The Hustler by Walter Tevis

you mean, ten years? You saw me hook him before.”
    “And I saw you let him go, too.”
    “Sure. And I learned something. I’ll know better next time.”
    “You probably won’t. And you think Fats didn’t learn something too?”
    Somehow, he hadn’t thought of that one before. “Okay. Maybe he did.” The bartender was pouring another drink. Eddie took out a cigarette, offered one to Bert. Bert shook his head. “And maybe he learned the wrong things. Maybe he thinks the next time I play him I’ll get drunk again and throw away the game. Maybe I wanted him to learn that.” That was a fantastic lie, and he realized it even as he said it.
    Bert’s look became mildly contemptuous. “If you think that’s right you’ll never learn a thing. How many times do I have to say it, it wasn’t the whiskey that beat you? I know it, you know it, Fats knows it.”
    Eddie knew now, what he meant; but he persisted in not understanding him. “You think he shoots better than I do, is that it? You got a right to think that.”
    Bert had got a pack of potato chips from a rack on the counter. He chewed on one of these, nibbling at it thoughtfully, like a careful, self-conscious mouse. Eddie noticed that his teeth were very even, bright, like a movie star’s. Then Bert said, “Eddie, I don’t think there’s a pool player living that shoots better straight pool than I saw you shoot last week at Bennington’s.” He pushed the rest of the potato chip past his thin lips, into the pretty teeth. “You got a talent.”
    This was pleasant to hear, even in its context. Eddie had hardly been aware of how impoverished his vanity was. But he tried to make his tone of voice wry. “So I got a talent,” he said. “Then what beat me?”
    Bert pulled another potato chip from the bag, offered him one, and then said, his voice now offhand, casual, “Character.”
    Eddie laughed lightly. “Sure,” he said. “Sure.”
    Bert’s voice suddenly returned to its prissy, schoolteacherish tone. “You’re goddamn right I’m sure. Everybody’s got talent. I got talent. But you think you can play big money straight pool—or poker—for forty straight hours on nothing but talent?” He leaned toward Eddie, peering at him again, nearsightedly, through the thick, steel-rimmed glasses. “You think they call Minnesota Fats the Best in the Country just because he’s got talent? Or because he can do trick shots?” He pulled back from Eddie and took his drink in hand, looking now very pompous. “Minnesota Fats,” he said, “has got more character in one finger than you got in your whole goddamn skinny body.” Bert looked away from him. “He drank as much whiskey as you did.”
    The truth of what Bert was saying was so forceful that it took Eddie a moment to drive it from his mind, to explain it away. But even this was hard to do, for Eddie had a kind of hard, central core of honesty that was difficult for him to deal with sometimes—a kind of embarrassing awareness that only a few people are afflicted with. But he managed to avoid the fact, to avoid capitulation to what Bert was saying, that he, Eddie, was—simply enough—not man enough to beat a man like Fats. But, not knowing what else to say, he said, aware that it was feeble, “Maybe Fats knows
how
to drink.”
    Bert would not let him go now, knew that he had him. Eddie became abruptly aware that Bert talked like he played poker, with a kind of quiet, strong—very strong—pushing. “You’re goddamn right he knows how,” Bert said softly. “And you think that’s a talent, too? Knowing how to drink whiskey? You think Minnesota Fats was born knowing how to drink?”
    “Okay. Okay.” What did Bert want him to do? Prostrate himself on the floor? “So what do I do now? Go home?”
    And Bert seemed to relax, knowing he had scored, had pushed his way through Eddie’s consciousness and through his defenses—although Eddie still only partly understood all of what Bert had said, and