HCC 115 - Borderline by Lawrence Block

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