It started to rain after he reached the hotel, and he looked out his window and watched the water streak down the glass and the evening twilight diminish from green to lavender and the neon sign come on over the billiard hall. The street and the high sidewalks and the courthouse lawn and the one-story brick buildings were empty of people. The afterglow of the sun faded in the wet sky, and the small crack of red in the clouds low on the horizon sank out of sight, then it was dark.
He went down to the billiard hall, since everything else in town was closed after seven o’clock except the gas station, the café, and a couple of taverns. He went inside and drank a beer at the bar. Some of the men he had been with earlier were still there. He listened to the crack of the billiard balls and the squeak of the cues being chalked and the cursing when someone missed a shot. Clois, the man who could switch a pair of dice in a game or make them walk up a backboard and come back sevens so often that he was required to throw with a cup, come over to J.P. and asked him to join the others in back.
“What are you playing?”
“Craps. We never play nothing else,” Clois said. “Like the nigger says, them galloping dominoes ain’t done me wrong yet.”
They walked the length of the bar past the pool tables and went through a door in the back. There was a room bare of any furniture with no windows and a single light bulb with a green shade like those over the pool tables. A dirty blanket was spread on the floor, and six or seven men were kneeling around in a circle and one was bouncing the dice off the wall back onto the blanket.
“Mind if me and J.P. gets in?” Clois said.
The men looked at them and then back at the game. The man who was shooting smacked the dice off the wall.
“Ain’t you fellows ready to let some more money in the game?” Clois said.
“Shut up. Can’t you see I’m shooting?” the man with the dice said.
He hit them off the wall again and crapped out.
“All right. You done made me lose my point. You can get in now,” he said.
“Whose dice?” Clois said.
“You got money?” a man said.
“What the hell do you think I come in here for?”
“Put it on the board.”
Clois dropped two crumpled one-dollar bills on the blanket and took the dice.
“None of your stuff, neither. This is a straight game,” the man said.
“I ain’t pulling nothing on you boys,” Clois said, and rolled his sleeves up over his elbows.
The bets went down on the blanket. Clois knelt on one knee and rubbed the dice between his hands. J.P. watched and didn’t bet. Clois rolled.
“Six is my point. Right back the hard way,” he said, and put two more dollars on the blanket. He cracked the dice between his palms. “Come on, cover it. I ain’t got all night.”
He shot four times. His shirt collar was damp with sweat. There were small beads of perspiration over his face and in the stubble of his beard. He retrieved the dice and on the fifth throw he made his point.
“Thirty-three, the hard way,” he said. He picked up the bills and put them in front of him. “Shooting it all.”
The others covered him. He rolled a seven.
“Let it ride,” he said.
He made three more passes and he had a good pile of bills and change in front of him.
“I’ll shoot five this time,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” a man said.
“The dice ain’t good forever.” He picked up all the money except a five-dollar bill and put it in his pocket. He bounced the dice off the wall.
“Boxcars. You get some of your green back,” he said.
“You always drag at the right time,” a man said.
“It’s part of knowing how to play.”
“Give me the goddamn dice,” the man said.
“You fellows don’t know how to lose.”
“You talk too much.”
“Roll the dice.”
“You want in, J.P.?” a man said. “All right.”
He knelt in the circle with the others and put three dollars in the center of the blanket. He rolled a four.
“Little Joe at the cathouse do’,” Clois said. “I’m betting he makes it.”
“Put your money down, smart man.”
“Ten bucks. Give me three to one,” Clois said.
“You’re on,” the man said.
J.P. made it on the second pass. He let his money ride and crapped out. The bartender brought in a tray of sandwiches and beer. One of the men put a bill on the tray. The dice came around to J.P. again and he shot five dollars and threw a three.
“I ain’t hot tonight,” he said.
“You ain’t made your point yet. You still got another shot,” Clois said.
“Shooting ten,” J.P. said.
“Fade,” a man said, covering his bet.
He rolled an eleven and doubled his money. He shot the twenty and doubled again.
“I’ll drag half of it,” he said.
“Let it ride,” Clois said. “You can break the game.”
“I ain’t hot.”
“You done made two passes.”
“Dragging half of it,” J.P. said to the others.
“You ain’t making no money like that,” Clois said.
“I ain’t feeling it tonight.”
“One more pass and it’s eighty bucks.”
“Shut up and let him play,” a man said.
“Coming out,” J.P. said.
He crapped out on a deuce. The other men split up the twenty dollars he had left remaining on the blanket. J.P. put the rest of the money in his wallet.
“You quitting?” Clois said.
“I reckon.”
“Wait a minute. I’ll go with you.”
Clois picked up the bills in front of him and folded them neatly and put them in his shirt pocket and buttoned it. The others didn’t want him to leave. He was ahead a good bit.
“That’s too goddamn bad,” he said, looking at them with his dull gray eyes. He and J.P. left the room.
They drank a beer at the bar and watched the pool games. It was still raining outside. The light from the neon sign was red and green on the front window.
“Let’s go out on the highway,” Clois said.
“Are they still doing business out there?”
“The sheriff raided it a while back but it’s open again now. They caught one of the church deacons trying to zip up his britches and hide in a closet. I reckon they figure they better not raid it no more unless they want to find the preacher and the mayor next time.”
They finished the beer and went outside in the rain to Clois’s car, a 1941 Ford with a smashed fender, one headlight, and a broken back window. They drove down the main street out of town with the windshield wipers switching against the glass and the rain falling in the light of the single headlamp. Clois opened the glove compartment and took out a half-empty pint of bourbon and unscrewed the cap and drank. He passed it to J.P. They went on for several miles and turned off the highway onto a dirt road, the mud and the gravel banging under the fenders. There was no moon, and the fields on each side of them were wet and dark. Ahead, there was a large two-story white house that was set back from the road with nothing around it. It looked like one of those big frame farmhouses built during the early part of the century. The shades were drawn, and there were two cars parked in the yard. Clois stopped by the side of the house, and they got out and walked through the rain to the front porch and knocked. The door opened a small space and a dark-haired woman of about forty-five looked out at them. She had a gold tooth and her face was thin-featured and pale. She opened the door wider and let them in.