Mavis answered, “Garden of Eden. Snake speaking.” There was a pause. “What am I, his answering service?” Pause. “He’s out of town; he’ll be back soon. Why don’t you guys take a social risk and call him at home?” Pause. “Yeah, he’s here.” Mavis shot a glance at Robert. “You want to talk to him? Okay.” She hung up.

“That for The Breeze?” Robert asked.

Mavis lit a Taryton. “He got popular all of a sudden?”

“Who was it?”

“Didn’t ask. Sounded Mexican. Asked about you.”

“Shit,” Robert said.

Mavis set him up with another draft. He turned to watch the game. The stranger had won. He was collecting five dollars from Slick.

“Guess you showed me, pard,” Slick said. “You gonna give a chance to win my money back?”

“Double or nothing,” the stranger said.

“Fine. I’ll rack ’em.” Slick pushed the quarters into the coin slot on the side of the pool table. The balls dropped into the gutter and Slick began racking them.

Slick was wearing a red-and-blue polka-dotted polyester shirt with long, pointed collars that had been fashionable around the time that disco died — about the same time that Slick had stopped brushing his teeth, Robert guessed. Slick wore a perpetual brown and broken grin, a grin that was burned into the memories of countless tourists who had strayed into the Slug to be fleeced at the end of Slick’s intrepid cue.

The stranger reared back and broke. His stick made the sickly vibrato sound of a miscue. The cue ball rocketed down the table, barely grazing the rack, then bounced off two corner rails and made a beeline toward the corner pocket where the stranger stood.

“Sorry, brother,” Slick said, chalking his cue and preparing to shoot the scratch.

When it reached the corner pocket, the cue ball stopped dead on the lip. Almost as an afterthought, one of the solid balls moved out of the pack and fell into the opposite corner with a plop.

“Damn,” Slick said. “That was some pretty fancy English. I thought you’d scratched for sure.”

“Was that a solid?” the stranger asked.

Mavis leaned over the bar and whispered to Robert. “Did you see that ball stop? It should have been a scratch.”

“Maybe there’s a piece of chalk on the table that stopped it,” Robert speculated.

The stranger made two more balls in an unremarkable fashion, then called a straight-in shot on the three ball. When he shot, the cue ball curved off his stick, describing a C-shaped curve, and sunk the six ball in the opposite corner.

“I said the three ball!” the stranger shouted.

“I know you did,” Slick said. “Looks like you were a little heavy on the English. My shot.”

The stranger seemed to be angry at someone, but it wasn’t Slick. “How can you confuse the six with the three, you idiot?”

“You got me,” said Slick. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, pard. You’re up one game already.”

Slick ran four balls, then missed a shot that was so obvious it made Robert wince. Slick’s hustles were usually more subtle.

“Five in the side!” the stranger shouted. “Got that? Five!”

“I got it,” Slick said. “And all these folks got it along with half the people out in the street. You don’t need to yell, pard. This is just a friendly game.”

The stranger bent over the table and shot. The five ball careened off the cue ball, headed for the rail, then changed its path and curved into the side pocket. Robert was amazed, as were all the observers. It was an impossible shot, yet they all had seen it.

“Damn,” Slick said to no one in particular, then to Mavis, “Mavis, when was the last time you leveled this table?”

“Yesterday, Slick.”

“Well, it sure as shit went catywumpus fast. Give me my cue, Mavis.”

Mavis waddled to the end of the bar and pulled out a three-foot-long black leather case. She handled it carefully and presented it to Slick with reverence, a decrepit Lady of the Lake presenting a hardwood Excaliber to the rightful king. Slick flipped the case open and screwed the cue together, never taking his eyes off the stranger.

At the sight of the cue the stranger smiled. Slick smiled back. The game was defined. Two hustlers recognized each other. A tacit agreement passed between them: Let’s cut the bullshit and play.

Robert had become so engrossed in watching the tension between the two men and trying to figure out why the stranger angered him so, that he failed to notice that someone had slipped onto the stool next to him. Then she spoke.

“How are you, Robert?” Her voice was deep and throaty. She placed her hand on his arm and gave it a sympathetic squeeze. Robert turned and was taken aback by her appearance. She always affected him that way. She affected most men that way.

She was wearing a black body stocking, belted at the waist with wide leather in which she had tucked a multitude of chiffon scarves that danced around her hips when she walked like diaphanous ghosts of Salome. Her wrists were adorned with layers of silver bangles; her nails were sculptured long and lacquered black. Her eyes were wide and green, set far apart over a small, straight nose and full lips, glossed blood red. Her hair hung to her waist, blue-black. An inverted silver pentagram dangled between her breasts on a silver chain.

“I’m miserable,” Robert said. “Thanks for asking, Ms. Henderson.”

“My friends call me Rachel.”

“Okay. I’m miserable, Ms. Henderson.”

Rachel was thirty-five but she could have passed for twenty if it weren’t for the arrogant sensuality with which she moved and the mocking smile in her eyes that evinced experience, confidence, and guile beyond any twenty-year-old. Her body did not betray her age; it was her manner. She went through men like water.

Robert had known her for years, but her presence never failed to awaken in him a feeling that his marital fidelity was nothing more than an absurd notion. In retrospect, perhaps it was. Still, she made him feel uneasy.

“I’m not your enemy, Robert. No matter what you think. Jenny has been thinking about leaving you for a long time. We didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“How are things with the coven?” Robert asked sarcastically.

“It’s not a coven. The Pagan Vegetarians for Peace are dedicated to Earth consciousness, both spiritual and physical.”

Robert drained his fifth beer and slammed the mug down on the bar. “The Pagan Vegetarians for Peace are a group of bitter, ball-biting, man haters, dedicated to breaking up marriages and turning men into toads.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”

“What I know,” Robert said, “is that within a year of joining, every woman in your coven has divorced her husband. I was against Jenny getting into this mumbo jumbo from the beginning. I told her you would brainwash her and you have.”

Rachel reared back on the bar stool like a hissing cat. “You believe what you want to believe, Robert. I show women the Goddess within. I put them in touch with their own personal power; what they do with it is their own business. We aren’t against men. Men just can’t stand to see a woman discover herself. Maybe if you’d exalted Jenny’s growth instead of criticizing, she’d still be around.”

Robert turned away from her and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar. He was overcome by a wave of self-loathing. She was right. He covered his face with his hands and leaned forward on the bar.

“Look, I didn’t come here to fight with you,” Rachel said. “I saw your truck outside and I thought you might be able to use a little money. I have some work for you. It might take your mind off the hurt.”

“What?” Robert said through his hands.

“We’re sponsoring the annual tofu sculpture contest at the park this year. We need someone to take pictures for the poster and the press package. I know you’re broke, Robert.”

“No,” he said, without looking up.

“Fine. Suit yourself.” Rachel slid off the stood and started to leave.