The Careful Implementation of External Pressure

Case #11: Matthew Dodd.

Case #11: Matthew Dodd.
Sunday/September/1/2019/ 1:07AM

Mathew Dodd scanned Biliar's Place one last time. He'd been here for a few hours, holed up in a corner booth by the bar, mostly out of sight. He was starting to get ready to leave, pushing his three empty beer bottles together in the center of the table and adjusting his jacket over his shoulders. He resisted the urge to sigh, knowing that inhaling too much of the bar's stuffy, smoky air would do nothing but make him light-headed, but couldn't stop himself from frowning. He'd been out of luck lately, every bar he'd walked into in the last week had been mark-less, and with no one to hustle, money was starting to get tight.

He had just stood up when the door opened, bringing in a cold wave of night air and making those closest to the door recoil. Two people entered, and Matthew sat back dowing, having found a mark.

He watched them carefully, trying not to feel like a creep. He didn't usually target younger kids, he remembered what it was like, unless they were rich college kids "slumming it" over break, but these two looked like they could handle it. They both looked like money, but not in the usual, "daddy owns the company," way. It was more like... his eyebrows furrowed together, it was more like they both had money, but didn't know how to wear it. He'd been hustling rich suckers for twenty years, and never had he saw anyone like these two.

The taller of the two had red hair, the colour a strange mix of the red billiard ball and the bar's wooden floors, and it was frizzed with the humidity of the bar. There was a cigarette tucked behind her ear, and her face was flushed with the heat of her drunkenness. It was evident that she'd been bar hopping for most of the night, and he let his gaze fall from her for a split second to watch the bartender, to see if he would turn the obviously underaged girl away.

In the split second Matthew had looked away, the two girls had disappeared from the doorway and it took him more searching than he'd admit to find them again.

The redhead was hanging off the shorter, who, as after a moment of staring confirmed, had blue hair that looked black in the lights. The bluenette was leading her companion through the crowd in Matthew's direction, and made eye contact with him for the briefest of moments. Normally he didn't notice people's eye colour, but there was a trick of the light, and her eyes seemed slit and purple, but then she moved and the weird lighting changed, her eyes revealing themselves to actually be a deep blue.

She lead the taller to a booth a few away from Matthew's, and dropped the redhead into it. She slumped over, immediately waving one of the servers over and slurring out an order for a drink. The bluenette smiled patronizingly and shook her head at the server.

They definitely had money, even if their clothes and stances didn't show it. It was there, hidden in the redhead's sharp-cut jade earrings, the ring on her finger, in the bluenette's manicured nails and in the leather jacket over her shoulders.

"Quinnn," the redhead slurred, tugging on the bluenette's arm. So, Matthew noted, her name was Quinn. It was weird, but he'd gone to highschool with someone named Analia, so it wasn't the weirdest he'd ever heard.

"I wanna play poool," she whined, dragging out the words, and drastically tipping her head in the direction of the three pool tables by the far wall. Only one of them was in use right now, and a few people were watching and making bets on the game. Matthew already knew it was a fair game, no hustling being done.

"You're too drunk to play, Cody," Quinn shook her head, and Matthew could tell by her voice alone that she really didn't want to be here.

Cody scoffed loudly, waving her hand as if to physically dismiss the idea, "'m not drunk at all, you're dru-" half way through her sentence she broke out in little giggles, and then coughs.

Quinn watched her with an amused expression, and then scanned the bar the way Matthew had been doing for hours, only instead of looking for someone to scam out of two-hundred dollars, she was searching for a server.

They were all busy tending to other bar-patrons, so Quinn stood up from the nicotine-stained booth and looked down at Cody, still recovering from her coughing fit,

"I'm going to get you a glass of water." She took a step away from their table, only to fall back into place, leveling Cody with a stern look, "Stay here."

Cody gave Quinn's retreating figure a left-handed salute, then slouched back into her seat miserably. It was a little underhanded, but Matthew rose from his seat and placed himself at the foot of their table. He put on a tipsy act of his own, stumbling over himself and swaying on his feet.

"I'll- uh, I could, play, pool, I mean," he said, adding a drunken stumble to his words and furrowing his eyebrows, as if he was upset he could say what he was trying to, just in case Quinn was still listening.

Cody perked up, then hunched down in her seat and he realized she was using his body to sheild herself from Quinn's line of vision.

She rose from her own seat after a moment, and slinked off to the pool table's with more dramatic sneaking than needed.

They played two and a half games before Quinn reappeared, water in hand and concerned expression, "Cody-" she started, but broke off. Cody was ignoring her, busy struggling to keep the pool cue trained on the cue ball.

Quinn watch the game in silence, taking up space against the wall by the rack of pool cues and watching as Cody lost. Badly. Again.

Matthew usually played until he'd cleaned someone out, but he felt a little bad and forty bucks could get him a few towns over, where'd there'd be more dive bars and more to hustle, so he started collecting the crumbled bills from the side of the table, ready to let this one go.

Cody stopped him however, leaning against her pool cue for balance, "come onnn, one more game. Another twentyy," she pouted slightly, reaching into pockets she didn't have.

She made grabby hands at Quinn until the other relented, pushing off the wall and let Cody dig around in the pockets of the leather jacket that looked just a little too-big to be Quinn's for a crumpled twenty dollar bill.

Cody smoothed out the bill on the side of the pool table for longer than needed, and Quinn frowned, looking to Matthew, "my friend is a little too far gone to be making bets right now," she started, but Cody cut her off by pushing her back towards the wall.

"Hey," Cody shushed, "shut up, Quinn, I'm fine."

Quinn gave her a wicked look, "you're not fine, you're drunk."

Cody frowned, then glared, and her hand draw back from inside the pocket of the jacket, looking to Matthew, "let-lets make it seven hundred," and she held up a folded wad of cash.

"Seven hundred?" Quinn repeated, incredulously, looking across the table with something like unbelieving exhaustion.

Matthew felt his eyes widen. Not even rich college students spending their parents money often went up to seven hundred. It would keep him afloat for weeks, no way could he refuse.

"Sure," he heard himself say, over the clatter of billiard balls he hadn't even realized he'd started racking.

Cody slammed the cash next to the glass of water Quinn had set down with an air of defiance, and readied her pool cue.

-0-0-0-0-

Cookie quirked her eyebrows at Qween when the hustler agreed, and Qween returned the look, relenting that maybe Cookie had been right in choosing this bar, along with the last four they'd been to that night.

Qween flexed her fingers as if she was the one hustling- which, she had been, at the last bar, while Cookie drank- and watched as Cookie drew back the pool cue to strike the cue ball-head on.

They took the other hustler for everything he had, and Qween couldn't help but lay a gentle hand on his shoulder as Cookie loudly counted bills. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and he was going to let them off with only two losses.

With a soft tone, she gently advised, "If you can't find the one getting hustled in a pool hall, it's probably you."