The Postman Always Rings Twice

by James M. Cain

  “And then?”

  “Then two years of guys pinching your leg and leaving nickel tips and asking how about a little party tonight. I went on some of them parties, Frank.”

  “And then?”

  “You know what I mean about them parties?”

  “I know.”

  “Then he came along. I took him, and so help me, I meant to stick by him. But I can’t stand it any more. God, do I look like a little white bird?”

  “To me, you look more like a hell cat.”

  “You know, don’t you. That’s one thing about you. I don’t have to fool you all the time. And you’re clean. You’re not greasy. Frank, do you have any idea what that means? You’re not greasy.”

  “I can kind of imagine.”

  “I don’t think so. No man can know what that means to a woman. To have to be around somebody that’s greasy and makes you sick at the stomach when he touches you. I’m not really such a hell cat, Frank. I just can’t stand it any more.”

  “What are you trying to do? Kid me?”

  “Oh, all right. I’m a hell cat, then. But I don’t think I would be so bad. With somebody that wasn’t greasy.”

  “Cora, how about you and me going away?”

  “I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it a lot.”

  “We’ll ditch this Greek and blow. Just blow.”

  “Where to?”

  “Anywhere. What do we care?”

  “Anywhere. Anywhere. You know where that is?”

  “All over. Anywhere we choose.”

  “No it’s not. It’s the hash house.”

  “I’m not talking about the hash house. I’m talking about the road. It’s fun, Cora. And nobody knows it better than I do. I know every twist and turn it’s got. And I know how to work it, too. Isn’t that what we want? Just to be a pair of tramps, like we really are?”

  “You were a fine tramp. You didn’t even have socks.”

  “You liked me.”

  “I loved you. I would love you without even a shirt. I would love you specially without a shirt, so I could feel how nice and hard your shoulders are.”

  “Socking railroad detectives developed the muscles.”

  “And you’re hard all over. Big and tall and hard. And your hair is light. You’re not a little soft greasy guy with black kinky hair that he puts bay rum on every night.”

  “That must be a nice smell.”

  “But it won’t do, Frank. That road, it don’t lead anywhere but to the hash house. The hash house for me, and some job like it for you. A lousy parking lot job, where you wear a smock. I’d cry if I saw you in a smock, Frank.”

  “Well?”

  She sat there a long time, twisting my hand in both of hers. “Frank, do you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you love me so much that not anything matters?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s one way.”

  “Did you say you weren’t really a hell cat?”

  “I said it, and I mean it. I’m not what you think I am, Frank. I want to work and be something, that’s all. But you can’t do it without love. Do you know that, Frank? Anyway, a woman can’t. Well, I’ve made one mistake. And I’ve got to be a hell cat, just once, to fix it. But I’m not really a hell cat, Frank.”

  “They hang you for that.”

  “Not if you do it right. You’re smart, Frank. I never fooled you for a minute. You’ll think of a way. Plenty of them have. Don’t worry. I’m not the first woman that had to turn hell cat to get out of a mess.”

  “He never did anything to me. He’s all right.”

  “The hell he’s all right. He stinks, I tell you. He’s greasy and he stinks. And do you think I’m going to let you wear a smock, with Service Auto Parts printed on the back, Thank-U Call Again, while he has four suits and a dozen silk shirts? Isn’t that business half mine? Don’t I cook? Don’t I cook good? Don’t you do your part?”

  “You talk like it was all right.”

  “Who’s going to know if it’s all right or not, but you and me?”

  “You and me.”

  “That’s it, Frank. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? Not you and me and the road, or anything else but you and me.”

  “You must be a hell cat, though. You couldn’t make me feel like this if you weren’t.”

  “That’s what we’re going to do. Kiss me, Frank. On the mouth.”

  I kissed her. Her eyes were shining up at me like two blue stars. It was like being in church.

  CHAPTER

  4

  “Got any hot water?”

  “What’s the matter with the bathroom?”

  “Nick’s in there.”

  “Oh. I’ll give you some out of the kettle. He likes the whole heater full for his bath.”

  We played it just like we would tell it. It was about ten o’clock at night, and we had closed up, and the Greek was in the bathroom, putting on his Saturday night wash. I was to take the water up to my room, get ready to shave, and then remember I had left the car out. I was to go outside, and stand by to give her one on the horn if somebody came. She was to wait till she heard him in the tub, go in for a towel, and clip him from behind with a blackjack I had made for her out of a sugar bag with ball bearings wadded down in the end. At first, I was to do it, but we figured he wouldn’t pay any attention to her if she went in there, where if I said I was after my razor, he might get out of the tub or something and help me look. Then she was to hold him under until he drowned. Then she was to leave the water running a little bit, and step out the window to the porch roof, and come down the stepladder I had put there, to the ground. She was to hand me the blackjack, and go back to the kitchen. I was to put the ball bearings back in the box, throw the bag away, put the car in, and go up to my room and start to shave. She would wait till the water began dripping down in the kitchen, and call me. We would break the door down, find him, and call the doctor. In the end, we figured it would look like he had slipped in the tub, knocked himself out, and then drowned. I got the idea from a piece in the paper where a guy had said that most accidents happen right in people’s own bathtubs.

  “Be careful of it. It’s hot.”

  “Thanks.”

  It was in a saucepan, and I took it up in my room and set it on the bureau, and laid my shaving stuff out. I went down and out to the car, and took a seat in it so I could see the road and the bathroom window, both. The Greek was singing. It came to me I better take note what the song was. It was Mother Machree. He sang it once, and then sang it over again. I looked in the kitchen. She was still there.

  A truck and a trailer swung around the bend. I fingered the horn. Sometimes those truckmen stopped for something to eat, and they were the kind that would beat on the door till you opened up. But they went on. A couple more cars went by. They didn’t stop. I looked in the kitchen again, and she wasn’t there. A light went on in the bedroom.

  Then, all of a sudden, I saw something move, back by the porch. I almost hit the horn, but then I saw it was a cat. It was just a gray cat, but it shook me up. A cat was the last thing I wanted to see then. I couldn’t see it for a minute, and then there it was again, smelling around the stepladder. I didn’t want to blow the horn, because it wasn’t anything but a cat, but I didn’t want it around that stepladder. I got out of the car, went back there, and shooed it away.

  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.”

  “Sure. I’m taking a look myself.”

  We all three went back there, and he snapped on a flashlight. Right away, he gave a funny grunt and stooped down. There was the cat, laying on its back with all four feet in the air.

  “Ain’t that a shame? Killed her deader than hell.”

  He shot the flashlight up under the porch roof, and along the stepladder. “That’s it, all right. Remember? We were looking at her. She stepped off the ladder on to your fuse box, and it killed her deader than hell.”

  “That’s it all right. You were hardly gone when it happened. Went off like a pistol shot. I hadn’t even had time to move the car.”

  “They caught me down the roa
d.”

  “You were hardly out of sight.”

  “Stepped right off the ladder on to the fuse box. Well, that’s the way it goes. Them poor dumb things, they can’t get it through their head about electricity, can they? No sir, it’s too much for them.”

  “Tough, all right.”

  “That’s what it is, it’s tough. Killed her deader than hell. Pretty cat, too. Remember, how she looked when she was creeping up that ladder? I never seen a cuter cat than she was.”

  “And pretty color.”

  “And killed her deader than hell. Well, I’ll be going along. I guess that straightens us out. Had to check up, you know.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So long. So long, Miss.”

  “So long.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  We didn’t do anything about the cat, the fuse box, or anything else. We crept into bed, and she cracked up. She cried, and then got a chill so she was trembling all over, and it was a couple of hours before I could get her quiet. She lay in my arms a while, then, and we began to talk.

  “Never again, Frank.”

  “That’s right. Never again.”

  “We must have been crazy. Just plain crazy.”

  “Just our dumb luck that pulled us through.”

  “It was my fault.”

  “Mine too.”

  “No, it was my fault. I was the one that thought it up. You didn’t want to. Next time I’ll listen to you, Frank. You’re smart. You’re not dumb like I am.”

  “Except there won’t be any next time.”

  “That’s right. Never again.”

  “Even if we had gone through with it they would have guessed it. They always guess it. They guess it anyway, just from habit. Because look how quick that cop knew something was wrong. That’s what makes my blood run cold. Soon as he saw me standing there he knew it. If he could tumble to it all that easy, how much chance would we have had if the Greek had died?”

  “I guess I’m not really a hell cat, Frank.”