Lush Life: An Artie Deemer Mystery by Dallas Murphy Page B

recognized Earle when he came in and sat down on a stool, ostensibly to watch Crystal and meplay. Earle was hard to miss. He was a black man, very tall and slim. His graying hair was shoulder length and scraggly, and he always played with a pair of reading glasses perched on his crown. Crystal pretended not to see him. He went along with the pretense. I don’t always understand these ritual preliminaries to gambling sessions, often as elaborate as aboriginal rain dances. Crystal beat me and immediately unscrewed her cue. I followed her lead.
    “Oh, hello, Earle,” she said.
    “Hi, Crystal.” His voice seemed heavy with some personal sadness. “Looks like you’re in stroke.”
    “It comes and goes. Earle, this is my friend Artie Deemer.”
    We shook hands cordially, but he didn’t smile. He and Crystal were doing business.
    “Ready to go, Crystal?”
    “You’re too good for me, Earle.”
    “I’m way past my prime.” He was no older than me.
    I returned the tray of balls to Davey at the desk and paid the table time. When I returned, Crystal and Earle were sitting on adjacent stools, but they weren’t speaking. The regulars were watching, waiting for serious action to enrich the routine of their lives. For once they were silent.
    “One-pocket, Crystal?” Earle Grundy was one of the best one-pocket players in the country.
    “I don’t play that game, Earle.”
    Feedback tore through the room, and Davey said over the PA: “Phone call for, Thumper. Thumper, you gotta call.”
    “Well,” said Earle languidly, “I guess I’ll go say hello to Davey. I haven’t seen him in years…Unless you want to play some other game. Like nine ball.”
    “You mean a friendly game?”
    “Sure, just a friendly game.”
    “How friendly?”
    “A hundred a set?”
    Crystal didn’t say yes, and she didn’t say no. “I can’t play you head up,” she said finally.
    The regulars were edging closer to hear.
    “What do you need?” Earle wanted to know.
    “The six.”
    “The six? Naw. I’ll go say hello to Davey.” But he didn’t move.
    “Well, we have to leave, anyway. We’re late already, aren’t we, Artie?”
    I pretended to look at my watch. “Almost,” I said.
    “Maybe some other time,” said Earle.
    “Yeah.”
    “Better not wait too long. I won’t have any eyes too much longer. Teeth, neither. So I’ll give you the seven tonight.”
    “I’ll take the seven and the break.”
    “Naw, your break’s too good.” Crystal was known to have a savage break. “I’ll give you the seven, and winner breaks.”
    “Then I’ll need the seven wild.”
    “Out of the question.”
    “That’s okay, we have to go, anyway.”
    “The seven and the break. But I must be feeling generous. I don’t usually.”
    “Hundred a set?”
    “Want to make it an even two hundred, since you got the break?”
    Crystal nodded. The preliminaries had ended. Let the games begin.
    While Earle warmed up—by pounding in cross-side banks, never missing a one, then doing the same thing long-rail—the regulars descended on me to know the arrangements and the stakes. I told them. Spanish Jackie started making odds, waving bills folded between his fingers. The regulars placed their wagers, and Crystal pretended not to notice.
    “Look at that guy bank,” commented Outta-Town Brown.
    “All black guys can bank,” said Ted Bundy. “They’re born with banking in their bones.”
    Feedback: “Phone call for Ernie’s wife. Ernie’s wife, you gotta call.”
    A hush fell around the table. Crystal crushed the balls. Two dropped. She stood staring at the rest. She had a clear shot at the one ball, and the nine had stopped near the corner pocket. The nine was makable off the one ball, but it was a dangerous shot, what good players call low percentage. Each nine-ball game presents a problem, and there is a crux, a one-shot turning point, to each. Sometimes the crux comes immediately, sometimes not until near the end. We were at the crux right