James Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice

“You remember me?”

“Sure I remember you. Come on in.”

We took him inside, and she gave me a pull into the kitchen.

“This is bad, Frank.”

“What do you mean, bad?”

“I don’t know, but I can feel it.”

“Better let me talk to him.”

I went back with him, and she brought us some beer, and left us, and pretty soon I got down to cases.

“You still with Katz?”

“No, I left him. We had a little argument and I walked out.”

“What are you doing now?”

“Not a thing. Fact of the matter, that’s what I came out to see you about. I was out a couple of times before, but there was nobody home. This time, though, I heard you were back, so I stuck around.”

“Anything I can do, just say the word.”

“I was wondering if you could let me have a little money.”

“Anything you want. Of course, I don’t keep much around, but if fifty or sixty dollars will help, I’ll be glad to let you have it.”

“I was hoping you could make it more.”

He still had this grin on his face, and I figured it was time to quit the feinting and jabbing, and find out what he meant.

“Come on, Kennedy. What is it?”

“I tell you how it is. I left Katz. And that paper, the one I wrote up for Mrs. Papadakis, was still in the files, see? And on account of being a friend of yours and all that, I knew you wouldn’t want nothing like that laying around. So I took it. I thought maybe you would like to get it back.”

“You mean that hop dream she called a confession?”

“That’s it. Of course, I know there wasn’t anything to it, but I thought you might like to get it back.”

“How much do you want for it?”

“Well, how much would you pay?”

“Oh, I don’t know. As you say, there’s nothing to it, but I might give a hundred for it. Sure. I’d pay that.”

“I was thinking it was worth more.”

“Yeah?”

“I figured on twenty-five grand.”

“Are you crazy?”

“No, I ain’t crazy. You got ten grand from Katz. The place has been making money, I figure about five grand. Then on the property, you could get ten grand from the bank. Papadakis gave fourteen for it, so it looked like you could get ten. Well, that makes twenty-five.”

“You would strip me clean, just for that?”

“It’s worth it.”

I didn’t move, but I must have had a flicker in my eye, because he jerked an automatic out of his pocket and leveled it at me. “Don’t start anything, Chambers. In the first place, I haven’t got it with me. In the second place, if you start anything I let you have it.”

“I’m not starting anything.”

“Well, see you don’t.”

He kept the gun pointed at me, and I kept looking at him. “I guess you got me.”

“I don’t guess it. I know it.”

“But you’re figuring too high.”

“Keep talking, Chambers.”

“We got ten from Katz, that’s right. And we’ve still got it. We made five off the place, but we spent a grand in the last couple weeks. She took a trip to bury her mother, and I took one. That’s why we been closed up.”

“Go on, keep talking.”

“And we can’t get ten on the property. With things like they are now, we couldn’t even get five. Maybe we could get four.”

“Keep talking.”

“All right, ten, four, and four. That makes eighteen.”

He grinned down the gun barrel a while, and then he got up. “All right. Eighteen. I’ll phone you tomorrow, to see if you’ve got it. If you’ve got it, I’ll tell you what to do. If you haven’t got it, that thing goes to Sackett.”

“It’s tough, but you got me.”

“Tomorrow at twelve, then, I phone you. That’ll give you time to go to the bank and get back.”

“O.K.”

He backed to the door and still held the gun on me. It was late afternoon, just beginning to get dark. While he was backing away, I leaned up against the wall, like I was pretty down in the mouth. When he was half out the door I cut the juice in the sign, and it blazed down in his eyes. He wheeled, and I let him have it. He went down and I was on him. I twisted the gun out of his hand, threw it in the lunchroom, and socked him again. Then I dragged him inside and kicked the door shut. She was standing there. She had been at the door, listening, all the time.

“Get the gun.”

She picked it up and stood there. I pulled him to his feet, threw him over one of the tables, and bent him back. Then I beat him up. When he passed out, I got a glass of water and poured it on him. Soon as he came to, I beat him up again. When his face looked like raw beef, and he was blubbering like a kid in the last quarter of a football game, I quit.

“Snap out of it, Kennedy. You’re talking to your friends over the telephone.”

“I got no friends, Chambers. I swear, I’m the only one that knows about—”

I let him have it, and we did it all over again. He kept saying he didn’t have any friends, so I threw an arm lock on him and shoved up on it. “All right, Kennedy. If you’ve got no friends, then I break it.”

He stood it longer than I thought he could. He stood it till I was straining on his arm with all I had, wondering if I really could break it. My left arm was still weak where it had been broke. If you ever tried to break the second joint of a tough turkey, maybe you know how hard it is to break a guy’s arm with a hammerlock. But all of a sudden he said he would call. I let him loose and told him what he was to say. Then I put him at the kitchen phone, and pulled the lunchroom extension through the swing door, so I could watch him and hear what he said and they said. She came back there with us, with the gun.

“If I give you the sign, he gets it.”

She leaned back and an awful smile flickered around the corner of her mouth. I think that smile scared Kennedy worse than anything I had done.

“He gets it.”

He called, and a guy answered. “Is that you, Willie?”

“Pat?”

“This is me. Listen. It’s all fixed. How soon can you get out here with it?”

“Tomorrow, like we said.”

“Can’t you make it tonight?”

“How can I get in a safe deposit box when the bank is closed?”

“All right, then do like I tell you. Get it, first thing in the morning, and come out here with it. I’m out to his place.”

“His place?”

“Listen, get this, Willie. He knows we got him, see? But he’s afraid if she finds out he’s got to pay all that dough, she won’t let him, you get it? If he leaves, she knows something is up, and maybe she takes a notion to go with him. So we do it all here. I’m just a guy that’s spending the night in their auto camp, and she don’t know nothing. Tomorrow, you’re just a friend of mine, and we fix it all up.”

“How does he get the money if he don’t leave?”

“That’s all fixed up.”

“And what in the hell are you spending the night there for?”

“I got a reason for that, Willie. Because maybe it’s a stall, what he says about her, and maybe it’s not, see? But if I’m here, neither one of them can skip, you get it?”

“Can he hear you, what you’re saying?”

He looked at me, and I nodded my head yes. “He’s right here with me, in the phone booth. I want him to hear me, you get it, Willie? I want him to know we mean business.”

“It’s a funny way to do, Pat.”

“Listen, Willie. You don’t know, and I don’t know, and none of us don’t know if he’s on the level with it or not. But maybe he is, and I’m giving him a chance. What the hell, if a guy’s willing to pay, we got to go along with him, haven’t we? That’s it. You do like I tell you. You get it out here soon as you can in the morning. Soon as you can, you get it? Because I don’t want her to get to wondering what the hell I’m doing hanging around here all day.”