James Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice

I let a sheepish grin come over my face. I had him like I wanted him. I had pulled a dumb trick on him, and he had got the better of me. “O.K., judge. I guess it was pretty silly, at that. All right, I’ll begin at the beginning and tell it all. I’m in dutch all right, but I guess lying about it won’t do any good.”

“That’s the right attitude, Chambers.”

I told him how I walked out on the Greek, and how I bumped into him on the street one day, and he wanted me back, and then asked me to go on this Santa Barbara trip with them to talk it over. I told about how we put down the wine, and how we started out, with me at the wheel. He stopped me then.

“So you were driving the car?”

“Judge, suppose you tell me that.”

“What do you mean, Chambers?”

“I mean I heard what she said, at the inquest. I heard what those cops said. I know where they found me. So I know who was driving, all right. She was. But if I tell it like I remember it, I got to say I was driving it. I didn’t tell that coroner any lie, judge. It still seems to me I was driving it.”

“You lied about being drunk.”

“That’s right. I was all full of booze, and ether, and dope that they give you, and I lied all right. But I’m all right now, and I got sense enough to know the truth is all that can get me out of this, if anything can. Sure, I was drunk. I was stinko. And all I could think of was, I mustn’t let them know I was drunk, because I was driving the car, and if they find out I was drunk, I’m sunk.”

“Is that what you’d tell a jury?”

“I’d have to, judge. But what I can’t understand is how she came to be driving it. I started out with it. I know that. I can even remember a guy standing there laughing at me. Then how come she was driving when it went over?”

“You drove it about two feet.”

“You mean two miles.”

“I mean two feet. Then she took the wheel away from you.”

“Gee, I must have been stewed.”

“Well, it’s one of those things that a jury might believe. It’s just got that cockeyed look to it that generally goes with the truth. Yes, they might believe it.”

He sat there looking at his nails, and I had a hard time to keep the grin from creeping over my face. I was glad when he started asking me more questions, so I could get my mind on something else, besides how easy I had fooled him.

“When did you go to work for Papadakis, Chambers?”

“Last winter.”

“How long did you stay with him?”

“Till a month ago. Maybe six weeks.”

“You worked for him six months, then?”

“About that.”

“What did you do before that?”

“Oh, knocked around.”

“Hitch-hiked? Rode freights? Bummed your meals wherever you could?”

“Yes sir.”

He unstrapped a briefcase, put a pile of papers on the table, and began looking through them. “Ever been in Frisco?”

“Born there.”

“Kansas City? New York? New Orleans? Chicago?”

“I’ve seen them all.”

“Ever been in jail?”

“I have, judge. You knock around, you get in trouble with the cops now and then. Yes sir, I’ve been in jail.”

“Ever been in jail in Tuscson?”

“Yes sir. I think it was ten days I got there. It was for trespassing on railroad property.”

“Salt Lake City? San Diego? Wichita?”

“Yes sir. All those places.”

“Oakland?”

“I got three months there, judge. I got in a fight with a railroad detective.”

“You beat him up pretty bad, didn’t you?”

“Well, as the fellow says, he was beat up pretty bad, but you ought to seen the other one. I was beat up pretty bad, myself.”

“Los Angeles?”

“Once. But that was only three days.”

“Chambers, how did you come to go to work for Papadakis, anyhow?”

“Just a kind of an accident. I was broke, and he needed somebody. I blew in there to get something to eat, and he offered me a job, and I took it.”

“Chambers, does that strike you as funny?”

“I don’t know how you mean, judge?”

“That after knocking around all these years, and never doing any work, or even trying to do any, so far as I can see, you suddenly settled down, and went to work, and held a job steady?”

“I didn’t like it much, I’ll own up to that.”

“But you stuck.”

“Nick, he was one of the nicest guys I ever knew. After I got a stake, I tried to tell him I was through, but I just didn’t have the heart, much trouble as he had had with his help. Then when he had the accident, and wasn’t there, I blew. I just blew, that’s all. I guess I ought to treated him better, but I got rambling feet, judge. When they say go, I got to go with them. I just took a quiet way out.”

“And then, the day after you came back, he got killed.”

“You kind of make me feel bad now, judge. Because maybe I tell the jury different, but I’m telling you now I feel that was a hell of a lot my fault. If I hadn’t been there, and begun promoting him for something to drink that afternoon, maybe he’d be here now. Understand, maybe that didn’t have anything to do with it at all. I don’t know. I was stinko, and I don’t know what happened. Just the same, if she hadn’t had two drunks in the car, maybe she could have drove better, couldn’t she? Anyway, that’s how I feel about it.”

I looked at him, to see how he was taking it. He wasn’t even looking at me. All of a sudden he jumped up and came over to the bed and took me by the shoulder. “Out with it, Chambers. Why did you stick with Papadakis for six months?”

“Judge, I don’t get you.”

“Yes you do. I’ve seen her, Chambers, and I can guess why you did it. She was in my office yesterday, and she had a black eye, and was pretty well banged up, but even with that she looked pretty good. For something like that, plenty of guys have said goodbye to the road, rambling feet or not.”

“Anyhow they rambled. No, judge, you’re wrong.”

“They didn’t ramble long. It’s too good, Chambers. Here’s an automobile accident that yesterday was a dead open-and-shut case of manslaughter, and today it’s just evaporated into nothing at all. Every place I touch it, up pops a witness to tell me something, and when I fit all they have to say together, I haven’t got any case. Come on, Chambers. You and that woman murdered this Greek, and the sooner you own up to it the better it’ll be for you.”

There wasn’t any grin creeping over my face then, I’m here to tell you. I could feel my lips getting numb, and I tried to speak, but nothing would come out of my mouth.

“Well, why don’t you say something?”

“You’re coming at me. You’re coming at me for something pretty bad. I don’t know anything to say, judge.”

“You were gabby enough a few minutes ago, when you were handing me that stuff about the truth being all that would get you out of this. Why can’t you talk now?”

“You got me all mixed up.”

“All right, we’ll take it one thing at a time, so you won’t be mixed up. In the first place, you’ve been sleeping with that woman, haven’t you?”

“Nothing like it.”

“How about the week Papadakis was in the hospital? Where did you sleep then?”

“In my own room.”

“And she slept in hers? Come on, I’ve seen her, I tell you. I’d have been in there if I had to kick the door down and hang for rape. So would you. So were you.”

“I never even thought of it.”

“How about all those trips you took with her to Hasselman’s Market in Glendale? What did you do with her on the way back?”

“Nick told me to go on those trips himself.”

“I didn’t ask you who told you to go. I asked you what you did.”