by Raisor, Gary
"You'll get your money back tonight," Bobby said, "and a lot more to go with it. I hear old Jesse's got himself a pretty good bankroll these days."
"That's a fact," Jake said. "He won most of it right here." Jake looked at Bobby and there was something vindictive about the smile that touched his mouth. "Maybe I'm backing the wrong boy. Maybe I ought to be backing Jesse."
Bobby turned his back to Jake and watched the band for a moment while he took a long drink from his beer. "No, you're backing the right boy. You know why?"
"Tell me."
"Jesse's got a bad temper, worse than mine. I give him a nudge at the right time and he'll blow the money shot." Bobby turned and sat the empty beer bottle down on the bar. "Tell me something, Jake, what's Jesse doing with that bankroll of his? He sure ain't spending none of it. He's still driving that crappy old pickup."
"I hear he's saving up so's he can leave our fine burg."
"No shit." A flicker passed behind Bobby's eyes like a fast-moving cloud, leaving behind something unidentifiable. "Well, you sure can't blame a man for wanting that." He stared into the distance, lost in thought.
"Me, I like it here fine," Jake said. "Crowder Flats has been good to me."
"I guess I'll be here forever, too," Bobby said, "or until my old man finally pickles his liver and I can sell the Broken R."
Bobby turned his attention to Jake, who was watching him intently. "If you're thinking you can use that little piece of information, forget about it. Chester already knows. Sometimes I think the only thing that keeps the old bastard going is knowing I'll sell the place before he gets cold."
Jake said nothing, wondering if maybe he had misjudged Bobby.
Bobby prodded the bartender with a laugh. "What do you think about that, Jake?"
"I think I'm glad I never had any kids."
The boy was a lot tougher than Jake had first thought and that would make him hard to control. Just when you thought you had everything figured, something like this had to happen. Jake almost felt sorry for himself.
Jake looked over Bobby's shoulder as the front door opened and the smoke in the bar swirled. His toothpick flickered once and then was still, like the twitch of a dying fly. "Well, up and at 'em, Bobby boy. Looks like Jesse finally showed."
Turning slowly, propping his elbows on the bar, Bobby watched Jesse Black Eagle cross the room. The two sized each other up, their friendly expressions disguising whatever they really felt.
Jake watched them with a slightly bemused expression; he could never tell if they really disliked each other or not. They had been friends since grade school. Of course that was before Amy Warrick had come into the picture. Jake was glad he wasn't young anymore. Goddamned hormones screwed up a man's thinking.
"Looks like you brought your whole entourage along with you tonight," Bobby said with a lazy grin, nodding to Manny, Ernesto, and Jesus. "These your bodyguards, Jesse, or you thinking about starting up one of them Mexican marimba bands?"
Jesus looked confused until Manny leaned in and translated, then he started toward Bobby. Manny grabbed him by the arm, pulled him back.
In spite of himself, Jesse laughed. "A Mexican marimba band. That's pretty funny, Bobby. You know how we minorities have to travel in packs. It's the only way we can protect ourselves from all the love-starved white women who want to get laid."
Someone back in the crowd gave an anonymous cheer.
The hands from the Broken R drifted over and stood next to Bobby. Both groups of men watched each other warily. The crowd on the dance floor became still, watching to see what was going to happen next. The band quit playing and silence descended over the large room.
Bobby uncoiled slowly from the bar, the lazy grin still on his face. "As much as me and the boys would like to kick the shit out of you and your wetback buddies, Jesse, that ain't the reason I came here." Reaching down, Bobby picked up his cue-stick case. "I thought we might have us a friendly little game."
"We'll have a game, but I doubt it'll be friendly." Jesse laid his case on the bar, opened it, and took out his cue stick. He screwed the two halves together. "You ready?"
"I'm looking forward to it." Bobby eased off his stool and headed toward the back room. The crowd began drifting along, eager for some entertainment.
Jesse peeled the cover off a giant Steepleton and began rolling a cue ball up and down its length, observing the path of the ball. It rolled true. "This one suit you okay or did you have another table in mind?"
"If you like it, Jesse, then it suits me to a T," Bobby said. "We need somebody to rack the balls, just to keep things on the up and up. Somebody neither of us knows."
Bobby and Jesse quickly scanned the crowd, looking for an unfamiliar face. There were a few because tourists had started coming in for Crowder Flat's only claim to fame, Frontier Days.
"How about you, Pops?" Bobby motioned to an old man in a ratty-looking leather jacket. "You look like you got an honest face. You want to make a few bucks tonight racking some balls for me and Jesse?"
The old man stepped out of the crowd. "Thanks, son, I don't mind if I do. I could sure use the money."
"You do know how to rack balls, don't you?" Jesse asked. "Good and tight?"
The old man smiled, showing toothless gums, and Jesse was suddenly reminded of Amos. "I've racked a few sets in my day," the toothless man assured him. "Been doing it a lot lately, gettin' real good." He winked at somebody in the back of the crowd.
"Where you from, Pops?" Bobby asked.
"Texas."
Bobby smiled. "That's your red Caddy out there in the lot, ain't it?"
"She's a beauty, ain't she," Pops said with a proud smile. "I got her for a steal."
"Yes sir, she sure is," Bobby agreed. "Me and the boys was admiring her just before we came in. I'm afraid I got a little bad news for you, though." Bobby arranged his face so that it held the proper sorrowful expression. "Did you know your side-view mirror is missing and both your taillights are busted? You must have been clipped by a bad driver."
"Imagine that," the old man said in an amazed voice. "I wonder how something like that could have happened. It was fine when I pulled in." He looked at Bobby and the friendly eyes went dark for a moment like blinds being pulled on a window. "Just a few minutes ago I was out getting myself a little nip from the trunk when I noticed both your mirrors are gone and all your lights were busted." The dark went away and the sun returned, causing his face to light up. "Sounds like a damned epidemic of bad drivers to me."
Nash laughed so hard beer blew out his nose.
"Say, what do they call you, Pops?" Bobby asked, fighting back the sudden rage that washed over him.
"They call me Earl, son," the old man said. "Earl Jacobs."
"Well, Earl, grab that rack and make yourself handy. I can't stand around here jawing all night about bad drivers. I got to make a little money."
"All right," Earl said. He shuffled over to the table and picked up the rack, began dumping the balls into it. "What you boys gonna play tonight, a little nine ball, maybe a little straight rotation, eight ball?"
"I think a little eight ball," Jesse said. "We both like eight ball, don't we, Bobby?"
"Yeah, Jesse, eight ball it is."
"That's a good choice," the man said. "I always liked a good game of eight ball myself." He began arranging the balls with surprisingly deft hands.
"What about the stakes?" Jesse asked.
Earl suddenly fumbled a ball and it squirted across the table. Bobby reached out, grabbed the ball, and handed it back to the old man. "You all right there, Earl?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, son. Just got a little tickle in my chest. Must be all the smoke." He put the errant ball back in its spot.
"How about a hundred a game, to start off with?" Bobby said. "Once we get warmed up, we might want to up the ante a little. That sound okay?"
"Yeah, it sounds more than okay, it sounds almost friendly." Jesse dug into his pocket, pulled out a nickel, and tossed it to Bo
bby.
Bobby examined the worn coin with contempt. "An Indian-head nickel. Is this the fortune I been hearing about?"
Jesse's jaw tightened with anger, but he controlled himself with great effort. "I thought we'd flip it to see who's going to break."
Bobby tossed the nickel to Earl, who sent it spinning into the air. The coin disappeared high into the darkness.
"You call it, Bobby," Jesse said.
"Heads."
The coin came down on the table, bounced once, rolled down to the bumper. Fell over. "Heads it is." Earl picked up the nickel and flipped it back to Jesse.
Bobby glanced once at Jake, but Jake seemed completely uninterested in the proceedings. The old bartender was pouring a gin-and-tonic for some sweet young thing in tight jeans who was hanging on his every word.
"Just look at that, would you?" Kevin watched the sweet young thing wiggle her ass for Jake as she walked away. "That old son of a bitch gets more pussy than the rest of us put together."
"And him old enough to be her granddaddy, too," Boyce kicked in. "It ain't right."
"Well, if Jake only got laid once, that'd put him ahead of you two." Bobby stuck his cue stick between his legs, poured talc on it, and began thrusting the slick wood back and forth in his cupped hand, pushing it up farther with each stroke. The stick seemed to grow larger. "This should bring back a lot of memories for you boys."
"It sure does," Nash said. "Throw me that talc, will you? I think I gotta go to the john."
Earl held up his hand to get their attention. "If you boys are through foolin' around, it's time to get this show on the road." He rolled the cue ball to Bobby and stepped over to say something to a young, blond-haired guy with a crucifix dangling from his ear. The young guy laughed before slipping something unseen to Earl. The old man quickly inserted the object into his mouth and bit down. "It's just my teeth," Earl said, flashing a smile for all to see. "I'm always going off and forgetting the damned things."
Manny, Ernesto, and Jesus settled on one side of the room, Nash, Boyce, and Kevin on the other. The two groups glared at each other for a few moments. Their hostility was mostly for show, since it was Nash's Dodge Charger that Jesus was working on over at the Shell station.
Jesus was doing the work on credit.
The rest of the crowd lined up against the far wall, watching expectantly, and there were a few good natured jeers. Some money rustled as it exchanged hands.
Finally everyone became still as Bobby leaned over the pool table and dropped his cigarette butt on the floor, grinding it out beneath his boot. He lifted his hat once, sat it forward on his head.
Rituals, Jesse thought, watching Bobby. Magic to protect him from bad luck.
Bobby leaned into the break and the cue ball was a pistol shot when it hit. Two stripes and a solid fell. Bobby strolled around the table, eyeing the remaining balls. "The solids look like they lay out a little better, don't they, Jesse?" Without waiting for an answer, Bobby dropped the three in the corner and looked over at Jesse. "I hope you brought plenty of money with you."
"I didn't think I'd need much."
"Speaking of money, I hear you been saving yours, Jesse. You thinking about leaving us?" Bobby dropped another solid into the side pocket with a showy hammer stroke. Then he sent the cue ball two rails and gently kissed the four in the corner good night. "What's the matter, this town not good enough for you anymore?"
Jesse said nothing.
Bobby sank still another ball. "Amy Warrick been putting ideas into your head, talking about that great big old world out there? Telling you that you got a place in it?"
"You leave Amy out of this," Jesse said, "or we can stop the game right here."
The last two solids went down and only the eight remained. Bobby said, "Side pocket, one rail," and he made the black ball vanish into the middle of the hole as though it had eyes. The cue ball came back to Bobby and paused in front of him like an eager dog waiting to do its next trick. "Sorry, Jesse. I didn't mean to get you pissed off. It just sort of surprised me to hear Amy would hook up with another pool hustler." Bobby laid his cue stick on the table. "Especially after her dad ran off and left her when she was little."
Jesse started toward Bobby, but Earl stepped in front of Jesse and put a hand on his chest. "Take it easy, son. He's just trying to get you riled up, throw you off your game."
Still angry, Jesse tried to move Earl out of the way, but the old man was surprisingly strong. He steered Jesse back to a seat along the wall and sat him down. "I heard Bobby boy, over there, mention Amy Warrick," Earl said. "I guess that'd be your girl?"
Jesse nodded. "Bobby hasn't got used to the idea yet."
Earl started racking the balls again, sliding the triangle back and forth until all the balls were tightly bunched, before lifting it with surgical precision. "Warrick, Warrick. I think I know that name from somewhere." Earl smiled, showing a quick flash of white teeth as he pretended to remember. "Your girl, Amy, would her dad be John Warrick?"
"Yeah, that's right. You know John?"
"No, not exactly. Let's just say I heard of him," Earl said, sliding the rack out of sight. "I hear he can handle a stick pretty good."
"Pretty good." Jesse smiled. "Mister, ain't nobody can touch John Warrick. He's the best."
"The best, huh?" Earl considered Jesse's statement for a moment. "I hear he comes around here from time to time."
Bobby broke again, this time sinking two stripes. "You might have to wait around awhile, Earl. Nobody's seen him in almost a year." Bobby pistoned another ball out of sight.
"I'd like a shot at him myself."
Steven Adler appeared at Earl's side and Bobby was slightly startled. He hadn't seen or heard the guy with the earring move. The guy was just there.
"You must want John real bad," Bobby said, "to interrupt a man while he's trying to shoot." Bobby stared at the young guy in black and he started to make a crack about the earring, but something in the guy's eyes stopped him. They made Jake's look pleasant by comparison.
"Yes, I do," Steven said softly. "I want him real bad."
There was a sudden hunger in Steven Adler's eyes, a longing that Bobby had only seen when a man looked at a woman. "I'm sorry for interrupting, Bobby and Jesse, but I'd like to play the winner of this little contest… if it's ever over." His smile was insolent. "I've got a little time on my hands and I think both of you are ready to learn the finer points of the game."
"Mister, whoever you are, you got some real cojones on you," Bobby said, "waltzing in here from Texas like you own the place."
"My name is Steven Adler," the guy with the earring said simply. "I'm the best. And I'm willing to prove it."
"Well, Mr. Steven Adler, you just park your butt over there. You're next in line."
"Consider it parked, but try to speed this up a little, okay? I might get bored and go back to Texas, then you Arizona goat ropers won't get those pointers I promised."
"Goat ropers?" someone in the crowd said. An angry buzz rippled through the room.
"It's all right, don't apologize," Steven said. "I've seen your women; I understand why you prefer goats."
This time someone in the crowd threw a beer bottle, hard, at the back of Steven Adler's head. As best as Bobby could tell, it was thrown by one of the women. He thought about telling the guy to duck, decided against it.
Just before the bottle connected, Steven turned, reached out and caught it, emptied the contents on the floor. "Thanks, ma'am, not my brand." He sat the bottle down on the table, turned and sank into a chair along the wall, leaned back, and closed his eyes as though bored.
Jesse stared at Steven Adler for a moment, unnerved. He too had seen Steven move and he didn't believe his own eyes. The guy was quick. Unbelievably quick.
Steven opened his eyes and winked at Jesse, then closed them again. Jesse felt a cold wind touch his back, leaving behind a trail of gooseflesh. He didn't know where these guys were from, but they sure as hell weren't from Texas.
The crowd quieted and Bobby went back to work, dropping the rest of the stripes in short order before putting the eight ball to bed. In the fifth game, Bobby left himself a bad lay and finally missed a shot.
Jesse ran off the next four games before scratching on a tough two-rail bank shot.
Bobby won the next one.
Jesse won the next three.
Three hours and seventeen games later, Jesse was ahead only two hundred dollars and the grind was starting to wear them down. Both were sweating in the smoky, too-hot bar and their shirts were soaked through.
"This is bullshit," Bobby said. "This is going to take all goddamned night at this rate." He slammed his stick down on the table. "I got an idea how to speed things up, if you got the cojones for it. How much money you got?"
"Five grand and a little change," Jesse answered after a brief look at his friends, who were shaking their heads no. They looked like those plastic dogs with wobbly heads that often adorned the back of cars.
Jesse went over to Manny, pulled a wad of hundred-dollar bills out of his jacket pocket and laid them on the table. It had taken him over a year to earn that much money, hustling, scrimping, and saving, going without. It was his ticket out of Crowder Flats. He stared at the folded bills and asked, "What you got in mind, Bobby?" His own voice sounded distant to him, unreal.
"I'll lay it out real simple. Each of us takes one turn at the table. You shoot until you miss, any ball you want, it's as simple as that. Whoever sinks the most balls wins. What do you say, Jesse, you got the guts?"
Jesse felt more than saw everyone looking at him, waiting for his answer. His mouth went dry.
"Oh, by the way, I thought I'd throw in a little kicker," Bobby added. "Just to keep things interesting. You don't make something on the break, it's all over."
Sweat dotted Jesse's forehead but he didn't dare reach up to wipe it away.
Bobby picked his stick up from the table and looked at Jesse. "You win; you walk out of here with ten grand. Lots of things a man can do with that kind of money." Bobby took a drink of his Lone Star, held the cold bottle against his face. "You could get out of Crowder Flats, or you could buy whiskey for that crazy old grandfather of yours." The familiar lazy grin spread across Bobby's face. "What do you say, Jesse?"