Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,12

“He wants to know if you’re hustling him.”

Sheila gave a good laugh. “Oh, boy,” she said.

But Luker had had enough. “Get lost, Sweetheart. This game’s gonna get too rich for you.” He turned to the other three players. “Pot is three hundred. Seventy-five apiece. Race to seven.”

She put the ten she owed on the table and began to chalk her tip again, wiping the residue of yellow onto the thighs of her jeans, a move not lost on either Mullet or Luker. Still in the stance she began with (she was brilliant at this), she peeled the other bills from her jeans and laid down Webster’s additional sixty, which made him take a deep breath.

“Honey, it’s seventy-five,” Mullet said, looking nervous now. “Go buy yourself a coupla beers.”

Behind Sheila, the man with the best view of her ass reached forward and put fifteen on top of her sixty.

Luker stood to his full height and took his time cracking his back. “Not spotting you no eight ball,” he said as he examined Sheila hard. When it was her turn, she bent forward and made a terrible shot that ratted in the nine. The man standing behind her whistled.

“Pure luck, Baby,” Luker said. Mullet had gone silent.

Sheila lit a cigarette. Webster wondered if he should get her out. He didn’t like the looks of Luker. On Sheila’s second try, she ran the table up to eight and didn’t sink the nine. The man behind her groaned. He didn’t get it.

On her third try, she made a move a dancer might, bending to the table. The ash of her cigarette was nearly an inch long, the center of attention. A girl with frizzy blond hair who’d been hanging near Luker knocked on the back of his black vest. She let her arms slide around him, claiming him. Her hands almost met in the middle.

The ash was mesmerizing. Even Webster was certain she couldn’t make a shot without leaving it on the table, an offense Luker would use to throw her out. Sheila ran the first six, caromed the seven off the eight, sinking the seven, and then sank the eight and nine. No one said a word. It seemed the whole back half of the restaurant was silent and waiting.

As she rose from the table, she elegantly caught the ash in the palm of her hand. As she bent to put the cigarette out in an ashtray, she mouthed the word car to Webster.

He took his jacket from a hook, went for the door, and heard her laugh at the back of the room. A sexy laugh he didn’t like. He was worried for her. No man wanted to be hustled in front of a girlfriend hanging off his vest.

Webster braced for the cold. He’d be bracing until May, a good two weeks after the warmer weather had finally come. He brought his watch cap down over his ears and raised his collar. He jogged between rows of cars to his own, wanting to be exactly where he was supposed to be.

When he parked by the front door, the engine running, he took his hat off and tried to flatten his hair. He turned on the defroster to melt the ice from the windshield. He checked the gas gauge: he had maybe fifteen miles’ worth left. He turned the engine off. After ten minutes of waiting, Webster grew worried. He thought of going back in, but if she had a good hustle going, he’d ruin it. After twenty minutes, he was picturing a back-alley rape, even though there wasn’t a true back alley for fifty miles.

She was laughing as she opened the door of the restaurant. She lost the laugh as soon as it was closed.

She got into the car.

“Go,” she said.

They were almost to the Hartstone town line before she spoke. “Smashed the rack and ran the table. Twice. The guy beside me was holding the pot and couldn’t give me the money fast enough.”

“That big guy looked like he wanted to kill you.”

“Don’t think so,” she said, counting out Webster’s seventy-five. “I’m pretty sure he wanted to fuck me.”

“I wanted to get you the hell out of there,” Webster said.

“You have rescue fantasies.”

“Believe me, the last thing I fantasize about is rescue.”

“That’s why you do it, though. Your job.”

“You’re full of it,” he said.

“You ever drive into New York at night?”

“No,” he said, knowing she wanted to find another pool table.

“You’re lying.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

He had no authority over her.