The Hustler (8 page)

Putting the plan into effect required first that he go to his room, clean himself up and change his clothes. He did this, and also straightened the room a little, smoothing out the half-made bed and filing some miscellaneous things away in a drawer of the bureau. He liked a room to be neat, in order. Then, leaving the fifth, he went out, bought a pint of Scotch, and slipped this into the breast pocket of his sport coat. There was a mirror in the liquor store and he examined himself in it. He looked good—neat and quietly dressed. Unlike a good many gamblers, Eddie liked dark colors, and he was wearing a dark gray coat, gray slacks, and plain black shoes. The only thing about him that could have said “Hustler” was the gray silk sport shirt, buttoned at the neck. He did not like the idea of carrying a bottle in his pocket—incredibly, he had never carried a bottle into a poolroom in his life—and he adjusted its weight so that it could not be noticed.

Outside it was becoming chilly. He walked briskly, with his hands in his pockets, until he came to the bus station. It was three o’clock. The lunchroom was roped off as before; there were two empty booths this time. The girl was not there. He sat down, ordered scrambled eggs and coffee. Immediately he began to feel foolish. What were the odds against the girl’s coming in? It was too long a long shot. Maybe he should go by her place; he knew where it was. But what would he do when he got there? He didn’t even know what apartment she lived in; and he didn’t think she would take it very well even if he did know which door to knock on. But waiting in the bus station on the off-odds chance that she might come in was a stupid gamble.

But he didn’t leave. He ate his eggs, and when he finished ordered another cup of coffee. He began smoking a cigarette.

At four-thirty he looked up and saw her coming in the door. She was wearing a heavy knit blue cardigan, with a big collar that came up to her ears. Her hands were jammed into her pockets; she looked sleepy. But one thing he noticed well; she was wearing more lipstick, and her hair was carefully combed. Somehow he felt nervous; she looked good.

For a moment he felt a tinge of panic. She would sit somewhere else and he would be left feeling like a fool. But she didn’t. She came, limping over toward him, sat down, and said, “Hi.”

“Hello,” he said, and then grinned. The grin, this time, was not part of the hustle. He felt it. “Waiting for a bus?”

“That’s right,” she said, settling down into the seat, her hands still in her pockets as if she were badly chilled. “Leaves at six o’clock.”

“Couldn’t sleep?” he said.

“God no.” She was becoming more expansive. “Did you ever wake up in an empty apartment at 4
A.M.
and hear a Greyhound bus shifting gears outside your windows? Were you ever so wide awake that you thought you could never sleep again? Until you got out of bed, and felt like you were going to pass out?”

He grinned at her. “No.”

She shrugged her shoulders. Then she said, “My name—you may not believe this—is Sarah.”

“Eddie. What do you do for a living, Sarah?”

She laughed lightly. “By trade, I drink. Also a student, at the university. Economics. Six hours a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

That did not seem right. “College student” to him meant convertibles and girls with glasses. Nor did he think of college people sitting alone at night in places like this one. They were supposed to come in groups, singing, drinking beer—things like that.

“Why economics?” he said.

She smiled. “Who knows? To get a Master’s degree maybe.”

He wasn’t sure what a Master’s degree was; but it sounded impressive enough. The girl was obviously an egghead type, which was fine. He liked brains, and he admired people who read books. He had read a few himself. “You don’t look like a college girl,” he said.

“Thanks. College girls at the university never do. We’re all emancipated types. Real emancipated.”

“I don’t mean that—whatever it means—I mean you don’t look young enough.”

“I’m not. I’m twenty-six. I had polio once, and missed five years of grade school.”

Immediately he had an image of her as a little waxy girl on a poster, the kind of cardboard gimmick that sits by a collection jar on the counter of a poolroom, next to the razor blades.

“You mean braces and crutches and wheel chairs; all that?” His voice was not being particularly sympathetic; merely interested. Seeing her that way was like a look into a strange world he had heard of but never seen, had hardly felt existed save on the posters in drugstores and poolrooms. And once he had seen a movie trailer, where they had turned on the lights and tried to hustle him for his pocket change. He remembered wondering if the sick little kids in the movie knew they were being put on the make when the man had come around to take their pictures.

“Yes,” she said, “all that. And books.”

She was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “Look, let’s have another cup of coffee. It’s still an hour until six.”

There it was, his opening. He suddenly felt nervous again, and cursed himself silently for feeling that way. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said.

She looked at him quizzically. Then she said, “I think I know what that means. Only I’m not going.”

He tried to grin. “I didn’t expect you to. I’m meeting you halfway. I’ve got a pint of Scotch in my pocket.”

Her voice immediately became cold. “And you want me just to step out in the alley, is that it?”

“No,” he said. “Hell, no. You know better than that. Right here.”

She looked at him a moment, then shrugged her shoulders noncommittally. “Can this be done?” she said. “Legally?”

“I thought you were an old hand.” He slipped the bottle out of his pocket, under his coat, down to the seat beside him. “This is done all the time.” He grinned, “By the pros.” He began cutting at the top with his thumbnail.

With the bottle open beside him and hidden by his coat, he told the waitress to bring them Cokes. Sarah made a wry face and, when the waitress was gone, said, “Scotch and Coca-Cola?”

“Just wait,” he said. “We can beat that rap too.”

When the Cokes came, in glasses, he told her to drink hers. “I detest Coca-Cola,” she said.

“Drink it,” he said. They drank them. Then he took her glass, empty except for the crushed ice, and asked her if she could drink it straight.

“If I have to,” she said.

He filled her glass almost full with Scotch, then poured a little water in it from her water glass. “Here,” he said, sliding it across the table to her. Then he began filling his own.

He had done this kind of thing before, with a gang from the poolroom; but it had always seemed a cheap thing to do—like the guffawing types who turn up half pints in the back seats of cars and then go out and pinch girls on the ass. But here, with Sarah, it did not seem that way.

At the first sip she grinned at him. “You’re a great man, Eddie,” she said. “You know how to beat the system.”

They were working on their third one and the bottle was two-thirds empty when, abruptly, the waitress descended on them.

Her voice was high and cracked; she looked and sounded as if they had delivered her a gross personal insult. “You can’t do that in
here
, mister.” As if she were the whole Greyhound Lines herself. “This isn’t that kind of place.”

He looked up at her, trying to make his face serious and innocent. “How’s that?”

“I said you can’t sit in here and drink whiskey like you’re doing.” She peered at him nervously now. “I never saw the like.”

“Okay,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

The woman’s voice assumed a kind of wounded ferocity. “You’re gonna have to leave, mister. The both of you.” It struck him that she had a hillbilly twang. This was amusing. “Or I’m gonna have to call a policeman in.”

He got up, finishing his drink. “Sure,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

They went outside and stood on the sidewalk in the weak light and the cold air. The bottle was back in his pocket and he felt mildly drunk and sleepy. “Well,” he said, “what next?”

She was huddled up in her sweater, standing close to him. The wind that was blowing was not summery, but cold. “What time is it?” Her voice was soft.

It was five-thirty, but he lied. “Five o’clock.” His mind worked fast. There were several ways he could play this; he was not certain which would be the best. Maybe a long shot…

Gently, he slipped the bottle into her pocket. His hand brushed against hers, and he felt the brush of it all of the way to his stomach. “Look,” he said, “you better take this and go home to bed. You’ll catch cold out here.”

She looked up at him. Her eyes were wide. Then she looked away. “Thanks,” she said, her voice very soft. She turned and began walking down the street, away from him. He watched her, watching the slight limp and the way her head was almost hidden by the big collar of her sweater. Her hands were still in her pockets, one now protectively over the bottle. Then, suddenly, she turned and began limping back, slowly. For a moment he felt as if he could not breathe.

When she came up she stood in front of him, solid and small, and looked up at him steadily. Her feet were planted slightly apart. Her eyes were very earnest and they looked his face over carefully. Then she said, “You just won, Eddie. Come on.”

9

Her apartment was on the fourth floor; they had to walk up the stairs. They climbed them silently, and he said nothing when they went in, but seated himself on the sofa. She began taking off her sweater, and said, “I’ll get a couple of glasses.” She went into the kitchen. The blouse she was wearing was white, silky, and it clung loosely to her back.

The apartment was shabby, but there were some nice touches to it, and he noticed these. All the hotel rooms he had lived in during his ten years of hustling pool had made him more, rather than less, interested in the way a room was furnished. In front of him was a long low coffee table, its top of white marble, its legs of elaborate, filigreed brass. The walls were of gray, cracked plaster, but on one of them, over a painted brick fireplace with broken bricks, hung a huge picture in a white frame. The picture was of a sad-looking clown in a bright orange suit, holding a staff. Eddie looked at this carefully, not understanding what it meant, but liking it. The clown looked mean as a snake.

There was one big window, with white curtains edged with gold; and a cheap, painted bookcase in the same colors. Books were everywhere, in bright jackets—on the coffee table, in the seat of an armchair, stacked on what must have been a dining table. Around the edges of the rug the floor was painted with the ugly brown paint that people paint floors with. It reminded him of his mother’s home in Oakland; linoleum and painted wood, and the refrigerator on the back porch.

Apparently, the place had three rooms. The big living room, the tiny kitchen in which Sarah was now fumbling with the ice cubes, and what was obviously a bedroom, its door half open, leading into the room he was in.

When she handed him his drink she looked at him and said, “Eddie, don’t make a pass.”

He did not answer but took the drink and began sipping it. Suddenly, he cursed himself silently; he had forgotten about the fifth at his hotel room. He would need it; the pint would soon be gone.

She was sitting now, watching him with a blank look, holding her knee, abstractedly rubbing the edge of the glass against the side of her neck. The light in the room seemed gray and her arms were white. There was a delicate and fine line of a blue vein in her wrist, branching gently on the white skin of her inner forearm. The skin at the side of her knees was white, too, smooth as if stretched taut, as if it would be resilient to the touch. Above her knee, below the edge of her skirt, was a fine line of white lace.

Well, here we go
, he thought,
fast and loose
. He got up slowly, setting his drink down.

“Don’t, Eddie,” she said. “Not now.”

The chair she was sitting in had broad arms. He sat on one of these, letting his arm fall across the back of the chair. He set his free hand on her shoulder, lightly. She turned her head down and away from him. “Eddie,” she said, “I didn’t mean this when I asked you to come up.”

“Sure,” he said, “I didn’t either.” Then he put the palm of his free hand against the side of her face, and bent down and kissed her on the mouth. Her cheek was warm against his hand and her hair brushed against his forehead, smelling of whiskey. Her lips were hard. She did not kiss him back. He pulled away from her awkwardly, immediately angry. Then he got up and stood for a moment, facing the kitchen, and finished his drink. He set the glass down, and turned to look at her. She was staring at her whiskey glass. He could not tell what her expression meant.

There was only one way to play it from here—and that was a long shot. He did not look at her again but walked out the door, hesitated, and began going down the stairs.

And then when he had come to the landing he heard her voice, calling softly, “Eddie,” and he turned and walked slowly back up the steps. She met him inside the door, standing, her mouth slightly open, her hands at her sides. Her voice was soft, nervous. “You win again, Eddie.”

He pushed the door shut behind him. Then he reached out and put one hand behind her back, pressing gently against her silk blouse, his fingertips quivering slightly against invisible, taut straps. He cupped the other hand over her breast. Then he bent forward slowly, mouth open, into her warm, quick, shallow breath. Her mouth against his was like an electric current. It had been a long time….

10

Her voice awakened him, saying, “We have no eggs.” He looked around, dazed. Red neon came in the window, dully. The sky was black, tinged with the lights. He could smell coffee. He rolled over; Sarah was gone from the bed. And then in a moment he saw her come padding, limping in from the kitchen, wearing a white flannel bathrobe and furry slippers, her eyes swollen from sleep. She stopped in the doorway a moment, then came and sat beside him on the bed. “We have no eggs,” she said. “Do you have money?”

He reached out a hand and laid it on her arm. “Get in bed,” he said.