James Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice

“Frank, all these roadside joints around here are lousy. They’re run by people that used to have a farm back in Kansas or somewhere, and got as much idea how to entertain people as a pig has. I believe if somebody came along that knew the business like I do, and tried to make it nice for them, they’d come and bring all their friends.”

“To hell with them. We’re selling out anyhow.”

“We could sell easier if we were making money.”

“We’re making money.”

“I mean good money. Listen, Frank. I’ve got an idea people would be glad of the chance to sit out under the trees. Think of that. All this nice weather in California, and what do they do with it? Bring people inside of a joint that’s set up ready-made by the Acme Lunch Room Fixture Company, and stinks so it makes you sick to your stomach, and feed them awful stuff that’s the same from Fresno down to the border, and never give them any chance to feel good at all.”

“Look. We’re selling out, aren’t we? Then the less we got to sell the quicker we get rid of it. Sure, they’d like to sit under the trees. Anybody but a California Bar-B-Q slinger would know that. But if we put them under the trees we’ve got to get tables, and wire up a lot of lights out there, and all that stuff, and maybe the next guy don’t want it that way at all.”

“We’ve got to stay six months. Whether we like it or not.”

“Then we use that six months finding a buyer.”

“I want to try it.”

“All right, then try it. But I’m telling you.”

“I could use some of our inside tables.”

“I said try it, didn’t I? Come on. We’ll have a drink.”

What we had the big blow-off over was the beer license, and then I tumbled to what she was really up to. She put the tables out under the trees, on a little platform she had built, with a striped awning over them and lanterns at night, and it went pretty good. She was right about it. Those people really enjoyed a chance to sit out under the trees for a half hour, and listen to a little radio music, before they got in their cars and went on. And then beer came back. She saw a chance to leave it just like it was, put beer in, and call it a beer garden.

“I don’t want any beer garden, I tell you. All I want is a guy that’ll buy the whole works and pay cash.”

“But it seems a shame.”

“Not to me it don’t.”

“But look, Frank. The license is only twelve dollars for six months. My goodness, we can afford twelve dollars, can’t we?”

“We get the license and then we’re in the beer business. We’re in the gasoline business already, and the hot dog business, and now we got to go in the beer business. The hell with it. I want to get out of it, not get in deeper.”

“Everybody’s got one.”

“And welcome, so far as I’m concerned.”

“People wanting to come, and the place all fixed up under the trees, and now I have to tell them we don’t have beer because we haven’t any license.”

“Why do you have to tell them anything?”

“All we’ve got to do is put in coils and then we can have draught beer. It’s better than bottled beer, and there’s more money in it. I saw some lovely glasses in Los Angeles the other day. Nice tall ones. The kind people like to drink beer out of.”

“So we got to get coils and glasses now, have we? I tell you I don’t want any beer garden.”

“Frank, don’t you ever want to be something?”

“Listen, get this. I want to get away from this place. I want to go somewhere else, where every time I look around I don’t see the ghost of a goddam Greek jumping out at me, and hear his echo in my dreams, and jump every time the radio comes out with a guitar. I’ve got to go away, do you hear me? I’ve got to get out of here, or I go nuts.”

“You’re lying to me.”

“Oh no, I’m not lying. I never meant anything more in my life.”

“You don’t see the ghost of any Greek, that’s not it. Somebody else might see it, but not Mr. Frank Chambers. No, you want to go away just because you’re a bum, that’s all. That’s what you were when you came here, and that’s what you are now. When we go away, and our money’s all gone, then what?”

“What do I care? We go away, don’t we?”

“That’s it, you don’t care. We could stay here—”

“I knew it. That’s what you really mean. That’s what you’ve meant all along. That we stay here.”

“And why not? We’ve got it good. Why wouldn’t we stay here? Listen, Frank. You’ve been trying to make a bum out of me ever since you’ve known me, but you’re not going to do it. I told you, I’m not a bum. I want to be something. We stay here. We’re not going away. We take out the beer license. We amount to something.”

It was late at night, and we were upstairs, half undressed. She was walking around like she had that time after the arraignment, and talking in the same funny jerks.

“Sure we stay. We do whatever you say, Cora. Here, have a drink.”

“I don’t want a drink.”

“Sure you want a drink. We got to laugh some more about getting the money, haven’t we?”

“We already laughed about it.”

“But we’re going to make more money, aren’t we? On the beer garden? We got to put down a couple on that, just for luck.”

“You nut. All right. Just for luck.”

That’s the way it went, two or three times a week. And the tip-off was that every time I would come out of a hangover, I would be having those dreams. I would be falling, and that crack would be in my ears.

Right after the sentence ran out, she got the telegram her mother was sick. She got some clothes in a hurry, and I put her on the train, and going back to the parking lot I felt funny, like I was made of gas and would float off somewhere. I felt free. For a week, anyway, I wouldn’t have to wrangle, or fight off dreams, or nurse a woman back to a good humor with a bottle of liquor.

On the parking lot a girl was trying to start her car. It wouldn’t do anything. She stepped on everything and it was just plain dead.

“What’s the matter? Won’t it go?”

“They left the ignition on when they parked it, and now the battery’s run out.”

“Then it’s up to them. They’ve got to charge it for you.”

“Yes, but I’ve got to get home.”

“I’ll take you home.”

“You’re awfully friendly.”

“I’m the friendliest guy in the world.”

“You don’t even know where I live.”

“I don’t care.”

“It’s pretty far. It’s in the country.”

“The further the better. Wherever it is, it’s right on my way.”

“You make it hard for a nice girl to say no.”

“Well then, if it’s so hard, don’t say it.”

She was a light-haired girl, maybe a little older than I was, and not bad on looks. But what got me was how friendly she was, and how she wasn’t any more afraid of what I might do to her than if I was a kid or something. She knew her way around all right, you could see that. And what finished it was when I found out she didn’t know who I was. We told our names on the way out, and to her mine didn’t mean a thing. Boy oh boy what a relief that was. One person in the world that wasn’t asking me to sit down to the table a minute, and then telling me to give them the lowdown on that case where they said the Greek was murdered. I looked at her, and I felt the same way I had walking away from the train, like I was made of gas, and would float out from behind the wheel.

“So your name is Madge Allen, hey?”

“Well, it’s really Kramer, but I took my own name again after my husband died.”

“Well listen Madge Allen, or Kramer, or whatever you want to call it, I’ve got a little proposition to make you.”