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I hated everything about Dan’s place.

Well, almost everything. The pool tables were all right. Level enough to serve, with decent rails and that nice, slick cloth. Like some knock-off of Simonis.

And to be fair, it was a pool hall, so the place at least got the most important thing about itself right. Which was part of the reason I was there on a Friday evening, instead of haunting some higher-class establishment.

Even if I hated everything else about Dan’s Billiards.

First of all, a place called “Dan’s Billiards” should damn well have a billiard table, shouldn’t it?

Nope. Pool only. Not even a snooker table. Of course, there was no bumper pool either, but that was probably Dan doing something right on accident. You know what they say about broken clocks.

Then there was Dan, himself. Dan Pool-is-actually-pocket-billiards-so-the-name-fits Johnson. He was fat and smelly, with thinning hair and sallow skin. And he wore those awful bargain-brand irregular suits like they came from Brooks Brothers, and still had the nerve to give everyone – even me – a condescending smile.

If he wasn’t careful, one of these days someone would take one of his fine, Belgian cue balls and knock every one of his tobacco-yellow teeth out of his head.

Probably wouldn’t be me, much as I liked to think about doing it. Truth was, I only actually abused people who had it coming. And unearned arrogance just wasn’t enough, in my book.

The lack of whiskey in this place might have been enough. I’d been twenty-one for six whole months and decided that whiskey was the only real alcohol worth consuming.

But there was no whiskey at all in Dan’s joint. Not even bourbon. Dan served cheap beer, and I swear he watered it. Pabst and Coors aren’t anybody’s idea of good beers, but I swear the way he served them they were practically non-alcoholic.

The grime on his checkerboard linoleum was all too visible under the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights, and I could both feel and hear it stick to my loafers with every step.

And the temp at Dan’s place was never comfortable. Too cold in the wintertime. Too hot in the summer, like today. And it reeked of smoke. Not cigar or cigarette smoke, either, though sometimes Dan broke the ordinances and puffed away in his little upstairs office, where he could gaze down upon his kingdom through that one big window.

No, this was the lingering odor of a fire five years ago, back when Dan had a kitchen too. Cheap bastard never paid for a proper cleaning. Hell, the stench of ancient French fry grease still permeated the walls, and let me tell you, it didn’t blend well with the old smoke.

I knew why he kept it this way. Drove out the casual players. Nobody came to Dan’s to have fun with their friends for a couple of hours. The “ambiance” made sure of that. Only people looking to play for money would put up with it, and Dan claimed a cut of every money game.

Still. I never left Dan’s place without feeling dire need for a shower. I could have named two dozen pool halls I’d rather have played in, but no.

That night I had to be at Dan’s…

Place like this should probably have been shut down for health code violations. But since the Powers That Be – and unfortunately I’m not talking about mere human governments here – seemed to want to keep this place going, it should have been tucked away someplace reasonably close to the center of things. Off of downtown in a cheap rent district. Maybe by the river, on the east side. Or out by the airport. Someplace like that. Someplace you’d expect to find a dive.

But no, it wasn’t even in Portland. I had to haul my skinny butt out to Beaverton to come here, a suburb cut from the same cloth as I used to remember from the Bay Area. Middling nice, if a little sterile, and just as few trees.

Compared with downtown Portland, Beaverton looked like loggers had run wild, and ignored the laws about replanting.

Still, even Beaverton was too nice for this place.

Dan’s Billiards stuck out. Not like a sore thumb, exactly, but more like a thumb that had torn through cheap toilet paper while wiping, if you catch my drift.

I hated Dan, and I hated his place. And if I could have been anywhere else that Friday night, I would have.

Problem was, I’d read the chalk. Scattered three cubes like dice, rolling them across the felt back home on my practice table. Two cubes ended chalk-side up, and the third pointing away – opposition from an unexpected direction. The blue marks left by the rolling cubes all pointed away from the axis.

Odd. Signified a scattering of forces. And trouble at a house in need of cleaning.

Had to be this place. No house in more dire need of cleaning than Dan’s.

Sometimes when I scattered the lot balls – little balls numbered one to sixteen, a way to determine the break for people afraid to lag – those I could read wrong.

Famously wrong in one case, when I actually ended up crossed with Heath Cyr downtown. Cyr’s a Hoodoo man, but a straight shooter as far as I can tell. I was still embarrassed to end up in his face that time.

Didn’t end well for me either. Haven’t trusted the lot balls since. But the chalk, the chalk never lied to me.

So I was at Dan’s place on a Friday night, and the early part of the too-warm evening almost went well enough to be worth the stink. A few business types in nicer suits than Dan could ever afford, all looking to play Nine Ball like they saw on ESPN. All at Dan’s place because they were looking to play for money, like the nice establishments officially discourage.

Money they could afford to lose, which put them on my radar.

Their type is so easy. No idea how simple Nine Ball is to hustle. By the time I was done with them, every one of them handed over his roll – actual rolls of cash bound by rubber bands, like they must have seen in some movie – shook my hand, and left thinking he’d been one shot away from winning.

As if.

They didn’t understand the game like real players. And they didn’t understand the players either. They looked at me and saw a short, skinny Polynesian kid with straight brown hair – no way most strangers could pick out that I’m Hawaiian – wearing blue Bermuda shorts and a blue Hawaiian shirt covered in images of Captain America. They saw the twitchy smile I showed them, and the way I couldn’t quite stand still, and they added it all to the fact that I was playing with a house cue.

Their calculations expected the total to be victory.

They didn’t know that I knew those house cues better than they knew the four-hundred-dollar sticks they pulled out of expensive cases. They didn’t know that I’d picked out this back corner table because the foot pockets were stingy to imprecise shooters. They didn’t know that I’ve been shooting pool every day since I was tall enough to hold a stick.

If guys like them every learned to read guys like me, I might have to get a straight job. Or enter tournaments, but that was a fate worse than scratching.

As the evening wore on after the suits left, I took a few more twenties from people who could afford to lose them, turned down games from guys who couldn’t, and by the time it was getting close to midnight, one of the other hustlers finally approached.

“Not bad,” she said, eyes running up and down me as though she could have been talking about my body instead of my game. “Up for a little One Pocket?”

Now, my smile’s not bad, and I’ve got the kind of cheeks that dimple in a way girls find cute. But this girl, she was something else, especially for a white girl. She wore a v-neck Avengers shirt with painted on jeans, and wow could she pull off the look. No more than my height, but chestnut brown hair falling down to her hips, and curves enough to make me wonder how she could shoot around her … endowments.

That wasn’t the question I asked though.

“Doesn’t your hair get in your way when you shoot?”

She laughed then. The first chink in her hot-girl armor. Her laugh was nasal. Had to admit, though, I found it kind of charming.

I don’t know. Maybe I’d been single too long.

“Come play some One Pocket with me and you’ll find out.”

“Can’t do it,” I said. Then winked. “Professional courtesy.”

That got me a raised eyebrow, but the smile didn’t fade. Though her voice sounded a little more real then. Like she wasn’t trying to play coy flirt girl.

“I know you’re a hustler. And I know you know I’m a hustler. I just want some decent games of One Pocket so I’m good and sharp when the real action shows up.”

Now that was an offer to make me smile. Dan’s was like a lot of places in that the real action didn’t start until sometime after midnight. Wouldn’t hurt me to get a few decent games in either…

“Well now you’re talking. Just let me get my cue from behind the—”

The door opened and a cold wind blew in. A cold wind that had nothing to do with the warm summer evening.

The trouble I was waiting for had arrived.

#

The guy didn’t look like much. Not to people who were still seeing things at entry level. He stood about six feet tall, and so rail thin he could have hidden behind a cue stick. Made me look as wide as my dad, and Dad used to play on the offensive line for UCLA.

Trouble Man had pasty white skin and short greasy hair. Wrecked blue jeans dangling like he wanted the world to think he was gangsta, but gangstas spent more money on their sneakers. His looked like thrift store specials. Probably the same place he got that white tee shirt, material as thin as he was.

Carried a two-piece cue without a case, and it looked like something he spent twenty bucks on at a sporting goods store.

In other words, unlike me, this guy looked like he belonged in a place as scuzzy as Dan’s.

Smiled like he owned the world though, and a bulge in his pocket that had nothing to do with sex. That was a money bulge, and no doubt it was as carefully crafted as the rest of his look. Designed to make every hustler in the room lick his – or her – chops and line up for a piece.

And he’d suck the essence out of every one of them.

I knew that the way I knew how to read the chalk. My eyes had had a few promotions, so to speak. And I could see the swirl of purple and black surrounding him like a bruise. I could see the hungry cast to his eyes. I could feel the cold coming off of him like ripples through the air.

This guy, he didn’t belong in our world, and he caused little bits of damage with every step he took.

Someone needed to send him packing. Back where he came from. And when the chalk warned me about “scattered forces” the cubes meant I was alone in drawing the short straw.

Sure, I could have ignored him. In theory, anyway. Let him do his thing and go home for a night’s rest. In practice, though, I just couldn’t.

First, all the little “promotions” I mentioned? The ones that let me see him the way he was, and spot who could afford to lose and who couldn’t? That made me hottest shot in the greater Portland-Vancouver area, even beyond my natural aptitude and my thousands of hours on the table?

That’s my own kind of magic, just like I was taught by my mentor, Mr. Holiday. And Mr. Holiday warned me that some games I couldn’t walk away from, or the game would turn on me.

Maybe for good.

But even without that reason, there was another, and it was maybe even more important than the first. My mom and dad, they raised me to stand tall. To get between other people and harm. And I’d be damned before I let my mom and dad down.

“Over here,” I called, smiling and waving like Trouble Man was an old friend. And I didn’t stop until he smiled back and started walking my way. Only then did I turn to Ms. One Pocket and say, “‘Fraid my game just showed up. But I would love to shoot some with you later, if you’re still around.”

“For a shot at some of the twenties that pigeon’s holding?” She smiled like a cougar spotting a wounded jogger. “I’ll be around.”

Trouble Man stepped up, but didn’t offer to shake my hand. Probably had skin cold as death, or something like it. One of those things that even entry level folk can pick up.

“That was fast,” he said, screwing together his cue. “Usually I have to shoot by myself for ten or twenty minutes before someone offers me a game.”

“Well, let’s just say I have a pretty good idea of what kind of game you’re looking for. And I intend to send you home hungry.”

Trouble Man gave his cue a final twist to make it nice and tight. He smiled at me, lips stretched way too wide for that thin face.

“I thought you looked like you must be Akela Kapule. The one they call the Big Kahuna.”

I nodded, trying to cover my surprise that he knew my given name. I mean, my pool nickname was one thing. Everybody who hangs around pool halls in the PNW – that’s the Pacific Northwest to the rest of the country – knows my nickname. But my given name? Especially my last name?

In Dan’s place that night, only one person knew my first name, let alone my last name. The son of a bitch who held onto my driver’s license every time he rented me table time, like I was any other player.

He didn’t have the guts to be standing behind the counter when I put two and two together. I had to look up at the window to his second-floor office to see Dan, giving me his condescending smile through smoke from what was no doubt a cheap cigar.

Dan set me up. This monster was ready for me.

I was neck deep and sinking fast.

“So,” said Trouble Man. “We gonna stand here all night? Or we gonna shoot some pool?”

#

“I think I better get my good cue,” I said, feeling my belly shake around inside like it was a lot cup. Bad enough facing some kind of demon, but a demon who was ready to face me?

“Yeah,” Trouble Man said with a harsh laugh. A tearing sound, like someone ripping through the felt. “I think you better at that. Just go get your hands on every edge you think you can grasp, little Kahuna. I’ll be here waiting.”

I didn’t like this. Not one bit.

Started thinking that this might be one of those better-part-of-valor situations. Standing between others and harm was one thing, but my parents wouldn’t want me jumping on a grenade either. And as for my magic, maybe I could figure out a delay…

Trouble Man scattered the balls and started shooting like he wanted the practice. Terrible form, of course. Twisted around and awkward, like he barely knew which end of the cue to hold.

My heart was pounding as I quick-stepped across the sticky linoleum. Each lift of my loafers produced a little tearing sound like echoes of Trouble Man’s laughter.

This wasn’t fair. I was supposed to have him off-balance and unprepared. I was supposed to have the advantage of tables I knew. Of being the unexpected opponent, challenging a monster ready for only unwary prey.

But Trouble Man had been briefed. Maybe knew the flavor of my magic. Maybe knew how to counter it.

When I reached over the glass counter to pick up my cue case, I admit I was giving serious thought to slipping out the side door, jumping into my little Honda, and zipping back downtown to someplace safe. Someplace I could play for money and nothing more.

Shameful, I know. Worrying about my own neck when I was the only one in the building who had a chance against Trouble Man. Even if he was ready for me.

Fortunately, that was when I picked up my cue case.

Just holding the case calmed me. Rich black leather more than a yard long, and wider across than my bicep. I kept the case oiled so I could still smell it, even here where the old smoke and French fry grease fought for my nose’s attention.

Calming me was part of the case’s nature. Kept me from getting dazzled by skill or magic, and right now it protected me from my own worst self.

And the case was only a little piece of my magic.

Inside was my cue. My Excalibur.

Not just a metaphor. Excalibur was my cue’s name, so dubbed by Mr. Holiday. He used to say that when I pulled out Excalibur I shot like a king. Even tried to nickname me the King.

Didn’t take though. Everybody in that first pool hall wanted to call the little Hawaiian boy Big Kahuna, and the name stuck.

But standing there with my cue case in my hand, I felt like a king. And Trouble Man was a monster come into my kingdom.

Maybe I hated Dan’s place as much as I hated Dan – though at the moment I didn’t think there was anything I hated more than Dan – but this was the Portland Metro area. My area. My kingdom.

No way I was going to let this monster feed on people here. Not the other hustlers (and certainly not Ms. One-Pocket), and not the players who came in here with fat bankrolls and visions of Fast Eddie Felson in their heads.

An angry kind of confidence came over me then. Settled my shaky belly, left me only sweating from the heat. I’d play this monster, all right. And Dan could go to hell if he thought he’d get a cut of my winnings.

I strode to our table in the back corner with my spine straight and my head held high. When Trouble Man gave me another too-wide smile, I smiled right back at him and pulled out my cue.

A Szamboti.

Yeah, it cost more than my car. Worth every penny. Have an extra shaft in the case, though I’ve never needed it, and a jump-break cue too, to spare my main cue the stress.

Trouble Man had the decency to whistle.

“Sweet Georgia Brown,” he said. “Poured a bit of yourself into that cue, haven’t you?”

“You’re drooling,” I said, tightening my cue.

“Well when you set out an appetizer that tasty, what do you expect?”

I glanced at the table, but Trouble Man had cleared his practice balls. “What’s your game?”

“Always been partial to Nine Ball, myself. Say, a race to nine?”

“Straight Pool it is then.” I leaned my cue against my worn wooden stool and stepped over to start racking the balls. “One game. Two hundred points. Winner take all.”

Trouble Man laughed again and said, “Whatever.” He pulled his bankroll out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. Twenty-five hundred dollars. Exactly matching the bankroll I kept in hidden in my cue case.

Just how much did he know about me?

Didn’t matter.

Knowing the other player was one thing. Playing the game was another. Even the money was only for the onloookers, the railbirds who’d sweat the game from tables away while pretending to practice or play their own games.

Trouble Man and I both knew what we were playing for.

If I won, he’d have to go back to whatever hell spawned him.

If he won, he’d eat the soul of every player in the house.

Starting with me.

#

Picking the game was a gamble. Trouble Man had named Nine Ball, so I’d gone with the game that was as close to its opposite as I could think of.

Nine Ball is fast. The game can end on a single shot, even the break. It’s so fast people don’t think in terms of single games, but in races. First to win five games, or nine or eleven.

Straight Pool, also called Fourteen-One Continuous, is glacial by comparison. Every ball is worth one point, and every shot must be called, including the break. The first fourteen balls are sunk, then the fifteenth and the cue ball are left in place while the others are re-racked and play continues.

A race to nine of Nine Ball might be over in twenty minutes. Two hundred points of Straight Pool would probably take a couple of hours.

I didn’t know for sure what Trouble Man was, but I was betting he was a demon. And demons weren’t known for their patience.

Dan’s tables didn’t have any place convenient to put the cash, so the local custom was to put each player’s stake in one of the two pockets at the foot of the table. Some tables that wouldn’t work for, but Dan’s had those leather web pockets, so the money could sit at the bottom without interfering with the shots.

Trouble Man let me have the cue ball when we lagged for break. He took the one ball. At the same time, we shot the length of the table toward the foot rail. My ball banked at good speed and came rolling back, slowing, slowing, slowing at just the right pace. Finished about two inches from the head rail. A solid lag. Good enough to win some nine times out of ten, and that was against serious players.

Trouble Man’s ball came to a stop touching the head rail.

“Does that mean I win? I usually lot for break,” he said in a mocking voice, while I re-racked for the break. “You don’t mind breaking, do you? I’d hate to risk my fine cue.”

More mockery. No thunderbolt breaks in Straight Pool, so no risk to the cue. In fact, breaking is a disadvantage in Straight Pool, because sinking a called shot off an unbroken rack is nigh impossible. Even for the likes of me. The break shot is always a safety, meaning a couple of numbered balls have to hit the rail and the goal is to leave the other player with something even worse than breaking.

Not easy, but I wasn’t worried. I’d been breaking Straight Pool for more than a decade.

I pulled the cue ball over by the side rail and took aim…

…and felt a sudden wave of cold.

“Cold” doesn’t quite do it justice. I felt like I’d been plunged face-first into arctic waters, strapped to a chunk of ice. I had to grab the rail to steady myself. I looked up at Trouble Man, standing opposite me across the table. His eyes swirled black and red, trying to suck me in. That purple color all around him spun in time with the swirl.

“Sharking,” I rasped, “is bad form.”

“I didn’t say a word,” he said, and I could hear the laughter in his voice. “Didn’t do anything either. Is my just standing here too much for your little focus, Big Kahuna?”

My whole body shook now. Like my very spine was turning to ice and my nerves were panicking, trying to jangle warmth back into me.

But there was sweat on my forehead too, which just seemed unfair.

I raised my cue in a shaky hand. Held it between the two of us. Risked lifting my free hand from the table. Almost pitched forward onto my face, but got that free hand on the cube of blue chalk near me along the rail.

I gritted my teeth, half to keep them from chattering and half in fear I would hurt the tip of my cue, but I brought the cube up and started chalking, letting my shaking speed the task.

Trouble Man was laughing then, and that laugh closed in on me. Echoing closer. Trying to get into my head.

I lifted the cube from my tip, shivered in a breath that tried to freeze my lungs.

By will alone I finished. I blew the loose chalk dust at Trouble Man.

Suddenly I was panting. Sweating. Almost jungle hot.

But his spell was broken.

I could move again. Feel again. A few of the Captain Americas on my Hawaiian shirt were sticking to my chest from the sweat, but I was free.

And Trouble Man wasn’t even the least bit rattled. He just stretched his face in an “I’m so impressed” expression, and said, “Not bad. Maybe you’re going to make me work for this after all.”

I ignored the jibe and took my shot. The four ball and the fifteen ball left the corners of the rack, tapped their closest rails, and rolled almost right back into their old positions while the cue ball rolled the length of the table to stop within inches of a pocket.

“Let’s see you do something with that,” I said.

Trouble Man looked over the rack and nodded.

“Four ball,” he said, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with fear. The four wasn’t in its original racked position. Did I leave him set up for a combination?

Couldn’t have been easy. Even a two or three ball combination gets tricky, and a whole rack combination was that much worse.

But I had a bad feeling about it.

Trouble Man twisted himself into what passed for his shooting form and slammed the cue ball down the table.

The rack broke apart with a crack like a headlong car crash.

The four ball flew into the corner pocket, followed by the seven. The rest of the rack spread itself out across the table. Wide open.

And I was in deep trouble.

#

Four racks later I was starting to feel glued to my stool. Trouble Man hadn’t missed a shot, and was up fifty-six to nothing. If he kept this up I would never get another turn and he would win the game. Even the tight corner pockets were acting generous for him.

His next shot pocketed the free six ball in the corner. The cue ball continued into the foot rail and back up into the rack. Just hard enough to scatter the other fourteen numbered balls nice and roomy.

“You don’t play Nine Ball at all, do you?” I asked.

“Only when I have to,” said Trouble Man. He gave me a smile. “Hate the game.”

He turned back to the table and continued shooting.

“How can he shoot like that?” said Ms. One Pocket, beside me. Her voice was politely quiet, but I still jumped. I’d been so focused on the game I’d never heard her approach. She continued as though she hadn’t startled my heart into speeding triple time. “Seriously. I do yoga and I couldn’t shoot all contorted up like that.”

“The way he shoots,” I said, trying to sound suave to recover some of my dignity, “I’m surprised he bothers using both hands.”

As if to prove the point, Trouble Man shot me a grin and made his next shot one-handed, using the rail to keep the cue steady.

“Don’t worry,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. “If he beats you, I’ll challenge him to One Pocket and clean him out on your behalf.”

She wasn’t offering to get my money back, of course. My own losses were on me. Still, putting it that way, she was speaking as though we were on the same side. Teammates, almost, against the interloper.

Ms. One Pocket may not have had any magical talent, but she could tell that Trouble Man wasn’t right. Didn’t belong here. Even though he was clearly a hustler in his own way, he wasn’t one of us.

Still, there was no way I could let her have that game. He’d beat her and eat her and move on to the next.

I had to find a way to…

…shark him?

Sharking is a dirty trick. It’s trying to distract the other player during his shot or get into his head so he can’t concentrate. Beneath any respectable player. Way beneath me. A player who sharks is a player who’s saying he can’t win on skill alone.

But Trouble Man, he tried to shark me on the opening break. Not in a way that anyone else in the building could pick out, but he wasn’t trying to shark them. Only me.

And if he could do it, then it was fair game. I could do it too.

I almost did. Would have been as easy as chalking my cue again and blowing the extra dust at him along with a little dose of magic. Worked to shatter his effort last time, and it probably would have worked as well a second time, with his focus on the game.

But that was the route of the lesser player. Even with my soul on the line, I would not stoop to Trouble Man’s level.

And maybe I didn’t have to. As Ms. One Pocket noted, Trouble Man didn’t belong here. He bruised our world with every movement. And I had a sneaking suspicion that those bruises were making the balls roll the way he wanted.

I reached into my cue case for my tin of wax and a good cotton rag.

I opened the tin, and inhaled through my nose of the carnauba wax, let the smell carry through the whole of my body. In the background I could hear the click-click-plunk of Trouble Man shooting, but it didn’t matter. Not right this second.

Right this second, the smell of the wax was cleansing me of my nerves. Of my fear. Centering me in the core of my power.

The wax and I were one.

The cue and I were one.

The table and I were one.

This world and I were one.

I spread some of the wax along the cue with my fingers, then took up the rag. With the rag I polished the cue from join to tip and as I did I cleansed the table of other magics. As the wax sealed the wood, so did I seal our world in this small place.

Trouble Man was nothing more than dirt, and I wiped his magic clean.

Click-click…

No plunk.

“The Hell?” said Trouble Man, looking up at me with murder in his black eyes. “What did you do?”

“Just waxing my cue in case you missed.” I stretched to look at the two ball hanging in a tight corner pocket. “And I’d say you did.”

Trouble Man gave up his subtlety then. His eyes swirled black and red again, trying to suck me in. But I was ready this time. Controlled and centered. I stepped up to the table and faced him, power against power.

I held my cue before me like a sword.

Entry level eyes around us wouldn’t have seen anything they hadn’t seen a thousand times in a place like Dan’s. A player missed and blew his cool. Glared like a flamethrower at the incoming player. Incoming player held up his cue as though he might need it as a weapon.

They wouldn’t see the yawning hole open up in the red and black swirl of Trouble Man’s eyes. They wouldn’t see Excalibur shine lighthouse bright white light.

Should have worked just that easy. Light defeats darkness. Hero wins the game. Gets to kiss Ms. One Pocket. Roll credits.

But the red and black swirl split at the white glow. Slammed into me from the sides.

I was as centered and protected as I ever get, but still I could feel the cold gnaw at me. Worming its way in. Fighting to reach my essence and suck out my soul.

“You … missed,” I growled through gritted teeth, pushing my cue against the tide of Trouble Man’s power. “Take. Your. Seat.”

Trouble Man didn’t speak. Didn’t laugh this time, at least.

Colder and colder that power gnawed at me.

My arms and legs strained like I was pushing a bus instead of a cue.

Fighting through the cold press of Trouble Man’s power.

Fighting until I could tap his forehead with the tip of my cue.

All at once the cold and pressure fled. Still, I shivered and shook, feeling raw everywhere that cold had touched me. Not in my body, but in the essential part of me. I sweated and panted, but I was free.

And Trouble Man turned and took his seat.

#

I didn’t miss.

I expected to. I expected Trouble Man to keep slamming at me, but I’d broken him. He couldn’t touch me, not unless he beat me. The real fight was over, and all I had to do was sink two hundred balls without missing any.

Considering that my personal best was nine-hundred-forty-seven in practice, two hundred was easy enough.

When I sank the two hundredth ball, Trouble Man snapped his cue over his knee and stomped toward the exit. He kicked the door open, and entry level eyes probably saw the door close behind him.

But I saw him vanish as the door closed. Gone back to whatever netherworld he came from.

And good riddance.

“So, obviously I’m not going to play Straight Pool with you,” said Ms. One Pocket from behind me. “But I’d still love a shot at some of those twenties if you have the guts to play One Pocket with me.”

“Do I at least get to know your name?”

“They call me the Siren.”

“Because you lure men to their deaths. Cute. But I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” she said, raising one hand. “And I know why. But I won’t even consider going out with a guy until I’ve played pool with him. Tried it. Regretted it. Until you’ve played me, Siren will do, Big Kahuna. What do you say?”

I smiled as I stepped to the foot pockets of the table and retrieved both my stake and my winnings. There was only one thing to say.

“Can we play somewhere else, at least? I hate this place.”

<<<<>>>>

And if you missed the last few, you can get them here…