HCC 115 - Borderline (19 page)

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.

And wondered. Where was she now? On a plane, two thousand miles off? Or just an elevator
ride away?

* * *

The cab stopped across the street. Weaver saw them get out of it, the tall brunette
and the short blonde. He had never seen the brunette before. But he recognized the
blonde instantly. She was the one who had roomed next to him at Cappy’s, the one he
had wanted to kill there in the rundown hotel. He had missed his chance.

Now his chance had come back to him. It was fate, if ever anything was. Fate had brought
him to this spot, at this moment. Fate had brought this woman back to him. She was
meant to be his.

He whipped out the razor, flicked it open. They were crossing the street now and he
was ready for them. It would have to be fast. He was taking a big chance, trying anything
under conditions like these. But he had to take the chance, had to get the blonde—had
to get both of them. He had no choice.

He waited as long as he dared. He waited, silent and still in the shadows, while they
moved closer and closer to him. The brunette had her arm around the blonde and her
hand was brushing the blonde’s chunky breast. Weaver barely noticed this. He was too
intent on Death to care about a brunette’s hand on a blonde’s breast.

He watched them slowly walk down the street, each tap of their heels bringing the
two closer to him.

Weaver did not pay attention to the clicking sounds their heels made. He could only
stare at their throats that shone white in the dim light of the coming dawn.

The two throats came closer and closer and he thought he could see the blood pulsing
through their jugular veins. But it was only the throbbing within his own body.

How could he do it?

He could suddenly leap out and with one broad sweep of his arm run the razor across
both their throats. Then he could attack both of their bodies. He would slice off
their clothes and then attack their breasts with the blade.

Weaver saw pink nipples turn bright red and then he saw the red, like molten lava
from a volcano, gushing over soft white mounds.

One more step now would bring them to him. Only one more step.

He waited. And he sprang.

The blonde was nearer, and she died first, silently, without a scream. Weaver fell
on her like a tree and his razor went for her throat. In a second she was on the ground
with blood gushing from her slashed neck. The brunette leaped back in terror and screamed
into the night.

But Weaver was too fast for her. He went after her and he caught her, and once again
the razor went up and came down.

He did not stop when she died. He went on, using the razor like a club. He slashed
again and again at the corpse of the brunette and he did not even stop when the man
rushed out of the hotel and piled into him.

* * *

Marty hit the guy with everything he had. He had heard the screams while he was in
the lobby and he came out on the run. He saw the blonde girl, dead, and he saw a little
guy working on another woman. He went into action, hauling the guy away from her,
sending a right crashing into the punk’s face. He hit him five times and knocked him
sprawling. Only when he got up and looked back did he see who it was the man had been
attacking.

* * *

In the police station, they told Marty he was a hero. They said the guy had killed
two other women, one in Juarez and one in Paso, plus a little girl in Tulsa. They
asked Marty if he knew either of the women who had been murdered in front of the hotel.
He thought for a moment, about Meg, and told them no, that they were both strangers.

The newspaper boys took his name and his picture, and they told him he was a hero.
They asked him if he knew about the fiend before. He told them he never read newspapers.

They let him go finally. He got into the blue Olds and started the motor. His whole
mind was blank now. He thought of Meg, briefly, and then decided not to think of her
anymore. She was dead. There was no point in thinking about her.
A gambler doesn’t look back.
And he was a gambler. A professional.

He pulled the Olds onto the road and drove.

Away from the border. Away.

THE BURNING FURY

Originally published in the
February, 1959 issue of
OFF BEAT DETECTIVE STORIES

He was a big man with a rugged chin and the kind of eyes that could look right through
a person, the piercing eyes that said, “I know who you are and I know your angle and
I’m not buying it, so get out.”

All of him said that—the solid frame without fat on it, the muscles in his arms, and
even the way he was dressed. He wore a plaid flannel shirt open at the neck, a pair
of tight blue jeans, and heavy logger’s boots. Once the boots had been polished to
a bright shine, but that was a long time ago. Now they were a dingy brown, scuffed
and battered from plenty of hard wear.

He tossed off the shot of rotgut rye and sipped the beer chaser slowly, wondering
how much of the slop he would pour down his gullet tonight. Christ, he was drinking
too much. At this rate he’d drink himself broke by the time the season was up and
he’d have to go bumming a ride to the next camp. And then it would just start in all
over again—breaking your back over the big trees in the daytime and pouring down the
rye and beer every night.

The days off were different. On those days it was cheap wine, half-a-buck-a-bottle
Sneaky Pete, down the hatch the first thing in the morning and you kept right on with
it until you passed out. That was on your day off, and you needed a day off like you
needed a hole in your head.

When he worked he stayed sober until work was through for the day. He didn’t need
a drink while he was working, not with the full flavor of the open air racing through
him and the joy of swinging that double-bit axe and working the big saw, not then.
Not when he was up on top, trimming her down and watching the axe bite through branches.

When he was working there was nothing to forget, no memories to grab him around the
neck, no hungers to make him want to reach out and swing at somebody. Not when he
had an axe in his hand.

But afterwards, then it was bad. Then the memories came, the Bad Things, and there
had to be a way to forget them. The hunger came, stronger each time, and he couldn’t
sleep unless his gut was filled with whiskey or beer or wine or all three.

If only a man could work twenty-four hours a day…

He knew it would be bad the minute she came through the door. He saw her at once,
saw the shape of her body and the color of her hair and the look in her eyes, and
he knew right away that it was going to be one hell of a night. He took hold of the
beer glass so hard he almost snapped it in two and tossed off the rest of the beer,
calling for another shot with his next breath. The bartender came so slowly, and all
the time he could see her out of the corner of his eye and feel the hunger come on
like a sunset.

It was just like a sunset, the way his mind started going red and yellow and purple
all at once and the way the hunger sat there like a big ball of fire nestling on the
horizon. He closed his eyes and tried to black out the picture but it stayed with
him, glowing and burning and sending hot shivers through his heavy body.

He told the bartender to make it a double, and he threw the double straight down and
went to work on the beer chaser, hoping that the boilermakers would work tonight.
Enough liquor would kill the sunset and put out the fire. It worked before. It had
to work this time.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, not wanting to but not able to help himself.
She was small—a good head shorter than he was, and she couldn’t weigh half of what
he did. But the weight she had was all placed just right, just the way he liked a
woman to be put together.

Her hair was blonde—soft and fluffy and curling around her face like smoke. Her yellow
sweater was just a shade deeper and brighter than her hair, and it showed off her
body nicely, hugging and emphasizing the gentle curves.