HCC 115 - Borderline (18 page)

It was maddening, electrifying. It was enough to drive a person wild. It was time
and space on fire, exploding.

“Honey—”

“What?”

“You want me to do it now?”

Her heart stopped. “B…b-b-both of us,” she managed finally.

“Huh?”

“I mean both.”

The blonde was laughing. Don’t laugh, Meg thought fiercely. Don’t laugh, my Lily,
my baby, my darling. I don’t want this to be funny and I don’t want it to be cheap.
I want it to be perfect.

“You’re the boss,” Lily was saying. “You’re calling the shots, sister. I won’t argue
with you.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“Sure, I like it.”

“Then—”

She was not called upon to finish the sentence. Lily started to work on her once again,
teaching her things she had never known about before, bringing life to areas of her
body which bad never previously tingled with desire. She remembered Marty, and the
nameless Mexican, and just as quickly she forgot them both. They were nothing. They
had never mattered at all. This was the real thing, the only thing she had ever really
wanted from the beginning. This was Life.

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 said. “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.