James Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice

I got halfway back to the car, when it came back, and started up the ladder. I shooed it away again, and ran it clear back to the shacks. I started back to the car, and then stood there for a little bit, looking to see if it was coming back. A state cop came around the bend. He saw me standing there, cut his motor, and came wheeling in, before I could move. When he stopped he was between me and the car. I couldn’t blow the horn.

“Taking it easy?”

“Just came out to put the car away.”

“That your car?”

“Belongs to this guy I work for.”

“O.K. Just checking up.”

He looked around, and then he saw something. “I’ll be damned. Look at that.”

“Look at what?”

“Goddam cat, going up that stepladder.”

“Ha.”

“I love a cat. They’re always up to something.”

He pulled on his gloves, took a look at the night, kicked his pedal a couple of times, and went. Soon as he was out of sight I dove for the horn. I was too late. There was a flash of fire from the porch, and every light in the place went out. Inside, Cora was screaming with an awful sound in her voice. “Frank! Frank! Something has happened!”

I ran in the kitchen, but it was black dark in there and I didn’t have any matches in my pocket, and I had to feel my way. We met on the stairs, she going down, and me going up. She screamed again.

“Keep quiet, for God’s sake keep quiet! Did you do it?”

“Yes, but the lights went out, and I haven’t held him under yet!”

“We got to bring him to! There was a state cop out there, and he saw that stepladder!”

“Phone for the doctor!”

“You phone, and I’ll get him out of there!”

She went down, and I kept on up. I went in the bathroom, and over to the tub. He was laying there in the water, but his head wasn’t under. I tried to lift him. I had a hell of a time. He was slippery with soap, and I had to stand in the water before I could raise him at all. All the time I could hear her down there, talking to the operator. They didn’t give her a doctor. They gave her the police.

I got him up, and laid him over the edge of the tub, and then got out myself, and dragged him in the bedroom and laid him on the bed. She came up, then, and we found matches, and got a candle lit. Then we went to work on him. I packed his head in wet towels, while she rubbed his wrists and feet.

“They’re sending an ambulance.”

“All right. Did he see you do it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you behind him?”

“I think so. But then the lights went out, and I don’t know what happened. What did you do to the lights?”

“Nothing. The fuse popped.”

“Frank. He’d better not come to.”

“He’s got to come to. If he dies, we’re sunk. I tell you, that cop saw the stepladder. If he dies, then they’ll know. If he dies, they’ve got us.”

“But suppose he saw me? What’s he going to say when he comes to?”

“Maybe he didn’t. We just got to sell him a story, that’s all. You were in here, and the lights popped, and you heard him slip and fall, and he didn’t answer when you spoke to him. Then you called me, that’s all. No matter what he says, you got to stick to it. If he saw anything, it was just his imagination, that’s all.”

“Why don’t they hurry with that ambulance?”

“It’ll be here.”

Soon as the ambulance came, they put him on a stretcher and shoved him in. She rode with him. I followed along in the car. Halfway to Glendale, a state cop picked us up and rode on ahead. They went seventy miles an hour, and I couldn’t keep up. They were lifting him out when I got to the hospital, and the state cop was bossing the job. When he saw me he gave a start and stared at me. It was the same cop.

They took him in, put him on a table, and wheeled him in an operating room. Cora and myself sat out in the hall. Pretty soon a nurse came and sat down with us. Then the cop came, and he had a sergeant with him. They kept looking at me. Cora was telling the nurse how it happened. “I was in there, in the bathroom I mean, getting a towel, and then the lights went out just like somebody had shot a gun off. Oh my, they made a terrible noise. I heard him fall. He had been standing up, getting ready to turn on the shower. I spoke to him, and he didn’t say anything, and it was all dark, and I couldn’t see anything, and I didn’t know what had happened. I mean I thought he had been electrocuted or something. So then Frank heard me screaming, and he came, and got him out, and then I called up for the ambulance, and I don’t know what I would have done if they hadn’t come quick like they did.”

“They always hurry on a late call.”

“I’m so afraid he’s hurt bad.”

“I don’t think so. They’re taking X-Rays in there now. They can always tell from X-Rays. But I don’t think he’s hurt bad.”

“Oh my, I hope not.”

The cops never said a word. They just sat there and looked at us.

They wheeled him out, and his head was covered with bandages. They put him on an elevator, and Cora, and me, and the nurse, and the cops all got on, and they took him up and put him in a room. We all went in there. There weren’t enough chairs and while they were putting him to bed the nurse went and got some extra ones. We all sat down. Somebody said something, and the nurse made them keep quiet. A doctor came and took a look, and went out. We sat there a hell of a while. Then the nurse went over and looked at him.

“I think he’s coming to now.”

Cora looked at me, and I looked away quick. The cops leaned forward, to hear what he said. He opened his eyes.

“You feel better now?”

He didn’t say anything and neither did anybody else. It was so still I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. “Don’t you know your wife? Here she is. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, falling in the bathtub like a little boy, just because the lights went out. Your wife is mad at you. Aren’t you going to speak to her?”

He strained to say something, but couldn’t say it. The nurse went over and fanned him. Cora took hold of his hand and patted it. He lay back for a few minutes, with his eyes closed, and then his mouth began to move again and he looked at the nurse.

“Was a all go dark.”

When the nurse said he had to be quiet, I took Cora down, and put her in the car. We no sooner started out than the cop was back there, following us on his motorcycle.

“He suspicions us, Frank.”

“It’s the same one. He knew there was something wrong, soon as he saw me standing there, keeping watch. He still thinks so.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. It all depends on that stepladder, whether he tumbles what it’s there for. What did you do with that slung-shot?”

“I still got it here, in the pocket of my dress.”

“God Almighty, if they had arrested you back there, and searched you, we’d have been sunk.”

I gave her my knife, made her cut the string off the bag, and take the bearings out. Then I made her climb back, raise the back seat, and put the bag under it. It would look like a rag, like anybody keeps with the tools.

“You stay back there, now, and keep an eye on that cop. I’m going to snap these bearings into the bushes one at a time, and you’ve got to watch if he notices anything.”

She watched, and I drove with my left hand, and leaned my right hand on the wheel. I let go. I shot it like a marble, out the window and across the road.

“Did he turn his head?”

“No.”

I let the rest go, one every couple of minutes. He never noticed it.

We got out to the place, and it was still dark. I hadn’t had time to find the fuses, let alone put a new one in. When I pulled in, the cop went past, and was there ahead of me. “I’m taking a look at that fuse box, buddy.”