The Leather Duke

Johnny stepped forward, stooped and examined the balls closely. The eight ball could be hit all right, but if it was hit clean it would strike the twelve ball a few inches to the left. Of course, if it caromed off that ball just right, it would ricochet into the fifteen ball, which was blocking the corner pocket. No — not quite. The exact caroming from the fifteen ball could send the eight ball into the pocket. The shot was possible, but highly improbable.

Johnny straightened. “I think I’ll just take that bet. Let me have your cue.”

Carmella handed Johnny the cue, reached to the ball rack behind him and took down a piece of chalk. “All right, wise guy, make your shot.”

Sam stepped up beside Johnny. “Ixnay, Johnny, you on’y got sixty cents.”

“I know,” Johnny said out of the corner of his mouth. “But you’ve got eighty. Besides...”

He bent over the table, aimed carefully and hit the cue ball with his cue. The cue ball jumped sideways and Johnny recoiled in horror.

Then he lunged for the chalk that he had set down upon the edge of the table. Carmella was already reaching for it, but Johnny beat him to it. One glance told him.

“You’ve got soap in this chalk!” Johnny cried.

Carmella snickered. “Any soap in that chalk, you put it there yourself. You talked yourself into something and you figured that was an out. Only it ain’t. A buck, mister.”

“Put the cue ball back where it was and I’ll try the shot again,” Johnny snapped. “I didn’t put that soap in the chalk, and you know it.”

“Calling me a liar?” Carmella demanded truculently.

Johnny looked at the semicircle of Carmella’s friends. Their threatening looks told him that they were ready and willing to back up Carmella. But the dollar meant the difference between beds that night or sleeping in the railroad depots.

Johnny said: “I can make that shot.”

“You didn’t,” snarled Carmella. “Now give me that buck or so help me...”

Sam Cragg drew a deep breath and exhaled heavily. “Or what?” he asked.

“Who asked you to put in your two cents?”

“Nobody asked me,” retorted Sam. “I’m puttin’ in on my own. You outweigh Johnny thirty pounds. But I’m your size. You want to make something, pick on me.”

“Belt him one, Carmella,” suddenly urged one of Carmella’s friends. “They’re a couple of pool hustlers.”

“Yeah,” agreed Carmella. “I seen ’em somewhere. Can’t remember where, but they been around...”

“You saw us at the Towner factory this morning,” Johnny said. “As a matter of fact I got your job, after you were fired.”

“Who was fired? I—” Carmella’s eyes suddenly narrowed and he whirled and caught a pool cue from a rack. As he was turning back, Sam sprang forward. He whisked the pool cue from the Italian’s hand, smashed it down against the table, snapping it in two.

“So you want to play rough,” Sam cried. “All right, try this for size.”

He hit Carmella on the side of the head with his open hand. The blow traveled only a foot or so, but it sent Carmella sprawling four feet, so that he collided with the first of his friends who was charging around the table to get at Sam and Johnny.

The blow was like a match set to a short fuse on a giant firecracker. Carmella’s friends roared and came swarming forward. Two on one side, one around the other side of the table and a fourth over the table itself.

Pool cues flashed. Johnny took one pool cue in his raised forearm and cried out in pain. A second cue, poked at his eye, missed by an inch and cut open the skin over his cheekbone. Johnny jerked that cue away from the wielder and without bothering to reverse, drove the heavy, leaded butt into the man’s stomach, doubling him over and leaving him gasping in pain.

By that time Sam was engaged with his quota. He followed through on Carmella, grabbed him about the midriff and raising him clear slammed him into another man. Both went down to the floor. Sam hurdled them, caught another man in the crook of his arm and hugged him to his side. The victim belabored Sam with his fists and Sam hit him in the face, once. The man went limp, but Sam held him under his armpit. He turned, dragging the man with him to face Carmella and his ally getting up from the floor.

Sam whisked the unconscious man from under his arm, raised him to the height of his head and hurled him down on Carmella and his friend. The three men landed in a heap and did not get up.

Sam turned to go to Johnny’s aid, found him exchanging blows. Johnny was doing fine, but Sam looked at the horde of men swarming to the rear of the room, from the other tables.

“Time to go, Johnny!” he cried. He ducked under Johnny’s flailing arm, caught hold of his friend’s antagonist and cuffing him with one hand scooped him up with the other. He raised him a good eighteen inches over his head, hurled him clear across a pool table in the general direction of the advancing crowd. The man took two or three others to the floor with him.