HCC 115 - Borderline

by Lawrence Block

  Lily showed her how to lie down on the bed. She followed Lily’s instructions, lying on her side with her legs hanging over the foot of the bed. Lily lay opposite her, and their faces were together. She looked upside down into Lily’s eyes. Lily moved further down and their mouths met. She had never kissed anyone upside down before. It turned out to be completely workable, and quite nice.

  Lily moved again. Now the blonde girl’s lovely neck was near Meg’s lips. She rained kisses upon Lily’s neck, letting her lips glide over the very smooth skin. Lily was doing the same for her.

  Lily moved, again. And now Meg took Lily’s breasts in her hands and brought them to her lips. She kissed Lily’s breasts while the blonde was giving her the same treatment. What a wonderful idea, she thought. Kiss and be kissed. You had to be upside down to do it, but it was worth the effort. It felt divine.

  She nipped at Lily’s nipples with hungry teeth. Lily’s skin was soft and her nipples were firm little red jewels in the pinkness of her breasts. Meg shivered with delight.

  When Lily moved again, they kissed each other’s stomachs. Meg pressed her face to the blonde’s firm belly and cupped Lily’s buttocks with her hands. She rubbed the girl, kissed her.

  Lily moved again.

  This time, Meg thought, it was for real. This time it was all the way, no holds barred, nothing held in reserve. The fact that she was a prostitute’s customer and that Lily was performing a service had nothing to do with anything. This was real—

  Very real, terribly real. Her body turned over with brand new sensations and spilled over with fearful lust. She gave as good as she got, making Lily scream happily with passion. This wasn’t faking, she told herself. This was real. Lily was alive, on fire, responding magnificently to the caresses Meg was giving her.

  It lasted for a very long time. It was not at all like with a male, Meg discovered. There was no tremendous build-up, no speedy climb to a sharp peak. Here the rise was gradual, the ascent a gentle one. The pleasure grew more and more intense, and, when Nirvana was within sight, the road flattened out and lasted for half of eternity.

  Then, at last, it was over. Meg shifted position on the bed and let her eyes close. She was whole and complete now, fulfilled as she had never been before. Her whole body glowed with the phenomenal delights which Lily had shown her.

  * * *

  Marty said, “I leave at four.”

  “Four?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  Simon had an unhappy expression on his face. “I don’t like it,” he said. “I thought this was going to be a long game. Four, now—that isn’t much at all.”

  “That’s five hours from now.”

  Simon chewed a pencil. “I make it that I’m behind another five yards on the three games we just finished. That’s a little better than three gees so far, Marty.”

  “A little better.”

  “A bad run of cards.”

  “Not that bad,” Marty said. “The stakes are big and it’s a loose game. I haven’t beaten you that bad. No blitzes yet.”

  “There’s time.” Simon smiled thinly. “You don’t beat me so bad. You beat me consistent.”

  “That’s because I play better gin.”

  Simon looked angry. “You think so?”

  “I know so. Look at the score if you don’t agree. It says I’m three grand better than you already.”

  “Look, you son of a—”

  Marty smiled. This, he thought, was what he liked. He could feel no pity for Simon. The man had more money than he needed, so he chose to play stupid cards for stakes that were too high. He got rattled easily and he drank too freely. Well, he was paying for it. It would be easy to let him off the hook, to throw the edge his way and hold the loss to a thousand dollars or two. But Marty didn’t want that.

  Meg had brought out the cruelty in him. He did not simply want to win a few thousand from Simon. He wanted to walk out of the Warwick at four in the morning with everything Simon had, every cent, plus the Cadillac, plus Simon’s watch and ring. He wanted to make the fat bastard crawl. He wanted to ruin the louse.

  “Shuffle ’em good, Granger.”

  “Don’t worry,” Marty said. “I don’t have to cheat.”

  “You don’t think I play worth a damn?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “You’re cocky, Granger.”

  Marty let himself smile again. That was the way, he thought. Get the bastard mad. You didn’t play well when you were mad. You made it a personal contest and you fought the cards, and whatever game you were playing you blew it all to hell. It worked that way in poker and it worked that way in gin. You couldn’t play well when you were mad.

  You could play hating. That never hurt. You could hate a man with a clear cool hate and only triple your efficiency. Hating Simon didn’t hurt anything. It let him play coolly, let him close in for the kill without giving a damn how much he hurt Simon.

  “You sure of yourself, Granger?”

  “You could call it that.”

  “Hell, maybe the game’s too cheap for you. Want to up the ante a little?”

  “I still leave at four.”

  “Four, schmore. Two bucks a point?”

  “Fine.” It would be five in an hour, he thought. And then Simon would start to turn green.

  * * *

  Lily said, “Let me get this straight. You want what?”

  “I want you.”

  “But—”

  “I want to leave this city, and I want you to come with me. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Yeah, but why?”

  Lily watched the dark-haired woman. She was chewing on her lower lip now and her eyes were downcast. “I don’t know why,” she said. “I divorced my husband a week ago. He gave me a lot of money. And last night I won twelve hundred dollars at the roulette wheel. I thought maybe you could help me spend some of the money.”

  That wouldn’t be hard to take, Lily thought. That would be a kind of a groove. It would get her the hell out of Juarez and it would put a lot of miles between her and Cassie.

  “Where would we go?”

  “I don’t know,” Meg said, “New York, perhaps.”

  “I could dig that. You a dyke?”

  “Perhaps. You’re the first girl I’ve ever made love to.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  Twelve hundred bills, Lily thought. Plus a hell of a lot more from her old man. All she had to do was string this Meg broad for a while and she’d hit pay dirt. She’d be out of Juarez and into New York, and from there on it was her ball game. She could milk Meg for a stake big enough to set herself up. Whatever happened after that was anybody’s guess.

  “Listen,” she said, “why me?”

  “Because I want you.”

  “What do we do, then? Just split out of here and head for New York?”

  “You could spend the night with me at my hotel,” Meg said. “The Warwick, in El Paso. And we could get a morning jet to New York. We’d buy clothes and see plays and eat at good restaurants.”

  “And make it.”

  “And make love. That’s right.”

  That was her little part of the bargain, Lily thought. Wherever she went, that was her part of the bargain. Whether it was a ride to El Paso or a job at a whorehouse or a trip to New York, she paid with the only legal tender she had, her own hot little body. Well, what was wrong with that? Meg didn’t want anything more than the rest of the world wanted. And Meg offered a better price for it.

  She said, “It’s a deal.”

  “Can we go now? Back to the hotel, I mean.”

  Lily thought quickly. This still could turn out to be some kind of a con, she realized. Meg could spend a night with her in the rack and then change her mind on the whole deal. It was worth taking the chance, but it wasn’t worth kicking over her job. If she went now and the deal with Meg fell through, Ringo might not take her back.

  “I’d better stick around here, like,” she sa
id. “Until closing, I mean. I got to finish the evening.”

  Meg looked disappointed.

  “Only until three-thirty or four,” she added. “That’s just a few hours. You could sit out front and wait for me. Have a few drinks and watch the show.”

  “I don’t want to see the show. I saw it last night.”

  “There’s a bar across the street. A quiet place. You could take a seat there and cool it while I finish up. Then I could like meet you as soon as I get out of this joint and we could make it across the border.”

  “All right.”

  Meg stood up. She was fully dressed now, and she looked coolly remote, with none of lust’s after-effects showing. Lily studied her. She was still a little suspicious.

  “Meg?”

  “What, dear?”

  “I want to know your angle, Meg. What’s in it for you?”

  “Sex.”

  Lily smiled. “Solid. You aren’t on a love kick, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Because if you’re in love with me or something—”

  “I’m not,” Meg said. “I don’t know anything about love, I’m afraid. But I know what I like.”

  * * *

  “It looks like gin,” Simon said. He spread his cards on the table and smiled. “A nice early gin on a spade hand. What kind of cards are you holding, Granger?”

  “Bad ones.”

  “Show ’em.”

  Marty spread his hand out while Simon counted the points. He was caught with twenty-three. That, plus the gin, doubled, added to ninety-six points; Simon tallied the score, then tapped the top of the table with the point of his pencil. “Puts me over in all three,” he said. “With schneids in the second and third. You got hit bad, Granger.”

  “It looks that way.”

  “It does, Granger. It looks like maybe you don’t play such a good game after all. You never should of raised the limit, Granger.”

  Marty didn’t answer. He pushed the cards together and Simon began to shuffle them. The tide had turned, Marty thought. The thing was starting into a downhill slide. Simon had gotten almost even on the last game. He had to start putting the pressure on. At two dollars a point, Simon could ride a hot streak straight to the moon.

  Simon put the pack on the table and Marty cut the cards. “Simon,” he asked, “what do you do for a living?”

  “I don’t gamble. It’s just a sideline with me.”

  “I figured that much. What do you do?”

  “I buy and I sell.”

  “Stolen goods?”

  Simon laughed this time. “Property,” he said. “Real estate. Florida is nice that way. You buy something one day and sell it the next, and with the profit you make you can afford a lot of gin rummy. Hotels, restaurants, parking lots. I owned most of the Beach at one time or another. Not for long. I buy and I sell and I have a heavy turnover.”

  “It sounds interesting.”

  “It isn’t. Pick up your cards, Granger. This time you get beat, and bad. I feel it.”

  Marty arranged his cards. He had a fair hand, not too good and not too bad. The up-card was the ten of diamonds. He took it, put it with two other tens, and let go of a king. Simon passed it up and drew the top card.

  “This real estate,” Marty said. “It pays nicely, huh?”

  “Very nicely.”

  “You ever take a loss?”

  “Now and then,” Simon said. “You play a hard game and now and then you get your wings clipped. I had a hunk of vacant land, I bought it too high and I got strapped for cash. I wound up selling for a third of what I paid for the property.”

  “I just wondered.”

  Marty drew a queen and discarded it. Simon picked it up.

  “I take a loss now and then,” Simon said. “But not often. I come out ahead over the long haul, Granger. Way ahead.”

  * * *

  The only bad time was right at the border. His nonchalance held. He stepped up along with a group of slightly drunk tourists who had just finished a madcap evening of whoring and drinking, and he followed them across the border. The guard on duty took a look at him, and something may have begun to register, but whatever it was it didn’t connect completely. Weaver walked past the man and entered Texas.

  Easy, he thought. Very easy. They were all idiots and he was smarter than any of them. He was the crafty killer, the clever werewolf, the brilliant vampire. They could never catch him.

  A Mexican kid called to him, asking if he wanted his shoes shined. Why not, he thought. Something to do. And he might as well look sporty. He walked over to the kid and put one foot on the kid’s shoebox. The boy whipped out a can of paste and a dirty rag and went to work on Weaver’s shoe.

  Poor kid, Weaver thought. Up at this hour shining shoes. Poor grubby Mexican kid.

  While the boy polished the second shoe, he looked up at Weaver. His eyes looked several years older than the rest of his face. He asked Weaver if he would like to make love to his sister.

  “No,” Weaver said.

  “She only twelve,” the boy said. “She very good lay.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Juarez.”

  Weaver thought about it. A twelve-year-old girl—now that would be very nice, very fine. But those Mex kids were all liars. The girl probably wasn’t twelve, was probably closer to twenty.

  Besides, he didn’t want to cross the border again. The whole point of crossing had been to kill in El Paso, so that he could have a victim on either side of the border in the same day. The boy’s sister could wait for another day. There would be plenty of time for her later.

  He told the kid to forget it, gave him a quarter for the shine and walked away down the street. The food smell from a diner reminded him that he was hungry. It occurred to him that someone in the diner might recognize him, but he decided to take the chance. They were all fools and idiots. They would not give him a second glance.

  In the diner he ordered a hamburger steak with onions and a large glass of milk. He ate his meal and paid for it and left without tipping the waitress. And no one gave him a second glance.

  He walked around, staying in the shadows, keeping his eyes open. He walked for a long time. When he stopped, finally, he stood shrouded in darkness at the entrance of the Warwick Hotel.

  * * *

  The bar was a quiet one. Meg nursed a glass of rum and Coca-Cola and listened to mariachi music on the battered juke box. She remembered her own words: I don’t know anything about love, but I know what I like. Well, that was true enough. She didn’t know where she was going or what she was doing, but she was having a hell of a time.

  She knew what she liked. She liked Lily. The girl was a hard-boiled little creature and Meg didn’t figure on sticking with her for very long, but while she kept her around she would have a lot of fun with her. The blonde knew wonderful ways to thrill Meg, and, after all, that was all that really mattered. Life was too short and people let it go too drab. You had to live for the thrills. There was little enough else to look forward to.

  She set her rum Coke on the table and smoothed her black hair down with one hand. The record ended and blissful silence took its place. Suddenly she began to laugh. If only Borden Rector could have seen her a little while ago, if only he could have watched her in bed with Lily. That would have thrown him, all right. That would have knocked the stuffy bastard flat on his fat behind.

  How long would it last with Lily? That was a good question, she told herself. It wouldn’t be over too soon, because for the time being, at least, Lily was able to excite her as no one else could do. But she wasn’t kidding herself. All Lily wanted out of the deal was a trip to New York with a pot of gold at the rainbow’s end. And all she herself wanted was a thrill. When it ended, to hell with it.

  I’m sex-mad, she thought. I’m a thrill girl with her brains between her legs.

  And she smiled.

  She lit a cigarette and smoked. She finished her rum Coke long after the ice had melted and the drink
had gone to room temperature. She ordered another and sipped it slowly.

  At a quarter to four she glanced upward and saw Lily. The blonde girl was smiling at her. A professional smile, Meg thought. But this didn’t bother her.

  “Like I’m ready, Meg.”

  “All set?”

  “All set.”

  Outside, they walked a block until they came to one of the main streets. There Meg hailed a taxi and they sat together in the back seat. She told the driver to take them across the border to the Hotel Warwick. Then she leaned back to enjoy the ride.

  On a whim she reached for Lily, and the girl came into her arms at once, ready to be kissed. Why not? Meg thought. Even in the back of the taxi, she was still in the driver’s seat.

  * * *

  “It’s just about four,” Simon said. “You got to leave now, Granger. Remember what you said?”

  “I remember.”

  “Your quitting time. You set it hours ago. Or did you change your mind, Granger?”

  “I didn’t change my mind.”

  “You owe me money, Granger.”

  Marty nodded. He checked the final score sheet. He was two thousand dollars behind, plus a few hundred. He took out his wallet and counted out bills in a flat voice. He put the precise sum on the table in front of Simon and the fat man looked at it with a happy expression on his face.

  “You play lousy gin, Granger.”

  “Evidently.”

  “Never should of let me raise the limit. Bad policy, Granger, if you’re money ahead, never let a man up the ante. It’s a bad move.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “That’s the idea,” Marty said. He stood up, shook his head. “I’ll see you around,” he told Simon. “You ever hit Paso again, be sure to look me up. Maybe we’ll go around again.”

  “Fine. And when you’re in Miami—”

  “Yeah.”

  Marty walked to the door, opened it. It had been an expensive evening but the loss didn’t even rankle him. He was tired now and felt strangely purged. The loss somehow atoned for the dissipation of the night before. There was a balance sheet somewhere, and he was even. In the hallway, he lit a cigarette and waited for the elevator.