The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M. Cain [37]
That night we lay side by side, not saying a word. I must have slept, because I had those dreams. Then, all of a sudden, I woke up, and before I was even really awake I was running downstairs. What had waked me was the sound of that telephone dial. She was at the extension in the lunchroom, all dressed, with her hat on, and a packed hat box on the floor beside her. I grabbed the receiver and slammed it on the hook. I took her by the shoulders, jerked her through the swing door, and shoved her upstairs. "Getup there! Get up there, or I'll--"
"Or you'll what?"
The telephone rang, and I answered it.
"Here's your party, go ahead."
"Yellow Cab."
"Oh. Oh. I called you, Yellow Cab, but I've changed my mind. I won't need you."
"O.K."
When I got upstairs she was taking off her clothes. When we got back in bed we lay there a long time again without saying a word. Then she started up.
"Or you'll what?"
"What's it to you? Sock you in the jaw, maybe. Maybe something else."
"Something else, wasn't it?"
"What are you getting at now?"
"Frank, I know what you've been doing. You've been lying there, trying to think of a way to kill me."
"I've been asleep."
"Don't lie to me, Frank. Because I'm not going to lie to you, and I've got something to say to you."
I thought that over a long time. Because that was just what I had been doing. Lying there beside her, just straining to think of a way I could kill her.
"All right, then. I was."
"I knew it."
"Were you any better? Weren't you going to hand me over to Sackett? Wasn't that the same thing?"
"Yes."
"Then we're even. Even again. Right back where we started."
"Not quite."
"Oh yes we are." I cracked up a little, then, myself, and put my head on her shoulder. "That's just where we are. We can kid ourself all we want to, and laugh about the money, and whoop about what a swell guy the devil is to be in bed with, but that's just where we are. I was going off with that woman, Cora. We were going to Nicaragua to catch cats. And why I didn't go away, I knew I had to come back. We're chained to each other, Cora. We thought we were on top of a mountain. That wasn't it. It's on top of us, and that's where it's been ever since that night."
"Is that the only reason you came back?"
"No. It's you and me. There's nobody else. I love you, Cora. But love, when you get fear in it, it's not love any more. It's hate."
"So you hate me?"
"I don't know. But we're telling the truth, for once in our life. That's part of it. You got to know it. And what I was lying here thinking, that's the reason. Now you know it."
"I told you I had something to tell you, Frank."
"Oh."
"I'm going to have a baby."
"_What?_"
"I suspicioned it before I went away, and right after my mother died I was sure."
"The hell you say. The hell you say. Come here. Give me a kiss."
"No. Please. I've got to tell you about it."
"Haven't you told it?"
"Not what I mean. Now listen to me, Frank. All that time I was out there, waiting for the funeral to be over, I thought about it. What it would mean to us. Because we took a life, didn't we? And now we're going to give one back."
"That's right."
"It was all mixed up, what I thought. But now, after what happened with that woman, it's not mixed up any more. I couldn't call up Sackett, Frank. I couldn't call him up, because I couldn't have this baby, and then have it find out I let its father hang for murder."
"You were going to see Sackett."
"No I wasn't. I was going away."
"Was that the only reason you weren't going to see Sackett?"
She took a long time before she answered that. "No. I love you, Frank. I think you know that. But maybe, if it hadn't been for this, I would have gone to see him. Just _because_ I love you."
"She didn't mean anything to me, Cora. I told you why I did it. I was running away."
"I know that. I knew it all along. I knew why you wanted to take me away, and what I said about you being a bum, I didn't believe that. I believed it, but it wasn't why you wanted to go. You being a bum, I love you for it. And I hated her for the way she turned on you just for not telling her about something that wasn't any of her business. And yet, I wanted to ruin you for it."