James Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice

“That’s right. Thanks.”

When we stopped it was in front of a undertaker shop in Hollywood, and they carried me in. Cora was there, pretty battered up. She had on a blouse that the police matron had lent her, and it puffed out around her belly like it was stuffed with hay. Her suit and her shoes were dusty, and her eye was all swelled up where I had hit it. She had the police matron with her. The coroner was back of a table, with some kind of a secretary guy beside him. Off to one side were a half dozen guys that acted pretty sore, with cops standing guard over them. They were the jury. There was a bunch of other people, with cops pushing them around to the place where they ought to stand. The undertaker was tip-toeing around, and every now and then he would shove a chair under somebody. He brought a couple for Cora and the matron. Off to one side, on a table, was something under a sheet.

Soon as they had me parked the way they wanted me, on a table, the coroner rapped with his pencil and they started. First thing, was a legal identification. She began to cry when they lifted the sheet off, and I didn’t like it much myself. After she looked, and I looked, and the jury looked, they dropped the sheet again.

“Do you know this man?”

“He was my husband.”

“His name?”

“Nick Papadakis.”

Next came the witnesses. The sergeant told how he got the call and went up there with two officers after he phoned for an ambulance, and how he sent Cora in by a car he took charge of, and me and the Greek in by ambulance, and how the Greek died on the way in, and was dropped off at the mortuary. Next, a hick by the name of Wright told how he was coming around the bend, and heard a woman scream, and heard a crash, and saw the car going over and over, the lights still on, down the gully. He saw Cora in the road, waving at him for help, and went down to the car with her and tried to get me and the Greek out. He couldn’t do it, because the car was on top of us, so he sent his brother, that was in the car with him, for help. After a while more people came, and the cops, and when the cops took charge they got the car off us and put us in the ambulance. Then Wright’s brother told about the same thing, only he went back for the cops.

Then the jail doctor told how I was drunk, and how examination of the stomach showed the Greek was drunk, but Cora wasn’t drunk. Then he told which cracked bone it was that the Greek died of. Then the coroner turned to me and asked me if I wanted to testify.

“Yes sir, I guess so.”

“I warn you that any statement you make may be used against you, and that you are under no compulsion to testify unless you so wish.”

“I got nothing to hold back.”

“All right, then. What do you know about this?”

“All I know is that first I was going along. Then I felt the car sink under me, and something hit me, and that’s all I can remember until I come to in the hospital.”

“You were going along?”

“Yes sir.”

“You mean you were driving the car?”

“Yes sir, I was driving it.”

That was just a cock-eyed story I was going to take back later on, when we got in a place where it really meant something, which this inquest didn’t. I figured if I told a bum story first, and then turned around and told another story, it would sound like the second story was really true, where if I had a pat story right from the beginning, it would sound like what it was, pat. I was doing this one different from the first time. I meant to look bad, right from the start. But if I wasn’t driving the car, it didn’t make any difference how bad I looked, they couldn’t do anything to me. What I was afraid of was that perfect murder stuff that we cracked up on last time. Just one little thing, and we were sunk. But here, if I looked bad, there could be quite a few things and still I wouldn’t look much worse. The worse I looked on account of being drunk, the less the whole thing would look like a murder.

The cops looked at each other, and the coroner studied me like he thought I was crazy. They had already heard it all, how I was pulled out from under the back seat.

“You’re sure of that? That you were driving?”

“Absolutely sure.”

“You had been drinking?”

“No sir.”

“You heard the results of the tests that were given you?”

“I don’t know nothing about the tests. All I know is I didn’t have no drink.”

He turned to Cora. She said she would tell what she could.

“Who was driving this car?”

“I was.”

“Where was this man?”

“On the back seat.”

“Had he been drinking?”

She kind of looked away, and swallowed, and cried a little bit. “Do I have to answer that?”

“You don’t have to answer any question unless you so wish.”

“I don’t want to answer.”

“Very well, then. Tell in your own words what happened.”

“I was driving along. There was a long up-grade, and the car got hot. My husband said I had better stop to let it cool off.”

“How hot?”

“Over 200.”

“Go on.”

“So after we started the down-grade, I cut the motor, and when we got to the bottom it was still hot, and before we started up again we stopped. We were there maybe ten minutes. Then I started up again. And I don’t know what happened. I went into high, and didn’t get enough power, and I went into second, right quick, and the men were talking, or maybe it was on account of making the quick shift, but anyhow, I felt one side of the car go down. I yelled to them to jump, but it was too late. I felt the car going over and over, and the next thing I knew I was trying to get out, and then I was out, and then I was up on the road.”

The coroner turned to me again. “What are you trying to do, shield this woman?”

“I don’t notice her shielding me any.”

The jury went out, and then came in and gave a verdict that the said Nick Papadakis came to his death as the result of an automobile accident on the Malibu Lake Road, caused in whole or in part by criminal conduct on the part of me and Cora, and recommended that we be held for the action of the grand jury.

There was another cop with me that night, in the hospital, and next morning he told me that Mr. Sackett was coming over to see me, and I better get ready. I could hardly move yet, but I had the hospital barber shave me up and make me look as good as he could. I knew who Sackett was. He was the District Attorney. About half past ten he showed up, and the cop went out, and there was nobody there but him and me. He was a big guy with a bald head and a breezy manner.

“Well, well, well. How do you feel?”

“I feel O.K., judge. Kind of shook me up a little, but I’ll be all right.”

“As the fellow said when he fell out of the airplane, it was a swell ride but we lit kind of hard.”

“That’s it.”

“Now. Chambers, you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to, but I’ve come over here, partly to see what you look like, and partly because it’s been my experience that a frank talk saves a lot of breath afterwards, and sometimes paves the way to the disposition of a whole case with a proper plea, and anyway, as the fellow says, after it’s over we understand each other.”

“Why sure, judge. What was it you wanted to know?”

I made it sound pretty shifty, and he sat there looking me over. “Suppose we start at the beginning.”

“About this trip?”

“That’s it. I want to hear all about it.”

He got up and began to walk around. The door was right by my bed, and I jerked it open. The cop was halfway down the hall, chinning a nurse. Sackett burst out laughing. “No, no dictaphones in this. They don’t use them anyway, except in movies.”