Calling The Shots

Starsky hustles Hutch. Hutch lets himself be hustled (this time).

A/N: Half of this was written in my head while at the dentist getting fillings. Do with that what you will.

“See, the thing is,” Starsky says, leans over the pool table, and neatly breaks the racked balls. With a satisfying clatter, they scatter and roll—the 2 and 6 balls straight into a corner pocket. “I’ve been hustling since I was a kid.”

Hutch leans back against the bar, cue held loosely in one hand, beer in the other, and appreciates the view as Starsky stretches and shoots. There’s a clack, and another ball lands in a side pocket.

Straightening, he turns around and grins. “Benefit of having a bunch of uncles who regarded the law more as a suggestion than a rule. You learn some skills.”

He casts around, and Hutch hands him the chalk.

“Thanks.” His fingers move over the cue in a smooth, circular movement that Hutch can’t help but watch.

Moving around to the other side of the table, he leans over again, sighting down the cue. “And the thing about hustling is, it’s not really about the skill. I mean, that helps, but—”

He draws back, looks up. In the split second of the sound of cue hitting ball reaching Hutch’s ears, Starsky winks at him. Another ball sinks as Hutch’s heart jumps.

“—it’s really about the other person.”

“The hustlee,” Hutch says faintly, with a dawning feeling that may be exactly the role he’s occupying.

“Exactly.” Starsky scans the table slowly, then moves to the far end. “It’s like poker, really. Just with balls and sticks, ‘stead of cards and chips.”

Lean—clack—ball meets pocket. There’s no acknowledgement of the obvious innuendo in his words. That’s what convinces Hutch there’s something going on here, more than anything else.

“You have to be able to read your mark. It’s not three-card monte, all flash and no substance.” He picks up the chalk from where he’d left it on the edge of the table, and doesn’t look at Hutch until Hutch looks at him, magnetically drawn and unable to stop himself. Then he grins again. “I had an uncle who did that too. Told me I had a knack for it.”

Cue re-chalked, he tosses the chalk towards Hutch. It tumbles end over end in a smooth arc, sharply broken when Hutch snatches it out of the air. The hollow is smooth under his thumb.

“I preferred this, though. Figuring out what people were thinking, when they were too confident. When they weren’t confident enough.” His eyes stay on the table this time as he balances the cue right on the edge, says, “Three and five, left side,” even though they’re not playing call-pocket, and shoots.

Three and five roll into the left side pocket. Hutch accepts that he’s lost whatever it was they’d been betting tonight.

Starsky straightens. “When they trusted me.” He looks at Hutch again, and maintains eye contact as he rounds the corner and leans forearms on the table edge, with a clear sightline from cue to cue ball to the seven—his last.

“Can’t hustle someone if they don’t trust you.” His gaze lowers to the table. Seven sinks.

The eight ball sits in the middle of the table, surrounded by the striped numbers that would nominally be Hutch’s, if he’d had any reason to even approach the table since racking. There’s only one between it and the side pocket, though, and a minimal angle from the cue ball. A difficult shot, but far from an impossible one. Instead of making it, Starsky lowers his cue to the ground and leans on it, like it’s a telephone pole and he’s a chimney sweep. “You remember the first time we played?”

It takes Hutch a moment to realise he means pool. Even though there’s nothing else he could mean. “I got hustled.”

“Yeah. You don’t trust easy.”

The words of this conversation—more monologue than conversation—feel like they’re in a slipstream, sliding between meanings. “You gonna take your shot?”

Starsky raises his eyebrows, but he leans over one last time. Lines up the difficult-but-not-impossible shot, draws the cue back—and misses it.

The cue ball is left equidistant from two of the striped balls and the eight ball. There’s clear shots to both. Hutch can drag this out, futilely claw back some ground, or he can end it now.

Starsky doesn’t move.

Either shot is going to require Hutch to squash up against his side like this—eight ball to the left, his dominant; play balls to the right.

Hutch chalks his cue as Starsky blinks at him.

He doesn’t really decide until he steps closer and Starsky lifts his right arm, high enough for Hutch to duck under and shoot. He goes to the left. Something quirks the corner of Starsky’s mouth, too small to be called a smile, but he switches arms.

When Hutch leans down and sights, Starsky’s arm settles over his back. The loosely held cue bumps against Hutch’s side. Hutch exhales, slowly, and shoots.

Cue ball rolls towards eight ball rolls towards pocket. Drops. Game over.

Hutch is still there. Starsky’s still holding him.

He straightens, and Starsky’s arm doesn’t drop. He collects Starsky’s cue from his hand, and lays both across the table. Starsky’s arm doesn’t drop.

He also makes no move to further anything, and Hutch gathers that this is another eight-ball shot placed into his hands. He can slap Starsky on the back and move away, drag this out, futilely claw back some ground. Or he can end it now.

There’s no movement of Starsky’s to make up his mind now, except that when he turns into the hold, that half- almost- micro-smile comes back.

There’s one desperate moment where his brain races through overthinking where his hands should go. Then Starsky says, “You always were an easy mark.”

Hutch leaves his hands where they are—one braced on the table, one by his side—in favour of putting his lips where they’re supposed to be. Eight ball, corner pocket.

“About damn time,” Huggy mutters lowly from behind the otherwise empty bar.