Fuzz полностью

"Only if it's an extortion note," Brown said.

"What's extortion?" McFadden asked.

"You belong to The Terrible Ten, don't you?" Kling asked suddenly.

"The club broke up," McFadden said.

"But you used to belong."

"Yeah, how do you know?" McFadden asked, a trace of pride in his voice.

"We know every punk in this precinct," Willis said. "You finished with him, Artie?"

"I'm finished with him."

"Good-by, McFadden."

"What's extortion?" McFadden asked again.

"Good-by," Willis said again.

The detective assigned to tailing Anthony La Bresca was Meyer Meyer. He was picked for the job because detectives aren't supposed to be bald, and it was reasoned that La Bresca, already gun shy, would never tip to him. It was further reasoned that if La Bresca was really involved in a contemplated caper, it might be best not to follow him from his job to wherever he was going, but instead to be waiting for him there when he arrived. This presented the problem of second-guessing where he might be going, but it was recalled by one or another of the detectives that La Bresca had mentioned frequenting a pool hall on South Leary, and so this was where Meyer stationed himself at four o'clock that afternoon.

He was wearing baggy corduroy trousers, a brown leather jacket, and a brown watch cap. He looked like a longshoreman or something. Actually, he didn't know what he looked like, he just hoped he didn't look like a cop. He had a matchstick in his mouth. He figured that was a nice touch, the matchstick. Also, because criminal types have an uncanny way of knowing when somebody is heeled, he was not carrying a gun. The only weapon on his person was a longshoreman's hook tucked into the waistband of his trousers. If anyone asked him about the hook, he would say he needed it on the job, thereby establishing his line of work at the same time. He hoped he would not have to use the hook.

He wandered into the pool hall, which was on the second floor of a dingy brick building, said "Hi," to the man sitting behind the entrance booth, and then said, "You got any open tables?"

"Pool or billiards?" the man said. He was chewing on a matchstick, too.

"Pool," Meyer said.

"Take Number Four," the man said, and turned to switch on the table lights from the panel behind him. "You new around here?" he asked, his back to Meyer.

"Yeah, I'm new around here," Meyer said.

"We don't dig hustlers," the man said.

"I'm no hustler," Meyer answered.

"Just make sure you ain't."

Meyer shrugged and walked over to the lighted table. There were seven other men in the pool hall, all of them congregated around a table near the windows, where four of them were playing and the other three were kibitzing. Meyer unobtrusively took a cue from the rack, set up the balls, and began shooting. He was a lousy player. He kept mentally calling shots and missing. Every now and then he glanced at the door. He was playing for perhaps ten minutes when one of the men from the other table sauntered over.

"Hi," the man said. He was a burly man wearing a sports jacket over a woolen sports shirt. Tufts of black hair showed above the open throat of the shirt. His eyes were a deep brown, and he wore a black mustache that seemed to have leaped from his chest onto the space below his nose. The hair on his head was black too. He looked tough and he looked menacing, and Meyer immediately made him for the local cheese.

"You play here before?" the man asked.

"Nope," Meyer said without looking up from the table.

"I'm Tino."

"Hello, Tino," Meyer said, and shot.

"You missed," Tino said.

"That's right, I did."

"You a hustler?" Tino said.

"Nope."

"We break hustlers' arms and throw them down the stairs," Tino said.

"The arms or the whole hustler?" Meyer asked.

"I got no sense of humor," Tino said.

"Me, neither. Buzz off, you're ruining my game."

"Don't try to take nobody, mister," Tino said. "This's a friendly neighborhood pool hall."

"Yeah, you sure make it sound very friendly," Meyer said.

"It's just we don't like hustlers."

"I got your message three times already," Meyer said.

"Eight ball in the side." He shot and missed.

"Where'd you learn to shoot pool?" Tino said.

"My father taught me."

"Was he as lousy as you?"

Meyer didn't answer.

"What's that in your belt there?"

"That's a hook," Meyer said.

"What's it for?"

"I use it," Meyer said.

"You work on the docks?"

"That's right."

"Where?"

"On the docks," Meyer said.

"Yeah, where on the docks?"

"Look, friend," Meyer said, and put down the pool cue and stared at Tino.

"Yeah?"

"What's it your business where I work?"

"I like to know who comes in here."

"Why? You own the joint?"

"My brother does."

"Okay," Meyer said, "My name's Stu Levine, I'm working the Leary Street docks right now, unloading the S.S. Agda out of Sweden. I live downtown on Ridgeway, and I happened to notice there was a pool hall here, so I decided to come in and run off a few racks before heading home. You think that'll satisfy your brother, or do you want to see my birth certificate?"

"You Jewish?" Tino asked.

"Funny I don't look it, right?"