James Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice

I ran back, picked her up, and slid down the ravine with her. Why I did that was on account of the tracks. My tracks, they didn’t worry me any. I figured there would be plenty of men piling down there pretty soon, but those sharp heels of hers, they had to be pointed in the right direction, if anybody took the trouble to look.

I set her down. The car was hanging there, on two wheels, about halfway down the ravine. He was still in there, but now he was down on the floor. The wine bottle was wedged between him and the seat, and while we were looking it gave a gurgle. The top was all broken in, and both fenders were bent. I tried the doors. That was important, because I had to get in there, and be cut up with glass, while she went up on the road to get help. They opened all right.

I began to fool with her blouse, to bust the buttons, so she would look banged up. She was looking at me, and her eyes didn’t look blue, they looked black. I could feel her breath coming fast. Then it stopped, and she leaned real close to me.

“Rip me! Rip me!”

I ripped her. I shoved my hand in her blouse and jerked. She was wide open, from her throat to her belly.

“You got that climbing out. You caught it in the door handle.”

My voice sounded queer, like it was coming out of a tin phonograph.

“And this you don’t know how you got.”

I hauled off and hit her in the eye as hard as I could. She went down. She was right down there at my feet, her eyes shining, her breasts trembling, drawn up in tight points, and pointing right up at me. She was down there, and the breath was roaring in the back of my throat like I was some kind of a animal, and my tongue was all swelled up in my mouth, and blood pounding in it.

“Yes! Yes, Frank, yes!”

Next thing I knew, I was down there with her, and we were staring in each other’s eyes, and locked in each other’s arms, and straining to get closer. Hell could have opened for me then, and it wouldn’t have made any difference. I had to have her, if I hung for it.

I had her.

We lay there a few minutes, then, like we were doped. It was so still that all you could hear was this gurgle from the inside of the car.

“What now, Frank?”

“Tough road ahead, Cora. You’ve got to be good, from now on. You sure you can go through it?”

“After that, I can go through anything.”

“They’ll come at you, those cops. They’ll try to break you down. You ready for them?”

“I think so.”

“Maybe they’ll pin something on you. I don’t think they can, with those witnesses we got. But maybe they do it. Maybe they pin it on you for manslaughter, and you spend a year in jail. Maybe it’s as bad as that. You think you can take it on the chin?”

“So you’re waiting for me when I come out.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Then I can do it.”

“Don’t pay any attention to me. I’m a drunk. They got tests that’ll show that. I’ll say stuff that’s cock-eyed. That’s to cross them up, so when I’m sober and tell it my way, they’ll believe it.”

“I’ll remember.”

“And you’re pretty sore at me. For being drunk. For being the cause of it all.”

“Yes. I know.”

“Then we’re set.”

“Frank.”

“Yes?”

“There’s just one thing. We’ve got to be in love. If we love each other, then nothing matters.”

“Well, do we?”

“I’ll be the first one to say it. I love you, Frank.”

“I love you, Cora.”

“Kiss me.”

I kissed her, and held her close, and then I saw a flicker of light on the hill across the ravine.

“Up on the road, now. You’re going through with it.”

“I’m going through with it.”

“Just ask for help. You don’t know he’s dead yet.”

“I know.”

“You fell down, after you climbed out. That’s how you got the sand on your clothes.”

“Yes. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

She started up to the road, and I dived for the car. But all of a sudden, I found I didn’t have any hat. I had to be in the car, and my hat had to be with me. I began clawing around for it. The car was coming closer and closer. It was only two or three bends away, and I didn’t have my hat yet, and I didn’t have a mark on me. I gave up, and started for the car. Then I fell down. I had hooked my foot in it. I grabbed it, and jumped in. My weight no sooner went on the floor than it sank and I felt the car turning over on me. That was the last I knew for a while.

Next, I was on the ground, and there was a lot of yelling and talking going on around me. My left arm was shooting pain so bad I would yell every time I felt it, and so was my back. Inside my head was a bellow that would get big and go away again. When it did that the ground would fall away, and this stuff I had drunk would come up. I was there and I wasn’t there, but I had sense enough to roll around and kick. There was sand on my clothes too, and there had to be a reason.

Next there was a screech in my ears, and I was in an ambulance. A state cop was at my feet, and a doctor was working on my arm. I went out again as soon as I saw it. It was running blood, and between the wrist and the elbow it was bent like a snapped twig. It was broke. When I came out of it again the doctor was still working on it, and I thought about my back. I wiggled my foot and looked at it to see if I was paralyzed. It moved.

The screech kept bringing me out of it, and I looked around, and saw the Greek. He was on the other bunk.

“Yay Nick.”

Nobody said anything. I looked around some more, but I couldn’t see anything of Cora.

After a while they stopped, and lifted out the Greek. I waited for them to lift me out, but they didn’t. I knew he was really dead, then, and there wouldn’t be any cock-eyed stuff this time, selling him a story about a cat. If they had taken us both out, it would be a hospital. But when they just took him out, it was a mortuary.

We went on, then, and when they stopped they lifted me out. They carried me in, and set the stretcher on a wheel table, and rolled me in a white room. Then they got ready to set my arm. They wheeled up a machine to give me gas for that, but then they had an argument. There was another doctor there by that time that said he was the jail physician, and the hospital doctors got pretty sore. I knew what it was about. It was those tests for being drunk. If they gave me the gas first, that would ball up the breath test, the most important one. The jail doctor went out, and made me blow through a glass pipe into some stuff that looked like water but turned yellow when I blew in it. Then he took some blood, and some other samples that he poured in bottles through a funnel. Then they gave me the gas.

When I began to come out of it I was in a room, in bed, and my head was all covered with bandages, and so was my arm, with a sling besides, and my back was all strapped up with adhesive tape so I could hardly move. A state cop was there, reading the morning paper. My head ached like hell, and so did my back, and my arm had shooting pains in it. After a while a nurse came in and gave me a pill, and I went to sleep.

When I woke up it was about noon, and they gave me something to eat. Then two more cops came in, and they put me on a stretcher again, and took me down and put me in another ambulance.

“Where we going?”

“Inquest.”

“Inquest. That’s what they have when somebody’s dead, ain’t it.”

“That’s right.”

“I was afraid they’d got it.”

“Only one.”

“Which?”

“The man.”

“Oh. Was the woman bad hurt?”

“Not bad.”

“Looks pretty bad for me, don’t it?”

“Watch out there, buddy. It’s O.K. with us if you want to talk, but anything you say may fall back in your lap when you get to court.”