James Cain: Double Indemnity

"Go on. Until what?"

"I don't want to go on. I told you I gave up any idea that there might be something-"

"Until what?"

"Until my father died. And then, quite suddenly, he didn't seem interested in me any more. He-"

"Yes?"

"He's going with Phyllis."

"And-?"

"Can't you see what I thought? Do you have to make me say it?…I thought maybe they did it. I thought his going with me was just a blind for-something, I didn't know what. Seeing her, maybe. In case they got caught."

"I thought he was with you-that night."

"He was supposed to be. There was a dance over at the university, and I went over. I was to meet him there. But he got sick, and sent word he couldn't come. I got on a bus and went to a picture show. I never told anybody that."

"What do you mean, sick?"

"He did have a cold, I know that. A dreadful cold. But-please don't make me talk any more about it. I've tried to put it out of my mind. I'm getting so I can believe it isn't true. If he wants to see Phyllis, it's none of my business. I mind. I wouldn't be telling the truth if I said I didn't mind. But-it's his privilege. Just because he does that is no reason for me to-think this of him. That wouldn't be right."

"We won't talk about it any more."

I stared into the darkness some more that night. I had killed a man, for money and a woman. I didn't have the money and I didn't have the woman. The woman was a killer, out-and-out, and she had made a fool of me. She had used me for a cat's paw so she could have another man, and she had enough on me to hang me higher than a kite. If the man was in on it, there were two of them that could hang me. I got to laughing, a hysterical cackle, there in the dark. I thought about Lola, how sweet she was, and the awful thing I had done to her. I began subtracting her age from my age. She was nineteen, I'm thirty-four. That made a difference of fifteen years. Then I got to thinking that if she was nearly twenty, that would make a difference of only fourteen years. All of a sudden I sat up and turned on the light. I knew what that meant.

I was in love with her.

Right on top of that, Phyllis filed her claim. Keyes denied liability, on the ground that accident hadn't been proved. Then she filed suit, through the regular lawyer that had always handled her husband's business. She called me about half a dozen times, always from a drugstore, and I told her what to do. I had got so I felt sick the minute I heard her voice, but I couldn't take any chances. I told her to be ready, that they would try to prove something besides suicide. I didn't give her all of it, what they were thinking and what they were doing, but I let her know that murder was one of the things they would cover anyway, so she had better be ready for it when she went on the stand. It didn't faze her any. She seemed to have almost forgotten that there was a murder, and acted like the company was playing her some kind of a dirty trick in not paying her right away. That suited me fine. It was a funny sidelight on human nature, and especially on a woman's nature, but it was just exactly the frame of mind I would want her in to face a lot of corporation lawyers. If she stuck to her story, even with all Keyes might have been able to dig up on her, I still didn't see how she could miss.

That all took about a month, and the suit was to come up for trial in the early fall. All during that month, three or four nights a week, I was seeing Lola. I would call for her, at the little apartment house where she was living, and we would go to dinner, and then for a drive. She had got a little car, but we generally went in mine. I had gone completely nuts about her. Having it hanging over me all the time, what I had done to her, and how awful it would be if she ever found out, that had something to do with it, but it wasn't all. There was something so sweet about her, and we got along so nice, I mean we felt so happy when we were together. Anyway I did. She did too, I knew that. But then one night something happened. We were parked on the ocean road, about three miles above Santa Monica. They have places where you can park and sit and look. We were sitting there, watching the moon come up over the ocean. That sounds funny, don't it, that you can watch the moon come up over the Pacific Ocean? You can, just the same. The coast here runs almost due east and west, and when the moon comes up, off to your left, it's pretty as a picture. As soon as it lifted out of the sea, she slipped her hand into mine. It took it, but she took it away, quick.

"I mustn't do that."

"Why not?"

"Lots of reasons. It's not fair to you, for one."

"Did you hear me squawk?"

"You do like me, don't you?"

"I'm crazy about you."

"I'm pretty crazy about you too, Walter. I don't know what I'd have done without you these last few weeks. Only-"

"Only what?"

"Are you sure you want to hear? It may hurt you."

"Better hear it than guess at it."

"It's about Nino."

"Yes?"

"I guess he still means a lot to me."

"Have you seen him?"

"No."

"You'll get over it. Let me be your doctor. I'll guarantee a cure. Just give me a little time, and I'll promise to have you all right."

"You're a nice doctor. Only-"

"Another 'only'?"

"I did see him."

"Oh."

"No, I was telling the truth just now. I haven't talked with him. He doesn't know I've seen him. Only-"

"You sure have a lot of 'only's'."

"Walter-"

She was getting more and more excited, and trying not to let me see it.

"-He didn't do it!"

"No?"

"This is going to hurt you terribly, Walter. I can't help it. You may as well know the truth. I followed them last night. Oh, I've followed them a lot of times, I've been insane. Last night, though, was the first time I ever got a chance to hear what they were saying. They went up to the Lookout and parked, and I parked down below, and crept up behind them. Oh, it was horrible enough. He told her he had been in love with her from the first, but felt it was hopeless-until this happened. But that wasn't all. They talked about money. He's spent all of that you let him have, and still he hasn't got his degree. He paid for his dissertation, but the rest he spent on her. And he was talking about where he'd get more. Listen, Walter-"

"Yes?"

"If they had done this together, she'd have to let him have money, wouldn't she?"

"Looks like it."

"They never even mentioned anything about her letting him have money. My heart began to beat when I realized what that meant. And then they talked some more. They were there about an hour. They talked about lots of things, and I could tell, from what they said, that he wasn't in on it, and didn't know anything about it. I could tell! Walter, do you realize what that means? He didn't do it!"

She was so excited her fingers felt like steel, where they were clutched around my arm. I couldn't follow her. I could see that she meant something, something a whole lot more important than that Sachetti was innocent.

"I don't quite get it, Lola. I thought you had given up the idea that anybody was in on it."

"I'll never give it up…Yes, I did give it up, or try to. But that was only because I thought if there was something like that, he must have been in on it, and that would have been too terrible. If he had anything to do with it, I knew it couldn't be that. I had to know it, to believe it. But now-oh no, Walter, I haven't given it up. She did it, somehow. I know it. And now, I'll get her. I'll get her for it, if it's the last thing I do."

"How?"

"She's suing your company, isn't she? She even has the nerve to do that. All right. You tell your company not to worry. I'll come and sit right alongside of you, Walter. I'll tell them what to ask her. I'll tell them-"