HCC 115 - Borderline (10 page)

Now he was ready.

He had selected his victim carefully. It would be simple this way and there would
be a touch of beauty to the crime, an artistic element to the killing and rape. The
girl he was going to murder was in the room next to his. That honey blonde, the one
he’d met on his way to the can a day ago.

He saw her again now in his mind. He saw the lithe young body, the thrusting breasts,
the wriggling butt. Involuntarily his hand went to his pocket and trembling fingers
sought out the razor. He opened it, stared at the gleam of the blade while the girl’s
image danced nude in his mind.

He saw the razor slashing, saw cruel red lines appear on the creamy breasts and the
fleshy buttocks. He saw the girl’s lips part for a shrill shriek. He saw himself upon
her, his body between her thighs, his razor slashing those thighs to make them drip
red blood.

Then him, surging into her. Then the culmination, and then a final desperate slash
of the razor.

And death.

He was excited now, feverish. He closed the razor again with a snap, dropped it back
into his pocket. He went to the door, twisted the knob, walked out into the hallway
and moved to the door where he had seen the young blonde. He hesitated, his hand patting
the razor in his pocket for reassurance. He knocked on the door, waited, and knocked
again. There was no answer.

He knocked again, and again there was no response to his knocking. He thought that
perhaps she was sleeping, and he knew that it would be even better that way, that
he could gag her with a pillow slip and have her powerless before she was fully awake.
Then he could take his time with her.

His hand found the doorknob, twisted it. The door was unlocked. He pushed it slowly
open and stole into the room.

It was empty.

Disappointment flooded him. He closed the door and prowled the room, looking for her
clothing, her personal effects. He found only a dirty white blouse in a wastebasket,
and upon this garment he vented his fury. He slashed it a dozen times with the razor,
gashing huge holes where the breasts would have been if the blouse had been occupied
by its owner. He reduced the blouse to shreds and stuffed the shreds back in the wastebasket.
Downstairs, he asked the clerk if the little blonde was still staying at the hotel.

“Guess not,” the old man said. “Never checked out, but never paid for tonight. You
never know with that kind. They’re here again, there again. They travel light and
leave with the morning mist. Don’t trust ’em, myself. Young ’uns that travel alone.
They’re up to no good, I’d say.”

She was gone, then.

Weaver went back to his room. It was cruel, he decided, cruel and unfair. He had primed
himself for that one girl and now she was gone, free from him. It was not fair.

He washed his face with ice water, combed his hair again. He would have to find someone
else, some other young thing with breasts and buttocks and a mouth made for the screams
of terror. But it was too early yet, too early to seek out a victim on the city streets.
Too many people were still awake.

He smiled. He could wait.

The night would be a long one. And, while the city slept, he would find another girl.
He would rape her and hurt her and kill her, and all the nation would live in fear
of him.

* * *

Marty looked around the club and wished he was as drunk as Meg was. Meg was stoned
to the ears with tequila, and that was as it should be. But the juice hadn’t reached
Marty as well as it should have. He was still in control. That usually happened with
him. He had the quick and sure control of the professional gambler, and it took a
tremendous quantity of alcohol to throw this control off.

The headwaiter was a slender Mexican with oriental, almond-shaped eyes. He wore a
black tuxedo that was a little too large for him. His shoes were black and pointed.

Marty found a ten dollar bill, folded it lengthwise and slapped it into the headwaiter’s
palm, and it disappeared quickly.

“I want a table up front,” he said. “A good table.”

“A very good table,” said the Mexican. He was smiling.

“I want to be able to smell the sex,” Marty said, “A ringside seat for the bouts.
You got that?”

“
Si
,” the Mexican said. “This way, please.”

Marty stepped aside so that Meg could follow the Mexican. He walked behind her, letting
his eyes give Delia’s Place the once-over. The club was plush by Mexican standards,
shabby by American ones. U.S. tourists filled the small tables. There was no floorshow
yet, just a three-piece mariachi band, playing poorly, and the tourists talked volubly
over the music and did a lot of heavy drinking. They were mostly men, but a few had
women with them.

The table they wound up at was the best in the house, front and center, and just inches
from the stage. There was a bed in the center of the stage, a large double bed with
flat black sheets. Marty smiled; the black sheets were a good touch. They would make
for nice contrast. White flesh and black sheets—a pretty picture.

“A bottle of your best tequila,” he told the waiter who came to their table. “No food
just now. The tequila is all.”

“Tequila,” the man said. He left to get it.

“Have you been here before?”

He looked at Meg. “Never,”’ he said.

“I’ve heard about these places. I always wanted to go to one.”

“I never got around to it before,” he said. “It’s a convenient set-up. You watch the
show, if any of the performers appeals, you arrange to meet her in a back room for
a half hour or so. First you watch and then you play games of your own.”

“Will we do that?”

He shrugged. “If you want.”

“I think I’d like that,” she said. “To watch you make love to one of these whores.
I’d like that.”

“What would you like about it?”

“I don’t know. It would be exciting, I think. I’ve made love with you, and first I’ll
watch somebody make love to one of the whores, and then I can watch you with the whore.
Sort of a combination, I suppose.”

“And then what? You want a man for yourself?”

“I’ve got you, Marty.”

He laughed easily. “This is debauchery,” he told her. “You can have all the men you
want. I won’t even be jealous.”

“Not even a little?”

“Not even a little.”

“I think maybe I’d rather you were a little jealous.”

The waiter saved him the trouble of thinking up an answer to her last line. The man
set a bottle of tequila on the table, placed a small glass in front of Meg and another
in front of Marty. Marty opened the bottle and spilled two ounces of the colorless
liquid into each glass. They touched glasses and tossed the stuff off.

“When does the show start?”

“Soon,” he told her.

Almost as he said the word, the mariachi band finished their number, packed their
instruments under their arms and found another house to haunt. The house lights went
all the way out and the club was blackened like London during the Blitz. Then a spotlight—a
golden green—shot out to illuminate the stage. There was a girl in the spot who had
taken her place while lights were out.

Marty looked at her. She was a Mexican, her skin a golden brown, her hair short and
dark. She smiled at the audience and her white teeth flashed. She was of medium height,
with an hourglass figure. Most of the sand was still in the top half. Her breasts
were huge, her waist slender, her hips round and just full enough.

“I wan’ to welcome you to Delia’s Place,” she said. “I hope you have good time. Now
do show start.”

The girl was wearing a pale green dress which the spotlight set off nicely. Now a
muted horn began to play somewhere, and the girl went into a clumsy but effective
dance. She sashayed back and forth, letting the audience get a good look at her body.
She reached in back with one hand and tugged a small string. The dress, designed for
just such an occasion, promptly fell away to the floor of the stage.

She wore no underwear. Her bare body was the same golden brown hue all over, and her
figure was perfect. Marty looked at the firm breasts, the tiny waist. He glanced across
the table at Meg, who was watching the Mexican girl with breathless attention.

“Like her?” he asked.

“Shhh. This is interesting.”

Marty chuckled, filled both their glasses with tequila. He downed his in a swallow
but Meg didn’t even pick up her glass. He set his down empty, looked again at the
Mexican girl. She was holding her breasts in her own hands, bouncing them up and down.
She pinched her own nipples and Marty watched them grow stiff in response to the self-administered
stimulation. She reached lower and stroked her flat stomach, then reached lower still
and began to caress herself, making small moans of simulated desire as she did so.

Meg’s eyes were gleaming now, Marty saw. Meg was excited. He remembered how she had
responded to the pictures. Evidently she liked vicarious kicks, he thought. She was
all hot over the Mex girl.

The Mexican girl moaned once and then the spotlight died and the room was dark again.
Marty blinked in the dark. If that was all there was to it, he thought, then Delia’s
Place was picking its customers. But evidently it wasn’t. The light went on again—a
white spot this time. Now a man had joined the girl. The man was a Mexican, evidently
in his middle twenties. He had no clothes to remove, because he was already conveniently
naked.

The girl turned to face the man. She began to dance at him, her breasts swaying, her
hips twitching. The man let her come closer. His hands reached out and accepted her
breasts. He fondled them and the girl writhed in his hands, moaning louder and louder
with desire.

Marty watched them, watched Meg as well. The horn—a baritone sax, he decided—was still
moaning along with the girl, spinning out a gutbucket blues. Meg was entranced. He
could tell how hot she was. Plenty hot, he decided. Hot enough to burn.

The man was holding the girl by her breasts now. She was dancing backward, moving
toward the bed. The man held onto her breasts and moved with her. The backs of her
thighs pressed up against the bed. The man closed in. He let go of her breasts and
let his arms slip around her body. One hand held her by her buttocks while the other
was planted in the center of her back: He kissed her, their mouths glued together,
and her breasts flattened against his sleek, hairless chest.

Marty could see the beads of sweat on their bodies. He could almost feel the heat
emanating from them.

Gently, the man pushed the girl backward. She lay on the bed facing the audience with
her head down on a pillow and her feet still planted upon the floor of the stage.
Her breasts pointed up at the ceiling. The man stood in front of her with his back
to the audience. His hands reached again for her breasts. He held a nipple in each
hand and began to rotate her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. The girl
moaned louder and louder and the sax wailed in the background.

Marty looked at Meg again. It wasn’t hard to see how excited she was. She was handling
herself now. With one hand she stimulated her own breasts. Her other hand was out
of sight beneath the table. Marty grinned. He could guess what she was doing with
it.

The Mex girl’s thighs were parted now. The man stepped aside for a moment so that
the audience could examine the girl. Then he resumed his place and stepped in closer.
His hands gripped the girl’s thighs, pressing them still further apart.

Then he began.

The girl on the black sheet writhed like a snake. Meg, too, was moaning. The girl’s
breasts heaved. Her feet left the floor and her long legs wound around the man’s thighs,
gripping him. Her hips churned, meeting his lust with her lust. The girl moaned, and
the baritone sax moaned with her.

* * *

“Jesus,” Lily said. “You’d think somebody was killing that broad. What’s the matter
with her?”

Cassie laughed. “That’s Chita,” she said, “Chita’s the best groaner in the business.
She can carry on like that when she don’t feel a thing. With a trick, for example.
She can make some stupid jerk think he’s sending her like to the moon.”

Lily didn’t say anything. When Chita was finished it was going to be her turn. Not
right away, of course; first the mariachi band would make some bad music for ten or
fifteen minutes while waiters brought fresh drinks around and while men who were ready
for action left to meet Chita or some of the other girls. Then, after the intermission
was over, she and Cassie would be next on the program. She could tell that Cassie
was hot just thinking about it. She herself was not. It was something of a kick to
make it with Cassie, but making it privately was different than making it for an audience.
Lily was fairly certain that the act was going to be an act all the way as far as
she herself was concerned. She would do what she was supposed to do, and she would
lie there while Cassie did her part, but she didn’t expect to get much of a bang out
of the whole thing. It would be boring as hell.

“You got to give Ringo credit,” Cassie was saying now. “The way he has that horn grooving
in the background, picking up Chita’s moans and cooking along with her. That’s the
whole bit about this type of scene, Lily. What they do on the stage is nothing. It’s
the extra little kicks you can supply so the guy watching thinks he’s seeing something
different.”

“Solid.”

“You got to make like a production out of it, Lily. The little extra kicks make it
special. I mean, a guy may wig just seeing another guy slipping it to a chick. But
it’s a bigger kick when they do something far out, or when they do it with bells ringing.”

“I’m hip,” Lily said. She was getting into her costume now, a frilly little-girl dress,
pink and white and ruffled.

“Take that dress,” Cassie said. “Another good idea of Ringo’s. It makes you look about
twelve years old, and you’ve got a baby face to go with it. The figure is no baby
shape, but that’s okay as it is. It’s hot enough for a cat to watch two chicks grooving
together, but it gets even hotter when one of them looks like a kid. Get it?”