The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M. Cain [24]
"What are you trying to tell me, Cora?"
"Flim-flammed! I'll say I was. You and that lawyer. You fixed it up all right. You fixed it up so I tried to kill you too. That was so it would look like you couldn't have had anything to do with it. Then you have me plead guilty in court. So you're not in it at all. All right. I guess I'm pretty dumb. But I'm not that dumb. Listen, Mr. Frank Chambers. When I get through, just see how smart you are. There's just such a thing as being too smart."
I tried to talk to her, but it wasn't any use. When she had got so that even her lips were white, under the lipstick, the door opened and Katz came in. I tried to jump for him, off the stretcher. I couldn't move. They had me strapped so I couldn't move.
"Get out of here, you goddam stool. You were handling it. I'll say you were. But now I know you for what you are. Do you hear that? Get out of here!"
"Why, what's the matter, Chambers?"
You would have thought he was a Sunday school teacher, talking to some kid that was crying for his chewing gum that had been taken away. "Why, what's the matter? I am handling it. I told you that."
"That's right. Only God help you if I ever get you so I got my hands on you."
He looked at her, like it was something he just couldn't understand, and maybe she could help him out. She came over to him.
"This man here, this man and you, you ganged up on me so I would get it and he would go free. Well, he was in this as much as I was, and he's not going to get away with it. I'm going to tell it. I'm going to tell it all, and I'm going to tell it right now."
He looked at her, and shook his head, and it was the phoniest look I ever saw on a man's face. "Now my dear. I wouldn't do that. If you'll just let me handle this--"
"You handled it. Now I'll handle it."
He got up, shrugged his shoulders, and went out. He was hardly gone before a guy with big feet and a red neck came in with a little portable typewriter, set it on a chair with a couple of books under it, hitched up to it, and looked at her.
"Mr. Katz said you wanted to make a statement?"
He had a little squeaky voice, and a kind of a grin when he talked.
"That's right. A statement."
She began to speak jerky, two or three words at a time, and as fast as she said it, he rattled it off on the typewriter. She told it all. She went back to the beginning, and told how she met me, how we first began going together, how we tried to knock off the Greek once, but missed. A couple of times, a cop put his head in at the door, but the guy at the typewriter held up his hand.
"Just a few minutes, sarge."
"O.K."
When she got to the end, she said she didn't know anything about the insurance, we hadn't done it for that at all, but just to get rid of him.
"That's all."
He gathered his sheets together, and she signed them. "Will you just initial these pages?" She initialed them. He got out a notary stamp, and made her hold up her right hand, and put the stamp on, and signed it. Then he put the papers in his pocket, closed his typewriter, and went out.
She went to the door and called the matron. "I'm ready now." The matron came in and took her out. The guys on the stretcher came in and carried me out. They went on the double, but on the way they got jammed in with the crowd that was watching her, where she was standing in front of the elevators with the matron, waiting to go up to the jail. It's on the top floor of the Hall of Justice. They pushed on through, and my blanket got pulled so it was trailing on the floor. She picked it up and tucked it around me, then turned away quick.
CHAPTER 11
"They took me back to the hospital, but instead of the state cop watching me, it was this guy that had taken the confession. He lay down on the other bed. I tried to sleep, and after a while I did. I dreamed she was looking at me, and I was trying to say something to her, but couldn't. Then she would go down, and I would wake up, and that crack would be in my ears, that awful crack that the Greek's head made when I hit it. Then I would sleep again, and dream I was falling. And I would wake up again, holding on to my neck, and that same crack would be in my ears. One time when I woke up I was yelling. He leaned up on his elbow.