HCC 115 - Borderline

by Lawrence Block

  They played who-do-you-know for fifteen minutes. They tossed mutual acquaintances back and forth and managed to get introductions across without being formal about it. The scraggly brown beard was Artie, the horn-rimmed glasses was Paul, the flat-chested redhead was Cassie. There was another girl with short dark hair named Didi and a blinking, red-eyed boy named Benno. Lily had more tequila.

  “You dig Mary Juanita, Lily?”

  “I’ve been there. I can take it or put it down.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I don’t smoke regular cigarettes,” she said, “So it’s kind of hard for me to groove on pot. My throat gets like sandpaper.”

  More talk and more tequila. The bearded American left the bar and walked out into the night. The two Mexicans got into an argument. One of them took out a knife, pressed a button. A blade shot forward. The other Mexican picked up a beer bottle by the base and snapped the neck off deftly on the bartop. The bartender, white-haired and sad-eyed, spoke rapid Spanish to both of them. The knife was folded and returned to a pocket, the broken bottle replaced on the top of the bar.

  “I thought we’d see action,” Paul said lazily. “No action anymore. You got any bread, Lily?”

  “None.” They didn’t have to know about her twelve dollars. She was hanging onto it for the time being. Let them pay for the tequila, if they wanted to. Not her, thank you.

  “No bread? How you plan on eating?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Artie said, “Maybe Cassie can get you a gig. Cassie’s got a good job, Lily-O.”

  Cassie was blushing, her face as red as her hair.

  “Cassie’s in show biz,” Artie went on, his lips twitching in the beginning of a smile. “She has this gig at a night club, like. A club called Delia’s Place. You could say she’s the floorshow.”

  Cassie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Lily poured another shot of tequila, the last in the bottle. She threw it down and drew a breath. She wondered what the redhead was squirming about.

  “Maybe Cassie can get a job for you,” Artie pressed on. “Where she works, like.”

  “I don’t dance,” Lily said.

  Benno broke up over that one. “She don’t dance,” he said. “Son of a bitch, she don’t dance!”

  “I said something funny?”

  “Funny,” Artie said. “Cassie don’t dance either. Tell her about your gig, Cassie Kid. Lily might wig over it.”

  Cassie said, “Delia’s Place is a cathouse, like. There’s a floorshow, you know, and then you go with the customers. That’s all. I’m not in show business. It’s Artie’s idea of a joke. He has this sense of humor.”

  Artie started laughing again.

  “Is the pay good?”

  “She don’t care about the money,” Benno said, breaking up all over again. “She does it cause she digs the work. The money’s just extra.”

  Cassie told him to shut up. “The money could be better or worse,” she told Lily. “A girl makes ten times as much hustling in the States, because here there’s a million Mexican whores and they damn near give it away. But it still isn’t bad. I get about thirty a day and it’s just a few hours and they don’t care if you come on a little bit stoned as long as it doesn’t slow you down. The guy who runs the place is an American, he used to live in New York.”

  Lily was beginning to feel the tequila. Her head was lighter than usual and all her muscles felt loose and relaxed. She reached for the bottle to pour another shot, then remembered it was empty and let her hand drop.

  Cassie’s job didn’t sound too bad. A week ago she wouldn’t have thought about it for a minute, but that was before the redneck in the Dallas hotel and, more significantly, before the driver in the air-conditioned Buick. It wasn’t hard to ball with a stranger. All you did was squirm around and let him have his kicks. You didn’t have to feel it yourself. He was just using your body, and that didn’t matter much.

  “It doesn’t sound too bad,” Lily said.

  “You want to meet Ringo? He’s the guy who runs the place.”

  “I’ll meet him.”

  “I don’t know if he wants anybody,” Cassie said. “But we can see, and you can see if you dig it. Later, everybody.”

  Lily stood up. Now, on her feet, she really felt the drinks. Her head was swimming. She followed the flat-chested redhead out of the bar and walked with her down the street.

  * * *

  Meg was slowly scratching herself. She lay flat on her back with no pillow beneath her head and scratched herself lazily, liking the way it felt. Not that it really needed scratching, now. It had been scratched expertly by an expert, and it had been scratched more than once.

  Meg glanced at the expert. His eyes were closed and he was smoking a cigarette.

  She said, “Marty.”

  “Mmmm?”

  “That was good, Marty.”

  “I know. I needed it.”

  “So did I. Cigarette?”

  He lit one and handed it to her. She took a drag and savored the smoke in her lungs. A cigarette tasted much better afterward. Everything was better.

  “One thing I don’t understand, Marty. You’re a single guy. Why the hell do you have a house?”

  “Don’t you like the house?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “I could have an apartment,” he said. “A decent apartment would cost me a hundred and a quarter a month. I pay eighty a month on the house and I have three times as much room and five times as much privacy and no landlord. So why pay rent?”

  “And when the mortgage is paid you’ll own the house.”

  “It’s a twenty-year mortgage,” he said. “And a post-war house. I don’t figure it’ll be standing in twenty years.”

  “You own a house and you still drive a six-year old car. Why?”

  “Don’t you like the car?”

  “Well, sure, but—”

  “It runs like a clock,” he said. “It gets an oil change every five hundred miles and it goes to the garage once a month for a check-up. Every piece of iron on that car is better than when it left Detroit six years ago. I couldn’t buy that good a car no matter what I paid. Why get a new car?”

  She nodded thoughtfully. Borden had driven a Chrysler Imperial, and he had traded once a year, whenever the new model came out. He was a terrible driver and something was always wrong with whatever car they had owned at the time.

  “Could you afford a new car?”

  He thought a moment. “I could afford a Rolls Royce,” he said finally. “But I don’t need one. I could afford to pay cash for a Rolls Royce. I like the Olds, though.”

  “You have a lot of money?”

  “I have enough.”

  “Are you in the rackets?”

  “Would I tell you, Meg?”

  “You might.”

  He put out his cigarette. “I was in the rackets once, on the coast. I left with no hard feelings. I was just an errand boy and I didn’t like the work.”

  “What do you do now?”

  “I gamble and win. I play poker, mainly. Sometimes dice, but I don’t like dice. I don’t like anything where you’re playing against mathematics instead of against other people. Poker you play against people, and if you’re good you win.”

  “And you’re good.”

  “Otherwise I’d lose.”

  She digested this. Borden had liked the roulette wheel at Vegas, and had lost a great deal of money. He played poker once a week with business friends. He invariably lost, and cursed his luck daily.

  “Do you have a job Marty?”

  “No. I don’t need one.”

  “Do you play cards every day?”

  He laughed. “No. Maybe once a week. Sometimes not even that often. When some good action comes along, I play. That’s all.”

  “And the rest of the time?”

  “I just take things easy.”

  “By yourself?”

  He looked over at her lying beside him. “Not always.”


  She finished her cigarette and gave it to him to put out. He took a last drag, butted the cigarette in the ashtray. “I would think there would be more poker games in a bigger city,” she said. “Like New York or Chicago or Los Angeles.”

  “There are.”

  “Why do you stay in El Paso, then?”

  “I get enough action to keep me going. And this way I don’t break laws. You can get arrested in the States, playing in a heavy game. If the fix isn’t in well enough, the cops can pick you up and cart you off to jail. I don’t have a record and I want to keep it that way.”

  “The games are across the border?”

  “That’s right. In Juarez. There’s probably a Mexican law against gambling but it’s never enforced. They barely enforce the laws against murder in Mexico. They don’t have time to worry about a quiet poker game.” He stopped, thought for a moment. “There are some crooked games,” he went on, “where suckers get taken with marked cards, stuff like that. Those games get broken up now and then because it can hurt the tourist trade. But I’m not interested in crooked games. They’re no kick.”

  Meg said, “I like you.”

  “Good.”

  “You’re good for me.” she went on. “You know what I want, Marty? I want to let go, I mean of everything, just let go and let the world spin out on its string all over the place. I want excitement. I want to do everything and see everything.”

  “You’re in the right place.”

  “El Paso, you mean?”

  “I mean Juarez.”

  “It’s exciting?”

  “Whatever you want, it’s here. Sex, drugs, gambling, liquor, everything. It’s all here.”

  “Do you take advantage of it?”

  “Not much. I’m not a tourist. I just live here.”

  “We could take advantage of it together,” she said. “We could go wild, Marty. We could let the whole world spin its string out for us. Would you like that?”

  “I might.”

  “Is Juarez still open? Could we do anything tonight?”

  “It’s open until dawn.”

  “Can we go?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Not tonight?”

  “Not tonight, Meg. I want you again. And then I want to go to sleep.”

  She didn’t say anything. He rolled over onto his side, slowly, and she turned to face him. His hand reached for her, touched her shoulders, moved very slowly to her breast. She had thought she was through for the night but the minute he touched her breast she realized she had been mistaken. His hands sent her reeling again.

  “Marty—”

  “Shut up,” he said. “Don’t talk.”

  His hand was busy with her breast. He fondled it, patted it. He took a nipple between two fingers and began to caress the taut flesh until she wanted to shriek. His other hand was on her thigh now, moving higher.

  She could not remain still. Her own hands reached for him, found him. She touched him and his eyes blazed with need for her. His hand moved from her thigh, higher, and found her. His fingers played with her, teasing her, and she grew warm for him. She was trembling inside.

  She rolled over, onto her back, and he moved above her. He had his hands on her breasts now and he worked them. She thought she was going to be torn apart, to die. She gripped him pulling him closer.

  He touched her. Then, fiercely, he drove into her, and she surrounded him. His body drove at her, again and again and again, and the excitement was here, the passion was here—

  At the moment of fulfillment—towering, shrieking, frighteningly powerful fulfillment—her nails clawed his back and buttocks and his teeth bit into her shoulder. She screamed, once. The sound that tore from her lips was not remotely human.

  Then he was saying, “Now go to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll find some excitement, if you want.”

  She would have answered him but she was too empty to move, to speak, even to think. She closed her eyes and slept.

  * * *

  Ringo was around forty-five, with a pot belly and bandy legs. He had long glossy black hair that he combed carefully over a bald spot on the top of his head. He looked from Cassie to Lily, then back to Cassie, then at Lily once more. His eyes travelled over her body. He looked at her breasts and at her hips.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “She’s good-looking,” Cassie said. “Man, you know that much, don’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  He took a cigar from his pocket, unwrapped it, bit off the end, spat, and lit the cigar. To Lily he said, “Peel. I want to see what you look like without clothes on.”

  She didn’t argue. She took off the blouse and the khakis. She was wearing no bra, because the Texan in Dallas had ruined the only one she owned. She wasn’t wearing underwear, either. Her panties had been dirty, and she hadn’t had a chance to rinse them out.

  “The boobs are real and you’re blonde all over,” he said. “That’s a help, anyway. Nice boobs.”

  He was not looking at her the way men usually did. His eyes were cool and impersonal. He was a businessman studying a commodity, trying to decide whether it was worth buying, whether he could make a decent profit on it. “Get dressed,” he said at length, and she put her clothes back on.

  “Well?” Cassie looked at Ringo. “She hired, man?”

  “I don’t know.” He chewed the cigar. “You hustle any, kid?”

  “I been laid, if that’s what you mean.”

  “So have I,” Ringo said. “But I’d make a lousy whore. You do any hustling?”

  “A little.”

  “I don’t mean giving it away. I mean for money?”

  “A little.”

  “You can’t play prude here.” Ringo said. “Some broads want to hustle but won’t turn anything but straight tricks. That’s fine if you’re in the States, maybe. These Mex broads’ll do anything in the world. You draw the line, you can’t work here.”

  “I don’t draw the line.”

  “Some guy’ll want you to talk to ’em in French. You know how to speak French?”

  She remembered the second act with the man in the Dallas hotel room. She told Ringo that she could speak French.

  “And Greek?”

  “And Greek.”

  “Well, that’s something. Still, I don’t know. This isn’t just a cathouse operation I got here. This is like a club, you understand. We have floorshows. We get an expensive clientele, serve the best food and the best liquor and give ’em entertainment you can’t find on Broadway. They can find whores for five bucks and get good ones, but this is a package deal and that’s what brings them around. The show is full now. I don’t see where you’d fit.”

  For a moment no one said anything. Lily waited for something to happen. Now, strangely, it seemed important for her to get the job. She wanted it badly.

  “Ringo,” Cassie said, “I got an idea.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Lily an’ I could do an act. A gay act.”

  “We’ve had that and it’s nothing new.”

  “You’ve had it with Mex chicks. Think about it with us. A redhead and a blonde on the stage. Picture it, Ringo. It’s twice as hot for a tourist to see a redhead and a blonde up there, both Americans. Twice as hot.”

  Ringo looked thoughtful. “It might go.”

  “It’ll go, Ringo. You know it’ll go.”

  Ringo chewed the cigar. “You start tomorrow,” he told Lily. “You get here ten in the evening, do your number with Cassie here, then put out for whoever wants a piece of you. You get ten for the special and two bucks every time you turn a trick. Okay?”

  She looked at Cassie, who was nodding her head. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you.”

  Outside she said, “I don’t know, Cassie. This is a lesbo number he’s talking about. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I don’t know.”

  The redhead looked at her. “You never made it with a chick?”

  “No.”

/>   “It’s a groove,” Cassie said. “It’s better that way. Something different.”

  “Are you a dyke?”

  “I work both ways, Lily. You shocked?”

  “I don’t shock easy.”

  “I didn’t think so. Listen, I work four or five hours a night doing it with men, balling with ’em. It’s like a drag after a while. You need a change of pace now and then. You know Didi, she was at the bar there?”

  “I remember her.”

  “I was making it with Didi for a while. Then she decided to straighten out. She flipped over Paul and she’s shacking with him now, spending all her time at his pad.”

  “And I’m supposed to take her place? Is that the general idea, Cassie?”

  Cassie shrugged, “You can try it on and find out if it fits or not. That’s all.”

  Lily thought about it. Hell, she decided, everybody had an angle. Cassie was tickled magenta to put her up for a good-pay job, but Cassie wanted a payoff for her part in the game. She smiled to herself, thinking how neatly the redhead had set it up. Even if she didn’t want to go along with it, even if she stayed away from Cassie except for working hours, she still would make love to the girl once a night. On stage.

  And who knew—it could even be fun. Balling was balling, and it shouldn’t make a hell of a difference whether you were balling with a man or a woman. The equipment was different, maybe, but that was about it. If it was a kick to make it with Cassie, she’d enjoy herself. If it was a drag, she would tolerate it.

  “I suppose I could try,” she said.

  “Solid.”

  “But aren’t you working tonight?”

  “I’m taking a night off.” They were walking along a poorly lighted street, walking in the middle of the street because there was no sidewalk. Cassie let her arm go around Lily. Lily didn’t flinch.

  “A night off,” Cassie said. “For the rehearsal.”

  “The rehearsal?”

  “That’s the bit. We have to make it for an audience tomorrow night. So we spend tonight getting our lines straight. You never balled a chick before, Lily. Lots of things I’ve got to teach you, like.”