James Cain: Double Indemnity

"Phyllis."

"Phyllis, you seem to think that because I can call it on you, you're not going to do it. You are going to do it, and I'm going to help you."

"You!"

"I."

I caught her by surprise again, but she didn't even try to put on an act this time. "Why-I couldn't have anybody help me! It would be-impossible."

"You couldn't have anybody help you? Well let me tell you something. You had better have somebody help you. It would be nice to pull it off yourself, all alone, so nobody knew anything about it, it sure would. The only trouble with that is, you can't. Not if you're going up against an insurance company, you can't. You've got to have help. And it had better be help that knows its stuff."

"What would you do this for?"

"You, for one thing."

"What else?"

"Money."

"You mean you would-betray your company, and help me do this, for me, and the money we could get out of it?"

"I mean just that. And you better say what you mean, because when I start, I'm going to put it through, straight down the line, and there won't be any slips. But I've got to know. Where I stand. You can't fool-with this."

She closed her eyes, and after a while she began to cry. I put my arm around her and patted her. It seemed funny, after what we had been talking about, that I was treating her like some child that had lost a penny. "Please, Walter, don't let me do this. We can't. It's simply-insane."

"Yes, it's insane."

"We're going to do it. I can feel it."

"I too."

"I haven't any reason. He treats me as well as a man can treat a woman. I don't love him, but he's never done anything to me."

"But you're going to do it."

"Yes, God help me, I'm going to do it."

She stopped crying, and lay in my arms for a while without saying anything. Then she began to talk almost in a whisper.

"He's not happy. He'll be better off-dead."

"Yeah?"

"That's not true, is it?"

"Not from where he sits, I don't think."

"I know it's not true. I tell myself it's not true. But there's something in me, I don't know what. Maybe I'm crazy. But there's something in me that loves Death. I think of myself as Death, sometimes. In a scarlet shroud, floating through the night. I'm so beautiful, then. And sad. And hungry to make the whole world happy, by taking them out where I am, into the night, away from all trouble, all unhappiness…Walter, this is the awful part. I know this is terrible. I tell myself it's terrible. But to me, it doesn't seem terrible. It seems as though I'm doing something-that's really best for him, if he only knew it. Do you understand me, 'Walter?"

"No."

"Nobody could."

"But we're going to do it."

"Yes, we're going to do it."

"Straight down the line."

"Straight down the line."

A night or two later, we talked about it just as casually as if it was a little trip to the mountains. I had to find out what she had been figuring on, and whether she had gummed it up with some bad move of her own. "Have you said anything to him about this, Phyllis? About this policy?"

"No."

"Absolutely nothing?"

"Not a thing."

"All right, how are you going to do it?"

"I was going to take out the policy first-"

"Without him knowing?"

"Yes."

"Holy smoke, they'd have crucified you. It's the first thing they look for. Well-anyway that's out. What else?"

"He's going to build a swimming pool. In the spring. Out in the patio."

"And?"

"I thought it could be made to look as though he hit his head diving or something."

"That's out. That's still worse."

"Why? People do, don't they?"

"It's no good. In the first place, some fool in the insurance business, five or six years ago, put out a newspaper story that most accidents happen in people's own bathtubs, and since then bathtubs, swimming pools, and fishponds are the first thing they think of. When they're trying to pull something, I mean. There's two cases like that out here in California right now. Neither one of them are on the up-and-up, and if there'd been an insurance angle those people would wind up on the gallows. Then it's a daytime job, and you never can tell who's peeping at you from the next hill. Then a swimming pool is like a tennis court, you no sooner have one than it's a community affair, and you don't know who might come popping in on you at any minute. And then it's one of those things where you've got to watch for your chance, and you can't plan it in advance, and know where you're going to come out to the last decimal point. Get this, Phyllis. There's three essential elements to a successful murder."

That word was out before I knew it. I looked at her quick. I thought she'd wince under it. She didn't. She leaned forward. The firelight was reflected in her eyes like she was some kind of leopard. "Go on. I'm listening."

"The first is, help. One person can't get away with it, that is unless they're going to admit it and plead the unwritten law or something. It takes more than one. The second is, the time, the place, the way, all known in advance-to us, but not to him. The third is, audacity. That's the one that all amateur murderers forget. They know the first two, sometimes. But that third, only a professional knows. There comes a time in any murder when the only thing that can see you through is audacity, and I can't tell you why. You know the perfect murder? You think it's this swimming pool job, and you're going to do it so slick nobody would ever guess it. They'd guess it in two seconds, flat. In three seconds, flat, they'd prove it, and in four seconds, flat, you'd confess it. No, that's not it. The perfect murder is the gangster that goes on the spot. You know what they do? First they get a finger on him. They get that girl that he lives with. Along about six o'clock they get a phone call from her. She goes out to a drugstore to buy some lipstick, and she calls. They're going to see a picture tonight, he and she, and it's at such and such a theatre. They'll get there around nine o'clock. All right, there's the first two elements. They got help, and they fixed the time and the place in advance. All right, now watch the third. They go there in a car. They park across the street. They keep the motor running. They put a sentry out. He loafs up an alley, and pretty soon he drops a handkerchief and picks it up. That means he's coming. They get out of the car. They drift up to the theatre. They close in on him. And right there, in the glare of the lights, with a couple hundred people looking on, they let him have it. He hasn't got a chance. Twenty bullets hit him, from four or five automatics. He falls, they scram for the car, they drive off-and then you try to convict them. You just try to convict them. They've got their alibis ready in advance, all airtight, they were only seen for a second, by people who were so scared they didn't know what they were looking at-and there isn't a chance to convict them. The police know who they are, of course. They round them up, give them the water cure-and then they're habeas corpused into court and turned loose. Those guys don't get convicted. They get put on the spot by other gangsters. Oh yeah, they know their stuff, all right. And if we want to get away with it, we've got to do it the way they do it, and not the way some punk up near San Francisco does it, that's had two trials already, and still he's not free."

"Be bold?"

"Be bold. It's the only way."

"If we shoot him it wouldn't be accident."

"That's right. We don't shoot him, but I want you to get the principle through your head. Be bold. It's the only chance to get away with it."

"Then how?"

"I'm coming to that. Another trouble with your swimming pool idea is that there's no money in it."

"They'd have to pay-"

"They'd have to pay, but this is a question of how much they'd have to pay. All the big money on an accident policy comes from railroad accidents. They found out pretty quick, when they began to write accident insurance, that the apparent danger spots, the spots that people think are danger spots, aren't danger spots at all. I mean, people always think a railroad train is a pretty dangerous place to be, or they did, anyway, before the novelty wore off, but the figures show not many people get killed, or even hurt, on railroad trains. So on accident policies, they put in a feature that sounds pretty good to the man that buys it, because he's a little worried about train trips, but it doesn't cost the company much, because it knows he's pretty sure to get there safely. They pay double indemnity for railroad accidents. That's just where we cash in. You've been thinking about some piker job, maybe, and a fat chance I'd be taking a chance like this for that. When we get done, we cash a $50,000 bet, and if we do it right, we're going to cash it, don't make any mistake about that."