clipping them in and nudging them in, shooting fast and loose and never missing. Finally Cooley said, with uncharacteristic softness, “That’s enough for now,” and unscrewed his cue. Eddie looked at his watch. It was a little after midnight.

As Eddie approached the front table, Boomer cut the eight into the side. He looked up to see Eddie, winked, reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a roll of money. He peeled off two hundred dollars and handed Eddie the bills. “I’m recovering my health,” he said.

The other front table was empty now. Eddie told the man behind the bar to put him on time and then got his cue out and racked the balls for nine-ball. He broke them open and began running. It would take him five more matches to pull out of the losers’ bracket, and if he could do that he would still have to play either Cooley or Borchard. He shot hard, ramming the colored balls into the backs of the pockets. A couple of men came over, leaned against another empty table next to him and watched. He finished the balls, racked them, broke, ran them out. When he was racking again, he looked up to see Earl Borchard leaning against the other table, watching him. “You shoot them in pretty clean,” Borchard said in a country-boy voice as cold as ice.

Eddie took the wooden rack away from the balls and slid it under the table.

“Would you like to play nine-ball?” Borchard said politely.

Eddie looked at him. “I don’t know.”

“I understand you’re a straight-pool player. Maybe I could give you some weight.”

“How much weight?”

“I’ll play you ten to eight.”

It was like a slap in the face. Eddie had never been offered a handicap before in his life. “For how much?”

“Five thousand.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Maybe your friends’ll help.”

“What friends?”

“Tell you what,” Brochard said, smiling coldly. “Ten to seven. How can you lose?”

“I don’t have it,” Eddie said. The man’s smile made him furious.

“I have.” It was another voice. Eddie looked behind him to see Gunshot Oliver. He was better dressed than he had been in New London, and did not seem drunk. He had his billfold in one hand. “I’ll back you,” he said. “I’ve seen you play nine-ball.”

Eddie stared at him. He had thought of Gunshot as a broken-down old bum; here he was with a fat billfold, offering to put up five thousand dollars.

“If you win,” Oliver said, clearing his throat, “I’ll split with you. If you lose you don’t lose anything.”

Other people in the room had become silent, and what games were going on had stopped. Boomer was walking over to see, cue in hand.

Eddie did not want to play Borchard, but there was no way to back out. He looked at him, at his heavy mustache, his chalk-smeared white shirt, his small hands. No one was unbeatable. “Okay,” he said.

“Let’s lag for the break,” Borchard said.

Eddie won the lag and smashed them open hard, but the nine didn’t fall. He ran five balls and then had to play safe, leaving the cue ball behind the seven and against the rail. Unworried, Borchard managed to hit the six on a rail-first and still not leave a shot. It was a pisser. Eddie looked around him for a minute. A pair of men in the crowd were making a bet, handing a pile of bills to a third man in a brown overcoat. The whole goddamned poolroom was watching the game, including the people at the bar. He bent and shot, playing safe again. The cueball rolled too far by inches. It was the thinnest of cuts and ruinous if Borchard should miss, but it was a shot. Borchard chalked up serenely, bent and stroked. His stroke was as smooth as ice; the six ball rolled across the table and fell into the corner pocket; the cue ball went completely around the table, stopping dead for the seven. Borchard clipped it in. Then the eight and the nine. A man from the crowd stepped up and began racking.

Eddie went over and leaned against the empty table by Boomer. Boomer put his hand on Eddie’s arm. “Don’t let up on him.”

Borchard rifled the cue ball; the nine, kissing twice, fell in. Eddie felt his stomach go tight. Borchard needed eight games now, and he had the break. Eddie’s edge was practically gone, in the first five minutes. “He’ll miss,” Boomer said. “You have to wait.”

But Borchard didn’t miss. What he did was make four balls and then play safe, leaving Eddie the full table’s length away from the orange five ball—and the five ball an inch off the middle of the bottom rail. It could not be cut in. But the seven ball was sitting right in the corner pocket at the top of the table. Eddie took his glasses off and checked them for dust. They were all right. He looked at the seven again. All it needed was a tap. He took a deep breath, bent, and stroked at medium speed, with no English. The cue ball hit the edge of the five, cater-cornered itself out of the bottom corner and came diagonally back up the table, straight at the seven. It clipped it. The seven fell in. The cue ball kept on going, off the top rail and halfway back down the table, as the five came to rest a foot from the bottom corner pocket. Someone in the crowd whistled. A deep voice said, “That’s the ticket!” It was Boomer. Eddie, steadier now, shot the five in and then made the rest, pocketing the nine firmly in the side.

While the balls were being racked he hefted his Balabushka, trying to concentrate on the break. Abruptly he thought of something. There was a rack of house cues on the wall to his left. He walked to it, looked at the printed numbers on a few of them and found a twenty-three—the heaviest pool cue made. Coming back, he handed the Balabushka to Boomer, chalked up the club of a house cue, stepped to the head of the table and slammed into the cue ball, feeling the extra weight magnified by the speed of his stroke. The balls crashed open and the nine fell in.

On the next rack he did not get the nine; it only turned over a few times, but he made two of the others. Not looking at Borchard, he concentrated on the balls, using the Balabushka now, and smoothed them into the pockets one at a time. Dropping the nine was simple.

“Like buttering bread,” Boomer said.

“How’d you do at eight-ball?”

“Six hundred,” Boomer said. “I put it on you.” He nodded toward the man in the brown overcoat who had been making bets.

“Good bet,” Eddie said. “I can’t miss.”

For three more racks he didn’t. He felt control of the game now, felt some of the clarity he had felt in bed the night before. He did not make the nine on the break again, but he made something each time and then ran them out. It was like straight pool: a matter of position, or confidence, of knowing that the game was, at bottom, shockingly easy.

But on the fourth break, even with the smash he gave them with the twenty-three-ounce house cue, nothing fell. The three ball was headed for a side pocket but at the last moment the seven knocked it away. The nine had stopped two inches from the bottom corner.

But the score was five-two. He needed only two more games. Borchard needed eight. While Borchard started shooting, beginning with an easy one ball, Eddie went to the bar, ordered a Manhattan, and looked over his shoulder to see Borchard pocket the nine on a combination. Five-four. The son of a bitch. Borchard broke, made a ball, began running. Two pairs of balls were frozen at different ends of the table; one of them should stop him, force him at least to play safe; but neither did. He caromed his cue into one pair as he pocketed the three ball, doing it with the ease of a straight-pool player, and separated the other two on the next shot. He ran out. Five-five.

In the next rack he made the nine on his third shot, from a billiard off the three. On the next he ran them out after pocketing two on the break; and on the next he made the nine on the break. Eddie and Boomer said nothing. The score was eight-five. Borchard looked unstoppable. The crowd had become silent.

Borchard stepped up, quiet and concentrated, and broke, making the seven ball. His position on the one was fine. He drove it in, made the two and then the three. The four ball was a cinch and the position on the five another cinch. Borchard looked at the four and hesitated. Then he bent and shot. He missed. He missed the four ball, hanging it in the pocket. He raised his eyes heavenward, dropped his shoulders and said, “Son of a bitch.”

It had happened. It could happen to anyone. Eddie chalked his cue and stepped up. Borchard had left him an open table and a road map: the four, five, six, eight and nine, as easy as pie. And one more game after that. Borchard had choked or blinked or twitched or one of the things that every player sometimes did, and this was what he had left.

Eddie shot the four in, killing his cue ball for the five. He made the five, then the six and eight. His position on the nine was dead-on. He clipped it in. Eight-six.

He gripped the big cue hard and slugged with it, but the balls were sluggish and the nine barely moved. The one teetered and fell in. The two was tough—a table’s length away and the kind of backward cut Eddie hated. He looked at Borchard, who seemed expectant, and then at Boomer. Boomer winked at him, unruffled. Boomer looked certain enough. What the hell, Eddie thought, I’ll make the two ball. He looked at it again. It was a son of a bitch. For a moment he allowed himself to think of all the ways of missing it, but then, knowing it was deadly to think that way, put the thought out of his mind. He was not fifty years old for nothing. You did not have to think about missing. He would make the two ball. It would be a pleasure to make it.

He stroked easily, and shot. The cue ball rolled down the table, hit the blue two ball with just the right amount of fullness and speed. The ball rolled diagonally away from the white ball and fell into the corner. The cue ball kept going. The three ball was frozen to the head rail. The cue ball came back up the table, slowing down, and set itself in line with the three. The room was silent.

Eddie shot the three in, loosening even more, and the cue ball settled behind the four. He shot it in. Then the five. And the six, seven, eight. The nine, striped with pale yellow, sat near the spot where it had sat ever since the break. Eddie stepped up, chalked, and drilled it into the corner pocket. The sound it made, hitting bottom, was exquisite.

“Well,” Boomer said, driving them back. “Twelve hundred dollars can change a man’s philosophy beyond belief.”

“Don’t shoot craps with it,” Eddie said.

“Eight-ball. I was born to play eight-ball.”

Eddie had the twenty-five hundred in his pants pocket, and he pushed it down with his thumb. On the backseat lay the twenty-three-ounce cue stick which he had bought for ten dollars. “He had eight games. If we’d been playing even, he’d have won.”

“Don’t you get philosophical,” Boomer said. “The man lost. You beat him.”

There were six rounds to go in the losers’ bracket, and all of them were sudden-death. Eddie had three matches on Thursday and three on Friday. If he won. If he lost, that was the end of it. On Saturday night the one undefeated man would play the single player who had managed to come out of the losers’ bracket unbeaten. That would be the finals, for first and second place. Whomever the winner had beaten the day before would be third. Third place was seven thousand dollars and second was fifteen. First prize was thirty thousand, and a trophy.

He got to bed at three, slept until eight-thirty and managed a quick swim and a whirlpool before breakfast, but there was no time for a workout. At ten o’clock he beat his man handily. It was over by eleven-thirty, and Eddie, not seeing Boomer around, headed straight for the Nautilus machines and gave himself a light session, just enough for a sweat, and then immersed himself in the whirlpool. The next game was at two. He would not practice today; he needed all he had for the two upcoming matches. He had beaten Borchard, and in the one match had made almost as much money as he had put into those quilts. For a moment he thought of Betty Jo Merser’s round black face with her lips pursed, liking her. So few women could do anything. The loss of those quilts—especially of the Fiery Furnace with its three children on a shovel and its bright flames—had hurt him as much as losing a pool game could hurt. And the quilts could not be won back. They were gone forever. It was best not to think about it. He eased the back of his neck against the warm tiles and let the churning water come up to his neck and chin, relaxing his shoulders. He let his legs float out in front of him beneath the water. The music of a string quartet came across the broad pool to his right with a delicacy like that of the light coming through the ferns beside him. He closed his eyes and felt himself drifting off to near-sleep. The young men could be beaten. He had beaten Borchard. Nine-ball was only pool. He had played pool all his life.

He stayed in the whirlpool a long time and then dried off lazily and dressed. He had a sandwich for lunch, went back to the ballroom, warmed up for ten minutes on a practice table and then played and beat the man who had beaten him the day before, Willy Plummer. The score was ten-three and Eddie did not miss a shot. Plummer scored on the two breaks when Eddie made nothing, and he pulled a lucky shot out from one of Eddie’s safeties, but it was no contest. The next game was at nine that night.

Back on a practice table Boomer was playing eight-ball with one of the tournament officials. When Eddie came by, he looked up from his shot and said, “Cooley got beat. At noon.”

Eddie had not been paying attention to the pairings. “Who did it?”

Boomer cut one of the striped balls into the side pocket. “Who do you think? Earl Borchard.”

Eddie walked on to the hallway and then to the casino. To get out of the losers’ bracket, he—or somebody—would have to beat Cooley. After that was Borchard without a ten-seven handicap. For a moment, walking by the filled blackjack tables and then along a bank of slot machines, he felt weary. He felt like driving to San Francisco and taking the next flight home to Arabella. He went up to the room, which the maid had just finished making, and took a nap on clean sheets, falling asleep immediately.

That night at nine, the match was close and Eddie missed two critical shots that could have cost him the game but didn’t. The man he was playing was more tired than he, and rattled. Near the end of it, Eddie left him an easy lie on the six; he ran the six, seven, eight, and blew the nine. Somehow Eddie expected it and had not even seated himself. He just stepped up, shot the nine ball in and went on to win the match. It was ten-thirty. He left the ballroom and went directly to bed.

The game the next morning was also close; there was no one easy left in this tournament. More than half the players had gone home. Eddie was rested from a ten-hour sleep and a good breakfast; the kid he played looked as though he had been up all night and was trying to stay alive with Methedrine or cocaine. There were red lines under his eyes and the fingers of his bridge trembled when he shot. He kept combing his hair. Eddie beat him ten-six. There were two more to go—a game with somebody named Wingate at three, and then at nine, Cooley.

He went to the sushi bar at lunch and had to wait in line. When he had gotten his food and was looking around for an empty table, a man across the room waved at him. He went over. It was someone he had seen around the tournament, although he didn’t know his name. “Have a seat,” the man said. There was another man at the table and two empty chairs. Eddie sat down. He didn’t feel like talking, but there was nowhere else to sit. “My name’s Oldfield,” the man said. “This is Bergen.”

“Good to meet you both.”

Oldfield finished what he was chewing. “Heard about you for years. Never saw you play before last night.”

Eddie looked at him but said nothing.

Bergen was a small man with a mustache and an unworldly look. His voice was almost apologetic. “Mr. Oldfield lost a bit of money. He was betting on Borchard.”

“Borchard shoots a good stick,” Eddie said.

“I know, I know,” Oldfield said. “I’m backing him in this tournament. I backed him last year.”

“A lot of these kids don’t have a cent,” Bergen said.

“I suppose not,” Eddie said. “How much did you lose?”

“Twelve.”

“Twelve hundred?”

“Twelve thousand.”

Eddie shook his head. “A lot of money.”

For a moment he felt annoyed, as though Oldfield were blaming him. Oldfield stood up, and then Bergen. “See you around, Fast Eddie,” he said. “Enjoy your lunch.” The two of them left. Eddie finished his food, thinking. Other people had been betting money on the match. The man in the brown overcoat was holding a fistful of it, and there was money moving around elsewhere in the crowd. An old, old system existed called “two brothers and a stranger,” where two men would work together, one of them backing his friend’s opponent and then betting against the friend—the “brother.” If that was what Borchard and Gunshot had been doing, if they had been working together, Eddie was the stranger and his win meant nothing.

He spent an hour after lunch in the gym and the whirlpool, then went to his room and changed into a fresh shirt and jeans. In the ballroom, pushing through the crowd standing between packed bleachers, he entered the playing area and found himself for a moment face to face with Babes Cooley. Babes was wearing skintight black pants over black pumps, and a white silk shirt. His face was flushed and his eyes bright. He was standing by Table Two; Eddie would be playing Number Three.

“Good shooting last night, old-timer,” Babes said, smiling coldly. He was polishing the end of his cue stick with a white towel.

“Thanks,” Eddie said.

“Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Eddie looked at him hard. “With twenty-five hundred,” he said, “I could hire somebody to break your right arm.”

Cooley’s smile didn’t waver. “I’d beat you with my left.”

Eddie walked to Table Two and took his cue out of its case.

His opponent was a man in his thirties who looked like an Italian barber. Ross Arnetti. When the announcer introduced them to the crowd, Arnetti’s titles were impressively numerous, although they were all for second and third place. He had been runner-up in the World Open at straight pool twice, was third in the U.S. Invitational—also straight pool—and second in two regional nine-ball tournaments. The announcer called Eddie “one of the all-time greats making a fine showing at this event.”

Eddie won the lag. As he stepped up to break, he heard the crash of balls on the table next to his and glanced over to see Babes Cooley starting up. Eddie had his twenty-three-ounce battering ram with him, and he gripped it hard now and drove the rack open. The nine died near the bottom corner, and the three stopped right behind it. The five fell in. Eddie ran the one and two, sighted carefully and drilled into the combination. The nine fell.

He had been disturbed a bit by the conversation at the sushi bar, but the hatred he now felt for Babes Cooley had wiped that out. Arnetti seemed like an amiable man, a solid professional; it would be hard to hate him. Eddie accepted the diffused hatred he felt for the young man on the table next to him and kept it; it gave an edge to his stroke and a clarity to his vision. He played beautifully; by the middle of the match he could sense the inner collapse of the man he was playing. Arnetti was straight-backed in his chair, but he held his glass of water limply, trying to look uninterested when Eddie glanced his way. For a brief moment after cinching the nine, Eddie felt sorry for him—held by the balls and nowhere to turn—but he shook it off. It was no time for mercy. He made the nine on the break in the next rack. The match ended quickly. Ten-four. The applause was loud. As he was leaving, carrying both cues, applause broke out again and he heard the announcer’s voice on the PA: “Mr. Cooley’s match by ten-six.” Eddie didn’t turn back to look.

The dressing area was right inside the door to his room. As he came in he saw a gray duffel on the carpet with the zipper open. Next to it sat a portable typewriter. Then he noticed the sound of running water and saw that the shower curtain in the middle of the room was closed. He walked over and pulled it open. Arabella was sitting naked on the edge of the tub, her feet in the water, waiting for it to fill.

“This is the biggest bathtub I ever saw in my life,” she said.

“How in hell did you get here?”

She looked up at him. “Flew to Reno. Took a bus. The maid let me in. Where were you?”

“Shooting pool.”

“This water feels wonderful on my poor feet. Did you win?”

“Yes.”

“Oh boy,” Arabella said.

“I play Cooley at nine tonight.”

“Jesus,” Arabella said. “Can you beat him?”

“He beat me in New London.”

She reached out and turned the water off and then slipped herself into the tub. “That was New London,” she said. “A lot’s happened since.”

“I hate his guts,” Eddie said. “I hate him like I hate that kid lover of yours.”

She said nothing, but began soaping herself. Eddie took off his shirt and lit a cigarette. He seated himself on the padded bench and looked out the window. After a while he heard the water begin to run from the tub and then heard her drying herself off. Then she said, “The mess at the shop is cleaned up. The police never picked anybody up.”

“What about fingerprints?”

“Nothing. It was all smears or something.”

“If I win this,” Eddie said, “we could go back in business.”

“Eddie,” she said, “it doesn’t matter to me right now whether we go back into business or not. Just win it.”

He turned and looked at her. She was dressed now, in a gray skirt and black sweater. “I’m afraid of Cooley,” he said. “Scared shitless of him.”

They arrived early because Arabella wanted a good seat. She managed to get in the third row of the bleachers next to the quiet blonde who travelled with Cooley. There was only one table now, in the center of the room. Eddie went to the practice area and began shooting. His stroke felt tight; his glasses had begun to irritate the bridge of his nose; his hands were cold. He kept shooting, softening his stroke a bit; he was getting into it when the PA voice came on: “The finals of the losers’ matches will begin in three minutes. The players will be Mr. Gordon Cooley and Mr. Ed Felson.” Eddie felt himself go tight. He picked up the poolroom cue from where it was leaning against the wall, gripped it in his right hand with the Balabushka and headed between the bleachers. The table sat empty under a trapezoid of light, and the people in the stands had become quiet. Cooley was approaching from the bleachers on the other side, just now walking into the lights. It was like a boxing arena before a title fight. Eddie put his free hand into his pocket so the trembling wouldn’t show.

Cooley had a following. As he set his cue case on the table and opened it, someone in the stands shouted, “You’ll do it, Babes!” and somebody else bellowed, “Kill!” Cooley smiled, looking down at the cue he was taking from its case. Then he glanced briefly up at Eddie but said nothing.

The announcer introduced them, listing a dozen titles for Cooley, including New London and this tournament itself from the year before. Eddie was “the legendary Fast Eddie Felson.”

The referee’s white shirt-front glistened in the lights; his tuxedo looked brand-new, perfectly pressed. “The gentlemen will lag for break.” He wore white gloves and carried two white balls. He set them at the head of the table, on the line, and the two players bent and shot together. Eddie hit his ball too hard; it came back to the top rail and bounced a foot away. Cooley’s lag was perfect.

Now Cooley was all calm efficiency. He set the cue ball on the line, drew back, smashed the balls open, dropping the five and eight. Not taking his eyes from the green he chalked and began running. He had the table empty in two minutes, to applause, and the referee racked. Eddie sat in his chair, watching, trying to calm himself.

When Cooley drew back his arm for the break, a voice shouted, “On the snap, Babes!” and he plowed into them. The nine did not go, but the table opened for him. He ran it. The applause this time was louder. Two-nothing. Eddie began tapping his foot on the floor.

And on the next break Cooley made the nine. The applause was thunderous. Babes stopped in the middle of chalking up and turned to face the largest bleachers. “It had to be,” he said. Then he turned, broke the balls, and made the nine with a combination. Four-nothing. Eddie’s stomach was like ice, and his palms were wet, his lips dry. Babes flicked a glance his way and then back to the table. Eddie could hear him whisper, plainly, “By the balls.” Eddie’s heart began pounding and he gripped his cue like a weapon.

Babes broke, made one, and began to roll. But on the four his position was off and he wasn’t able to knock apart a trio of balls that had clustered near the foot spot. He studied the lie a moment and played Eddie safe on the five, sending the cue ball to the bottom rail and the five to the top of the table. Eddie stood up as calmly as he could. A cut was barely possible on the five ball, but you didn’t go for shots like that against someone like Cooley. The thing to do was return the safety. When he got to the table he studied it a moment, more to calm himself than to decide. He could make that shot. Possibly. He had made tougher ones before. Cooley would play it safe. So would Fats. At four-nothing it would be dumb to go for it.

Then he looked over at Cooley. Babes hadn’t even seated himself. He was expecting to shoot again in a moment. Eddie took a square of chalk from the edge of the table and chalked his cue. And then a rough, gravelly voice rang out from the stands, “Go for it, Eddie!” It was Boomer. Something relaxed in Eddie’s stomach. He set the chalk down, took his Balabushka at the balance, bent to the table. There was the five ball, eight feet away, its edge sharp in his vision. There were the three balls that would have to be broken apart if making the five would mean anything. He took a deep breath, stroked, and felt the solid hit of his cue tip against the white ball. The white ball sped down the table, clipped the edge of the five, ricocheted out of the corner and came back down to the head spot, knocking the three clustered balls apart. The five ball rolled to the edge of the corner pocket with chilling slowness and teetered on the edge. It fell in. Into the middle of the pocket. The crowd exploded in applause.

Eddie did not look up. He did not have an easy shot on the six, and the seven was in a bad place. Best to take another chance and bank the six, so the cue ball would go naturally to the seven. He sucked in his breath again and banked it. It went into the center of the side pocket. The cue ball stopped perfectly for the seven down the rail. He made it. The eight was gone; the nine was next. Eddie made the nine. There was applause again.

He looked up. Cooley had sat down.

From then on it was simple. Eddie’s concentration and poise were unshakable. He made the nine twice more before a bad roll on the break forced him to play safe, and the safe he played was a mortal lock. Cooley could do nothing with it. Eddie wound up with the cue ball in hand and ran out the rack. On the next, he made the nine on the break and on the next he made it with a combination off the five ball. He was forced to play safe a few times, and Cooley managed another win, but that didn’t matter. When Eddie was breaking them, now people would shout “On the snap, Fast Eddie!” He could hear Arabella’s strong, feminine British voice among them, along with Boomer’s. “On the snap!”

He had entered that time zone he had nearly forgotten, where his stroke was not only dead-on but where his mind could somehow arch itself above his game and see the great simplicity and clarity of what he was doing on this green table with its spinning balls. Time passed without moving, until the PA system voice said, “Ten games to four. Fast Eddie,” and the applause washed over him, bringing him back.

He put the Balabushka away and then took his glasses off, fifty years old again. He had beaten them. He had beaten Borchard at nine-ball and now he had beaten this brash genius kid. Cooley had already left. Arabella was coming toward him from between the bleachers and so was Boomer. Boomer got there first and was hugging him, smelling of Drambuie and saying, “Those fucking kids, Eddie. Those fucking kids,” and then Arabella was coming toward him with her face glowing. He pulled himself away from Boomer and she hugged him.

Cooley had left, but now he was coming back. As Arabella stepped away from Eddie the young man walked up to him and held out a hand. Eddie took it. “Good shooting, old-timer,” Cooley said, smiling tightly.

“Thanks,” Eddie said, hating him.

“Earl,” Cooley said, “will whip your ass.”

“The last time I played Earl I beat him.”

Cooley looked at Eddie silently for a moment, his smile unchanged. “Two brothers and a stranger,” he said.

The finals would be at two. It was Saturday morning. Arabella sat on a weight-lifting bench and watched while Eddie did his workout. Then they swam and got into the whirlpool together. It was 9:00 A.M.

In the hot water she said, “Children in England learn a lot about America in school. The Grand Canyon, for instance.”

“So do we.”

“It’s not as exotic for you. In Third Form we had a picture of Lake Tahoe in our text. I remember it well.”

“I understand it’s right outside,” Eddie said, nodding toward the far wall.

“It’s the most spectacular mountain lake in the world. Thousands of feet deep, and the water extraordinarily clear.” She was sitting next to him on the whirlpool’s underwater ledge, and now she put her hand on his arm. “There’s a house called Vikingsholm at the edge of it. I’d like to go. Maybe we could have a picnic lunch.”

He had forgotten the lake itself over the past few days. When he looked out the window of his room, it was only to see the lights from the Hotel Sahara or the sky; the small patch of blue from the lake no longer registered.

“I want to be back at one,” he said.

“Of course. Can we go?”

“How far is the house?”

“I don’t know. The whole lake is seventy miles around.”

“Maybe you can get a brochure at the desk.”

“They don’t have brochures at the desk. They don’t want you going anywhere.”

It was a twenty-mile drive along a winding road. Several times Arabella cried out at glimpses of the lake itself, through dense pines and redwoods. He pulled over in a wide place and they got out to look. The water was bluer than the sky, and the sky, here where Nevada and California joined, was intensely blue. Snow gleamed on the mountains behind the water. The trees were so green they were almost black. The surface of the lake was like glass beneath them, a hundred or so yards down. Eddie, still thinking of Borchard, lit a cigarette and watched Arabella watch the lake. The air was thin and cold; he jammed his hands into his pockets, puffed on his cigarette and waited. It was a shock to be outdoors. It was a shock that this lake was here, was this big, this perfect. Somehow he felt threatened by it; it seemed less real than the casino at Caesar’s Tahoe, less real than the blackjack tables and the slots. Lakes like this belonged on postcards, with the pines, the cloudless sky, the snow on the mountains. He finished his cigarette, ground it out on the gravel at the edge of the road, looked down toward the water—at its uncluttered cold stillness—and thought of the blue Gulf of Florida and of Minnesota Fats. Fats had died a winner. It could be done. It was a question of balls.

Arabella came back from the turnoff’s edge, her cheeks red from the cold air. “It’s every bit as lovely as the textbook claimed,” she said, and put her arm through Eddie’s for a moment. Then she looked up at his face. “Let go of it for now, Eddie. Think about it later.”

It was too early for the tourist season, and the sign at the little parking lot saying VIKINGSHOLM had a smaller sign below it: CLOSED TO VISITORS. “Let’s ignore that,” Arabella said. They climbed over the chain and headed down the trail to the lake’s edge a half mile below. It was getting warmer now and the smell of the pines was strong. Every now and then they would pass a place near a turn in the trail where water gushed down the dark granite. Spring thaw. The way the lake was made. Two chipmunks scuttled along a fallen log, through ferns. Eddie and Arabella came around a turn and, below them, surrounded by enormous trees, was a house of stone and timber with a high, gabled roof. Fifty yards in front of it Lake Tahoe began.

“Sweet Jesus!” Arabella said, “I want it.”

The water, colorless except for the glitter of pyrites in the sand, lapped the shore with exquisite gentleness. They turned toward the house. To the right of the doorway, a row of casement windows overlooked the lake. “You could have breakfast in there and just look out,” Arabella said.

Eddie said nothing.

“It was built by a woman,” Arabella said.

“A woman with a rich husband.”

She looked at him. “Two rich husbands.”

There was a simple bench under a redwood a few yards from the house. They sat there and had Swiss-on-rye sandwiches, doughnuts and coffee. She had brought two beers, but Eddie refused his, wanting to keep his head clear. He leaned against the bark of the tree and tried to relax—tried to get pool balls and the bright green of the table out of his head, the feel of the Balabushka out of his right hand, the knot out of his stomach.

“When we started together,” Arabella said, “I think I was a help to you. You were low and you didn’t trust yourself. You didn’t want to tell me what you did for a living. It turned out I liked you shooting pool, and that helped you, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“The problem with me, Eddie, is that I’m good with men but not with myself. When I left Harrison, I was terrified.” She looked over at him, holding her plastic coffee cup. “Terrified. I’d had an easy marriage and enough comfort and I stayed in it for years after I ceased to give a damn about Harrison. Then I was in love with Greg for a while and that gave me a lift. Just to be able to attract a man as young and as bright as Greg. And then there was the accident.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know if you do, Eddie. His chest was crushed. His family hated me and I wasn’t asked to the funeral. For several months, with my knees bandaged, I felt that I could not leave Harrison, no matter what.”

Eddie was lighting a cigarette. “Let me have that,” she said, and took it. “I didn’t have any bloody money. I had a C D worth three thousand dollars. There was four hundred in my checking account. It took a year to work up the courage to walk out. I’m scared to death of not having money.”

Eddie lit another cigarette. “Me too,” he said.

“I know.”

“Do you want to run the folk-art business, while I travel?”

“Are you going to travel?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “After tonight things will be clearer. Right now I’m unsure.”

“About pool?”

“I still don’t know if I can make a living at it, by playing tournaments.” He looked at her sitting by him, at her cheeks, bright red from the cold. “I’m not sure about us.”

She frowned and blinked. “I wasn’t sure either, until I bought the airplane ticket to Reno.”

“And you’re sure now?”

“I threw those newspapers away.”

He thought a long moment before he spoke. “If I had some, I’d throw them away too.”

She looked at him. “It sounds like a deal.”

Even from the doorway, with the bleachers between him and the one pool table, it was different. The lights were twice as bright as before; and when he pushed through the crowd that packed the space between bleachers, he could see the reason for the lights: television. There was a twenty-foot steel boom above the playing area, with a camera and floodlights hanging from it. Two strangers stood talking to each other by the table, oblivious of the waiting crowd. They both wore blue nylon jackets with a shoulder patch circle reading ABC. It was “Wide World of Sports.” They had never picked up the show with Fats, but here they were now. The sons of bitches. Three cameras sat on wheels around the table, each with a man in a nylon jacket by it. On the speakers’ table was a row of TV monitors.

He did not see Borchard. It was one-fifty. Arabella had asked Cooley’s girl to save her a seat, and she went to it now. Eddie walked out to the table, squinting as he came under the warm spotlights. Clearly the TV people weren’t ready, but it might be good to get used to the brightness. The men in blue jackets ignored him. The two at the table were bent over a clipboard; when Eddie came near they looked up and then back, preoccupied. He was just getting annoyed when he saw Borchard pushing through the crowd between the bleachers. People began to applaud. The TV men stopped what they were doing. One of them waved at Borchard and the two walked over to him and huddled in conversation. The applause became louder. Eddie opened his case and got out the Balabushka.

Twenty minutes passed, during which Eddie seated himself in one of the two swivel chairs set up for the players, drank a glass of water and tried to be calm. The TV people in their glossy jackets acted as though they were the stars. Their boom, their rubber-wheeled mounts with the heavy gray cameras on them, their thick rubber cables, their monitors and their clipboards had become the show. Eventually one of the jacketed men came over to him and checked the pronunciation of his last name, and then said, “It’s Fast Eddie, right?” Eddie said yes. The boom was only a few feet above the table. The young man in jeans stood by the supports at each end; they began cranking metal handles. The boom slowly rose higher, as if readying for a circus act. After it stopped a foot below the ceiling, someone at the desk worked controls and the camera moved, pointing its lens down toward the table. Borchard, who looked like a stagehand himself in his jeans and workshirt, had been talking with some women in the front row of the bleachers; he came over now and sat on the swivel chair by the little table that held water, two towels, an ashtray and pool chalk. He did not look in Eddie’s direction.

The camera on the boom began wiggling, pointing off toward the wall. Eddie looked at his watch. Two-thirty.

The PA sputtered and came on. “We apologize for the delay. The television people tell me their overhead camera must be replaced and we won’t be able to start for about an hour. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Shit,” Borchard said.

Eddie stood up. Arabella climbed down from her seat and walked over. “Let’s get a cup of coffee,” she said.

Eddie looked at her. “I need to be alone for a while.” She shrugged. “Sure. I’ll get a drink.”

There were about a dozen people in the swimming pool and more working out in the gym, but the whirlpool was empty. Eddie eased himself into it, rested his back along the edge, let his chin lie on his chest and gently closed his eyelids. It didn’t work. He still felt the knot in his stomach, the sense of powerlessness. It was the TV people, with their preoccupation and delays, their arrogant busyness. They were only technicians. They weren’t taking any risks, putting themselves on the line. The sons of bitches. His head ached with it.

He would have to be back there in forty minutes, and he did not want to go back. For a moment he lay in the whirlpool feeling frightened and old. The hot water gushed and foamed over his body. Gradually the knot in his stomach eased a little. He listened to the water surging, began to hear the music from ceiling speakers, let his body go limp, feeling himself bob to the movement of the water. For a few minutes, miraculously, he fell asleep—or so near to sleep that he would not have known where he was.

When he walked back into the ballroom, the nine balls were in the wooden rack and the referee had put the lag balls out. Borchard was standing by the table. As Eddie took out his cue and put it together, the announcer introduced them to the crowd. Eddie barely listened to the words. His hands with the cue were steady.

His lag was perfect and his break overwhelming. The nine came off the bottom rail and rolled the length of the table. Although it did not go in, two other balls did. As he studied the layout a cameraman wheeled closer, while another kneeled a few feet away, pointing a camera up at Eddie’s face. Eddie ignored them. He ran the balls and pocketed the nine. The crowd was huge and its applause loud. Eddie lit a cigarette, watching the referee rack. Borchard was seated, looking at nothing in particular. Arabella sat in the stands, her face intent on the table; up above her, in the back row of the bleachers, sat Boomer. Eddie put his cigarette in the ashtray, picked up the twenty-three-ounce cue, and broke. The nine fell in the corner pocket. He went back to his cigarette while the referee racked. If you hit the balls right, they fell into the pockets. He broke and ran the rack, sending the cue ball around the table when necessary the way the younger men had done, not worrying about the speed of it or the possibility of a scratch. It stopped each time exactly where he wanted it to stop. Three-nothing.

But on the fourth break, though his power was there and the balls rolled energetically, nothing fell into a pocket. Nothing. Even worse, the cue ball stopped where the one ball was easy. Eddie stared at the table for a moment. There was nothing to do about it. He walked over to the chair and seated himself. Borchard got up.

The thing about pool was that no matter how up you were for it, no matter how ready your soul—as Eddie’s soul was ready—and no matter how dead your stroke, if the other man was shooting it made no difference. His arm ached to be making the balls himself but he had to sit, had to watch another man play pool.

And the other man’s game was inspired. Borchard—that delicate, quiet Eastern country boy with his heavy, drooping mustache and his crepe-soled shoes—seemed to have the balls on a string. He didn’t look at the crowd or the referee or at Eddie, but bent his entire attention on the nine balls and eased them one after another into the pockets with his cue ball always stopping exactly where it should stop. He chalked after every shot and his small eyes never left the table. The cameramen danced their slow dance in and out and around him and the table; the audience applauded louder and louder after each sinking of the nine ball; and Borchard’s expression and concentration did not change. He made the nine six times before a bad roll on the break made him play safe. The score was six-three. Borchard needed only four games. Eddie needed seven. Eddie stood up.

The position was terrible. The cue ball was snookered behind the seven. He would be lucky to get a hit on the one ball, let alone a safety. He looked at this, and for a moment felt like walking out of the room. Borchard stood a few feet from the table with a cold, inward smile on his youthful face, waiting for him to miss. It was a nightmare position and there was nothing he could do about it but poke at the cue ball and pray.

Eddie gritted his teeth, tightened the joint of his cue and looked at the shot. The lights on the overhead boom went out.

Someone in the crowd applauded and a few laughed. Eddie stood and waited. He looked at the speakers’ table; the tournament director sat there with a frown, talking on a telephone. After a minute he hung up and picked up the microphone and his voice came on the loudspeaker. “They say we’ve blown a fuse,” it said. “There’ll be a ten-minute recess.”

Several people in the crowd began to boo.

“We apologize for the delay,” the director’s voice said.

Borchard was making his way roughly through the standees. Men in the crowd were saying things to him, but Borchard did not look at any of them; his mouth was set in a hard line and he pushed through the mass of people with a kind of heedless urgency, as though late for an important meeting.

Eddie left his cue on the table and walked to the players’ restroom behind the bleachers. No one else was there; he stood alone in front of the wide, brightly lit mirror. His eyes were dull and his hair limp. He looked down at his hands: greenish pool-cloth dirt outlined the fingernails; a ground-in smear darkened the heel of his left hand. He turned a faucet on and watched the sink fill with hot water while he peeled the wrapper from a cake of soap. He turned off the faucet and began to work up a lather over the palms and backs of his hands, over his wrists. He began to rub hard, lathering each finger separately, abrading the dark stain on his left hand with the fingers of his right. He filled the basin, rinsed, washed again and rinsed again. He took the soap and worked it into his face, lathering around his nose and eyes, then did the back of his neck and under his chin. It was a relief. He let the water out, refilled the bowl, ducked down and began rinsing.

While he was drying with paper towels, the door opened and Earl Borchard came in. Borchard did not even look at him. He walked to the urinal against the wall on the other side of Eddie and stood there using it loudly, blankly facing the tiled wall a few inches from his nose. Eddie began combing his hair.

At the sound of flushing, he turned to see Borchard head into one of the marble stalls, slamming the door behind him. Eddie finished combing his hair.

He was putting the comb back in his pocket when Borchard came out of the stall, still not looking at him. He walked to the mirror, stopped next to Eddie, looked at himself, took out a comb. In the bright fluorescent lights, pink blotches were visible on his face.

Borchard was only a vain, edgy kid. Without his pool cue that was all he was. Eddie turned toward him and said, “Sometimes it’s a bitch.”

Borchard turned sharply. “I’m not your friend,” he said, barely moving his lips.

He looked away from Eddie and took a paper cup from the wall dispenser, half filled it with water, abruptly turned to Eddie again. “I’m going to beat your ass.” He looked down at the water in his hand and smiled, then turned back to stare unblinkingly into Eddie’s face. “This is going to beat you.” He parted his lips. On his tongue sat a wet drug capsule, green and black.

Eddie’s response was like a reflex. His open hand came up immediately, slapping Borchard full on the cheek, the way a parent slaps a smart-assed child. Borchard dropped the water.

The pill hit the floor, spun, and stopped a few feet away. Borchard stood transfixed, caught stupidly in his act. Eddie walked to the pill and crushed it with his heel. His back was to Borchard, but he felt no alarm. The kid would not hit him. He walked to the door.

“I’ve got more,” Borchard said as Eddie pushed the door open.

“Take a dozen,” Eddie said.

“Play will resume as soon as the players return,” said the voice on the PA. Eddie walked through the crowd and up to the tournament table where the lights now flooded the green again. The referee was standing with his hands behind his back, in position. Eddie stepped up to the table, elevated the butt of his cue stick and gently tapped the cue ball into the rail. It bounced out, rolled softly, clicked into the edge of the one and stopped. The one rolled a few feet and came to a stop exactly where Eddie wanted it to, leaving Borchard no shot at all.

It was a moment before Borchard walked up and the referee told him it was his shot. He came over to the table and frowned at the position for a moment. He did not look at Eddie. He grimaced, shook his head, and played the ball safe. Eddie returned it, leaving the cue ball far from the one.

Someone in the crowd shouted, “Go for it, Earl!” Borchard stepped up to it, bent and concentrated. He shook his head and then let go with his cue stick, shooting hard. The cue ball sped down the table, clipped the one ball but rolled too fast. It raced back up and split apart a pair of balls before stopping in a place where Eddie could make the one. It was difficult, but it could be made.

Borchard turned quickly, walked over to the little table and sat down.

Eddie, suddenly feeling young, leveled his Balabushka and, without hesitation, sliced the one in. Then the two and three. He could not miss. He bent to the four ball, cut it thin as a whisper and made it. He shot the five, six, seven, eight and then the nine, hardly hearing the applause as the nine ball fell. He leaned his Balabushka against the chair and took the heavy factory cue. The referee racked the balls. On the break Eddie made two and ran the rest. The referee racked and Eddie broke again. He shot them in one after the other. He seemed to float from ball to ball, and his vision of them beneath the white lights of television was as sharp as the edge of a steel blade. The balls rolled the way they should and fell into pockets the way they should. There was nothing to it.

As he stood ready to break, voices shouted, “On the snap, Fast Eddie,” and “Nine ball, Eddie, nine ball!” and he thundered the cue ball into them knowing the nine would go. It did. The referee racked again while the applause continued. Again he made the nine on the break and the crowd, distant from his mind but enveloping a part of his spirit, exploded in applause. He broke again, made two balls, ran the rack. Again, with the nine on a combination. No one could touch him; nothing could make him miss these balls—these bright, simple balls. He broke again, watched the cue ball settle behind the one; made the one, the two, the three, on up to the nine, slipping the nine ball itself down the rail into the corner pocket. And then, shocked, he heard the deep voice on the PA speaker saying, “Mr. Felson wins match and tournament,” the voice almost buried by applause. He blinked and looked around. The people in the bleachers were applauding, some of them whistling, some shouting. They began to stand, still applauding.

Eddie dove into the deep water, going straight down until, by reaching out a hand, he could feel the rough concrete of the bottom at twelve feet. He let himself rise slowly to the surface and bob. He shook his head, opened his eyes, saw Arabella sitting at the edge of the pool looking toward him. He flipped his body around in the other direction, and with long, slow strokes swam across the pool and into the stone-lined grotto at the far end of it. Stopping there, he could smell the wet stones. The water was shallow and warmer. There was soft, flickering light from a lamp underwater. He could not see Arabella now.

Thirty thousand dollars. He had beat them. First Cooley and then Borchard. There was a stone ledge near the water. He pulled himself out gently and sat there with his feet and calves in the warm water, his wet thighs solid against the rough stone, his body dripping. Fifty years old. He had beaten the kids. He let himself relax now, uncoiling the last bit of the knot that had filled his stomach throughout this day, and let the pleasure of it touch his whole body like a warm garment. There were goose bumps on his upper arms. He stretched and yawned, a winner. He had never felt better in his life.

“I’d like to drive all the way around the lake before we go back,” Arabella said after he swam over to her.

“First thing in the morning.” He eased himself out of the pool and sat beside her.

After a while the music on the PA stopped and a woman’s soft voice said, “The pool area will be closed in five minutes.” Eddie looked behind him at the clock over the doorway to the gym; it was five minutes to one. He was beginning to feel tired.

Arabella stood and began drying herself with a towel. “This place is like a church,” she said, looking around her at the huge concrete circumference of the pool and up at the broad, black skylight.

“I like it.” Eddie lazily took his feet out of the water and held his hand out for the towel. “Let’s get dressed.”

They came around a corner and there was the casino, its lights garish and somehow comforting. Three crap games were going strong; all the blackjack tables were in play; a crowd milled about in the vast area of the slot machines. It was, after all, Saturday night. “Do you want to try your luck?” Eddie said.

She folded her arms and hugged herself nervously. “I don’t know. I’m still in a daze.”

“Then let’s go to bed.”

She looked at him, smiling faintly, still hugging herself. They were standing at the top of a wide and shallow stairway that led down to the still-empty baccarat tables. “You really did win, didn’t you? You really did.”

They walked through the casino, where people and money circulated freely and at ease. Arabella put her arm through his. Tired as he was, his step was light. As they passed the last of the crap tables, a very old man was shaking the dice fervidly; now, with a broad, sweeping movement he threw them powerfully from the side of his hand out onto the long green. Eddie and Arabella stopped to watch them bounce and glitter under the bright lights. The number that came up was eleven. “Natural!” cried the old man joyfully, leaning forward to pull in a pile of bills.