The Color of Money

Chapter One

Where it faced the highway, the Sunburst was just another motel, but behind the main building sat a cluster of a half-dozen concrete cottages with tiny rock gardens. Condominiums. It was on one of the Keys, the one just below Largo. Driving down from the Miami airport, Ed had pictured a resort hotel with terraces and tennis courts, but this was old-fashioned. He parked beside a crimson hibiscus and got out into the Florida heat. Number 4 was the one across the gravel road, with a clear view of the ocean. It was late in the afternoon and the light from the sky was intense.

Just as he came up, the screen door opened and a hugely fat man stepped out. The man wore Bermuda shorts and carried a wet bathing suit; he walked to the edge of the little porch and began wringing the suit into the bushes, scowling. It was him. Old as hell and even fatter, but there was no mistaking the man. Ed walked up to the foot of the steps, shading his eyes from the sun. You re George Hegerman, he said, pleasantly.

The fat man grunted and went on with his suit.

We used to know each other, in Chicago. . . .

The man turned and looked at him. I remember.

I d like to talk business, Ed said, squinting up. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable. It was extremely hot. I could use a drink.

The fat man turned and finished with the bathing suit. There was a wood banister at one end of the porch and he hung it over that, spreading it out to dry. The suit was enormous. He turned back to Ed. I m going out in the bay. You can come along.

Ed stared at him for a moment. In a boat?

That s right.

Hegerman stood at the wheel, wearing only the Bermuda shorts and dark glasses; he piloted the small boat expertly toward the low sun. The water was flat and shallow and as blue as any water Ed had ever seen; the motor behind him made conversation impossible except for an occasional shout.

After a while Hegerman pushed the throttle forward and the boat jolted

WALTER TEVIS is the author of The Hustler, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Mockingbird, The Steps of the Sun, The Queen s Gambit, The Color of Money, and the short story collection Far from Home. The Man Who Fell to Earth was the basis for a major motion picture starring David Bowie. The Hustler and The Color of Money were also adapted for film, The Queen s Gambit was the basis of the Emmy Award winning Netflix series and The Man Who Fell to Earth is the basis of the Showtime series. Tevis died in 1984. 
 

"Tevis writes about pool with power and poetry and tension. . . . Grabs the reader and doesn't let go. You don't have to appreciate pool to like this book, to appreciate its sense of living on the edge." Washington Post

"Tevis has added some glamour, but the grit remains together with the suspense of a competition whose only literary counterpart is the gunfight of the Old West." Chicago Tribune