Practical Demonkeeping

nothing,” the stranger said.
    “Fine. I’ll rack ’ em .” Slick pushed the quarters into the coin slot on the side of the pool table. The balls dropped into the gutter and Slick began racking them.
    Slick was wearing a red-and-blue polka-dotted polyester shirt with long, pointed collars that had been fashionable around the time that disco died—about the same time that Slick had stopped brushing his teeth, Robert guessed. Slick wore a perpetual brown and broken grin, a grin that was burned into the memories of countless tourists who had strayed into the Slug to be fleeced at the end of Slick’s intrepid cue.
    The stranger reared back and broke. His stick made the sickly vibrato sound of a miscue. The cue ball rocketed down the table, barely grazing the rack, then bounced off two corner rails and made a beeline toward the corner pocket where the stranger stood.
    “Sorry, brother,” Slick said, chalking his cue and preparing to shoot the scratch.
    When it reached the corner pocket, the cue ball stopped dead on the lip. Almost as an afterthought, one of the solid balls moved out of the pack and fell into the opposite corner with a plop.
    “Damn,” Slick said. “That was some pretty fancy English. I thought you’d scratched for sure.”
    “Was that a solid?” the stranger asked.
    Mavis leaned over the bar and whispered to Robert. “Did you see that ball stop? It should have been a scratch.”
    “Maybe there’s a piece of chalk on the table that stopped it,” Robert speculated.
    The stranger made two more balls in an unremarkable fashion, then called a straight-in shot on the three ball. When he shot, the cue ball curved off his stick, describing a C-shaped curve, and sunk the six ball in the opposite corner.
    “I said the three ball !” the stranger shouted.
    “I know you did,” Slick said. “Looks like you were a little heavy on the English. My shot.”
    The stranger seemed to be angry at someone, but it wasn’t Slick. “How can you confuse the six with the three, you idiot?”
    “You got me,” said Slick. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, pard . You’re up one game already.”
    Slick ran four balls, then missed a shot that was so obvious it made Robert wince. Slick’s hustles were usually more subtle.
    “Five in the side!” the stranger shouted. “Got that? Five!”
    “I got it,” Slick said. “And all these folks got it along with half the people out in the street. You don’t need to yell, pard . This is just a friendly game.”
    The stranger bent over the table and shot. The five ball careened off the cue ball, headed for the rail, then changed its path and curved into the side pocket. Robert was amazed, as were all the observers. It was an impossible shot, yet they all had seen it.
    “Damn,” Slick said to no one in particular, then to Mavis, “Mavis, when was the last time you leveled this table?”
    “Yesterday, Slick.”
    “Well, it sure as shit went catywumpus fast. Give me my cue, Mavis.”
    Mavis waddled to the end of the bar and pulled out a three-foot-long black leather case. She handled it carefully and presented it to Slick with reverence, a decrepit Lady of the Lake presenting a hardwood Excaliber to the rightful king. Slick flipped the case open and screwed the cue together, never taking his eyes off the stranger.
    At the sight of the cue the stranger smiled. Slick smiled back. The game was defined. Two hustlers recognized each other. A tacit agreement passed between them: Let’s cut the bullshit and play .
    Robert had become so engrossed in watching the tension between the two men and trying to figure out why the stranger angered him so, that he failed to notice that someone had slipped onto the stool next to him. Then she spoke.
    “How are you, Robert?” Her voice was deep and throaty. She placed her hand on his arm and gave it a sympathetic squeeze. Robert turned and was taken aback by her appearance. She always affected him that way. She affected most men that way.
    She was wearing a black body stocking, belted at the waist with wide leather in which she had tucked a multitude of chiffon scarves that danced around her hips when she walked like diaphanous ghosts of Salome. Her wrists were adorned with layers of silver bangles; her nails were sculptured long and lacquered black. Her eyes were wide and green, set far apart over a small, straight nose and full lips, glossed blood red. Her hair hung to her waist, blue-black. An inverted silver pentagram