Rough Trade (20 page)

Then the guy offered to blow him for five. It was so smooth, so quick that at first Stanley didn’t pick it up, thought it was just a different melody in his concert of panhandling. Stanley had thought of rounding up a whore the night before, but somehow it hadn’t felt right. He’d spent it instead having a good steak and potatoes in the Blue Ewe on Mason, then back to his room to try and relax enough to read the paper. Besides, he didn’t know Carson well enough to know how he’d react to his imported shooter getting laid the night before the big game.

His cock was hard, surprising Stanley. He’d played it both ways, both before he’d hopped the rails and his few times in stir, but always preferred cunt to cock. But still, his cock was hard. His nerves were buzzing like too many cups of black coffee, and a bright burst of fear ran up his back and into his brain. In an flash, he saw his fine white hands shake, felt the green felt slide under his unsteady fingers. That’s all it would take.

“You’re on, brother; just better be damned worth it.”

The wino grinned, showing gaps, an old picket-fence smile as Stanley walked past him into the alley. “I’m worth it, brother. Oh, yeah, ol’ Richie’s worth it. An arteest, I am. Got the best fucking lips in Joliet, they say about ol’ Richie. Take the white right off your fucking dick, I will.”

Stanley popped his belt and dropped his fly, metal teeth surprisingly loud in the narrow space. “Just get sucking, okay?” he said, tugging his hard cock out of his BVDs.

Richie slowly lowered himself down: one knee, then the other. The rotten, almost-fingerless gloves he wore came off carefully, to be stuffed in a pocket. He clapped once, like a shot bouncing off the brickwork, and rubbed his hands together in front of Stanley’s hard dick.

Then he stopped, looking up at Stanley past his cock. “Fuck me. I know you, right? Baltimore, right, the shooter that took down Legs Elmwood, right? Eight hours, wasn’t it? Eight hours at the table. Stan, right? ‘Fast’ Stan…fuck me, if it isn’t you.”

And fuck if Stanley doesn’t smile, looking down at this black punk who he’d regular have kicked the shit out of, told to fuck off and die—and fuck if Stanley didn’t even blush, the red burning his cheeks. “Got me, bro. Got me clean and neat.”

“Fuck me—” Richie said, staring up at him with his Jesus-seen-in-church look, his one dark hand absently stroking Stanley’s hard dick. “You’re something man. You’re really something.”

Stanley didn’t know what to say, words not even leaving his brain, let alone getting caught in his throat.

Richie smiled one more time, showing that weathered fence of cracked porcelain again, then dropped his mouth down to Stanley’s never-dipping dick.

Stanley was feeling so big and important, it took a few minutes longer than normal for the sensation of Richie’s mouth on his dick to work its way through his mind; but when it did, when he actually started to feel those soft lips and hard-sucking mouth on his cock, Stanley had to actually think: He’s fucking good.

His legs felt weak, so he leaned back, absently realizing his last good suit was getting filthy from the grimy alley wall; Stanley was all but uncaring on the high he was riding.

Richie worked his dick, sucking, licking, even kissing the fat head—never had Stanley had such a good job done on him. Gals, guys—no one. It was scary, in a way, how good the little creep was. It wasn’t right. Not that he was getting sucked off by him, but that he was too damned good. But Stanley didn’t do anything about it, and even the little voice in the back of his skull wasn’t loud enough to bring his hand down to his dick, to Richie’s face and push him away.

“My treat, brother. I scored good off a ten-shot I put down in that game. Not that I don’t want the five, you know what I mean?” Richie said, smiling up at Stanley, spit and sticky cum on his fat lips.

Weak to near collapse, Stanley could do nothing but smile and start to say, “Put another ten down tonight—” when the little bum started to work his cock again, swallowing all the way down deep.

That was it. Stanley felt it down deep in his balls—the good ache, the quivering bolt of juice up and out of his so-hard cock and right into Richie’s slobbering mouth.

After his heart stopped hammering and his eyes cleared from the spots that’d flashed in front of them, Stanley pushed himself carefully away from the wall—suddenly self-conscious of how crappy his suit now looked. Then he pushed his still-hard cock into his shorts and hauled up his pants from where they’d fallen to his shoes. He gave the wino a twenty, the biggest bill he had that wasn’t on his roll.

With Richie thanking him over and over like a broken record behind him he walked the four blocks forward, four blocks up to Tevis’s Pool & Billiards and the game he was there to play.

*

“You ready, kid?” Carson said from his seat by the door as Stanley walked up the high flight of stairs to the hall. Carson was dressed the same as when Stanley had first met him three days before, in a bright white shirt, a thin black tie, and a simple black coat and pants. Stanley thought that he looked like a minister who should be leading his flock rather than making book. He smiled, wide and broad, friendly despite the money he had riding on the game—or at least he looked that way.

“I’m ready,” Stanley smiled back, strength in his voice. In his pants, his cock was still semi-hard from Richie’s sucking.

The hall was on the second floor above a dark little bar Stanley had never been in. He never drank that close to a hall or a game. The windows were dark from smoke. Against one wall was a narrow caged booth. In it was an elegantly dressed black man, as much the preacher as Carson. As Stanley walked across the hall he watched him like a cat casing a mouse.

Along the walls at the base of those heavy-smoked windows were the spectators’ seats. They were empty, red plush upholstery looking like a thick red river under the glass, except for three. In one was a kid maybe half Stanley’s age, in a white shirt and bright blue tie, sleeves rolled up to show blond hairs like a glow on his arms. His head, too, was bright blond, like polished brass. Next to him was some muscle, a dockyard worker or ex-fighter crammed into a wrinkled and musty suit that looked like something borrowed from a mortician brother. The muscle’s eyes were dark, like bricks missing from a wall, and hooded by thick brows and ridges. He was too far away, and his eyes too small, for Stanley to see if he was watching him—but Stanley felt him nonetheless. Just as Stanley had scoped the tables for faded velvet, obvious warps, or any shaking from the bar downstairs, he knew the muscle was sizing him up, deciding which bones he could break if he needed to.

Next to the muscle was the other side of Carson, the dark to his white. While Carson had dressed like a minister about to step in front of his flock, this guy was dressed for a club in a neat, pinstriped, double-breasted number with dark wingtips. Stanley had spent years crouched over a table, knocking the polished balls into black pits, listening to their clicks and clacks as if trying to decipher some secret language of balance and English. This guy had spent twice as long figuring out how to take money from people: sometimes by getting his muscle to break their fingers, sometimes by using people like Stanley. His face was dark. It wasn’t dusty black like Richie, and it wasn’t mahogany like the manager; it was like midnight, pitch, or a starless night. The only thing that shone from his face were his teeth when he smiled—and he was smiling—and his eyes, which were like gleaming scales judging Stanley’s worth.

Carson was suddenly next to Stanley, speaking to the hard darkness of his opposite. “Good evenin’, Portaphoi.”

“It is gonna ta be that, ain’t it, Mr. Carson,” Portaphoi said, his voice a deep lilt, “fer at least one ah us.” It didn’t seem possible, but he smiled even broader, showing a rear gold tooth in a flash that surpassed the glow from the boy standing next to him. “So dis be ya shooter from da west of the country, Mr. Carson?” He turned the brilliant white and gold to Stanley. “Ah be hearin’ good t’ings about you, mistah. I hear ya can shoot da moon straight inta da pocket.”

Stanley smiled, knowing he should be scared, shaking in his shoes, but he wasn’t. He was the shooter. The light was on him. The evening would be good for them if it was good for him, if he shot a good game of pool tonight. The question of him not shooting the moon into a pocket didn’t even occur to him. He smiled back at Portaphoi, not caring that his own teeth were piss-yellow from too many cigarettes. “—and I can do it straight off the break.”

“Ha ha!” Portaphoi’s laugh reminded Stanley of an empty barrel rolling down an alley, the growl of thunder after a big damned crash. “The boy does have spunk, he does. You be doin’ good, Mr. Carson, if he’s cue be as big as his dick, no?”

Stanley smiled right back, never dipping his eyes from Portaphoi’s deep brown pits.

“Dis here be my gun, and he always be shootin’ straight,” Portaphoi said, turning toward the golden boy with a nod. “Billie, this be Stanley. He be the man you gonna be beatin’ tonight.”

The boy didn’t move, didn’t smile. His face stayed polished bronze, but his hand slowly rose. Stanley took it, shook it coolly once. The rule was never to shake, it being too easy for a loser to squeeze too hard, try and throw a game. But then, there, now, Stanley knew he had to—Stanley showing he was going to shoot a straight game of pool, and Billie nodding right back.

“Let’s play some pool,” Carson said harshly, not being able to keep up with Portaphoi’s fancy steps. “Let’s make some money.”

But Portaphoi had one last word: “For only one ah us, Mr. Carson. Only one ah us.”

*

They rolled for break, Stanley barely losing. The kid leaned across the table, elbow on the wood, cue sliding neat and clean between his fingers. Watching him moving the pale white cue, Stanley remembered his cock in Richie’s hands, his mouth, and he smiled. Give the kid the break, give him a few balls, even a few games—but Stanley knew the night was his.

The eight danced away from the side pocket, spinning just enough to bounce free. Stanley stepped up, dusting the tip of his cue with pink chalk, seeing the movements of the balls even before he bent over the velvet. He’d heard other hustlers talk about that, about seeing the game before the first ball even moved, but hadn’t really felt it before; yet there it was, like seeing the end of a movie before seeing the start. He knew what was going to happen. The rest was just making the right movements.

The balls obeyed, sliding across the velvet in smooth, perfect tracks, their clacks and deep thunks as they fell into pockets like a lovely tune to Stanley. He called out the shots, his words feeling cool and distant because he was already two, three shots ahead. The table cleared in what felt like a single beat of his heart. Then the next, and the game after that.

Carson stood next to him as the old black man from the cage racked him. His hand was heavy and shockingly hot on Stanley’s shoulder. He passed him a longneck beer. “Goin’ good, Stan,” Carson said. “Goin’ good.”

But Billie wasn’t just a kid, and the next two games fell to him. His voice was strong, almost bored as he called out the shots. Every once in a while he’d look up at Stanley as the cue elegantly tapped the next ball and give him this look—a warm, smoky kind of look. The first time Stanley barely noticed, the second time he saw it, but the third and then the forth time Stanley looked for it. Then he was waiting for it. There: a slight smile on his pale face, a twitch of muscle, a sparkle in his pale blue eyes. The balls were almost secondary, just an excuse for the boy to look up at Stanley and smile.

Stanley put the bottle to his lips but it was empty, and he couldn’t remember taking even the first drink. For a second, he wanted to turn to Carson and demand why he’d given him an empty soldier, but then he felt that little pressure in his gut down near his pisser and he knew he’d drained it himself. Nodding just a little, he gestured to the old black guy for another.

The next two games went to the kid, but then a four banked too hard off a cushion and knocked an eight just short of the pocket. Stanley stepped up feeling good—and even better at not having to keep catching those looks from the kid. The edge was there, and his hands and the cue were magic. Ball after ball obeyed his will, spinning, clicking, sinking into the pockets. One game, two, three.

Then it slipped away for just a breath, giving the kid a chance to run the table. Stanley stepped back, looking for an excuse not to watch the kid shoot, and realized that his gut was aching. He glanced quickly down at his watch: fifteen after one. Catching the eye of the old black guy, he gave him five bucks and sent him to get an egg and cheese sandwich and some chips.

While he waited and while he ate, the kid ran the table twice more; but then he too must have felt his belly growl, because a three smacked into a pocket too hard, bouncing free.

“Da weather, it is wild tonight. Maybe it rain on me, maybe it rain on you. De clouds are busy, dey hard to read,” Portaphoi said, walking up to stand next to Stanley as he moved to shoot.

Stanley turned to smile up at him, seeing Carson out of the corner of his eye looking angry. “If I were you I’d buy a fuckin’ umbrella,” he said, breaking near and quick, sinking a four and a six neat and thick, the sounds of the balls in the pockets like belly punches.

That game, and the one after that. Somewhere along Stanley had tossed his coat onto one of the spectator seats, loosened his tie, and undone a couple of buttons. His belly was full, but now his eyes were starting to get tired. A quick look at his watch: 3:00 a.m. They were almost even, with Stanley just two games ahead. The night was young, but Stanley was feeling his age.