HCC 115 - Borderline (6 page)

“Now drive like hell,” she said. “Drive like hell.”

He increased the movements of his hand over her breasts and turned his body slightly
toward her.

“No,” she protested. “Drive the car like hell. You can drive me like hell later.”

He slipped his hands from her breasts to the ignition and steering wheel.

The engine roared.

He shifted and then stepped on the gas.

The car lunged forward and Meg’s body jerked. She steadied herself but her breasts
kept moving. They jerked upward and then back, and then bounced.

Marty kept watching them and began to remove one hand from the steering wheel.

“The road!” she screamed. “Watch out!”

He heard the scraping sounds of wheels on gravel and felt the hard bounces as the
car went onto the shoulder of the road.

Then his eyes were back on the road and he jerked the wheel quickly to the left.

The car shot back onto the road and then continued to roar straight ahead.

Marty’s head was throbbing and his heart was pounding and his breath was heavy.

But was it from that near accident or from her, he wondered.

“Take it easy, Marty,” she said, “If we’re going to get our-selves killed, let’s at
least do it after we try those positions.”

Lily was on her way across the border when the blue Olds roared past her. She looked
up and saw the man at the wheel and the long-haired brunette at his side. Then the
car was gone and she forgot them. She was across the border now, in Juarez, and it
wasn’t such a big deal after all. Just another town, full of Mexicans instead of Americans,
and that was about it.

Still, she thought, almost anything was a hell of a distance better than the Paso
hotel where she was staying. Cappy’s Hotel, the home of every flying ant and palmetto
bug in Texas. A humming fan and a squeaking dripping sink and tenants who never washed.
A wiry and ugly gink who stared at her when he passed her in the hallway. They could
take Cappy’s Hotel, she decided, and they could shove it. It was cheap enough, and
it would do until she could either connect with somebody or get her hands on some
long bread. All she had for the time being was what remained of the two tens she’d
gotten from the jerko who had driven her to El Paso. Two bucks had gone to Cappy,
whoever he was, and three bucks and change had gone for food, and two bucks more had
gone for a clean blouse. That left her with somewhere between twelve and thirteen
dollars. Hardly enough to retire on. Hardly enough to feel particularly secure about.

Juarez. The first step was to find the right people, the kind of people she could
swing with. These were the sort of people she had known in North Beach and she knew
that she would find them again in Juarez. Border towns were attractive areas for that
sort. They would avoid the American side and stay on the Mex side because things were
cheaper and freer and easier there. You paid less for food and drink, and you bought
marijuana with relative impunity, and if you were on the harder stuff it was easier
and less expensive to make a connection with a pusher.

She was in Juarez, and she was cruising. She stopped at a corner to catch her breath,
spat with annoyance when a pair of dirty-faced Mexican urchins tried to beg a few
coins from her, then continued onward. Her feet led her along almost intuitively.
Denver had had its own little hard core of the hip cognoscenti and S.F. had had many
more, and Lily had known them well in both towns. It was easy to guess what street
might hold a place where particular people would be congregating. It was easy to pass
some bars without a second glance, easy to turn at the proper street and walk into
the proper Mexican tavern. She did all this intuitively and it took her less than
a half hour before she found precisely the place she had been looking for from the
beginning.

A small frame building, painted years ago and drab now. A scattering of sawdust on
the floor. Brown wood, varnished once, the varnish long worn away by time. A small
bar with six stools. A Mex behind the bar, old and white-haired. Four or five tables,
two of them round, the rest square. Five kids in their twenties at one of the round
tables, with a bottle of tequila in the middle of the table. Two Mexicans and one
bearded American wearing an army field jacket at the bar. Two gaunt girls at one of
the square tables. A couple—an old man with a young wife—at another square table.
No one else in the place.

Lily’s eyes took all this in quickly. She walked directly to the big round table.
There was a chair open between a flat-chested redhead and a boy with a scraggly brown
beard. She sat at the chair, took the redhead’s empty glass and poured an ounce or
so of tequila into it. She threw the firewater straight down and didn’t choke on it.

Someone said, “Who, baby?”

“Lily Daniels. Out of Denver by North Beach. No money and no friends. This seat wasn’t
taken, was it, man?”

“It is now. Stay as cool as you are, baby.”

She smiled at a clean-shaven man with horn-rimmed glasses. He pushed the bottle back
at her. “Have some more juice, Lily girl. We’re way out in front of you.”

She poured another short shot and tossed it off. “Solid,” she said. “Solid.”

“You in town long?”

“Just today. I thumbed from Big D to Paso, got in a little past noon. What’s happening?”

The flat-chested redhead laughed. The scraggly brown beard said, “I been around S.F.
You know a cat name of Randy Kapper?”

“Tall thin cat,” she said. “A cocaine habit.”

“When I knew him he sniffed a little. He hooked now?”

“Through the bag and back again.”

“That’s a bitch,” the scraggly beard said. “He was a nice cat, when I knew him. He
was padding out with Renee, I don’t know her last name, a big blonde with a fat can.
Then she turned around to make a lesbo scene and Randy was all hung up. That’s a bitch,
though, him on a coke needle. You never know.”

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.”