The Postman Always Rings Twice (3 page)

      "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 road."

      "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 creep. ing 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."

      "I'm telling you."

      "If I was, I wouldn't have got scared so easy. I was _so_ scared, Frank."

      "I was scared plenty, myself."

      "You know what I wanted when the lights went out? Just you, Frank. I wasn't any hell cat at all, then. I was just a little girl, afraid of the dark."

      "I was there, wasn't I?"

      "I loved you for it. If it hadn't been for you, I don't know what would have happened to us."

      "Pretty good, wasn't it? About how he slipped?"

      "And he believed it."

      "Give me half a chance, I got it on the cops, every time. You got to have something to tell, that's it. You got to fill in all those places, and yet have it as near the truth as you can get it. I know them. I've tangled with them, plenty."

      "You fixed it. You're always going to fix it for me, aren't you, Frank?"

      "You're the only one ever meant anything to me."

      "I guess I really don't want to be a hell cat."

      "You're my baby."

      "That's it, just your dumb baby. All right, Frank. I'll listen to you, from now on. You be the brains, and I'll work. I can work, Frank. And I work good. We'll get along."

      "Sure we will."

      "Now shall we go to sleep?"

      "You think you can sleep all right?"

      "It's the first time we ever slept together, Frank."

      "You like it?"

      "It's grand, just grand."

      "Kiss me goodnight."

      "It's so sweet to be able to kiss you goodnight."

      Next morning, the telephone waked us up. She answered it, and when she came up her eyes were shining. "Frank, guess what?"

      "What?"

      "His skull is fractured."

      "Bad?"

      "No, but they're keeping him there. They want him there for a week, maybe. We can sleep together again, tonight."

      "Come here."

      "Not now. We've got to get up. We've got to open the place up."

      "Come here, before I sock you."

      "You nut."

      It was a happy week, all right. In the afternoon, she would drive in to the hospital, but the rest of the time we were together. We gave him a break, too. We kept the place open all the time, and went after the business, and got it. Of course it helped, that day when a hundred Sunday school kids showed up in three buses, and wanted a bunch of stuff to take out in the woods with them, but even without that we would have made plenty. The cash register didn't know anything to tell on us, believe me it didn't.

      Then one day, stead of her going in alone, we both went in, and after she came out of the hospital, we cut for the beach. They gave her a yellow suit and a red cap, and when she came out I didn't know her at first. She looked like a little girl. It was the first time I ever really saw how young she was. We played in the sand, and then we went way out and let the swells rock us. I like my head to the waves, she liked her feet. We lay there, face to face, and held hands under water. I looked up at the sky. It was all you could see. I thought about God.

      "Frank."

      "Yes?"

      "He's coming home tomorrow. You know what that means?"

      "I know."

      "I got to sleep with him, stead of you."

      "You would, except that when he gets here we're going to be gone."

      "I was hoping you'd say that."

      "Just you and me and the road, Cora."

      "Just you and me and the road."

      "Just a couple of tramps."

      "Just a couple of gypsies, but we'll be together."

      "That's it. We'll be together."

      Next morning, we packed up. Anyway, she packed. I had bought a suit, and I put that on, and it seemed to be about all. She put her things in a hatbox. When she got done with it, she handed it to me. "Put that in the car, will you?"

      "The car?"

      "Aren't we taking the car?"

      "Not unless you want to spend the first night in jail, we're not. Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing his car, that's larceny."

      "Oh."

      We started out. It was two miles to the bus stop, and we had to hike it. Every time a car went by, we would stand there with our hand stuck out, like a cigar store Indian, but none of them stopped. A man alone can get a ride, and a woman alone, if she's fool enough to take it, but a man and a woman together don't have much luck. After about twenty had gone by, she stopped. We had gone about a quarter of a mile.

      "Frank, I can't."

      "What's the matter?"

      "This is it."

      "This is what?"

      "The road."

      "You're crazy. You're tired, that's all. Look. You wait here, and I'll get somebody down the road to drive us in to the city. That's what we ought to done anyhow. Then we'll be all right."

      "No, it's not that. I'm not tired. I can't, that's all. At all."

      "Don't you want to be with me, Cora?"

      "You know I do."

      "We can't go back, you know. We can't start up again, like it was before. You know that. You've got to come."

      "I told you I wasn't really a bum, Frank. I don't feel like no gypsy. I don't feel like nothing, only ashamed, that I'm out here asking for a ride."

      "I told you. We're getting a car in to the city."

      "And then what?"

      "Then we're there. Then we get going."

      "No we don't. We spend one night in a hotel, and then we start looking for a job. And living in a dump."

      "Isn't that a dump? What you just left?"

      "It's different."

      "Cora, you going to let it get your goat?"

      "It's got it, Frank. I can't go on. Goodbye."

      "Will you listen to me a minute?"

      "Goodbye, Frank. I'm going back."

      She kept tugging at the hatbox. I tried to hold on to it, anyway to carry it back for her, but she got it. She started back with it. She had looked nice when she started out, with a little blue suit and blue hat, but now she. looked all battered, and her shoes were dusty, and she couldn't even walk right, from crying. All of a sudden, I found out I was crying too.

CHAPTER 6