Free HCC 115 - Borderline by Lawrence Block Page B

it.
    Well, fine. He could use a little of the same, a little letting go of everything.
     About a week, say. A week or so of dissipation, a week of hard hot lust and hard drinking
     and hard living, a week of hell on wheels. You could get all tied up, just living
     the same life every day. You could be building a box around yourself without realizing
     it, and all at once you were in the box and somebody was puttying up the air holes
     and pretty soon you couldn’t breathe anymore. When that started to happen you had
     to kick like hell until the box fell apart.
    Excitement—that was her word, that was what she wanted. He had told her that Juarez
     was a good place for it, which was true enough. It was a perfect place. There were
     a hundred different kinds of sex, a dozen places to gamble, a million ways to get
     high. The cops let you alone. You got high and got drunk and got picked and got laid,
     and when you were done you crawled across the border and everything was sane again.
     That was the way to do it. When the light changed he dropped into first, let out the
     clutch, shot across the intersection. He drove straight home and left the car outside,
     at the curb. Then he walked to the front door and unlocked it with his key.
    He hoped Meg was up. He wanted to talk with her.
    * * *
    That morning, Lily let Cassie pay for breakfast. They ate in Juarez at a bar that
     served tacos and chili. Lily ate a big plate of chili and a pair of chicken tacos
     and drank a bottle of orange soda. Cassie picked up the tab. She still didn’t know
     about Lily’s twelve dollars, and Lily saw no reason to clue her in. The less money
     she spent, the more she would wind up with. That much was elementary.
    “Look,” she said to Cassie, “I gotta get back to Paso. I left some stuff in the hotel.
     I want to get it.”
    “I’ll come along.”
    “No.”
    “Why not? You sick of me, baby? I thought you had a good time last night.”
    “It was okay.”
    “Just okay?”
    Lily looked at the redhead. “I got kicks,” she said. “I dug what we were doing.”
    “I thought you did.”
    “But I have eyes to be alone.” She thought for a moment, closing her eyes to concentrate.
     “I’m an introvert type,” she went on. “I have to be alone some of the time or I get
     bugged. It’s nothing against you, it’s the way I swing, the way I move. I can’t be
     around people too long or it gets to me and I flip a little.”
    “I’m hip. I know what you mean.”
    “So later,” Lily said. “I’ll go back to my crib for my stuff, then maybe catch a flick
     in Paso. I could dig sitting alone in an air-conditioned movie for a few hours.”
    “You got bread for a movie?”
    “Some guy’ll buy my way in. Some horny cat who wants a chick to sit next to him for
     a while. Once I’m inside I’ll tell an usher he’s bothering me and that’ll get rid
     of him.”
    “You ever do that, Lily?”
    “Once or twice.”
    “It sounds like a drag. Suppose the guy gives you a hard time?”
    “They get the hint.”
    Cassie frowned. “He could wait outside,” she said. “Follow you, maybe beat you up.
     It’s not worth it.”
    The upshot of it was that Cassie pressed a five dollar bill into her palm, calling
     it a loan until Lily got her first pay for working at Delia’s Place. It wasn’t a loan,
     Lily knew. It was a present, and that was fine with her. She left Cassie at the Mex
     place and went back across the border to El Paso.
    The five, added to her twelve, gave her seventeen. She put the five with the rest
     of the dough and started walking toward Cappy’s, the hotel where she had been staying.
     There was nothing there that she needed, just a dirty old blouse she was planning
     to throw away. But she wanted to stay away from Cassie for the time being. The flat-chested
     redhead had a way of getting on her nerves over a period of time.
    The night had been enjoyable enough. The novelty effect, first of all, was valuable.
     She had