The Amboy Dukes by Irving Shulman Page B

Benny. “It must be easy to get tail with that car.”
    “It belongs to my brother,” Benny replied, “and he doesn’t have any trouble. So I guess we won’t have any.”
    “You mean to say you haven’t broken that car in yet?” the houseman asked Frank. “You kids’re slow.”
    “Look what’s talkin’.” One of the Tigers laughed. “Feivel couldn’t get it up with splints.”
    “Shut your mouth, stinker,” the houseman warned him, “or I’ll nail it shut with my fist.”
    “I was only kidding.” The Tiger chalked his cue nervously.
    Feivel, the houseman, grumbled and went behind the sandwich-and-cigarette counter. Feivel was a former pug, a lightweight who had battled it out with Lew Tendler and Abe Attell, and he had been a first-rate drawing card in his day. Under the counter he kept a scrapbook bound in leather with his name tooled in the cover, and each page of the book was carefully sheathed with white celluloid covers which protected the clippings and pictures. The book was the most valuable possession Feivel had left, for his money had been spent as quickly and as violently as he had made it, and his last deal, buying a third interest in a summer hotel in the Catskills, had cleaned him. All he had now were his job as houseman, his cauliflower ears and broken nose, his precious scrapbook, the bitter memories of his former glory, and an insane temper. None of the Tigers or other guys who came into the Winthrop fooled around with him the way they did with other housemen, because Feivel could still hit, and his hands were tough and hard, although he was now a scarred and stitched caricature of the boxer he once had been. He was only five feet four inches tall, but when he bobbed and weaved around for the guys, jabbing an imaginary opponent with short solid lefts, he still seemed to have plenty on the ball. But the boys said that Feivel had no sense of humor, for he got sore if one of the guys even gave him a little hot-foot, so they left him alone and practiced their jokes on more affable and less dangerous subjects.
    “We’ll be calling those babes soon,” Benny said.
    “Right.” Frank nodded.
    “Where’ll we take them?”
    “Your house?”
    “Sure.” Benny slapped him on the back. “That’s what I said we’d do yesterday. Come on, I’ll shoot you a coupla games o’ blackball.”
    Feivel racked up the ball and Benny gave him a dime for the first game. Feivel still was muttering and grumbling under his breath, and suddenly he turned to the two strangers who were playing on the table behind them and told them to stop making jump shots.
    “Cut it out,” he said to them. “For a lousy sixty cents an hour don’t think you’re going to tear the cloth.”
    “Aw, shut up,” the first stranger said. He was about eighteen years old and with a long scar on his left cheek that extended from his forehead to his chin. Ignoring Feivel, he stood hard and compact as he bridged his hand on the table for high right English on the cue ball.
    Feivel approached the table and confronted the fellow who had answered him. “All right,” he said, “put your cue in the rack and blow.”
    The fellow held his cue tight. “The clock says we’ve got this table for another forty minutes. Now cop a walk, you’re screwing our game.”
    The poolroom became quiet, and Frank placed his cue on the table and stepped back. These two guys didn’t know who Feivel was.
    “I’m telling you to get out before you get hurt,” Feivel said to the first stranger.
    “Come on”—his partner placed his cue in the rack—“let’s go.”
    “No,” his friend said.
    Feivel raised his voice and clenched and unclenched his hands.
    “I’m telling you to blow before you’ll be sorry. Get out!”
    “What’s the matter?” the stranger asked him. “Are you supposed to be a hard guy?”
    “Hey, buddy,” Black Benny interrupted, “I wouldn’t pick an argument with Feivel. He’s tough.”
    “Is he?” The fellow